Ares Games
Results 1 to 32 of 32

Thread: Air to Ship action House Rules.

  1. #1

    Default Air to Ship action House Rules.

    The following posts have been amended in the WW2 Games Aid section of the files:

    German Destroyers.
    Torpedo damage cards 3

    I've now added the following:
    Bomb Damage cards 1,2,3,4
    Torpedo Damage cards 1,2
    Torpedo running card
    Special Damage cards 1,2,3,4

    USS Brooklyn CL40 Target and Damage Cards
    Hunt Class Destroyer Target and Damage Card
    Tribal Class Destroyer Target and Damage Card
    Merchant Ship Target and Damage Cards for, Allies, Germany and Japan.

    I've almost finished the rules and hope to post that within the next 10-14 days.

    Neil
    Last edited by Lt. S.Kafloc; 06-07-2013 at 16:28.

  2. #2

    Default

    WoW !!!!

    You are very creative & productive

    Your efforts are welcome

  3. #3

    Default

    I've just started to revamp the rules a little as I got hooked on the Midway Rising solo campaign so I succumbed and included capital ships. The I asked Rob to trial the WW1 rules and it was obvious. Hopefully the changes make it easier, more fun and still stay within the official rules. I have just finished carrier decks for Essex and Shokaku class carriers. They are getting a trial run for missions 5 and 6 in the Midway campaign. I have now got Aircraft cards done for all the major types including the Dauntless and Devastator aircraft. So its full speed ahead and damn the torpedos.

  4. #4

  5. #5

    Default

    Special damage card sets have been added to file section WW2 House Rules (still awaiting moderation):
    Destroyer (generic) Damage Cards (can be used for all destroyer types).
    Merchant Ship (Generic) Damage cards (can be used for all merchant types).
    Essex Class Aircraft Carrier Damage cards (can be used for all Essex Class types).
    Shokaku Class Aircraft Carriers Damage cards (can be used for all Shokaku class types).

  6. #6

    Default

    You are doing a fantastic job with all this Neil.
    Thanks in advance.
    Rob.

  7. #7

    Default

    Once my computer gets over a little hissy-fit I'll upload the last set of damage cards which are generic for Light Cruisers, Cruisers, Battlecruisers and Battleships. Then I'll start on some of the other nations ship cards, like destroyers, cruisers and battlecruisers for Japan, US and Italy, then some specific battleships, Bismark, Tirpitz, Hood, Prince of Wales, Arizona, Yamato etc.

  8. #8

    Default

    Hurrah, the computer knows who is the boss (only kidding computer..you know that..SIR). Ok last files for light cruiser, cruiser, battlecruiser and battleship (1 set of generic cards not 4 separate sets) have been uploaded to the moderation queue. Rules to follow, but they are easy to follow if you down load the WW1 variant. That has just about everything accept skip bombing.

    For bombing (dive or level): If the bomb scores a direct hit draw a special damage card and apply the results. If you think there are too many cards, leave some out. If you want to change a card I have uploaded a formatted copy of the Generic Destroyer card in word, so you can add anything to the cards if you want to. Mik and tikkifriend (Paul) have a copy of the rules and are play testing them. So hopefully I'll get some positive feed back soon and any adjustments they feel need to be made. Any one else fancy a bash PM me with your email address and I'll wing of a set pronto. The WW2 set has bombing accuracy, torpedo and bomb damage tables so its not as basic as the WW1 variant.

  9. #9

    Default

    Just uploaded the Air to Ship rules 1.1 I'll amend them as I get intel back.

  10. #10

    Default

    I think there is one more set of files to be checked and uploaded. I will have to check as the Destroyer (Generic) Special Damage deck 3 of 6 seems to be missing.

    Apologies for the amount of sheets but my computer is playing up and will only handle 1 at a time to upload otherwise it goes into a hissy fit. I found also that 9 cards on a sheet was preferable to squeezing in 12 and sometimes the bottom is missed of the lower row).

