Suggested reading(s) for H3:ANW?

[liuzg150181]

Well,i was trying to get back into H3:ANW, but being unfamiliar with naval and air units certainly doesnt help,worst still the weapon system info in the game doesnt disseminate enough to enlighten me......:(
So what would you recommend as reading(s) to gain knowledge with regards to naval and air units? Thinking of getting David Miller's " Illustrated Directory of Warships of the World " but would like to hear you guys' opinions first.

[TonyE]

Other people are more well read on the topics you reference but I've been wearing out library books on the topic of naval warfare for a couple decades now.

My general approach is heading to the bargain aisles of the local bookstores and picking up Jane's recognition guides and any other compilation books that show quickly what a particular ship's armament and general place in the whole scheme of things may be. It is cheap and effective, can't match $$$ of the full fledged Jane's books but still cheap and effective :)

In a similar vein, if you get a basic handle on the dbBuild program to look at the databases you could suggest a format of the information therein you might like to see and someone might eventually pull together a report you can then run against the database(s) of your choice.

[Herman Hum]

...the weapon system info in the game doesnt disseminate enough to enlighten me......:(

What details are you seeking that may not be displayed by the game?

The PlayersDB has tried to display as many relevant details as possible to the player in the Text Descriptions. What details do you think are missing? We might be able to accommodate and included them in the next release.

[liuzg150181]

What details are you seeking that may not be displayed by the game?

The PlayersDB has tried to display as many relevant details as possible to the player in the Text Descriptions. What details do you think are missing? We might be able to accommodate and included them in the next release.
I think i had phrased my question quite badly, i certainly have no gripe with regards to the wealth of the infos PlayersDB has provided,in fact it is impressive to say the least.The only reason i request for recommended read is that i am more of a landlubber where wargaming and knowledge of military history's concerned, i think of enriching my knowledge of warships and aircrafts(yes,it is very geeky) as leisure and that spices up my H3 gameplay simultaneously.
Speaking of rooms for improvement,i do have two of them. For interface it is rather tedious to find the composition of the task force,much less peeking on the info of the individual warships;also i guess that specifying the type of warships(aircraft carrier,destroyer,cruiser etc) to aid the players,especially newbies like me.:cool:

[Herman Hum]

Speaking of rooms for improvement,i do have two of them. For interface it is rather tedious to find the composition of the task force,much less peeking on the info of the individual warships;also i guess that specifying the type of warships(aircraft carrier,destroyer,cruiser etc) to aid the players,especially newbies like me.:cool:
I think that some of the features you request might already be available. If you want to see the composition of a group, select the group icon and then hit the "Report" button from the Unit/Group Display window. It will show you a list of all the units within that particular group. A sample image has been provided.

With regard to the categorization of ships by class, I also believe that this has been done in the new ANW. When you select a specific ship, the ship's class shows up in the Unit Display under the "Type" category. You can see from the second example that the ship class is "FFG" [guided missile frigate].

Also, the PlayersDB is fairly unique in that it organizes ships according to their classification instead of their pennant numbers. This means that you don't need to know the specific pennant number for your ship in order to find it since all the FF [frigates] are grouped together for ease of reference.

We're always open to new ideas if we can fit them into the PlayersDB. If you are really interested in database work, we're happy to accept help from folks willing to get involved.

[liuzg150181]

I think that some of the features you request might already be available. If you want to see the composition of a group, select the group icon and then hit the "Report" button from the Unit/Group Display window. It will show you a list of all the units within that particular group. A sample image has been provided.
That's not i mean......Correct me if i am wrong,in order to view the data of individual warships of a particular battlegroup,i must select the battlegroup,click on the 'formation editor' button,then select a warship then click on 'report button right?
Feels crumpy to say the least~~~:cheeky:

With regard to the categorization of ships by class, I also believe that this has been done in the new ANW. When you select a specific ship, the ship's class shows up in the Unit Display under the "Type" category. You can see from the second example that the ship class is "FFG" [guided missile frigate].

Also, the PlayersDB is fairly unique in that it organizes ships according to their classification instead of their pennant numbers. This means that you don't need to know the specific pennant number for your ship in order to find it since all the FF [frigates] are grouped together for ease of reference.

Ops my oversight.:shy:

We're always open to new ideas if we can fit them into the PlayersDB. If you are really interested in database work, we're happy to accept help from folks willing to get involved.
Thx,but my knowledge is not up to par~~~:smoke:

[Herman Hum]

That's not i mean......Correct me if i am wrong,in order to view the data of individual warships of a particular battlegroup,i must select the battlegroup,click on the 'formation editor' button,then select a warship then click on 'report button right?
That sounds about right. You need to have the ships shown as Units and not Groups in order to see the individual details for that ship.

Another method to have the individual units displayed is:

1) Ensure NumLock is turned off of the Keypad
2) Hit "9" hotkey to toggle between Unit and Group display settings.

[VCDH]

Well,i was trying to get back into H3:ANW, but being unfamiliar with naval and air units certainly doesnt help,worst still the weapon system info in the game doesnt disseminate enough to enlighten me......:(

The original Harpoon III DB had text descriptions in them but until recently there was no easy way to support custom texts for the other DBs. The PDB guys have invested alot of work in their custom text descriptions and with their assistance, we've been able to hammer out a bug or two regarding that. In the ANW DB I've also put a little more description in the names in the sensor annex so that you can tell what a radar does at a glance.

So what would you recommend as reading(s) to gain knowledge with regards to naval and air units? Thinking of getting David Miller's " Illustrated Directory of Warships of the World " but would like to hear you guys' opinions first.

For tactics, there are two books that I use:

Fleet Tactics and Coast Combat 2nd Edition by Capt. Wayne P. Hughes (USN Ret.) - Its cheap and explains basic tactics very well.

Soviet Naval Tactics by Milan Vego - It's a study of Soviet era doctrine and how they employ their ships.

For weapons and sensors I have the US Naval Institudes Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems 5th Edition.

For platforms I use Combat Fleets of the World 2005-2006 edition.

The books about tactics are both cheap however the other two are quite expensive. IIRC the Guide is upwards of $200 US while Combat Fleets was at least $100. You can get the prices for them at the USNIs website where all these books are available.

Older editions of the Guide and Combat Fleets are quite affordable however and you can find them at places like Amazon.com.

Later
D

[madDdog67]

Would the Data Annex from the Harpoon board game (yeah, I know there's no board) be helpful here? I haven't looked at mine for years, but iirc, it's got just about every bit of info you could ever want for sensors, weapons platforms, etc.

You can get a copy of the board game pretty cheap on Ebay...just make sure it's got the data annex included...some folks seperate them out for individual sale. Even new, the Data Annex is less than $20.

[VCDH]

Yes to an extent.....H4 rules abstract Electronic Warfare so while there is alot of info on weapons there is little in the way of EW systems (either decoy or ECM). There is some info on magazine capabilities but since alot of that is hard to find then it's about on par with other references.

Later
D

[Herman Hum]

If you are considering the Harpoon paper rules Data Annex, why not just splurge and get the most modern version of the Annexes?

I've bought the individual Data Annexes for the High Tide and H4.1 Rules separately from Naval Warfare Simulations (HTTP://WWW.NWS-ONLINE.NET). These annexes were used extensively in the creation of the PlayersDB. :)