A few AoD questions...

[Captain Blicero]

Questions for Mr. Manley et al,
We ran two games of AoD last Saturday and I have a few questions.
Does the -1 penalty to hit a ship that has been fired on previously in the turn apply to subsequent ships in the same firing squadron?
I guess I am asking does all fire by one squadron take place simultaneously.
We played it this way, but it seems to go against the “realities” of WW1 fire control. Multiple shell splashes of course make a firing solution much more difficult…

We have decided in future games to apply the penalty to every ship after the first that fires on a target regardless if it is in the same squadron.

Also, we have decided the “British Ranging Procedure” rule should be applied to all ships when they first fire on a target, in order to represent the difficulties of range-finding/fire control and discouraging ships from changing targets “willy-nilly.”

Another question,
When a squadron moves in line astern formation, the lead ship must conform to movement rule requirements, and following ships turn at the same point as the lead ship.

Does this mean the following ships move up to max movement allowance turning at the point the lead ship did and continue in line? Or does it mean one moves the lead ship, and then simply places the rest of the squadron behind it in line astern formation?

And another,
Once a squadron has voluntarily broken formation, can it reform again?

Thanks in advance! Love the game. (A nice change form Seekrieg IV)

 

[DM]

1) The first ship escapes the penalty, it is applied to subsequent ships (but feel free to apply it to all ships, its just abit harder to keep track of overall, and requires some predictive ability in some cases)

2) Thats fair enough. I wanted a mechanism to distinguish between early British and German ranging methods, but I can see the reason why you would want to apply this broad-brush.

3) Following ships move up to their movement allowance. If they can't make the speed of the lead ship the formation opens up. If they can't make the turn that the leadship makes the formation is likely to break apart. it is encumbent on the lead ship to manouvre so that the following ships can actually follow (as in real life - and I've seen this go wrong in real life as well where a leader forgot the turning abilities of his "trailers" and the result was ships all over the place!)

4) Once a formation has dispursed it cannot reform (an incentive for staying in formation in the first place)

 

[Captain Blicero]

Thank you Sir!