News As History - May 17, 2008
News As History - May 17, 2008 |
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Wargame Reviews Return to Wargame Main Page Return to Wargame Reviews Index JANE'S FLEET
COMMAND
TABLE OF CONTENTS: JANE'S FLEET COMMAND is a single or multiplayer game covering contemporary US Navy operations (with some adjustments to political situations to allow the conflicts to develop). The game includes a tutorial, single missions, a campaign and a mission editor. The game was tested in the single player mode. This mode was chosen in order to focus on what the game tries to present, rather than the obvious enjoyment of shredding someone else's forces.
The documentation consists of a single booklet of only 45 pages. These pages contain everything needed to install and run the game, including 16 pages on the mission editor and 4 on multiplayer games. In the all-too-brief four pages which describe the major weapons platforms, only one or two sentences per platform are used to give the player any hint of how to use an F-14 or a Ticonderoga-class cruiser. What is really needed in this game is supporting documentation, cf. BIBLIOGRAPHY, which would help the player understand exactly how to employ his forces. This is severely lacking in the game and sorely missed.
Sound and graphics on the game are first rate. Live action videos are used to introduce the overall campaign and in-between missions. Once the mission has been selected, the main screen displays three parts: a regional display, a tactical display and a three-dimensional view. Function keys provide access to the help screen. Additionally, an online version of Jane's is available to the player as a reference tool to look up weapons or platforms that the player is unfamiliar with. Sound effects are used for ship motion, aircraft in flight, weapons launching or firing, weapons en route to targets, and of course explosions. Platforms also provide and audio response to player commands as if they were responding to orders on a radio net. This provides feedback to the player that orders have actually been transmitted and received. The three-dimensional graphics of ships, aircraft in flight, and weapon in flight are superb. A variable camera angle allows the player to view any of the models from any angle (including underwater for ships, and riding along with a missile until impact). Simply clicking on a track icon in the tactical display automatically shifts the 3D camera view to that platform. This includes both friendly and identified hostile platforms (or weapons in flight). Unidentified tracks are given generic 3D pictures of either a merchant or a fighter. Neither sound nor graphics 'burped' at any time during play; the views changed smoothly as aircraft turned, climbed, dived, and launched weapons, and shifting between tracks was almost instantaneous. One complaint: the uniform for the admiral in the live action videos is wrong. It looks like someone took a Service Dress Blue shirt (which is a white dress shirt with soft shoulder boards and is worn with a black tie), added ribbons, warfare insignia, and a Joint Staff identifier to the shirt (none of those items are worn on that shirt; they are worn on the coat), added the trousers from Tropical White Long (which is what the other actors/actresses are wearing), and declared it 'good'. Sorry, not even close.
GAME MECHANICS AND/OR GAMEPLAY Game mechanics are straightforward – basically, the player reads the mission brief, accepts the mission, attempts to locate his forces, and then either using the mouse and pull-down menus, or a vast number (four pages in the manual) of keys, issues commands to every single platform available. These commands include everything from turning sensors on to selecting which targets to attack and with what weapons. The key combinations are available on screen via the F1 key. Also available is an online version of Jane’s that provides reference material about each weapons platform to the player while in the middle of a game. A word of caution -- when using either the help screen or the reference library, the game is still playing! That’s right, while you are ogling the 3-D line drawing of some sexy aircraft, those missiles you didn’t know about from that threat platform you haven’t detected are inbound to your carrier. One other thing about the online reference – items listed for the various platforms are not necessarily available in the game. For example, the F-14 is credited with being able to carry the AIM-54 Phoenix (which it does), but the Phoenix is not available in the game. The reference is also used to validate choices of weapons in the game. A note indicates that the F-14 is slated to carry the Harpoon/SLAM weapon in the future; based on this, the F-14 is routinely equipped with Harpoons, something it does not now carry, nor is there a high probability that it ever will. On the other hand, the F-18 is routinely limited to AIM-120 AMRAAM, AIM-9 Sidewinder, HARMs and Mavericks. Oops! -- this is just wrong. What happened to the entire Mk80 series of gravity bombs? the Mk-20 Rockeyes? the Harpoons???? -- all of which are routinely available to current Fleet F-18s. This little mix-up has a dramatic effect on learning about naval operations, cf. GAME AS HISTORY/DOCTRINE. The game mechanics overall are simple. However, they depend too much on the player making decisions for individual weapons platforms and not setting the rules of engagement for the battle group. Instead of commanding a fleet, the player finds him/herself trying to manage every single decision in the battle group, including telling individual pilots when to attack hostile targets.
