33LIMA

...and Atlantic Fleet's dynamic 'Battle of the Atlantic' campaign has got me playing, something that the mighty Fighting Steel's campaign system never managed to do. Even when a turn doesn't generate a battle that you're called to fight, the results update screens give you something really good to look at... And battles there are, a-plenty. I'm still finding my way and attacking cautiously to boot, avoiding risks rather than staying to fight it out toe-to-toe with the Royal Navy. At first, I keep my surface ships close to home waters and leave it to the U-Boats. Suddenly, I'm called to take over a battle that has developed. A mini-wolfpack, U-27 and U-28 working together, has encountered a small convoy and is well placed to attack, with one sub on either side. One is in a good position to have a crack at one of the two destroyer escorts, at the head of the convoy, and does so successfully, while the other goes for one of the merchantmen on the other side. The destroyer turns at the last minute, possibly having spotted my torpedoes. But my fan of three tin fish has been aimed with successive tracks short of the calculated interception point, in anticipation of a turn. He is quite badly knocked about by a single hit. Two of the other sub's torpedoes also hit home, crippling a cargo ship, which begins to go under. Before the second destroyer can intervene from its station at the rear of the convoy, my first sub uses the torpedo I kept in the front tubes for self-defence to hit another cargo ship. Then I disengage, rather than hanging around with the undamaged destroyer's asdic pinging and all our front torpedo tubes needing reloaded. Not long afterwards - I forget how long - the same two U-boats meet another convoy - with a battleship escort, as well as three destroyers. This time, the warships turn into my first sub's torpedoes and I have to settle for a hit from the other one, on a frieghter, which is damaged but does not sink. Again, rather than press my luck, I rather sheepishly go deep and disengage, passing up on the oportunity to sink a battleship as surprise has been well and truly lost. Plucking up my courage, I decide to move Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and a destroyer, Leberecht Maas, from a holding position off Norway. The three succeed in breaking out into the mid-Atlantic, to the same zone where my two U-boats have been finding plenty of pickings. My new-found valour is soon rewarded - my little battlefleet runs into a convoy, with just a single destroyer for escort! We work up to full speed and begin a turn to port, to bring us onto a converging course with the convoy. Suddenly, my plans are thrown into disarray - the convoy has air cover! A Sunderland flying boat bumbles in for a bombing run, undeterred by our flak. He must be operating at maximum range, from one of those lakeland bases in Northern Ireland. To make matters worse, his aim is good and a 250-lb bomb hits Maas, starting a fire. Verdamt! Fortunately, the Sunderland is on his own, and has shot his bolt. The enemy destroyer now makes smoke to screen the convoy as it turns away to flee, then he charges us, shooting, possibly trying to get within torpedo range. He lands a single hit on Maas, but my two battlecriusers give up shelling the retreating merchantmen to concentrate their fire on the threat steaming right at us. The bold destroyer soon goes down; my shooting eye seems to be in, today! And Maas succeeds in putting out the fire. She's a bit down by the bows, but still seaworthy and in action. I gather my force together. Guns silent for now, we rumble at top speed after the now-defenceless convoy. I hold my fire until we are practically on top of the fleeing ships, and after that it is really just a massacre. As I come abeam of the enemy, I switch from shooting with the forward 11-inch turrets and bring my 5.9 inch secondary batteries into play, to conserve the heavy-calibre ammunition. So, a good result for the tonnage war! Maas is damaged but operational, and I will send her home at once - mid-Atlantic is not really a healthy place for German destroyers, with their unreliable high-pressure machinery and endurance limited by the need to retain fuel as ballast, to counter top-heaviness. But having wiped out one convoy, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau will continue to prowl the North Atlantic for a while, slipping back to a friendly port before the Home Fleet arrives to make the area really unhealthy for us. Perhaps I will draw them onto our U-Boats! I have the impression that my two submarines had not reloaded their bow tubes when they ran into the second convoy, which may be a glitch; but that apart, I'm finding Atlantic Fleet's dynamic campaign really quite convincing - and rather addictive!

