Interesting. I tend to prefer an angle that's a little bit offset because I can more easily slip around the escorts. Then drive right at high value units.

In NATO EXWAR, the escorts are picked randomly so it should be different every time. Also, in a later version, I also added airborn helos, because I realized they never had time to get a helo airborn. Sometimes there's VLA and sometimes there's not. It depends on what escorts are drawn. Also, the shotgun ship should always have VLA.

My read on it was that the formation was frontloaded and broad enough that going in from the side wouldn't get me a shot. I guess that depends on whether or not the escorts' TACTASS would hear me at 68 cross-layer, which now that I think about it is probably unlikely. So yeah, if I could attack from the side, this would be about as easy as NATO was.

The opportunity space is definitely smaller against a CSG v. an ESG, I think, due to the larger number of escorts, but so far I haven't had too much trouble pulling it off. This might be because I play DW with a maneuvering board and write down TIME/BEARING/DISTANCE on my white board, for targets of interest. In that sense, I then to be a little more scientific about course changes than most people.

I just noticed this old thread. In general, I agree.

SC/DW scenarios have always been a confusing mixed bag which has kept me from investing significant time in these two games. The engines and platforms are mouth watering attractive. However, the scenarios too often leave you frustrated with what you are supposed to do it, how to do it, and bugs and things that don't work.

Too many of the scenarios that work as designed turn into little riddles or puzzles as opposed to questions of repeateable skills development and utilization.

Althought a rating system would not solve all the underlying problems, not having to wade through frustrating and pointless scenarios would be a key help. The system should also rate scenarios by a number of essential parameters like:

Bug checked.
Difficulty.
Length.
Hot or cold.
Skill set focus.
Complete briefing (or assumed knowledge like having read some novel).
...

I can recommend the mission "Aleutian Operations" by Furia, because it's is challenging and has lots of different objectives. The only thing that I didn't like is that you have to sent your helo away to rescue a pilot and because of the huge distance you constanly lose the link. Apart from that the mission is just great!:rock: