kmart494

Scenario: First Strike Introduction: Sposobnyy was one of the first Soviet warships escorting Soviet merchant vessels in the Gulf to be challenged by the Iranians. Location: Strait of Hormuz, inbound shipping lane 5 miles north Tunb al Kubra Island. April 19, 1987, 1800 local time. Environment: Sea State 1, wind from 270° at 5 knots. Visibility 85%. Tactical Situation: Yesterday, an Iranian warship made threatening moves toward the merchant vessel you are escorting, but turned away as soon as it was warned. Soviet Forces: Sposobnyy (Project 61 [Kashin] class DDG), Captain 3rd Rank G. Nikitin M/V Basil Belokonenko (Nikolai Zhukov class merchant) Soviet Orders: Escort Basil Belokonenko to Kuwait. Soviet Victory Conditions: Decisive Victory: Iranian warship sunk with no damage to Basil Belokonenko or yourself. Tactical Victory: Iranian warship sunk with no damage to Basil Belokonenko, less then 25% to yourself. Soviet Setup: Sposobnyy is in the lead, with Basil Belokonenko 1000 yards behind and slightly to port. Both ships are at 14 knots. Iranian Forces: Sahand (Vosper Mk5 class FF) Iranian Orders: A shipment of arms for Iraq is being escorted by a Soviet warship. Wait south of Tunb al Kubra Island. As the convoy passes the island, proceed at flank speed, to close and sink the freighter. Iranian Victory Conditions: Decisive Victory: Sink the Soviet freighter, damage the Soviet warship. Tactical Victory: Cripple (50% damage or more) the freighter. Iranian Setup: Sahand approaches the convoy from the southeast, at 35 knots.

The scenario sub-forums are up and running. I will move the scenario discussion over there.

As soon as the access permissions for the scenario sub-forum are set, then I will post more details in the Announcements section.

Ok. Albert will be Blue side (Soviet) and Yishten will be Red side (Iranian).

Thanks, Tony. Albert, do you have a preference for which side to play?

Tony, are you interested in playing a side? If not, then Albert and Yishten are the players.

I should have started this thread with the scenario particulars. Scenario: First Strike Introduction: Sposobnyy was one of the first Soviet warships escorting Soviet merchant vessels in the Gulf to be challenged by the Iranians. Location: Strait of Hormuz, inbound shipping lane 5 miles north Tunb al Kubra Island. April 19, 1987, 1800 local time. Environment: Sea State 1, wind from 270° at 5 knots. Visibility 85%. Tactical Situation: Yesterday, an Iranian warship made threatening moves toward the merchant vessel you are escorting, but turned away as soon as it was warned. Soviet Forces: Sposobnyy (Project 61 [Kashin] class DDG), Captain 3rd Rank G. Nikitin M/V Basil Belokonenko (Nikolai Zhukov class merchant) Soviet Orders: Escort Basil Belokonenko to Kuwait. Soviet Victory Conditions: Decisive Victory: Iranian warship sunk with no damage to Basil Belokonenko or yourself. Tactical Victory: Iranian warship sunk with no damage to Basil Belokonenko, less then 25% to yourself. Soviet Setup: Sposobnyy is in the lead, with Basil Belokonenko 1000 yards behind and slightly to port. Both ships are at 14 knots. Iranian Forces: Sahand (Vosper Mk5 class FF) Iranian Orders: A shipment of arms for Iraq is being escorted by a Soviet warship. Wait south of Tunb al Kubra Island. As the convoy passes the island, proceed at flank speed, to close and sink the freighter. Iranian Victory Conditions: Decisive Victory: Sink the Soviet freighter, damage the Soviet warship. Tactical Victory: Cripple (50% damage or more) the freighter. Iranian Setup: Sahand approaches the convoy from the southeast, at 35 knots.

For this test there will be a Russian warship escorting a Russian merchant. There will also be an Iranian warship trying to stop them.

Thank you, Yishten. SimPlot Viewer is very easy to use. Do you have any knowledge or experience with the Harpoon4 game system?

