Scenario Design & Discussion

[spoiler ALERT] Scenario: The hunt for Red Xia Author: Herman Hum / Claudio Magnatti AAR by: Frans Koenz Side : Russia The story. The counter-offensive is almost ready but, prior to making this move, the Chinese nuclear option must be eliminated first. Thanks to strong co-operation from US intelligence, the defensive arrangement of the two nuclear sites along with the position of the Chinese SSBN has been obtained. A coordinated attack has been prepared and the Xia must be sunk within 30 minutes from the air attack on the missile silos in order to avoid a nuclear response. My orders: Proceed to the reference point and sink the the SSBN Xia in co-…

AAR „Alone in the Snow“ Scenario designed by Herman Hum Based on an original Harpoon Classic HDS-II-scenario Database: Players DB 7.4.7 Game engine: H3 ANW 3.8.0 Release Version Aircraft Logistics on A. Foreword: Herman rebuilds a lot of HC scens, especially those of the HC HDS-II-Battleset, with AGSIs permission. “Alone in the Snow” belongs to the HDS-II-GIUK-Battleset, Herman´s favourite. Sweden´s situation is difficult, but not hopeless: It faces an airborne Russian invasion. Sweden has got several squadrons of fighter-bombers in order to keep his bases intact, especially to save Visby. B. My experience 1. Start is November 21st…

Yesterday, after participating in part of a game of Shadow The Boomer, I watched Freek and Herman as they played Dawn Patrol, remade with the community's favourite database, the Players DB. I've never spectated a game before and it was certainly interesting. I've learnt not to trust my radar 100%. Herman played Norway, Freek the Russians. There was the initial poking around in the dark, until Freek got up to and sunk a Norwegian PTM. Herman was close to a Russian corvette and launched- too close. The corvette was closer than minimum range, so the missile sailed over it- and headed for another Norwegian. That and three "Sirens", sunk it. This incident w…

Freek Scheepers and I played Fortress Keflavik, created using the community's favourite database, the Players DB. This must be the longest game I've ever played, to the length that I can't actually remember it all. Freek will be able to cover it in more depth. Some basic events, in no real order: Discovering that "Forgers" are completely useless against fighters Losing my SSGNs fairly quickly Destroying a P-3 with an SA-N-8 from a "Kilo" I launched my "Backfires" on their own when they should have had fighter escort and I probably launched my SSMs too early. I also shouldn't have turned the first wave back, as it cost me twenty hours. I didn't …

Herman, Freek and I got together yesterday evening for a game of Shadow the Boomer, created especially for the community's favourite databsase, the Players DB. This is a three-sided scenario, with the US, UK and Russia. I took the USA, mistakenly thinking it had the boomer. I found myself in command of an early model Los Angeles SSN, La Jolla. My mission was to find a "Delta" boomer and shadow it. ROEs permitted engagement only if I was fired upon. In a hurry to get into the location and thinking, clearly incorrectly, that I could run deep at 14 knots without being detected, I headed south. Suddenly, I detected two torpedo contacts, USET-80s. I launched back o…

Misha loves to play the Russians in all our engagements. Unfortunately, most of the scenarios invariably end in crashes due to their size. After crashing The Merge, Okhotsk, Linchpin from size, we chose 2nd Battle of Tsushima Strait, made with the Harpoon community's favourite database, the PlayersDB. Misha commanded a force of surface ships desperately trying to return home to Vladivostok via the Tsushima Strait while I controlled the Japanese squadron detailed to close that very same Strait. I didn't know what Misha had up his sleeve. I ordered the P-3 Orion and F-15J Eagle fighters aloft to ascertain the situation. The moment they detected MiG-31 Foxho…

AAR: Alone in the Snow [spoiler Alert] A Harpoon3 scenario for the PlayersDB By Herman Hum Rodrigo Flores was just finishing up a hard week's work when we linked up and decided on a game of ANW. We decided to try one of the latest scenario releases for the PlayersDB, "Alone in the Snow". The scenario depicts a Russian attack on "neutral" Sweden. Rodrigo played the Russians while I played the Swedes. As the designer of this scenario, I had a slight advantage since I had an idea of the overall Order of Battle. Luckily, Rod chose the side that I would have deemed more powerful and thus evened out the match. I had three operational airbases an…

Here's another excellent AAR from Frans Koenz XG file archives - Home of the Harpoon3 PlayersDB FilesOfScenShare

Looks like lot's of folks have been enjoying this scenario. Here's another AAR from a satisfied player:

AAR: Azore Loser [spoiler Alert] Harpoon: ANW scenario By Eric Weincam Home of the Harpoon3 PlayersDB FilesOfScenShare

AAR: Baltic Tide By Dave Steinmeyer Baltic Breakout - every NATO commander's nightmare - was about to come true. I immediately turned on the SAM radar of my I-HAWK batteries in order to have some semblance of an air picture as I would not have any AEW support from the E-3 Sentries. The picture did not look good. The Mk43 Sea King from Rygge combined with the Danish Hercules MPA [Maritime Patrol Aircraft] would be more than adequate for the surface surveillance role. However, I was severely lacking in air search assets. Combat Air Patrols [CAPs} were formed over Lubeck Bay and Kobenhavn. The Swedes were out in force. I sincerely hoped that they wou…

Here's an excellent AAR. It is reprinted here with permission of the author: SZO file archives - Home of the Harpoon3 PlayersDB FilesOfScenShare HarpGamer.com - Home of the HCDB.

