WesWorld

Gentlemen,

I´d like to get your input how we should handle battles at sea should there ever be a conflict in Wesworld.

The combat rules should be based on the spring* sheets using values like floatation points, armor, stability presented there.

Results should be calculated by using standard dices of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20 and/or 100 sides.

The rules should offer a good balance between KISS and the use of details. The should not be overly complex.

The rules should include a formula or table to calculate the chance for a hit and the number of hits incorporating range and and things like weather, seastate, stable gun platform etc. Maybe it is even possible to consider if the shooting range is at the edge of what a gun can achieve or not (depends on complexity).

The rules should include a formula or table which location on a ship is hit once a hit is achieved (i.e. hull forward, amidship, aft, superstructure, main guns, secondaries, funnel, FC etc.). It should be taken into account how many main turrets the target features and if they are grouped together.

There should be a table what kind of damage is done depending on shell, armor and location hit and how this influences the ships capabilities to keep going etc.

(Example: Springsharp provides Floatation. One can devide these points between port and starport. Now assume a ship has 100pts, 50 on either side. A rule could now define that a ship can loose up to 50% of its floatation points on one side relatively to the other side without capsizing if it has a stability of 1,00. So if our ship looses 35pts on one side it would capsize as long as there is no counterflooding of at least 10pts on the other side. At some points that won´t help anymore of course...)

Finally there should be a table providing chances if a ship can escape if its captain wishes so depending on speed, visibility etc.


What do you think? Any ideas? Put together what you have in mind. Run some test battles and make the fine tuning before presenting results here. ;o)

Curious,

HoOmAn

In addition I think we should have some simple form of technology developement rules, otherwise someone can simply say "We developed radar today". Different classifications of technology and levels for each would be a start. Electronic's, Ordanance modifications, range finders and computers, fleet doctrine, speacial ship class developement, naval aircraft, ect would all have certain points needed for their developement as well as different levels of complexity and efficiency. Sounds complex but its an important part of determining who wins a battle.

Italy would like to annouce that today on 5th Oct, 1922 she has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. The occupants of the former Greek city of Athens are less than happy at the unlawful destrution to their property.

;-)

I think we all have to be the same with those points you mentioned Wes. Apart from naval aircraft. If i can sim it with planebuilder, i can build it. Obviously i won't using jets just yet.

I'll have a think about those combat rules, but i've a few other things planned.

I've worked out a system in my head, give me a few hours and I'll present it for discussion!


Scratch that, being trying to simplfy the rules I was basing my idea on all weekend, but it isn't working out....Sorry!!

Quoted

Originally posted by thesmilingassassin
In addition I think we should have some simple form of technology developement rules, otherwise someone can simply say "We developed radar today". Different classifications of technology and levels for each would be a start. Electronic's, Ordanance modifications, range finders and computers, fleet doctrine, speacial ship class developement, naval aircraft, ect would all have certain points needed for their developement as well as different levels of complexity and efficiency. Sounds complex but its an important part of determining who wins a battle.

I agree but that´s a completely different task so maybe you can open up a new thread for this?

Thanks,

HoOmAn

I'll talk to a friend of mine who owns pretty much anything related to GURPS (Generic Universal Role-Playing System, for those of you not in the know). I suspect they have some straight-forward "mass naval combat" rules somewhere.

My experience with the game suggests it'd be easy to apply a number of factors like terrain, doctrine, visibility, etc. We'd probably do a very simple combat resolution, then as Hooman suggests, go to the individual ship designs to sort out the specifics of the damage.

I'll let you know what I find.

J

Quoted

My experience with the game suggests it'd be easy to apply a number of factors like terrain, doctrine, visibility, etc

Isn't the terrain going to be rather flat?

Hopefully s/he should have something useful to us. That reminds me of another game actually. I'll have a root round too.

Quoted

Isn't the terrain going to be rather flat?

Not when you are fighting the enemy with a lot of islands around.

Walter

Exactly - islands, reefs, even shallow water will affect movement and in some cases shooting.

Mike's going to try to bring in a book tomorrow for me, which'll give me lots of time to read it on the bus that night.

J

I'd say that some kind of rules regarding admirals and COs would be good too, as most surface actions were decided by the quality and good or bad jugdements of their admirals.