    I am now working on target and record cards for the Yamato and Bismark.

  11. #11

    Default

    You are doing a great job Neil.
    Carry on that man.
    Rob.

  12. #12

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Flying Officer Kyte View Post
    You are doing a great job Neil.
    Carry on that man.
    Rob.
    Indeed, well beyond the line of duty!

  13. #13

    Default

    Yamato in the moderation queue. Bismark to follow soon.

  14. #14

    Default

    After doing a little playtesting of the bombing and torpedo aspects of the rules, here are my observations so far ...

    First off, I should note that we didn't play complete games, but instead had some planes fly around the table unopposed against some enemy ships, and let the planes drop bombs and torpedoes willy-nilly to see what would happen.

    I love bombing missions, and I have to say that your naval bombing rules are pretty fun. At first I thought that hitting such a narrow target as a ship would be next to impossible, but then I realized that if I approached the ships from the front (or rear) and flew straight along the deck, the ships were actually pretty darn big targets!

    The rules about having a better chance of drawing a good special-damage card if you came in low made it pretty clear that the best strategy was to bring in lots of smaller bombs instead of one big one, but I'm not sure if that reflects the way things were done historically or not.

    In the test I'm about to describe, I took an Me 109 loaded with bombs and ran it against a British Tribal-class destroyer. I maneuvered the plane so it came in from the bow and flew pretty much straight along the surface of the ship. I stayed at a height of three pegs, keeping me out of reach of most of the guns as I flew over the ship. The two quad 2-pdr Pom Poms, with one on the port and one of the stern, were both able to take a pot shot at me as I zoomed over them, but they didn't shake me up too much and I left the ship in stride, still in great shape.

    Flying away from the ship, however, put me in the sights of the ship's two 4-inch HA's, which can fire at targets up to four rulers away! It made me wonder, however ... should the ship guns have a maximum vertical height when shooting at planes that are not directly over the ship? Seeing as a 4-inch HA has an effective ceiling of 28,750 feet, I would assume they can shoot at anything lower than 29 pegs in height (I've always assumed that one peg is 1,000 feet, but I may be wrong). Whatever the case, we just figured that the 4-inch HA's could hit me at any height if I was between one-half ruler and four rulers from the ship, and I think I would have gotten a bit beaten up from their shells as they hit me repeatedly each movement phase until I could finally get out of their range. I should also mention that as I was flying from the ship, I was also in the range of a few of the ship's 20mm AA guns. As they had a much shorter range, they didn't worry me a bunch, but again I have to wonder ... since I was flying at three pegs of height, which I assume is 3000 feet, would those guns realistically still have been able to hit me? (Your air-to-ship rules say 20mm guns have an effective ceiling of 6600 feet, so I guess they could have hit me all the up to peg height six, but it still seems strange that machine guns could shoot so high. I might, however, just be showing my ignorance!).

    Well ... let me say that I would have been in the sights of the 4-inch HA's and the 20 mm AA guns as I was flying away ... if my attack hadn't sunk the ship, that is. I've gotten pretty good at estimating ranges for bomb drops over the games I've played, and I was pretty confident that I was going to hit the ship square on with what I had, so I only dropped two of my Me 109's 110-pound bombs. At a height of three pegs, a direct hit allows me for each bomb load to draw two special damage cards and apply the one I want. Sure enough, I had no problem plunking the two bombs right onto the deck of the destroyer as I made my run. The direct bomb damage caused 22 points right off the bat, which was only three short of immediately sinking the destroyer. My first special-damage card was to the aft torpedo tube, dealing double damage and causing a fire. The special-damage card for the second bomb only caused normal damage, but enough had been done, and the destroyer sank behind me, having taken 33 hits of damage and being on fire as she disappeared beneath the waves.

