Reload magazines

[jugasa77]

Hello, I would like to know if it is possible to reload ship magazines.

Do you need a cargo ship to reload magazines? Like refuelling air groups with some tankers pressing alt+r?

[jugasa77]

I am watching the database. I select Edit Ships, I select Mags and it says that each weapon has Qty (quantity) and Reload. How do they work? Qty looks like the rounds of each weapon stored, but I don't know what reload works. Does it mean the rounds per minute that it is reloaded at the mount? Does it reload automatically?

[jugasa77]

At Mount Annex of Ship Annex, what is the difference between "rounds" and "tubes"?

I am asking because I don't understand the difference between 255 rounds and 61 tubes at Bunker Hill (CM) ship. It has 61 missiles at the display icon but I don't understand why it has 255 rounds.

[eeustice]

Mounts and Magazines.zip

Thanks for contacting Harpgamer!

There is no Underway Replenishment in Harpoon Commanders Edition.

In Platform Editor you can use magazines as a form as replenishment.

I will do my best to answer your questions.

 

The Bunker Hill has a  VLS mount of61 cells. That means it has 61 missiles in the mount. 1 missile in each cell. Same for a tube.

If you have a magazine with 255 rounds of a missile that is in the VLS mount it will reload the missile after the reload time (Delay in the Platform Editor)

The Delay is the time in minutes that it will take to reload the mount.

If your mount has 61 of the same missiles, and your Magazine has 255 rounds, you will be able to reload the mount about 4 times.

The maximum number of rounds per magazine is 255.

The maximum delay is 255 minutes.

I use magazines as a form of underway replenishment in my personal database.

In submarines there are no magazines.

I have included a Word Doc with an example of one of the ships in my db. I hope you can open one of the files I attached. They both have the same information in them.

If you have any questions please contact us.

In the meantime, "Happy Harpooning!"

Eric

Mounts and Magazines.doc

[Rescue 193]

20 hours ago, jugasa77 said:

Do you need a cargo ship to reload magazines? Like refuelling air groups with some tankers pressing alt+r?

Welcome indeed.

The whole replenishment at sea (RAS, pronounced Razz, as in Jazz, in the Royal Navy) or underway replenishment (or Unrep as the USN has it) is a bit of a vexed issue, at least it is as far as I'm concerned.  Ships' magazines are finite as far as their organic weaponry is concerned but this caveat doesn't extend to fixed or rotary wing aircraft embarked.  So, a carrier air group can use an unlimited number of, say, HARM and Harpoons missiles to pound a hostile surface group until the target simply runs out of ammo to shoot back which is all very unfair unless you happen to be an aviator I suppose!

The same goes for ASW aircraft prosecuting submarine contacts. A Helo flying of the back of a frigate can attack a contact any number of times  but the ship itself can only fire its allotted load of torpedoes. Why the ship should be limited in this way while its Helo isn't has always struck me as odd.

Some scenario designers try to militate this obvious advantage by suggesting (specifying?) that the player uses only the type of payload that any particular aircraft, or aircraft type, is carrying at the start of the scenario. Another trick is for the player to limit hisself (or herself?) to only using the number/type of ordnance that the carrier would typically carry in its magazines. I guess that putting an a freighter (for the beans and bullets) and an oiler (for the gas) allows the for the possibility of 'imaginary or implied replenishment' to take place so that the flyboys can keep shooting but it doesn't overcome the problem of the escorts protecting the group running out of stuff that goes bang!

The other drawback to this pretence of an assumed replenishment capability is that, if the freighter and oiler (which would count as high value targets) are sunk the capability of the surface group would remain undiminished.

Bunkerage is also a bit of a problem. Sure, A nuclear powered carrier can steam on forever (well, not quite for ever but I'm sure you know what I mean) 30 knots but it won't be able to maintain high intensity air ops for long because the planes need gas rather than uranium to keep going. All the non-nuke escorts need refuelling too of course - except they don't - their magazines maybe finite but their bunkers are limitless. 

There are probably a million good reasons (probably, mostly, due to the man-hours involved) why the code that works the speed/endurance/range equations for aircraft can't be applied to ships.

However, having said all that, Harpoon is a damned fine simulation and I'd hate it if the logistics stuff (as important as it is) overwhelmed the enjoyment that I get (and I think a lot of others get) from playing the game. The game isn't perfect but, since I can't afford my own private navy I reckon it passes muster as the being the next best thing and I'm extraordinarily grateful to the real aficionados out there in the ether who keep its going. 

