VictorInThePacific
Posts: 169
Joined: 10/30/2008
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I have a number of questions and comments about Harpoon.
First of all, whether this is an appropriate place to ask such questions. I have what is probably the original version of Harpoon, from 1989, actually running on a PowerMac would you believe. I believe that this version is now being called Harpoon Classic. I am assuming that the data for the units at the time was as correct as was then known, and that the main modifications to the game involved adding features and capacity (and scenarios, units, and that sort of thing). But it may be that the game is now sufficiently different that my questions and comments have no relevance. If this is the case, somebody please say so and I will stop posting what is irrelevant to this forum.
The second question is how I get my air-defence to shoot down targets that I consider to be threats. The problem can be illustrated with the following example. My Soviet fleet has multiple Grumble launchers and about 200 Grumble missiles (and lots of other stuff). The ships are using only passive radar and sonar. I have helicopters on patrol to scan the surface. They detect a handful of cruise missiles inbound, over 100 nm from the fleet. These (NATO) missiles travel at less than 20% of the speed of the Grumble. Whether my ships now use active radar or not has no effect on what follows (except as noted at the end). I can see the missiles approach my ships over the course of more than 10 min, maintaining full detection on them at all times. The air defence does not start shooting until the missiles are at point-blank range, at which time it really is too late.
I am not allowed to manually control the naval (or any) SAMs, so there does not seem to be anything realistic that I can do. (I do have several unrealistic solutions. For example, I have put a sub on the surface in front of the fleet with all its sensors active. It was quite amusing to watch 50 SSMs head for the last known location of my submersible and vanish.)
Over the course of a fair bit of testing, I think I have determined that the issue is that the air defence routines do not perceive enemy anti-ship missiles to be a threat unless they are actually locked on to a friendly ship. The computer appears to like to launch weapons at the first possible opportunity, which appears to include shooting at a lot of poorly detected targets. I can see the missiles come in over a long distance, and I know their course. I also know that none of my ships is on that bearing, typically because I try to evade the missiles by movement. When the enemy missiles approach within about 5 nm of one of my ships, their own guidance activates and they head for that ship (I can see the course change). That's when my air defence starts shooting, but it is generally too late.
I have observed this sort of problem in many situations. However, generally, when I am shooting missiles at ships, I overwhelm the target with stand-off weapons (they are free, right ?), and when my ships might get shot at, I never let the enemy detect them. In either case, it doesn't matter if the air defence shoots or not. But in certain scenarios, such as The Duel (GIUK), the surface units have to close and slug it out, so the air defence parameters are really important.
What I, as fleet commander, want to be able to do is to decide which enemy units are threats and which are not. If an enemy missile on a ballistic course is going to pass several nm by the outside of my formation (because I have evaded by moving the fleet sideways), I may decide to not shoot at it. But if an enemy missile on a ballistic course is headed towards the middle of my fleet formation, it most definitely is a serious threat, because it WILL find a target. Obviously, in the first case, I will want my active sensors to be OFF, while in the second case, it won't help much.
To conclude, this may simply be an issue with the original version of the game, and therefore irrelevant to HCE. It may be due to some part of the game mechanics that I do not understand. Or it may be an accurate representation of the way air defence computers function.
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