WesWorld

Players
1 player for each side
each player handles orders for their own ship and selects gun targets
1 referee
referee maintains the plot or chart of the battle and resolves hits and damage.

Scale
1 pixel = 100yards
10 pixel = 1000yards
200 pixel = 20000yards (battle range)
1 knot = 100yards
a 30 knot ship will move 30 pixels in a turn

1 turn = 3 minutes

Movement
Ship speed.
The amount of Acceleration is based on the current speed of the ship and is grouped into four sections.
Section 1 - 0 knots to 57% of max speed. Acceleration = 25% of max speed
Section 2 - 57% to 71% of max speed. Acceleration = 20% of max speed
Section 3 - 71% to 80% of max speed. Acceleration = 15% of max speed
Section 4 - 80% to max speed. Acceleration = 10% of max speed.

eg. A Destroyer with a maximum speed of 36 knots has the following acceleration
0-21knots - > a speed increase of upto 9 knots
21-26 knots - > a speed increase of upto 7 knots
26-29 knots - > a speed increase of upto 5 knots
29-36 knots - > a speed increase of upto 4 knots

So using the DD as an example, if she is at 15 knots on turn 1, she can be at 24 knots turn 2, 31 knots on turn 3, 35 knots on turn 4 and at full speed on turn 5. This is 15 minutes of real time to crank up to full speed.

Deceleration is at 25% of maximum speed so to come to a complete stop from top speed will take 36, 24, 15, 6, 0 or 4 turns.

Manoevering
A turn will bleed speed.
A 45 degree turn will bleed 3 knots.
A 90 degree turn will bleed 6 knots.
A 135 degree turn will bleed 9 knots.
A 180 degree turn will bleed 12 knots.

To use the DD example again, a ship is at 20 knots and makes a 135 degree turn. The turn will bleed 9 knots of speed but she can accelerate 9 knots so speed at the end of the turn is maintained. If the turn was 180 degrees then speed could be as low as 8 knots or as high as 17 knots.

How much a ship can turn in 3 minutes depends on its size.
Greater than 10000 tons - > 90 degrees
2000 to 9999 tons - > 135 degrees
600 to 1999 tons - > 180 degrees
under 599 tons - > 270 degrees

To carry out a battle turnaround a 20 knot battleship will have the following acceleration;
0-11knots - > a speed increase of upto 5 knots
11-14 knots - > a speed increase of upto 4 knots
14-16 knots - > a speed increase of upto 3 knots
16-20 knots - > a speed increase of upto 2 knots

So Admiral Sheer, your manoever will take 6 minutes and have the ships drop from 20 to 16 kts (lose 6, gain 2) in the first turn and then end the next turn at 15 knots (lose 6 gain 5).

Manoever orders will be in 5 degree increments. The order will take the form of speed at start of turn, course change, speed at end of turn.

eg the above battle turn around would be;
Turn 1 20kts P(port)90 16kts -start turn
Turn 2 16kts P90 15kts - end turn
Turn 3 15kts 0 18kts
Turn 4 18kts 0 20 kts - back up to full speed

Other orders you may want to give are;
- 'salvo chasing' which makes you harder to hit but also degrades your shooting.
- an 's' eg. 20kts P30 S30 P30 16kts
- 'follow X' which is good for ships in formation.
- 'ram' self explanatory.

The things to remember are-
slow ships are easier to hit.
twisting and turning all over the place will reduce your speed.
twisting and turning all over the place will affect your gunnery.

Ship Characteristics
The capabilities and characteristics of each ship should reflect it's springstyle simulation as much as possible.

Each ship will have a certain number of damage points. When a ship's points are reduced to zero, it sinks. This figure is based on light displacement of the ship, the 'flotation' value from springstyle and it's stability.

The figure is the average of the light displacement and the flotation multiplied by the stability.

