WesWorld

Progress on combat - I've now worked up a spreadsheet that you put a ships details into (tons, armour number of guns, speed etc (about 12 values) and it generates a critical hit chart. I've also worked another spreadsheet incorporating ship steadiness, own ship speed, size, degree of flooding and target size, speed and if it is maneuvering as gunnery modifiers to increase/decrease the chance of a hit at a given range.

At the moment, Salamis and Navarino are slugging it out with Cavour, Dulio and Cesare starting at 25000 yards and after an hour have worked down to 18000 yards. At those ranges, neither side can penetrate the vitals of the other although as the range drops the Italian 9.8" belt is vulnerable to 14" gunfire. Damage so far has been in the soft areas although Cavour has had her bridge hit affecting her gunnery. The Italians have an advantage in 13 gun broadsides by getting more hits but the Greek 14" shells are doing significant damage to the Italian ships including some flooding. Both sides have had bow and stern hits reducing speed buy a knot or two but the Greek ships have a speed advantage of 2-3 knots.

I'll be off line for a few days - back next week.

Cheers,

Hope the system works...I'm sure there are a few people itching to have "real" combat.

It should make for good testing of designs. To contrast the Greek and Italian ships, the Salamis has a steadiness of .55 to the Italian's .5. At 20,000yards this makes for a 3% hit advantage for the Greek ships but having a director disabled will drop your hitting ability by about 10%. OTOH, the Italians are getting 2 hits to Greece's 1 with 13 guns vs 10.

The Italian Lepanto with 16 main guns will be a fearsome opponent. I can remember playing naval wargames years go where having a Brooklyn was like having a machine gun - you are bound to hit something ; )

Cheers,

Try Chile's proposed Salado protected cruiser verse some cruiser (Fiji maybe) and see what happens with this system. You'll have to be the one testing until such time as you can either teach us how to use it, or we get a moderator to act in the realm as Gamemaster.

If this works successfully, we could also use this for our own inner fleet wargames, and "think tank" scenario tests of the top brass verses any possible opponents.

Given Leopanto's theorized performance I would think the Atlantian Tyrrhenia and later American standards would also get a desent hit rate. I suppose the Japanese turret farms would do well also in certain situations.

Spreadsheets....arrrrgghh!! I don't have no steenkin' spreadsheet programme!

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At the moment, Salamis and Navarino are slugging it out with Cavour, Dulio and Cesare starting at 25000 yards and after an hour have worked down to 18000 yards.

Interesting to see how this one turns out. The Italian 305mm/46 is actually a very powerful weapon firing a 452kg shell at 840m/s. I'd expect the Italians to win, but with 1 of their number sunk.

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How much detail does the combat system go into, ie slow & heavy shells vs light & fast?

The system is modular so you can use custom guns. I'm using 'average' for tests.

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Interesting to see how this one turns out. The Italian 305mm/46 is actually a very powerful weapon firing a 452kg shell at 840m/s. I'd expect the Italians to win, but with 1 of their number sunk.

I'd expect a draw - like most BB v BB encounters. The Greeks ships are bigger, steadier, faster, better armoured, bigger guns but this is 2 vs 3.

The Italian ships need to keep outside 20000yards to survive penetrating hits from 14" guns. Can they do this if they are 3kts slower?

Cheers,

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Originally posted by Swamphen
Spreadsheets....arrrrgghh!! I don't have no steenkin' spreadsheet programme!

http://www.openoffice.org

Roger,

any progress regarding your rules?

In which way does a ship suffer from being "cramped"? Less effective damage controll? Higher percentage for critical hits?

In general: How to include story-line characteristics of a design into your set of rules? For example let´s assume I´ve a ship with main guns of a turret put into one cradle? A hit that knocks out a gun should thus knock out the whole mount as the other gun will no longer be able to train or suffer from splinters etc. Is there a modifier possible for having a green or veteran crew?

