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I have read the Harpoon 2 strategy guide and I still have some few questions. Forgive me if they sound obvious. I’m just learning about naval warfare and am trying to figure out a few things before I actually buy this game.

1) Does the manual have the typical amount/type of armaments that are on each type of plane, ship, and sub? Will it give the approximate range of the missile/torpedo and how it finds its targets (HARM, infrared, acoustic, laser, ect…)? It will be even harder to determine the saturation rate of a single ship, let alone a battle group unless we know what defenses the enemy has. Wikipedia is informative, but there’s no way to know whether that information is accurate, or more importantly if it’s accurate in relation to the game.

2) How do you do a battle damage assessment when the only assets you have are ships (CVN’s notwithstanding)? How do you do recon, at the beginning of a scenario, when you don’t have any air assets? Do you just choose a picket ship with adequate AAW defenses and send it out in a search pattern and have it turn on its radar briefly every few minutes?

3) Is HCE suited for beginners? There is so much information in the strategy guide that I wonder if I will end up being overwhelmed.

4) The strategy guide had said it was good to try to attack from several different directions at the same time to overwhelm the enemy ship’s defenses. But then it also said that you should try to fire all of your missiles at one specific point of a ship or battle group to ensure that your attack will be more than the saturation rate. Is it just me or do these ideas seem to contradict themselves?

5) How difficult/tedious is it to achieve simultaneous time on top (stop) on an enemy ship/battle group? Is there some automation to help, or do you have to detail the altitude for all planes and missiles along with the launch times, points, and directions of you strike plan?

6) How feasible is it for a surface ship to avoid a torpedo that has been fired from an enemy sub that has penetrated your inner screen?

7) How well do your subs follow the exclusion zones when they are on patrol? How would you know if one of your subs is firing a torpedo against an enemy sub, or if it was an enemy sub firing a torpedo at your surface ships? It would be unfortunate to mistake one of your subs for an enemy while conducting ASW.

8) When one of your ships damaged to the point that sinking is inevitable do you send another ship towards the sinking one to pick up survivors, or is it every ship for themselves? Is there anyway to direct the crew to try to repair the damaged ship so it is seaworthy?

9) How would you include your subs in strike planning if you rarely have contact with them?

10) Is there a strategy guide for HCE?

ORIGINAL: gbnf
I have read the Harpoon 2 strategy guide and I still have some few questions. Forgive me if they sound obvious. I’m just learning about naval warfare and am trying to figure out a few things before I actually buy this game.

Oy, lots of questions, but I'm sure you'll get all the answers on this forum in short order. I'll give it a shot to start off...

1) Does the manual have the typical amount/type of armaments that are on each type of plane, ship, and sub? Will it give the approximate range of the missile/torpedo and how it finds its targets (HARM, infrared, acoustic, laser, ect…)? It will be even harder to determine the saturation rate of a single ship, let alone a battle group unless we know what defenses the enemy has. Wikipedia is informative, but there’s no way to know whether that information is accurate, or more importantly if it’s accurate in relation to the game.

The manual won't tell you about available loadouts for a given aircraft, or the specific offensive and defensive systems of a particular ship or submarine. This kind of information is found in the game's database, which in turn is capable of being edited by you. As such, different user databases will often contain differing information.

2) How do you do a battle damage assessment when the only assets you have are ships (CVN’s notwithstanding)? How do you do recon, at the beginning of a scenario, when you don’t have any air assets? Do you just choose a picket ship with adequate AAW defenses and send it out in a search pattern and have it turn on its radar briefly every few minutes?

Thats a strategy and tactics issue, but without any air assets to try and sniff out an enemy force, your picket idea is on the right track.

3) Is HCE suited for beginners? There is so much information in the strategy guide that I wonder if I will end up being overwhelmed.

HCE is extremely well suited for beginners. The scenarios also have varying levels of complexity so you can work your way into more difficult and challenging battles.

4) The strategy guide had said it was good to try to attack from several different directions at the same time to overwhelm the enemy ship’s defenses. But then it also said that you should try to fire all of your missiles at one specific point of a ship or battle group to ensure that your attack will be more than the saturation rate. Is it just me or do these ideas seem to contradict themselves?

They're not contradictory, but do require some explanation. A group of enemy ships, for example, might have its better anti-air warfare (AAW) asset(s) in one sector of the formation. So, you might want to try and attack that group from the direction of a different sector. However, at the same time and if at all possible, you want to keep as many sectors of that formation busy trying to defend against your attack. As a general rule, and it depends on the strength of the target, you should try to assign 2-3 times as many weapons as you need, in order to ensure a successful penetration of enemy defenses.

5) How difficult/tedious is it to achieve simultaneous time on top (stop) on an enemy ship/battle group? Is there some automation to help, or do you have to detail the altitude for all planes and missiles along with the launch times, points, and directions of you strike plan?

Not particularly difficult, but you do need to do some rough calculation of aircraft endurance/combat radius, aircraft speed, etc. For example, all aircraft in the same formation will travel at the cruise speed of the slowest aircraft, but that might not be a great idea if the aircraft have considerably different endurance.

6) How feasible is it for a surface ship to avoid a torpedo that has been fired from an enemy sub that has penetrated your inner screen?

