k:
Nice review by The Picard on the game on the site. I am refreshing my memories, played this and many other naval games years ago, as in over 30 years ago.....had family in the navies on both sides of WWII, so much lore comes back.
This game, Great Naval Battles of the North Atlantic is from a series of five games, the Great Naval Battles Series published by Stategic Simulattions Inc and designed by the IO Design group, this was perhaps the best in the set. It focuses on re enacting the main naval engagements between the German Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy between 1939 and 1942, with some of the major ship classes, battleships, battle cruisers, cruisers, Aircraft carriers (though when you are playing the AI it is hard to get it to deploy its carriers any distance out to sea) the game included most of the most famous battles between those navies plus a campaign mode that is still unique even today among naval games.
In single scenario mode the player controls all ships of his side (but can switch each ship to computer control if wanted). The game is set in a 3D world, the ships are shown as bitmaps, displaying them from different angles. You could manouver the ships, select their targets, assign single guns or gun groups to individual targets, fire torpedoes and even use a ships float plane for improving gunnery control by spotting the shell hits. A lot of time needs to be spent in the damage control view. There the ship is displayed in three layers below the waterline, waterline and superstructure. Large warships are divided into watertight compartments to make the overall ship more safe when damaged. This allows the gamer to watch over each section of the ship which can be damaged or destroyed. This can be run by the computer but sometimes the computer AI does not make good choices about damage control. You have three points of view available: the Captain's view from the bridge of the ship, damage control officer below decks and the Grand Admiral's Ariel view with allows one to see the overall tactical and strategic situation. There were great sound tracks, and sound effects in the full game, not sure yet what will be in this version.
For its time, the visuals, and graphic (VGA, 320x200) was ok. As later versions of the game were released, bugs were corrected such as having the running lights still on when the enemy ship was sinking. The computer AI is rather slow witted at times, it uses any torpedo carrying ship including destroyers, and cruisers like they are all PT boats (what were called MT boats in the Royal Navy or E Boats in the Kreigsmarine), which was NOT the historic reality. :blink:
The big ships rarely made torpedo attacks in World War Two. And the AI does not compute sufficient damage on small ships allowing them to absorb 10 or more large caliber shell hits from a battleship which was certainly NOT reality. The thin steel plate used in the little ships was little protection against 12 and 16 inch shells.
OMG
The game has some carrier operations. the torpedo planes launch from carriers and attack other ships. One of the best features of the game is the dynamic campaign mode in which the gamer can conduct an overall strategic campaign, with taks forces out to attack British convoys from the German fleet, or trying to find German raiders such as the Graf Spee playing the Royal Navy. The game shifts to 3D mode when the ships get close enough to engage in combat. There are ancillary forces such as U Boats and Bombers included in the game as well. But you do not control them directly. Originally the game was released in this play mode, then there were later expansion disks released, to allow the gamer to use the planned but never built Z Plan ships of the German Navy, and other campaigns and scenarios and also a mission editor to create your own scenarios. Then a "Captains Game" verison was released which started the player out in a destroyer and they gain rank and larger ship command as the game progresses. There is a web site that has patches for the game and also an add on scenario that has the Z Plan ships and other ports including more German ones and Hull in GB.
The controls are with menus which pull down with the right mouse, as I remember, like the Picard says, but I need to remember more. Thanks for putting this fine
game up, it is the best of the series.
Ahoy and Avast
k: