My account of first major naval battle of the Little Great War possibly could stand some explanation as to rule set, game mechanics and issues arising.
The Rule Set:
Bob Cordery's Pre-Dreadnought rule set with slight modifications. Apart from the exception in respect of the Greek Hydra class ironclad battleships, the guns are allocated by ship type, and the gunnery factors standardised for all vessels. So, for example, a Coastal Defence Battleship is assigned older 8-10-inch main armament, and older 4-6-inch secondaries, and a fixed torpedo tube on either beam.
When this ship is shooting, its primary gun range is 6 hexes, receiving up to seven dice (7D6), modified by range. The secondaries reach out to 4 hexes.
Discovering the wide variation in numbers of guns carried suggested that maybe the system could be modified to suit. I standardised on the prescribed number of dice to represent the effect of FOUR guns - two twin turrets, say, firing in broadside. Quite a few of my ships - notably the Turcowaz (Turkish) and Azurian (French) feature single-gun main turrets, almost always fore and aft on the centre line. They might well have just those two guns available to fire in broadside. The French ships also seemed to favour two 'levels' of secondary armament, 5.4-inch and 4.5-inch, say to supplement a pair of larger guns.
What I have done is to create reference charts for each vessel giving shooting factors based on Bob's concept, but modified for the number of guns, as well as type, the vessel carries. The following is my quick reference sheet for my 'Blacklands War' navies:
Critical points:
I have modified Bob's critical point for damage to flotation points to one third rather than one quarter (I see I have forgotten to adjust Hamidiye's critical point!). I did this slightly to increase a vessel's survival chances as it tries to crawl out of the battle. This bears in mind that a vessel so damaged has lost a main gun turret (diced for), half its secondaries and had its speed reduced by 1 hex - all in addition to any similar damaged received by 'critical' hits (of which we'll come to later).Flotation values:
Here again I have departed from the Portable Naval Wargame and adopted the system outlined in the Portable Colonial Wargame. To begin with I wanted to go with historical tonnage, but owing to vagaries of my early constructed vessels - notably the Hydra class - fell back on the formula:FP = WxBxCxAx0.5, where
- W = 'waterline' length in cm ('waterline is really just the model's length measured underneath)
- B = 'waterline' beam (cm)
- C = construction: wood or iron/steel
- A = armour ranging from 1 for unarmoured, factors increasing through light (gunboat), medium (cruiser) to 2 for heavy armoured warships. I would like to add to the list a 'heavy medium' armour that would slot in neatly for a linear progression. 1.75 would go for armoured cruisers, say. However, this might have to be subjected to a bit of research. The reason for my looking at this is the recent addition to my Azurian Navy, to wit, the armoured cruiser Dupuy de Lôme. As 'armoured' cruisers go this is/was a very small vessel - less than 7000 tons. I added it just to give my Azurians at least one cruiser, and, apart from a pronounced ram-like cutwater, one of the less steam-punk-strange (and huge!) cruisers the French built.
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| Azuria's new armoured cruiser: Dupuy de Lôme. The guns I have slightly arranged into something more conventional: the big two being in the centre-line turrets, instead of the odd midships broadside location. I've also made the cutwater much less proboscis-like. |
Note that the measurements are taken from the model, not the historical vessel upon which the model was ...erm ... modelled.
Critical hits.
The pictures don't show this, but for every six rolled for hits, I drew a playing card to determine specific critical damage, according to the diagram
What I forgot to do was to look up my...
List of gunnery effects:
These are ideas based somewhat upon the Gridded Naval Wargames chapter, 'Mimi and Toutou Go Forth'.
When determining gunnery effects, only '5' and '6' count for hits. Hits on a '5' count for 1 FP reduction only. When a '6' is rolled, the target's FP is also reduced by 1, but card is also drawn randomly from a standard deck, which will include one Joker.
Black Ace = screws hit. - 1FP. Reduce speed by 1 hex. Cumulative.
2 = waterline hit, bow; -2FP
3 = waterline hit; -2FP
4 = waterline hit; -2FP
5 = waterline hit, stern; -2FP
6 = hull hit; -1FP
6 Spade = forward magazine hit; magazine flooded to prevent exploding, turret may fire once more only
6 = hull hit; -1FP
6 Spade = forward magazine hit; magazine flooded to prevent exploding, turret may fire once more only
7 = hull hit; -1FP
8 = hull hit; -1FP
9 = hull hit; -1FP
9 Spade = rear magazine hit; magazine flooded to prevent exploding, turret may fire once more only
10 = funnel hit
Red 10 = -1FP. Forward funnel hit
9 Spade = rear magazine hit; magazine flooded to prevent exploding, turret may fire once more only
10 = funnel hit
Red 10 = -1FP. Forward funnel hit
Black 10 = -1FP. Rear funnel hit
(if more funnels than 2, determine by dice roll)
When all funnels hit, speed reduced by 1 grid area.
(if more funnels than 2, determine by dice roll)
When all funnels hit, speed reduced by 1 grid area.
J = -1FP. Secondary armament hit. See diagram and descriptions above. If secondary armament arranged differently, the hit may be determined by dice roll. Effects reduced by percentage basis.
Q = -1FP. Primary armament hit. See diagram and descriptions above. One may choose to take the effect by gun rather than by turret as a whole, as earlier suggested.
Q = -1FP. Primary armament hit. See diagram and descriptions above. One may choose to take the effect by gun rather than by turret as a whole, as earlier suggested.
Red King = -1FP. Mast hit, communications with other ships knocked out. Vessels in formation, stay in formation
Black King = -1FP. Bridge hit. Steering compromised, ship maintains course for 1-6 activations. If it turned during the turn, it must continue turning in the same direction for remaining activations. If shooting during the turn, must continue shooting at the same target, if available, otherwise, cease shooting.
Joker = Magazine hit, not flooded in time, causing a catastrophic explosion. Ship sunk.
Failure to refer to this led, when a 6 or 9 was rolled, rolling a for a 6 to determine whether the magazine exploded. Two ships were lost to that cause, though it has to be admitted, they were doomed anyway.
Now we come to the vexed issue of ...
My thanks go to readers who offered their comments and observations on this topic. Early on I tended to misunderstand what the rule set actually intended to convey. Even now I'm not sure I've got it right. But it seemed to me that in game terms it paid to handle the torpedo boats boldly, get tore in and blaze away.
The original rule set rolled 3 dice for a single torpedo, for each a 4 or 5 causing 1FP or damage, and a 6 causing 2FP of damage. Such an attack would strike 7 times out of 8, the damage varying from 1FP to as many as 6FP were the 3D6 to yield 3 sixes. The statistical expectation would be 2FP of damage for any given torpedo attack. For a long time I have been inclined to reduce the odds of scoring a hit, but increasing the effect for any hit scored.
First off, the boat had to survive the incoming fire for that turn before launching - my own modification to the original rule set. But, having done so - which turned out to be nearly always for a torpedo boat's first run - the torpedo hit only on a 6. Even so it still had better than a 40% chance of scoring a hit (the extra sixes, if rolled, simply added to the damage). For each six rolled, a further D6 roll determined the FP damage. Further, all torpedo hits counted as critical, and a card drawn to determine what.
Now, I quite liked this modified system, which featured in my recent battles, but it still seemed to me even so to favour torpedo attacks unduly, even if I didn't allow - an arbitrary ruling, I acknowledge - a vessel to fire torpedoes in successive turns.
I have a feeling, though, that Bob might accidentally have offered a solution to my difficulty in his 'Belle Epoch' naval war game. 'Accidentally'? I simply misread it! But here's the scheme I inferred.
Torpedoes still have a range of 3, but, at 1 hex range, and with the target broadside on, you get 2D6; at 2 or 3 hexes, and/or target end on, you get 1D6.
A six is required to score a hit. If 2 sixes are rolled, it still counts as a single torpedo hit, but damage dice are still rolled for both, and a card is drawn (with replacement) for both.
For 6 rolled on the torpedo dice, take 2FP damage, plus a D6 'damage dice' is rolled, the sum (2+1D6) is the FP damage to the target. It seemed to me that a damage score of 1 or 2 pretty trivial for a torpedo attack, hence the minimum of 3FP damage.
At some point, I will give this scheme a play test. If it turns out to be a frost, I can always go back to the system I have used for this and the previous naval actions!
Black King = -1FP. Bridge hit. Steering compromised, ship maintains course for 1-6 activations. If it turned during the turn, it must continue turning in the same direction for remaining activations. If shooting during the turn, must continue shooting at the same target, if available, otherwise, cease shooting.
Joker = Magazine hit, not flooded in time, causing a catastrophic explosion. Ship sunk.
Failure to refer to this led, when a 6 or 9 was rolled, rolling a for a 6 to determine whether the magazine exploded. Two ships were lost to that cause, though it has to be admitted, they were doomed anyway.
Now we come to the vexed issue of ...
Torpedoes.
