Northern Fury - Check out the book based on CMANO scenarios

[Airborne Rifles]

ORIGINAL: Eggstor

Question on the scenarios - are the ones at the Northern Fury site different from the ones in the Community Pack?

Hey Eggstor, they are the same.

[T Rav]

I'm in.

T Rav

[magi]

i wish you both the very best and good fortune with your endeavor.......

[Andrea G]

I hope it will come also in a printed version not only e-book [:)]

[Airborne Rifles]

ORIGINAL: Andrea G

I hope it will come also in a printed version not only e-book [:)]

Hi ANdrea G, that's the plan!

[mikkey]

Nice idea, Looking forward to this

[Vulcan607]

Going to get it as soon as its available, I've also mentioned it on the Eugene Systems forum should interest a few people on it,

[kevinkins]

Good luck with the Project.

Just a thought. Will the book come with a copy of Northern Fury? Might be a way to get non wargamers into Command. There are plenty of military history buffs who remain on the sidelines buying book after book without trying to simulate.

Kevin

[Gunner98]

Kevin

The full suite of Northern Fury scenarios will be (and are) on the web page. http://northernfury.bhgdesigns.com/index.php

The page is still a work in progress but is meant to be a companion to the book.

Our idea is to get readers interested in playing and players interesting in reading the book.

Cheers

B

[Amnectrus]

ORIGINAL: Primarchx
The new Clancy & Bond, writing a book based on a game? Cool!

For people who might not know, Red Storm Rising, and possibly other Clancy and/or Bond books, were wargamed with Bond's Harpoon game. There's an article I came across a while ago called Choreographing the Dance of the Vampires, about the chapter in Red Storm Rising where the Soviets attack a US carrier group using decoys to draw off the F-14s. According to the article, Clancy and Bond and some of their wargamer friends played several versions of the scenario with Harpoon, and used the results to help write a believable and realistic narrative in the game. They knew that for plot purposes, the Soviets were going to win, but exactly what tactics would be used and how the battle could develop was something they used Harpoon to help with.

In fact the battle depicted in the book—in what by all indications became one of the most difficult chapters for the pair to plot and write—was gamed out in three separate Harpoon sessions, designated Vampire I, II, and III between December 1984 and July 1985. Vampire I is documented in a thirty-page report that contains briefing materials for both sides, detailed tables listing the ships in the NATO task force, the aircraft and ordnance available to the Soviets, diagrams of the ships’ formation, weather conditions, and so forth. There then follows a blow-by-blow account of the battle, which moves through several distinct phases, from the Soviets’ attempts to locate and “fix” the course of the NATO warships to the “outer air battle” as fighters from the carriers scramble to intercept the incoming bombers to the missile launch and resolution of the strike—which ends up leaving the NATO formation decimated. Vampire II, played in March 1985, yielded even more extensive documentation; in addition to an after-action report similar in format to the previous, there are copious players’ notes as well. This time the game appears to have moved more slowly, with the battle never reaching its climactic end-stage (despite the session lasting into the early hours of the morning). Nonetheless, the materials suggest that much of the “play” consisted in the preparatory activity by which plans were laid, forces tasked with missions, and contingencies evaluated. Clearly by this point the scope and complexity of the scenarios were straining the Harpoon system (and Bond, as the referee) to the limit. Vampire III, played out over multiple game sessions several months later, concluded with the spectacular destruction of USS Nimitz by missiles launched from a Soviet submarine.

Scrutiny of the game materials makes plain that none of the three Vampire scenarios provided the storyboard for events precisely as they unfolded in the book chapter. None were narrativized whole cloth.[1] (Notably, the Soviets’ use of drones, a tactic which seals the fate of the NATO ships in the novel, does not appear in the game materials.) Yet the details regarding weapons systems, ranges, the relative positions of ships and aircraft—all necessary for lending consistency and coherence to the fictive engagement—were fully articulated as operable elements in the Harpoon simulation, and in that respect the game functioned as exactly the “matrix of detail” Clancy said it would.

