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?