WesWorld

There is an interesting thread about the question of combat rules for springsharp designs....

http://p216.ezboard.com/fwarships1discus…icID=1092.topic

Check it out and weigh in!

I'm keeping an eye over that thread...the idea of gun ranges given by big gun is a good idea, in fact I sim all the guns I place on my ship with BG...


let's see what comes out from that thread .

First thing would be to decide about how complex you want to make those rules, I think.

You can choose from three option:

1) Find some modifiers for a ship/fleets strength and roll the dice once for a result.

2) Enhance complexity but keep things simple by using categories for range (like long, medium, short) and guns (large, medium, small). You then roll the dice as in a turn based game until you get a result. This works quite good for many tabletop games (i.e. BattleTech).

3) Find complex mathematical models to simulate the outcome of a battle. You can now use any detail available and take care of any difference between otherwise similar guns, designs etc.

Personally I think option 1) is not satisfiing and 3) is way too complex. I thus prefer 2). This means I´m somewhat sceptical regaarding the use of Big Gun. While I also use it now and then for calculations one would need to simulate ever single gun in WesWorld and find a way to make the combat rules take care of their specs. From this point of view a 100mm gun is not a 100mm gun like any other and one also has to take care of what kind of shell is used.

How about something like this:

I used BG to simulate some guns (muzzle energy = 1,00) and found out that the maximum range of a gun up to 210mm can be calculated quite closly by taking the caliber in mm, multiply it with 1,5 and use the result as the guns max. range in hm (1hm = hektometer = 100m).

Examples:

115mm gun --> 17250m accourding to my rule, 19000m accourding to BG

127mm gun --> 19050m vs. 20600m

150mm gun --> 22500m vs. 23500m

210mm gun --> 31500m vs. 29200m

Between 210mm and ~310mm the modifier 1,3 can be used and 1,1 for guns above.

Please note that BG is giving max. range at 45° elevation while most turrets could lift their guns that high. So even though my rule provides shorter ranges now and then it shouldn´t be much of a problem to keep things simple.

If we now assume that each gun hits with 5% of its shells at max range (a tid bit high but should fit a WW2 environment) we can also specify categories for range. Let´s define

long to very long range 5%
long range 10%
long to medium range 15%
medium range 20%
medium to short range 25%
short range 30%

We thus get 6 categories for range defining the chance to hit an enemy vessel.

For whatever gun this means one has to take its max. range defined by the rule above and divide it by 6 to see if an enemy vessel is in medium or long range.

Example:

A 120mm gun has a max. range of 180hm resulting in

long to very long range up to 180hm
long range up to 150hm
long to medium range up to 120hm
medium range 90hm
medium to short range 60hm
short range 30hm.

If you now add a tab. showing modifiers for weather, speed, sea state, training etc. you should get a good basis for a D100 die roll.

Example:

Shooting with a 120mm gun at a target 10000m (100hm = 15%) away. Sea is rough (-5%), standard seaship (+/. 0%), visibility medium (+/- 0%), gun crew untrained (-5%) but moral is high (+5%).

The enemy ship will thus be hit with a statistical propability of 10%.

Shooting with a 280mm gun at the same target gets you a result of 20% due to shorter range.

A 380mm gun at 280hm (10%), at night (-10%) and without radar (would be +5% or +10% maybe) wouldn´t be able to hit accourding to those rules.


What´s much more difficult - at least to me - is to find a damage model for those guns and regarding the data provided by spring*. In general similar rules can be applied to damage. A 380mm shell makes 38pts of damage if penetrating, 19pts at partial penetration and 0pts if defeated by armor. A 15cm shell makes 15pts of damage and so on. The problem now is: Are we talking about HE or AP shells? Armored or unarmored targets? Horizontal or vertical plates hit? How to we take care of range which has its input on striking power? etc.

Further more as already pointed out these rules have to fit spring*. If we use a point model for damage we also need to specify how many points a ships hull, turrets and superstructure has. We have to differ underwater hits from above water hits. We need to specify floating points (get the ship sunk once lost) and overall damage points (get the ship dead in the water but not sunk once too many are lost). We have to take care of off center flooding/floatation points (port/starport), stability etc.

I´m open to suggestions because I haven´t found a solution to those problems yet.

Regards,

HoOmAn

Spring* already tells us how many hits a ship can take.

using a dice roll of 1-100;
1-10= critical hit
11-100=non- critical hit

then from there you have to determine where that hit is;
for a critical hit;
1-40=turret
41-60=machinery(factor in how much speed is lost
61-80=control position
81-90=rudder hit
91-100=magazine hit(then factor in if it explodes)

for a non-critcal hit we see how much shellfire the ship can take and then subtract this shell hit from it. If it goes below zero the ship has sunk.

this doesn't accont for armour. good idea, but we need to work on it further.

