Zephyr Net

Hi All:

Thought it was about time that I brought you up to date on a project that I've been working on for the past six months: a large set of 'Nam missions, tentatively titled, "Air War: North Vietnam." Total missions included in the set should be just shy of 200: 173 unique missions with 24 mission variants of one sort or another (197 total missions).

Let me provide some background on this project, then describe the mission set and its features in more detail. Apologies in advance for the long post, which I will split into several sections.

Background

Last August I started taking an interest in the air war over North Vietnam. As a result I began adding more 'Nam-era aircraft to my FA custom LIB set, GT-ELH. I then put together a dedicated 'Nam LIB, Nam-ELH, which is a custom sub-set of GT-ELH. Both can be found on my FA home page:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/fa/index.html

Of course, what good was a custom Nam LIB with no missions to play? So, I scooped up all the custom 'Nam missions that I could find on the FARC and individual FA web sites. My intention was simply to convert the missions to fit my custom Nam LIB for my own enjoyment.

While there have been plenty of 'Nam mission collections and campaigns released over the years, I quickly discovered that their quality varies wildly. Roughly speaking, I found three general types of 'Nam missions:

1. High Quality: these missions are very well-designed, historically accurate, challenging, and educational to boot. The mission texts for these missions often go beyond the usual mission briefing, offering the player a mini-tutorial on the air war over North Vietnam, its history, tactics, and weaponry. Jim Garland's "NamStuff" LIB is the best example, but there are others such as the "Yankee Station" set, the "NKP" set, "Ho's Own," and "Hamm's Nam."

2. Getting There: these missions generally have a sound, historically valid premise, but lack in realization, design, and implementation. Historically inaccurate weapons and flight routes are used, and the mission briefings tend to be bare bones and marred by errors of one sort or another.

3. Barely Passable: these missions usually have a germ or hint of a sound, historically valid premise, but the missions are either wildly inaccurate in their use of weapons and flight routes or they are little more than crude revenge fantasies. The mission texts for these missions are usually barely readable and wholly inadequate.

There's actually a fourth class of missions: the "Truly Terrible" -- those billed as 'Nam missions but which have not even a passing resemblance to anything that actually happened between 1964 and 1972 in the skies over North Vietnam. I never even bothered with these missions which, thankfully, are very few in number.

So, I began the process of converting the missions I'd found and re-working them to make them more historically accurate and playable. At first I didn't bother doing anything with the mission texts, but after several rounds of revision many of the revised missions bore little resemblance to the originals. I then needed revised mission texts to remind me of what the mission objectives were supposed to be.

Along the way I generated two custom Vietnam maps for use with these revamped missions -- again, those maps can be found on my FA page referenced above.

Finally, in late December I realized that I had so many heavily revamped missions that a new 'Nam mission set was in order -- one that gave players as near a comprehensive overview of the air war over North Vietnam as possible within the limits of FA. The mission set would be chronologically organized and would use my custom Nam maps and LIB set.

With that decision I began working in earnest to bring all the mission texts up to snuff content-wise so that one could play the mission set in order and actually follow the development of the air war over NVN through historically based mission briefings. I also began pulling together the revamped missions from the various mission sets that I had scooped up, organizing these many disparate missions into something like a cohesive, historically accurate, playable whole. This process was more involved than I expected, as taking the big picture caused me stumble across numerous errors and inconsistencies that had to be cleaned up.

In my estimation it wasn't good enough merely have a big pile of missions: they had to be consistently high quality; they had to fit together historically, they had to provide good coverage of the many aspects of the air war over NVN; and they had complement one another sequentially for good playability. After several months of molding what was a pile of missions into a credible mission set, I believe that the collection is close to being ready for public consumption.