As an example, the Turkish Yavuz's light displacement is 21565 tons. Her flotation is 22773. Yavuz's stability is 1.08. This yields Yavuz's damage poinrs as 23943. A shell will do damage equal to it's own weight ie. a typical 12" shell will do 864 points of damage so Yavuz will take 28 12" hits before sinking. Only half these hits will generate a critical hit that may disable a turret or cause a fire. A fire, while it burns, will cause it's own damage and some hits will cause flooding. Progressive flooding will cause a ship to capsize if there is no counter flooding or the counter flooding is unable to keep pace with the flooding on the other side of the ship. With these other factors in mind, Yavuz may take less hits to sink than the number stated above.

For a shell to do critical damage, it must first penetrate any armour protecting that critical system.

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The following is a first test of ship vs ship gun action and to test a plotting system and ship manoevering, gunnery and damage.

Sample Action.

Turkey opens a surprise offensive after she claims the Anatolian Plebacite was rigged. In a matyr mission, a Turkish ship laiden with explosives is detonated in Smyrna Harbor causing massive damage to the Greek Mandates only port facilities. The Battlecruiser Yavuz and a light cruiser are sent to bombard Smyrna causing further damage and to sink any Greek ships in the area. The ships are only to engage inferior forces and are not to be lost. The CL suffers engine trouble and turns back. The ships are spotted emerging from the Dardanelles heading south. It is unsure what their mission is but the only Greek ship available with fuel and speed to intercept is the former Atlantian Battlecruiser Kypris.

Both ships sight each other at about 28000yards, Yavuz to the North East and Kypris to the South West. They both close to investigate.

Yavuz is both smaller and slower than Kypris but has 10 main guns to Kypris's 8. However, Kypris's guns are 12" and each shell will do 30% more damage than Yavuz.

Both ships are adequately protected in both belt and deck between 16,000 and 20,000 yards.

The gunnery chart;


Critical Damage chart:


Action Chart:


Spreadsheet:


The action opens at 0900 in calm seas. Both ships have worked up to full power, Kypris is heading north, Yavuz is heading west. At 903, Kypris turns 45 degrees to port to bring all her guns to bear while Yavuz continues to close the range. Yavuz scores the first hit on Kypris's stern at 906. Only 4 guns can be brought to bear so at 19 400 yards thats 0.6 shell hits (roll 40 or better) to gain 1 hit. Yavuz turns 45 degrees to starboard to bring all her guns to bear. Firing continues till 912 when Kypris turns to startboard 30 degrees to make a converging course. Minutes later, Kypris scores her first hits, one on Yavuz's stern and the second on a boiler room that does not penetrate. At 921 a third hit is scored on Yavuz that causes a fire that burns for the next 15 minutes. Three minutes later Kypris shrugs off a hit on an engine room but shortly after at 927 has half her secondary battery on the starboard side wiped out by an 11" shell. At 933 both ship score on eachother, two hits on Kypris, one in the bow and a second on a forward turret that fails to penetrate. The hit on Yavuz penetrates an aft turret, reducing her to 8 guns. At 936, with the range down to 18100 yards, Yavuz suffers two hits, one on the bridge which doesn't penetrate and the second on the forward turret reducing her to 6 guns.

With orders to preserve his command, the captain of Yavuz would probably break off at this point and head north east at best speed. Her effort to bombard Smyrna is aborted. Kypris would probably be content to let her go although she does have the upper hand and has given twice as good as she received (18% damage to Yavus for 9% to Kypris). Small navies can't afford to fight to the death on the opening move.

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This is a first cut. The critical damage tables need more work and I need more effort in the hit modifiers. There were no real hits needing the modifiers I had.

At this stage I'd envisage a player making 5 turns at a time - setting a primary target. The ref will plot and report back on results and to display a new map. The players will make their next five moves and email them to the ref. This way it may take about a week to play an hour of combat (excluding Jutland). Obviously if things were going awry, like two sides bent on a decisive battle were sailing away from each other then the ref would play only the first move and post the map.

