The Longbow II guide is as powerful and complete a tool as was the Guide for Longbow original. With three hundred pages packed with information, the Guide also includes a glossy campaign map (contour map on top and larger version with grid layout on the bottom) measuring about 20 by 24 inches. Now how does one summarize three hundred pages in a review?

Janes and the crew must have anticipated this need because on the opening page is a section titled "HOW TO USE." Here is the contents of that page:

Strategies and Tactics is a collection of tips and tactics on the following:

General Tips pp.8-35. 21 items are listed including the mission planner, cockpit setup, master modes, flight tips, ap functions, using weapons, target types, PFZs, using your wingman, using your co-pilot gunner, beating bandits, camera views etc. Avoiding Detection is on pages 36-38. Multi-player games is on pages 39-47.

On pages 50-69 is a section on Game Mechanics. This section discusses game stats for all units and discusses damage and scoring systems in the game. This is helpful if you are after max rewards and want to improve your efficiency.

Pages 72-137 consists of excerpts fom the US Army's Field Guide 17-50 on various attack helicopter deployments and procedures. The TOC at the beginning gives a good overview.

Pages 140-169 covers General Mission Information, discussing the different types of missions you'll encounter. You'll also find orders of battle for the campaigns and comments and strategies from game designer Mike Francis. For those into the campaign mode and wanting to know what really works and what to watch out for, this section is the hot one.

But the next section, Mission Analyses (pp.172-265) is also very helpful, with maps and analyses of the single missions and the special orders which overlay campaign missions. The section opens with a thumbnail index that lists the mission names, locations, and main objectives. The final section (pages 268-301) contains information from Janes Sentinel on the international affairs and armed forces of Azerbaijan and Iran.

Whew! Thats quite a mouthful. Frankly, if you are really immersed in Longbow II you either have this guide already or are planning to buy it. Janes doesn't mince around in putting these guides together; they are a real addition to the sim and the Longbow guides are the best of the bunch. Lets look at some excerpts.

Mission Examples: Attacking Pockets of Resistance (p.100).

An attack helicopter company has been placed under operational control (OPCON) of a brigage conducting an attack. As the brigade moves forward, the company will reposition its forward assembly area and FARP by bounds to remain close to lead ground forces.

While moving to contact, a lead task force is fired upon by a small mechanized enemy unit. The task force commander is ordered to bypass in order to maintain the momentum of the attack. A ground scout squad is left to maintain contact with the enemy. The enmy force realizes it has been bypassed and begins to move. Ground scouts from the task force report that movement, and the attack company is ordered to destroy the bypassed enemy force. The commander elects to commit one attack platoon initially.

Aeroscouts from the platoon move forward to determine the enemy situation and select attack positions. They recieve a target handover from the ground scouts. The aeroscouts call for immediate indirect suppressive fires. They direct the attack helicopter sections into battle positions from which they engage....Note: these sections are accompanied by diagrams.

This excerpt, which is from public domain information (the US Army Field Guide 17-50) illustrates how much tactical information is included in the Guide. Far from just a few paragraphs and diagrams on tactics and deployment, the casual player is going to find a TON of helpful information here that with practice in the campaign is going to make him very successful!

The descriptions of mission types that occurs on pages 142-157 is loaded with helpful information. Here is an excerpt from CAP on page 142:

This is a protection-based mission. Basically, when you fly a CAP you're supporting a ground attack. Chances are the enemy is preparing to attack your unit. Soyou go to that units' position and stand by, watching for trouble. Range forward a few kilometres and see if you can detect any enemy movement.

The best thing to take on this type of mission is a Longbow with radar. Its highly versatile and can carry a varied ordnance load. The weapons you take depends on the mission, but I usually carry eight Hellfires and take along MPSM rockets-- the rockets can do a spread attack, and you can knock off light armor and infantry with them. A couple of Stingers never hurts, either.

Other suggestions abound: LISTEN to the radio. If you don't take note of anything else in the briefing, note the call signs of the other units. They can supply you with critical information, warn you of danger, etc. And there may even be the odd time when you can come to their rescue, but only if you have accomplished your primary objective and haven't wasted ordnance!