I really like the Custom Battle generator, which I have been using to have a crack with some of the aircraft in Atlantic Fleet, like the B-24 Liberator, which as well as an RAF Coastal Command version, is also available in USAAF finish (or should that be USN, in which case it's a PB4Y)... ...and there's the Short Sunderland, one of which was credited with shooting down six of Kampfgeschwader 40's Ju 88C long range fighters, in the Bay of Biscay in June 1943, only for the same mostly Aussie crew to fall victim to another KG40 formation, two months later... It's also a good way to set up practice missions of your own, up to the ten ships per side limit. I just got my first U-Boat kill while escorting a small convoy in an 'I' Class destroyer, though my slow reactions in turning the convoy away from the sonar contact astern meant that a tanker at the rear of the centre column caught a torpedo, before I could get after our assailant. I had a few cracks at the periscope with my guns, one of which I think did some damage, as the submarine seemed more intent upon putting another tin fish into the tanker, rather than getting away. I had a forward-firing 'Squid' but in my excitement, turned the wrong way at the last minute. Damn and blast! A rapid course reversal managed to take me over the U-Boat so I was able to let fly with my depth charges. I had slowed down a bit and was probably lucky they didn't blow my stern off, but nobody was more surprised than I, to find we got the sub. A great game. Simplified, but it just 'feels right' - all the fun of an arcade game, but with more than enough of the wargame and the combat simulation in there, to make it not feel like you're playing one. A hard balance to get right, but Killerfish have pulled it off. Great fun, rewarding of skill, jam-packed full of content, and a joy to behold. Love it.

I would have liked the ability in Custom Battles to be able to specify the location of the battle (which may not make much difference, as I haven't seen land and am not actually sure it exists, outside of the maps!) and to be able to set up an air attack without the need for at least one nearby ship, to 'call in the strike.' But create a little convoy, pick a sub to do battle with it, and the latter can call in the planes of your choice... The advantage of having a sub nearby, of course, is that he can deal with the survivors, surfacing to use the deck gun after letting go with the tin fish... The merchant ships are often modelled with AA or other deck guns and will certainly shoot at and sometimes knock down attacking planes, but they cannot engage surface targets, so your U-Boat is quite safe... I would definitely like the ability to designate targets for the AI to engage with guns, including the ability to engage in the same firing turn with different weapons; and faster rates of fire for smaller calibres. And for when you are gunning yourself, ranging with single shots, not salvoes, and the option to have wind and ship movement taken care of by your ship's analogue fire control computer in the Transmitting Station, so your role is more like that of the guys in the Director Control Tower, complete with some initial delay while you track the target, before feeding this down to the TS for them to factor in the rest, pass this on to the guns, and then sound the firing gong (you can hear them at about 49:40 here) so you can hit the Big Red Button. However, as it is, gunnery is very interesting and rather challenging, especially if you have wind effects turned on!

Couple of units I don't think I've illustrated before... ...British T Class submarine, above and below the surface: ...and a Lancaster, with 'Grand Slam' bomb (hitting Tirpitz while she's under way isn't as easy as when she's moored in a Norweigan fjord)... Missed her by several hundred feet! Still, it would have been a shame to have mangled such an elegant virtual warship!

Just had another go at Bismarck's last fight, playing again as RN but this time completing the battle. Not really a fair fight, even though Bismarck seems to have fixed her rudder damage! As on the last play-through, I manouevred King Geroge V and Rodney independently, while gradually closing in with my two County class cruisers. The un-damaged Bismarck is a more dangerous foe than in the real-life battle, managing to land hits on both my battleships, and starting a fire on Rodney, near 'C' turret. Still, we soon found the range and as per real life, Bismarck went down gallantly, with her colours shot off rather than struck. Down she went, to where Robert Ballard would find her, many years later. Come to think it, that might make a good sim, Jacques Clouseau/Robert Ballard Simulator. Anyone who has an interest in WW2 naval warfare really out to give this great big gem - it's certainly not a little gem - a go. I'm finding it a joy to play, and the ships, scenery and effects are lovely to behold.

Turn-based gameplay is not too bad for modern ground combat, where - at least from the time that fire and movement drills came into general use - troops in or expecting contact would tend to move in 'tactical bounds', with halts in between, for fire, observation or new orders. As real warships don't 'go firm' between moves, continuous gameplay is just innately better suited to naval warfare. Anyone designing a real-time WW2 naval battle game should really get an XP or earlier PC and familiarise themselves thoroughly with Fighting Steel. FS provides the tools and commands that are necessary to make continuous naval suface combat work, especially when you are in comamnd of several ships and are facing a similar-sized enemy force. For example, as the commander of a division, you can order 'targetting modes', which tell ships to engage (for example) either the greatest threat to themselves ('Threat targetting'), or the enemy opposite them ('Battleline targetting') and so on. The key thing is providing AI which enables subordinates to act according to such instructions, thereby avoiding the need for micro-management and click fests, while giving the player just enough time to think - at least, as much time as he would in real life. FS also lets you fight your own ship in detail, while giving such 'tactical directives' to your other captains. And even when fighting your own ship, you can designate targets and order speeds and courses, and the singe-ship-handling AI will do the rest, like engaging whatever targets you have designated, including using main battery and secondaries at the same time, against the same or different targets. This sort of approach won't go so far as being able to handle the full Battle of Leyte Gulf, which is more of an admiral-level, strategy game scenario, but it can adequately handle its components eg Samar. Atlantic Fleet is of course much superior to Fighting Steel in many ways, not least in integrating the land, planes and subs that FS had to leave out, and of course there's the massively superior visuals. And I would not under-estimate the challenge in getting all of these elements to work well in a real-time game, which FS's developers decided was too much, as their manual's 'designer's notes' make clear. Fighting Steel left out the land, planes and subs to make the project deliverable and the game workable; Atlantic Fleet adopted a turn-based approach. Both succeed nicely, in their own ways.

