T o be honest I am not really bothered that much with historical accuracy in these rules. I purchased these rules soley for their fast play potential at our wargames club. Start tinkering and they no longer become fast play. If that happens then quite frankly there are other rules out there that would be much better. Although not perfect they are adequate for a 4hr game at our club. For longer more in depth games we use either General quarters by Navwar or Sea wars Fleet Actions by A Finch and A Butler. Both these rulesets incorporate line of site and crossing the T adequately. Use these rules for what they were intended, a fast play set designed for people with little or no experience of Naval warfare.
VaS and crossing the enemy's 'T' suggestion
- Thread starter BuShips
- Start date
Joe_Dracos
Mongoose
Okay I've done a little research concearning this topic. I didn't think that the rational made sense because it cotradicted everthing that I have read over the last 10 years.
Here's what I found.
Crossing the T will only provide a benefit at close range for the following reasons.
1. Fire is extremely inaccurate at long range and Etreme long range it is virtually impossible to hit, even with radar range finders (at WWII tech). The shells must travel at higher altitudes, making Wind a serious issue.
2. Were your shells are landing is difficult to calculate, especially since they had to use optical equiptment to guage, making adjustments difficult at best. Also the fact that the ship is moving (and if its in open water it will be Zig Zagging) where it will ship will be is harder to calculate the farther out you go.
3. Ships gunnery officers are trained to dirrect there fire against the ships water line. Hitting the ship in its upper works does nothing to help sink it. This is why a ship that is broad side to you is easier to hit, there is more water line to hit.
Crossing the T was only successfully acheived during WWII at the battle of Surogao strait where the Fuso and Mogami were sunk (Yamashiro was sunk earlier by destroyers and PT boats).
Here's what I found.
Crossing the T will only provide a benefit at close range for the following reasons.
1. Fire is extremely inaccurate at long range and Etreme long range it is virtually impossible to hit, even with radar range finders (at WWII tech). The shells must travel at higher altitudes, making Wind a serious issue.
2. Were your shells are landing is difficult to calculate, especially since they had to use optical equiptment to guage, making adjustments difficult at best. Also the fact that the ship is moving (and if its in open water it will be Zig Zagging) where it will ship will be is harder to calculate the farther out you go.
3. Ships gunnery officers are trained to dirrect there fire against the ships water line. Hitting the ship in its upper works does nothing to help sink it. This is why a ship that is broad side to you is easier to hit, there is more water line to hit.
Crossing the T was only successfully acheived during WWII at the battle of Surogao strait where the Fuso and Mogami were sunk (Yamashiro was sunk earlier by destroyers and PT boats).
Joe_Dracos
Mongoose
BuShips said:Although it is a necessary condensed-view artwork, the cover of Victory at Sea provides a superb example of the tactic, and of its potential consequences :shock:.
Does this look familiar to anyone that has studied the alphabet? :wink:
This image is inacurrate. The Logs of Prinz Eugan, Bismark (yes they survived the final battle) and Prince of Wales clearly dictate that the british fleet had made a successful turn to bring there aft batteries to bear. The killing blow had to have hit her belt armour to puncture her Magazine.
Joe_Dracos
Mongoose
Still doesn't have the Hood and making its turn.
Court Jester
Mongoose
But the thing is...
All this talk of crossing the T is all fin and dandy but that assumes players will manuver their ships in nice lines. In a totally free form set of rules like VAS where players do not have to follow orders and ships are free to move as you want there is no point in having rules for formation fighting like this as it will very very rarely come up...
And all you have to do to apply the effects of crossing the T if you want to add it to your game is say the ships block LOS.
All this talk of crossing the T is all fin and dandy but that assumes players will manuver their ships in nice lines. In a totally free form set of rules like VAS where players do not have to follow orders and ships are free to move as you want there is no point in having rules for formation fighting like this as it will very very rarely come up...
And all you have to do to apply the effects of crossing the T if you want to add it to your game is say the ships block LOS.
I'm going to be a little slack here and say that I agree with all three of you, even though some of the "nitty gritty" details are different :wink: . DM is correct to say that fast-play can be accurate too, Joe_Dracos is correct that crossing the T works best at closer ranges due to accuracy, and jfox61 that the game suffers without doing something about Crossing the T and some kind of LOS rules (which would assist in helping define Crossing the T as a tactic). I've tried to keep any Crossing the T rule (I'll use 'xT' as a short-cut from now on) simple by stating that the effective range for xT is under 20" and just blocks the same arcs that main guns use (they really should be tighter arcs of maybe half as much or less). As I have said earlier, I might not have even come up with these suggestions if the large silhouette rule didn't reward a better modifier for a ship with its bow facing the side of its target. There is some logic as to why the silhouette would make sense, but to have that included and not limit the forward fire of trailing ships of a ship firing upon that same silhouette is off-balance. Adding a general LOS rule might go quite a distance in addressing this entire line of discussion, by the way. In other words, adding a LOS rule and having other ship counters become "opaque" would allow xT to become game-functional without adding any other specific rules for xT itself. Anyway, food for thought.
