The next scenario I am doing is from HDS5 - the one called "Reconnaissance".

This isn't dead, folks, BTW.

1.56D is finally done. I'm posting all the new ones on my blog, so I'll link it when it's up.

1.56D's write up is now complete. It will go on my blog on 10 September, but in the meantime...

 

Harpoon: 1.56D - These Anti-Shipping Missiles Are Faulty...

 

[a picture will go up later]

 

Several months after the last post was completed, I have finally gotten round to completing another scenario. So the next post isn’t 10 months in the future, I’m going to be avoiding large-scale submarine ones in future.

 

For some reason the sound wasn’t working for much of this, but a fix from the lovely people at HarpGamer seems to be have put them all back. Anyway, on to the scenario.

 

Reconnaissance is from the HDS2 series, specifically the batch of scenarios related to the GIUK area – that’s Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom, a key area in any NATO-Warsaw Pact war. My mission in this scenario is to take 8 nuclear-powered US submarines into the Kola Peninsula (that bit on the right of the map) – something I have about three in-game days to do. The briefing is rather vague on what precisely I’m supposed to do, or what the victory conditions are.

 

The ROE dictates Weapons Tight i.e. I don’t fire until I’m fired at. I treated this with some flexibility during the scenario.

 

This scenario required several hours to get through, even at 1:10 minutes speed. Like I said, I’ll be avoiding these for later versions.

 

I got my first airborne contact 17 minutes in (2217 game time) and two minutes later determined that it was an ASW chopper. These would be the bane of my life throughout this scenario, as I could do nothing about them – US submarines in this game, as well as in real-life IIRC, lack any means of shooting down pesky Ka-25s. As it wasn’t firing at me, I ignored it.

 

At 2235, I got a surface contact off Iceland. This swiftly became two. When another large surface contact turned up near Augusta, I took my boat to periscope depth to get a better look - and got fired on.

 

I fired off pretty much everything I had. Augusta went to the bottom, but the sub’s torpedoes then added a Kresta to the Udaloy I’d sunk beforehand.

 

2350 saw a bunch of ships get too close for comfort to Baton Rouge, so I engaged with Harpoons. There seems to be a problem with these missiles or Soviet SAM defences are super effective here – I got one hit for ten missiles. Ditto with Tomahawks – all four missed. Torpedoes also took ages and they missed. The later discovery that a Slava was in that group explained some of the missile failures, but still.

 

Also, why I am seeing SAM launches that RL fog of war would prevent me from seeing?

 

At 1330 the following day, a helicopter came near Los Angeles, so I slowed down to a creeping speed. Ten minutes later, I spotted a carrier, which I wasn’t really able to engage because of the ROE.

 

Things were about to get worse. At 1424, Groton was detected by active sonar and an engagement involving my dodging multiple torpedoes started. After nearly two hours, that sub was lost, for no enemy damage. Seriously?

 

The next sub to see action was Omaha, which ran into a bunch of ships. In the fifteen minute long exchange of fire, I lost the sub, while they lost three ships, including two supply vessels. That’ll hurt later.

 

At 2116, two ships detected Dallas. Three Harpoons all missed, but further fire sunk three Parchim corvettes. Pity it took most of my ammo to do it. Further torpedo dodging ensued, but that sub died as well.

 

At this time, I found the Range and Bearing Calculator. I worked out that my subs would need to speed up and most of the survivors went to their 18-knot cruising speed.

 

A new game day eventually begun and things went very quiet. I got one detection at 0324, but the Petya I was too far away to any threat or a proper target for that matter. After over nine hours of this I picked up three ships on the sonars of Cincinnati. When at 1007, these ships turned back, the fight was on – once I’d gotten back to a decent speed.

 

Six Harpoon missiles shot out of my tubes at 1021, with 8 TacToms and 3 torpedoes following three minutes later. Only one of the missiles actually hit something, causing 30% damage to a large contact. The torpedoes continued to run and sunk a Neustrahimmyy frigate.