(cont. in next post)

(cont. from above)

What It Is

"Air War: North Vietnam" is a chronologically organized collection of nearly 200 missions for Fighters Anthology set in the skies over North Vietnam during the years 1964-1972. The mission set will require players to have the following installed:

- Fighters Anthology 1.02F
- the NAM-ELH LIB set (or GT-ELH LIB set as an alternative) *
- the custom maps from the NAM-MAPS package *
* = downloadable from https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/fa/index.html

This mission set will be divided into six LIBs, each covering a different slice of the time period 1964-1972:

LIB# Years Operations
1 - 1964-65: Pierce Arrow, Flaming Dart, Rolling Thunder
2 - 1966: Rolling Thunder
3 - 1967: Rolling Thunder
4 - 1968: Rolling Thunder
5 - 1969-72: Proud Deep Alpha, Freedom Train, Freedom Porch Bravo
6 - 1972: Linebacker I & II

The missions cover the full gamut of air operations over North Vietnam, with players flying a wide variety of mission types including:

- MiGCAP
- TARCAP
- CAS
- Alpha Strike
- mini Alpha Strike
- Iron Hand/Wild Weasel
- Flak Suppression
- RESCAP
- Armed Recon
- Post-Strike Recon
- Escort

Players fly an equally wide variety of historical aircraft including:

- A-1H/J Skyraider
- A-4C/E/F Skyhawk
- A-6A/B/C Intruder
- A-7A/B/D/E Corsair II
- B-52D "Big Belly" Stratofortress
- F-102A Delta Dart
- F-105D/F/G Thunderchief
- F-111A Aardvark
- F-4B/C/D/E/J Phantom II
- F-8C/D/E/H/J Crusader
- HH-3 Jolly Green Giant

Players fly USN, USAF, and USMC aircraft launched from carriers on Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin, air bases in South Vietnam, and air bases in Thailand.

Other aircraft used in missions include:

- A-37 Dragonfly
- AC-130U Spectre
- AC-47D Spooky
- AH-1 Cobra
- B-52G Stratofortress
- B-57B Canberra
- E-2 Hawkeye
- EA-6A/B Prowler
- EC-121 Warning Star
- E/RB-66 Destroyer
- EF-4C Phantom II
- F-100D/F Super Sabre
- F-104C Starfighter
- F-5A Freedom Fighter
- KC-135 Stratotanker
- RA-5C Vigilante
- RC-135M Rivet Card
- RF-4C Phantom II
- RF-8G Wild Weasel
- SH-3A Sea King
- UH-1B/D Huey

- Enemy aircraft include:

- An-12 Cub
- J-5 Fresco-A
- J-5A Fresco-C
- J-6A S-105 Farmer-B
- J-6B Farmer-D
- IL-28 Beagle
- Mi-4 Hound
- MiG-15bisP Fagot-B
- MiG-17A Fresco-A
- MiG-17F Fresco-C
- MiG-17PF Fresco-E
- MiG-19PF Farmer-B
- MiG-19SF Farmer-C
- MiG-21F-13 Fishbed-C
- MiG-21MFK Fishbed-J
- MiG-21PF Fishbed-D
- MiG-21PFM Fishbed-F

Features

This mission set is distinguished by several notable features:

- "historical missions," which re-create actual missions flown over North Vietnam, many of them well-known

- fictional missions that are properly historically situated (i.e., they are the kinds of missions that were being flown around the designated mission dates)

- "alternate role" missions, which allow the player to fly the some missions with different aircraft and mission assignments (e.g., in one version of a mission you fly the F-105D element striking an airfield; in an alternate version you fly the F-4C MiGCAP element of the strike force)

- "alternate history" missions, in which you fly speculative/"what if" missions (What if the US had bombed NV's new MiG-21s on the tarmac before the NV could deploy them? What if Nixon's overtures to China had failed and China had intervened more directly in Linebacker I? What if the NV had used their IL-28 Beagles to mount an attack on Da Nang?)

