Harpoon Bugs and Design Factors

by Mark Gellis
mgellis@kettering.edu

This text file discusses bugs and design factors that affect play and scenario 
design for Harpoon Classics and Harpoon Classics '97.  The most recent update to 
this file was November 30, 1998.

HARPOON CLASSIC OR HARPOON '97?  One of the central questions to be considered is
which of the three "generations" of Harpoon Classic should be used when creating
a scenario.  There are relatively few situations where the first four battlesets
are preferable, as they include fewer platforms than the others.  The second
generation, the HDS battlesets, offer far more options, but lack some of the
most advanced platforms (e.g., the Horizon-class frigate) and other options
(such as using mines and airborne troops).  The main advantage of the second
generation HDS battlesets is that they offer a far larger number of platforms
from smaller navies like Bulgaria and Indonesia.  The principle advantages offered 
by Harpoon '97 (the third "generation") is increased options for air operations 
(e.g., tankers, long range bombers like the B-2 Spirit, etc.), new surface platforms 
and submarines, mines, and amphibious operations.  The principle disadvantages I 
have found with Harpoon '97 are a number of annoying errors, particularly with the 
ranges and loadouts for aircraft, and the elimination of a number of smaller navies, 
bases, etc. that could have easily been included in the battleset databases.

What this means is that the original Harpoon battlesets are probably most useful
for historical scenarios set during the 1970s or 1980s.  Older platforms that do
not appear elsewhere may be found here.  

The HDS battlesets (the second "generation") are probably most useful when the
designer does not need to include the additional platforms like the EF-2000,
but does wish to include navies or bases that are not included in the Harpoon
'97 EC2000 battlesets (like Indonesia).  An example would be an Israeli and 
Turkish alliance being attacked by Syria--Turkish bases are not available in
Blue in Harpoon '97 and would have to be simulated with other bases; most of
Syria's bases are not available at all in Harpoon '97 and at least one very
important segment of their navy (the Osa gunboat) is not provided in the 
EC2000 MEDC battleset.  One could simulate the Turkish and Syrian bases, 
and use other gunboats or light frigates to simulate the Syrian ships, but
unless the designer needs one of the special features of Harpoon '97 (Syria
has mined an Israeli harbor, etc.) it would probably be easier to simply use 
the HDS battlesets.

The HDS battlesets are also quite useful when designers wish to create
scenarios involving Bulgaria, Romania, Algeria, Morocco, Serbia, Croatia,
Bosnia, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Yemen, 
Malaysia, or Myanmar, as the bases and/or navies for these nations are
missing from the EC2000 battlesets. 

In some cases, it may even be preferable to substitute certain platforms or
actions to allow the use of the HDS battlesets.  For example, while amphibious
operations are not possible using the HDS battlesets, they can (and have been)
simulated quite easily simply by requiring the amphibious units to stay on
station for a certain period of time under initially hostile conditions.
In some cases, there are no good matches for specific platforms (like the
Horizon-class frigate) but in other cases, reasonable substitutions (the
F-22 for the EF-2000, a C-141 for Air Force One, etc.) can be made.

Despite their annoying limitations, the EC2000 battlesets (the third "generation")
offer a remarkable range of options for scenario designers.  Almost any scenario
that pits one or more nations with a substantial navy and air force (France, Canada,
India, etc.) against another nation of similar capabilities can rely on the EC2000
battlesets very effectively.  While several minor nations and bases included in 
the HDS battlesets have been removed from the EC2000 battlesets, a large number of
secondary players and land-based assets remain.  In addition, in many cases, the 
battlesets themselves provide designers and players with options for circumventing 
their own limitations.  These will be discussed in fuller detail later in this 
document.  

ORDERS AND SAVED SCENARIOS.  One thing I have noticed about Harpoon '97 is that 
when you save an original scenario, shut down the game, and start it up again at 
a later time, it is sometimes impossible to access the orders file.  I found 
that one solution is to save the game with its original prefix (e.g., marines1) 
and the saved file suffix (e.g., marines1.hpk) rather than using the default 
autosave file (e.g., autosave.hpk).  This can be done by using the "Save As" 
command instead of the "Save" command; the latter will automatically save a file 
as "autosave."