It depends. If the enemy sub has already penetrated your inner screen, then engagement range is probably pretty short. Most often, I'll be betting on the torpedo to win that battle, but it always depends on the sophistication of the torpedo and the speed of the ship being engaged. There are no torpedo decoys modeled (yet).

quote]7) How well do your subs follow the exclusion zones when they are on patrol? How would you know if one of your subs is firing a torpedo against an enemy sub, or if it was an enemy sub firing a torpedo at your surface ships? It would be unfortunate to mistake one of your subs for an enemy while conducting ASW.

There are no exclusion zones as there are in H3ANW. However, as HCE takes a sort of 'top down' approach to control of the fleet, you will always know where each of your assets are located at any given time, and thus there is no opportunity for fratricide. The same cannot be said for unknown contacts and neutrals.

8) When one of your ships damaged to the point that sinking is inevitable do you send another ship towards the sinking one to pick up survivors, or is it every ship for themselves? Is there anyway to direct the crew to try to repair the damaged ship so it is seaworthy?

There is no automatic search and rescue. Modeling SAR in some appreciable way is something we're looking at. Damage is automatically repaired over time, if it can be repaired at all.

9) How would you include your subs in strike planning if you rarely have contact with them?

You always have contact with them.

10) Is there a strategy guide for HCE?

Not officially, but there are plenty of useful sources and forums where you can glean that kind of information. Much of what you might use for other naval warfare simulations can be applied to HCE.

Thanx for the quick and informative responsive, I was afraid my questions might seem silly to all of the veterans out there [:)]
 
In reference to my question about having contact with your own subs, the H2 strategy guide said that a sub only comes up for conduct once every 3rd waypoint, unless a HVU was using some type of special underwater communication device.  However, if you're always able to contact the sub, then that's one less thing to worry about.
 
How often do you have to deal with multiple thermal layers when conducting ASW missions?  It seems almost a random chance of finding a sub if there were 3 different thermal layers that block most of the passive signals.  How effective is the MAD in deeper waters, can it penetrate the thermal layers?
 
Is weather a factor for sonar in the game?
 
Any idea what "SAU" stands for?  I couldn't find it in the glossary for the game even though it was referenced several times in the book.  Wikipedia and google weren't much help either.
 
Since there isn't a strategy guide for HCE, what other books would you recommend reading, besides H2 strategy guide?

ORIGINAL: gbnf
Thanx for the quick and informative responsive, I was afraid my questions might seem silly to all of the veterans out there [:)]

No problem. As I'm sure you've heard before, there are no silly questions (well, maybe very few), none of them around here.[;)]

How often do you have to deal with multiple thermal layers when conducting ASW missions? It seems almost a random chance of finding a sub if there were 3 different thermal layers that block most of the passive signals.

There is only one thermal layer at work in HCE.

How effective is the MAD in deeper waters, can it penetrate the thermal layers?

IIRC, MAD is only effective to the Intermediate depth.

Is weather a factor for sonar in the game?

Yes, I believe it is.

Any idea what "SAU" stands for? I couldn't find it in the glossary for the game even though it was referenced several times in the book. Wikipedia and google weren't much help either.

No idea. What's the context?

Since there isn't a strategy guide for HCE, what other books would you recommend reading, besides H2 strategy guide?

See this thread: tm.asp?m=1578087

SAU was mentioned in action groups along with SAG's.  I read that SAG is surface action group, but no clue what SAU is.
 
 
Are there supply ships in CVBG's, and how long would it normally take to resupply a CG or DD?  Would the ship resupply immediately after a battle, or have to wait for a pre-arranged time?  Do supply ships have defensive capabilities, or are the just floating powder kegs?

Perhaps SAU = Surface Action Unit? (guessing) Supply ships are modelled (ie they exist in the database) but there is no resupply in the game. Ships start with all the weapons they will ever have during that scenario, and aircraft can be reloaded as often as you want. This means that given enough time, one can run a surface target out of SAMs for an eventual kill by simple attrition, but historically that has been counterbalanced by the tendency of the SAMs not to respect little details like the radar horizon, rate of fire limits, and control channel limits. I'm not yet sure to what degree the latest version addresses those issues.

One last thing (for the time being), why doesn't anyone put in AAR's anymore?  I found them to be rather informative. They ususally included what the scenario was about and what they had to face.  But more importantly, some of the people included why they did certain things and the potential consequences(good & bad) of those choices. 

ORIGINAL: gbnf
One last thing (for the time being), why doesn't anyone put in AAR's anymore? I found them to be rather informative. They ususally included what the scenario was about and what they had to face. But more importantly, some of the people included why they did certain things and the potential consequences(good & bad) of those choices.

Producing an AAR can be quite a bit of work, and its hard to get players to put the effort into an AAR these days. They are invaluable, as you have pointed out, and highly valued by the scenario designer especially. There are still some folks who will produce them tirelessly, Herman Hum being one of them. You can find plenty of AARs at HarpGamer.

Would the information in "Harpoon Battlebook" be useful for HCE, or is the info outdated?

I've just got the battlebook and it is useful - the info on strategy is as good now as it was then - little has changed in recent years regarding this. Also - and I may be corrected by someone with greater knowledge - most of the unit information is still relatively accurate. Less money has been available for the superpowers' navies since the end of the cold war so there hasn't been massive advancements in this area.
As I said, others will know more than me on this but I do have the book and I find it valuable - I've only recently come back to the game after being addicted to the original version years and years ago