General

TACTICS 101: NAVAL FORMATIONS - PART 1: THE FUNDAMENTALS Although far more detailed than is necessary for the purposes of Harpoon Commander's Edition (HCE), Part 1 of this discussion about naval formations will help to establish the fundamentals and could be useful for other versions of Harpoon (principally Harpoon 4.1 paper rules) and other naval wargaming efforts. Part 2 will focus on the step by side assembly of a naval formation within HCE. Part 3, in turn, will deal with adding fixed wing aircraft and helicopters to a naval formation. So what is a naval formation? A naval formation is an ordered arrangement of two or more ships. Naval formations s…

File Name: Keyboard Commands, by location File Submitter: VictorInThePacific File Submitted: 16 Apr 2009 File Category: Tools/Mods/Docs Authors: VictorInThePacific Provides a graphical display of the keyboard, with the HCE keyboard commands shown. Click here to download this file

Two questions: 1. In HUCE, I apparently am not using aircraft in an ASW search correctly. For instance, I'll detect a torpedo. From there I'll estimate the box and send out ASW aircraft by using Launch/Patrol. The aircraft whips on out there, goes into Loiter, drops one (1) sonobouy and... Nothing. No other bouys are dropped, no motion, nada. Naturally, this results in no detections -- I have had one aircraft detection -- a MAD detect. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? 2. Is HUCE the version I should be concentrating on? Are the other versions more stable or effective? Thanks in advance for any answers! Regards, San

TACTICS 101: NAVAL FORMATIONS - PART 2: ASSEMBLING A FORMATION IN HCE Part 2 of this discussion on Naval Formations will focus on building or assembling a naval formation in HCE using the game's formation editor. We will use the Scenario Editor (SE) here, but the principles are equally applicable to use of the formation editor within the Game Engine (GE). To illustrate naval formations in general, let's build one of the more popular formations - a US Navy carrier strike group (CSG). As was discussed in Part 1, the components of a naval formation comprise the main body and the screen. Within HCE's formation editor, the screen is further broken down into the …

For bases that have large center formation zones (60 miles across is common), the aircraft assigned to the center zone will almost always cluster at the northern edge of the zone. So unless there are patrols set in the formation's southern zones, the best approach to attack the base is from dead straight south. Typically, I fire a pretty large volley of ARM missile at the base and the SAMs around it, and I try to NEVER fire at the planes in the formation around the base. Firing the ARMs will draw the missile fire of the defending fighters as well as the SAMs, and if the volley is big enough and/or the number of defenders is small enough, you might entirely clean the…

Hi guys, I have just purchased Harpoon from Matrix Games and have tried to download it. The download speed is averaging around 20-30kB/s which is extremely slow as I am using a DSL connection. Do you know if this is normal? I can normally download at around 700kB/s. Thanks

Im a new guy on this forum so you'll indulge me if I didnt get this question in the right place. I download the Matrix Harpoon "package" last week. The download appeared to be okay but the setup executable failed to completely load any of the versions of the game. Folders were created and partially populated with files but none of the games would load. No luck with from Matrix help desk. Can anyone here help?

View File ToolBox Toolbox version 1.5.2 requires at least GE 2015.015 or newer up to GE 2017.04 Toolbox V 2.4.2.1 (zip 2.4) + requires GE V 2017.013 - v 2022.027 (including Matrix Patch 2022.027) Toolbox vers 2.10.0.1 + require GE 2023.006+ ToolboxV.zip is similar to version 2.10 but updated features from recent versions backed into the older interface Toolbox version 2.11+ requires GE version 2025.017 + Installation for GE vers 2025.001 +: Your downloaded Export.DLL for Harpoon Classic is easily installed. For Toolbox which is designed to run in the Game Engine only , not in the Scenario Editor, you should cre…

There are some aspects of the games AI that make certain tasks almost ridiculously easy, and I wonder how it might be changed to make it more challenging. For instance, your mission is to knock back the opposition of a heavily guarded base and destroy it. Send out an AEW plane, put some fighters with AMRAAMs out 30 or 40 miles ahead (between the base and your AEW bait), and make these recurring patrols so you always gave some fresh fighters with their AAMs. The enemy fighter patrols will, without exception, head straight for your AEW plane and right into your missile range. You can empty out their base of fighter defenses without ever doing anything more than refre…