THOSE FLIPPIN' AIRCRAFT RANGES.  One of the big complaints I heard about Harpoon 
'97 was that the ranges for aircraft were all wrong.  I am not sure exactly how 
bad this problem is (I looked at various reference works and they did not always
agree, so perhaps erring on the side of caution may not be such a terrible sin).
One possible explanation is that since aircraft in Harpoon are able to get a good 
fix on their targets almost immediately, as compared to real life where little 
things like weather and watching out for SAM batteries might require a pilot to 
spend a little more time scouting out the target area, the ranges might be based 
on estimates of performance under combat conditions as opposed to performance, 
even fully loaded, under controlled peacetime conditions.  Whatever the reason, 
I am also not sure it is as big a problem as it might first seem.

Adding a tanker to any flight increases the range by roughly 50%.  In addition, 
if one is careful, it is not difficult to effectively double the listed range for
any aircraft: adding a tanker to the initial flight and placing another tanker
along their homeward route to meet the returning aircraft (and then making
sure you join the two groups) usually does the trick.

The number of tankers does not appear to be important.  One tanker seems to
provide as much additional range to a flight of ten aircraft as ten tankers.  
This can be handled in two different ways, I think.  First, one can assume 
that the tanker version of aircraft not normally designed as tankers (like 
the F-14) can provide air-to-air refueling for one other aircraft, while 
dedicated tankers (like the KC-135R) can refuel several aircraft.  This
would be the "realistic" approach to using tankers.

The other method is to simply add one tanker version of an aircraft to each 
attack group (e.g., one tanker F-18 and five ASuW F-18, if you wanted to divide
the squadron into two six-aircraft attack groups).  In situations where the 
scenario designer believes an erroneously low range has been given for the
aircraft in question, this would alleviate the problem without having to
dedicate half of the aircraft in the squadron to the tanker role.  

Of course, when one uses tankers within a group for the entire flight, it is
important to use tankers that are the same kind of aircraft as the rest of the
group.  Otherwise the group will use fuel inefficiently, greatly reducing its
range.

If one needs to ferry aircraft from one base to another, and a tanker 
loadout is available for that aircraft, groups of aircraft that have all
been loaded as tankers appear to have nearly twice the range of a lone 
tanker.

In some cases, of course, aircraft are not able to refuel from tankers.  When
this is combined with a short range (e.g., the MiG-27, which appears to have an
erroneously short range), it does limit the value of the aircraft.

The 600-mile range for the MiG-31 is probably a typo in the database.  Since
there is nothing that can be done about this, and since Flankers can carry the
long range missiles, I recommend just using the Flankers for long range missions
and keeping the MiG-31s in the defensive role.

I do wish the designers had kept a few of the older aircraft, like the Hawk,
MiG-19, etc.  It would be nice to do a full range of historical scenarios with
all the additional options provided by Harpoon '97.

GETTING SUBMARINES TO ATTACK.  I have found that getting submarines controlled
by the computer to attack player surface groups is quite difficult.  The problem 
appears to be that submarines are not detecting the surface groups.  Setting very 
specific victory conditions (e.g., identifying targets by class like "Lafayette"
instead of simply using "ships"), setting up patrols from AEW aircraft, and setting 
player surface group courses so the groups will run directly over the computer's 
submarines can help here, but does not produce consistent results.  The easiest
way to get a computer-controlled submarine or mine to attack is to place it at
periscope depth.  While this is not the most stealthy method, and often results
in detection and destruction, the submarine or mine will often get a chance to
fire on the player's group before it is destroyed.  In addition, it is stealthy
enough that the player will not spot the mine or submarine until after the computer 
has spotted his or her surface group and fired on it.   

Although getting submarines to attack player surface groups is difficult, it is
not difficult to get them to attack land assets.  Stopping them from doing so can
be the background for many challenging ASW scenarios.  Other ASW scenarios can be
based on the need to stop enemy submarines from getting through a picket line.
One can assume that if they do, they will wreck havoc on merchant shipping.

