General

Welcome to the Harpoon Classic demo. This demo revisits a storied part of Harpoon's history via the USNI BattleSet. Pooners Brad, Tony, and Ralf, with the help of the beta testing team, have re-made the five original USNI scenarios. The scenarios take advantage of game capabilities added since the original USNI version of the game was released more than 20 years ago! Not only that, but the weapons of war more closely match the real-world weapons thanks to post Cold-War release of information and the hard work of Brad in the DB editing department. These are no longer easy, nor introductory, scenarios, be prepared! In addition to the ten USNI scenarios (there a…

Here are the links to the Tactics 101: HCE Shakedown series articles and discussion that have been posted so far ... Tactics 101: Naval Formations Part 1: The Fundamentals Part 2: Assembling a Formation in HCE Part 3: Shipboard Aviation Tactics 101: Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Part 1: The Fundamentals Part 2: The Tools of ASW Part 3: The ASW Cycle Part 4: ASW in HCE ... to come Tactics 101: Strike Planning ... to be overhauled Strike Planning

HC - Harpoon Classic WinHarp - First Windows version of HC, prior to this was the original Harpoon game in DOS HC97 - Port of WinHarp to Win32, Windows 95 look and feel, added EC2000 battleset HC2002 - Bug fixing of HC97 HCGold - Further development of HC2002, added platform editor WestPac Beta - Beta version of HC Gold with a new battleset, Western Pacific HC2005 - What became HCE with some extra care and feeding HCCE - Harpoon Classic: Commander's Edition (later renamed to HCE) HCE - Harpoon: Commander's Edition (HC variant) HUCE - Harpoon Ultimate: Commander's Edition (HC variant, current HC version) BattleSet � - A collection of scenarios, maps,…

I'll try to remember to periodically post the release notes of the current (test) builds of the game. It would be nice if there wasn't a significant lag from a change to when the change makes it into the hands of non-beta players but that just isn't the arrangement at present. Hopefully having an idea of what we're working on will be a positive thing.

This is my first go with Classic/Commander's and as I've not had years of 'Pooner experience, I thought it might be interesting to see how the game has changed. I'll add a post as I go through each version, playing a scenario in each one. Let's begin at the beginning, with the first Alpha build from 1988.

I run into this situation quite a bit, but fail to see why it is the way it is... so would someone please enlighten me? The situation is where an AI base that I wish to attack has had its radar knocked out, has no attached land AA/radar Units, and has no formation air patrols with active radar (as evidenced by the following: - The Report display for the Base says, "Other damage - Sensor" and Land Units: 0 - Friendly air groups having SEAD and AAM loadouts give the "No released weapons ... for Land attack" message when commanded to attack the base (thus implying that there are no active land-based radars and no formation air groups on the base). Yet, the Range Ci…

Hey: After playing the Ultimate edition a few times, I have come to one of two possible conclusions (somewhat related): 1) I suck or 2) The computer rocks. For example. 3 Flankers vs 6 Tornados. I'm protecting an E-3 and in no mood for playing so I let the Flankers have it: 9 SkyFlashes, or three per flanker on average. The flankers, being the argumentative buggers that they are, answer with four radar missiles themselves. Now to my mind, 3 missiles per aircraft is pretty good odds. Yet somehow the flankers get 100% hit rate and all bar one of my missiles miss, the flankers go off and retreat with a mission well done, drinking Vodka all the way back (no statist…

When attempting to lay out courses for my surface or sub groups using the "visual aids" of the map, I often find later that I have inadvertenly laid the course over a shallow or even a small land mass - which was unseen when laying out the course, even if I used rather extreme magnification. I've also noticed that the visual indications of water depth often do not seem to be consistent with the depth reports at specific groups, that is for example, two groups may be near each other over a large area on the map where the water color is a consistent light blue, yet one group reports water depth as intermediate, while the other's report says VDeep. So, my question is…

Are there cases where a tanker or tankers are not supposed to break off after completing re-fueling? I'm curious because most times, after completion of re-fueling, a dialog will appear asking whether to separate the tankers from the group... but sometimes, this dialog does not occur, and the tanker(s) remain attached to the group. I'm wondering whether this is a normal occurance, due to some special circumstances, or if it may be a bug that I should attempt to capture? I've had this happen every so often, but I don't see any particular difference from the cases where the tanker-separation dialog does appear, so I'm curious what may be the reason for this. (Inci…

In harpoon CE i cant engage hostile air units while they're in my engagement envelope.When i order a unit to attack air units within range i get the message "surface to air attacks air handled automatically " i never understood why this is not possible,sometimes red fighter planes fly really close to my ships and the ai never fires a shot!! Can someone exlpain this to me?