I'll keep focusing on the ship-vs-ship guns till it works ok and then work on torps.

Please let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Very interesting attempt to deal with the matter. Probably even too detailed but nevertheless worth thinking about it twice.

For modifiers try to find older discussions on that matter at the Meeting Place.

I wonder if non-penetrating hits shoud do some damage too, at least at a given chance. A heavy shell doesn´t need to penetrate to disable a main turret for example. I also wonder if fires shouldn´t be rated as light, medium and heavy thus doing different damage. The fire raging on Yavus resulting from a heavy shell hit was doing 600pts of damage. Would a shell hit from a 15cm gun cause a similar fire? Difficult to say and it probably doesn´t depend on the shell.... So I think there is room for some tweaking.

I also wondered about the "percentage to hit" row on your table until I recognized one has to roll HIGHER than the value given. So the value is in fact a "percentage to miss".

I assume all hit rolls were against vertical armor (interpreting the values given in your example)? What about deck hits? Which rolls are necessary?

Thanks,

HoOmAn

Although the eyes of this Certified Mathmatical Moron™ crossed a bit during the description. ^_^



One thing to think about is how to handle "own goals" - if Yavuz was actually bringing "all her guns to bear", one of her wing turrets is firing across the deck - that blast has the possibility of, ah, loosening things up if it's kept up for awhile...

Naval Warfare Simulations are supposedly working on a new naval combat sim that will allow you to enter your own ships and weapons. Their website has a release date of Q3/Q4 of 2004, which has obviously passed, but if they do it would serve our purposes quite well since it is supposed to allow online play as well.

Quoted

- 'ram' self explanatory.

I understand that bit.

Nah, I can't any really obvious errors. Looks complex, but its not too bad.

There's also this , but its nowhere near completing.

Intriguing.

There'll be a need to factor in aircraft and torpedoes at some point, of course.

It'd be good to tackle steadiness, sea boat rating, and so forth so long as it doesn't complicate things terribly.

It may be worthwhile to try a test action between players as a "proof of concept". It should work fine for small engagements, but for Jutland-style battles, we'll need a more abstract system, I think.

Quoted

Obviously if things were going awry, like two sides bent on a decisive battle were sailing away from each other then the ref would play only the first move and post the map.

Now that would be an interesting battle:

Admiral 1: Chase me as I lead you across a line of lurking U-boats!

Admiral 2: No, chase me so that I can turn about and defeat you in detail when your line gets strung out!

Hoo,

Quoted

Probably even too detailed

Yes, it will be a fine balance between realism and playability.

I have a list of modifiers, the hassle is incorporating them without it being a burden.

I'm thinking about having 1/2 of all hits in non critical areas that may cause flooding. Part of the critical hit thing that needs more work.

If a second fire occurred while the first was burning then the two fires were going to burn for the next 7 turns. The alternative is to roll a dice to put the fire out but that gets to be a burden.

In the example both deck and belt could not be penetrated at the range so I didn't go to the effort of deciding if a hit was horizontal or vertical. Another are to work on.

Kaiser,

I've heard of Star fleet battles, I'll look into it.

Swampy,

Worrying about own goals is too much work. I just let wing turrets (where capable) to fire 30degrees on the opposite beam.

CanisD,

If someone has a real game out now I'll look into it.

Red A,

I hope to neaten it up and it make more sense.

Rocky,

I think even computer games have trouble with Jutland style battles. Steadiness is part of a gunnery modifier - still requires work. We will need to test it with real players.

Thanks for your feedback everyone.

Cheers,

Very interesting test indeed! The outcome of the battle seems quite realistic too me. Perhaps a few more tests are needed?

Quoted

Perhaps a few more tests are needed?

Perhaps a modern BB vs 3 pre-dreads. A baby Harp seal sort of thing ; )

I have expanded on the critical hits and eliminated the need to roll for each hit. It's now a randomly generated list.

I'm now thinking about the hit modifiers.

Cheers,