33LIMA

Bon Dieu de mille Bons Dieux! Now, that would be nice to see, both in Atlantic Fleet and Victory at Sea. The latter has a Richelieu rather than a Dunkerque; as with many VaS ships, it's quite recognisable, but takes considerable liberties with the relative positions of many of the ship's main features, things which it would have surely been as easy to get right. The cruiser la Galissonniere looks a lot more accurate, complete with what I expect are Vichy-style air recognition colours on her turrets:

First and foremost, the air lanes there ought to have been closed. To say only MANPADS had been used before, is no excuse. We all know how that goes...you fly higher to avoid them, so the other side gets better missiles. The airspace should have been closed. And if/when it wasn't, the airlines hould have stopped using it. The idiocy or greed of those who kept the airspace open was the first link in the immediate chain of events that brought down all those poor people. The idiocy or greed of the airlines who kept flying through that airspace anyway, was the second. If they want to bring somebody to justice, they know where they can make a start, right now.

+1 to both the above. I really, really hope any 'gameplay adjustments' include enabling real-time play, preferably with a pause button, to replace turn-based. It may be what PC wargamers are used to and possibly quite ok for ground combat; but for naval warfare, I find it incredibly irritating, comical if it wasn't so frustrating. I hope they also add the ability to designate targets for each level of armament, rather than as it appears now, having to take every shot yourself. VaS suffers from this too, but the AI control option helps. The manual fire control option in AF looks quite clever in its way, but it should be like playing as gunner in a tanksim, the action goes on. Some such tweaks for the PC release would indeed take AF to a higher level altogether, sort of Destroyer Command meets Fighting Steel meets Victory at Sea, a nirvana of serious WW2 naval combat gaming. Then, we could all happily sail into the sunset, in our chosen battlewagon.

Atlantic Fleet actually seems reasonably sophisticated, not to mention having the sort of ship models VaS should have (plus the ability to see them closer up). A large selection of historical battles, too, which is what I prefer to a campaign; happily not restricted to Atlantic actions eg Barents Sea, Sydney -vs- Kormoran. I really don't like the turn-based approach (rather than being able either to play in real time or as in VaS, choose to pause the action) and the fact that when you're between turns, the ships stand still but the sea animation continues. The whole stop-go-stop-go, stacatto sequence looks really naff - beyond awful. Maybe ok for ground combat, where in modern times, troops tended to move in tactical bounds in between halts at fire positions or pauses for new orders; but it looks terrible, in a simulated sea battle. Still, I hope AF makes it to PC, it looks like a another potential must-have, for WW2 naval gamers. In the meantime, there's Victory at Sea, which also has the advantage of the Pacific Theatre and associated warships. Below are some pics from a 'Port Attack' custom battle. I had two small divisions of Japanese ships, each comprising a battleship, a cruiser and a couple of destroyers up against a US battleship, a couple of cruisers and some destroyers. The objective of this kind of mission, as I didn't realise but discovered, is to clear a way through to the port, for a formation of friendly landing ships or craft. It's a night battle, but not very dark, and you don't have starshells or searchlights. Battleship Kongo is burning aft from a fuel fire, slugging it out with intercepting US warships, which are also taking damage: Kongo is soon heavily damaged, but is still trading rounds with a Dakota Class BB: My second battleship, Nagato, is also heavily engaged (the little while numbers appear when you group ships into a formation, and are one of those features that should toggle off with ship labels, but don't): And here are some of my landing craft, running in towards the enemy port. One has already been hit hard, with US cruisers had destroyers closing in. By now, I've realised that, in deploying my ships in two widely-spaced columns purely for the surface action I had expected, I'm badly placed to defend my landing force: It's getting up close and personal, as I order my cruisers to run down the US warships. Below, a heavily-damaged Kako, top right and under AI control, crosses the 'T' of a US cruiser, which has also been hit hard. Heavy landing craft losses meant the mission was a failure, though I was able to play on, to the point where we had revenged ourselves by sinking the last of the outnumbered defenders. All in a day's work, in Victory at Sea!

'Convoy defence' is another option for a Custom Battle and as with all battles in Victory at Sea, you can either let the AI run the show or yourself, take manual control of either one, or all, of the vessels on your side. I would like a bit more control over the parameters for Custom Battles and the ability to save a battle you have previously set up would be really good - the 'Load' option seems to work only for campaign games. But it is simplicity itself to create a Custom Battle from scratch. A few clicks generated the one below, seen before launching this 'Convoy Defence' action. You can't control the size of the convoy but I decided to provide this small one with a strong escort: six destroyers - including a powerful 'Tribal' class - and a couple of corvettes and to position them around our charges. Under AI control, the single attacking Type IX U-Boat got off some torpedoes, but he didn't last long, before the also-AI controlled escorts were onto him. I had chosen to take control of the 'Tribal' class destroyer - the one with the two funnels - by the time the screenshot below was taken, but the others nailed the U-Boat before I could complete my own depth charge run. Other games I have tried in the hope of fighting some decent WW2 surface actions include Battlestations Midway and Pacific Storm - Allies. But nice though the ship models are, the arcade-style, super close range surface combat element of these different games is not in the same league as VaS. Though clearly not a ship simulator, Victory at Sea is I think the best simulation of WW2 naval combat since Fighting Steel, compensating for its more simplified simulation with its greater scope. Just the ticket!

Yes at first I thought 'What the...' but then I thought, well, it looks like many a pic I've seen of a whale at shallow depth, taken from the air, from about the height of the camera view. A bit like this: All that's missing is a wake for a periscope. Not appropriate for all seas, sea states and lighting conditions no doubt, but not a bad convention, for a wargame-style WW2 naval combat simulation that has no pretensions of being a ship simulator.

Thanks, Dave! I just tried a quick Custom Battle with a submarine, to get an idea of how that worked. It may be no co-indicence that Victory at Sea's joint publishers are Mongoose, who also published an identically-named and branded set of wargame rules. For the PC game in some respects has a wargame feel; and its simple point-and-click game mechanics are somewhat reminiscent of those of Wargame: European Escalation and sequels. I set up a USN Gato Class sub for a 'Regular' battle and as opponents, selected an IJN fleet carrier with two destroyers and a cruiser. After ordering the sub - I got USS Pargo - to go for the carrier, I turned my boat over to AI control, to see how that would pan out. As usual, we started just outside gun range and for some reason, Pargo surfaced, possibly as the enemy group was not on a closing course and a submerged approach at low underwater speed would have been pointless. We were quickly spotted, though - serves us right, for attacking in broad daylight! The enemy made smoke and turned away from us. At the same time, I noticed that the carrier had launched some planes, which were speeding our way at low level. My sub evidently detected them and crash dived. Subs in VaS seem to operate at two depths, 'periscope' and 'deep'. When deep, your sub is invisible in the Combat (3d) View, unless you have the labels turned on (or the sub's turning, in which case you see the turn marker appear at the bow). When at shallow depth, you get a sort of dark, shadow-like view of the sub, as seen here, being bombed by the Japanese carrier aircraft. We survived the attack, but I was then surprised to find myself on the receiving end of a couple of fans of torpedoes. These also missed. They may or may not have been launched by the enemy destroyer or destroyers at extreme range, before I crash dived. By about this point in time, one of the two Japenese destroyers was headed straight for us... ...but the other enemies were wisely making off at high speed, the carrier being sheperded away by the second destroyer and the cruiser, which tactics I thought quite convincing... All the while under AI control, our sub went deep for a time, then came back to periscope depth and tried to get the destroyer with a shot from one of her stern tubes. But to no avail... The depth charge attacks which quickly followed were pretty accurate... ...and soon fatal! Silent Hunter it certainly isn't, but submarine and aero-naval operations appear to be a potentially useful and entertaining addition to Victory at Sea's mainstream gun and torpedo action!