Gents, I am looking for two players for a PBEM scenario using SimPlot and SimPlot Viewer. The objective is to test using SimPlot as a referee tool and SimPlot Viewer as a player tool. Players will need SimPlot Viewer v0.9.1 and the Persian Gulf map. Although the scenario will only use a small portion of the map, I want to test using the map feature of Viewer. The scenario is from the Red Star Over the Gulf article in Naval Sitrep #48. The article contains several Soviet vs. Iran scenarios, and if this test goes well then I would like to play other (larger) scenarios later. If you are interested, then please reply here. Kevin Edit: You don't need a copy of Sitrep #48 to play. All scenario information will be provided in the game forum.

Uploaded SimPlot Viewer 0.9.1. A few minor changes: Fixed a problem with icon/text size changing while loading a new turn file. Unknown enemy unit attributes now show "Unknown" instead of the "-1" turn file placeholder value. Eliminated the "NAV TGT" information for non-friendly units, since you can't know it anyway. Changed the screen font to Arial.

The Admiralty Trilogy Group is preparing Harpoon 4.2 paper rules right now. I'm not sure when they will be done, but I believe they are in "smooth draft". When released, the rules will likely be sold as a PDF document through Wargame Vault.

I forgot to add that the Viewer file should be unzipped into the same folder as SimPlot. Viewer will also use the same custom color file as SimPlot.

File Name: SimPlot Viewer (beta) File Submitter: kmart494 File Submitted: 16 Jun 2016 File Category: Application/Tools/Mods/Docs SimPlot Viewer (beta) is a SimPlot application for multiplayer Harpoon games. When a referee sends SimPlot turn files to players, the Viewer will allow them to create their own unit range circles, reference points, and plot the suspected location and type of enemy units (independent of the referee and other players). A new feature that I am testing is selectable icon size. Four sizes are available: 8x8 (dots), 16x16 (reduced), 24x24 (default), and 32x32 (enlarged). This is very similar to NTDS standards for icons. The "dots" size will show only generic unit types (surface, air, subsurface, bases, and airbases) due to the small icon size. For example, helicopter and missile units will be shown as air units, although they will still retain their respective player side color. Players may now create enemy or neutral units on screen wherever their location is suspected (usually based on ESM or SONAR bearings). Just add them using the same method in SimPlot. You can assign heading and speed (if known) but the "static" units (as I call them) will not move. Also, all suspected units will have a white color, but will have the correct icon shape for their respective side. This is done to prevent confusion with known enemy or neutral unit locations. Viewer will save player created range circles and suspected units in a "static file" within the same directory as the scenario turn files. When the next turn is sent by the referee and loaded into Viewer, you will see the updated friendly and known enemy unit locations. The static file is also loaded and it will show the previous turn's suspected enemy unit locations. At present, the suspected locations will have to be updated manually based on the information provided by the referee (such as changing ESM or SONAR bearings). This may require a little work on the player's part, but hopefully Viewer will make the task of managing the unknown units easier, anyway. SimPlot Viewer will work on Windows computers with the latest .NET installed. *** Note *** I discovered a flaw in SimPlot's ESM and SONAR bearing functions that may make multiplayer turn files crash Viewer. The problem is that the bearing information is not calculated until the bearing needs to be drawn. This means that if the referee does not draw the bearings on screen before saving the multiplayer file, then the bearings will have a zero value when the file is saved. The referee file will not be affected as it uses the unit IDs of the observer and emitter. The player files only use the observer ID and bearing (in degrees) to prevent the player from getting information from it. So, the quick work around is for referees to display all bearings on his screen before saving a multiplayer file. Click here to download this file

The Blue side had very restrictive ROE so I couldn't just blast the Iranians as soon as they were detected. All I could do was keep an eye on them until they demonstrated hostile intent. I thought about trying to lure them into firing on the helo, but I didn't want to lose it. I was surprised the boats came as close as they did, so I moved Halifax to get in between at least one of them so it could shoot down at least some of the vampires. I like the idea of allowing players to modify the turn file with their own ref points and range circles. I am beginning to code a separate program that will do just that. I am not sure I can modify SimPlot to do it, as the modification from single player to multiplayer created code problems that I may not be able to overcome at this point. Still, the new program will look the same as SimPlot but will utilize a "static turn file" with ref points and circles that would be loaded alongside the referee turn file.