I agree Johan. Continuous gameplay is ideal, but not if it turns the game into a click-fest. Before I played Atlantic Fleet, I disliked the idea of its turn-based gameplay. Now I have been playing it, I'm appreciating that it has real benefits. And with the ability to turn off the on-screen aids - whose clever graphic design makes them quite unobtrusive, anyway - we can now enjoy the fancy graphics to the full. One neat detail I appreciate is the fact that the gun directors and rangefinders rotate so as to train with the guns, rather than being fixed:

Meanwhile, I tried some destroyer action, taking Jersey and Juno out to check up on reports of German destroyers on a possible minelaying sortie off the North Sea coast. The reports were correct. Two of those big enemy destroyers were indeed up to no good - Hans Lody and Erich Geise, as it was to turn out. We illuminated the enemy with starshell and set about seeing them off. The action that developed was extremely satisfying. The bigger battles in Atlantic Fleet can become a bit of a handful to manage, unless you slow the pace down a tad and take your time to re-orient yourself, each time you move to a new ship - which is one reason it would be good to have the option to designate targets for the AI to engage. But two on two, or thereabouts, is just about perfect! The Huns jinked this way and that and with their heavier guns, traded round for round, starshell for starshell, and torpedo for torpedo. Atlantic Fleet is at its very best in this sort of engagement, everything from destrover-vs-destroyer, to battleship-v-battleship. Juno was hit hard, but with the range winding down, she let go with a full salvo of torpedoes as the enemy raced past on a parallel track. Just when I thought I had missed - the AI in Atlantic Fleet seems to be reasonably good at spotting and 'combing' torpedo tracks - at least one tin fish ripped into Geise. She slowly lost way and began to go down by the bows. Jersey came hard about and headed straight for Lody at top speed, her fire becoming increasingly accurate as the range came down. Head on, Jersey was a difficult target and though she took some hits, salvo after salvo from 'A' and 'B' turrets crashed into Lody. By the time Lody had rolled over and begun to go down, both Juno and Geise had already slipped beneath the dark waves, and Jersey, while still under way and with all guns in action, was struggling to control fires in her superstructure. Britannia still ruled the waves, but a high price had been paid. Brilliant! Simply brilliant!

I think this is sea-battles only! Apart from the maps, I have not seen land yet, let alone shelled it! I have never tried to sail a damaged ship back to port after a battle, or tried to see if I could take Scharnhorst up to shell Spitzbergen (Operation Sicily)! Amphibious operations are not really a good fit with the Battle of the Atlantic, but I suppose they may feature in Pacific Fleet (PC) and Mediterranean Fleet, if we get them.

Some more screenshots: If you've played Silent Hunter 3, you'll remember stalking Barham in U-331. Well, this is the Atlanic Fleet version: Some U-Boat action against the convoys: Scharnhorst finds HMS Glorious, in the North Sea: Adent and Acasta try to screen the carrier with smoke (which is still too effective, blocking a 'firing solution' even when there is still a line of sight) : Stringbag -vs- Salmon and Gluckstein, after Glorious manages to launch a single strike, before a hit on her flight deck puts a sudden halt to flying operations: But it all goes horribly Pete Tong: I would really like the ability to engage a second taget with a secondary armament in the same firing turn, and I am wondering whether the turn-based firing system takes any account of different rates of fire between lighter and heavier guns. At any rate the overall effect is really something, and the turn-based gameplay means it isn't a click-fest, but provides time to think...which I need lots of!

