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e again I send out my yearly (or so) post asking if anyone has worked on a FT
conversion to play modern (from the 70s onward) naval battles.
I have Harpoon 3 and it's an okay set of rules with lots of chrome. I'd prefer
to use FT because, well, it's an easier game to play and with enough tweaking
should capture the general feel pretty nice.
I'd also much rather take someone else's work and begin with that instead of
starting over from scratch.
> Once again I send out my yearly (or so) post asking if anyone has
I¹ve considered it. Does that count? :-)
There are a few problems that stopped me before I got very far:
1) Movement vs. weapon range. Missile ranges can be anywhere from
10-300
miles depending on launch platform, OTH detection and missile. You could model
all ships with a ³thrust² value of 1, give missiles 36² range on the low
end and still not get very close.
2) The pulse combat model. FT models WWI dreadnought battles decently well. It
models WWII battles with carriers and screens quite well for a space game. In
both of those models the combat model is similar. Ships can take a number of
hits from almost any weapon and keep fighting. In contrast, a modern warship
can maybe take two missile hits before it is a mission kill, but I wouldn¹t
count on it.
3) Take those two together and you get the fundamental precept of modern naval
warfare. If you spot the other guy first, odds are you just won, and this
applies to a very wide range of force balances.
#1 is probably something you could engineer away without losing too much, but
it will be an issue. Especially once you add airplanes into the mix.
#2 I think is either going to have to be engineered out of FT, in which case
it won¹t feel much like FT anymore, or it has to be abstracted out of the
game, in which case it won¹t feel like modern naval combat anymore.
#3, and any kind of detection game without a referee is terribly hard to pull
off of course, and critical for modern naval warfare at almost any scale.
What I¹d suggest is to look at Shipwreck. It¹s not FT by any stretch of the
imagination, but it is a lot faster and more playable than Harpoon. Personally
I want a game somewhere between the two, but I don¹t think I¹m going to find
that unless I write it myself.
All of which is probably straying a bit off-topic for the list, sorry.
Tom
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 5:11 PM, Thomas Pope <tpope@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
I am not entirely sure that FT models WWI naval battles very well.
On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 11:52 PM, Richard Bell <rlbell.nsuid@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 5:11 PM, Thomas Pope <tpope@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
And just like dreadnaughts would munch pre-dreads, a more specialized
all-big-gun ship is going to be bad news for the "take one of
everything" designs.
For examples, see FB1 - the NSL's Maria von B. BB has a *higher* throw
weight (beam dice rolled) than a Von Teg. SDN, which has to be the epitome of
the "take one of everything" school of design.
A Von T SDN gutted and re-gunned with the MvB's philosophy would be a
scary beast indeed, especially if you allowed the design to be
vector-specialized (ie narrower firing arcs than most FB ships).
There's a similar issue with the NAC's FB1 designs - the Victoria BB
outguns everything bigger than it in the NAC line...
The ESU's Komarov SDN is the only "all big gun" design there, really. Beam 4
means being able to reach out and touch someone...
Pre-dread "take a few of everything" design philosophy does seem to be
rampant in the Fleet Books.
Somewhere in my FT notes I have a set of designs where everything down to
heavy cruisers has B4s jammed into it. Only ran a few of the
designs, but they're *fun* - "OK, I have a dozen dice at 48"... yes, I
know you have nothing that can respond, and your fighters just got eaten by my
integrated PDS..."
Brian Burger wrote on 07/31/2008 02:45:32 AM:
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 11:52 PM, Richard Bell
wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 5:11 PM, Thomas Pope <tpope@cs.cmu.edu>
wrote:
> >>
Partially, isn't it because accuracy can be said to fall off linearly in FT,
unless it just represents damage in the case of space ships (beam
diffusion?)? I thought the all-big gun ships were possible only because
of advancements in equipment, techniques, and training regimens allowed
reaching out and touching someone far, far, away.
Now that I think of it, using crippled dice, similar to those against shields,
for the further range bands, suddenly makes sense, for
pre-dreadnoughts.
> The ESU's Komarov SDN is the only "all big gun" design there, really.
A scary monster that you can still lose if you're careless; been there, done
that.
With only two Beam 4, four Beam 3, and two each of Beam 2 and 1, I hardly
think it qualifies as ALL big gun...
> Pre-dread "take a few of everything" design philosophy does seem to be
I think it's been said many times that FB designs are not optimized, and best
played against each other. I've always inferred there were historical reasons,
similar to what suggested above, that could explain them.
> Brian
I think the newest of my 'waiting' ships is in the four year range. Oh,
whoops, I did recently acquire (ouch!) some Trav ships...
The_Beast
> > 2) The pulse combat model. FT models WWI
I suppose I should have said: "FT models WWI naval combat a lot better than it
models modern naval combat."
I've never tried to directly model WWI in FT, but I know I'd have gotten a lot
farther than I did with moderns.
Tom
> > > 2) The pulse combat model. FT models WWI
If you want a simple, quick and most of all fun game of Cold-War era
naval combat (OK, not really "moderns" now, I know...) then you could
do a lot worse than pick up an old copy of Seastrike..... ;-)
Jon (GZG) wrote on 07/31/2008 09:08:31 AM:
> Thomas Pope:
No problem, Tom. I got the message, and compared with moderns, your points
were a good ones. Consider us just honing the fine points. ;->=
Remember, I'm the one that tried to further complicated the
pre-dreadnought
variant.
> If you want a simple, quick and most of all fun game of Cold-War era
I was about to mention this, though it can be a bit hard to find.
Of course, we've at least two things as FT players to thank from Seastrike (I
know Ariel made one version). Jon generously acknowledged it for inspiration
for the icons on the SSD's, and a list member (old man's brain fart as to who)
made a scenario generator influenced by Trav: TNE's Brilliant Lances, which in
turn acknowledged Seastrike.
I have cards made of the FT scenario generator should anyone complain again
about the staleness of pure meeting engagements.
The_Beast
that was my project, GAADS! nearly 10 years ago!
Michael Brown mwsaber6@msn
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Doug Evans" <devans@nebraska.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 9:18 AM
To: <gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: [GZG] FT: Modern Naval
> Jon (GZG) wrote on 07/31/2008 09:08:31 AM:
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 6:53 AM, Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
wrote:
> >>
My thoughts about the FB1 designs is that none of them are good for crossing
the other fleet's T. Most lose at least a third of their firepower when facing
targets out of the fore arc. This is not a
[quoted original message omitted]
> No problem, Tom. I got the message, and compared with
Indeed. :-)
> > If you want a simple, quick and most of all fun game
I hadn't heard of it until Jon's email. I'm not sure it was "hard" to find,
but it's certainly "expensive" to find. Noble Knight Games has one for $85 US.
Two people on BGG have one for what might as well be that much between
currency conversion and shipping.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7590
It definitely is going onto my list though.
> Of course, we've at least two things as FT players to
Which is also on my (long and growing) list for a completely different reason.
Thanks
Tom
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> Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 7:11 PM, Thomas Pope <tpope@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> I¹ve considered it. Does that count? :-)
Harpoon handles this by putting everything on the same scale more or less.
A ship in tactical turns may be moving 0.25" while a missle moves 4+" a
turn depending on the missle in question. Some can just STREAK out there but
are mostly used to knock other missiles and aircraft out of the air. I'd have
no problem giving surface ships a "thrust" of 1-4 depending on how fast
it
can go with the vast majority doing 2-3. Missiles would be doing 12" at
least per turn.
It's a cinematic thing. If I was worried about the last knot of speed I'd be
playing Harpoon.
I agree with your #2 -- one or two penetrating hits on your average
cruiser
/ destroyer, ffg will probably smoke it. But some missiles are airburst
types aren't they? They hurt things by blowing up outside of the ship and
killing radars...mounts, etc.
3) Take those two together and you get the fundamental precept of modern
> naval warfare. If you spot the other guy first, odds are you just
If you spot the guy first you can get your missiles in the air quick but then
you have to make it through the ship defenses. The "see 'em first and they're
dead" mentality is a lot like that spoken of during Vietnam with heatseaking
missiles. You know...not needing a gun on the aircraft because the missile
made it obsolete?