I gave a brief description of what I had in mind here: http://wesworld.jk-clan.de/thread.php?th…42931a603029795

it should need a refinement and more work, but as a brief explanation ,it can be worth something

I finally got a look at the GURPS rules yesterday - turns out the book has a version for sailing ships, and another for spaceships. The sailing ship version, however, could lend itself to adaptation, once we figure out how to tack on torpedoes, aircraft, and the like (the spaceship version will help there). Basically, it boils down to:

-The battle is determined by one dice roll by each force commander, basically a contest of skill between them.

-The force commander's roll can be modified by any advantages (greater firepower, range, speed, spotting)or disadvantages (green crews, bad visibility) - he has.

-Optionally, force commanders can also submit a battle plan to the referee, who can then evaluate them and assign another net modifier to the roll.

-In the GURPS system, the side with the lowest result wins; the greater the difference between his roll and the other guy's, the more resounding the victory.

-Once it's known who won, the intensity of the battle is determined, on a scale of 1 (a few shots traded) to 6 (broadsides at thirty yards). This can either be determined randomly, or the referee can assign an intensity depending on each player's mission.

-Cross-referencing the battle's outcome and its intensity then lets each force commander roll dice to determine the minor, moderate, and major damage suffered by each vessel. There is a collection of tables for this purpose, and it's at this stage that we can consider the merits of our respective ships, such as stability, TDS, etc. The tables need modification to deal with 20th century ships, so I can't get into details. Suffice to say that minor damage is cosmetic (light guns wrecked, minor flooding), and major damage is not (main guns lost, magazine explosions). Happily for us details freaks, four identical ships in the same battle could suffer very different sets of damage.

-Survival of the force commander(s) is determined, based largely on what happened to his flagship.

-It's then determined whether the engagement continues; either or both sides can attempt to break off, but if neither successfully does, you have another go-round.

Generally speaking, does this sound interesting enough for me to tinker with?

I guess I should add that this is not greater different from what RAM proposed some time ago.

And, as RAM commented, since force commanders are a big part of the picture, we'll have to sketch up some rules to determine the quantity and quality of them in each navy. Happily, I can also turn to GURPS for the generalities of that, and will do so later.

Sounds interesting but I thought along the lines of an easy tabletop like Battletech or something similar. I don´t like to see battles decided by one (lucky) die role without a chance to compensate.

However, if you think you can melt that into a form we could use - feel free to do so. If it doesn´t fit our needs we´ll have to find something different.

Regards,

HoOmAn

A tabletop would be preferrable to me as well, but I can't see it being very practical unless we can physically converge to game it out.

J

The outline that is listed above doesn't allow for dis-similar fleet sizes, but is a good basis to work from!

But an independant umpire would have to make to dice rolls involved, so as to prevent any suggestion of cheating (or constructive dice rolling!!).

Actually it does, in the sense that the relative firepower each side brings is considered, and brings a hefty modifier in the favor of the large force's die roll.

A neutral referee is utterly necessary for this, no question.

What GURPS supplement did you get the info from?
I have some GURPS books, but mostly SCI-FI orientated!

I agree with Hoo, even though this seems like an excellent idea, I'm a little leary of one roll of the dice determining the fate of my entire fleet. Perhaps a modified version of these rules to encorperate multiple die rolls to keep the battle a little more sea-saw-ish and unpredictable. We could do some test runs first two to try it out. I also think that fleet strengths and the tactics used could be secretly given to the referee in question and he could then determine how the batle unravels. How would we simulate scouting done by aircraft? Take Midway as an example, the Japanese clearly had the superior force and yet poor air reconasance doomed the fleet.

How about adding the scouting resources of each fleet (distant picket ships count as 1, patrol aircraft count as two), and then give each side their proportion of 5 die rolls to find the opposing fleet. So if side VIOLET had 20 scouting points (6 pickets and 7 patrol aircraft) and side MAGENTA has 30 scouting points (8 pickets and 11 patrol aircraft), VIOLET has 2 rolls (40% of 20+30) and MAGENTA has 3 (60% of 20+30). In winter, you find the enemy on a roll of a "1", or on a "1" or "2" the rest of the year. If no one suceeds , there's no action. If both sides succeed, there's no suprise. If only one side suceeds they get 1 round of combat with return fire halved or some other suprise modifier. And to make it interesting, aircraft allocated to patrol can't be used for strikes. So your decision is whether to maximize patrol effectiveness at the cost of striking power, or maximize striking power at the risk of being suprised.