Yes I definitely think a Mediterranean version could have a great deal to offer and be very attractive to many of us. It was an important theatre, not least those who served, including the Italian seamen who ran terrific risks keeping the front in Noth Africa supplied, or trying to, an effort largely unsung, though remembered in the memorial in the harbour at Naples:

Here's a little more info on the 'Battle of the Atlantic' campaign - the dynamic option. I had started one with the Kriegsmarine, which begins at the start of World War 2, which for Britain began on 3 September 1939. The campaign starts with several Germans units at sea, in various parts of the Atlantic, pre-deployed as they were in anticipation of hostilities. By clicking on each of the icons at bottom centre of the map screen, as seen below, you can call up in turn a display of the names of the sea areas ('Abc'), convoy sightings or lanes, a weather report, or the composition of any of your deployed units (the white ship and sub icons in the map). The blue circles on the map are 'zones', where I think contacts could occur. At first, I thought this was a purely map-based strategic campaign - it seems to advance sometimes without a battle occuring that you participate in, although enemy tonnage is reported lost as the days advance. However, a few days in, a battle did indeed come my way, as the 'pocket battleship' (really a heavy cruiser optimised for commerce raiding) Lutzow encountered a convoy in mid-Atlantic, with but a single destroyer - the big 'Tribal' class HMS Afridi - for escort! The AI in Atlantic Fleet I find rather convincing. The destrover first made smoke to cover the retreat of the convoy, which turned away. The valiant Afridi then turned towards us in a series of wide zig-zags, firing and gradually closing the range. This is classic WW2 destroyer stuff, taking the fight to a bigger foe, knowing he will be wary of the deadly fans of torpedoes the little warship can unleash. It was good to be able to use the newly-added ability to turn off the on-screen aids completely, the better to see the action, here at maximum zoom in the Gunnery Officer's view: Afridi wasn't an easy target and she managed to land a couple of hits, despite Lutzow taking avoiding action and not letting her get too close. But the end was inevitable... After that, the way was clear...apart from Armed Merchant Cruisers, merchantmen in Atlantic Fleet are unarmed, so it was now a case of running down the convoy and snapping up the helpless ships at my leisure, however distasteful the job would be. This is where it got interesting. I fired off a few ranging rounds at the left-hand ship, then simply sped after them, saving my ammunition until the range had wound down. I was very surprised to see my target turn hard to port and leave the convoy, while the others maintained formation. Now, that's what I call human-like AI! Much more convincing than entirely herd-like behaviour - somebody had decided that safety didn't lie in mumbers, but in making a run for it! Little good his initiative did him, sadly... After that, it really was more like shooting rats in the proverbial barrel, nothing more than some useful gunnery practice. The results were entirely satisfactory, but for anyone with a sense of what this is simulating, it was also sobering, and yes, somewhat distateful, even in a game. If I could have turned around and put out some boats to pick up virtual survivors, it would have made me feel a little less like a murderer. That was that. Convoy and escort wiped out. From a coldly military perspective, a fair few tons of supplies would not now be reaching Mr Churchill in his beleaguered island. If that brought a quicker end to all this nastiness, the loss of the lives of all those brave sailors, enemies or no, might not be in vain. It's not difficult to get caught up in the spirit of those dark days, playing Atlantic Fleet! I did encounter two problems here, though. I could not work out how to quit and save the campaign - perhaps because I moved on a screen too far, and ended up with another generated battle, whose launch screen didn't seem to have any exit, other than to play the battle. This was an encounter between Admiral Scheer (sister ship of Lutzow and Admiral Graf Spee) and another British destroyer. Towards the end of this one-sided fight in poor weather, my screen suddenly went black as my video driver crashed. Not sure what the problem was. Anyhow, the dynamic campaign looks really rather good, possibly even more so than the other, 'battle generator' campaign. I'm just amazed that Atlantic Fleet, for a very modest price, packs not just a great range of historical sea battles, and a custom mission generator, but two different, well-executed campaign systems. With the great range of ships, excellent visuals and the absorbing gameplay to experience all of this, I doubt we'll see a better example of the game developer's art this year. And to be any better value, they'd need to be paying you to play it. Atlantic Fleet is to 'serious' PC games what the 'pocket battleship' was to 1930s warship design, packing one hell of a punch into a long-legged, well-specified but compact platform - in short, revolutionary!

PS another possible follow-on would be Mediterranean Fleet. The Atlantic Fleet map already covers the area. Mediterranean Fleet could add French and Italian ships and for the RN, Ark Royal, a less-reconstructed Queen Elizabeth class model for Barham, and a couple of additional cruiser classes. There's plenty of scope for some great and really varied day and night historical single battles, like Mers-el-Kebir, Taranto, Matapan, Spartivento and Pedestal/the Malta convoys. A great campaign based on the tonnage war concept could be built around the RN and RAF trying to cut the German/Italian supply lines to North Africa, while the Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe, Regia Aeronautica and Regia Marina try to do the same, to the supply lines to Malta. Some of WW2's most intense and memorable aero-naval battles were fought in a comparatively small theatre and this would be a great subject for an Atlantic Fleet follow-on.