    Looking back on things, another thing I could have done to avoid getting hit by the 4-inch HA's was to do an Immelmann immediately after dropping my bombs, then flying away from the ship at a long curve from its front. Immelmanns can be such a useful thing at times, if you remember do to them ...

    Now then, on to the torpedo rules. To be honest, after trying them a bit and talking things over with my partner, we don't think the torpedo rules make logical sense in light of what really would happen when a torpedo was shot at a ship.

    When an airplane drops a bomb, it naturally matters when the airplane drops it. If you drop the bomb too soon, it will land in front of your target, and if you drop it too late, it will land behind your target. It also matters at what speed you drop a bomb, because that speed is transferred to the bomb. A bomb dropped at a fast speed will naturally travel further before hitting the ground than a bomb dropped at a slow speed.

    But, to my understanding, that's not how it works with torpedoes that were dropped by airplanes in WWII. As long as the torpedo was correctly aimed at a ship, and the torpedo struck the ship at the correct angle, it really didn't matter if the plane dropped the torpedo 100 yards from the ship or 101 yards from the ship or 500 yards from the ship or whatever. It didn't matter what the distance was at which it was dropped, as long as it was dropped far enough away from the target ship to allow the torpedo's propulsion motor to activate in time and to allow the torpedo's guidance system to set itself to the right height for impact, and dropped close enough to the ship so that the torpedo could reach the ship before its propulsion battery ran out of power.

    Yes, it's a fact that some torpedoes were less reliable than others for numerous reasons. Magnetic torpedoes in particular were very unreliable early in the war, and they would often either detonate too early (causing no damage to the target ship) or not detonate at all. (Magnetic torpedoes fired at ships in the northern regions could even be affected by the Earth's magnetic field, and might explode early, thinking the Earth itself was a huge ship!) Nonetheless, the unreliability of some torpedo designs at certain times of the war is a completely separate matter than how far away from a ship the torpedo is dropped into the water in determining whether a torpedo detonates or not.

    As a result, the rule which states that a torpedo only detonates if its tiny center dot happens to overlap the surface of the ship appears to be very arbitrary and unrealistic, because unlike real life it requires the plane to drop the torpedo at a very particular, very exact spot. The torpedo cards provided with the air-to-ship rules are rather long, and they travel their entire length twice a phase. As such, the chances of a torpedo's center dot overlapping the relatively small surface of the target ship are very low, making torpedo bombing extemely difficult if the plane comes in from the ship's side. (Torpedo bombing with your rules is a lot easier if the plane comes in straight toward the bow of the ship and aims along the ship's length, but I'm not sure if that was something that was actually done, and it seems a bit unrealistic as well.)

    If torpedo bombing was extremely difficult in real life, then I can accept that. If you want to account for the unreliability of the mechanism of certain types of torpedoes, then maybe have the players roll dice against a chart or draw a card to see if the torpedo exploded, or have them randomly determine if the torpedo's guidance system was faulty and caused it to veer off course or travel at too deep a depth. But the rules shouldn't require the plane's pilot to have to be so incredibly precise regarding how far away from the ship the torpedo is dropped, because, to my knowledge, exactly when and where you dropped a torpedo wasn't that important as long as you aimed it correctly at the ship and the torpedo was dropped far enough away to activate in time.

    Regarding the skip-bombing rules, I have to say I haven't tried them yet, but I hope to soon, and I'll let you know what I think of them as well.

    Oh, and just for the record, I might mention that the official bombing cards provided in the game don't have center dots -- they only show an overhead picture of one or more bombs as they fall toward a target. Did you create different bomb cards for your rules and I overlooked them in the files section?

    All in all, I really like your air-to-ship combat rules. I think they really add a greatly needed aspect to the game. I just think they can be tweaked a bit (particularly with the torpedo detonation rules) before they're perfect.

    Thanks for all the great effort! Keep up the good work!

    -- Eris
    Last edited by Eris Lobo; 02-08-2014 at 23:21.