 

The second torpedo hit knocked the large contact for another 16% of damage – at which point I learned it was a Slava class cruiser. My final two remaining torpedoes from that sub, plus four TASMs from Los Angeles managed to miss this thing, which just would not die. Not only that, this thing is carrying ASW choppers.

 

The two subs made their way past the Slava group and so the game went into a protracted paint drying period, as very little happened bar airborne contacts I could do nothing about and one torpedo tube breakdown as the clock went quickly towards game end. Not quick enough though for me.

 

Cincinnati spotted a Krivak II at 1127 the next game day (the third). It had no weapons to attack anything with and the Krivak was too far away to be a threat. Something else was going to wreck this sub’s day.

 

At 1323, I heard a loud pinging noise in my headphones – after repeated patch attempts, the sound was working! I was being pinged by a helicopter’s active sonar – and then I had a torpedo inbound!

 

A period of dodging torpedoes for just over an hour followed. Two torpedoes eventually hit and with the submarine at 87% damage, I surfaced to get my crew off (they’d probably prefer a Soviet POW camp to being crushed by water pressure. Well, I say probably). At 1429, the sad sinking music played, followed by the Soviet national anthem as REDFOR got its minimum victory conditions. I’d lost.

 

I sank 10 ships and forced the ditching of 5 choppers, with one further ship (the pesky Slava) damaged. I lost five of my eight submarines.

 

Now, let’s hope this sound problem doesn’t appear in the next version.

Thanks for sharing.

 

You can take some comfort in the fact that Reconnaissance is a bit of a rare gem. An older scenario that is tough to beat.

 

Also, why I am seeing SAM launches that RL fog of war would prevent me from seeing?

 

You're not supposed to see the progress or success of your own missile launches, either. But that's the game.

Been very busy lately, but I've finally completed another scenario.

1.57D - I was hoping for nukes

This one also had the sound issue. This did not impact my game that much.

I wanted to see what nuclear weapons were like in the game, so I decided to go for one that might have one - The First Step from HDSB - MEDC.

In this mission, I was playing REDFOR, attacking US forces from bases in Turkey and the USSR to cover the retreat of Soviet forces from the Middle East. There was a possibility of special weapons release being authorised. It was a 24-hour long scenario and I was equipped with a batch of ships, subs and aircraft. The latter saw the main use, being mostly strike aircraft and with my fighters essentially being limited to Floggers.

The US had a couple of surface groups, focussed around a carrier (which I never found) and a bunch of amphibs.

I started off by launching a number of attacks on the various surface contacts I had detected and an airbase in Italy. Basically, get into standoff range, launch missiles, go home, rinse and repeat. If I did not get shot down first - something that proved much easier said done.

As my forces approached, I started losing planes to SAMs from a cruiser (which had a lot of them) and AAMs from an F-14. Stick a Tomcat against a MiG-23 and there is likely to be only one winner - it won't be the Russian bird. Eventually, some of my MiG-27s got into AS-14 range on a Spruance and unloaded, damaging a Spruance, sinking a Belknap and later taking out another Spru-can that may be the same one. Anyways, the Americans got in range of my surface ships near the Dardanelles and opened fire with Harpoons... causing me to lose a Kresta II.

Things were not going too well - my missiles were being shot down by the Tico and my aircraft were taking a poor ratio in air-to-air operations. I lost four Floggers for a single F-16 in one case. To make things worse, the Marine amphibious group near Egypt was making a big attack on Mersa Matruh. I sent the Backfires after an Italian airbase, intending to put nukes on them when they returned.

The Tu-22Ms destroyed the Italian base and two enemy attacks (on helicopter carrier Moskva and Mersa Matruh) all failed. However, as of 2244 I had lost 63 aircraft for only 13 of the enemy and 20 missiles were now heading for Port Said.

Thirteen got through and did 27% damage, as further missiles got through against surface ships and air bases, with most of my interceptors being stuck on the ground to refuel.

I scrambled them as I could, downing a Tomcat and also launched further strikes against BLUFOR, managing to get off four shots against USS Dale, a Leahy-class CG. Two of them sent that particular nuisance to the bottom.

It was just as well - Mersa Matruh was now at 95% damage despite downing four A-7Hs and an OHP took out all six missiles that I had launched on it from my Floggers. To deal with the American frigate, I launched eight Su-24s against it.

As midnight passed things got interesting. The Su-24s were unescorted and took losses, but were able to eliminate three Tomcats somehow. Al Mansurah's defences bagged three Corsairs and somehow MiG-23s managed to down F-14s with heatseekers. My Backfires, launched against surface group ADS, fired from 240nm out on bearing only...

After a 7-8 flight time, they took out two frigates - and the Tico guarding that group! The remaining Fencers got into firing position as one of my Tangos came under torpedo attack and a MiG-27 ran out of fuel.

The submarine dodged and weaved (taking out an S-3 helped), but eventually it took two hits and sunk at 0124. However, this wasn't something that I needed to worry about too much. The Backfires were back for another attack on the amphibious group and fired. As the missiles flew, I lost Mersa Matruh to Walleye bombs.

This was however, the last big setback that I had. I sunk another Spru-can and with the amphibious group now completely exposed, I launched my Backfires and two Floggers on a standoff attack. I lost the latter two to enemy fire, but the Tu-22Ms got into range easily.

They launched BOL and blew away a LPD - which was enough for the minimum victory conditions. At that point I called it a day.

I never did get nuclear release - probably because I was winning. Will have to go for a different scenario next time.

1.58E - Still hoping for nukes

 

As I hadn't gotten nukes last time, I decided to try another one with the possibility of nuclear release - "A Stalk on the Cold Side" from HDS6.

 

In this scenario, NATO has to locate Soviet SSBNs before they can get into launch position - using 3 British SSNs and naval SV-22s, with F-16s to provide fighter response. In the event of nuclear release, I had a Vanguard SSBN to respond with.

 

Perhaps I didn't read the orders correctly, but I never found the submarines - perhaps I was looking in the wrong place (orders said North Norwegian Sea). I sent my SV-22s to patrol the GIUK chokepoints and launched my F-16s to intercept the Bears that popped up.

 

It was just a case of spot Bear, shoot Bear. Eventually the Soviets got minimum victory conditions and after considering carrying on, I chose to gave up.

 

This is BTW, the final DOS version of the game.

hi Silent Hunter!

good to have a fix on you again, I much wanted to pose a question to you around March when I joined the forum, but the Staff Assistant told he lost contact with you by then. As far as I could see you were the only other pooner still toting around with the DOS game and you played versions from 1.32A to 1.54A too, this was the period when airtoground ordnance jettisioning worked, e.g. you could repel an attack of bombers without actually need to shoot down every last one of them.

I know you strolled past these versions 2011-2012, still, any run in with jettisoning, story, funny comment to share?

Never saw it happen or did it myself... in fact, I did not even know about it until you mentioned it.

Well, if you are walking through the versions you should not miss this, I'd be obliged...

 

This savegame for example is from "Takover" GIUK 9.0, 3 F-16s from Bodo are intercepting 12 Tu-22 on vector for Orland.

Playing with 1.54A the Backfires turn back (jettison) and try to escape after the first salvo from the Falcons. It feels good that the AI is actually reacting to being intercepted, more real too.

Loading the same save with 1.58E the bombers just fly on regardless being decimated, no reaction, just stubborn dumbness.

J03.zip

I'm not sure if that works with 1.54A - I can't see the file when I look for a saved game.

Hm, have just downloaded to test it, I can load the file with DOS Harpoon.

Erm, sorry for asking, have you unzipped it? You need the J03.hp1 file.

 

Works now - in neither case do they turn after the first salvo.

Could be the first salvo had poor pk rolls and did not destroy half (significant threat) of the Backfires?

Try again, or, enjoy the videos .

(Had to zip the video files to be allowed to upload.)

 

DH00154A.zip

DH00158E.zip