Thanks Stary, that seems to have worked! The campaigns...and the verdict! I’m not going to delve into Atlantic Fleet’s two campaign systems in the same detail as the historical and custom battles. In part that’s because in describing the latter, I’ve described a lot of what you also get, when on campaign. But also it’s because I’ve a limited interest in naval campaigns. I think campaigns the very heart of tanksims or air combat sims, as they provide an immersive context for the short missions involved. But my idea of a campaign for a warship or sea-battle simulator (and AF is mainly in the latter category) is not a campaign, but a patrol or cruise, or a series of these, for the same ship or sub – a career might be a better term. It’s the sort of thing you get in Silent Hunter, your sub or ship setting out on a long-ish trip with a particular, nefarious aim in mind, typically the destruction or protection of enemy shipping, merchant or otherwise. Like Fighting Steel or more recently Victory at Sea, what we get instead with Atlantic Fleet is a campaign, with the player cast in the role as commander of his side’s forces in a given theatre or zone– and for Atlantic Fleet, the campaign we get is, of course, the Battle of the Atlantic. I should say ‘campaigns’, because there are in fact two distinct campaigns, which we will come to in a moment. What I am going to do is offer an illustrated description of what you get, much or more of which you could also likely glean from the Atlantic Fleet manual. Single battles are my thing with a WW2 naval sim so I’ve so far spent no appreciable little time with either of Atlantic Fleet campaigns. But I am impressed that we get two different campaign systems, not just one, each playable as either Royal Navy or Kriegsmarine. You get more content with this game, from a small ‘indie’ dev team, than we’re sadly but often accustomed to getting, from many a more expensive product from a bigger games developer. And this is combined with production values and gameplay to match or beat the best of them. I feel perhaps that in the current climate ('Super Tuesday' being not far back) I should be waving a big card annotated ‘Killerfish for President!’, but I’ll settle for buying their game and telling you how good it is. Ok, back on topic - the campaigns. One of these is a set of 50 missions or battles. The other one is a dynamic campaign. Both are set, as you should expect, in the Atlantic. Both allow the player to take either side. The 50-battle campaign casts the player in the role of an Admiral in charge of a Task Force. The battles are generated in different zones in the Atlantic and you win 'renown points' by sinking enemy ships. You win the campaign, by gaining at least a given level of these points, in the last mission. On the way there, you use the points you win to 'buy' new ships, to make up losses or add to your force. The battles increase in difficulty, as you go. Basically, my impression is that it's a sort of semi-random mission generator that tracks results. The campaign starts with a list of battles like the single battles screen, except that details are hidden, apart from where the battle will be. Launch the battle and you are given an enemy - this time, a lone merchantman, such as could proceed independently from a convoy, if they were fast enough. The war has just started and I have but a little 'renown' - which I need, to choose the ship or ships I will take into this battle. So I can forget about starting with 'Scharnhorst'! Instead, I select a single type VII U-Boat, which should be enough for this single enemy - I believe merchantmen are unarmed in Atlantic Fleet. After that, I launch the battle and it's all familiar stuff, from the training missions and the single battles I have already played. This is very early in the war, before planes closed the 'mid-Atlantic gap' and harried surfaced U-Boats to destruction everywhere, so with the enemy heading away at a speed I can't match running underwater, I surface and begin shelling my quarry with the deck gun. Anyway, that's enought to provide a flavour of the first type of campaign, which looks sufficiently interesting to tempt me away from playing purely single battles, much thought I love 'em. As for the alternative dynamic 'Battle of the Atlantic' campaign, this cleverly simulates the 'tonnage war' of the real conflict - the battle of the convoys. Playing as Royal Navy, your aim is to make sure as much shipping as possible gets through to the UK. For the Kriegsmarine, your aim, again as it was in real life, is to stop as much as you can, from getting through. Sinking enemy warships (including subs) gets you some of those 'renown points' which you can use as before, to acquire more resources. The RN wins the Battle of the Atlantic' campaign if they destroy enough of the German warships or achieve a high enough level of success over a period, in preventing the Kreigsmarine from sinking Allied shipping. If, conversely, the Germans sink enough of their shipping, the British may sue for peace! A draw will eventually result in an Allied win, as enough supplies are adjudged to have got through, to launch the invasion of Normandy. I am most impressed with the (for want of a better word) historicity of this campaign, which nicely captures the real strategic position, and so creates the feeeling that you are being drawn back in time. i'm going to need to spend a bit of time to get the hang of the dynamic campaign, as the interface is quite different, but what I have seen, looks most impressive. Below are some screens from September 1939, as the week-by-week campaign plays through from the German side. Again, this looks all very polished, most tempting even to this dyed-in-the-wool player of single naval battles. Air power can feature in both types of campaign. You can re-start a played campaign from scratch when finished, though this over-writes your saved one - so it seems that you can have one of each type, for each side, on the go at one time, for a total of four. There's no named profiles for your game alter ego, so no campaign for each - not that it's needed. The Verdict I try in text and pictures to make my reviews primarily descriptive, so you can see and read enough about the game to form your own opinion as to whether you’ll like it or not. However, if I see something I like I’ll say so, and if you have read this far, you can’t have failed to