Beam Shots

Stuuk

Mongoose
Just wondering whether beam shots actually justify the +1 to hit?

In a board game about Guadalcanal, ships get +1 for firing at a target's bow or stern (in effect a 'rake') but no modifier for shooting at the beam aspect.

I don't know enough about this type of combat to know - can anyone explain - what was the best aspect to shoot at?


Cheers, Stu.
 
USN gunnery trials clearly showed a marked increase in hit rate when shooting at beam-on targets. I have the trials reports ferreted away somewhere. RN trials showed similar results.
 
There is actually even more to it then what DM just related (though I know he has to know this as well). Games that give a +1 to hit a ship that is closing or moving away is not only innaccurate but massively impracticle.

First the idea that the depth of a ship will give you a better chance to hit is devised soley from logic. In a gunnery battle it is difficult to tell how long a ship actually is (and I imagine proponents of this idea will throw out the "lucky hit" card). Identification of a ship that is closing is further hampered by the battle line formation. In the second world war ships fighting in this formation could have one or several smaller ships in the lead and the more valuable ships behind them. This makes identification exceedingly difficult especially since design schemes tended to be really close to one another.

Take a few of your ship models, preferable a destroyer, a cruiser and a battleship, and set them in a battle line formation with about a foot between each ship. Now move away from the table and look at them as if they were closing on you and then as if they had crossed your "T".

The simple answer (as DM has already stated) is that the bigger target is easier to hit. Battles where ships closing on another ship were at a decided disatvantage (such as Surogao strait) had other factors that were a far greater advanage such as restricting the ships capacity to manouver. Other examples were (and still are) chalked up to blind luck (such as the Warspites record breaking hit).
 
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