Peter Turcan's Dreadnoughts

[dfrighini]

Peter Turcan's Dreadnoughts (1992)

MS DOS based computer game...

One of the best battleship computer games is Peter Turcan's Dreadnoughts. An old MS DOS based games created in 1992; there is little information on the Internet regarding this game. Despite the poor graphics, this game provides impressive scope, considering the era in which it was created. The game is structured very well compared to other navy simulators, for example, as an admiral, you can command your flagship, as a captain, and order (by wireless or signal flags) other ships in your fleet to do stuff, however unless you convey your flag to another ship, you can not command them as a captain. This means you cannot jump about, in an unrealistic manor between different ships. This also means that ships in your fleet might not carry out orders, if the captain thinks the orders could endanger his ship.
The game allows you to command fleets in battles like Jutland, Dogger Bank, Yellow Sea (pre-dreadnoughts), Yalu (pre-dreadnoughts), Java Sea (1942), North Cape (Scharnhorst) and all the Bismarck battles. The maps are accurate and you fleet starts the battle in the correct starting positions.

However there are a few inaccuracies, such as the names of some ships, some of these errors have happened because of translations, some because the ships name was changed. Further more, some ships, which fought in battle, are not there; this affects the Jutland scenario.

Despite being dated, I believe this is one of the best, and most honest attempts at building a battleship simulator.

Thoughts and opinions welcome…

[Bgile]

I still like Fighting Steel with the third party mods.

I don't like the ones that put you on only one ship because I like to fool with stuff. Usually I'm wanting to test out a theory and if the game won't cooperate it irritates me.

That isn't to say the fog of war games aren't realistic ... just not fun for me. In real life the admiral often didn't have a good picture of what happened or when until long after the engagement, and even then he didn't know how much damage he did to the enemy. That's not what I'm after.

[dfrighini]

Fair point, sometimes its nice to have overall control of your fleet.

On the old Dreadnoughts game you can change ship (convey your flag), however the whether has to be calm and both ships have to be stopped to do this. Which can be a pain. Personally I like Dreadnoughts, it gives you a good taste of how hard it was in real life for an admiral to command and control his fleet. Battles have been won or lost because captain's of ships within a fleet did or did not do what the admiral asked.

I have yet to play Fighting Steel, this I will have to download as it is of interest. I am a member of Navy Field (battleship level), however this game is not really realistic, especially if you play KM.

Ober