Wargame Red Dragon Diary – My First Naval Battle

I was prepared to have a tough time during my first naval battle in Wargame Red Dragon, mostly because I remembered how hard it was for me to get a solid handle on the way land-based combat in the series worked.

I know a little about modern ship-to-ship combat and how important it is to sight the enemy first and then protect missile bearing ships while they launch before moving into a more defensive position that allows anti-missile systems to shut down incoming projectiles as soon as possible.

My first engagement tasked me, playing the Chinese to eliminate a Russian fleet in order to open up a potential landing spot for my Marines.

I had access to four destroyers with long range missiles and a number of smaller corvettes, while the enemy had a somewhat smaller force, although his destroyers looked significantly more powerful.

The computer chose to split his forces, which allowed me to attack one sector and take out five of his ships by drawing fire with the corvettes while attacking from long range with my destroyers.

I suspect that my initial success was mostly due to the presence of a few islands, which allowed me to hide my forces and my numerical superiority.

I then brought in a re-supply ship to top up my missiles and prepared to attack a sector across the map, which involved an approach that would give the Russian Sovremenniy plenty of time to fire their own weapons.

But before I was able to move, the Soviet forces launched two strike aircraft that managed to take out both my resupply ship and two Luda class destroyers in one attack.

I was able to complete the battle and win, but my losses meant that I would be unable to hold the naval sector if the Russians decided to launch a counterstrike.

I’ve since then played battles involving the US and South Korean navies and I still don’t think that I have a solid grasp of naval combat in Wargame Red Dragon.

Air power is crucial when it’s available and it always pays to be cautious and only move forward in small increments, while making sure that the most powerful ships stay protected at all times.

Naval combat in Red Dragon is not perfect and some results feel plain wrong, but the feature clearly has potential and I look forward to seeing how it affects multiplayer.