JSF

Wonderful AAR, Herman - thanks! I think guys are really enjoying my Backyard scens - the best reward a scen designer can get. More to come....

File Name: New Scenario for HCE: The Backyard II File Submitter: RKoelbach File Submitted: 1 Dec 2007 File Updated: 15 Mar 2009 File Category: WestPac DB Used: HCDB Authors: Ralf Koelbach Battleset-WPac: .scq - WPac - WestPac Hello guys, "Backyard II - the final shootout" is the sequel to "The Backyard", part of the WestPac battleset. Hope you enjoy it! Ralf Click here to download this file

Hello, just uploaded the final version (2.6) as public release up here at HG. Thanks for the intense testing!

Hello Brad, Gave it try in 2007.00 release version. The first time my Providence SSN was sunk by a wall of torpedoes right after the start. First question: The messenge "The enemy has achieved minimum victory conditions" popped up - game over. Is that intended? Thought this sub is expandable and all depends on the SSBN? Second question: I´m now doing a second run. Changed my subs courses, no attacks so far. But now I have problems with aerial refueling: Launched a P3, later a tanker. Vectored them close to each other, joined group - but I was not able to refuel the Orion. Maybe I have forgotten about micromanaging ata refueling in HC? Does it depend on which units joins the group?

Hi Brad, Thanks for these illuminating comments! And thanks for this good evaluation; since I´m primary a H3 scen designer, I was not sure if my HC ones are good and well done. I´ll maybe work on the sixth version before I release it. Ralf

Tony, Thanks for testing and commenting it. Sounds like a hell of a fight I´m glad you and some others really did enjoy it. Thus it is done. Will release it right after HCCE is out. Ralf

Yes, firewall is on on both PCs. Port is set to 14342 and it works just fine. 14342 is only for ODB db? Or for all db if I´m in a LAN (not Internet) environment? tia

Hi, Found it - wrong IP-adress on one machine! Tested it and now it works. Will have a great Thursday I guess. thx

Sorry, my mistake. I zipped the backup file (together withe two orders files). I unzipped the files to my Harpoon folder, but now I can't find the scenario available for play in any Battleset. What am I doing wrong? Buddha Just rename the *bkq - file into *.scq. Should work now under WestPac. I´ll post a modified zip anyway.

Hello, I´m trying to set up my LAN-connected PCs for a MP session. Haven´t done it for along time, so probably I´ve forgotten something. On the client PC I always get the message "Waiting for server to respond". The settings so far: - GE 3.8.0 release version on both PCs - should work - or not? - PCs connected via LAN; no problem with the network - IPs set manually do work in all other cases. Maybe I´ve chosen the wrong port? Tested it with 14342 ODB db on both machines. My "network boot sequence": 1. Started the server on one PC 2. Started the client on this PC 3. Started the client on the client PC Any clues? tia

Hello, attached the sequel to "The Backyard". This scen will be released shortly after HCE is out. It bases on the scen published with HCE. Comments and critiques welcome! Ok, modified zip attached, including the correct scen-file. Backyard2.zip

Hello, sorry for my inaccurate question. Yes, if its something that you don't want 'released' to the public just yet, then by all means post it here. Tony got it - I am talking about the follow-up for "The Backyard" which will be released with HCE. Tony had the idae to post it here in the Beat Forum thus It´ll be read to release shortly after HCE is out. This way we´ll get some afterburners to support HCE. Ralf

Hello Tony / Brad, where to post scenarios to be discussed? I wanted - as invited by Tony - to upload my "hole2" aka "Backyard 2", but am not sure where to post it. Maybe a new thread for scenario discussion? Ralf

AAR: Alone in the Snow Original Scenario / HDS-II GIUK HC 2002 Gold 2003.16b3 AAR by Ralf Koelbach After having failed winning its H3 ANW rebuilt (done by Herman), I tried the original HC scenario. When I started and looked at my aircraft I was shocked a little bit – no AMRAAMS. The same situation as in Herman´s “clean” rebuilt (before he made the AMRAAM-update), of course. Well, I went for it and was curious how the HC game engine would perform in contrast to the H3 ANW engine. The result was similar: In HC 2002 Gold I was outgunned to – the Sky Flash armed Gripen were wiped out of the sky by Fulcrums and Flankers. Very aggressive AI behaviour – great. So there was no real difference between HC and H3 ANW concerning this. But I was lucky and won because the helos came in dumb few hours after the start. At this point I had enough Gripen and SAMs on my base thus it became a massacre: In few minutes I managed to shoot down 21 helos – one more than necessary to win. Thus the original HC scen lacks a time delta for the attacks on Visby. That would be no problem. Another thing are the SAMS located there: 120 of them are enough to ruin your day. So: Two issues, both could be fixed in HC and then it would be the same killer scen as it has become under Herman´s hands. Ralf

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, 1997, at 00:30 AM. 2. First thing to do: Change all Gripen loadouts into AMRAAMs. 3. Launched one flight of four Viggens from Visby. 4. At 00:43 all four Viggens are shot down. They are totally outgunned by Flankers and Fulcrums with Alamo missiles. 5. About 00:52: The air attacks against Visby have begun: first hits. So here is the dilemma again: If I keep my outgunned aircraft on the ground, they are hammered there – together with their base. If I make them airborne they fell victim to a real turkey shooting. 6. At 01:00 I launch two more Viggens from Visby in the hope of shooting down some attackers. 7. Seven minutes later both are shot down. Humiliating. 8. First blood! At 01:35 my AMRAAM equipped Gripen kill two Fulcrums and manage to run aways from a cloud of Alamos. So is that the right tactic: To keep the Viggens ground in order to wait for the Russian helos and to conduct surprise counter attack with the Gripens on Russian fighters? 9. After several dogfights we have 03:00 AM. My Gripens perform on nearly equal terms with the Flankers and Fulcrums, but will it be enough? I have to survive for another 21.5 hours! Hadn´t thought that even AMRAAMs are barely equal to those Russian killer missiles. Ok, back to my orders: I must not lose more than 24 ac; I have to kill 20+ helos and I have to protect Visby. That will become a race against time. I need to keep enough fighters to perform my own turkey shoot on the Russian helos. But if I do no protect Visby against air attacks I will never see those incoming helos… 10. Its 08:00 AM. I lost 20 ac so far – too many, I fear. My tactic has been to aggressive. I got about 17 Russian fighters and fighter-bombers, but the kill-ratio still is bad for me. And there are 16 more hours left. Of course the Russian helo pilots will wait as long as possible before they board their machines in order to capture Visby. 11. At 09:07 its over: Four more Viggen shot down in a failed attempt to stop the next attacks on Visby. D. Resume This one is a brain-teaser. Even the “AMRAAM-updated version” is very hard because of several reasons: a) The Swedish side pays heavily for not having any jammers or AEW birds. Finding the right tactic is extremely difficult: Keeping the birds grounde will lose by losing Visby. Sending them to fight means sending them to the butcher. The right way to win it may be a mixed strategy: First - Ferry all Viggens to a backward base, loading them with AAW missiles – and keep them on the ground. Second – Sending pairs of AMRAAM armed Gripens to defend Visby and run away after firing from max. distance. I´ll try it! And I´ll try the original HC scen in order to compare both versions. Thank you for another fine rebuilt, Herman! Ralf

AAR „Naval Infantry“ Scenario designed by Herman Hum Based on an original Harpoon Classic HDS-II-scenario Database: Players DB 7.4.7 A. Foreword: Herman rebuilds a lot of HC scens, especially those of the HC HDS-II-Battleset, with AGSIs permission. “Naval Infantry” belongs to the HDS-II-GIUK-Battleset, Herman´s favourite. In Norway Nato is down to two squadrons of Falcons and one of F-5s. Four Orions are stationed at Kevlavik and the main force are three diesel subs. This is what ought to do the job: to stop an full scale CIS amphibious landing at Bodo in the tracks. Therefore I have to sink three amphibious landing ships. B. My experience 1. It all starts on August 10th, 1995, at 05:50 PM. 2. About 06:40 PM: Several boogies to the East; the Russians are coming. 3. At 06:50 PM: sub contact, an Echo II 4. Since 07:00 PM: constant air attacks at Bodo – Floggers wherever I look, and – very nasty - Fencers. My Falcons get their share, but will it be enough? 5. About 09:35 PM: The Echo is dead, one Orion got it. 6. About 11:20 PM: Bodo is still under constant air attack, don´t know how much Floggers and Fencers are left. 7. Day 2 – August 11th, 02:00 AM: I lose one Orion after the other – there are CIS aircraft West of Bodo – Fulcrums – is there a Kusnetzov class carrier approaching? 8. About 05:30 AM: Skunks to the North West detected. Here they come. Looks like there are two CIS Task Forces approaching, maybe one centered around the carrier. 9. About 06:10 AM: Bodo gets hits by Shipwreck SSMs – can those killers really hit land targets? 10. 06:30 AM: Sandbox attacks on Bodo. There will be not much left of the Base. Hangar after hangar gets blown up. 11. At 08:50 AM my chances have decreased very much: The last Orion has fallen due to missile fire. 12. At 11:20 AM I am down to four ac and three subs. 13. At 11:40 AM I get contact on a surfaced Victor I near Bodo and vector my SSK Walrus towards it. 14. About 12:30 AM: The Victor is dead, sunk by two MK-48s. At least some good news. 15. At 01:00 PM: All ac lost. Down to three subs. 16. About 01:45 PM: Got several surface contacts and vector all subs towards them. Will they arrive on time and get those LSTs? 17. At 05:30 PM SSK Tigerhaij is sunk by torpedoes. Don´t know how they detected and got it. The ANW game engine would have reacted more friendly I guess. August 11th , 05:52 PM Defeat! Game time is over. 24 hours are gone. C. Hints for the designer: 1. AFAIK Shipwrecks cannot hit ground installations. 2. That Victor I west of Bodo should not be surfaced. D. Resume All in all this is another real nice and accurate remake of the original scenario. I really had a lot of fun and will soon start another attempt to master it. Thank you for rebuilding it, Herman! Ralf

