WesWorld

I've put together a spreadsheet that takes 20 values from the springstyle design and uses them to craft speed, damage and a critical hit breakdown for the given ship. The values are;
Light Displacement
Stability
Flotation
Speed
Steadiness
Seaboat rating
All armour values
The number of guns; main, secondary, tertiary and light.
Number of main turrets

The speed section is as laid out earlier. The damage is too but now includes values for a ship's list to effect gunnery and a point at which a ship capsizes. It also includes speed loss due to flooding. These values are linked to a ship's stability rating.

The critical hit area is broken down to be roughly half critical (turret, bridge, boiler) and half non-critical (crew mess, boat deck, captain's head(toilet). Armour over many critical hit areas is infered from the springstyle. Taking non-critical first, it is divided into 30% no armour, 10% flooding (with armour being 3 times the torpedo bulkhead) and 10% upper belt. The critical hit area is divided into 30% machinery, fire and main armament, 20% for the rest.

For each main gun is 1%. Fire is fixed at 4%. What is left from the 30% is 2/3 Boilers and 1/3 engines. Main turret armour is as the springstyle except that the turret roof is 1/3 of the face armour. Fire is unarmoured while boilers and engines are covered by belt and deck values.

For the final 20%, secondaries are rated at the number of guns divided by six and a hit will destroy 15% of the guns. They are covered by the casement armour and the deck value. Tertiary and AA guns are divided by nine and a hit will knock out 30% of the guns. No overhead armour but may have face armour for tertiary and AA. The conning tower is rated as 1%, the bridge 2% and the director 1%. Only the CT is armoured with the roof being 1/3 the sides. The Rudder is fixed at 1% and is armoured at half the belt and roof equal to the main armament. A magazine is also rated at 1% and is 1.2 times the main turret face and roof armour. Whatever remains of the final 20% is divided half each to bow and stern that can be protected by end armour and half the deck thickness.

Salamis


Dulio


The gun penetration was from Rick Robinson's Biggun but penetration was estimated for every 2000yards rather than the Biggun values of the range it will penetrate a whole inch value. Given the 14" shell, Dulio's 9.8" Belt can be penetrated at under 20,000yards although the 4" deck is proof out to 26,000yards.



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This battle involves multiple ships and a refinement of the system tried with a one on one. There is no plot, both sides steamed on parallel converging courses to test the hit and damage aspects.

War has broken out between FAR and the Iberian-Italian alliance. The main Italian fleet units are engaged in reducing the French Med Fleet while the older ships are involed in protecting the Eastern Med against Russian forces. The Alliance is in trouble and smelling blood in the water, Greece has been induced to join the war on FAR's side.

Greek operations have begun with the aim of a quick decision in the eastern and central Med. A Greek squadron of 2 battleships seeks to destroy a division of the Italian battlefleet centred on 3 older battleships. The Italians desire a morale boosting victory and a chance to blunt any threat from the east.

Battle opens at 903 at 25000 yards. The chance of hitting at this range was 14% for the Greek ships and 11% for the Italians. This was mainly due to the Greek ships being steadier gun platforms. If a ship was an excellent gun platform (steadiness of .7) then this hit % would be up to 19%.

Both lines converge slightly with the range dropping 250yards every 3 minutes. The Greek ships at 24 knots and firing 10 14" guns each with the Italians at 21kts and a broadside of 13 12"guns. Salamis targets Cavour while Navarino takes on Cesare, Dulio is untargeted. Cavour and Cesare are both shooting at the lead Greek ship Salamis while Dulio targets Navarino.

A hit was determined by a random number between 1-100 and the current range in yards. A modifier was also applied that involved ship size, speed, steadiness and target size, if manoevering and speed. These effectively move the percent to hit up and down a range bracket so a cruiser at 21000yards at 31knots is just as hard to hit as a battleship at 24000yards doing 25knots. Damage to directors will affect your ability to hit.

Here is the first part of the battle.


The number of hits was based on guns fired and the range. This number drops if the firing ship is badly effected by flooding. I have plans for this also being effected by seastate but I haven't worked that in yet.

For each shell hit, two random numbers are generated. The first tells you where the shell hits, the second tells you if it hits belt or deck armour. As the range increases, the likelyhood of a deck hit increases.

Firing continues till 912 when both sides score their first hits at 24250 yards. Cesare takes one forward reducing her speed by 1 knot while Navarino takes 2 12" shells. One that causes flooding and a second in the stern that also cuts her speed by a knot.

Cesare is hit again at 915 on Q turret but the armour is sufficient to deflect the shot and no damage is done.

At 918 Salamis takes a hit that causes some flooding and a second hit in a non-critical area. Cavour also takes a hit in a non-critical area.

Over the next 15 minutes Salamis, Cavour and Cesare all take a number of non-critical hits and hits that failed to penetrate including a hit on Cesare's magazine and on one of Cavour's boiler rooms. Salamis received non-penetrating hits on her rudder, X Turret and a boiler room.