The section on Combined Forces on page 156 has some good advice for those who think the Blackhawk is just a large and useless piece of metal.

One word about Blackhawks: take care of them. In a pinch, a Longbow can do the work of a Kiowa, and a Kiowa can even back up a Longbow on a strike mission, but only a Blackhawk can do what a Blackhawk does. If you are careless with your Black Hawks, there may come at time when you have no more Black Hawks, and that means its going to be flat out impossible for you to even try to accomplish a major percentage of your missions. This does not do wonders for your efficiency rating.

Finally, when setting up missions, pay attention to the AI pilot ratings. Of course you want to put the best pilots on the most important missions, but also remember that the only way to raise pilot ratings is by putting that pilot in the air....

The other section that I found especially helpful is the Campaign Design Notes. In this section you find out how the campaign actually works. What can you expect from the Iranian forces? How does the Iranian AI think? At what point of readiness can you expect an attack? Its all here...

For example, the Iranian forces (assisted by the Russians) in the game will decide that if they are at 70% of available assets they will attack, because their requirements are lower than American ones and they know that with Americans blowing things up they will never reach full readiness. And by the way, the main advantage of the Longbow and the Kiowa are that they have the potential for pre-strike engagement. Don't go shooting up front line forces because they are there when your mission takes you beyond them. If you blow up the enemy's reserve he will never have enough force on the battlefield to really influence the campaign.

A dynamic campaign engine means a couple of things: targets change based on whats seen on the map, and priorities change based on the tactical situation. This Guide is so helpful because it gives someone with absolutely no military or tactical background a handle on the bigger picture. Since in the Longbow 2 campaign you are really taking a tactical role, you need to have some understanding of that picture in order to be successful.

I was really pleased to see the Order of Battle for both sides on pages 162-163. Here you can find a complete listing of assets, both friendly and enemy, in the Fallen Crescent Campaign. Did you know that you begin the Campaign with only two A-10 Thunderbolts?

The strategy guide isn't perfect, though. One of the things a good strategy guide should do is note where the game departs from reality so that you know how to respond appropriately.

For example, for sim-pilots who fly Pink teams (one scout and one gunship) it may make sense to load smoke rockets on the Kiowa helicopter. They could mark the target area with smoke to highlight the target area for other helicopters, artillery, or air strikes. However, if the game does not take this into consideration, then it is a waste of time in single-player action.The guide mentions that some units are night-vision equipped and some are not. What it does not answer, however, is how night affects the units. Do units with night vision suffer any penalties at all at night? Are units without night vision totally helpless in night missions? The guide is too silent on these issues and others.

The guide does provide some very good insights - but it isn't consistent. For example, it says that you can spook a Mig-29 pilot by lighting up his RWR with a Hellfire launch, but doesn't clarify if this tactic only works for the Radar Longbow or any helo. It explains the true importance of insertion, extraction, and recon missions in game terms, but doesn't say whether you lose the ability to call in artillery and air strikes if you lose the artillery on the battlefield or get too many friendly aircraft shot down during the course of a campaign. It says that MPSM rockets are best against infantry, but the statistics given are exactly identical in every respect between them and the HE rockets. There are just too many questions that the guide leaves unanswered.

It's not that there wasn't room for more information. About 70 pages of the guide are excercepted straight out of the Attack Helicopter Operations Field Manual. While this is entertaining reading, it has limited application within a single-player game, and some parts of it may mislead players to think the game models certain things that it doesn't.

This isn't to say that the strategy guide is bad, or a poor purchase. Indeed, it does provide a considerable amount of valuable information, good tips, awesome tables of statistics, entertaining reading, and at 300 pages, it is far larger than the average strategy guide for most any other game. However, a masterpiece of a game like Longbow 2 deserves an official strategy guide that really illuminates the reader as to all the amazing intricacies of the game. This one does justice to much of it, but not all that it could have done.