 

 

[eeustice]

I agree with Rescue 193!

[TonyE]

Reminder of long and pretty thorough discussion (please keep adding!): 

 

 @jugasa77 would you find utility it being able to change the weapons in mounts and/or magazines as you play?  An example, if you fire all of your TLAMs out of your submarine and get the urge to fill them up again you would use a utility while playing to load them back up again.  If that rather manual approach would help you enjoy the game more, that is a reasonable first step that one of us programmer types could accomplish.

[Rescue 193]

18 hours ago, eeustice said:

I agree with Rescue 193!

Blush blush!

 

2 hours ago, TonyE said:

would you find utility it being able to change the weapons in mounts and/or magazines as you play?  An example, if you fire all of your TLAMs out of your submarine and get the urge to fill them up again you would use a utility while playing to load them back up again.  If that rather manual approach would help you enjoy the game more, that is a reasonable first step that one of us programmer types could accomplish.

Whoa! Wait a minute there. That could be done... really? Gimme... Gimme... Gimme. Please, pretty please. I promise I'll be good. I'll do the dishes and feed the cat... no... really I will!  

But never mind rearming the submariners... nasty devious types... let them go home to get more torpedoes and whatnot... but let me top-up the magazines of an Arleigh Burke or Bunker Hill (of whatever flavour) or a Type 42 (HMS Gloucester did take down that silkworm with an over-the-shoulder shot as I recall)  let reloads and let a Slava, Kara and Russian CVH reload too!

Gird your loins you programmer types (you munificent, magnificent, multi-talented magical manipulators of binary bits) and do it!

... hmmm...

Okay. I've calmed down a little now and go and read the thread. Suffice it to say, if my vote counts, I vote DO IT!. 

 

[Rescue 193]

Me again.

But now I’ve read the thread. Thus, as the old saying has it, I’m none the wiser but much better informed. As always my normal caviar applies to all that follows below: I’m not a programmer, I know nothing of what lies beneath the interface and the game engine that lurks beneath so I hope that those that do will treat me gently.

In any simulation-based game the key to its success, by which I mean its longevity and capacity to involve and entertain its players rather than the copies sold, is to absorb, involve and entertain its players. To do that the game must strike a fine balance between verisimilitude and playability and getting that right is the proverbial trick.

The thing that I enjoy most about Harpoon (apart from shooting stuff down, sinking stuff and blowing-up stuff) is that it is not a game of ‘turns’.  Both Red and Blue act and react, initiate and respond in a continuum of action. Both sides seek to gain, and hold the tempo but, generally speaking neither side can be certain that they actually do hold the advantage at any given moment in the game.

However, there are things that could make it better and which would make it more realistic  without compromising its playability and replenishment of ships’ magazines is, to my way of thinking, probably the most important.

I’ll happily swallow the wholly unrealistic premise that a frigate/destroyer/Cruiser can steam around the oceans at maximum speed  without refuelling because, in that particular case playability trumps verisimilitude. In the same heartbeat I’ll happily accept that that combat aircraft can’t fly forever without refuelling because verisimilitude trumps, yet perversely enhances, playability (and, anyhow, particularly with Donaldseadog’s  wonderful widget IFR isn’t the dark art it used to be). All of which begs the question: Why do I have such a bug up my derriere about replenishing ships’ magazines?

My answer the question is simple. Because, unless the player uses a self-imposed limit on himself or herself,  carrier-launched aircraft will never runout of ordnance with which to attack the opposition and can launch endless attacks, erode the defender’s capacity to defeat them and, ultimately, pick-off the defenders with virtual impunity because the defender simply can’t shoot back. At that point verisimilitude fly’s out of the window  and playability becomes either sadism if your attacking or masochism if your defending.

I’m loathe to highlight a problem without proffering a solution, albeit without knowing if the solution is practical or even possible (see my caveat above) but here’s what I’d suggest:

• Ships’ magazines should be capable of being replenished by A% every X hours (depending on the scenario if possible).
• Carriers (or Carrier Air Groups embarked) should have magazines which could also be capable of being replenished by B% every Y hours.
• Bases/Airfields/SAM sites, likewise, C% every Z hours (that goes for aircraft ordnance magazines on Bases/Airfields too). 

I guess some random variable could applied to the P% replenishment and the H hour timing and maybe and absolute limit applied to total P% ordnance available to add to the ‘fog of war’ aspect.

Anyhow that’s my tuppence-worth on the subject.