Court Jester said:
Yes, but there is already a rule built into the game. It's the squadron advanced rule, and that is where I wanted to see a comment about xT as long as they were already using "transparent" ships, meaning no LOS. As long as there were no LOS rules, they could still shoe-horn in an offsetting danger risk to the advantages of squadron use (sharing of best command rating, and simultaneous movement and fire). This way they could still skip LOS for the 'ease-of-play' advantage it brings and use of squadrons (if desired) was a two-edged sword. With the help of the comments here, I am coming to the sense that the game either needs to add in LOS or a special risk into squadron game use in order to enable xT in a game-functional setting. Squadrons are the "home address" for Crossing the T, imho.
Joe_Dracos
Mongoose
BuShips,
I was having a good time discussing the historical side of the arguement (especailly where it comes to the hood), I would like to make one final point on the matter (even though its redundant).
I have vaying sorces about weather the hood successfully made her turn. The one source I trust completely is The War at Sea. This one coroberates your discription so I must reluctantly state that she had not executed the turn. However, now that I've had some sleep (I work nights and its my day off) I have taken a more refreshed look at the topic. Your best example to use in this situation is Surogao strait. Not the battle of the Denmark straight, Hood was approaching at a 60 degree angle to Bismarks Beam. It wouldn't take much of a manouver to correct this situation (if Tovey had been thinking). That battle had so many mistakes. Tovey should have kept the Destroyers with his Capital ships, he should have used Prince of Wales search radar at least Intermittently to keep track of Bismark and he should have fired at Bismark, not Prinz Eugan (Tovey fired after Bismark opened hostilities) KGV would have made a better consort to Hood, not PoW. PoW was running shake downs. When the battle opened up, Her A turret had one of the guns develope a fault and was rendered useless, the after turret developed a fault and could not rotate. Suffolk and Norflok were in the area, Tovey should have...
I could go on like this....
I was having a good time discussing the historical side of the arguement (especailly where it comes to the hood), I would like to make one final point on the matter (even though its redundant).
I have vaying sorces about weather the hood successfully made her turn. The one source I trust completely is The War at Sea. This one coroberates your discription so I must reluctantly state that she had not executed the turn. However, now that I've had some sleep (I work nights and its my day off) I have taken a more refreshed look at the topic. Your best example to use in this situation is Surogao strait. Not the battle of the Denmark straight, Hood was approaching at a 60 degree angle to Bismarks Beam. It wouldn't take much of a manouver to correct this situation (if Tovey had been thinking). That battle had so many mistakes. Tovey should have kept the Destroyers with his Capital ships, he should have used Prince of Wales search radar at least Intermittently to keep track of Bismark and he should have fired at Bismark, not Prinz Eugan (Tovey fired after Bismark opened hostilities) KGV would have made a better consort to Hood, not PoW. PoW was running shake downs. When the battle opened up, Her A turret had one of the guns develope a fault and was rendered useless, the after turret developed a fault and could not rotate. Suffolk and Norflok were in the area, Tovey should have...
I could go on like this....
Joe_Dracos said:
It's no problem
, as I think there are always things to be learned whatever our own experiences are. Besides, there are many more who are readers here and are not jumping into the discussion that are benefiting from our little ramblings :wink: . By the way, I'm not saying that the Hood was destroyed before turning. DM pointed out quite correctly that the Hood was lost in the middle of a maneuver ('manoeuvre' in Commonwealth English, but I'm an uneducated Yank, lol) that would have brought her X and Y turrets to bear. If you would indulge me (and not as an attempt to nitpick but rather to state my own perspective on history), I believe that if the Hood would have turned to starboard or gone a bit more forward, she might not have taken the fatal hit that she did. In a curious way of tossing into this discussion, the author's "large silhouette" bonus basically came into effect and I believe just as she was showing her broadside the die roll shifted :!: (if Matt is reading this, I'm sure he's grinning ear-to-ear as at the same time shedding a tear :wink: ) and Hood took her fatal critical hit. Thus, I am stating that from what I have read on the subject the Hood achieved her full broadside but sadly never survived to gain any bonus for the accomplishment. As something of a graphic of my viewpoint, please take a close look at my forum avatar and you will see the Hood taking her last turn to port 
. I fully agree that the best example of xT is the Battle of Surigao Straight. In what you said about Tovey, I think you mixed him up with Vice Admiral Holland who was on the Hood (Tovey was in KGV). Holland fired at Prinz Eugen because he thought at that range (visibility was 12 miles) that the lead ship was the Bismarck. I'll insert a snippet from one of the narratives now to tell why the British thought Bismarck was the lead ship-At 03:19 the Suffolk transmitted one of her reports on the enemy. This was very useful for VADM Holland to evaluate the whole scenario. The Suffolk reported a battleship at 188° (from Suffolk) at a distance of 24,000 yards (21,900 meters) and one heavy cruiser at 185° at a distance 22,500 yards (20,500 meters). From this message it is clear that Suffolk was still reporting the Bismarck position as ahead of Prinz Eugen by1,400 meters (1,500 yards), without having realized that the two German ships had changed their own positions a few hours before. The naval formations were now approaching on converging paths, but the British warships had lost their initial advantage. They could have cut across the course of the German formation establishing the best course and angle of approach to the enemy during the coming engagement ( the classical “crossing the T ”).