AAR Korean Gulf Designed by Mark Gellis Game Engine: Harpoon Classic 2002 Gold; v. 2003.16b3 Database: HCDB-07-04-14 Mark´s latest scen is a typical Mark Gellis scen: - small is beautiful - all is very neatly arranged - the scen is well-balanced - the timing is very good - the scen is full of subleties Mission: You have to push a convoy from Abu Dhabi to the Arabian Sea. What´s up? You face stiff Irani resistance from aircraft, ships and submarines. How things went for me: In the first attempt; I managed to sink two red SAGs and a sub. I downed six ac, but ran aground with two ships after having lost two others due to missiles. My second attempt started better; I smashed of the first air attack wave and sank the first SAG. But I lost two Tankers to an torpedo attack and did not find the sub. Then I located and started to pound the second SAG. Meanwhile I lost another tanker to an missile attack right out of nowwhere - a second sub? Game over! Resume: Beautiful precision work - once again!This scen is in the brilliant tradition of "Jap Fish" - small and clever. Thanks, Mark. Ralf Koelbach

File Name: Orange or Red? File Submitter: RKoelbach File Submitted: 28 Apr 2007 File Updated: 30 Apr 2007 File Category: MEDC Hi all, just uploaded a new scen for HCE. Battleset is EC 2003 MEDC, database is Renes Euro-DB. The scenario shows a big US-Russian clash after the Ukraine has fallen back under Russian domination and poses a threat to Romania. Ukrainian naval force have taken US side and together they try to retake Ukraine´s bases and protect Romania. This is a big one - Brad, Rene - you should like it! Regards, Ralf Click here to download this file

Hello, finally I made it! Playing the Rabitt12 version and having now Standards in addition to the Shrikes made the difference. I ploughed my way straightforward through the SAM belt with Standards and Shrikes, giving the bombers a fair chance of coming through. I lost 20 ac this time - close again. I agree. This is an excellent scenario. I tried it and managed to smash everything while losing 18 aircraft. I dealt with the Long-Ranged SAMs by first hitting them with Standard or Shrike and immediately sending in the bombers while they were recovering. It seemed to work well enough for me. It didn't leave much for the bases, but I figured that I could leave the bases to the B-52s! Great scen, Tony. One thing was a little bit curious, though: After having destroyed the bridge, I got for a long time no victory message. How is that in HCE - does the game last until time is over in any case? Ralf

AAR Tsetskli Scenario design: Brad Leyte Tester: Ralf Koelbach Another scen playing in the MEDC area. And another real tough one! Until now I have not been able to win it. The situation: You are to support our small forces at different bases. You have strong naval and air assets...but virtually no time. I failed many times, using many different tactics. One tactic was to throw all TLAMs at the red bases in order to suppress his air activity. But too little, too late: Red always managed it to attack effectively first our bases, destroy enough of them an win. Another one was a desperate counterattack with those limited air assets on the endangered bases, but to no success. To play this scen is a traumatic experience but I remain faithful...and will try again! Some hints: 1) The scenario runs at a real (look at the corner below on the right side) time-compression with 10:1. So it runs smoother than Forced into the corner. But it is still a tough job even for my sons Duron 2000. Maybe cutting down the number of planes? 2) An interesting variation could be to locate some bombers nearer to the theater, thus Blue has more chances. Or a TLAM equipped sub? All in all a wonderful scen - thank you, Brad!

