Some studies of big ships. In Atlantic Fleet, differences within classes aren't replicated, one ship represents the whole class.
Scharnhorst, which also represents Gneisenau whose mainmast was stepped against the funnel. One can see why an RAF pilot out during the Channel Dash and not expecting to see such a ship in the English Channel, said when he saw Scharnhorst, 'I never knew the Navy had such a lovely boat':
Under attack from a Sunderland, in a campaign mission:
One of the sisters, dubbed Salmon and Gluckstein after a comedy duo, with 11 inch guns trained to starboard in poor conditions:
Renown in action against one of the German battlecruisers on campaign. Renown doubles for her less-modernised sister Repulse, famously sunk along with Price of Wales by Japanese aircraft early in the Pacific War:
The view from the other end of 'the two-way range', during the same engagement. The enemy is down by the stern and starting to make smoke:
Bismarck and Tirpitz out together in a campaign mission. The Atlantic Fleet model better represents the former IIRC, the visible differences being mainly down to detail amidships on the placement of the main cranes and the 105mm AA guns there.
Queen Elizabeth class battleships about to open fire. The AF model is based on the name-ship of the class I think - they all started in WW1 with two funnels and ended up as quite a varied class in WW2 after one or more reconstructions between the wars:
Bismarck again. This I think is how she looked during her Atlantic sortie after the dazzle markings were overpainted. Nice that they got the detail right of the optical rangefinder removed from turret Anton due to issues with spray, the gaps at the upper rear sides being plated over.
USS Washington or North Carolina, both having served in the Atlantic for a while, the former for a significant period:
And we finish this post with a return to Salmon and Gluckstein, operating together as they famously did in the real war:
33Lima . Nice pics. I checked out your very in depth review of AF at CombatAce- well done! I don't usually play surface naval sims. Last one I guess was old Destroyer Command. This looks like fun. Downloading AF from GOG. Any other advice? Thanks...Vox
Hi Vox and thanks for the positive feedback. Sadly Killerfish moved on (to Cold Waters) after AF and there's little more than the game itself. The good news being that it has more content than sims or games that are much more expensive, including the many historical battles (subject to ship availability eg no Hunt Class DEs which played a big part in the German torpedo boat night ambush at Sept Iles) plus the two types of campaign, each playable from either side, plus a battle generator.
All I would say is that players just need to put up with what we can't change - the turn-based approach, the area ambushes from subs whose torps you can't dodge if they are within the fatal range (set torp reliability to 'allow duds' to help compensate), the fact that no merchantmen carry guns, the simplified representation of smoke screens, the lack of land in the 3d world, the inability to use secondary and main armament in the same turn, the very simplified aero-naval elements, and the generally simplified but quite decent mechanics. Think of it as a wargame with superb 3d elements for fighting battles, and it works very well indeed - it's not a warship simulator like DC nor is it Fighting Steel 2.
One of the Kriegsmarine's Hilfskruezer merchant raiders has been hunted down by RN warships - note the flaps dropped to reveal her concealed armament, now silent...
Journey's end for Lutzow. The same 3d model (Graf Spee) is used for all three pocket battleships in Atlantic Fleet, even though Lutzow always had a quite different bridge structure from her sisters...
Convoy battles - Atlantic fleet's simplified sub and ASW elements aren't really strong points in purely simulation terms, but they're effective and engaging nevertheless...
The worst thing about AF's subs is the way a battle with them involved most often starts with two or three subs in a ready-made 'area ambush'. Vaguely credible when the target is a slow convoy, but completely wrong when as often happens, the target is warships which subs, submerged or surfaced, would almost never be fast enough to catch in this fashion.
The ability for a torp to reach the target in a single turn if within a certain range, without the target being able to take any evasive action, doesn't help, but can be mitigated to a limited degree by turning on 'duds' which sort of allows the target an 'evade move' in wargame terms.
That a spread of torpedoes is much the most effective ASW weapon, is another big minus. But you don't have to do that and AFAIK, AI escorts will not do this when you're playing a sub.
Not being able to use secondary armament at the same time as main is the big minus in surface combat. A slightly longer maximum opening range in battles would help - now, if you come up against a superior force, avoiding battle is next-to-impossible. An AI gunnery officer would also be good so you could play the captain and concentrate on manoeuvring and ordering targets, if you wanted to.
Still, it's a heck of a package, just a pity it didn't get some updates and some DLC; I would have bitten their arms off to get that.