At 927, with the range down to 22750yards, a fire breaks out on Cavour. A second fire breaks out at 942 and togetehr these fires are not brought under control until 1000. At 942 the Greek ships push to close the range to achieve a decision to this battle using their speed advantage to close the range 500yards every 3 minutes. Cesare recieves a hit to her bridge that reduces her hitting ability by 15%.

At 957 the Italian line visibly slows as Cesare has her belt penetrated and one engine disabled. The range is 17750 yards. A second shell penetrates Y turret, putting it out of action. At the same time Cavour loses Q turret followed by A turret at 1000. At this stage probably Cesare would have to drop out of line and Cavour and Dulio would have to seek the relative safety of their their immunity zone. After an hour of combat the following damage has been achieved:

Cesare was hit 12 times, 10 that penetrated caused 13720 points of damage and 428 tons of flooding. Cesare is 21362 points so she is 66% damaged and would probably survive if not for the engine hit that has reduced her to 14knots.

Cavour also suffered 12 hits but only 7 penetrated causing damage. She suffered 13009 points of damage in addition to 1907 tons of flooding for a total of 14916 points. Cavour suffered badly from fires. She is 70% damaged and lost two turrets but with almost full power available can withdraw and probably survive.

Dulio was undamaged.

Navarino was hit four times, each one in relatively unarmoured areas. She lost 4100 points out of a total of 32190 (8% damage) including 644 points of flooding.

Salamis had two battleships firing on her and was hit 17 times. Only 11 of these penetrated to cause damage. This was 7776points of damage and 3660 points of flooding (total 11436 or 28% damaged). The flooding at the end of the action would be sufficient to degrade her gunnery such that fewer shells would hit. It would also cost her 2knots of speed in addition to the knot lost with the bow hit at 939.

Neither side has the result they wanted. The Italians may lose one ship so that the other two can escape while one Greek ship is out of action for some time.

This action highlights the fact that you can't protect everything in a ship with armour. It also highlights the effect of larger guns vs numbers of smaller guns interms of both hitting power and penetration.

So far so good?

Cheers,

PS. Red Admiral, sorry for battering your battleships. The next battle will have names changed to protect the innocent.

Sounds very good so far. :o)

Could you please explain (again?) how you deal with off center flooding?

I think there should be a chance to loos equipement on the side not engaged.

During a battle funnels were often damaged resulting in a drop of speed because they can´t fan anymore like before. Do you think it is worth to include a chance for that into your sheet? You know, it´s kind of drawback when you have machinery dispersal: larger silhouette and hit area because you need at least two stacks. Not a feature of spring* of course...

In general I think we need some kind of manual once you´ve finished those rules. I have to admit, I can´t really follow your explenation above and in older posts - at least not all of them.

Is there any chance to loose just a gun and not a full turret due to a hit? This happened often in history. If so, one day SS might include an option to choose if guns are in single sleeves or not which should also have an effect on "combat suvivability".

What about quad turrets with an internal bulkhead such as on the french ships in WW2? As was proven against Allied forces a turret could take a penetrating hit on one side but remain in action with the other two guns.

Future work: Using AP versus HE shells has a great influence on type and amount of damage done regarding armored or non-armored surfaces. Just to keep you busy... ;o)

Anyway, really great stuff. Thanks.

Couple of small concerns...


Where do you get the 'flotation' value? It shows on the SS2 programme, but not on the report. :-/

SS2 allows a fifth gun battery, and also has an average value for "other (non-face) armour" for guns. Also in some cases, teritary batteries will have overhead armour...Samal being an example.


Finally, is there a free spreadsheet programme to be downloaded somewhere, as my Jurassic Puter doesn't have one?

Looks good. Maybe next time you could press the action until 1 ship actually sinks?

How about Lepanto vs. Kypris? Simple ending there I think

Not that you need anything else to consider, Roger, but any notion of penalizing the accuracy of warships under fire? In this case, it would give the Italians an edge from having an extra ship which isn't engaged by the Greek pair.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the Imperator Petr Veliki, France, and Izmail classes (steady gun platforms all) can do with this system.

With 12x14" guns and a steady platform I have a new confidence in the Tyrrhenia class BB's.

I too wonder if we can get a free download of excel spreadsheet.

Quoted

I'm looking forward to seeing what the Imperator Petr Veliki, France, and Izmail classes (steady gun platforms all) can do with this system.

My designs all have steadiness of 0.5 but huge margins of stability. That means they are far better equipped to deal with flooding after torpedo/shell hits.

Flooding: - for simplicity, ships with a tds will have flooding on the engaged side. You can counter flood at the same rate you suffer flooding (x tons per turn) but this is damage control. Obviously you don't want to let this get out of control as you may not be able to counter flood as quickly as you suffer flooding on the engaged side. Flooding includes the damage from the initial hit.