  15. #15

    Default

    All in all thanks for trying them out and giving me feedback. The torpedo rules were kept as simple as I could to stay within the flavour of the game. Read some of the actual games we've played using the torpedo rules and you'll see we get around 50% hits. Quad pom poms had a 90 degree fire arc so could engage you all the way along the ship. You mentioned mg's but didn't say type or when or how you fired them. We have played torpedo's using 'they hit the target when they strike the target' way but that ensures a 100% hit rate. We've played with a torpedo damage deck as the rules were initially designed for up to and including destroyers, not capital ships. If you employ the bearing change to ships and allow them to move, however slight, believe me its a different ball game trying to hit them. Your bombing tactics were right on the nose. Along the ship. Torpedo attacks came in at the bow to ensure a hit, after working out angle, speed of target, approach speed and dropping height. So to keep it simple a lot of accuracy was laid by the wayside. In the main I wanted a no dice rolling set of rules, that kept within the spirit of the main rules and were simple and fun to use.

    Check out Midway rising campaign.
    RECON show report.
    any of the WW2 after action reports on HMS Bedale (she takes some battering around the globe).
    Attack on Rabaul. (Carrier in harbour attacked by allied aircraft).
    See you on the Dark Side......

  16. #16

    Default

    I think that when you have a dozen ships to consider like I have in my Malta campaign simple is essential.
    the rules are fine by me Neil.
    Rob.
    "Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death."

  17. #17

    Default

    Amazing Neil, do you ever sleep!!!! Its really appreciated mate.

  18. #18

    Default

    From your quote on MG fire and 20mm. I have added the info from the rules. Hopefully it clears up a few of your points. I estimated the time factor for dive bombers to get from peg 4 to peg 2. Then added how many rounds could be fired in that time from each weapon system. From there worked out the % chance of a hit from the info below. It roughly worked out around the % chance of drawing a damage chit other than a zero from the A damage chits.
    For heavier guns the chance of hitting was harder hence the SD but if a hit happened then the likelihood of damage being higher I increased the chits to either C or D. (Of course there is still the chance of drawing a zero damage chit but since I'm not running ammo attrition then it balances out). Multi barrel systems have an easier to hit ie 2+A then the appropriate damage chit.

    4in HA gun details

    Shell Fixed QF 35 pounds (15.88 kg) HE
    38.25 pounds (17.35 kg) S.A.P.
    Calibre 4-inch (101.6 mm)
    Breech vertical sliding block
    Recoil hydro - pneumatic 831 millimetres (33 in)
    Elevation mounting dependent (-10 to 80 deg on H.A. twin mark XIX mount)[2]
    Traverse mounting dependent
    Muzzle velocity 4in/33/XXIII 1791 feet per second : 4in/45/XVI,XXI 2,660 feet per second (811 m/s) (4in/33/XXIII range 12080 yds. 4in/45/XVI,XXi range 19850 yds).
    Filling weight 9 pounds (4.08 kg)


    Flying away from the ship, however, put me in the sights of the ship's two 4-inch HA's, which can fire at targets up to four rulers away! It made me wonder, however ... should the ship guns have a maximum vertical height when shooting at planes that are not directly over the ship? Seeing as a 4-inch HA has an effective ceiling of 28,750 feet, I would assume they can shoot at anything lower than 29 pegs in height (I've always assumed that one peg is 1,000 feet, but I may be wrong). Whatever the case, we just figured that the 4-inch HA's could hit me at any height if I was between one-half ruler and four rulers from the ship, and I think I would have gotten a bit beaten up from their shells as they hit me repeatedly each movement phase until I could finally get out of their range. I should also mention that as I was flying from the ship, I was also in the range of a few of the ship's 20mm AA guns. As they had a much shorter range, they didn't worry me a bunch, but again I have to wonder ... since I was flying at three pegs of height, which I assume is 3000 feet, would those guns realistically still have been able to hit me? (Your air-to-ship rules say 20mm guns have an effective ceiling of 6600 feet, so I guess they could have hit me all the up to peg height six, but it still seems strange that machine guns could shoot so high. I might, however, just be showing my ignorance!).