notice how impressed I have been with Atlantic Fleet. It’s not all plain sailing. I would have really liked the ability to designate targets, for the AI to do the shooting. Yes the gunnery is fun, indeed it’s presently the beating heart of the game. But it would be good to let you just role-play the captain or admiral when you wanted, and concentrate on choreographing the battle; or just spend more time watching, photographing or filming it. And when you are ‘gunning’, your firing solution often gives up because of smoke from a ship, even if it’s not yet obscuring your intended target. And I do believe that continuous but pause-able combat would be preferable to the discontinuous turn-based approach, which, though common in computer wargames, means the game mechanics are simulating a wargame, rather than war. The planes are decent but a bit low-polygon and in an ideal world we’d have a 4-stack, flush-decked US destroyer, a 'DE', another class or two of British cruisers, 3-d models which captured major differences between sister ships, and camouflage variations over time. But these are not significant shortcomings, of what we’ve got now. Rather, they are things that could make Atlantic Fleet even better than it is. Which is really, REALLY good. So let’s get down to my verdict. You’ll make up your own mind, naturally, but we will finish up here with what’s in mine....after another nice screenshot, that is. You've seen most of this already if you have indeed read this far, but to sum up... ...things I really like about Atlantic Fleet include: - the truly excellent coverage of the forces involved, complete with the ability to select individual, named/numbered ships or subs, everything from HMS Hood to U-47, plus a decent set of aircraft; - the resulting convincing level of simulation you get, of action above, on and below the waves, master not of all trades no doubt but a very, very good jack of all of them; - the rather exquisite quality of the ship models, both as regards 3-d models and their textures, with very few reservations; - the beautiful water and other environmental and visual effects; - the relative ease with which you can pick up on the different elements of the game mechanics (if not excell at all of it, without practice!) - related to that, the highly accessible, interesting and challenging implementation of the elements of the naval gunnery function that they've covered, with clever provision of a complimentary suite of useful tools; - the really excellent set of historical sea-fights included; - the very well-done and really useful training missions; - the custom battle generator; - the well-executed mission and world maps; - very well executed camera controls and view system; - clever, effective but unobtrusive implementation of on-screen aids and controls; - the very high production values, visible in the clean, effective design of screens and menus and in the super menu background artwork; - the inclusion of two highly-featured campaigns, each playable from either side; - the very low price; - the good manual; - the developer's continued commitment to the product; - the excellent musical score; - last but not least, the overall effect achieved by the bringing together of so very many well-executed elements, such that the Atlantic Fleet whole is indeed greater than the sum of its many and nicely-crafted parts. Things I think could be better are: - the facility to designate targets for an AI Gunnery Officer would relieve workload when handling bigger divisions and enable a player to better role-play ship/division commander; - continuous rather than turn-based gameplay would be an improvement; - smoke from a ship often seems to prevent a 'firing solution' being obtained, even if the ship is still clearly in line of sight; - I think it would be more realistic to be able to engage with primary and secondary guns in the same firing turn; - the ability to save custom battles would be good; - significant variations between sister ships visible in the 3-d models would be good, as would variations, over time, in camouflage finishes; - a USN flush-decked, four-stack destroyer; a Destroyer Escort of some class; and a few more classes of British cruisers, would nicely top out the really great set of ships we have now; - I would like to see brighter, more 'violent-looking' gunflashes and bigger smoke from them - watch the Prinz Eugen film of Bismarck and you will see what I mean. The excessive smoke screening effect may have been fixed in the current beta (and I'm glad it's also tackling some of the rather poor open cockpit pilot figures, not that they are a significant issue). All in all, on this scale... 5 - Must Buy - Delivers a consistently outstanding experience with minimal flaws that do not detract from the gameplay in any significant way. 4 - Highly Recommended - Delivers a fun and enjoyable experience well worth your time and money, despite some room for improvement. 3 - Recommended - Delivers a solid gameplay experience with a few irritations that occasionally disrupt enjoyment. 2 - Difficult to Recommend - Delivers some of the promised fun, but not without significant problems in the gameplay experience. 1- Not Recommended - Delivers a sub-par gameplay experience; doesn't fulfill its promises; offers more bugs than fun. ...this reviewer's final score can only be a most richly-deserved: 5 - Must buy. This is one of those rare, genre-defining games that re-sets the standard for games development everywhere, a standard that the biggest and brightest of game studios could justly be proud of. From a small, independent developer it's a real tour de force and in my reckoning, everyone involved in Atlantic Fleet can stand up and take a very well-earned bow (followed by a decent shot of grog, should they so desire). Talent and the intelligent application thereof just shine through every screen and at every turn of Atlantic Fleet. This a must-have. Even if you absolutely loathe WW2 naval combat, or the mere sight of simulated shipping or water makes you sea-sick, the object lesson you will get from Atlantic Fleet in How To Deliver Gaming Excellence is alone worth the modest price of admission. Very well done, Killerfish! More of this, please! An update of Pacific Fleet to this standard, ported to PC, would be a great next step, and some DLC for Atlantic Fleet would also be very buy-able. Go, Killerfish, go! Thanks for a great game!