- "alternate service" missions, in which the player can fly large strikes against targets around Hanoi as part of a USN Alpha Strike launched from the Gulf of Tonkin or a USAF Thunder Strike launched from bases in Thailand

- "alternate design" missions, in which the player can fly certain critical missions with different ingress routes, strike packages, and ordnance loadouts

- historically accurate flight routes & strike packages

- historically appropriate ordnance loadouts, meaning that aircraft use only weapons that were available at the time during which the missions are flown (e.g., you won't find strike aircraft using Paveways or MK-20s before late 1968)

- standard mission briefings that situate missions in a specific time period, providing background on the progress of air operations over North Vietnam and tying the missions to historically significant developments in the air campaigns mounted against North Vietnam

- enhanced mission briefings for select missions that provide backgrounders on weapons, tactics, and other technological developments that marked the air war over North Vietnam

- historically accurate carriers and carrier air wings, allowing the player to fly off carriers that were actually on Yankee Station during specified mission dates, using aircraft variants actually deployed on those carriers

Obviously FA has plenty of quirks and limitations, and there's only so much one can do to ensure historical accuracy or fidelity in these kinds of missions. So far as I can tell, though, this mission set comes closer to "getting it right" than any other 'Nam mission collection out there.

This mission set will ship with a wealth of documentation, including:

- ReadMe
- Mission Summary
- Realism Notes
- Aircraft/Ordnance/Device Summary (w/ table of acceptable use dates)
- Glossary (to supplement, not replace the FA docs)
- SEA Map (Vietnam/Thailand/Laos)
- Timeline
- Bibliography (online/print)

(cont. in next post)

(cont. from above)

Sources

As noted in the "background" section above, I did not build all of these missions completely from scratch. Rather I built upon the work of others, and they deserve to be acknowledged. Here's a list of the 'Nam mission collections that I built upon, revised, and in many cases completely overhauled:

- NamStuff (NAMSTUFF2.zip)
- Yankee Station (YankeeStationCampaign.zip)
- Ho's Own (hos.zip)
- Hamm's Nam Missions (HammsNam.zip)
- Chu Lai (chulai_fa.zip)
- NKP Vietnam (nkp_fa.zip)
- Tour of Duty v2 (TOD2VT.ZIP)
- Vietnam Campaign (Vietnam_Campaign.zip)
- Mav's Vietnam Campaign (Vietnam_Campaign_Mav.zip)
- USNF'97 (the original 25 mission campaign & 10 single missions from USNF'97)

In addition I reworked several smaller mission collections (i.e., 1-5 missions): Nam_FA.zip, FOTI.zip, Viet_Ciws.zip, USAF_Mission_Pack.zip, Un_Vietnam_Sandy.zip, KO_Nam.zip, MM.zip, fry_mis2.zip.

Most of the above source missions are available from The FA Resource Center:

http://farc.3synergy.net/

Revisions & Changes

So is this mission collection just a set of warmed over versions of missions that are already out there on the Net? Hardly. All missions have undergone extensive reworking and testing -- 6-7 distinct rounds of revision, in fact, over the past six months. As indicated in the "background" section above, though, some missions required more work than others.

Here's a rough summary of what I did with the missions that I revised and overhauled:

High Quality: converted mission items for use with my NAM-ELH and custom NVN maps; tweaked waypoints; enhanced target area ground objects and scenery; enhanced mission texts with additional background info; re-formatted mission texts for uniformity; in some cases generated alternate versions to provide more historically accurate missions while preserving the originals, which were compelling in themselves.

Getting There: converted mission items for use with my NAM-ELH and custom NVN maps; re-designed flight routes and waypoints; enhanced target area ground objects and scenery; dated or re-dated missions to historically appropriate periods; overhauled strike packages and ordnance loadouts; overhauled mission tests, in most cases substantially re-writing them; generated alternate USAF/USN mission versions in some cases.

Barely Passable: completely re-designed and re-built missions from the ground up with the result that the revised missions bear little if any resemblance to the originals; dated or re-dated missions to historically appropriate periods; wrote mission texts from scratch; generated alternate mission versions in some cases.

With the "Ho's Own" missions, I changed the player's side from North Vietnam to the United States, and re-worked mission details as necessary and appropriate.

In the case of the original USNF'97 missions, extensive work was required to bring them up to snuff. The historical basis of most missions was excellent, as were the mission texts for the most part. Design and implementation was just as often completely inadequate, however (the Thanh Hoa and Paul Doumer bridge missions in particular were laughably bad). Indeed, many of the USNF'97 missions look like they were hastily thrown together at the last minute to meet a looming release deadline.

