AAR Forum

[PeriscopeDepth]

Dunno if it's been discussed before, but I think a Subsim AAR forum would be really fun.

PD

[Drebbel]

Hmm, sorry, AAR ?

After Action Report ?

[PeriscopeDepth]

Hmm, sorry, AAR ?

After Action Report ?

Yes sir. :)

PD

[gdogghenrikson]

what is an After Action Report??

[PeriscopeDepth]

what is an After Action Report??

Here is SimHQ's AAR forum: http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/ultimatebb.php?ubb=forum;f=124

AARs are people telling stories of past games played, usually illustrating them using screenshots.

PD

[Drebbel]

what is an After Action Report??

Write up after the action.

Begin AAR
- I sailed to Skapa flow
- I sunk the Bismarck
- I sailed away again
End AAR

Of course you should use lot of more words and make it look very official and real, or make it very entertaning story.

[Herman]

For those of you wondering what an AAR might be like, here's an AAR by Dave Steinmeyer. It is re-printed here with permission from the author.

AAR: Beach Reconnaissance [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon 3 scenario
By Herman Hum
Soviet submarines have scored many successes in the Atlantic convoy lanes through the profligate expenditure of torpedoes and missiles. By the third week of the war, many submarines are suspected to be low on fuel and munitions. However, the number of submarines returning to ports in the Kola Peninsula is far lower than expected.

The level of subsurface activity in the Spitzbergen area is higher than expected. Investigate and see if these anomalies are coincidental or correlated. If the Soviets can replenish away from the Kola Peninsula, this would be a significant and strategic force multiplier.
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/9945/brecon8jp.th.gif (http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brecon8jp.gif)

I plotted my course for the first Named Area of Interest (NAI1). It's the one that's furthest SE. My course took me N, then I turned and approached the coast at right angles. After a few minutes, I got my first contact, a goblin to the E of my start point. I never really got a track on him, and lost him shortly after. The next pair of contacts as I approached NAI1 were both a skunk and a goblin to the NW. Again, I lost the goblin pretty quickly. Then I lost the skunk.

Next, I had contact with a skunk to my N, somewhere between the first two recon areas, and a second skunk to my E, SE of NAI1. I quickly classify these as General Cargo Vessels. As I entered the first recon area, I went to periscope depth and immediately sniffed a pair of Mushroom radars off to the NW. But I had no way of knowing how far. I also pinpointed one of the general cargo ships, 5nm due west of my first recon area.

I traversed almost the length of the first area when I remembered the guidance that -20m may be too deep. I set depth for -10m and instantly noticed a guard post. I turned away from the coast, went to shallow, and kicked it in the ass to full speed to put some distance between my boat and where I had to assume the guard post noticed me, but also to close some distance with the cargo vessel. I closed to 4nm, slowed to creep, and sent her to the bottom with one ADCAP Mod 5.

I repeated the same procedures for NAIs 2 & 3 without incident. The Falcons made quick work of whatever buildings I discovered and marked as hostile. The whole time I spent moving up the coast, I was trying to catch up with the first cargo vessel I noticed, but he was moving at about 8kts in a straight line and I was forced to creep in and out from the coast. He eventually pulled away from me and I lost him. I did have to fight a VERY strong urge to venture into the two large fjords, but since there was still work to be done further N, I managed to resist the temptation.

After I had cleared NAI3, discovering a guard tower on both banks of the entrance, things started to get a bit hairy. I kept getting goblin contacts all the way up the coast. But for the most part, they were spurious and sporadic. Now, they seemed to be coming more frequently, and they weren't just fleeting contacts. As if I didn't have enough to worry about, I also ID'd a Krivak III and a Grisha in the area, but the uncertainty factor for both was quite large. It was starting to feel like I was walking into the jaws of the beast!