It's been quite some time since I touched the Scenario Editor, and a question came up but I can't recall the answer: Is it possible to have an air strike in-progress or at least imminent at the start of a scenario... or do all air attacks have to be launched from a base? In other words, is it possible to set it up so that the player will be under attack as soon as he starts playing the scenario, or will there always be the time required for the AI to launch a strike from a base and travel to the attack position?

I have bought HCE recently and I have some questions about this game. How do ATA and DATA works? Is it Loadout DATA something you should add to Plane DATA to get a final modifier or is it the maximun DATA that any plane can reach when it is loading this type of Loadout? Where are airbone cannons? How can I edit them?

In trying to get a handle on this relative detectability issue, I have a few hypothetical cases, and since I can't create test scenarios for them (yet), I'm hoping someone can shed light on what should happen in these situations: Case 1: A player's base and an AI base exist, say, 400 nm apart - or whatever distance places them beyond each other's air radar range. A MiG-21 is loitering directly above one base and an E-2C is loitering directly above the other base. Both planes are at high altitude, and neither have any radar active. Both bases have active radar. There are no other groups "in play". The questions are, who sees what? 1. Is the E-2C detected by the …

I would like this thread to be very clean: please don't introduce any side issues. Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a lot of discussion here about detection, and visual detection appears to relatively the least well understood component. What do we know about visual detection? 1) Joe has provided a lot of reports, some anecdotal, some well-referenced, of how his units can't see the broad side of a barn. He has also provided a lot of anecdotal reports that the AI easily detects his units for unknown reasons. We cannot at this point say that those were definitely visual detections. He has provided some well-referenced reports that the AI easily dete…

Hi All, I'm not sure if this message is in the right forum, so if not please feel free to move it or advise where I should repost. I just purchased Harpoon Ultimate Edition, largely on the strength of http://www.simhq.com/_naval/naval_003a.html. Granted, that discusses an earlier version of the game, but the interface does not seem to have changed appreciably. I've perhaps jumped in at the deep end as far as the game is concerned, but I figured that it might at least be worth a shot. I've been blind since birth, but also a fan of, among others, Red Storm Rising. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on how I ought to proceed. Much of the information provided by …

Once again, please explain it to me like I'm four. 1) Does ECM necessarily always mean jammers? 2) How does the human player turn them on? 3) Under what circumstances does the AI turn them on? 4a) Does the lightning bolt indicate the jammer or the jamee? 4b) How can you tell who's being jammed by whom? 5) Is there a way of cutting through jamming? 6) How come my Prowlers are usually the first casualities in a group to SAMs? Thanks, Larry G

Hello Harpooners! What: Multimedia Harpoon Chat (video, screen share, audio, text) When: Monday January 16, 2023 @ 2:00 PM Central US time. Where: HarpGamer server on Discord has been established, follow the invite link https://discord.gg/ZmrFAZXbyw

Aah, the smell of the Ocean! Intro: I was an avid Harpooner in the 90's with 132a, then bought H2, fought the bugs and though this game was dead. Recently somehow a googled Harpoon and was I in for surprise. I now have UE installed waiting to relive all the past glory and more. Save the best for last I decided to take a tour of the classic battlesets with the latest classic version of the game. Having finished anno with 132a I already immensly enjoy aerial refuelling, Stornoway Tornado GR1s waited a long time to settle the score with the Kildistenroy Bears . While the last versions improved the control over AAW missile engagement they have broken the AG orden…

Running tests on GIUK 2 Gauntlet. An old familiar scenario. NATO has an OHP frigate + a Type 22/2 FF + 2 merchants. Included are 2 x Lynx + 2 x Seahawk. Russians get 1 x Victor 2, 2 x Nanuchka, 6 x MiG-23. So my ships are driving along, minding their own business, at 15 kn. Suddenly we detect a bunch of torpedos incoming. The 22/2 is the target. It detaches and runs away at 30 kn. The OHP slows down to 5 kn. We launch 2 helos and start searching. Good sonar circle on the OHP (15 nm radius at this speed), lotta sonobuoys in play. When the torps are 4 nm away from the OHP, and fully detected, and still headed for the 22/2, suddenly the OHP just sinks!!! …

Good afternoon everyone. I have recently purchased the Matrix Games Harpoon Ultimate Commander's Edition as well as Harpoon 3 -3.9.4 after not playing Harpoon for ages. One of the things I have noticed is that UCE is more "user friendly" and easier for a relative Newbie like myself to get up and playing.. While Harpoon 3 appears to be more difficult. That being said, I guess I am frustrated with H3 even though I am perceiving it to be the more "accurate" simulation for playing against the computer AI, as opposed to UCE as being more of an "advanced video game" version of Harpoon. Is my own perception? or am I missing something. What I want to be ab…