A bit more information is available in a writeup by Larry Bond at The Wargame Vault.

[Airborne Rifles]

Amnectrus, Clancy's RSR and the way he and Bond used Harpoon is certainly an inspiration for us in our own story creation. The big difference for us is that Command puts a powerful gaming program at our fingertips so that we can play out some pretty big engagements through Bart's scenarios and get an idea of how the battle would unfold realistically on a computer. We can do this far more easily than Clancy and Bond could back thirty+ years ago.

Our playthroughs also yield a lot of individual "moments of drama" that make their way into our narrative through the experiences of our characters. One good example is the sample chapter we shared; one of the things that grabbed me about Bart's H-Hour scenario is how ambiguous the situation is when you begin. Are the Soviets going to cross the border? Should I engage when they do? Or wait for them to shoot first? How do my two F-16s take on eight far more capable Su-27s? Putting myself in the seat of the F-16 pilot when I first played this scenario is what got me writing AARs in the first place, which led to the book.

[Primarchx]

Absolutely. I made the comparison only to the extent of the subject matter and inspiration. Command itself lends itself to far better fidelity than Harpoon would of 35 years ago.

I know what you mean about being able to identify moments of drama. One comes to mind from playing Indian Fury - Socotra a week or so ago, where a pair of Tomcats are all that stood between an inbound squadron of Floggers and the mine-sweeping squadron at the mouth of the Red Sea. Those two Tomcats shredded over a dozen MiGs, with the last four kills being with guns and the final two of those within 5nm of the minesweepers.

[Airborne Rifles]

ORIGINAL: Primarchx

I know what you mean about being able to identify moments of drama. One comes to mind from playing Indian Fury - Socotra a week or so ago, where a pair of Tomcats are all that stood between an inbound squadron of Floggers and the mine-sweeping squadron at the mouth of the Red Sea. Those two Tomcats shredded over a dozen MiGs, with the last four kills being with guns and the final two of those within 5nm of the minesweepers.

Exactly this! Just your two-sentence AAR here is an exciting story. Games let you "live" the story a little bit, and a simulation like Command doesn't pigeonhole you into a single storyline like some games do. Dramatic things happen when all the real-life complexities come together on the screen.

[HalfLifeExpert]

ORIGINAL: Airborne Rifles

ORIGINAL: Primarchx

I know what you mean about being able to identify moments of drama. One comes to mind from playing Indian Fury - Socotra a week or so ago, where a pair of Tomcats are all that stood between an inbound squadron of Floggers and the mine-sweeping squadron at the mouth of the Red Sea. Those two Tomcats shredded over a dozen MiGs, with the last four kills being with guns and the final two of those within 5nm of the minesweepers.

Exactly this! Just your two-sentence AAR here is an exciting story. Games let you "live" the story a little bit, and a simulation like Command doesn't pigeonhole you into a single storyline like some games do. Dramatic things happen when all the real-life complexities come together on the screen.

Yes indeed, like when the first time I played USS Midway Vs Cuba, 1989, recounted in the first reply of this thread

tm.asp?m=4274435

[Airborne Rifles]

Here's your first "Northern Fury flashback from the '90s"! Check out Bart's blog post on the US 2nd Fleet, then, now, and in the world of Northern Fury:

2nd Fleet reactivated

[Airborne Rifles]

Check out our latest blog post on how the Northern Fury story gets told through CMANO scenarios:

From story to book, Part I

[Airborne Rifles]

Take a look as we talk about how Bart's CMANO scenarios become scenes in the book: From story to book, Part II

[i224747]

There is a reason why behind the scenes stuff for example of movies
are published after the film launch and not before. It makes a film
a construct and not an exciting story.

Give us another reading sample instead.

[Airborne Rifles]

Coming soon [:)]

[Badlandz]

Enjoyed the snippet. Can’t wait to find out if the AIM-9 hit!

Well written. The presentation has me wanting more.

Best of luck!