Modern naval vessels have pretty potent anti-air defenses at least with
the
scale of actions I'm worried about gaming (6 or so ships / boats per
side).
> #3, and any kind of detection game without a referee is terribly hard
Playing standard surface fleets in Harpoon it's simply a die roll after making
sure you have radar line of sight from an aircraft, helo, or ship. It wasn't
that hard in the past. If subs are in the picture you can still get away
without a ref as long as the players are honest.
> What I¹d suggest is to look at Shipwreck.
I've heard some good and bad things about Shipwreck. Have you played it? I
know it's a lighter game than Harpoon but that's it.
Damo
> > 1) Movement vs. weapon range. Missile ranges can be
When I looked at this (and granted it was a LONG time ago) I just got caught
up in the fact that ranges and speeds were SO far off from each other that
even an approximation wasn't going to cut it.
But I'm also more likely to be on the side of "counting knots" so that wasn't
a surprise really.
> I agree with your #2 -- one or two penetrating hits on
Yes, they do exist. SAMs fired against a surface ship (most can use that mode
as a backup) do basically that, and ARMs are designed specifically to shower
the target with shrapnel to take out whatever radar they were homing in on.
The primary shipkiller though (Harpoon, Tomahawk, Styx, and the various
Volkswagon-sized supersonic monsters the Soviets stuck anywhere they
could find the space) is heavier and designed to penetrate, explode and
ideally burn its remaining fuel just to add insult to injury.
Actual survivability is going to vary a lot of course, but betting on the low
side is pretty safe....and other than air launched ARMS most ships seem to
save their SAM launchers to shoot down incoming missiles, rather than using
them offensively.
> > 3) Take those two together and you get the
Yep....and WHEN you see them makes a big difference in how many of those
defenses are pointing in the right direction and have the range to fire.
Defenses are always there, and it's unlikely that a pair of Osas are going to
do much damage to a CVBG. But detection is still a big issue, because if they
don't know where you are, you get to do X damage to them (even if just
depleting defensive missiles) for free.
This is very much unlike WWI or WWII surface combat, where detection was nice
but you had to hammer them to scrap and that free shot was only a bit ahead of
the curve. As opposed to the opportunity to completely destroy an equal force
with no damage at all.
> The "see 'em first and they're dead" mentality is
True. Though I'd argue that, at least in surface combat on the open ocean,
that statement is largely true for warships. Guns are useful for the ships
that managedto survive the initial missile barrage and emptied their box
launchers, but the ranges are so skewed that they won't affect combat
resolution much until that point.
> Modern naval vessels have pretty potent anti-air
True. There are always balance points, and it's not impossible to make a
formation that is nigh impervious to enemy fire, surprise or not. The problem
of course (from a game standpoint) is that formation is impervious regardless
of what the enemy does.
It's a tricky problem, and the interlocking layers of area and close and point
defense are also hard to model in FT.
Note that another thing I tried, and got a little bit farther, was to modify
Full Thrust to work with Honorverse combat (SciFi series by David Weber). I
had a modified set of rules and ships that worked their way
into the codebase for some long-ago version of FTJava, and had a lot of
the same considerations to deal with, with the benefit at least that ships in
the Honorverse can take multiple hits and survive.
A lot of the same concepts applied however, and I eventually moved on to
building them in SITS, since it was wasier to custom build a combat system to
handle that kind of thing than to try and adapt something else.
> > #3, and any kind of detection game without a referee
Ok, I should clarify. Any kind of _hidden movement_ is difficult. The
detection mechanics aren't the problem as much as always knowing where the
other guys ships are, even if you shouldn't.
> > What I¹d suggest is to look at Shipwreck.
I have some problems with Shipwreck but on the whole I've enjoyed it. It's got
some nice mechanics that simplify the missile engagement to something playable
and quick without losing too much detail. I have issues with how much it
approximates things at times, and you'll want a copy of Harpoon on hand just
for the data annexes if you like details.
But it's a good game, and very fast. Our learning game took maybe 3 hours to
play including detection and combat. In recent games I've tacked on the hidden
movement from Task Force (long out of print but a BRILLIANT game) using
Shipwreck as the tactical engine.
Overall if Harpoon is on the "high sim, low game" side of the curve, Shopwreck
is on the opposite end. What I want is something in the middle.
...and I keep looking for others and reading everything I can. Hopefully I can
find (or just bite the bullet and try and make) the perfect game somewhere in
the process.
Tom
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> Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 4:27 PM, Thomas Pope <tpope@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> But I'm also more likely to be on the side of "counting knots" so that
I, on the other hand, am happy if the feel is right. That doesn't mean I'm
looking for a scrubbed down set of rules that mash all the radars down to a
single rating and all the sonars of the world into generic active and passive
ratings. As you allude to later on Harpoon is fun but crunchy and Shipwreck
appears to be at the low end of that scale. I'll probably end up ordering the
set eventually. I went to Historicon last weekend and didn't see a copy
otherwise I'd probably already own them.
Yep....and WHEN you see them makes a big difference in how many of those
> defenses are pointing in the right direction and have the range to
Assuming detection at extreme range you probably have a minute+ to react
to
an incoming cruise missile (assuming you use Harpoon's "Knots / 60").
Some missiles are faster of course and the "detection at extreme range"
assumption is a big one. Harpoon makes the captain roll to detect vessels and
missiles so it's possible that you'll detect enemy boats but not see the hot
sea skimmers coming in for the kill.
> Defenses are always there, and it's unlikely that a pair of Osas are
And that's perfectly ok for longer engagements... say a "campaign" game
where your ships are screening ships to/from Europe. :)
> This is very much unlike WWI or WWII surface combat, where detection
True. But then we have to talk about possibility vs. probability in the modern
context.
> True. Though I'd argue that, at least in surface combat on the open
Guns exist to scare drug runners and to shoot down missiles. Though it would
be funny for a modern naval game to devolve to a long range gun duel
with 5" guns -- probably not very fun or realistic. I think two
opposing fleets (well...task forces, SAGs, etc.) will do some real damage to
each other but the guns won't come into play after the smoke clears.
> It's a tricky problem, and the interlocking layers of area and close
You think? It would appear, at least on the surface, to be pretty easy to come
to a close approximation. An Arleigh Burke can throw massive amounts
of SM2s (per Harpoon) -- Area defense would appear to be quite easy with
such a ship. Your standard PDFs and low-powered "beams" can fill the
roll of close and point defense.
> Ok, I should clarify. Any kind of _hidden movement_ is difficult. The
That's a given with any game once you start the double-triple-quadruple
blind situations and not a problem unique to naval games. I do agree with you
though. I've talked a number of folks at the local store to do a
double-blind game where half (3) of the players run Alfas while the
other half run FFs and DDs screening a convoy. It will have more of a
roleplaying aspect to it than a hard and fast numbers game.
> I have some problems with Shipwreck but on the whole I've enjoyed it.
I've heard the same from a few folks. I'm really going to have to get it.
> ...and I keep looking for others and reading everything I can.
Are you strictly a blue water type gamer? Have you done any littoral type
stuff? Part of me says it's "modern naval" with smaller boats and coastal
diesel subs.
Damo
I just dug those up on an internet archive a couple of nights ago! I had them
back when I was on the list before (5 years or so ago) and I wanted to use
them again as the basis for some pickup games that don't
always just involve too equal fleets head-to-head.
That said, Hi everyone! I used to be on the list, but I've always been pretty
quiet. I've got a gaming group now that's interested in some miniature gaming
so I will hopefully be posting a bit here and there.
Randy Wolfmeyer
> On Jul 31, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Michael wrote:
> that was my project, GAADS! nearly 10 years ago!
I think the effect of plunging fire can be modeled using the damage effect
from a "Cutter Beam", found at the Full Thrust Weapons and Defences Archive
(Midbar Ghostworks).
JBrewer@webtv.net
"Always strive to be a good person. If you can't do that, at least strive to
be someone other than an asshole."
[quoted original message omitted]
> I, on the other hand, am happy if the feel is right.
They are published by Vandering Publishing (or something like that) and sold
in the US by Strange Cargo Games. There's a campaign supplement as well, I
don't know how good that is.
