Old School game 5th Fleet

[Butcher]

For those that were lucky to be on a computer in 1994 as I was, I found an old strategy game and got it working on my PC. First you will need DOS Box - its a program that you use to run old games in windows. By the way the game is FREE (yeah because its old!) lol

Now for the title: 5th Fleet, its a strategy naval war game, which has several scenarios it offers - the game is based on a 1980-1990 Naval ships, aircrafts etc - you can command fleets of ships, submarines and aircrafts..

I finished 3 scenarios today and won two lost one - its a facinating game if you haven't had a chance to play it, nows the time.

Here are some screenshots, nothing special but actually nice for 1994:





Simply goto this page and click download - you have to enter the code using basic math and you got it: http://www.freegameempire.com/games/5th-Fleet
When it asks you the name of the ship in reference simply press enter - there used to be a manual that showed the names of hundreds of ships - when the screen popped up you had to name it or you couldn't enter the game - quite cool.

REminds me of the Secret of the Luftwaffe Wheel if anyone can remember that

[Nathan60]

You didnt see task force 1942 on ther eI loved that game as a kid. Gunship! F-15 strike eagle and  m1tank Platoon aswell. Micro prose put some killer game out back then

[Volron]

Ah...the good ole SWOTL Wheel.  Lose it and you were effed.  I actually have a working copy of SWOTL on my machine.  A ReadME.txt file is in it to counter the lack of a wheel.

This one looks interesting.

[ACE]

There was a game i played called something like " Operation Iraqi freedom". You got to do missions with jets and stuff. Pretty neat.

[Butcher]

Ah...the good ole SWOTL Wheel.  Lose it and you were effed.  I actually have a working copy of SWOTL on my machine.  A ReadME.txt file is in it to counter the lack of a wheel.

This one looks interesting.

I have my original SWOTL wheel in a box some where, same as my Falcon 3.0 and 4.0 manual. For 3.0, I have the VHS tape and manual "art of the kill" book. 5th fleet I lost probably when I went to college, its certainly a fun game, the AI can be a bit of a drag once you figure it out.

I'd like to know how to port the game to play across the internet.

[Volron]

I have my original SWOTL wheel in a box some where, same as my Falcon 3.0 and 4.0 manual. For 3.0, I have the VHS tape and manual "art of the kill" book. 5th fleet I lost probably when I went to college, its certainly a fun game, the AI can be a bit of a drag once you figure it out.

I'd like to know how to port the game to play across the internet.

Might want to transfer the contents of the VHS to a DVD.

The SWOTL I have is one with the expansion.  Now I DO remember that when you bought the expansion which gives you the Do-335, He-162, P-38, P-80..and a couple of other planes I may be missing, you no longer needed The Wheel.  The one I have on my machine, however, still requires me to use The Wheel despite it being the expansion.   I remember seeing that people successfully put in other planes as well.  I saw the B-24, B-25 and I THINK the B-26 with these extra's.  However, I don't think they were additions made by the creators, but added by other folks.  I'm kind of interested in getting those other planes.   I recall reading that they were well implemented, meaning no bugs or glitches BUT, I don't think they had a Tour of Duty option though.  I'll have to look into it eventually.

[Butcher]

Oh yeah I remember that, 1946 is what it was called, you didn't need the wheel when that came out - in the Expansion you got to fly the Do-335, He-162 etc

However I remember bulletin boards that had other aircraft you could fly (user made planes) stuff like p51B and 38J etc.

[RngFndr]

Yeah, I love the whole Naval Warfare deal..

I also subscribe to Distant Guns/Jutland..
Had a thing for battleships since i was a kid..

[MarineUS]

Oh god....I just flashed back to B drives...with REAL floppy discs that were...well...floppy...

[Butcher]

Oh god....I just flashed back to B drives...with REAL floppy discs that were...well...floppy...

My first taste was on Bulletin Boards, not like this one - I am talking OLD school bulletin Boards, where you dialed into with the blazing fast 9800 baud

Funny thing is I just googled the name of my BBS and sure enough it popped up.

AA Computer Masters, The River of Time, The River of Time BBS
(1993-1996)

I ran the River of Time after we merged with AA Computer masters to form The River of Time BBS, at one point we had over 54 CD's online at a time (back then we had SCSI drives that would hold 18 cds each).
Anyone got lucky to play games back then it was a blast, Scrabble and BRE/SRE - my fav was tradewars 2002 (before the script kids took over).
Anyhow I ran mine on Wildcat 3.0 or such, I think 4.0 was a windows version for Win 95, never got used to it plus the BBS was dying off to the internet.

Friend of my fathers ran his until 2000, not sure how you can have a BBS up that long but he did. I moved from the BBS more into lan centers back then, during my early days computers were bloody expensive. Think my dad paid $2900 for a 50mhz Gateway tower.
One good thing about cases back then - you can use em to stop a 18 wheeler, because man they were built tough, but heavy as hell too.

Edited: I just found the website for Tradewars 2002 - believe it or not over 500 people STILL play it each month, and its installed on 1800 servers.. amazing.
http://www.classictw.com/

[bcadoo]

My first taste was on Bulletin Boards, not like this one - I am talking OLD school bulletin Boards, where you dialed into with the blazing fast 9800 baud

That's not old school.  Try 300 baud on a coomodore 64.  I could read the text as fast as it came in, circa 1985.

[-tronski-]

Used to play dambusters on the c64 loaded off a casette/tape drive

 Tronsky