With a number of the USNF'97 "historical" missions I simply threw out the originals and started from scratch. Some of the "fictional" missions were re-dated and adapted to periods during Operation Rolling Thunder, as the mission collection already had a wealth of Linebacker missions. In no case will you find that any of the revised USNF'97 missions play the same as the originals. Indeed, as often as not you will find that they only vaguely resemble the originals that EA/Janes shipped.

Still to Do

All the missions are complete and organized for LIB building. Work on the documentation is well underway. So what remains to be done? Here's what I'm currently working on:

- Finish playtesting (one last time) a final batch of missions.
- Check mission briefings in chronological sequence for redundancies & inconsistencies.
- Write time period overviews/intros for the first mission of each LIB.
- Build LIBs.
- Finish documentation.

Based on the work remaining to be done, I estimate that it will be several weeks before a final, complete package
is ready for posting. In the mean time, though...

Preview

I do have a sample mission set for anyone interested in getting a sneak preview of these missions. Comprised of 33 missions covering 1965-1972, this mini NamPack should give you a good sense for the complete forthcoming "Air War: North Vietnam" mission collection. I can post this sample set here or on my FA home page. So if there is interest, please let me know.

In addition there is a CSV spreadsheet (opens in Excel) summary of the entire mission collection. You can download it below:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/fa ... ssions.zip

As noted above, these missions are complete and ready to go. Only one final batch is undergoing a last round of playtesting.

Questions and comments regarding any aspect of the project as described above are, of course, most welcome.

Best,

Eric L. Howes

Way to go, and the best of luck on this project. It's good to see another person interested in expanding the field of play for this wonderful (if not a pain...) game.

Cheers,

radical_D

_________________
You know you broke it when you're the only one around when you broke it. I learned this at a Sears store.

It figures anything having to do with GT's crap would be published on April Fool's Day!

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CAG Hotshot:

OK, maybe it's late and I'm a little slow as a result, but what does this project have to do with "GT's crap"? GT didn't do anything extensive with 'Nam-related stuff. If there was a focus in GT's work, it was on Canadian aircraft variants (and gliders...).

Eric L. Howes

If you were not a newcomer then you would already know...

_________________
Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
VNFAWING.com Forum Administrator

VNFAWING Forums
VNFAWING Website

FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...

CAG Hotshot:

You're right: I don't know. I've been told that he caused you and others on this board a lot of trouble several years, but I had nothing to do with that. As I explained back in August when I first posted here, I don't know the guy, I've never talked with him. And I'm certainly not here to promote his agenda or work. All my posts here bear that out.

But you're right: if there's a 'Nam connection, I didn't know.

Is is too much to ask that this project be judged on its own merits? While the mission collection does use my NAM-ELH LIB set which is derived from my other LIB set which itself was derived from "that guy's" LIB set, there is very little connection at this point after almost one year's worth of work and overhaul. If you doubt me, check the ReadMe, which details the extensive changes and modifications I've made:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/fa ... ReadMe.txt

Btw, I've uploaded an updated version of the mission summary spreadsheet:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/fa ... ssions.zip

In the past week I added four new original missions, all based on actual historical missions:

3/10/1967 - Operation Rolling Thunder: Thai Nguyen Steel & Iron Works (USAF)
TARCAP for Thud strike on industrial area (F-4C)

10/27/1967 - Ferry 'Cross the Song Hong: Kim Quan Ferry Crossing (USN)
Flak suppression for mine laying operation (F-4B)

10/30/1967 - Hanoi Tonight: Strike Hanoi Railroad Ferry Slip (USN)
Strike Hanoi railroad ferry slip (A-6A)

3/28/1970 - The Doldrums: MIGCAP near Thanh Hoa (USN)
Intercept MiGs near Thanh Hoa (F-4J)

I anticipate adding several more historical missions over the next few weeks as I complete the documentation. Suggestions for historical missions that anyone here might know of are most welcome.

Best,

Eric L. Howes

I think you need a valium...

_________________
Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
VNFAWING.com Forum Administrator

VNFAWING Forums
VNFAWING Website

FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...