Well, I hope you like it! Maybe let us know, what you think of it? Edit - I just had a first stab at setting up a carrier action, using the Japanese Chitose-class light carrier Chiyoda with a destroyer escort against a convoy escorted by a PT Boat. The 'just outside gun range' starting setup of a custom battle is really too close for a carrier attack; so it's just as well your planes launch very quickly. I expect carrier action is better suited to Victory at Sea's campaign games, which seem to range over wider areas. In the pic below, you can see my airstrike - a pair of Vals, I can also deploy Zeros and have some control over numbers - making shallow dive attacks on a merchantman. With the labels turned off, you have some visibility of aircraft via the faint trails they leave. You can also see the flak bursting in their wake, which may have been coming from the PT Boat escort...not sure if the merchant ships pack any defensive armament. Looks very easy to pick up, in part reflecting the very simplified approach to carrier ops, but not without appeal and an added dimension to the purely surface action.

Thanks for the feedback! Reminds me, starshells is something I haven't found out if VaS does, possibly not unfortunately. Yes night actions were/are rather good in FS, especially with the FSP mod. I'll maybe follow up this review later, with a mission report or two, featuring custom battles in VaS based on some or other of the Gaudalcanal actions; maybe also a wolfpack battle or something like Coral Sea, to see how VaS handles the sort of stuff that FS didn't do.

