Gunship #2 - Mission: Ground Support

So, we're at our FARP somewhere in Central America. Our orders are to support friendly ground troops. If the friendlies are save, we are to destroy an enemy HQ.

Mission briefing

Every briefing gives you a primary and a secondary objective. Missions can be either night or day missions and even the weather plays a role.

Mission mao

The mission map gives you a certain feeling what to expect. Of course the map doesn't reveal everything. In the planning stage you can see only US installations (HQs, FARPS and bases) and the primary and secondary objective.

Intel

G-2 gives you his estimation on what to expect from the enemy side. We take a special note on what AA-threats we will be up against. And most important: There will be Hinds operating in the area!!

Weapons

Before we take off, we will talk with the crew chief about how we will arm the help for this mission. In most cases I will take the standard layout. Note that there are AIM-9 Sidewinders on our wingtips!

Yep, I will. Loading times on the C-64 were terrifying.

Ready for Take off ...

A few moments later we will find ourselves in the cockpit. Pressing the 1 and 2 keys starts up our engines and a quick press on 3 engages our rotor. The raise collective with the F1 key and we're airborne.

Hinds! And we're not even airborne. Great ...

Friendly APC ahead. Good thing the computer identifies the targets for us. Not sure if I could have IDed that thing.

Enemy infantry!

After a few minutes we make contact with enemy troops. We dispatch a few infantry with our 30mm cannon. Below the CRT you can see the actual active weapon.

• 60 Rounds 30mm cannon
• 2 AIM-9 Sidewinder
• 19 FFAR rockets
• 8 AGM-114 Hellfire
• 10 Chaff/Flares

Ahh, piece of cake ...

There he is: the Mi-24 Hind. Shortly after the picture was take it was downed by one of my Sidewinders.

Badly damaged.

When I attacked the secondary target we got beaten up pretty badly by the bad guys. So I decided to abort the attack and head home. You can see the damage on the upper part of the cockpit.

Password challenge

Every time you return to base you're challenged with the password of the day. You have to look up the correct answer in the manual. No, it's not a copy protection! All in the sake of base security.

If you fail to give the correct answer you're shot down by your own AA.

Mission results

Purple Heart awarded

Leugengroot's service record 

Well, I think I'm going to take some days for extended R&R and recover a little bit. Overall Gunship is still a lot of fun after all these years. I had way more fun than with DI's F-16 Combat Pilot. I think I will keep on flying for some more days just for pure entertainment. Next time I will take a look at the manual.

cu

Jens

BTW: Thanks for all the nice words for the blog so far. It would be great if you guys could fill the comments on the blog directly a little bit.

Gunship #1 - Overview

Development

Andy Hollis and Arnold Hendrick started thinking about a helicopter simulation right after Solo Flight and F-15 proved that there is a market for flight simulation. After some initial research in early 1985 work on Gunship started in the summer of '85.

The first draft was centered around the Vietnam-war era Cobra helicopter. Microprose president "Wild Bill" Stealy named it "Cobra Gunship". The battlefield of this first version was much more urban and the gameplay arcade-ish. 

Around that time in the mid-80s a new helicopter came into production, the Hughes AH-64A Apache.
Being a much more modern helicopter and more sophisticated in it's technology, the guys at Microprose soon put their eyes on this new machine and finally made the decision to make a AH-64A simulation.

AH-64A
"Photo Courtesy of U.S. Army" - by Tech. Sgt. Andy Dunaway

Originally aimed for fall 1985, the release date was postponed and finally dropped completely.  Meanwhile Sid Meier had developed a new 3D-engine (on one of the new Amiga machines) and everybody at Microprose was convinced that this is the way to go.
At that time Microprose already put a lot of work and money into the project, but the aim of Microprose was to produce quality software, rather to make some quick money.

Work continued, the 3D engine of Meier was ported to the 8bit systems. In parallel Arnold Hendrick did extensive research on the new helicopter. Of course lot of information was till classified at that time, but advertisement and unclassified information provided enough for Microprose.
Michael Haire, the graphic artist worked on the cockpit design and all the award-, arming, options screens.

Gunship - My personal C-64 copy

In october 1986 Gunship was released (18 month after it's initial announcement). When I mail ordered my copy in 1986 I was still in school. It was the first "real" simulation I played and I was hooked up from the first moment.
The manual taught me a the basics I had to know about the virtual battlefield for the upcoming sims. I remember thinking "that is perfect. It couldn't be better". Well, as it turned out, I had no clue.

To close this little overview and as a little bit of contrast you might take a look at this AH-64 simulator: Combat Helo
     

A lot of info on the development comes from flightsimbook.com

The Action is simulated. The Excitement is real.

What a catchy phrase from this old Microprose catalog! Today I don't have a specific sim in the strict sense, but a catalog from Microprose. I got it with my Gunship box back in 1986.

Catchy phrase ...

"Maj. Wild Bill Stealey" on the left side.

Solo Flight / Kennedy Approach

NATO Commander / Crusade in Europe

F-15 Strike Eagle / Gunship

Silent Service / Hellcat Ace

Spitfire Ace / MiG Alley Ace

Conflict in Vietnam

A whole bunch of classics in this single catalog. My first contact with Microprose was F-15 and Conflict in Vietnam on my Commodore 64. As not uncommon in those times none of them was a legal copy and I didn't have a proper manual. When I mail ordered Gunship in 1986 and saw the fine manual it came with I was more than happy. Anyway, the next sim I will take a look at, will be Gunship by Microprose. I will stay with the C-64 version this time.

cu

Jens

F-16 Combat Pilot #6 - Commodore 64 - ZX Spectrum

Some more screenshots from the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum version. Even if the 8bit version are a little bit scaled down in their functionality, it's amazing what the programmers got out of these machines.

See for yourself (top: Commodore 64, below: ZX Spectrum)

Titlescreen
The Spectrum guy looks kinda creepy)

Mission selection

Weapon selection

inflight

BTW: I played some more of the DOS version last night. Even if I'm getting better, I think I will move on to (after some final thoughts) the next sim.

cu

Jens

F-16 Combat Pilot #5 - Amiga - DOS comparison

I'm getting better, but the enemy keeps shooting me down regularly.  So I, did something different and took a look at some of the conversions to other systems. F-16 Combat Pilot was ported to the following 16bit systems:

• Amiga
• MS-DOS
• Atari ST

and some of the older 8bit systems

• Commodore 64
• ZX Spectrum
• Amstrad CPC

The 8bit systems don't have the fancy graphics as well as some of the functionality. 

Well, here comes the first comparison in the 16 bit field (top: MS-DOS / below: Amiga)

Title screen

Main menu
(notice, that in the Amiga version both pilot and the behind-the-desk-guy make a much more professional impression!

Mission selection

Weapon slection
(in the Amiga Version the pilot looks left and right and opens/closes his visor)

Cockpitview

Next, I will make some screenshots of the 8bit versions.

cu
Jens

F-16 Combat Pilot #4 - The Manual

As I wrote before, the manual has about 100 pages and covers every aspect of the sim in detail. The manual is completely black and white, all the screenshots are from the Atari ST version.

Overall, the manual is a VERY good introduction into the world of fight pilots, weapon employment, BFM and how an Fighter-Squadron operates in a military conflict. Of course you can't compare it to manuals like the ones in the DCS Series, but it's some very informative reading.

I'll show you some example pages from the single chapters so that you might get the feeling. Even if you don't intend to play the sim, you might get your hands on a PDF-copy and take a look ...

Cover

1. Introduction / 2. Arriving at Base

Welcome!

3. Training squadron

Pre-flight briefing

Radar modes

ILS

HUD

Basic flying skills

Traffic pattern

4. Front line operations

A2A missiles

AGM-65 Maverick

Iron bombs

5. Combat manoevers - how to stay one step ahead!

BFM for beginners

6. Ground school

Why does my F-16 fly?

Nice additional info

7. Aircraft technical data

Know your enemy...

8. Weapon technical data

Missiles, bombs, everything you need...

Appendix

And you can even order a F-16 CP T-Shirt!!!!