vitalis6969
Mongoose
Is it just me or does the chance of spotting an enemy vessel at night seem a little too easy? When a vessel gets within 20 inches it has a chance to be spotted. That's 20,000 yards, or 11.36 miles. More importantly, DOUBLE the distance a standard torpedo can be fired.
The reason I bring this up is that MTB squadrons would often close to 4 or 5 hundred yards before launching their torpedos. Which would be about 1/2 inch or so and most nighttime submarine attacks were made while surfaced at a range of around 2000 to 3000 yards, or 2 to 3 inches.
Currently, a submarine can't even get within maximum torpedo range (which is a distance a good submariner captian wouldn't even waste his torpedos at) without having to travel 10,000 yards through spotting distance.
Right now it takes a command check of 8 in order to spot something that is within 20,000 yards regardless of size. I'm thinking that some type of rule can be brought into play that adds a penalty to this target of 8 based on the size of the target ship. For example no change to target 4+ ships, +1 difficulty to target 5+ ships, +2 difficulty to target 6+ ships
Or, the 20" spotting range could be broken into range bands, i.e. 1-5" automatic spot except for torpedo boats & submarines roll as normal for them, 5.1-10" Cmd Chk of 8, 10.1 to 15" Cmd Chk of 9, 15.1 to 20" Cmd Chk of 10.
The two could also be combined to make it more realistic.
In addition, the spotting check should be made every round if the vessel has not fired a shipboard gun (note that this does not count torpedos which are fired). This would allow for the realistic tactic of firing and retreating as quickly as possible to disappear into the night. It would certainly make wolfpack tactics actually viable in the game.
For one final thing, each individual firing ship should have to make its own spotting rolls. Just because one ship has spotted the enemy does not mean another ship can spot it. This could, realistically, result in a vessel making five or six spotting checks against various enemy vessels before declaring what he is shooting at. It would also result in (again, realistically) Cruiser A being able to fire at a target while Cruiser B cannot because Cruiser A spotted the enemy target and Cruiser B did not. This happened for sure in the Battleship Night Ambush at Guadalcanal. One of the American battleships had nothing to shoot at because it couldn't spot anything. Never fired a shot.
Just a thought,
-V
The reason I bring this up is that MTB squadrons would often close to 4 or 5 hundred yards before launching their torpedos. Which would be about 1/2 inch or so and most nighttime submarine attacks were made while surfaced at a range of around 2000 to 3000 yards, or 2 to 3 inches.
Currently, a submarine can't even get within maximum torpedo range (which is a distance a good submariner captian wouldn't even waste his torpedos at) without having to travel 10,000 yards through spotting distance.
Right now it takes a command check of 8 in order to spot something that is within 20,000 yards regardless of size. I'm thinking that some type of rule can be brought into play that adds a penalty to this target of 8 based on the size of the target ship. For example no change to target 4+ ships, +1 difficulty to target 5+ ships, +2 difficulty to target 6+ ships
Or, the 20" spotting range could be broken into range bands, i.e. 1-5" automatic spot except for torpedo boats & submarines roll as normal for them, 5.1-10" Cmd Chk of 8, 10.1 to 15" Cmd Chk of 9, 15.1 to 20" Cmd Chk of 10.
The two could also be combined to make it more realistic.
In addition, the spotting check should be made every round if the vessel has not fired a shipboard gun (note that this does not count torpedos which are fired). This would allow for the realistic tactic of firing and retreating as quickly as possible to disappear into the night. It would certainly make wolfpack tactics actually viable in the game.
For one final thing, each individual firing ship should have to make its own spotting rolls. Just because one ship has spotted the enemy does not mean another ship can spot it. This could, realistically, result in a vessel making five or six spotting checks against various enemy vessels before declaring what he is shooting at. It would also result in (again, realistically) Cruiser A being able to fire at a target while Cruiser B cannot because Cruiser A spotted the enemy target and Cruiser B did not. This happened for sure in the Battleship Night Ambush at Guadalcanal. One of the American battleships had nothing to shoot at because it couldn't spot anything. Never fired a shot.
Just a thought,
-V