There is a Yahoo group as well, and tons of ship data cards on their website.
None of which I have offhand, but if you like email me
off-list and I'll find URLs and can even email files.
> Assuming detection at extreme range you probably have a
A Harpoon travels at 562 knots, give or take. Range for the Block 2 I
somewhere around 80 nm. At maximum range you have maybe 8 minutes if I haven't
screwed up my math. If you can detect a sea skimming target at that range,
which I believe is going to be troublesome.
> Some missiles are faster of course and the "detection at
Yep. The range at which you detect them and they launch can also vary a lot,
especially with coastline clutter. That minute goes way down if you see them
only a mile away coming around the bend, or if you're up
against a Slava with 16 P-500s, all coming in at Mach 2.5.
This with a ship that can pull maybe 30 knots when all goes well,
launching SM2MR Standards (Mach 1.25-3.5) at up to 4+ every half minute,
but with a range of maybe 17nm.
For me, it becomes a rabbit hole. I can understand perfectly how Harpoon came
about, since if you know the performance figures (or THINK you know them,
there is much conjecture and classified data, etc) it's very tempting to use
them.
Knowing how many Standards can intercept in the time it takes for the missiles
to clear their range envelope is interesting to me, because I want to get it
right. Which leads to wanting to know how the fire control radar works, and
how many it can control at once, etc.
> Guns exist to scare drug runners and to shoot down
Not much the latter anymore, if I've read the figures right. Main guns tend to
be pretty poor at shooting down most modern missiles, though the
Phalanx and AK-630 and such do a much better job.
> Though it would be funny for a modern naval game to
Yeah, and at that point the loser (or suspected loser) is probably trying to
break contact to live to fight another day (or at least get back somewhere to
reload).
> > It's a tricky problem, and the interlocking layers of
I just don't know. Nothing I could think of was going to work, for the reasons
mentioned above. Too many variables for me to condense into a PD rating, since
that PD rating was so closely tied to a given combination of weapons and
defenses.
> > Ok, I should clarify. Any kind of _hidden movement_ is
Nope. Though Task Force (another old game, well worth picking up if you can
find a copy) did it brilliantly.
> Are you strictly a blue water type gamer? Have you done
So far I've been most interested in the peak of the cold war (mid 80s) so I
guess so. I'm not uninterested in coastal fighting, but my gut feeling is that
the first step is to model the "easy" bits and then move to the more complex
bits when you get into the littorals.
I don't have as much interest in the present day, though that may change.
Tom (who's started to drift REALLY off-topic, sorry)
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Harpoon handles this by putting everything on the same scale more or less.
A ship in tactical turns may be moving 0.25" while a missle moves 4+" a
turn depending on the missle in question. Some can just STREAK out there but
are mostly used to knock other missiles and aircraft out of the air. I'd have
no problem giving surface ships a "thrust" of 1-4 depending on how fast
it
can go with the vast majority doing 2-3. Missiles would be doing 12" at
least per turn."
Hmmm. Colour me skeptical. Harpoon 855 kph. Ship... 60 kph maybe? That seems
to me more like 1" for the ship and 14" for the missile. It's not 2-3
times, it's more like 15x.
And as to the comment about guns and the nature of naval encounters:
Guns get more use than you would think. Yes, they can serve in the role of
point defense, but they also serve in the role of close in defense against
things like MTB, hydrofoils, and various high speed attack boats. The kinds of
things which *can* do damage to your ship. They can also be of some use if you
come under engagement (god forbid) in a harbour, some sort of inside passage,
or in any sort of landing support operations.
The problem most Harpoon scenarios have is they assume an all out open
shooting war. In most cases in our world, you have piles of civilian ships
plying the world's waterways. You often have to obtain *visual* target
identification. So your wonderous OTH missile is no good if your ROE says
no-go. If you have to get into visual range, guns can be quite useful.
Also, note that most naval ECM systems can spoof. You may think a target is
something and find out it is something else - they can spoof up or down
or off into other classes. ESM is only so good at pulling out what a contact
really is. If you get two separated in time, is it the same ship? Maybe, maybe
a second ship. If it had some positional or course uncertainty, doubly
possible. Oh, and maybe it has changed characteristics....
There is still a lot of space for things like visual recognition and
gunfighting from ships. It isn't usually in open-war fleet battles
(those will boil down to big missiles, aircraft, and subsurface threats). But
in many other situations other than open war or not open see situations, you
just can't blast away at an enemy contact without being darn sure of what it
is.
I remember playing Harpoon long ago, double blind, and only making passing
contact with the enemy (never getting into engagement range) - enemy
sub. I
also remember playing some sort of plane (PC-3?) with harpoons against a
pair of Sovs... Krivak and Sovremny or something? Anyway, one was a missile
cruiser. I came in low from about 10:30 as it turned out. I detectd them
before they picked me up. I was able to dump an entire missile salvo ( 4
missiles) the bank away and fly off board. The enemy players never saw me. The
4 harpoons badly savaged both enemy surface craft, in part because they could
not get pivoted fast enough to bring their CIWS into line. They tried
intercepts with countermissiles and failed (part of it was they didn't see
the harpoons sea-skimming until quite late or something like that).
Harpoon is probably a pretty good simulation, but it can make for a sucky game
at times.
TomB
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rpoon is probably a pretty good simulation, but it can make for a sucky game
at times. "
As I know folks that played in the Red Storm Rising games (the ones that were
used to create the story), I agree. In the Total War scenarios it so often
down to who fires first.
Michael Brown mwsaber6@msn
From: Tom B
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 8:05 PM
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: [GZG] FT: Modern Naval
" Harpoon handles this by putting everything on the same scale more or less.
A ship in tactical turns may be moving 0.25" while a missle moves 4+" a
turn depending on the missle in question. Some can just STREAK out there but
are mostly used to knock other missiles and aircraft out of the air. I'd have
no problem giving surface ships a "thrust" of 1-4 depending on how fast
it
can go with the vast majority doing 2-3. Missiles would be doing 12" at
least per turn."
Hmmm. Colour me skeptical. Harpoon 855 kph. Ship... 60 kph maybe? That seems
to me more like 1" for the ship and 14" for the missile. It's not
2-3 times, it's more like 15x.
And as to the comment about guns and the nature of naval encounters:
Guns get more use than you would think. Yes, they can serve in the role of
point defense, but they also serve in the role of close in defense against
things like MTB, hydrofoils, and various high speed attack boats. The kinds of
things which *can* do damage to your ship. They can also be of some use if you
come under engagement (god forbid) in a harbour, some sort of inside passage,
or in any sort of landing support operations.
The problem most Harpoon scenarios have is they assume an all out open
shooting war. In most cases in our world, you have piles of civilian ships
plying the world's waterways. You often have to obtain *visual* target
identification. So your wonderous OTH missile is no good if your
ROE says no-go. If you have to get into visual range, guns can be quite
useful.
Also, note that most naval ECM systems can spoof. You may think a target
is something and find out it is something else - they can spoof up or
down or off into other classes. ESM is only so good at pulling out what a
contact really is. If you get two separated in time, is it the same ship?
Maybe, maybe a second ship. If it had some positional or course uncertainty,
doubly possible. Oh, and maybe it has changed characteristics....
There is still a lot of space for things like visual recognition and
gunfighting from ships. It isn't usually in open-war fleet battles
(those will boil down to big missiles, aircraft, and subsurface threats). But
in many other situations other than open war or not open see situations, you
just can't blast away at an enemy contact without being darn sure of what it
is.
I remember playing Harpoon long ago, double blind, and only making
passing contact with the enemy (never getting into engagement range) -
enemy sub. I also remember playing some sort of plane (PC-3?) with
harpoons against a pair of Sovs... Krivak and Sovremny or something? Anyway,
one was a missile cruiser. I came in low from about 10:30 as it turned out. I
detectd them before they picked me up. I was able to dump an entire missile
salvo ( 4 missiles) the bank away and fly off board. The enemy players never
saw me. The 4 harpoons badly savaged both enemy surface craft, in part because
they could not get pivoted fast enough to bring their CIWS into line. They
tried intercepts with countermissiles
and failed (part of it was they didn't see the harpoons sea-skimming
until quite late or something like that).
