To date Janes F15 has had the most detailed wingmen command routines available. But there is still room for improvement and we will see good things this winter in Falcon 4. What will be the cutting edge? Flexibility is the name of the game. Here is a partial list of the commands we are likely to see:

• Bracket left/right
• Drag left/right
• Break high/low, left/right
• Engage My Target
• Sort left/right
• Form on my wing
• Formation Type
• Report stores
• Report Fuel
• Report Status
• Perform Scan/direction/alt
• Sanitize/direction
• Cover me
• Help
• Return to base/Bug out
• Abandon Mission

While such commands are not so critical for network play, for a satisfying single player experience this kind of tactical control is the meat and potatoes of simulated life.

Without solid wingman control, many basic strategies become impossible. Head-on merges are not the best way to live through an initial contact! For example, standard two on one or two on two doctrine requires the ability to send your wingmen off to bracket on one side (preferably 2 of them while the third remains with you) while you and your wing bracket the other, or to perform a DRAG manouver while you get on the tail of the bandit. This greatly increases the likelihood of a kill. In too many sims ordering wingmen to engage two bandits has meant that three of our wingmen are off and hunting leaving the flight LEAD on his own!

By the same token, to command two of your flight to watch a different sector of the flight path with RADAR gives you better situational awareness. SA is the sister to "lose sight, lose the fight." A sanitize or sector scan command enables this control. If you miss your target, (of course this NEVER happens to the rest of us), the ability to have your wingman take your target out could be crucial in cutting off supply lines or stopping that pesky SAM site from killing any more of your allies.

In F4, as in F15, a player will communicate with other members of his flight at different levels. Level one is a wingman call, level two is a call to the element, level three is a call to the group, and level four is a call to the flight. The diversity of these commands mirrors the real world.

F4 Campaign Map. Click for 800x600

Integration of the Ground War

Integration of the ground war means greater reality and greater immersion; greater immersion means higher replayability... ie. more fun! There are three implications for sim design: platform, AI, and avionics and weapon and defence systems. First, AI.

Microprose' Falcon 4 is the only nearly released simulation that smoothly integrates an air and ground war in a single dynamic campaign structure. Earlier in the life of Total Air War the goal was the same, and Roger Godfrey commented on "Smart Tanks:"

Roger G: ... a fully functioning ground war. The Tanks fight each other on the battlefield, trains travel around the desert (on train lines), trucks travel down the roads, SAMS trundle around taking pot shots at enemy aircraft and AAA snakes into the sky. This is great stuff for Close Air Support missions. Of course the other aircraft will perform CAS using SmartPilots as well so don't be surprised if you see A10's smashing T-80's to bits or EF2000's performing Wild Weasel.

Integration of the ground war means that interdiction of supplies will now become a critical mission goal, and supply routes will be busy with vehicular traffic. Not only does this add to the immersion factor, it adds to the realism since resource management and resupply are the backbone of any military campaign.

The larger question is, as hardware power continues to expand, where does this integration go? Most likely it simply continues to expand. Future dynamic campaigns will model not only the integration of air and ground wars, but do it in larger worlds where more and more factories of a vital economy are connected to the ability to continue to prosecute the war. So, for example, not only will dams and factories and supply convoys be potential targets, but railway lines and roads, hydro lines and oil fields.

Next, avionics. Up to 1997 no one had seriously taken on LANTIRN simulation. However, this changed in 1997 with Janes Longbow, followed by Longbow 2, F15 and then Team Apache. Soon we'll see the HARM targetting system modeled in detail in F4.

LANTIRN shot from iF16. Click for a larger image...

Click to continue . . .

Team Apache. Click the image for a larger shot..

Modeling defence networks and ground strike weapons and systems is another cutting edge. Janes F15 introduced a GCI (ground control intercept) network which was vulnerable at key points, and where information travelled along the network so that one station was connected to another. This meant being detected on ingress to the target would result in a higher state of preparation of defences. Conversely, taking out a key component of the GCI grid meant that you had a higher chance of completing your mission. In future campaigns this level of integration of systems will continue to expand and improve.

But equally important, the modeling of weapons systems themselves continues to improve. Not only are we seeing the ballistics and physics improve, the simulation of targetting systems is becoming more sophisticated, and increasing realism is invested in failure rates, accuracy, damage potential, counter measures etc.

Finally, choice of platform. In order to do justice to an integral ground war the best platform choice is a strike fighter like the F15 or the A10. Those of us who love the mud-moving waited eagerly for Andy Hollis last project, and now are hoping to see a solid A10 simulation. Rumor has it that both Janes and iMagic are working in this area now.

But wait a minute! Why not blur the boundaries again and put together an A10, armor and chopper sim in one neat interoperable package? Thankfully, this seems to be the direction for Microprose for early 1999 when M1 Tank Platoon II, an awesome entry in the armor department this year, meets Gunship III. No, there is no word of an A10 in this picture yet, but who knows what we will see in the summer of 1999?

Conclusions

Three areas which could have been included in this discussion are ACMI, multiplayer features and mission planners. The cutting edge is continually being improved in all of these areas, and Flanker 2 and Falcon 4 look set to achieve a whole new dimension in each, but particularly in ACMI and multiplayer flexibility.

Personally, I think the cutting edge should also support cutting edge hardware, like Forte's VFX1, surround sound and multiple monitor support. Force feedback is a bit less important, though it becomes more significant in the prop sims. And while the complexity of sims these days might lead one to conclude that everyone has to own Thrustmaster gear, the advent of programmable units like Saitek's PC Dash and Quickshot's Masterpilot means that anyone can expand their control abilities with minimum effort.

I haven't discussed the graphical requirements of the cutting edge. I have, however, made it clear in recent previews that the state of the art is advancing as rapidly in graphics as in any other single area of sim design. The near maturity of 3d hardware is enabling developers to reach for their dreams and I don't think there is much point for discussion here.

I do want to note, however, that graphical effects and physics modeling strongly overlap, so that light source shading and shadows, explosions at night that illuminate surrounding terrain (as in F15, Longbow II, Team Apache and others) add to immersion and realism. WW2 Fighters certainly rides the cutting edge in the graphical effects department, but we'll see that bar continually raised in the coming year. Wait until you crash in Fighter Squadron and see your tire bouncing off across the landscape! ;-D

In the past some sim design companies have attempted to push forward faster than hardware could keep pace. Remember Origen's Strike Commander?" On the other hand, USNF when it was released was a strain on my state of the art P90, but when I arrived at a slightly overclocked 150 MHz a few months later it was an incredible simulation. With the pace of hardware advancement these days, kudos to Janes Combat Simulations for releasing a sim like WW2 Fighters which will grow with our hardware while being accessible to most platforms at relatively high levels of detail even today.

But I want to take a poke at advanced flight models that exist in a sterile world without wind effects. Kudos to Rowan Software for giving us the whole enchilada in Flying Corps, with the exception of weather. Team Apache advanced the cause and we will see many more advances in this area in the coming year from Apache-Havoc, MiG Alley, Nations , Panzer Elite and others.

In conclusion, we've surveyed the scene with a view toward the immediate future, and it's a great time for sim fans. With third generation 3d hardware now on the shelves and CPU and memory prices at record lows, I suspect that we will all be spending our holidays protecting our air space, ferreting out enemy subs, or ensuring that our M1s control the battlefield. See you on the field of honor!