The general was uncomfortable running an airwar. He was, after all, a US Army general. It was his post, so he had the job of running the show. If only we had troops, he told himself. He imagined watching a surge of Armoured Cavalry up along that Valley there, supported by Commanche and Apache gunships, and the army's latest acquisition, the upgraded A-10.

But no US Army troops had been actively involved, fighting anywhere since Kazakhstan; after that, the US administration re-learned the lessons of the Somalia peacekeeping experience in the early 90s. And nothing would change that. CNN surveys showed the American public were sick to the teeth of US involvement in the petty quarrels of the Middle East. One after another, the US had been involved in conflicts between Eritrea and Ethiopia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the long series of wars against Yemen. And that was not forgetting the crap further up the Gulf.

The general turned his music up - Wagner's Parsifal. Opera had become very popular in the second decade of the 21st century. Modern culture was too confused and had little more to offer. The music, he found, helped him think.

Coalition management, that's what they teach commander nowadays, he reminded himself, trying to re-learn the lessons. He had two nations under his military "advisorship" Ethiopia and Eritrea, nations who by turns, warred and loved each other. To say things were strained would be a crass understatement.

And he had another nationality under his command, although it was not until he arrived did he know they were there - Israel. They had a squadron of F-22s and F-16s and C-130s in the North of Ethiopia, flying under Ethiopian colours. He wasn't pleased about that, but the Ethiopians considered them their secret weapon, so he had to lump it. They were good fighters. He hoped the world would not find out. The situation in Syria was tensing, by the day.

Ever since Norway, a few years back, the pattern for NATO wars was this. European NATO would do the work, and the US would support them. Host countries were, according to the new "silent doctrine" to do the ground warfare; it was their tanks, their men, their trucks. The US would provide airpower. That was what they are best at, no? The Marines would be the only American ground forces. That was, after all, what the Marines were for. Occasionally, a small ACR group would find itself sent off in a support role.

But it was Britain who's star was re-ascending; and that was since Norway too. But it had been going that way a long time. And this time, the UK was not here. He had worked with those troops, liked those troops; he liked their tactics, their Challenger tanks, their ruthless professionalism. They were a dream to work with. They had strange habits, their morale was odd. "We Brits, an infantry sergeant had said to him, love to grab a one-nil score in the last few seconds of injury time. We always play till then."

He took a while to work out what all that meant, but he had grown used to having them under his command. Now Britain was staying out of this little "Red Sea Adventure," thank you very much. They were too busy evaluating the F-22 as a possible Future Offensive Aircraft contender. And that was that.

So, here he was, with his screen, watching a war which was being timed, and his migraine was getting worse.

When would it end, when would the Sudanese break, and when could his aircraft operate freely over their territory. He wished he had American troops. He wished he had British troops. But only America had really involved itself this time. He was on his own.

So, after all my moaning, why buy TAW?

Because its awe inspiring and brilliant, that's why.

The gaming area looks small on the map, but in fact it is huge. I have not, for example, fallen over the edge of the world at all, and I could amuse myself for hours simply flying about, exploring, and there is a hell of a lot to explore.

The gaming area is not Iran, or Korea, or Iraq, or Russia, or Libya or Cuba, surprise, surprise. In fact it's nowhere a PC sim has ever been set before, to my knowledge. It is the region of the Red Sea basin; South Eastern Egypt, Western Saudi Arabia, North Eastern Sudan, Northern Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Yemen.

And boy it's a beautiful part of the world.

According to the background of the game, the region becomes the theatre for a series of wars at the end of the next decade, fought between nations armed with second hand Western and Eastern weaponry. Two of these nations, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have that most deadly of weapons, the F-22. Both nations also posses those other rather deadly aircraft, the EF2000 and Joint Strike Fighter.

According to the campaign environment, the nations of the world have been busy buying second hand US and European and Russian military equipment, and upgrading them. If you see a MiG-21, don't snigger. Worry. He can probably see you on his fancy new radar, and if he can see you, he can take you out with his fancy new R-77s. You may not think much of Ethiopia as a military super-power, but in F-22, you would do well to worry about them.

Thus, the enemy has a dangerous mix of planes, from the Russian "Strike Eagle" beater, the Su-30, to the F-22 itself, to the Joint Strike Fighter, as well as such terrors as the F-16 and Rafale. This is all part of the hi-tech warfare of the future, I know, but… again, where do they get all these damn planes from?

Now, in the end, after considering all these many and varied arguments, let us consider what is needed for a future war dynamic campaign.

Coalition management. There are about 10 countries involved in TAW. You can, in the mission editors I have seen designated them as Gulf Co-operation council, NATO, Soviet, etc. Well, that is great, but how a bout more nations, maybe all the NATO members. Each time a campaign starts, the computer says who are helping you, and which NATO countries have sent troops.

Say you use the Siberian War option. Russia and China have been involved in a 6-month ground war on the borders at Khabarovsk. Winter is closing in. The Russians are close to defeat. The Russian economy is completely ruined by the war. Russia threatens to go nuclear against China. Into the breach steps NATO, as a "peace-enforcing" force. And then everything goes wrong and a small NATO coalition is alone on the icy tundra.

