Introduction

Harpoon is a series of the world’s most accurate unclassified simulators of modern air and naval warfare. The simulators enables you to control all elements of a modern naval task force and explore the intricacies of 21st century combat. The Harpoon series is, in fact, considered to be close enough to the real thing that it has been in use for years by various military branches around the world as a training and what-if simulation tool. For a more intense battle experience, you have to be in the navy.

 

Harpoon Classic

Harpoon Classic was the first computer Harpoon game. Although it lacks the sophistication of the newer Harpoon II and Harpoon 3 simulators, it was probably the world’s best naval game when it shipped from Three-Sixty back in December 1989. Three-Sixty continued selling and updating the product until early 1994 when the rights reverted back to Applied Computing Services Inc., the original developer and rights holder. Alliance Interactive licensed the code and rights from ACSI in mid 1994 and developed Harpoon Classic for Windows 3.1. In 1996, Alliance licensed Harpoon Classic ‘97 to Interactive Magic, which developed the game further to Windows 95.

Harpoon Classic screenshots. Click on any of the thumbnails for a full picture:

 

Harpoon II & Harpoon 3

Harpoon3 is the most complex, most realistic and most accurate strategy-simulation of air and naval operations available to non-military users today. The simulator is being actively supported and maintained by the developer and the community, and new upgrades, features and scenarios are released on a regular basis.

 

- - GET A COPY OF HARPOON 3 HERE - -

 

Harpoon II was the MS/DOS version of the simulator. It was first released in 1994 on six 3.5 inch floppy disks and contained the battleset Global Conflicts One. The Global Conflicts Two and Three, Cold War, Westpac, and Regional Conflicts One battlesets were later released as add-ons. The next version, Harpoon II Deluxe Multimedia Edition, an improved version released on CD-ROM, contained the three battlesets Global Conflicts One, Two and Three as well as many new video and audio clips. It also included a printed manual and a scenario editor which allowed you to build your own scenarios. The final version was Harpoon II Admiral’s Edition. This had all six previous battlesets plus a new one, Regional Conflicts Two. However, being a MS/DOS application, Harpoon II suffered from severe stability problems on Windows 95, 98, ME platforms and would not run at all in pure 32-bit operating systems like NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Because of these shortcomings, Harpoon II was ported to Windows and renamed Harpoon3.

Harpoon 3.6 is the vastly improved Windows (Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP) and Mac (OS and OSX) version of Harpoon II. Harpoon 3 for PC was released in February 2002 while Harpoon 3 for Macintosh was released back in 2001. The simulator contains a myriad of new features and bug fixes, too numerous to mention all. Here are some:
- full compatibility with existing Harpoon II scenarios and databases.
- 10x - 12x improvement in game speed over Harpoon II.
- the ability to run in a window (Windows-version only, not Mac).
- supports resolution up to 1280 x 1024 x 256.
- custom ready times for aircraft (March 2003 - a truly revolutionary feature in the sim world!).
- New electronic warfare model (July 2004, the DB2000 database was updated accordingly).
- fully-implemented After-Action Log.
- re-mapped hotkeys for laptop computers, ‘alternative’ hotkeys added for non-English keyboards.
- Movie Maker; when activated, Harpoon3 automatically takes screenshots at selected intervals (January 2003).
- Shape/GIS (Geographic Information System); add geographical data to your scenarios (December 2002).
- nuclear weapons fully work.
- rate-of-fire bug fixed.
- thermal layer works.
- terrain-following works.
- random radar fringe bug fixed.
- highlight- and order problems for waypoints solved.
- critical Mount underrun bug fixed.
- Ship fuel state quirks fixed.
- Torps can now be fired under ice.

Harpoon 3.7 Advanced Naval Warfare (ANW) is the upgraded version of Harpoon3 which also adds Multiplayer. This version is still under development (December 2006) and has been plagued by severe technical difficulties. As a result, most Harpoon players continue to use 3.6 until the problems in 3.7 have been sorted out.

The HarpoonHQ’s DB2000 database and scenario project was started in late 1996 and has produced the most accurate, detailed and realistic dataset available for any commercial naval / air simulator. It contains more than 5000 ships, submarines, aircraft and land facilities plus about 1900 weapons. In other words, the complete 1980-2015 Order of Battle for more than 60 countries. For example, the US Navy F/A-18C has a separate database entry for use after 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2010. The F-16 is represented by 149 database entries to cover all operators, main versions, subversions and progressive weapon upgrades, while the Ticonderoga-class Aegis cruiser has 79 entries that cover all major batches, upgrades and weapon / sensor configurations from 1983 to 2010.

Harpoon II screenshots. Click on any of the thumbnails for a full picture:   

 

Harpoon 3 screenshots. Click on any of the thumbnails for a full picture:

 

Harpoon 4

Harpoon 4 was supposed to be the next installment in the Harpoon legacy. The game was under development for nearly seven years (!) until it was finally killed off on 26 November 2003. Harpoon3 (see above) will thus remain the king of ‘Poon for the foreseeable future.