VAS rule query on damage

[Dan Hodges]

DM,

I would guess 1 casualty...!

Seriously though, she was sunk with one torpedo. That's not possible in
this game, (unless it's a critical hit that blows everything to smithereens, and kills everyone).


Dan

 

[DM]

One (I posted it to show the possibility of a large ship being a total loss with no casualties).

Bismarck - over 2000 casualties, 115 survivors

Scharnhorst - over 1800 casualties, 36 survivors

I don't believe either ship would have been considered crippled or decrewed through crew casualties at the time of their loss.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Seriously though, she was sunk with one torpedo. That's not possible in
this game, (unless it's a critical hit that blows everything to smithereens, and kills everyone).

Actually, a 6-6 crit reduces Damage to zero, but says nothing about Crew, so it seems to represent exactly this!

Wulf

 

[BuShips]

Seriously though, she was sunk with one torpedo. That's not possible in
this game, (unless it's a critical hit that blows everything to smithereens, and kills everyone).

Actually, a 6-6 crit reduces Damage to zero, but says nothing about Crew, so it seems to represent exactly this!

Wulf

Cool, so when does Mongoose add the "Do not disturb- Sharks feeding" rule to add victory points and thus incentive for destroyers to save those poor sailors (and keep the victory points for their side)? :wink: Of course this is where the game gets downright brutal in the end-game and the aircraft begin strafing and the u-boats all surface and man deck guns... :lol: :twisted:

 

[Gregor]

I played a couple of solo games doing 1 damage / 1 crew for hits - ships tended to sink before skeleton crew.

Having since played without the crew damage apart from criticals, its looking like a waste of time recording them. I've had 11 fires on the hood, and lost something like 4 crew.

The only time it might be worth recording is in campaigns - but then there could be a simple throw of a dice based on the number of criticals to see if they lost any experience.

Overall I like the simplicity of the rules - so many naval rules never allow completion in a decent time frame, and involve looking up endless tables- not my cup of tea.

 

[Soulmage]

I agree. Tables suck! LOL!!

 

[Totenkopfer]

I think you may be missing a subtle point regarding crew. They arent listing every crewman in the crew statistic.

Bismarck: 2,092 crew 84/28 crew Stat

I don't think they are saying there are no casualties, just not critical personnel lost without crits/fires.

That's my take on it.

 

[Soulmage]

But the question is, from a game play standpoint, is there any point in even tracking crew under the RAW. I submit that no, there isn't. If you take crew losses ona 1-1 basis, there MIGHT be, if a ship has LOT of fires, but otherwise, never.

 

[BuShips]

Well, as to the time period that the game is made for with the high crew counts I'd agree that de-crewing a ship in WW2 did not have a historical equivalent. Neither were boarding actions usually practiced where a crew rating might be useful in the game. Yes there was the occasion of the British bravely boarding the German Altmark with Cutlasses, and a launch from the USS Guadalcanal captured the U-505 (without a struggle), but this is not what WW2 naval actions were about in the norm. The time saved ignoring crew hits is probably not a big deal, so it's probably six of one and half a dozen of the other or just 'meh'. If anything, you could still count them just to give a bit of flavor to the battle reports that you may write up.

edit for spelling

 

[holden88]

We've had several battles now where, although several ships sank or were crippled by gunfire, there was no crew losses in the battle at all. Now, you could say that there were casualties inflicted, but not enough to reduce a ship by an entire crew point but I feel that is more of a cop out.

At first I wanted to play it like ACTA, 1 crew lost for each point of damage inflicted. But now I'm leaning towards the middle ground.

I'd like to try one of these variants:

1) If a natural 6 is rolled to inflict damage then in addition to being a possible critical hit, 1 crew is deducted from the target ship.

or for more crew casualties...

2) If your damage dice result (after modifiers for weak etc) exactly matches the target vessels' armour value then your hit inflicts 1 hull damage only (as per normal rules). If your damage roll exceeds the targets armour values then you inflict 1 hull damage and 1 crew.

So, now we can have hits that just do 1 point of hull damage. Hits that can do 1 hull and 1 crew damage. And finally hits that do 1 hull, 1 crew and inflict a critical hit.

What do you think?

 

[BuShips]

Very plausible and easy to implement, holden88.

 

[Soulmage]

Still don't think it will produce any significant casualties.

I think if you want to go with realisim, just ignore the crew numbers, or just track them for "flavor."

If you want crew loss as a gameplay issue, use the ACTA method.

 

[BuShips]

Still don't think it will produce any significant casualties.

I think if you want to go with realisim, just ignore the crew numbers, or just track them for "flavor."

If you want crew loss as a gameplay issue, use the ACTA method.

I can imagine those very tiny crews looking up from the table and listening while we discuss various ways of disposing of them (think the Men in Black movie with an entire civilisation inside of a storage locker). :twisted:

 

[holden88]

It might not produce significant casualties, but it will certainly produce more than the RAW. If your crew is reduced moderately through damage and then your ship catches fire, those earlier casualties may be really important now.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

I can imagine those very tiny crews looking up from the table and listening while we discuss various ways of disposing of them (think the Men in Black movie with an entire civilisation inside of a storage locker). :twisted:

That's exactly why I wouldn't like the Crew figure removed. These are supposed to be SHIPS, not just little metal/card markers. Treat them as no more than that, and I lose interest. I want games about PEOPLE, not abstractions.

Wulf

 

[BuShips]

I can imagine those very tiny crews looking up from the table and listening while we discuss various ways of disposing of them (think the Men in Black movie with an entire civilisation inside of a storage locker). :twisted:

That's exactly why I wouldn't like the Crew figure removed. These are supposed to be SHIPS, not just little metal/card markers. Treat them as no more than that, and I lose interest. I want games about PEOPLE, not abstractions.

Wulf

Then Mongoose needs to add shark rules... :lol:

 

[DM]

I have some somewhere (rules for survivors, lifeboats etc.) that I wrote for GQ. I'll seeif I can find them.

 

[E Nicely]

^Good for campaigns, yeah?

 

[DM]

Yes, thats what they were written for (actually for a "Full Thrust" campaign but they translated very well to "wet navy" scenarios with a bit of tweaking. It helped that I was doing a study into escape, evacuation and survival for modern naval ships at the time!).

 

[Dan Hodges]

I suppose one of the areas where Crew Points might have an effect is in
a Campaign Game.

Isn't it the case that Experience Points need to be expended to replace
Crew casualties?