I played from the Israeli side and started off by breaking up my groups into individual ships and spreading them out in hopes of getting some ESM cross-detections. I saw that the PCFG Mivtach had no SSM armament and was thus the weakest of my assets so I chose her to be my "beater" to flush the game for my "hounds". After gaining separation from one another, I set the Mivtach and 2 other ships from the flanks on intermittent active radar watches so that only one would be active at any particular time. I felt that this would, hopefully, prevent me from total surprise from the Syrians. The Mivtach increased her speed to flank since she had the duty of 'sniffing' out the…

Here's another AAR by Dave Steinmeyer. It is re-printed here with permission from the author. AAR: Beach Reconnaissance [spoiler Alert] A Harpoon 3 scenario By Herman Hum I plotted my course for the first Named Area of Interest (NAI1). It's the one that's furthest SE. My course took me N, then I turned and approached the coast at right angles. After a few minutes, I got my first contact, a goblin to the E of my start point. I never really got a track on him, and lost him shortly after. The next pair of contacts as I approached NAI1 were both a skunk and a goblin to the NW. Again, I lost the goblin pretty quickly. Then I lost the skunk. Next…

Last night, we welcomed another player to the Harpoon3 ANW community. John (a.k.a. OFFascist) is also the roommate of Sharker2003, but I knew that there wasn’t going to be any favourtism shown because of it. We elected to try Freek Scheper’s Blockade scenario from his 2nd Lebanese War Battleset. It’s made with the most popular database with the ANW crowd, the PlayersDB. It’s a 3-sided scenario with John acting as UNIFiL, Sharker as the Israelis, and myself as Hezbollah. Their orders were to maintain a blockade around Lebanon. My job was to break it. From the very start, John, who is a real life Coastie, said that the scenario was just what you would see in th…

Here's an excellent AAR. It is reprinted with here permission of the author: SZO file archives - Home of the Harpoon3 PlayersDB FilesOfScenShare HarpGamer.com - Home of the HCDB.

AAR: Breaking the Shackles - India [spoiler Alert] By Quinton van Zyl Prime Minister Gandhi was quite explicit in her orders. Ensure that Sri Lanka remained under the hegemony of Mother India. Intelligence on enemy dispositions was vague. The Indian Ocean is a BIG place, after all. The only nugget of useful data was that American forces had left Diego Garcia and the Strait of Malacca. With only had these general locations to work from, the reconnaissance assets were despatched; Canberra from Jamnagar, Antonov-12s from Calcutta, and Dakotas from Port Blair. It was still the middle of the night, but I was gambling on the fact that although my cameras would b…

AAR: Broadsides By Paul Bridge The task force started under immediate observation by Russian Spy Trawler [AGI]. They tried to double back in an attempt to shake these Nosy Nelly. They used a tactic from Roger's Rangers: "If someone's trailing you, make a circle, come back on your own tracks and ambush the folks that aim to ambush you." TF Belfast was ordered to maintain the radar picture while Bulwark went under Emissions Control [EmCon] so that the enemy could not track her transmissions. I ordered the CAP already aloft to move to cover the TF. Enroute, their RWR detected radar and jamming. As their fuel was limited, I decided to investigate since the…

AAR: Broken Arrow [spoiler Alert] A Harpoon 3 scenario By Paul Bridge Captain Takayuki read and re-read the nuclear release authorization of the orders, once more. Aboard the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, he was the only man who truly understood the enormity of those orders. He had been a boy living outside of Hiroshima the day the world changed. The commander of Strike Fleet Atlantic had ordered his ships to spread out in case of nuclear attack. Evidently, if the United States was willing to cross the nuclear threshold, once again, then they better to be ready for the other side to do the same. He looked on as the nuclear depth charges were loaded onto w…

A really nice setup. The size of the AO stretches the player to cover many bases with very limited resources. Excellent. I started by moving FFs Torquay and Lynx into positions near Akrotiri to add their limited AAA support to the base in the event of air attack from Syria. The Malta MCM squadron also set sail to rendezvous with the inbound Malta Convoy. They were limited in their combat abilities, but some ASW detection gear is better than none at all. SS Orpheus and SSN Tinosa were ordered to set up positions in order to blockade the Aegean Sea. I wanted to keep whatever surface assets that might be there bottled up tightly. Malta launched her long-range r…