Rules queation from a VaS newbie

[lastbesthope]

OK, read the rules tonight, a little more complex than ACTA, well maybe not, but different enough.

Anyway, the question.

Reference is made to attacking from the beam, or if the target has it's beam facing you.

What exactly does this mean, I couldn't find it defined anywhere.

My best guess would be thatif the attacking ship is in the port or starvoard arc of the ship being attacked then it's attacking from the beam. Is that right? Wrong?

Thanks for your help.

LBH
(18 days to go and 4 fleets to choose!)

 

[Court Jester]

My best guess would be that if the attacking ship is in the port or starvoard arc of the ship being attacked then it's attacking from the beam. Is that right? Wrong?

Aye that is right.

 

[lastbesthope]

Excellent.

Thanks

LBH

 

[Chernobyl]

beam - port or starboard - sides
prow - forward - front
stern - aft - back
naval trivia - what color running lights are on the starboard side?

 

[Soulmage]

prow - forward - front

Maybe if your Brittish. Here in the States our ships have bows!

 

[DM]

British ships have bows as well (prows is an archaic term).

Also known as the "pointy end"

 

[Greg Smith]

naval trivia - what color running lights are on the starboard side?

Green.

My grandad taught me 'There's no red port wine left in the bottle.'

 

[Chernobyl]

I learned "Port Wine is Red"

Chern

 

[Burger]

I learned "starboard" is longer word than "port", "right" is longer than "left", "green" is longer than "red".

 

[lastbesthope]

OK,

Another question.

Fleet points breakdown goes in the sequence 1,2,3,4,6 just like original box set ACTA splits (Not the newer SFOS or Armageddon splits)

However, no mention is made of being able to further split points once they've been split (As you can in ACTA Armageddon rules)

The battle report in S&P # Admiral Von Bastau's breakdown seems to split one of his War level points into 1 Battle Point and 3 Patrol points.

What gives?

LBH

 

[Court Jester]

As the rules are written you cannot split points further than once, be that higher or lower. I wouldn't take the batreps as much "rules-wise" as they even admit in the reports themselves they forgot rules and made mistakes.

 

[lastbesthope]

True, I thought as much , but like to check. Thanks

I still have to make my fleets up for the tourney you see.

LBH

 

[lastbesthope]

OK, one more question.

Launching Observation craft.

It says on P.15 that they are launched as per Page 13.

The only bit on P.13 that talks of launching explicitly states ships with carrier can launch/recover 2 flights a turn.

But most ships with Obs craft don't have Carrier.

Now it could be common sensed, but I'm looking for a proper answer.

Cheers

LBH

 

[Court Jester]

Another vague rule here.

Obviously written like this to save space, a technical reading of the rules could indeed require a ship to have the carrier trait to launch observer aircraft.

But even so the wording of the rules is open to interpretation... Designer intent is obviously that a ship with the "Aircraft X" trait launches observer aircraft in the same way that a ship with "Carrier" launches normal aircraft...

• The ship must move in a straight line and not be crippled
• No special actions
• Up to two flights can be launched
• Launched flights are placed touching the ship in its front arc

The rules say that observer aircraft are launched in the "same way" which is very loose wording. It could easily be interpreted to mean replace all uses of "carrier" with "aircraft X" because 'we do not have thr room to re type the identical rules'.

But the main reason for not picking this loophole any wider... the game breaks and observers become impossible to launch.

As for an answer... "Aircraft X" works in place of "carrier" for launching observation aircraft.

 

[Keith]

Carriers tended (and still do) to sail into the wind when lanching and recovering aircraft because this minimizes the required Take Off / Landing speed of the aircraft relative to the carrier deck.

WWII naval spotter planes were generally rail lauched (often to either beam rather than over the bows), float bi-planes with very low stall speeds so did not suffer from the same operational issuses.

We have been playing that only a single spotter can be launched each turn. Do we have a definite ruling on the correct rules interpretation?

 

[Chernobyl]

I don't think any carriers have observation aircraft?
a regular ship with spotter definately can't launch 2 per turn.

Chern

 

[Court Jester]

a regular ship with spotter definately can't launch 2 per turn

Where does it say this in the rules?

 

[Chernobyl]

because I'm pretty darn sure that only ships with the carrier trait can launch 2 aircraft at a time.

 

[Court Jester]

because I'm pretty darn sure that only ships with the carrier trait can launch 2 aircraft at a time.

The rules for observer aircraft say "These observation aircraft are launched in the same was as described on page 13". There is nothing in the rules that says you must follow only some of the launching rules and not others.

It It may well be inteneded that only one can be launched but thats not how the rules read out...

 

[jfox61]

I play you only can launch 1 observer per ship. If it is shot down you launch your second if you have one. The only reason I do this is to speed up games as too many observers on the table slow the game up. I can't see anywhere in the rules that says you can't launch more than one though. This is just my personal preference.