AAR Patriot Lane Battleset EC2003 MEDC Database: Brads (does not run with the HC ODB!) Designer: Brad Leyte Tested by Ralf Koelbach "Patriot Lane" is the successor to "Forced into the Corner". The theater of operations is now more concentrated which improves both game performance and the possibilities of micro-managing the units available. It makes much fun to play this scen, but it is very hard - I lost. My problem was that I did not know why I lost because the orders required me to save my ships which I accomplished. Thus there seem to be some other victory conditions related to the number of bases to protect. Maybe they should be mentioned? I was very pleased to find those mobile land units grouped into convoys and I liked it even more to hammer them with my Apaches It would be very nice to have more of this kind of action in the follow on scen: Fewer AC (makes game a) faster and is logical, since there was another great air battle) ; more land units and helos. Lets use these nice new feature to the limits! My suggestion: US reinforcements have arrived, vessels are unloaded and the huge blue trek is underway. But there are those red gunships and tanks... Great scen, Brad. I am looking eagerly for its successor! Ralf

"AAR: Forced into the Corner Designer: Brad AAR by Ralf The scen created by Brad is a very tough one, no single second for recovering. There is constant naval and air combat action. I really enjoyed being pushed into the corner! Here are some hints which might be helpful for creating Corner V 2.0: 1) There are more than 1.000 aircraft involved - 600 + red and 400 + blue. This number is very difficult to handle both for the machine and the human controlling it. I would suggest cutting the numbers down to a maximum of 200 red and 100 blue ac. 2) I won by fulfilling the minimum victory condition kill of 100 aircraft. This was accomplished early in the game. What about working with and-conditions instead of or-conditions? This would make it far more difficult to win the game. 3) I would suggest to replace the carrier group with a battlegroup based on a battleship (Iowa) and several cruisers. Include some transport vessels and direct it towards the corner which is in need. I also suggest to place it much nearer towards the theater, so it plays a major role in the game. The carrier group IMHO is too far away. By doing that you a) reduce the number of aircraft , shift the game towards naval combat and c) bring the players together. 4) Why not delete those bases in England and Italy - they are too far away. This would reduce the need to scroll around. 5) What about more subs chasing another subs and naval vessels? In short my suggestions can be summarized to three aspects: Fewer aircraft, more naval combat, fewer bases, bring it all together in the theater.

AAR (SP) „A Fight to the Death“ – playing Soviet side H3 ANW 3.8.0 RC11 Player´s DB 7.4.7 Pentium 4 2,93 Ghz / 1Gb RAM 1. Introduction This scen is one of my all-time favourite ones. I wrote about playing it MP as Soviet side and losing without any chance. Winning it against the AI is possible, but not so easy…. 2. How it worked 1994-12-19; 12:00 Start I am lucky this time! My CVGB is in the North of the map, not so much away from my land base and it is unlikely that there was a Nato CTF between them. Instantly I launch every AC stationed at Kevlavik. I sent my Backfires and Badgers North-West and station them directly over the CVBG. Kevlavik gets support too: I fley four Flankers to Iceland and station them on CAP right in from of the base. I then send one Bear-D right beside the CVBG and the other one far Southeast. 12:59 Time to start actions: I order the South-Eastern Bear to go active. Numerous surface contacts - south to my CVBG and not so far away! The carrier is identified – luck! I send the four Badger bombers south in order to attack the carrier. 13:05 Bear Southeast shot down. Tomcats. All Badgers launch their missiles. 13:07 Two Badgers shot down. 13:14 Several Hits on Nimitz reported. Meanwhile I have sent my Backfires – all six of them - on full speed and low altitude South-West. Heading for the wounded Nimitz. Each Backfire carries ten Kickback missiles. 13:20 I start all fighters from my carrier and sent them south in order to harass the Tomcats and Hornets and keep them North of the group. 13:24 Another Badger shot down. Both sides lose AC in a furious air battle. 13:28 All Backfires have reached their positions SouthWest to the CVBG and launch their missiles! 60 missiles on their way towards the US carrier. It has worked like it did in Clanceys ”Red Storm Rising”: There an obviously incapable admiral sent all his Toms north killing drones he thought to be bombers and left his back door open. There too he was visited by Backfires inbound from North-West. 13:30 Five Backfires shot down. 13:33 Nimitz has got hits, doing only eight knots. 13:33 First salvo SSMs from my CVBG 13:40 Second salvo. 13:44 Nimitz down to four knots. 13:45 Final SSM salvo fired. 13:45 TASMs coming it! 13:51 TASMs without exception intercepted. Nimitz down to zero knots; “Probable kill – on fire”. 14:03 Goblin detected. 14:05 My CVBG heads for Iceland at creep speed in order to avoid a nasty surprise. All AC back on the carrier or at Kevlavik. The CVBG has some helos in the air. 14:38 The VicCond have been successfully completed! 3. Hints for rebuilding it a) Single player - The Soviet side should get at least two subs, one close to the Nato CVBG. - The Soviets should have some more fighters. All in all at least one full regiment (20-24 AC). - AEW birds for Kevlavik - The AI should set up better CAP for the US CVBG. There should be fighters all around the group - not only in the PIM - , thus denying the red player surprise attacks on the carrier. Multi player - More SAMs for Kevlavik - at least 10 interceptors for Kevlavik; a full load on the Soviet carrier. - AEW birds at Kevlavik