Here is an entirely new way to evaluate the Brooklyn and to keep it at Raid Level, but it takes adding either (or both) of two rules changes to the game to be granted by Mongoose. I'll toss my idea in first and then one by holden88.
Here are some hard facts about the Brooklyns. They mounted five triple 6" gunned turrets, right? These were a quick-firing gun model called the 6"/47 Mark 16. Some very respected references (navweaps.com) gives them a rate of fire (ROF) of up to 10 RPM (rounds per minute), and I've seen at least one other give them a ROF at even 12 RPM (but I'll even not use this stat). Now given that you can easily calculate an average broadside "throw" weight of rounds, we can compare this ship against a typical 8" US cruiser throw-weight. Here we go, hang onto your hats :wink: .
15x 6" guns firing a 'super heavy' 130lb. AP Mark 35 round at a ROF of 10 RPM ea. = 19,500 lbs. per minute. If DM is reading this btw, I found the ammo stowage to be 200 rounds per gun (hee hee). Even though VaS does not consider or count ammo, this is enough magazine stowage for 20 turns of full broadsides in regulation VaS play :wink: . Let's now consider a typical US Heavy Cruiser with 8" guns, say a New Orleans-
9x 8" guns firing a 260lb. AP round at a ROF of 4 RPM (official) ea. = 9,360lbs. Even considering that the 8" round weighs exactly twice as much as the shell fired by the Brooklyn's 6" guns, the Brooklyn can place over twice the throw weight per salvo/broadside that the 8"-gunned heavy cruiser can. I would therefore propose that Matt allow the Brooklyn and her sisters to increase the AD to a factor of "2" (up from 1 AD). I'm ready at this point for someone to jump in and say that the barrels would surely melt down and thus prevent this case from proceeding any further, but the guns have a barrel life of four to five times the ammo stowage capacity of 200 rounds stated earlier :wink: . Those that are evaluating the Brooklyn's Raid status are at least thinking that there are two things at least that are keeping the leash on my little "pit bull"- "weak" guns and no torpedoes, and thaey would be correct. This brings me to the second idea for consideration by Mongoose, and this wasn't my idea.
If I may be allowed to quote holden88 (from another forum), here is what he and his group are working with for critical hit options-
It should be noted that "weak" weapons cannot cause critical hits, this is the only exception or modifier to the rule that a natural 6 will always indicate a potential critical.
We've been playing this game quite a bit lately and have altered the rules to suite our tastes (difficult to find a minis game I own that we have not done this for).
One of the rules changes we made was that a damage die total that equals a targets armour value just casuses one damage to the hull, while a damage die roll which exceeds the targets armour causes one damage to the hull and also kills one crew.
We completly binned the critical hit on a natural 6 thing and instead any damaging hit which exceeds a ships armour rating may also go on to cause a critical. We simply roll a D6 and add the number that the armour was exceeded to the total. If the reslt is a 7 or more then a critical is scored. This way destroyers can cause criticals against one another. Also the big, tough ships are still immune to being critical hits from weak weapons, but their big guns can easily cause criticals to unarmoured ships.
Now, combine either (or both) suggestions and apply them to the Brooklyn and tell me that they don't belong at the Raid Level of value. Granted, both ideas are at present unoficial as per Mongoose but I'd like to change that status after some consideration. :wink:
Don't worry, I just ran off on a rant, and was inspired, lol. I'm ok now (maybe)... :lol:
