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Silent Hunter UK

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  • 4 months later...

Harpoon Classic 97

 

I'm a little disappointed by the nuclear explosions. While the detonation of a nuclear weapon is of course pretty much one of the nastiest man-made things that can happen on the planet, some red flashing when the nuke hits doesn't, like the great Canadian singer said, impress me much.

 

I definitely wanted to see some nuking and thus I chose The Last Day, the final NACV scenario, which takes place after a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR at the conclusion of a Third World War. I command US naval forces, including a SAG and a carrier group, who are permitted to use any weapons available against a Soviet surface force.

 

I note with some interest that this version has resizable windows - and you can zoom all the way in the main one if so desire.

 

Once I set my initial courses, I'm greeted within two minutes by some big loud klaxons and a message telling me that nuclear release has been authorised. Unfortunately at this point, there is nothing for me to nuke, so I launch a Hawkeye and four Tomcats on a patrol... the Hawkeye finds nothing and the F-14s just end up going in the ocean after running out of fuel. Oops.

 

While still finding precisely nothing, I note an irritating alarm sound that I soon realise is the aircraft ready noise. Eventually I just learn to ignore it. It's not really relevant when you're got a ship packing the air force of a small country and more firepower than most of the world's nations, even back in 1990.

 

Apparently, I like the Cascade feature, but I don't remember what that actually is...

 

This lack of contacts continues for over 12 game hours before a spy satellite (clearly the Commies hadn't got round to destroy that one) detects a Sovvie destroyer, which is too far away for me to do anything about. Before this, I lose some more Tomcats and ruefully reflect that crashing into the ocean might be a preferable way to go compared with radiation sickness.

 

(Personally, I want to go in my sleep at a good old age)

 

It's nearly 21 hours since scenario start before I finally get something I can shoot out, a Nanuchka corvette, which gets a BOL launch of a HE Tomahawk. While there is no kill like overkill, a nuke on a corvette is arguably a waster of ammo. Of course one problem with the TASMs is their lack of speed...

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It look 26 minutes for the Tomahawks to acquire a target, enough time for someone to make dinner, eat dinner and possibly doing some washing up afterwards. I managed to sink a Tarantul III and two other ship, then detected some inbound contacts - AS-17 missiles. These were all shot down without doing any damage to my forces.

 

While I still had contacts on the Red ships, I was still well away from them and was looking forward to nuking something. After three hours, I spotted a helicopter and realised that I couldn't be that far away from a Surface Action Group. This was confirmed when I discovered a surface contact going at 36 knots, which I immediately concluded had to be a missile boat.

 

So, I fired my first nuclear-tipped weapons at it, followed by some more as back-ups. My notes aren't the clearest things in the world, but I was detecting lots of small ships with little SAM response, including aNeustrahimny frigate. Some ships actually did go down, but only to conventional weapons; with all the nukes getting shot down.

 

The Soviets responded during this time with Shipwrecks and SS-N-25s. Two of these missed one of my OHPs, which is fortunately because they were possibly nuclear tipped. Two Intruders were launched from my carrier armed with free-fall nukes to finish something off, but I don't recall what.

 

Our groups were rapidly closing and during this process, a SH-60 sent in the direction the incoming missiles had come from go shot down. Things eventually got into gunfire range and I took down one corvette that way. Then, and this is possibly a glitch, I detected an E-2 Hawkeye. Where did the Northern Fleet get one of those from?

 

Noting that this version does not save your window settings (or your time settings) between sessions, I recalled my A-6s as they were running low on fuel, then detected the motherlode. A large SAG, complete with Kirov. It was time for a serious nuclear party. 32 Tomahawks as well as every attack plane that I had to spare were launched against the surface group as I hoped that they didn't actually have a carrier...

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Pulling back the SH-60 that was still flying to avoid it being shot down meant that I also lost contact with the surface group I was going after. Thus it had to go back slightly closer so I could reacquire the targets, while staying out of SAM range

 

The SAMs from the Soviet ships were launched and all of my TASMs were shot down, ruining my hopes this time of some nuclear fire raining down on the Red force. Then they turned and ran away, resulting in a brief loss of contact, but I wasn't giving up on them yet. 21 missiles were targeted on one battlecruiser and launched. They got to within 20 nautical miles with no response from the Soviet ships and I was feeling optimistic, but my hopes were deflated quicker than a balloon after being shot at by a CIWS. In fact, they didn't even need to use a CIWS; all of them were downed by counter-missiles and I reflected that at least it had cost them something pretty finite.

 

As midnight approached, I located another large surface contact... this time including a carrier. I launched some more missiles at this one... they got to within 90 seconds of impact, then were all shot down.

 

The Soviets threw SS-N-12s at me - nuclear tipped ones (how do you tell the difference?) The conga line of death approached and I had 154 SAMs available to respond... which then proceeded not to fire due to lack of target data. Oh for the AEGIS system!

 

At that point, an outlying OHP was hit with flashes redder than Lindy Booth's hair...

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This catastrophic comparison to a characterful Canadian was not in fact followed by a continuous calvacade of calamituous combustion caused by cosmic certainties. For one thing, the next two nuclear tipped missiles also hit the 'hulk' of the frigate. I don't know how resilient an OHP would be to a nuke, but the example of one Prinz Eugen springs to mind.