Right, nice evocative scenario you can conjure with. The computer selects who is out there. A few defaults: Germany, UK, and US, FRANCE. The computer does a quick run around of the NATO countries and decides who comes along. Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Belgium, and Italy send troops and air squadrons. Greece and Turkey offer troops, then get paranoid of one another. Canada offers logistical support. The computer then decides that Sweden sends a squadron of Grippens to escort their aid convoys to the starving populace of the warzone. These planes can be, to an extent you assets, provided they are not over-used.

Click to continue

All well and good. Because the NATO mission is technically a UN mission, Finland, Japan and Korea send troops. If the war goes well, then your coalition will hold together. But China is using back-channel diplomacy against all the antagonists. Japan and Korea and indeed, Canada are vulnerable to this. China is also in a position to directly threaten Korea and Japan, and does so. And then there is Russia. I know TAW does this anyway, but it would be nice on a wider scale. Maybe a War Popularity Scale, or something.

Say, the Finns take massive casualties along their area of security. They reduce their commitment according to political pressure at home. And then the core players have their own populations to worry about. When a campaign starts, you could even end up losing the US support, and their vital F-22s, leaving France and the UK holding the line. Like I said, I want to know what is going on, to some extent, back home. The war on the home front is as important as the war in the field.

Bases. Each base should be a special sort of unit. The base should be like an aircraft or whatever. It has a (changeable) Nationality, it has a personnel level and a set amount of aircraft at this base. And most importantly, it has a rating that determines how well it may generate sorties. This figure should be dependent on a number of factors.

TAW airbases are great, but lets make them functional, and worthwhile. What do you need to generate a sortie? You need aircraft, first of all, and if a RAF Typhoon as just dropped by and cluster bombed the ramp, then you have, obviously, less planes. And when you have no planes, until reserves are called up and stationed there, you cannot generate sorties!!! Next, you need fuel. Again, you need a set limit of the fuel available here. And if a NATO JSOW takes out one of yours fuel tanks, then obviously, you should have less. You may have to leave aircraft "fallow" doing nothing.

Next you need weaponry, and again, this should be limited. The campaign AI should subtract the loadout from the base total. Something simple, perhaps - 12 BAI loadouts, 50 CAS loadouts, 100 CAP loadouts, perhaps? If certain loadouts are all used up, then the base is not going to generate CAP flights. Next you need a maintenance factor. To be simple, make this general. Basically how many maintenance crews there are, compared with how much damage, and thus how long to fix the things. An Apache stand off attack could very well damage this level.

And finally, the pilots. Say 36 pilots for every 24 aircraft? Assume that each time they eject, they get back to base within 24 hours, but if they do not eject, the pilot pool is reduced. Also, to be simple, assume half are sleeping at any one time, and if there are less pilots than active planes, then less planes than optimal are going to be taking off.

Perhaps even a maintenance factor for the aircraft. Anyone operating, for example, F-14s is going to be spending a lot of time keeping it flying.

You need, also, floating airbases. In both EF2000 and TAW, the CVs do not do anything, simply float. Well, they should launch aircraft, by the same principle. Nothing fancy, just a Fighters Anthology style launching and trapping, and a fixed number of aircraft.

Both of these things need re-supply. Keeping bases supplied can become a whole sub-strategy in itself. Basically, TAW should do all this work in the background, but allow it to be played with, if needs be. And if the enemy keeps preventing re-supply, then the base can no longer generate sorties. Indeed, it might now fall to the enemy. Or, in the case of the CVs, sink. This may sound complicated, but even someone who is crap at maths could manage a formula for it. Basically, a small, ongoing algorithm for each base, occupying a few K of memory. It is something that could radically, radically, change the way the war is fought.

You need theatre-wide stand off battle occurring. You have enemy FROG-7s and SCUDs raining down on allied airbases and troop concentrations. You have Storm Shadows and Tomahawks destroying supply dumps. You get to watch them cruise in, in SMARTVIEW.

By the same token, you need a ground war, and artillery, but that is a fight for another day.

And finally, finally, I come again to the main irritant of TAW. In EF2000 TACTCOM, in the section detailing the campaign, it gives a list of just how much each side has of what. I assume the campaign sticks to it. TAW just keeps rolling the damn things out.

Douglas Cowan's MAWGUI for F-22ADF also allows the campaign creator to set exactly how much each side has of what. Ruthless rationing of arms, ammunition, and warplanes would go a long way towards promoting the game balance, as well as airbases operating under a stressful war footing. Instead of scramble missions against 16 Su-27s and 20 Su-25s (the missions, to be fair, never ask you to kill that many, but while you are in the air, it is not unheard of to shoot down this many bad guys), which is just one of many raid that day against your base, how about a scramble mission, half armed and half fuelled, against a raid of 4 Su-30s and 2 Su-27s in escort roles? Even in an F-22, I would be terrified.

It is my express wish that EF2000 V.3 is a sequel to both TAW and EF2000 V.2. I think an alchemical marriage of the two would produce something that would agree with the arguments expressed here. Certainly, DID could well afford to drag their sims closer to the hard-core lobby, not particularly by flight modelling, although EF2000 could do with a far more fluid flight experience, but by the strategy and workings of the campaign itself. TAW is a wonder, it's amazing; but it can get very annoying. The past is but prelude.

Consider this a challenge.