^ I think the short range helped. The targets could not move very far. With SimPlot, I was able to precisely plot the target and missile movements for greater accuracy. Maybe one of these days I will add missile seeker radar cones. * Back to Tactical Turns * Turn 1221 - Planned Fire Phase: Halifax launches 4 Harpoons (2 at each Houdong). Turn 1224 - Movement Phase: The missiles reach the Houdongs. The guns have such a low chance of hitting (not sea-skimmer capable) that I don't want to waste the effort of picking up the dice. Three out of four Harpoons hit. KABOOM!! KABOOM!! KABOOM!! Geez, these boats have only, what, 5 damage points? Sorry, Albert. Your stuff is "blowed up." Conclusion The Canadians failed to achieve their victory condition of less than 10% damage to the tanker. The Iranians failed to achieve their victory condition of sinking or crippling the tanker. The scenario is a draw. However, it seems reasonable that this outcome would have been favorable to the Canadians in the real world. They put up a good fight in spite of the restricted ROE, and got the tanker to port. I will post my Blue side thoughts later. Albert, please post your thoughts about playing Red side and using SimPlot in a multiplayer game.

Turn 1215 - Planned Fire Phase: Both Houdongs fire all their C802s, which are at VLow altitude upon launch. Turn 1215 - Detection Phase: Halifax picks up unknown air targets at the exact location of the Houdongs. They are classified as hostile. Turn 1215 - Reaction Fire Phase: Halifax launches 2x RIM-7M SAMs (one at each group). *Switch to Engagement Turns* Turn 1218.0 - First Movement Phase: The SAMs reach their targets and destroy 1x C802 in each group. Because the STIR directors engaged the targets this turn, they are busy for the entire turn. Turn 1218.5 - Second Movement Phase: Two more SAMs fired in the First Fire Phase reach and destroy 2 more C802s. Turn 1219.0 - First Fire Phase: Halifax takes out 1 C802 with the Phalanx. Turn 1219.0 - Second Air Attack Resolution: The remaining C802s hit their targets (one on Halifax and two on the tanker). Halifax - 33 damage points, no critical hits, and no speed loss. Tanker - 66 damage points, 3 critical hits (engineering, minor flooding, bridge), new max speed 10 kts. Tomorrow - the response!

Turn 1212 - Plotting Phase: The ESM bearings for Radar 1007 indicate a possible course change. Yes, you can launch based on ESM bearings. turn_1212_red.txt turn_1212_red_intl.txt

Turn 1148 - Plotting Phase: You have an ESM cross bearing on Radar 1007. The I/TARH missile needs a bearing for launch and a distance at which the seeker will turn on. You can launch it without any information at all. But, you won't hit anything unless you know where the missile should go to start looking on its own. turn_1148_red.txt turn_1148_red_intl.txt

Turn 1142 - Plotting Phase: You have a cross bearing on the International Radar set. Since so many civilian vessels use it, I am using the "Unknown" color for the ESM bearing. Do you wish to reclassify this contact? turn_1142_red.txt turn_1142_red_intl.txt

I am using the Smarter Radars Rules. Turn 1133 - Plotting Phase: You have new ESM contacts. The suspected helo contact is "hanging around" but remains well outside gun range. turn_1133_red.txt turn_1133_red_intl.txt

Uploaded SimPlot v1.6.2.1. I fixed a problem of an incorrect ESM/sonar bearing count in the player save files. Both players had the same line count even if one player did not have any bearings. That in turn caused the range circle data (next in line) to not load correctly. I apologize for the recent rapid-fire updates to bug fixes, but current multiplayer game play has revealed problems that I could not see before. Many of the issues are minor, but with the imminent publication of my SimPlot article in Naval Sitrep #50 I needed to get SimPlot in good working order. Kevin

Turn 1106 - Plotting Phase: At 1103 Qadir watched the ESM contact come to within 2.5 nm of the ship (but outside of gun range). The crew could only see a speck in the air due to haze. It moved off to the South. At 1105.5 Falaq spotted a speck in the sky but was too far for guns. It appears to be the same ESM contact. It is presently moving off to the West. I have given you range circles for detecting Large and Medium surface contacts around Qadir. Do you wish to change any orders? Edit: I had to reload the turn files due to an unsaved change. turn_1106_red.txt turn_1106_red_intl.txt

I uploaded the v1.6.2.0 readme file.

Uploaded SimPlot v1.6.2.0. I added an ability to scroll the screen with keyboard arrows. I also fixed an ESM/sonar bearing line display problem that was revealed during a multiplayer game. A very minor problem with the Units menu item was also fixed. This version will use v1.6.0.0 scenario files without modification. Kevin