Falcon 4 Allied Force - A Viper Can't be Driven as a Prius

Flying a lot of Falcon 4 Allied Force these days ... Lousily, I must say.

After botching up a couple of combat air patrol missions (had to abandon my station to RTB at bingo fuel), I was wondering about cruising speeds and fuel management. I hate to take off with those drop tanks ...

The nice thing about the F-16 is that the flight computer will do almost everything for you. I wanted to experiment a bit with a high angle of attack flight and see if I could sustain a level flight so I just had to pull and release the stick while reducing the throttle.

Training for level flying at a high angle of attack (10 degrees) and low speed (190 knots).

Combat Mission Battles for Normandy - Busted by the Bocage - Drop Your Fire and Movement Theories at the Breach Point, Soldier ...

This is a continuation of a previous entry.

In this scenario I am playing as the US Army. Right now I have two platoons of infantry, two Sherman tanks and a couple of engineer teams. Reinforcements later in the battle will complete my OOB to an infantry company reinforced with a platoon of tanks, two engineer teams ... and 9 tubes of 60 mm mortars.

The Germans are defending a patch of hedgerow (aka bocage) terrain. Ideal terrain for an area defense, much to the dislike of an Army that mastered the art of mobile defense.

Combat Mission Battles for Normandy - Busted by the Bocage - Tactical Nightmares in Bush Warfare

Combat Mission Battles for Normandy (CMBN from here on) has been patched to v1.01 and it was about time I sit down and enjoy this one.

Mesmerized by Doubler's fantastic research on the battles fought over bocage country in France, I wanted to see if CMBN stands as a good tactical simulation of this particular type of fight.

It does.

So here is the map where I commanded two platoons of American infantry in a particularly vicious battle.

Green round icons are American troops under my command.

My forces are split in two teams each one composed of an infantry platoon, an engineer squad and a rhino-equipped Sherman tank.

Stay tuned. More is coming.

Cheers,

Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations - New Video on Mine Warfare

Supreme Ruler Cold War - Grand Strategy Game Releases Tomorrow

The cold war goes ... complex. So many things to care of in this game!
But the subject is very interesting from the strategic point of view, so I'm hoping to write some more about Supreme Ruler Cold War.

On the meantime, screenshots!

North German Plain 85 / Steel Beasts ProPE - Scenario Editing: Got Help from Reader

Steel Beasts expert and blog reader Koen has kindly offered his help to deploy the red troops and to create an OPORD for them (i.e. input/plot the orders for the Soviet units in this scenario).

This entry is explain the grand-tactical situation of the North German Plain scenario and to delineate the scope of what will be an Steel Beasts ProPE scenario. Keep in mind that this is a work in progress and that nothing is set on stone yet. Your feedback is always appreciated.

The North German Plain scenario.

North German Plain 85 / Steel Beasts ProPE - Scenario Editing, First Strokes

I'm into assembling part of the North German Plain scenario into Steel Beasts ProPE. I will not reproduce it down to every unit but rather focus on one Leopard II tank company north of Coppenbrugge.

Leopard tanks getting ready to be deployed. :)

The map where this scenario is going to be played.

North German Plain 85 / Steel Beasts ProPE - A Crazy Idea

The games: HPS Sims' North German Plain 85 and eSims' Steel Beasts ProPE
The tactical situation: Soviet forces try to capture a crossing over the Wesser River at the city of Hameln. NATO armored forces are tasked with retaking the bridges over the Wesser and to hold against the Soviet armored forces attempting to link up with the desants.

Click the image for a better view.

I was playing the traditional turn based tactical/operational game North German Plain (map on the top of the image above) and got curious about how the attacks/defenses that are automatically resolved in the game would look and feel in the 3D world of Steel Beasts ProPE (pasted screenshot in the bottom of the image above).

Gettysburg - New Indie Wargame

Check this one out!

Gettysburg Computer Game

I briefly played it this morning before heading to the office and it was a very nice real time action. The scale of the maneuver units (apparently brigades) is very well chosen. I would have appreciated a map zoom feature (is it there?). Anyway, more on this one later today.

Cheers,

Future Force - Video Demonstration by CGSC Instructor

Future Force ... what it is and how it plays remains a mystery for many.

The video below is by Ken Long, one of the guys who conceived the game. Thanks to James Sterrett for pointing us to this video in this thread at Wargamer.com.



Cheers,

IL-2 Cliffs of Dover - Status Upgraded to "Playable"

Don't get too excited yet. Playable meaning that now I can go out and have a dogfight without worrying too much about frames per second and other performance annoyances. I have no idea how other parts of the game do work right now. From what I read, the campaign part is still in very bad shape.

I went out today as part of a flight of four Spitfires today and we fought four Bf-110s. Nice and long old-school dogfight.

Games for the iPad - Battle Fleet - Readers' Comments and Minireview

Some fellow readers were very kind sending their comments about Battle Fleet, an iPad strategy game.

Let's see what they had to say about it!

March to Baghdad - A Position Area Not for the Faint of Heart

On the charges of not paying too much attention to artillery units, only remembering them when the things go hot and I need them: guilty as charged, your honor ...

I'm trying to take better care of the artillery units and as I was playing the free wargame March to Baghdad, the position area of 1-10 Forward Artillery (FA) during the assault on Tallil airbase caught my eye.

TF 1-15 IN (blue icons in the lower right) is getting ready to assault objective Liberty. 1-10 FA (blue icons in the top left) are already deployed in a position area (PA). We are assaulting from the southeast and the artillery is already positioned past our objectives, in the northwest?

The creator of this game engine, Pat Proctor, is an artilleryman and if there is something screwy in his games I am sure is not the artillery part.

What happened here?

Future Force - Gameplay Notes About this New HPS Sims Release

Future Force was released last Friday by HPS Sims. 

This is a grand strategy game that lets the player manage a defense budget in a simulated conflict spanning 5 areas of operation. The player is in charge of mobilizing, deploying, re-deploying, refitting  and demobilizing five types of units (heavy brigade combat teams, Striker brigade combat teams,  infantry brigade combat teams, SOF groups, aviation brigades and engineer teams). Also, the player has the ability to allocate funds for strategic and tactical intelligence. There are costs associated with each of the activities mentioned above and the challenge is to allocate the right amount of funds and military assets to achieve victory. 

This is not a traditional war game and it may be a bit difficult to grasp what is all about without playing it. So I will be posting some notes and screenshots of a game that I played today.

  

Future Force's main (and only) screen.