Long Lance Suggestion

[Greg Smith]

Rather then give use every single tube in a Japanese fleet, why not simply give them a cost per attack?

For example:
A Japanese player can pay additional points for a long lance fan salvo attack. He pays 25 points per attack. For each attack he rolls 1d6 and hits a random enemy ship on a 6. The enemy ship must be on the table. A single hit deals an attack of 3DD Devastating damage. A Japanese player cannot make more long lance attacks that he has ships armed with Type 93 torpedoes on the table. Long Lance attacks do not deplete any one-shot torpedo weapons or require slow-loading weapons to be reloaded.

On the plus side it prevents a Japanese player bringing enough Type 93s to cripple half the enemy fleet before the game starts.
On the minus side it is a little more abstract than the current rule.

 

[AdrianH]

According to Wikipedia:

A disadvantage of the Type 93 was that it was far more likely to detonate due to shock than a compressed-air torpedo. The explosion from one Type 93, with its heavy warhead, was usually enough to sink the destroyer, or heavily damage the cruiser, carrying it. As American air strikes against IJN ships became more common, the captains of destroyers and cruisers under air attack had to decide whether or not to jettison torpedoes to prevent them from being detonated during the attack.

In one instance, the heavy cruiser Chikuma was fortunate to have jettisoned her Type 93s just before being hit by bombs from several USN dive bombers at the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. During the Battle off Samar (in the eastern Philippines) a five-inch (127 mm) shell from escort carrier USS White Plains struck the heavy cruiser Chokai. While in most circumstances a shell of this size would not seriously damage a heavy cruiser, this shell detonated the cruiser's torpedoes, disabling her rudder and engines; she was scuttled the next day.

Perhaps give a bonus to any attack made against a ship carrying Long Lance torpedoes? For example, if the ship takes a critical hit to vital systems, the result is always at least a secondary explosion. Or make all critical hits against ships with Long Lance torpedoes into automatic vital systems hits.

The player of the Japanese fleet can have the option to declare at the start of the game whether his ship is carrying Long Lance torpedoes.

 

[kamenski]

According to Wikipedia:

The player of the Japanese fleet can have the option to declare at the start of the game whether his ship is carrying Long Lance torpedoes.

It goes against the "fog of war". The other player should focus its shootings on the Long Lance equipped ships.

 

[Greg Smith]

It isn't the torpedoes them selves that are the issue. Although their rand is a problem, its the salvo before the game starts. This can cripple of sink enemy ships, with no range penalties, no come back, no evasion and not even a penalty for slow loading. Even if ships with these weapons were vulnerable to fire, they could fire this salvo, free of any penalty.