Victory at Sea!

[Zee Zee]

How destroyers are handled depends on the level the game is set at.They will be small and insignificant if the game is ment to be battleships versis battleships.This would be fine for WW1 but not so for WW2,as Battlewagon actions were rare(they were in WW1, but with squadrons of the things a side battles were generally going to be between opposing fleets made of large numbers of the brutes).Most surface actions (leaving out the big carrier battles)were between cruisers and destroyers,with there being many notible destroyer actions such as at Narvik and there were numerous cruiser and destroyer actions in the Med and particulalry around Guadalcanal in the Pacific.Lets not forget the heroic action of the Destroyer Escorts at Leyte Gulf.

 

[Asroc_2000]

Ass Zee Zee rightly points out, it's difficult to design a game that allows both a battleship squadron and a destroyer flottilla to fight their peers and be treated in the same level of detail.
When you add in Carrier battles like Midway, you have a third level of scale, especially in terms of distance, where the fleets are unlikely be within 100 miles of each other.

Where destroyers can play ball with the big boys are in night actions.
Especially in the early years, radar was poor quality and often out of order when needed, so spotting was down to lookouts and depended on quality of training, expereince and weather and moon condiotions.

Here it was possible for the humble DD's to get in close and attack with the great equaliser - a spread of 21 or 24 inch torps!

At night, even the biggest, most powerful carrier is nothing but an expensive target to be guarded, and even mighty super-battleships sail nervously around, wary of attack from lighter forces, includign DD's MTB/PT boats, or submarines (often sneaking around in the surface at night).

 

[Asroc_2000]

It's gone very quiet in here, did we sink and no one told me?

 

[Wulf Corbett]

It's gone very quiet in here, did we sink and no one told me?

shh... Silent Running...

Wulf

 

[Asroc_2000]

That might be nice in a submarine, but up here in a QE class BB we get a bit nervous when not moving ... especially with you submariners around! )

 

[VonTed]

It's gone very quiet in here, did we sink and no one told me?

I have to admit I was disappointed with no coverage in the latest S&P for Victory at Sea..... :?

 

[MongooseMatt]

Don't worry, chaps, lots more coming!

 

[Zee Zee]

If you could give some indication of how you intend to run destryers it would be helpful.I have a scenario (for which I have written an article)that I have run both with my own set of rules and general quarters.It would be a good proven scenario to test play your rules on.To do it though I need details of how destroyers are to b handled or examples.

 

[Mr Evil]

In fact, we have just commissioned a test model of the Hood from one of our sculptors - we are going to see how 1/2000 scale looks.

It looks like an outlandish abberation amongst every other manufacturers' scales.

Wulf

this scale departure scares me.

thing is if you produce a good product in a popualr scale then other gamers from other systems will pick up your ships and next you never know they maye put yur rules in the next order for fun, and bang you got a new player.

i was eager for the B5 battlefeild game untill i found out it wasnt 15mm or 20mm, as the abstract scale i just wont bother sorry, doesnt matter how good the rules are if the scale is wrong i wont play as i wont be able to use them in a tournament.

Same for victoryat sea, im very excited and interested, but no mater how awsome or amazin the rules are if the scale is wrong i wont touch the game with a barge pole. if you do a common scale i can take my fleet to a games club with other players, and introduce them to mongoose games with their fleets, this initself wills ell the game, next you know they see the good sculpts and availablitity of mongoose stuff, and your selling more ships and rule sets. if the scale is wrong we cant exspand the player base.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Worth pointing out that, with the rules as they stand, it does not matter what scale you use - just like CTA!

 

[Mr Evil]

true, but would be nice to mix your ships with others without major scale creep.

 

[VonTed]

And it makes it more difficult to game with others outside your "core" group of gamers if everyone plays a different scale.....

 

[Wulf Corbett]

i was eager for the B5 battlefeild game untill i found out it wasnt 15mm or 20mm, as the abstract scale i just wont bother sorry, doesnt matter how good the rules are if the scale is wrong i wont play as i wont be able to use them in a tournament.

Do you mean War Without End? 10mm is a scale of growing popularity, it is a standard scale, with many manufactiurers producing many minis (although, granted, not too many Narn or Drazi...). I'm transferring from 6mm to 10mm WW2 myself.

Wulf

 

[duryeaa]

A momentary aside:

Though Mongoose didn't specifically say it, the "War Without End" range will probably utilize the recycled molds/masters from AOG's "GROPOS" game, much as ACTA uses AOG's B5 models. AOG had produced 10mm core forces for EA, Minbari, Centauri and Narn, which would be a considerable body of work to pass up just to shift to a different scale. CAV also uses this scale as does (interestingly enough) "N" scale railroading (I think, I'm not a railroader).

Aside completed.