I also realised that this doesn't account for armour, but i think that that really is just way too complicated. Rules on if there is a hit, where it hits and what damage it causes are complicated enough.

I disagree, we need rules that take care of the scale of protection an area hit features.

I first thought we could keep it quite easy like this:

A 380mm shell does 38pts of damage (ignoring type of shell for a moment).

A 380mm plate can absorb 38pts of damage.

Therefore no damage is cause if a 38cm shell hits a 38cm (or thicker) plate (shock effects being ignored for the moment).

If the shell hits a 15cm plate instead 23pts of damage are caused to the ship (also rolling for critical damage).

What we need now is a tab showing how the damage caused by a shell scales with range.

As an example we can assume a 38cm shell does 38pts of damage at short to medium range (using the categories introduced for chance to hit). A modifier of 1,2 can be used for short range resulting in 46pts of damage or the ability to defeat plates up to 46cm thickness. A modifier of 0,8 for medium range, 0,6 for medium to long etc. Resulting in a modifier of 0,2 for long to very long range and zero damage potential for ranges above which could not be reached.

Please note that I´m talking about vertical armor only. For horizontal protection we need a different tab thus causing us to generate a third one that defines if a shell hits a vertical or horizontal surface.

Further note that this does not take care of the type of shell used. Is it AP or HE or something different?

We could use more simple rules...

If it is a HE shell its damage potential against armored surfaces is halved while it remains normal against unprotected areas.

If it is a AP shell striking through unarmored areas its potential is halved while it remains normal against armor plates.

In addition we haven´t taken care of shock damage yet. None-penetrating hits could still cause havoc to rangefinders etc. Therefore we either need another roll once a shell was defeated by armor to see if the area hit is effected by shock and what result this will give us.

For example, a general percentage for shock damage could be 30%. If the die roll is under 30% we look at a tab showing if the area hit could be damage by shock. If the hull is hit the answer will be "no" but if a turret or ranegfinder is hit the answer will be "yes" and include a result (turret/RF knocked out or whatever).

If we don´t want to work with general percentages we can define a chance for shock damage for every single hit box and define results.


I´m well aware of the fact that these rules don´t take care of tapering etc. but hey, if you want tapering (which is not part of spring*-sheets) feel free to find a rule for it. :o)

Similar rules could maybe be found for torps.. maybe... because underwater damage is quite different from above water damage.

What do you think?

Btw, we can take spring*s damage resistance stats to calculate a ships hull and floatation points.

If a ship can take 15 38cm shells accourding to spring* it has 570 hull points (divided into 285 on port/starport?).

If it can take 7 standard hits by 21inch (533mm) TTs it has 7x54=378 floating points (divided into 189 port/starport).

A ship will turn turtle if it looses 50% of floatation points on one side if it has a stability of 1,00 but can loose 55% if it has a stability of 1,05.

Counterflooding 5% on the other side will also make sure it can take 55% (assuming 1,00 stability).

The ship will sink when all floating or (!) hull points are gone.

Please note that this method does not take care of the fact that a ship can´t take 7 TT hits AND 15 shells because damage done by either shell or torpedo impairs the vessels ability to absorb damage of the other type.

However it offers a chance to keep things simple and define an easy damage model using points.

Good idea?

How's this?

Range Category || % of hits on deck
============ || ============
long to very long range || 90%
long range || 80%
long to medium range || 65%
medium range || 50%
medium to short range || 35%
short range || 10%


Range Category || % of base damage inflicted
=========== || ===================
long to very long range || 80%
long range || 60%
long to medium range || 40%
medium range || 25%
medium to short range || 15%
short range || 5%

So a 38cm hit fired from long range at a ship with 10cm deck armor will strike the deck 80% of the time, and inflict 13 pts damage ((38 * 0.6) - 10) = 12..

One addition to Red Admiral's distribution of damage, to reflect the effects of large-caliber non-penetrating hits, we could say that 30% of non-pentrating hits on a main battery turret disables the turret, although it inflicts no actual hull damage points. This gives designs with numerous lighter guns a fighting chance. This would come into effect for guns 28cm and larger.

Well so far the rules as Hooman and Admiral K have posted seem reasonable. What we have so far for determining factors for a ships damage are:

flotation points for torpedo hits
hull points for shell hits
hit percentage based on range

Perhaps we should do a test run with two SS designs and see what we come up with?

We also need to find a way to loosly incorperate tactics in the rules. For example ship X encounters ship Y, a chase ensues and ship X maintains a range of 22,000 yards what will happen?

I wouldn´t focus on tactics at this point. It´s too early.

There are other problems to solve first, I think. For example: How to deal with the number of shells fired each turn?

Will you run the calculations for each shell? Seems fair, takes care of number of guns on a ship but takes MUCH time.