Harpoon is probably a pretty good simulation, but it can make for a sucky game
at times.
TomB
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> Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
Good on ya.
I played one game of Harpoon. I was commanding the Soveremeny.:) Long story
short, a Ticonderoga that was escorting a convoy pulled out of formation to
pick up a couple of helos that were running low on fuel and wouldn't make it
back to the fleet in time. We could see it with our helo and I set my Sov on
an intercept course. When I got within range, I unloaded my full bore of
Sunburn missiles.
The Tico fought them off bravely, defiantly, but really, in the end, didn't
have a chance.
Only real victory the Russians got that game. The rest of the Russian fleet
ran into two reconstituted US battleships throwing volkswagons at the them.
> Harpoon is probably a pretty good simulation, but it can make for a
Yeah, I agree. It was an educational game, but it felt more simmy than gamey.
Mk
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> Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:34 PM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
> The Tico fought them off bravely, defiantly, but really, in the end,
The Tico skipper must have rolled TERRIBLY bad for that to happen. Assuming
proper arcs he/she/it should have had at least 6 missiles going out to
meet yours as well as guns, phalanx, AND harsh language.
It doesn't help matters the Soviet anti-ship missiles are actually
finned mobile homes packed with 'splosives...:(
Damo
On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 9:56 PM, Damond Walker <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:
> It doesn't help matters the Soviet anti-ship missiles are actually
Take a "laugh point" sir. Nice turn of phrase...
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> Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:56 PM, Damond Walker <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:34 PM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
He tried. I even heard the harsh language in the detection report. :-)
(we were doing a PBeM game).
> It doesn't help matters the Soviet anti-ship missiles are actually
Nope, it certainly didn't. :-D
Mk
On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 8:40 PM, Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 9:56 PM, Damond Walker <damosan@gmail.com>
wrote:
> It doesn't help matters the Soviet anti-ship missiles are actually
It's the "moves at roughly Mach 18.5" aspect of those finned mobile homes
that's always gotten my attention in the few modern naval games I've played!
Playing that Janes' Naval sim on Windows a few years ago, hypothetical
hopped-up PLAN vs USN CBGx2, and all of a sudden big honkin' missles
are howling across the map at rather startling speed...
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ults are similar in computer Harpoon. I was playing 1.57 for the Mac a few
years ago, and did the North Atlantic scenario pitting the IOWA and KIROV
surface action groups. The US didn't even need the
Volkswagens--the Tomahawks savaged the Soviet formation from something
like 300 miles away. Attack effectively first.
Best,
Ken
> Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
I remember playing Harpoon long ago, double blind, and only making
passing contact with the enemy (never getting into engagement range) -
enemy sub. I also remember playing some sort of plane (PC-3?) with
harpoons against a pair of Sovs... Krivak and Sovremny or something? Anyway,
one was a missile cruiser. I came in low from about 10:30 as it turned out. I
detectd them before they picked me up. I was able to dump an entire missile
salvo ( 4 missiles) the bank away and fly off board. The enemy players never
saw me. The 4 harpoons badly savaged both enemy surface craft, in part because
they could not get pivoted fast enough to bring their CIWS into line. They
tried intercepts with countermissiles
and failed (part of it was they didn't see the harpoons sea-skimming
until quite late or something like that).
Good on ya.
I played one game of Harpoon. I was commanding the Soveremeny.:) Long story
short, a Ticonderoga that was escorting a convoy pulled out of formation to
pick up a couple of helos that were running low on fuel and wouldn't make it
back to the fleet in time. We could see it with our helo and I set my Sov on
an intercept course. When I got within range, I unloaded my full bore of
Sunburn missiles.
The Tico fought them off bravely, defiantly, but really, in the end, didn't
have a chance.
Only real victory the Russians got that game. The rest of the Russian fleet
ran into two reconstituted US battleships throwing volkswagons at the them.
Harpoon is probably a pretty good simulation, but it can make for a sucky game
at times.
Yeah, I agree. It was an educational game, but it felt more simmy than gamey.
Mk