If it would be possible to have a point-system for a battle one could buy advantages (higher than standard ROF, veteran crew, superior DC etc.) and disadvantages (like higher dud rate, green crew, cables running through "watertight" bulkheads etc.) allowing more interesting story writing/characterization of crews.

What do you think?

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any progress regarding your rules?

I need to test torpedoes first. Then I could document what I have so far.

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In which way does a ship suffer from being "cramped"? Less effective damage controll? Higher percentage for critical hits?

I'd figure cramping would affect the crew which in turn affects damage control. Crew quality is the big variable. I think you could put a veteran crew in a mediocre ship and they would out perform a green crew in an excellent ship. Ranking crews can be problematic and even sensitive (to national pride) so I was going to tackle that aspect last.

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In general: How to include story-line characteristics of a design into your set of rules? For example let´s assume I´ve a ship with main guns of a turret put into one cradle? A hit that knocks out a gun should thus knock out the whole mount as the other gun will no longer be able to train or suffer from splinters etc. Is there a modifier possible for having a green or veteran crew?

Disabling a single gun is unnecessarily complex. It could be catered for in a random event section rather than incorporated in the critical damage section. Random events could be pre-cooked before battle (I know - sounds funny) in that it could be a random generated list that is not known to players but will have things like at 10:09 ShipX loses 1 barrel for what ever reason, 10:15 ShipY sights periscope turns away from enemy to evade etc.

Turret design should be something considered at ship design stage. Perhaps we should say that guns are assumed to be in a single cradle unless you add x% misc weight to justify a roomier and more complex turret. To contrast the 1920's era USN twin 8" with the RN twin 8" you could give the RN one a hit bonus to reflect degredation (of the single cradle design) due to dispersion and greater damage per shell to reflect a greater rate of fire. This would need to be reflected in the design rules.

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If it would be possible to have a point-system for a battle one could buy advantages (higher than standard ROF, veteran crew, superior DC etc.) and disadvantages (like higher dud rate, green crew, cables running through "watertight" bulkheads etc.) allowing more interesting story writing/characterization of crews.

Most of this could be reflected in a crew modifier and I think that would need to be budgeted just as ship construction is. I'm prepared to ignore this until the rules are written as it will only get in the way at this stage.

One thing I do want to include is how old a ship is at the time of the battle. The age of a design directly links to it's performance in action, ie. bulkhead and machinery design, steel strength etc. There is a reason you junk old ships rather than waste money on rebuilding them.

Cheers,

thanks for the heads up.

I tend to disagree with you on the turret thing. First of all I don´t know what kind of mounting SS assumes (Ian?) and second there are just too many variables other than armor or cradle type defining the weight of a turret (max. elevation, number of ammo hoists, with or w/o rangefinder, number of crew/space necessary to operate guns, space necessary for recoil of gun etc.). I can´t help but think this would be too complex for our rules - dispite having doubts we´ll even find a useful rule. The French for example build exceptional small turrets but still used single cradles. Not sure if that would fit into any rule system...

I´m looking forward to your next update of your combat rules (and the documentation of course).

Cheers,

HoOmAn

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I can´t help but think this would be too complex for our rules

I agree.

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The French for example build exceptional small turrets but still used single cradles

The French, in pursuit of novelty, sometimes took a backward step and made mounts that were too fragile.

I think Mogador was an example of this.

Cheers,

I disagree on Mogador. Neither were her turrets small compared to the guns they housed nor were they fragile. The ammo hoist caused all the troubles as they were prone to jam. That was fixed later making Mogadors armament quite reliable - even if she never used it in anger.

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The ammo hoist caused all the troubles as they were prone to jam.

Which highlights the problem of reading in too much to what springstyle outputs and then applying that to a combat role. Springstyle does not differentiate between a turret on Mogador or a turret on Katori. They are just a 5.5" twin of late 1930's design. Difficulties with hoists or the closeness of barrels or whatever will have to be inferred somehow and consequently, part of the storytelling.

Cheers,