Will you run calculation for each (full) salvo? If so, you need to incorporate the number of guns because they have an impact on the chance to hit a target. This means you need a tab for 4-gun, 6-gun, 7-.......15-gun salvos....Uh! Also if you hit with a salvo you need a percentage to define how many shells of that salvo hit - also depending on the number of shells fired.

How many shells per gun per minute are fired? The assumption of 1 shot/min works for large guns but what about smaller guns? How to scale ROF? Please note that I don´t like to work with different ROF for every gun/mount even thoughj there are surely differences. It makes things way too complex. On the other hand some players seem to favour quads - both for large and medium sized guns. In some way this has to be taken into consideration because a 13cm gun in a single mount may have an ROF of 12 shots/min while one in a quad maybe fires only 6 times within the same time frame. So calculating ROF _per gun_ doesn´t work here but _per mount_ it might do. This would result in a quad mount to fire 6 times for a total of 24 shells while a single mount fires 12 times for 12 shells. Four single mounts thus fire 48 shells/min. Such a rule would take care of the fact that small and medium guns offered best ROF when used in single mounts. On the other hand we have to take care to write down a rule that turrets offer better protection.

So far I have no solution to this problem at hand. Any ideas?

I think a simple way is determine if you are fireing a half or full salvo before the roll of the dice, you then recieve a percentage of hits per salvo, the number of guns shiped and the hit percentage based on half or full salvos will give you your hit total.

I´m not sure if I really understand what you mean?! Could you please present an example?


Besides... We have to take care we don´t need too many die rolls per shot/salvo. Otherwise it will tke too much time to calculate a simple 1-on-1s result.

Well lets take ANS Tyrrhenia for example. Haveing 12x14" guns she fires a half salvo ( 6 guns) and gets a 50% hit rate. That would mean she gets 3 hits, role another die and determine if any of those hits are critical.

I´m still not sure if we aren´t comparing apples and oranges here.

The hit rates we talked about earlier (depending on range, weather etc.) were meant to answer if there is a chance to hit at all. The answer will be yes or no.

If we assume the answer is yes we need to know how many shells of those fired hit. Even if the chance to hit at all is only 5% for a salvo one might get lucky and hit with more than one shell (if more than a single gun is fired). Thus we´d need a second roll.

Well, there imight be one alternative, though. We could use the total number of guns fired to modify the die roll we use to determine if we hit at all. We could add a 1% bonus for every single gun above the first gun fired. A ship would thus get a +8% bonus if it fires a 9-gun broadside. So instead of hitting with 5% at long to very long range it would hit with 13%. However, every hit achieved is still a single shell hit causing the damage of a single shell only.

To me this doesn´t make too much sense because one wouldn´t be able to achieve multiple hits but that´s what would happen most likely in short range brawl. So I still favour to roll if there is a hit and then determine how many.

The BattleTech System could provide an idea maybe. There you have special tabs for missle fire. Missles are fired from multi-tube launchers having 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15 or 20 etc. tubes. You first roll to see if you have hit at all and then you roll a dice on those tabs to see how many missles have hit. The higher the roll the better the results. Afterwards you roll on hit locations (torso, legs, arms, head etc.) for those missles that haven´t missed and calculate the damage done.

Example:

A BattleMech is firing a 10-tube launcher. First roll shows a hit is achieved. Second roll using two D6 is a 7 showing that 6 missles out of 10 have hit (Had it been a 11 or 12 all ten missles would have hit the target.). Further rolls now define where those 6 missles hit and cause damage.

For a 9-gun broadside the tab to look at could look like this:

D100

1-79 -> 1 shell
80-84 -> 2 shells
85-88 -> 3 shells
89-91 -> 4 shells
92-94 -> 5 shells
95-96 -> 6 shells
97-98 -> 7 shells
99 -> 8 shells
100 -> 9 shells

Problem is that those tabs don´t consider range. The chance to hit at all does but not the chance to get multiple hits. In reality things are different. It is not only easier to hit at all at close range, it is also easier to achieve multiple hits. The reason is that chances are calculated for every single shell. For a game that would result in too many die rolls.

Thougths?

Using big gun metric. 50cal gun(muzzle energy 1.00) and the standard WW1 weight for a shell. 1.00 shellform factor. 1.10 armour quality.
This is to make the penetration schemes more accurate as biggun calculates them at 90degree target angle when 30 or 60 degree is more likely.

From biggun we get lots of results which i have grouped into 6 different ranges with 5000m difference. I've taken the minimum penetration for these ranges.

380mm/15” gun

25,000m-30,000m 170mm belt 140mm deck
20,000m-25,000m 210mm belt 100mm deck
15,000m-20,000m 260mm belt 70mm deck
10,000m-15,000m 330mm belt 50mm deck
5,000m-10,000m 420mm belt 30mm deck
0m-5,000m 530mm belt 10mm deck