Command: Modern Naval Air Operations

[BilboBaggins 82]

Hi,

 

Not sure where to put it, but I thought some here -- particularly those who like the complexity of commercial airliner simulations and flight planning -- might be interested in a new strategy title out from one of my favorite tactical/strategic wargames publishers, Matrix Games:

 

http://matrixgames.com/products/483/details/Command:.Modern.Air.Naval.Operations

 

This is an absolutely comprehensive, highly detailed, real-time simulation of full-scale coordinated ground/air ops.  It's absolutely fantastic, and one of those "play for an hour, take a lifetime to master" titles.

 

There's a deep connection between serious flight simulation and serious military strategy simulation; both stretch the little grey cells by presenting real-world scenarios of great complexity that take time, thought and patience to master.

 

Matrix Games has a host of great titles, and publishes a wide range of small developer titles, many of whom have been at historical and serious wargame simulation for the entire history of the PC.  Panther Games, 2by3 (Gary Grigsby), Western Civilization's fantastic Napoleonics title Crown of Glory (used for research and study and training at West Point, btw....), ... there are just a plethora of deep and thorough titles to choose from.

 

Highly recommended site for people who might want to add a change of pace to their simulation activities!  Spend some time around the site, review the options at your leisure, and check out their forums as well; lots of really interesting and thoughtful discussion among a small, but dedicated community, a lot like ours here.

 

I single out Command: Modern Air Naval Operations because it's truly the successor to one of my all-time favorite modern strategy titles, Harpoon, and brings the aspirations of that title into the world of current software and hardware capability.

 

Enjoy!

 

Steve

 

[mikea76 184]

Hi,

 

Not sure where to put it, but I thought some here -- particularly those who like the complexity of commercial airliner simulations and flight planning -- might be interested in a new strategy title out from one of my favorite tactical/strategic wargames publishers, Matrix Games:

 

http://matrixgames.com/products/483/details/Command:.Modern.Air.Naval.Operations

 

This is an absolutely comprehensive, highly detailed, real-time simulation of full-scale coordinated ground/air ops.  It's absolutely fantastic, and one of those "play for an hour, take a lifetime to master" titles.

 

There's a deep connection between serious flight simulation and serious military strategy simulation; both stretch the little grey cells by presenting real-world scenarios of great complexity that take time, thought and patience to master.

 

Matrix Games has a host of great titles, and publishes a wide range of small developer titles, many of whom have been at historical and serious wargame simulation for the entire history of the PC.  Panther Games, 2by3 (Gary Grigsby), Western Civilization's fantastic Napoleonics title Crown of Glory (used for research and study and training at West Point, btw....), ... there are just a plethora of deep and thorough titles to choose from.

 

Highly recommended site for people who might want to add a change of pace to their simulation activities!  Spend some time around the site, review the options at your leisure, and check out their forums as well; lots of really interesting and thoughtful discussion among a small, but dedicated community, a lot like ours here.

 

I single out Command: Modern Air Naval Operations because it's truly the successor to one of my all-time favorite modern strategy titles, Harpoon, and brings the aspirations of that title into the world of current software and hardware capability.

 

Enjoy!

 

Steve

 

Never saw this before but as soon as I clicked on the link I was thinking this is a 2013 version of harpoon..  I loved harpoon so I will have to get this.  thanks for the link.

[BilboBaggins 82]

Glad to have revealed its presence to you! Let me know what you think; it's apparently been developed by a team that's kept Harpoon alive all these years (latest incarnation, Harpoon3, at the same publisher).

 

I've always thought of this kind of simulation as the ideal extension of all the systems fun to be had with FSX in commercial flight planning and ATC. It's a lifetime's study, and very satisfying.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[mikea76 184]

Glad to have revealed its presence to you! Let me know what you think; it's apparently been developed by a team that's kept Harpoon alive all these years (latest incarnation, Harpoon3, at the same publisher).

 

I've always thought of this kind of simulation as the ideal extension of all the systems fun to be had with FSX in commercial flight planning and ATC. It's a lifetime's study, and very satisfying.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

 

I will PM you or post here once I have the chance to get it.   Hopefully this week. 

[CaptKornDog 281]

Certainly looks like an evolution of Fleet Command as well.  Good find.  Thanks for sharing.

[BilboBaggins 82]

Also looks like Harpoon 3 has evolved into full-on, for-govt-procurement-only simulation; you can get the Harpoon3 Ultimate Commander's Edition, which has all 20 years of Harpoon bundled (half of which is going to run in a DOS box on your Windows machine... gah! 1990's graphics! <g>), but the company responsible for it has left the commercial arena.  Probably partly why this new incarnation has developed.

 

I just like the idea of having a massive fleet of aircraft I can coordinate with other units for full-scale joint operations.  Now, if only it could be linked up with VoxATC...... (kidding.....).....

[Captain_Barfbag 31]

I'm still running Harpoon on my XP machine, without a DOS BOX.  It's one of the "Commanders Edition" versions I got as a download.  I started with Harpoon back when there was only one battleset, and it came on a 5 1/4 inch floppy.

 

There was one version I tried that was just terrible game-play.  They made it less simulation and more video game.  And there was another that was so buggy it was unplayable.  Fortunately, the one I've got is much more like the original was meant to be.  And, unlike playing it on my 286, it doesn't take 5 days to play a 3 day mission.

[EngineRoom 205]

CMANO is billed as the spiritual successor to Harpoon. I've purchased it but haven't had the time to explore it fully yet. It certainly looks very deep (pun intended!) and lots of fun if you're interested in this sort of thing.

 

There has been a bit of controversy over the release. The price is the first thing most people notice. If you look around the Matrix site you'll see nothing they publish is particularly cheap, and some people accuse them of price gouging in a niche market. SimHQ posted a rather controversial and critical review that was written by a guy with, shall we say, a rather turbulent "history" with the CMANO developers. So much so the review was taken down when people pointed this out.

 

Still, of you like this sort of game then there's plenty of interesting stuff on the Matrix site. They've got versions of the Close Combat series that work on modern Windows systems, Panzer Corps is basically a modern remake of the classic Panzer General, Gary Grigsby's War In The East is quite probably the most complex and deep operational level historical strategy game ever released, and Distant Worlds is considered as the current king of the sci-fi space 4X strategy genre.

[BilboBaggins 82]

Their prices aren't cheap, but I think that's mainly because they're selling to a really small, niche market.

 

At the height of the computer war game era, you could count on maybe 40,000 sales, with very rare exception. Panzer General did better, but that was because, relatively speaking, compared with, say, Carriers at War, Norm Koger's The Operational Art of War, or anything by Gary Grigsby or Panther Games, it was an arcade game.

 

The Close Combat Series is good, too, though I was always suspicious of its AI. But the modeling of morale in real-time as a factor was an innovation. Panther Games picked up on and improved on that in their Conquest Of series.

 

You think the infighting among flight sim devs is bad, you should have been there during that era! No surprise there's rampant nerd rage around CMANO's development.

 

Oh and Microsoft pretty much killed off that genre, too, to add to the list of woes to be laid at their door....