On campaign with Victory at Sea This is I suppose where we see the other side of VaS, the Real Time Strategy element. Indeed, some would see the game as primarily an RTS rather than as I would, as a WW2 naval combat simulation with RTS elements in its campaign mode. The latter is firmly my view and as I'm not a player of RTS games, be aware that consciously or otherwise, I'm judging VaS according to my view of it, rather than as an RTS, seen from the standpoint of an RTS player. The developers actually hedge their bets, describing VaS using both labels. And no, I definitely do not rate VaS as an arcade game; I've played a few of those and this is a step or two above that, simplified though the simulation may be. It's also maybe worth pointing out that for all my love of Fighting Steel, I don't think I have ever played its campaign. This is partly because I was quite happy fighting its single battles, but also because that's how I define WW2 naval combat - as a succession of single battles or patrols, often quite long periods and distances apart. Quite different from your average combat flight sim campaign, which is a series of missions flown in fairly quick succession, often from the same base. You sign up with a squadron and fly its missions. In a naval sim, sign up with the Bismarck and after working up, you get to go on one mission. Even if you manage to re-write history, you're not going on another mission for months, probably, with the intervening period spent laid up refitting somewhere while being bombed by the RAF. My idea of a WW2 naval campaign would be something like you see in Silent Hunter - a succession (if you're lucky) of single patrols or missions. For example for the Kriegsmarine, your campaign would be a sort of surface commerce raider's version of the Silent Hunter campaign patrols. Instead, Fighting Steel's campaign gives you (to quote the manual) '...an exercise in fleet management.' An RTS of sorts, in other words. Like VaS, in its different way. Anyway, it's time to take a look. You start a VaS campaign by choosing from one of three theatres - Atlantic, Pacific or Mediterranean. I'm assuming that your campaign will be fought out in the chosen theatre, without moving on to others. On the same screen, you are prompted to choose a nationality and an avatar for your captain, and asked to give him a name. For the Med, the playable sides are the Royal Navy and the US Navy (the Kriegsmarine is playable in the Atlantic campaign and the Regia Marina only in historical or custom battles). You then choose a difficulty level - options are Normal, Hard or Expert, the latter two offering increasingly numerous or dangerous enemies. You then get an introductory message from your commanding officer, and told what your first command will be - in this case, HMS Nerissa. Nerissa was an N Class destroyer better known for her distinguished post-1940 service as the Piorun with the Polish navy in exile. Note the single funnel, not the two in the VaS model (which is shared between several of the RN destroyers). EDIT - I think what I was taking to be a second, squatter funnel is actually the searchlight platform, so the destroyer model is correct, in that respect. Next you click your way through or past a couple of tutorial elements, first describing basic ship controls and then a couple of little animated clips about the 'World View' in which your campaign missions will start. This is a sort of animated aerial view in which warships appear much larger than life and which has a little globe view of the planet, top right, to show you where you are. My start location is the white dot; friendly ports are blue (Gibraltar, in this case) and enemy (Italian) ports, red. Here's how the mission starts in this World View. It's 12 December 1941 and I am to hit ('sink' or 'intercept and sink' would be a better term!) an Italian destroyer, the Carrista, which I'm told, and can see from the map, is off Gibraltar. There's a Queen Elizabeth Class battleship nearby but it's not clear whether it will have a role in the mission; I'm not sure what the white line means, that's leading up to the top left from the battleship. I soon found out it's the ship's intercept course, so evidently I'm not on my own. This sort of presentation is perhaps how Real Time Strategy players like to see things set out, but as a simmer not an RTS player, I would have much preferred to see things presented on a conventional map, Silent Hunter-style. There is a fair bit of info on screen if you care to check it out, including distances to nearest ports and to the target - a mere 4 Kilometres away! I should perhaps have paused the action and taken a bit of time to settle in and make a plan but instead I made a start, panicking initially to avoid my over-sized ship avatar from colliding with the similarly over-sized battleship avatar, and sending Narissa/Piorun off in the direction of the enemy destroyer, which in the meantime had turned north. Somewhat disconcertingly, I next got a screen inviting me to choose which ship to enter the battle with. This game mechanic - which cuts in when a campaign battle is imminent and VaS decides it's time to switch view modes - is obviously designed for situations when you're commanding a squadron or fleet. It's a bit out-of-place, though, when you've got Hobson's Choice. If you're paying close attention, you'll see that Carrista is already in a damaged state, which is presumably how she let herself get caught in an exposed position. Having made the only choice of ship possible, I found myself in familiar territory, in the Combat View, with my destroyer closing head on with my target, the Carrista; and the friendly battleship, HMS Warspite, on my starboard bow. What followed was by now familiar enough, having played myself into VaS surface combat via historical and custom missions. As the Battle of Samar at Leyte Gulf proved, fast-moving destroyers are not an easy target for battleships and Nerissa had ample opportunity to show her mettle. I let her run under AI control for a while and watched the fun, before taking over, making both gun and torpedo attacks. It was quite engaging, manoeuvring my little ship, and I had a jolly old time of it. My first torpedoes were evaded but by the time my second salvo was ready, the Carrista was smoking and pretty well dead in the water. Even so most of my torps missed, but the one that didn't was enough to finish the action in satisfactory style. The mission now ended and my success was confirmed. In VaS, success earns you 'Experience Points' and 'War Bonds', which you can apparently use to obtain better kit, later on during the campaign. Continuing the campaign, the next mission now appeared, resuming