Victory at Sea 'modern' supplement?

[Itkovian]

I tend to agree though I'm not sure the ACTA system would work for Trireme combat, the Age of Sail though I think it can, in fact I'm working on a set of rules for that now...
Biggest problem is criticals and damage given that different fleets target different parts of a ship!

Declare a firing strategy and roll on one of a selection of tables, with a single list of all the results?

Wulf

That's where I'm leaning towards, Basically either a Hull or a Mast table. Of course once ships get to within 'Half pistol shot or Biscuit toss' most of the fire is going to HAVE to be into the hull...
Or across the deck.
At the moment I'm leaning towards giving ships three different Batteries, long, medium and short ranged to represent the increasingly effective gunnery.
Then oddities like having half a battalion of French Voltigeurs up your masts chucking grenades or a dozen extra Carronades will be additonal systems with the Anti-crew trait (Double crew casulaties)
Obviously either crew or damage hitting Zero means the ship has struck rather than it's Actually decrewed or destroyed. It means also you can represent ships with *cough* unenthusiastic crews by a lower crew number so crew quality will only represent the ability to get the boat to go where you want it to...

 

[Itkovian]

Oh and thanks for the suggestions, comments, always welcome!

 

[Lord David the Denied]

I'd want to see more complexity than VaS is really meant to do for age of sail battles. The difference between using chain, round and grape is pretty significant, and you have to factor in musketry from the rigging and fighting tops, swivels and small guns on deck, ship-killers firing into the hull while smaller guns sweep the decks, etc etc...

 

[Itkovian]

I'd want to see more complexity than VaS is really meant to do for age of sail battles. The difference between using chain, round and grape is pretty significant, and you have to factor in musketry from the rigging and fighting tops, swivels and small guns on deck, ship-killers firing into the hull while smaller guns sweep the decks, etc etc...

To be honest it really depends what level you are looking to go for, I'm aiming at large scale actions of 15-20 big ships a side, at which level the minutiae has to be abstracted out.
While the effect of shot is different, that is mainly because of the target priorities of the ships firing it, if you wanting to kill the crew, for which you would use grape (mostly) then your probably going to be using the deck level guns for it anyway (Unless you are significantly larger and can fire lower deck guns across the enemies deck)
I'm not sure about 'smaller' guns sweeping the deck mind you! The RN at Trafalgar used 24 and 32 pound Carronades to do that job, and fearfully good they were at it, One broadside from Temeraire was sufficient to effectively massacre all of Redoutables boarders, about 100 men!
(Mind you Temeraire did have a ridiculous numver of Carronades!)

But if you are aiming at small scale actions then des definitely you'd need to know what you had loaded and so on.

I guess it depencs if one wants to be Jack Aubrey or Admiral Rodney!

 

[Poi]

The rules could allow for some shot to affect crew, and other loads to cause damage.

 

[Soulmage]

To be honest it really depends what level you are looking to go for, I'm aiming at large scale actions of 15-20 big ships a side, at which level the minutiae has to be abstracted out.

Meh. Personally I'd rather see it at the Task Force level similar to VaS, with a half-dozen ships a side or so. Too large a scale and it just becomes a numbers game that could be anything. . fantasy armies, chariot racing, whatever.

If you can keep some of the individual ship detail, it stays a naval game, which is great. That is why I love VaS so much, they have managed to strike the perfect balance IMO between detail and abstraction, simplicity and realism. Its really an outstanding system!

If you want a fleet action game, it should really be written from scratch, rather than trying to base it on a VaS engine which doesn't really fit that scale.

 

[Chiwie]

i like the idea of a modern naval ruleset... with BF: Evo coming out, you could tie the two together to make some really great campaigns!

 

[myknys]

Im on the no side too. I would like to see 19th cen. before modern

 

[Jack Tar]

A big yes from me - i already have a number of fleets i built up for Harpoon, but i really want to play a fun, simple and easy version for moderns - not one that requires a uni degree to learn.

 

[emperorpenguin]

I voted no, considering people have told me (and put me off VAS) that it doesn't accurately cover WW2 as it is because aircraft are too weak! VAS seems a perfect WW1 and 19th century game though

 

[juggler69uk]

I tend to agree though I'm not sure the ACTA system would work for Trireme combat, the Age of Sail though I think it can, in fact I'm working on a set of rules for that now...

Age of Sail, Pirates, Napoleonic (and anything around that time period) all sound like worth trying in VaS, Plus it will give people a chance to use all those Wizkids pirates ships with a decent set of rules, Will you Post a copy for us if you get them done ??

 

[Jellicoe]

Yes, but very difficult to actually implement. Baring in mind that most modern naval warfare is not actually about blue water naval direct naval engagements. I know there is going to be a storm of protest here . Its just as much if not more about project naval power ashore.

 

[DM]

You wouldn't get much argument from here

Modern "blue water" engagements (or at least the sort of open ocean engagements that one would have expected in a "Cold War Gone Hot" situation) would be conducted over enormous ranges. Consider that early versions of Exocet and Styx had a range of about 25 miles, or 50" in current VAS terms, whilst Harpoon reaches out and touches the opposition at 60-odd miles and there are several ASMs engaging targets (assuming targetting information is available) out to 150 miles or more.

There is the potential for shorter range engagements (its often forgotten that the RN and US forces engaged and destroyed over 40 Iraqi surface targets during GW1) but there you are looking at fast attack craft and helicopters. Biger ships don't really have a place there.

Now, 'm not saying that a VAS-based system wouldn't work for moderns (I'm still thinking about it now, in amongst several other projects, one of which isa 1960s adaptation, before missiles really take over the surface environment) but the style of game would have to be radically different if you were still looking at a purely tabletop experience and wanted to look at something bigger than a dogfight between coastal craft and maritime air.

 

[Taellik]

No Thanks!

Prefer to have Mongoose get all of VAS squared away with

1) Additional Ships of major / minor combatants

2) Aircraft carrier Ops rules

3) Land-based Aircraft Ops rules

4) Errata for things Mongoose feels needs adjusting


Leave the "modern" naval rules to Harpoon !

And let's not get distracted - get WWII all ironed out before selecting another era of naval history to do mods for . . .

 

[DM]

Which is in fact what I believe may be happening