TOMAHAWKS, TORPEDOES, AND SHIPS.  One odd "bug" is that it is often impossible
to fire Tomahawk missiles from surface vessels against other surface vessels at
long range.  One must close to the range at which Harpoon missiles would be fired
before one can target the Tomahawks.  Ship-launched Tomahawk missiles can target
against surface vessels, however, if the battle group has TLAM-AR Tomahawks.
These must be kept in their launchers.  Once you use them, a bug in the program 
prevents you from using other Tomahawks against ships at long range.  This seems 
to apply whether the missiles are launched from submarines or surface vessels.  
Be aware that the Harpoon AI usually selects the TLAM-AR missiles first, so one
must be ready to deallocate these missiles and allocate other Tomahawks.  

This is similar to the bug that only lets patrol boats use torpedoes against 
other ships if they also have some kind of missile weapon.  One way to take
advantage of this bug, by the way, is to attach patrol boats armed with torpedoes 
to a group with missile boats.  Use the formation editor to place the torpedo 
boats in front of the missile boats (or larger vessels with missiles).  When 
an enemy vessel is spotted, it will probably attack the torpedo boats first, 
since they will be closer.  Most of these boats will probably be sunk, but 
some may get a chance to use their torpedoes, and the enemy vessels will both 
reveal their positions and use up a lot of their missiles while your missile 
boats remain unscathed.      

STANDOFF CHOPPERS AND AIRCRAFT.  For some reason, the designers of Harpoon '97
decided to eliminate a few aircraft and a few loadouts that probably should have 
been left in.  For example, there do not appear to be any aircraft in Harpoon '97
that are capable of firing the Israeli Gabriel anti-ship missile.  The Dauphin
helicopter is also missing, but the Seahawk SH-60B is a good match (the Penguin 
missile it carries has roughly the same range and damage points as the Gabriel).  
The export version of the F-16A carries the Penguin, too, and if one needs Falcons 
dedicated to the anti-shipping role, these will suffice.  The Israeli F-16 does 
carry Mavericks, which can be used against ships, but these have less range than 
the air-lauched Gabriel or Penguin.

RED BASES ONLY FOR SOME COUNTRIES.  Another "bug" in Harpoon '97 is that the 
EC2000 battlesets have some very odd choices about bases (for example, no Blue 
French or Egyptian bases in the MEDC battleset).  Fortunately, many of the bases 
have no country listed and (except for obvious ones like "Algiers" where people 
are not going to be able to suspend their disbelief if you locate it in 
Bulgaria) these can simply be moved around the map as necessary.  Naturally,
any base can be moved using the Change Group Position command in the scenario
editor, but using bases without country names listed may facilitate the 
suspension of disbelief when placing the base in a different country.  

Nations without Blue bases can still be Blue players even without "faking" a 
base for them; the only requirement is that some allied nation allows them to fly 
aircraft out of one or more of their bases (e.g., Germany flying aircraft out of 
a Greek base).  The same is true for players without the option of being Red
(for example, if Israel was allied with Egypt or Turkey against some common
enemy).

WHERE THE HECK ARE ALL THE OTHER COUNTRIES?  For reasons known only to the gods, 
the designers of the EC2000 databases have eliminated the navies of several 
nations that were previously included in Harpoon: Australia, Bulgaria, 
Indonesia, Syria, etc.  

In some cases, the platforms used by these countries can be simulated without 
too much difficulty.  For example, Australia's navy includes a number of American 
platforms like Adams-class destroyers and Perry-class frigates.  Australia can,
in fact, be represented in all four battlesets in this way.  Greece, Taiwan, 
Brazil, Mexico, and Pakistan can also be included in all eight EC2000 and HDS 
battlesets in the same manner, since all of these nations employ some ships 
(mostly older British and American ones) that appear in all eight battleset 
databases.  Even Singapore can be included in EC2000 scenarios because their 
navy has purchased Sjoormen submarines from Sweden.  The only drawback is that
in most cases the new names for these vessels are not available.  Details on 
various navies can be found at http://www.uss-salem.org/worldnav/ (the World 
Navies Today web page).

Other absent nations (e.g., Thailand and Romania) are difficult to simulate 
in the EC2000 battlesets, although the aircraft they use are usually available.
The only way to include surface vessels from these nations in Harpoon '97 is to
assume that new vessels have been purchased from other nations (the Type 23, 
Lafayette, and Horizon frigates, and a variety of Russian vessels, are all 
options here).  

In all cases, where substitutions are made, I believe it is helpful to provide 
a "Design Notes" section in the orders files that explains what has been done
and why.