 

[holden88]

3. Ah, this is already built into the rules. Firing fore or astern means you have fewer guns but the enemy has less chance to hit you. Firing broadside gives a better target for return fire, but you get to use all your guns in return.

I think the initial point has been missed. Firing fore or stern means that the enemy has a GREATER chance to hit you. Firing broadside gives a worse target for return fire.

Or another way to say it - if you are shooting at an enemy ship who is steaming straight for you or away from you then you have a greater chance to hit your target. The current rules has reversed this reality.

I know that is counter-intuative but there are many reasons for this reality.

Naval gunfire is pretty much all about judging the range to your target accurately. When ships miss each other they usually shoot too far or too short. Rarely do they shoot wide to the right or left of the target (and when they do miss wide it is relatively easy to correct the aim for this).

When you shoot at a ship that is facing you head on, you can be less accurate with the range (because the enemy ship is lengthways to you they present more of their surface area for you to hit).

When steaming alongside the enemy a captain can slightly adjust his course to alter the range causing the enemy to shoot short or long.

This is why you always hear in naval warfare things like "They have found our range" or "they have us ranged in". When a warship gets "straddled" (a slavo from an enemy ship lands on either side of the target) they are in serious trouble. It is a great visual cue to the enemy that they have found the perfect range to fire.

The only time a captain would point his ship right at the enemy would be to shorten the range between vessels rapidly (to get inside effective gun or torpedo range) or to reduce the chance of a torpedo spread hitting the ship.

Essentially, the target modifiers for shooting at a large silhouete should be eliminated and a "target has its bow or stern facing you" +1 to hit mod should be put in.

 

[lastbesthope]

When you shoot at a ship that is facing you head on, you can be less accurate with the range (because the enemy ship is lengthways to you they present more of their surface area for you to hit).

To an extent, yes the range need be less accurate, but the range you need to hit will be changing constantly as the enemy target moves away/towards you.

Unless you're matching speed.

LBH

 

[Soulmage]

I am WAAAAY pumped about this game!

I've been looking for good naval combat rules for years at the right level of detail. So far, every one of the many games I've looked at have either been faaar to detailed. . . more of a historical simulation than a game, or far to abstract.

Bravo to Mongoose for coming in with something "just right!"

As far as ship scale goes, I could care less if its a standard scale or not. I don't think sales of this game will be driven by folks who have been playing naval combat games for years and years and decide to get into ANOTHER system. Instead, I think sales will largely be driven by crossover gamers like myself, who have been into other miniatures games for a while, but are excited about a new genre!

All I care abou w/ respect to the miniatures is good looking ships, as cheap as you can make them! (this is like my 5th or 6th miniature gaming system I'll be getting into after all!) Pre-paints would be great if you want to go that route on this game as well, but I'm sure I can convince my wife to paint some more ships if necessary!

 

[Mac V]

I wasn't too interested in these rules when they first appeared in S&P. I was waiting for General Quarters 3. Now that I've reread VAS and had a chance to check out GQ3, I'm really thinking VAS might just be a perfect fit for a Tuesday night game. I'm interested in seeing what the air rules look like.

 

[BuShips]

Matt, holden88 has a valid point in that when a ship is showing a bow/stern aspect to your guns, not only are you "crossing his T" by unmasking all of your guns and limiting his, you are greatly increasing the chance of plunging deck fire running the length of the ship. If you are attacking with torpedoes however, your chance of a hit drops greatly because he is "combing the wake" parallel to the torp run. Thus, a ship showing you his broadside is good for his gunfire toward you as well as reducing his depth of field to you to just the beam of the ship.

A classic example of this was the battle of the Bismarck Sea, when a Japanese convoy was attacked by allied medium bombers. A group of B-25 Mitchells had been modified for strafing and skip-bombing, using a low- level approach tactic. When the Japanese saw that the bombers were higher level bomb-dropping models rather than torpedo bombers, they turned their ships' lengths ninety degrees away, thus reducing any plunging bomb's target area to the beam dimension. At the last minute, the bombers then did something very new as a tactic. They approached at low level, strafing with many .50 cal guns mounted in clusters and dropping their bombs like skipping rocks over water (very much as the British Dam-busters did). The chance of a standard aerial bomb hit went from a one percentile chance up to 72%, as the bomb had the broadside of the ship to hit against. After dropping their bombs, the planes ran down the lengths of the ships, strafing the packed troops on the decks (yes, war is hell). The result of this "test" tactic was to sink the entire convoy of eight transports as well as half of the eight escorting destroyers. Thus, an aerial force of RAAF and USAAF medium bombers stopped the Japanese reinforcement of Lae, New Guinea.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Is there any chance we'll see expasions for VaS that cover earlier periods - say from ironclads to dreadnoughts - and perhaps a book or two that can take us up to modern day - or even beyond...