A Battle Group is set up to function as an integrated team; the command and control organization is established to specifically address the needs of that integrated team. Each platform in the team is capable of performing more than one mission simultaneously (with the exception of some specific types of aircraft). Basically, a Battle Group deploys with three staffs -- the Battle Group staff (drawn from a Carrier or Cruiser-Destroyer Group Staff), a Destroyer Squadron staff, and a Carrier Air Wing staff. Administratively, the staffs retain their traditional roles; operationally, however, things are different. The Battle Group commander is the overall commander. Other officers from the three staffs and occasionally a cruiser Commanding Officer are selected to act as warfare commanders, each responsible for a specific warfare area. These include air warfare, surface warfare, subsurface warfare, strike warfare, and information warfare. Integrated planning is conducted so that each commander gets the assets he needs, properly equipped for the mission, at the time he needs them. Command is by negation. Since the assets were assigned prior to execution, the commander sits back and lets his warfare commanders run their areas. The warfare commanders (depending on the situation) issue orders (both maneuver and weapon) as appropriate and provide updates back to the commander. The commander only steps in to stop actions he does not want to execute. Unit commanders (i.e., Commanding Officers of ships and submarines or their surrogates, the Tactical Action Officer) are responsible for executing their portion of the plan and responding to the appropriate warfare commander. A multitask capable platform such as a cruiser may find itself assigned to all five warfare commanders simultaneously -- and they usually are; it is up to the internal watch organization within the cruiser to handle all the competing requirements at the same time. Unit commanders are also responsible for taking defensive action without asking for permission from the appropriate warfare commander -- the unit commander has an "inherent right of self defense". Pilots behave very much like unit commanders, particularly on multi-mission platforms like the F-18 or S-3. Which brings up the game play as doctrine: most missions in the campaign simply start off wrong. They find the American Battle Group surrounded by the enemy, with no active sensors on and no aircraft flying. The first hint that the contacts surrounding the force are hostile is when the inbound missiles are finally detected by passive sensors. Really? Only on a rare occasion will a Battle Group ever be running around without a clue as to where the potential hostiles are -- and very rarely will a carrier lack any aircraft in the air! The set up for the campaign smacks of a certain clash with the Indian Navy --yet the start of the game finds the Battle Group dark, silent, and stupid. This reviewer has lost more cruisers and taken more hits on a carrier in the first five minutes of play than one would have ever believed possible. Okay, so one recovers from the initial onslaught, and launches an E-2 and CAP to get the force covered, but the enemy’s Kilo's are somehow sitting underneath the Group. (A quick question -- what DID the American SSN's do on their way to the SPA [submarine patrol area] -- nothing???). Like a good Air Warfare Commander, the player commander will order the E-2 overhead and launch 3 sections of F-14s to various stations ahead of the group. But when one checks their armament -- AMRAAM (no Phoenix!), Sidewinders, Mk61 cannon, and Harpoons. WHAT??? Only recently have F-14s converted to bombing missions (the BombCats), but the primary fleet air defense interceptor is carrying anti-surface weapons. Fine, the informed commander will put a strike package of F-18s up to hit the air base identified as a primary target. But the only strike weapon they are equipped with is...Maverick! What happened to the Mk82 or Mk83? How about the LGBs, the Rockeyes? With this quick mix-up in armament, a veteran naval officer will find himself having to reverse his experience, and fly the F-18s as primary CAP and the F-14s as the surface strike force. Since the carrier is equipped with far more F-18s (like it should be for a strike campaign -- see the Air Wing composition differences for Operation Southern Watch vs. Joint Task Force Noble Anvil), it seems that there is an incorrect mix of aircraft to engage most of the targets in each of the campaign missions. As the game progresses one finds himself not in the role of a Fleet Commander (note to Jane's, a single Battle Group does not make a Fleet), but in the role of the Battle Group commander, the Warfare Commanders, the various Coordinators (such as the Air Resources Element Coordinator, the officer who equips, launches, and hands off air wing assets to other warfare commanders, and then recovers them), the Unit Commanders, and even the individual Tactical Action Officers, and Pilots! This is too much for a single player to handle; not only do several people handle these jobs in the real world, but even in simulations, such as the Naval Tactical Analysis Game or the Enhanced Naval Wargame Simulator, several players are required to perform these functions. This makes Fleet Command almost pre-set for a multiplayer per side distributed network, with players on one side taking the roles of individual unit commanders or warfare commanders. It is too much in the campaign game to try and handle 8 - 9 surface and subsurface platforms and an air wing of 70-plus aircraft. And don’t forget the additional aircraft stationed on those multi-mission capable surface combatants -- they also have to be prepped, launched, maneuvered, given sensor and weapon orders, and recovered by the player. One last item on game mechanics/gameplay which is bothersome -- the fact that the opposing forces have detected, identified, and located the Battle Group, and have moved into strike positions before the US forces (i.e., the player) even know they are there! Giving perfect intelligence to the enemy is a bad way to balance a scenario.