Does the game allow for the seasonal variation in daylight and darkness in the high northern latitudes? I ask because I'm about to launch an attack on some bad guys in Iceland using some sneaky B-2s. Obviously, I'm sending them in at night but then I paused for thought (Yeah! unusual for me I know) because it doesn't get too dark for too long around Keflavik during August and, no matter how stealthy the aircraft may be, all that cool high tech wizardry doesn't count for much if my billion dollar bombers can be detected by a chap using MKI eyeballs! So, is 'nighttime darkness' a set parameter in the game or does it vary as it does in the real world? And, while I'…

File Name: WestPac 1.0 Orders PDF File Submitter: TonyE File Submitted: 10 Mar 2008 File Category: Tools/Docs Authors: TonyE Quick and dirty printout of orders for tutorial scenario. Click here to download this file

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…

Any idea where to get a copy of it?, is it worth? As far as I know there are only hardcopies.

Hi, I used to play Harpoon alot a long time ago. Like to try it again but before I buy it from Matrix I wanted to get a feeling for how well it works today and how stable it is. So I downloaded the demo, and it crashed. * Downloaded HCE Demo 2016.003 * Installed * Start, select GIUK, No mans land, Blue * Press Ctrl-B for order of battle * Click Airfield Aba * Game crashes I can't really think that this is normal, more likely something is wrong with my setup but I have no idea what would cause a crash like that in such a simple and repeatable way. Any ideas? Windows home 10 version 1803 OS-version 17134.345 /Johan …

Hi, I have been using HUCE ( HC 2015.027 ) and things were working fine. I updated by downloading HC 2017.009 GESEDU. zip and executing the installer I downloaded HC 2016,003GEa. zip and executed the installer. If I use a battleset scenario everything is still fine. However, if I bring a battleset scenario into the editor ( Winscenedt32 ) and then save it ( with no changes ) it will not execute and I get the following message: " The requested scenario file requires a newer version of the game. This scenario is version 4 . This game supports through version 3. Exiting..." I am wondering if someone can tell me what I am doing wrong. Thanks, Smit…

Hi all, I've recently tried to install Harpoon Ultimate and after going through Matrix's recovery system, I was given the following file to download: Harpoon3UltimateANW-Update-v311-Beta.exe. After installation, I'm getting errors about several missing DLLs including Harpoon32.dll. The installation process and autorun programs aren't the same as I thought they were when I had the download originally. I've installed all patches from the Matrix site after v311 and have installed the HC2017.011GESEDBDUBSBB and HC2017.014GESEDU betas from here just in case. I've got a ticket open at Matrix as well but I wondered if anybody else might have had this issue. I'd appre…

I would like to write an exhaustive keymap for HC2005 but it seems that several keys wre added since HC97. I know one key => B for Bearing Attack, do u know others? Thx.

I have had this ver for some time, not much use, plus I have version that is real old. I also have started working H3/ANW. I am unable to get more than the demo mode out of HCG. Any ideas? :

I played Harpoon back in the good ol' DOS days in the 1990's and was thrilled to discover that it is still in development. I downloaded the demo for HCE and saw the GUIK scenario I used to play for hours. Well, I decided that that was enough for me and bought it. Bought it online, was sent my serial number, copied and pasted it in and . . . . nothing. I get an error that there is a problem with my serial number and to contact support (support@matrixgames.com). I've sent three e-mails this week to them and have gotten no response back. I'd really like to play my game that I spent $40 on, but at the very least I'd like for someone who receives money when I pay them to ackno…

I used to play Harpoon back when there was only one or two versions of it, so getting back into it I'm confused about all the versions available and how to work them. I've read thru various items in the FAQ, but either I didn't read the correct ones or I'm just getting senile...very possible. Anyway, I run HUCE (don't know if that's actually called something else here; I don't see it mentioned much). I just downloaded the "Iran Israel 2010" scenario, and I'm trying to load it. I unpacked it into a seperate folder, and I can see the folder when I try to run "Load User Scenario", but HUCE doesn't see any scenario files there. From the FAQ I know that the "v" in the "SC…