My thanks go to readers who offered their comments and observations on this topic. Early on I tended to misunderstand what the rule set actually intended to convey. Even now I'm not sure I've got it right. But it seemed to me that in game terms it paid to handle the torpedo boats boldly, get tore in and blaze away.
The original rule set rolled 3 dice for a single torpedo, for each a 4 or 5 causing 1FP or damage, and a 6 causing 2FP of damage. Such an attack would strike 7 times out of 8, the damage varying from 1FP to as many as 6FP were the 3D6 to yield 3 sixes. The statistical expectation would be 2FP of damage for any given torpedo attack. For a long time I have been inclined to reduce the odds of scoring a hit, but increasing the effect for any hit scored.
First off, the boat had to survive the incoming fire for that turn before launching - my own modification to the original rule set. But, having done so - which turned out to be nearly always for a torpedo boat's first run - the torpedo hit only on a 6. Even so it still had better than a 40% chance of scoring a hit (the extra sixes, if rolled, simply added to the damage). For each six rolled, a further D6 roll determined the FP damage. Further, all torpedo hits counted as critical, and a card drawn to determine what.
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| The battle at its height. Of 5 torpedo attacks (green dice) three score hits! RMSS Sans Pareil and Thunderer take very serious damage: 6 and 4FP respectively. |
Now, I quite liked this modified system, which featured in my recent battles, but it still seemed to me even so to favour torpedo attacks unduly, even if I didn't allow - an arbitrary ruling, I acknowledge - a vessel to fire torpedoes in successive turns.
I have a feeling, though, that Bob might accidentally have offered a solution to my difficulty in his 'Belle Epoch' naval war game. 'Accidentally'? I simply misread it! But here's the scheme I inferred.
Torpedoes still have a range of 3, but, at 1 hex range, and with the target broadside on, you get 2D6; at 2 or 3 hexes, and/or target end on, you get 1D6.
A six is required to score a hit. If 2 sixes are rolled, it still counts as a single torpedo hit, but damage dice are still rolled for both, and a card is drawn (with replacement) for both.
For 6 rolled on the torpedo dice, take 2FP damage, plus a D6 'damage dice' is rolled, the sum (2+1D6) is the FP damage to the target. It seemed to me that a damage score of 1 or 2 pretty trivial for a torpedo attack, hence the minimum of 3FP damage.
At some point, I will give this scheme a play test. If it turns out to be a frost, I can always go back to the system I have used for this and the previous naval actions!
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| A target for torpedoes: a brand new freighter |
Keeping a Battle Log.
I really ought to have kept a better one. I have done in the past. This time I kept an event log, but not a time log. That rather limited its use as a guide to recalling and recounting events. |
| The ill-kept log at the end of the action. The 'what happened' is all there, but the 'when happened' ... not so much |
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| Log of 2nd Battle Squadron. The sketch map was made for a post battle aide memoire. |
The Arrival of 2nd Battle Squadron.
This was entirely fortuitous, and not in a way that redounded to the benefit of David Doughty, Vice-Admiral of the White. From move 2 I diced for the arrival of 2nd Battle Squadron from the north edge of the table, keeping in mind that they should be no closer than extreme range of the old 12-inch guns (6 hexes). I would have liked a greater separation, but the table's dimensions, and limitations of 'scrolling' the battle table, determined the parameters.At any rate, the dice had to show a '6' to signal the entry of 2nd Battle Squadron into the action. Sure enough, it must have taken 7 or 8 turns before this '6' turned up, by which time, almost nothing was left of 1st Battle Squadron.
Now, the classic procedure is progressively to increase the odds with each passing move - requiring a 5-6 on the second turn, 4-5-6 on the third, and so on. This is OK if you want to be near certain that the event you want will occur within 4 moves of starting the rolls.
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| 2nd Battle Squadron fights off enemy torpedo boats |
I prefer to keep things uncertain.
There was close to a 50-50 chance the Jellibene would show sometime in the first 4 turns. Had he done so, the Azurians would almost certainly have been driven off for little cost to Ruberia. But suppose he was still so far distant when 1st Battle Squadron had been totally defeated. It was still just possible he could have intercepted the Azurian fleet before it reached a point at which it could do some serious damage to the invasion fleet, bearing in mind that there were two light warships escorting the transports and barges, and the armoured cruiser Warrior was close by as well (this will become clearer when I recount the D-Day landings). It ought also be borne in mind that the first wave of troops had landed, but with sea-going transports at the bottom of the sea or beached, they would not have got off again.
By creating this level of uncertainty, a whole range of possibilities came into being, of which the actual outcome lay fairly close to the middle.
Next time:The Landing
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| The latest additions to my Chubby Marine inventory |
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