Just as a hypothetical, are you so sure KGV would have really performed better than PoW? Sure KGV should have been better, but consider several tidbits I found that I've never known before I poked around a bit- (from http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-016.htm ):
"KGVs guns were working OK until 0920 when she started to have safety interlock problems. As a result she started firing salvoes that comprised whatever guns were ready. At 0929, she started using her Type 279 for ranging and did so until 0953 when she returned that set to air search."and
"Overall, KGV had her A turret out of action for 30 minutes due to a shell jamming between the fixed and revolving structures, Y turret was out of action for seven minutes due to drill errors. Five guns out of ten jammed at varying times."
Heck, if the Bismarck (that's the spelling, as some forget the 'c') and PE had taken a different route into the Atlantic, Hood might be a museum ship today :shock: . I would answer a lot of your comments with a term called the 'fog of war', in that with a few alterations of events, the Hood and PoW might have indeed only been first seen from the Bismarck and PE as crossing their T :idea:. The PoW turrets might have not malfunctioned the way that they did, and Hood's first salvo might have evicerated the PE with one salvo had it been on-target. We'll never know, as history has been written there. But it hasn't on a tabletop at least, and we can play the scenario endlessly working over it, heh.
Not meaning to "pile on" about Tovey/Holland, I was delayed by work and had my reply laying idle and half finished. Only saw DM's answer just now, sorry. I think you knew it, but just got them tussled up. 
What's cool 8) is that he and anyone else can use those ideas and replay the fight with KGV and DDs...
What's cool 8) is that he and anyone else can use those ideas and replay the fight with KGV and DDs...
Something to bear in mind is that the official history is somewhat critical of Holland because, even years afterwards the RN found the loss of Hood a sensitive subject and he was, to soem extent, used as a scapegoat. I'm often wary of post-event analysis, but I think in this case many of the studies of Holland's actions in recent years have shown that he either did the best he could in the circumstances or made honest mistakes (e.g. mistaking Prinz Eugen for Bismarck; the profiles were quiet similar, although not for the express purpose of confusing the enemy (it was a handy by-product but an urban myth). In the case of the destroyers Holland could have slowed down (they were sea-state limited) but that would have risked him losing contact with the enemy.
Joe_Dracos
Mongoose
Your right it was holland (my mixup). I'm from Canada and very proud of my roots... so don't mind me If I'm massivly critical of that battle.
I plan on doing some test engagements where Hood and PoW are deployed on the table at the head of a T instead of at the bottom, as I had not known that the British might indeed have ended up that way. Reversing the positions of the two sides and having PE still in the front might have been a real trial for the Kriegsmarine. :idea:
Joe_Dracos
Mongoose
Let me know how it goes...
As I understand it rossing the "T" dates back to the age of sail. The cannon of the age were very different from the 20th centry large calibre naval guns developed to counter the advent of the Iron clad.
In the Napolionic era the ships had to get very close, so getting a hit was relatively easy. The flight of the solid munitions was flat and the tactic had the added advantage of the shot travelling the length, rather than just across the width of the target.
The advent of long range guns, powered ships vastely complicated targetting (making dodging possibe) and the introduction of explosive shells made a single hit far more effective (negating the advantage gained by a "raking" shot).
By WW1 the tactic was questioned. Once the line of battle became an obsolete naval formation (through the effective use of subs, aircraft and eventually missiles) it all became a bit of a moot point.
In the Napolionic era the ships had to get very close, so getting a hit was relatively easy. The flight of the solid munitions was flat and the tactic had the added advantage of the shot travelling the length, rather than just across the width of the target.
The advent of long range guns, powered ships vastely complicated targetting (making dodging possibe) and the introduction of explosive shells made a single hit far more effective (negating the advantage gained by a "raking" shot).
By WW1 the tactic was questioned. Once the line of battle became an obsolete naval formation (through the effective use of subs, aircraft and eventually missiles) it all became a bit of a moot point.