I agree on critical hits on opposite side but when you have a number of ships it is going to be harder to keep track of all this.

Funnels - yes but there are more deserving things of critical hit percentage. Perhaps it could be included as a random event. Every 15 minutes a ship is picked for a random event - spot a sub and take evasive action, loss of electrical power - no firing or a stack hit - lose 2 kts etc.

Manual - yes, after all the testing and input.

Losing individual guns... too complicated.

AP vs HE - yes down the track. Perhaps HE is 1/10 penetration but double the points loss.

Flotation value - I'll have to check. I worked with mainly SS1 reports.

Tertiary armour - it is reasonably insignificant but I'll factor it in.

Spreadsheet - Maybe I can put this in a calculator in Flash - I'll see.

"Lepanto vs. Kypris" - not very sporting RA. No need to test to destruction at the moment. ; )

Ships not targeted - yes it is something that could be applied to a gun modifier to increase the percentage of a hit.

Steadiness vs Stability seems to be a design philosophy of dishing it out or ability to take it.

Thanks for the feedback.

Cheers,

Quoted

Ships not targeted - yes it is something that could be applied to a gun modifier to increase the percentage of a hit

I reckon that our default chance of hitting is appropriate for the unengaged ships. Rather than increase it, we ought to decrease the accuracy of the ships being hit, because that's gotta be somewhat distracting...

Combine this with either a hexmap or the ablility to use speed and turns on a screen/table, and you can go from mathmatical to tactical.

Relative position of combatants comes into play, as do torpedoes if one is using cruisers and destroyers...or battleships that still have such things under the waterline.

But it could actually work for this sim.

Need to figure out how to use aircraft, too...

Well aircraft can be worked in later for advanced battles. They could be treated like very fast torpedo boats, just more difficult to hit, but much weaker, and more litely armed.

First we need the surface combat to work, then the torpedoes/light comabatants, then submarines, then airplanes.

Roger,

is there any penalty for several ships shooting at one opponent (too many shell splashes to tell who got the range right etc.)?

Regards,

HoOmAn

PS: When I was thinking about a combat system I had the idea of using some kind of point system to allow players to choose special option. Say everybody gets x points for which he could buy superior torpedos (range, power, chance of hit), experienced crews (better damage control), superior FC (higher chance for hits), superior shells (penetration, destructive potential) etc.

This has little to do with the mathematical model you´re developing for battling each other but could probably kept in mind as an add-on - as long as your system allows such instant modifications (once somebody buyed a modifier).

Quoted

gotta be somewhat distracting

I'd have though not getting shot at was a bonus... but I see your point.

Ithekro, I'm still thinking about how to make the plot more accessable - I seem to have undrestimated the number who have Excell.

I figure torpedos and light gunfire next, then aircraft and then search rules, subs being last.

Quoted

is there any penalty for several ships shooting at one opponent (too many shell splashes to tell who got the range right etc.)?

Good point. Not at this stage but could be worked in.

I was going to work in ship age and time since last refit as this would contribute old FC and susceptability to damage. another would be catering for elite crews and under trained crews.

Shells can already be used with models in Biggun. The custom gun option.

Cheers,

Quoted

Originally posted by alt_naval
I was going to work in ship age and time since last refit as this would contribute old FC and susceptability to damage. another would be catering for elite crews and under trained crews.

Well, I´ll wait for what you will come up with. We definitively need some kind of modifier for age and crew training because trials take 6 month in general but during war times players might be forced to use their ships earlier - thus suffering from inexperienced crews etc.

Regards,

HoOmAn

As soon as I get some information I'm going to attempt an experiment in using a game I have for naval combat, and see if I can come up with what would be a quick and dirty combat simulator. It will not be as detailed as the one alt-naval is working on, and the results could be questionable, as it will depend on how I resolve the little thing about armor penetration...as the game doesn't take that into account, just that smaller weapons do less damage then larger weapons...just the armor means more damage is needed for a potential critical hit to be scored. The hull value (in boxes) is measured by the ship's tonnage. Hit location is not factored in at this stage....only with critical hits does that matter at this time.

I'm going to test it with a predreadnought action, so it will have to be adjusted for 1920s and 1930s vessels later on...or at least for the bigger guns.

Quoted

Originally posted by Swamphen
Finally, is there a free spreadsheet programme to be downloaded somewhere, as my Jurassic Puter doesn't have one?

www.openoffice.org

Lord Arpad uses it, as does the "other half", and it's [SIZE=4]FREE[/SIZE]

So do I, mainly coz my computer came with MS Works which is a heap of crap.

but should we also consider recoil, and the effect it would have on follow up salvoes....if the ship hasn't settled down after the last salvo, wouldn't it effect the accuracy of the next salvo?