The edit/scenario functions in this game are quite extensive and take up sixteen pages in the documentation. Players are able to do all the standard activities: setting up units, locations, courses and speeds and forming groups that act together. The player is even able to set a probability of appearance of some objects in the game, e.g., ships in formations or aircraft arrivals. There is one major failing -- the player cannot change the load-out of the aircraft or any other platform for that matter, which leads back to my earlier problems with load-outs. The player is unable to correct the incorrect load-outs for the F-14 and the F-18 and is forced to continue to use the two aircraft in a manner inconsistent with current Fleet usage.
PPROFESSIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION Specific problems with Fleet Command as a learning device for conducting Battle Group or higher operations can be found by comparing actions available in Fleet Command with the Uniform Joint Task List. The game attempts to look at the operational level but actually concentrates on the tactical level. These are the list of operational tasks that should have been included in the game: OP.1--CONDUCT OPERATIONAL MOVEMENT AND MANEUVER Why these operational tasks? Because they are the ones that a Numbered Fleet Commander (such as 3rd or 7th Fleets) could reasonably be expected to do within the context of a computer simulation. The remainder of the tasks would be a concern of the numbered Fleets, but would probably be handled by the next higher command element, the Naval Component of the Regional CINC (such as PACFLT, LANTFLT, NAVCENT, or NAVEUR). The majority of the tasks performed by the players are tactical in nature; those relevant to FLEET COMMAND are listed below: TA.1--CONDUCT MANEUVER This reviewer wanted to like this game – and parts of it are well done. It is fun as a game, and as a simulation of modern naval warfare at the tactical (battle group) level, it is not bad. As a simulation of USN battle group doctrine and tactics, it is poor. This reviewer could say this is based on several years spent in the Surface Warfare Community deployed with Carrier Battle Groups, but the real conclusion comes from comparisons drawn from several different games. FLEET COMMAND is reminiscent of LucasArts’ STRIKE FLEET. In a similar fashion, the player jumped from platform to platform trying to execute all the functions on each ship (maneuver, sensors, and weapons) while in real time opposing forces were sneaking up and engaging before the player had a chance to do anything about it. This “'jumping” system just got in the player’s way. -- which brings us to HARPOON (the computer version). HARPOON hearkened back to the old SSI game NORTH ATLANTIC '86, where basically the player acted as the Fleet Commander, maneuvered his battle groups and transport groups, and waited for the raids to come in. Units in NA '86 would automatically select targets and fire as hostiles came within range -- results were presented in a spreadsheet format, and all the player really could do was watch in anguish. Computer HARPOON is similar -- the player has more control over his forces (in terms of maneuver, sensors, and weapons), but they still fire in response to a threat without player intervention. Computer HARPOON always made this reviewer feel like he was a higher level commander, perhaps a theater commander, because not only could he control the various ship and submarine groups, he had control over the ground bases and ports as well. The miniatures version of HARPOON (now in its fourth edition) provides the player with the nuts and bolts tactical viewpoint of war at sea. In the original version from Adventure Games (c. 1980), players were required to designate the actual mode of their fire control radars. As missiles came inbound, unless one had plotted a change of mode from say, surface track to air track on the turn record sheet, then all the die rolling in the world would not save one from the inbound bogies. At wargame conventions today, large games of HARPOON require several players, with each one controlling (at most) one or two platforms. The data included in the HARPOON reference material and rules book is very complete on the tactical use of ships, aircraft and submarines in today's world. While HARPOON (4TH EDITION) does a great job on the tactical level, GMT's boardgame HORNET LEADER provides the best viewpoint of managing an entire Hornet squadron. This solitaire game allows the player to select pilots, manage the loadouts on each aircraft, fly the missions, and keep campaign records to monitor the squadron’s progress throughout the war. The player actually places counters representing sticks of Mk82s, rounds of HARM, or Harpoons on cards representing the hardpoints on each aircraft. F-14s, EA-6Bs and other aircraft or weapons upgrades make their appearance in the form of event cards and add their traditional support (fleet air defense and active jamming) to the Hornet strike package. Although currently out of print, GMT is planning on a reprint of this great game, and some copies can still be found around the country. But all of these games, even STRIKE FLEET, gave player an idea of how to employ his forces, and how they should interact. It is this lack of detail in FLEET COMMANDER that truly ruins what could have been a great game. FLEET COMMAND wants to be the definitive work on US Navy operations. While it may be a great excuse for spending time blowing up ships and aircraft, it is not for learning about Battle Group or Battle Force operations.
(2) ** {out of (5) *****} This rating is based on (4) **** for fun and (1) * for learning about naval operations. Averaging the two should yield a value of **+ -- but I feel the wrong lessons are being learned by players who do not bother to look beyond the arcade feel of the game. Therefore, the overall rating is (2) **.
Fleet Tactics
(2d
Edition), Wayne
Hughes,
US Naval Institute Press COMPUTER: BOARD: MINIATURE RULES SET: www.navy.mil BIOGRAPHY OF
REVIEWER: |
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