Matt Sharp
Mongoose
Wulf Corbett said:But the rules are already, essentially, there, in that you get a bonus when the target is broadside on, a factor that wouldn't be relevant with plunging fire. It's not so much what the commanders do, as where the ships are.Nomad said:I don't know of any historical example of a captain turning his ship end-on to the enemy to become a smaller target against surface gunnery. To open or close the range, yes; to comb incoming torpedoes, yes; but not to avoid shellfire. Unless there are such examples, (please correct me if there are!) I don't think it's an important enough factor to be in the rules.
As I said earlier, my understanding is that at the range she blew up, plunging fire would not have been an issue.
Given the state of Hoods wreck revealed on the recent Channel 4 documentary - broken into four parts, the central hull lying upside down on the seabed and the stump of the stern upended like a tombstone - the exact cause must remain speculative.
It was a TV documentary I saw. It wasn't plunging fire as such, but the angle was such that a shell penetrated the thin deck and travelled within the hull back to the aft magazine. The explosion and fire spread within the hull along corridors meant to ferry ammo fore to aft. A crit 6-6 in game terms.
Hmm... given the need to ratify crits in this system, it could have been a 666... :twisted:
Wulf
Talking of documentaries, anyone in the UK might be interested in seeing Timewatch on Friday (27/01/06) which is a dramatisation of the Battle of the River Plate...