I decided to make for the southern tip of the barrier island off of Spitzbergen and hug the coast as I crept into the small strait between the islands. I was very pleasantly surprised to find how deep I could stay as I got very close to the southern point. I managed to enter the strait without incident, but quickly noticed the water getting more and more shallow. About halfway up the strait, all hell broke loose! The water was so shallow, that I was forced to surface. And it couldn't have happened at a worse time! A Hormone was only about a mile away as I broke the surface. Apparently, he was RTB somewhere on the main island, because he never made a turn for me. He must have, however, radioed to a base on the smaller island, because a pair of helos popped up out of nowhere and headed straight for me.

They both dropped torps, between speed, decoys, and and a WHOLE lot of luck, I was able to dodge them all! As they were coming for me, I designated them as hostile, which launched the F-15s to come cover my butt! It took them a while to on station, but they did shoot down several Hormones. Including one that was hot on my trail as I was running for NAI4. The Eagles radars did detect four targets inside the inlet near NAI4. I figured that this was what I was looking for. Unfortunately, the mouth of the inlet was guarded by an HQ 9 (?) class FFL, which was immediately detected as hostile. A pair of ADCAPS and his hostility didn't matter too much any more.

As I turned E, into the inlet, I was able to get all the way down to periscope depth! (WOO HOO!!) I ID'd the ships as a pair of Altay oilers, the general cargo vessel that eluded me earlier, and an Urga sub-tender. One pair of Mk48s was targeted on one of the oilers and the cargo ship. The Altay was sunk at her moorings. The cargo ship was a clear miss. The next spread of torps was one for each surviving ship. The second Altay and the sub-tender joined the first oiler at the bottom of the inlet. A second ADCAP swam right passed the cargo ship! DAMN!

Helos were starting to swarm again, so I figured it was time to didi mao, so I could fight another day. But, as I turned for deeper water, I took one last parting shot at the cargo vessel that had frustrated my efforts to sink it. This time, I nailed it!! As I was leaving the N end of the strait, I noticed one of the sonar arrays called "SINK THIS AND YOU LOOSE." Even for a dumb guy like me, that's pretty easy to figure out! As I started to plot a wide berth around the array, I was awarded VICTORY!

Herman, this scenario was a ton of fun! It started off slow, but the action and the tension steadily built up through the course of the game. The air strikes and air cover were nicely done. I'd love to see a similar scenario with one of the Virginia class boats that are specifically designed for littoral operations such as beach recons. It would be an interesting comparison.

Here's the final breakdown:

NATO Expenditures - 9 ADCAP Mod 5, 3 White Noise decoys, 2 Ensonification Bubblers.

USSR Losses - 1 Juliett, 1 Victor III, 1 November, 1 Charlie II, (I never fired on an enemy sub, so I'm not sure what got 'em, but I'm glad it did!) 1 watch tower, 2 guard posts, 2 general cargo vessels, 1 Urga, 2 Altay AO, 1 HQ 9, and 5 Hormones.

Thanks again for another great scenario!

SZO file archives (http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/forums/downloads.php?do=cat&id=30) - Home of the Harpoon3 PlayersDB

http://img271.echo.cx/img271/7972/badger0ma.th.jpgFilesOfScenShare (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/FilesOfScenShare/)

http://img108.exs.cx/img108/5898/hgbanner33xr.jpgHarpGamer.com (http://www.harpgamer.com) - Home of the HCDB.

[PeriscopeDepth]

Hey, Herman's here too. :D Herman is a master AAR'er that posts at SimHQ.

PD aka vertical @ SimHQ and others...

[Herman]

Good to see you over here, Vertical! However, you must have me mistaken for someone else. ;) :oops:

All that I do is write the AARs according to how the scenarios play out. The REAL credit goes to those mysterious folks called scenario designers. They put in all that work to set up all action and I just tell their story for them. :up:

[Sailor Steve]

Several SHIII players have posted single or ongoing action reports, mostly on the regular SHIII boards. I don't know much about bandwidth, or how much money it takes to run the site or to add new forums, but if it's not prohibitive I cast my vote for such a board. It would be good to have a place where we can read (or avoid) the experiences of other players.