Good news and thanks Stary. Steam is prompting for a beta acess code, though.

Custom battles Before moving on to what you can do with the 'Custom Battles' option, I'll give you a quick flavour of a few others amongst the thirty historical sea fights that come with Atlantic Fleet. There’s the Battle of the Barents Sea, with two German forces, in darkness and snow showers, trying to catch an Arctic convoy, while British cruisers attempt a rescue. As seen in the screenshot above, this mission shows off some nice weather effects, and the ability to improve your shooting in low light by firing starshells. Having six ships on the German side is a bit of a handful to manage. Each time you move to a new ship, it helps to call up the map to get your bearings all over again, especially as the six German destroyers are in two groups, on opposite sides of the convoy. A minor visual quibble is that Lutzow is represented by the 3-d model of Graf Spee, but the former had a quite, different, boxier bridge (the other ‘pocket battleship’, Admiral Scheer, started off looking like Graf Spee but was rebuilt with a much slimmer, Lutzow-like conning tower during the war). This is one of those classes where variations in the 3-d model would be good to see! Cornwall –versus- Pinguin is a bit one-sided, but as the battle starts with the disguised raider close on your beam, having evidently fooled you into thinking he’s a harmless merchant vessel, you may well take some hits! The sun is low and the lighting effects on the new sea visuals added for the PC port are much in evidence. Ships sink moderately slowly in Atlantic Fleet and this can be a good mission to enjoy the sights and sounds of a vessel heading for Davey Jones’s locker! The Battle of the River Plate is a really classic naval battle, good to play from either standpoint, as the Graf Spee or as Exeter, Ajax and Achilles. Can Captain Langsdorff nail his pesky, lighter foes before their combined fires do him serious damage? Or can Commodore Harwood sink the pocket battleship before it can make good an escape, without losing any of his own cruisers? The Graf Spee was one of the classic warship designs from the period, and it’s great to the opportunity to fight virtual battles in such an excellent replica. Ajax and Achilles are really nicely represented too, reminding me of the Airfix model (I had a FROG Exeter, too!) Before leaving the Single Battles in our wake, we need to say something more about the included Custom Battle option. Here, you can set up a fight between up to ten ships or subs on either side. Here’s the set-up screen: Click the 'Add ship' button for each side in turn, takes you to a ship viewer screen, where you can tab through the vessels available for each side. Here are some that we have I think not seen before in this review: Due to the ability to adopt different tactics, I reckon the included thirty set-piece, historical battles provide Atlantic Fleet with more than enough re-playability, so for me, the Custom Battle option is really icing on that cake. You can fight a real battle with different ships or subs, or create one of your own, perhaps with ship types only otherwise seen on campaign. This option is also a great ship viewer, for in choosing ships, you get to view them, as seen below. Note that you can choose any ship in the modelled class. Killerfish tell us there are 60 distinct classes included, representing about 630 individual ships and around 350 individual submarines! It would be good to see the odd physical difference thrown in here, perhaps just a different camouflage pattern for each ship (or like in Fighting Steel, the ability to choose your camouflage pattern, even if that game’s options usually weren’t historically accurate). Still, even if the names are just...well, names, the variety is most impressive, adding depth to the game’s breadth....or is it breadth to the game's depth :) To digress slightly, as with the single battles, ending a custome fight prematurely rather strangely forces you to do this by selecting the option to scuttle your ships. I think this happens if you end an unresolved mission while still in contact with the enemy. There is a 'Disengage' alternative, but you must have broken contact, before this is available. After ending a mission, you get a results screen, like this one: Back to the choice of ships available, this is Atlantic Fleet, so while it might be nice to have had a Strasbourg or a Conte di Cavour, good coverage of historical British and German navies is what we really need here – and that is exactly what we get. ‘What if’s’ like the uncompleted German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin I can also well live without. We do get a USN North Carolina class battleship, which is useful and appropriate, since the USS Washington served initially in the Atlantic, to reinforce the Home Fleet after the USA joined the war. The good selection of