 

With the other two red flashes determining that I'd definitely been nuked, I then lost contact with my opponents as my SH-60 had to land due to lack of fuel (even if was solar powered, it was in fact night-time). Over an hour passed before more missiles appeared on my screen.

 

Mindful of the fact that these next missiles could also contain something hotter than a Carolina Reaper chilli and that one big explosion could lead to several ships turning into aircraft, I dispersed my ships so they wouldn't be too close to each other.

 

I determined the latest raid contained SS-N-19s. The NATO designation for the Granit, "Shipwreck", is an appropriate one as these tend to be one-hit-kill weapons for anything smaller than a destroyer. The Oliver Hazard Perry class is one that I dub "Overhead Projectors"; Ms. Booth would be more effective in stopping an enemy attack than these outdated piles of junk (for one thing, I'm sure there are some Russian fans of The Librarians). A conventional one was enough to send the vessel to the bottom... and as it was taking on water, I saw four nuclear-tipped ones were heading its way. As my notes reflect, four nukes for a frigate is overkill.

 

After more massive explosions, things went quiet and I notice in my notes that I managed to mis-spell that word on one occasion. No big deal. Then I got a surprise almost as big as when the now Sir John Hurt turned up at the end of "The Name of the Doctor".

 

A Victor III among my carrier group. Waiter, I didn't order that!

 

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Then, and this is possibly a glitch, I detected an E-2 Hawkeye. Where did the Northern Fleet get one of those from?

Some of the old stock scenarios used Western platforms to mimic Soviet platforms that hadn't made it into the legacy database. In this case, an E-2 was used as a substitute for the Yak-44. You will also find C-141s pretending to be Il-76s.

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So, a crafty disguise then?

 

It was ASROC time. I launched one of the conventionally-armed versions at the Victor III... it hit... and it stayed afloat. I'd forgotten about the Soviet double-hulled submarine thing. Three more Mk50s headed its way and that proved sufficient to take the Victor into a Vanquished.

 

Things then went quiet... until I spotted an Echo II SSGN; an unpleasant foe, albeit one that has to surface to fire, IIRC. Two Vikings were sent to locate and intercept the things, during which, I managed to locate a second submarine by the good old Magnetic Anomaly Detector. More torpedoes were dropped... The Echo got damaged and then I had enough alarms for a small orchestra go off as the second torpedo missed... just as the missiles were launched from the Soviet subs.

 

With the presence of a California-class CGN and the able assistance of my F-14s, all of the missiles were shot down. It was time to break out the depth charges, and by that I mean the ones with nuclear warheads, not the Jägerbombs.

 

However, when the nuclear-armed planes got into position, they weren't close enough for a nuke, so they dropped a HE torpedo and that caused the first sub to sink. The second also went down to high explosive weapons, as I noted the strange change in the game date between playing sessions.

 

I spotted another AEW plane near SE Iceland, nearly three hours passed... and then something came along that was going to ruin somebody's day. Yep, more Shipwrecks.

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The Shipwrecks sunk another OHP and then things went a bit quieter for about half an hour until something else turned up among my carrier group. Namely a submarine of the "Victor I" variety. I got some message about something launching from a short runway, but I've forgotten what that actually was.

 

Anyway, three or four torps later and the Victor went to the bottom.

 

Things again went quiet with only a change over of the AEW plane for the Soviet group livening things up a little.

 

At 16:30, a group containing a Kirov cruiser turned up c.250nm from my carrier group. I launched some nuclear-armed bombers and some Tomahawks on Bearing Only... however, the ships were a bit far away then I thought. Note to self for future reference... get an idea of the actual range before engaging.

 

My carrier force got into HARM range and fired the anti-radar missiles... after some initial optimism about their chances, they were all shot down. I launched eight Harpoons at the Kirov, lost a Tomcat to a SAM and then...

 

I dropped my first nuke in Harpoon via gravity. The red flashes on the screen confirmed that a couple of Tarantuls, followed by a guided-missile destroyer were totalled. I then managed to lose the entire air raid to SAM fire, but I doubt their hometowns would have survived anyway.

 

Five of the eight Harpoons survived to reach the battlecruiser... and three hit. This did 96% damage and the fires did the rest.

 

That was the last engagement of the game. I found a Kiev-class carrier, but it was too far engaged. I was unable to catch up with anything else and the game clock ran down to zero, with only some subs bouncing off the bottom make things a bit more lively.

 

The game ended with a draw as neither side had managed to achieve their objectives. Mind you, I think I did better than them.

 

****

I'm now onto the final stretch; Harpoon 2002 is the next game on my playthrough. The graphics have improved and so have the sounds, but I think we'd all agree the fundamentals haven't massively changed. I'm hoping for some major advances in the next few games. I'd really like the game to remember my time settings between sessions, that's for sure.

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Namely the setting on whether the game clock shows game time or time remaining.

The behavior I see in the current builds is:

"Show Game Time Remaining" - This persists between gaming sessions game-wide, not per saved-game.

"Show Current Game Clock" - shows a clock based on the current system time, definitely a behavior I don't like (so if you save at 2:51 AM on that clock and come back 10 minutes later and load that save, the clock will show 3:01 AM instead of 2:51 AM)

 

So I'd say the current builds fulfill your desires but are far from ideal in the "Show Current Game Clock" situation. Agreed?

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