in this case pretty well where the first one left off. Apparently, further enemy warships (described as 'fleets', but listed by names which I think represent more Italian destroyers) are nearby and we must go get them, too. That's as far as I have got with the VaS campaign so far and while it's only scratching the surface of what VaS provides by way of campaign gameplay, I hope it's enough to give you the gist of it. I'd have preferred a less RTS style to campaign content and presentation - specifically, a proper map as an intro, and for the missions to be presented as a series of longer, more open-ended patrols - say commerce raiding for the Kriegsmarine, convoy escort moving on to commerce raider search and destroy, then naval gunfire support for real life landings, for the Allies. However, the missions so far seem short but quite engaging, and that's before I've seen different mission types, like capturing enemy ports and convoy attack or defence and without seeing anything of carrier warfare, a whole new dimension. While the current approach is more RTS than simulation - and I'm quite happy to play VaS via its custom and historical battles, as I did with FS - I think these well-presented campaigns deserve a serious try-out, something Fighting Steel didn't mamage to persuade me to do. ...and the verdict... While I rate Victory of Sea highly as a simulator of WW2 naval combat, it's hard to be sure from a few hours play and without a lot more info about what's going on 'under the hood' just where it lies on the 'simplified -vs- sophisticated' scale. In terms of the main headings - AI, ship & fire control, physics, damage and systems modelling and command interface - it certainly seems more towards the 'simplified' end of the scale; a 'sim lite', as another reviewer described it - compared to my 'gold standard', Fighting Steel. On the other hand, VaS has (I'm pretty sure) a significantly greater variety of warships - and it simulates planes, subs and land, which FS doesn't. Despite the crude ship models, the visuals and sounds are mostly considerably better, the former to be expected in a more modern game of course. And there are some signs of sophistication in VaS - like torpedoes only arming after they have run a certain distance. Some torps can also be duds - in the Battle of the Java Sea mission, I saw an Allied destroyer turn into a fan of three Japanese torpedoes, only to take one in the bow - which didn't go off. And AI tactics are varied - they can make sensible decisions on which targets to engage given a choice and they will not just blindly close the range every time. And I have seen more than one example of ships which have obviously spotted incoming torpedoes turning into or away from them to 'comb' their tracks. Radar and spotter planes can increase the range at which enemes are spotted and aid spotting in darkness or poor visibility. Ships can and will deploy smoke screens. I'm happy to leave it to the AI to handle stuff like ammo type selection and don't feel cheated if I can't fiddle with every variable; in fact it's better that as ship's captain I don't have to, as that's what my (AI) subordinates are for. Most of all, by and large the results look, feel and sound like convincing sea battles from the Second World War. Things I really like about VaS include: - the scope - Fighting Steel was ships only, 1939-42; Victory at Sea includes planes, subs and land, and it covers the full war; - the very good range of navies and ships included; - the inclusion of both a modest set of historical missions and a very easy-to-use custom battle generator; - the ability to pause time while issuing orders; - the AI, which if not stellar, appears in many respects to be quite solid; - the visuals and the general ambience; - the clean, comprehensive and easily-picked-up interface (though some elements are a bit 'gamey' in presentation); - the neat & pretty comprehensive 'help' facility, accessible during battles; - the developer's continued work on the product, including additional ships and features. Things I think could be better are: - while by no means the wildly manoeuvrable speedboats I have seen in some other games (eg Navy Field 2 video clips), ships respond to orders and change course too quickly (and seem to turn too tightly) and turrets traverse (and heavier guns/torpedoes reload) too fast - all of this I think needs slowed down somewhat, while maintaining collision avoidance (which is good, now); - ship tracks (over time) should be marked up on the Tactical View and a compass rose/north arrow marker should be provided on this and on the Combat View; - the camera in the Combat View should be able to go a little lower, closer to the sea, and be able to zoom in a little closer to ships; - ship models are crude - in particular, some gross errors need fixing eg not enough forecastle ahead of 'A' Turret on many ships, funnels badly positioned or shaped (eg too tall, round rather than oval in X-section); - when under manual control, designated targets (for each level of armament) should continue to be engaged until fire orders are changed or cancelled, regardless of any other orders eg speed, course; - some on-screen aids that are permanent should be capable of being toggled off, notably the text labels for torpedoes, the coloured 'turn in progress' indicators and the 'rising text damage labels'; - spotter aircraft should not be deployed unless and until ordered (now, they seem to start in the air, by default); - the ability to save custom battles, and to specify their location (eg 'The Slot' at Gaudalcanal), would be very useful; - some simulated audio messages would be nice, like the voice of a bridge crew member reporting a sighting or a sinking (FS has some of these); - the interface could be made less 'gamey' eg the dreaded 'Health' bar re-labelled as 'Damage', the delta jet spotter plane icon replaced with a straight-winged aircraft - and campaign missions could start with a proper map, rather than the very gamey, RTS-style 'World View'. Of course, more ship types would also be great: adding one or two of the pre-war USN & IJN battleships, another fleet carrier each for the USN and IJN, a pre-war German destroyer and torpedo boat, and a ship capable of acting as a commerce raider/armed merchant cruiser, would leave little left to be desired. 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 is: 4 - Highly recommended. Victory at Sea hasn't entirely knocked Fighting Steel off its throne but it is a very worthy, more modern, better-looking, generally better-equipped consort and will be my platform of choice for WW2 naval combat on my current PC, which for too long has been without a decent sim in this genre.