merchant vessels (and for the German side, disguised raiders) is also most welcome. Subs and carriers are less varied, but enough to ‘fly the flag’. For the German side, we have Type VII and Type IX U-boats while the British have an escort carrier, a light carrier and a fleet carrier. For aircraft, we have the Ju 87, Focke-Wulf Condor and Do 217 for the Germans, and the Sunderland and Liberator patrol bombers (RAF and US variants), Avenger, Swordfish and Barracuda torpedo bombers, and Seafire and Wildcat fighters, for the Allies. Atlantic Fleet’s order of battle is well balanced and ideal for its scope – most comprehensive, leaving room only for a few ‘nice-to-haves’, like a 4-stack US destroyer or variant 3-d models for ‘half-sisters’. So, we have now seen how Atlantic Fleet handles its core business – simulating WW2 naval combat. At this, it does a great job. The super ship models for me are the stars, really bringing the battles to life. The environmental visuals are very good indeed. Sounds and visual effects are good – I’d have preferred bigger, brighter gun-flashes with blast effects on the water and certainly, bigger smoke clouds from firing would have been more realistic. Firing and hit sounds could perhaps have been a tad more dramatic. But they do the job – audio highlights are the sounds of ships sinking and of incoming rounds. Shell splashes – a very important thing for a WW2 naval sim to do well – are very good, as are explosions – realistic, not ‘fuel-filled Hollywood’ style. Smoke from smokescreens and fires is also well done. Bow and stern waves, I would like a little more pronounced, at higher speeds. I would have preferred continuous gameplay, to the rather anachronistic turn-based approach, but that said, playing, it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it did, watching gameplay videos. In fact the turns system actually works quite well, in terms of helping the player manage the gameplay - in effect, providing a fixed ‘pause while you have a think’ option. There are several things it would be nice to have, like a functional stereoscopic or co-incidence rangefinder view and more importantly, the ability to designate targets, for an AI Gunnery Officer to do the rest. Apart from anything else, that would make handling multiple ships much easier – now, with more than a couple of ships, the micro-management can become more tedious than fun (with just the limited ‘fleet move;’ option to fall back upon, at the expense of sacrificing a firing turn phase). It would also be good, within reason, to allow the use of different weapons in the same firing turn – for example in the famous film of Bismarck taken from Prinz Eugen during the Battle of the Denmark Straits, the former is clearly engaging Prince of Wales with her primary and secondary batteries, with salvoes from each sometimes in rapid succession. It’s said rather prosaically of football (soccer, to our US friends) ‘It’s a game of two halves’. It’s much the same for Atlantic Fleet, whose CombatAce review has now reached the half-time break. In the first half, we saw the basic features and the single battle capabilities, which I hope you have gathered I found pretty hugely impressive. In the second half, we’ll look at the campaign side – and there are two distinct variations on offer, when some sims don’t have one (or one good one). Truly, Atlantic Fleet seems about as wide as the ocean it’s named for. But we’ll come back with that, after the break. So put on the kettle, break out the biccies (or tinnies, if in Oz) and I’ll see you shortly. I just need to pull myself away from playing those addictive single battles and settle down to trying to win a war! Coming in Part 2 - the campaigns and the verdict!

Yes guys, it's quite a package. Silberpfeil, I'm pretty sure the red line and blue airstrike marker are fixed, and not affected by the difficulty setting. I believe these markers are essential to be able to direct fire and airstrikes, although they may be mod-able eg replaceble with transluscent or slimmer graphics. It's worth pointing out that as the screenies show, the markers only appear while you are using them for their assigned purpose during the 'Fire' part of the 4-part turn sequence - they disappear, the rest of the time, so your view of the action is not spoilt by these 'gamey' on-screen markers. As for USN ships, I have seen some merchantmen flying the Stars and Stripes, but the only US-flagged warships I have seen are these: It would have been good to see at least a 4-stack flush-decked US destroyer (and maybe a DE as well) but I don't think she's there. Assiming the PC version of Atlantic Fleet is as successful as it deserves to be, FWIW I reckon that similar treatment for Pacific Fleet would be a sensible next move, though there is talk of a world-wide version being a future project.

Couldn't agree more - my sentiments exactly! This is an instant classic - it's that good.