    1. Anti-aircraft evolution
    Aircraft, with ever-increasing performance, were more and more of a threat. The initial machine guns quickly proved to have insufficient range and stopping power to be useful, although some .50 calibre or comparable heavy machine guns were retained for final use, and perhaps for attacking boats or to threaten ships with little or no armament. Against non-kamikaze aircraft, the various weapons systems had significantly different effectiveness. While some earlier studies showed the .50 calibre as having shot down some aircraft, serious analysis showed that the 20mm Oerlikonauto cannon was the lightest weapon with significant kill probability.



    Rounds needed to shoot down non-kamikaze aircraft
    #aircraft
    5"/38 non-proximity
    5"/38 proximity fuze
    41 30,100 4,500 1,000 550
    None, however, were as great a threat as the Japanese kamikaze, essentially the first autonomous anti-shipping missile. The guidance system of these missiles, however, was not electronic, but a human pilot who would die as he crashed the aircraft into its target ship. It was no longer enough to disable the aircraft a distance away from the ship; the destroyer had to force the kamikaze to crash into the sea. Once the kamikaze was in the final approach, even killing the pilot might not stop it from hitting; the final defence had to have sufficient energy to divert the aircraft from its final course.

    Rounds needed to shoot down kamikaze aircraft

    #aircraft
    5"/38 non-proximity
    5"/38 proximity fuze
    24 27,200 6,000 1,000 200

    The problem was not firepower alone, but also fire control. Ideally, a destroyer could engage kamikazes with 5" guns, equipped with
    proximity fuzes. These guns had the greatest range and killing power, and best integration with the CIC and radar.


    20mm Single
    6600 ft
    160-180 rpm
    20mm Double
    6600 ft
    160-180 rpm
    20mm Quad
    6600 ft
    160-180 rpm
    37mm Single SA
    15700 ft
    30 rpm
    37mm Double SA
    15700 ft
    30 rpm
    37mm Single A
    15700 ft
    150 rpm
    37mm Double A
    15700 ft
    150 rpm
    20mm Oerlikon L70
    3,000 ft
    3,000 ft
    250-320 rpm
    20mm Oerlikon L85
    4,800 ft
    3,000 ft
    900+ rpm
    2pdr Pom Pom (40mm)
    13,300 ft
    5,100 ft
    115 rpm
    2pdr Pom Pom (40mm)
    13,300 ft
    5,100 ft
    115 rpm
    2pdr Pom Pom (40mm)
    13,300 ft
    5,100 ft
    115 rpm
    4 inch HA (1)
    28,750 ft
    QF
    5.9” or 150mm (2)
    Last edited by Lt. S.Kafloc; 02-10-2014 at 09:39.
    See you on the Dark Side......

  19. #19

    Default

    Thanks for responding in detail! In response to your response ...

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    Quad pom poms had a 90 degree fire arc so could engage you all the way along the ship.
    I apologize if there was any confusion in my review, but I think I did indicate that the Tribal-class's "Q" gun could hit me as I was flying over the deck of the ship, but it wasn't able to hit me after I flew past the rear of the ship and, after flying some straights, zoomed into the distance in a long, broad curve, keeping out of its range and firing arc.

    I should note that after reading your response I looked back over the card you have for the Tribal-class ship, and I realized I was confused about one thing ... it only has one "Q" gun (quad two-pdr), and I thought it had two of those guns because your card has two "Q" firing arcs on it -- one on the port side, and another on the starboard. After looking at the Hunt-class ship, which also has one "Q" gun, I saw on the Hunt-class ship card that its "Q" gun can fire a 270-degree arc, hitting targets from the front starboard side toward the rear and back over to the front port side, with it not being able to hit targets in front of the ship. With that in mind, I'm assuming that the "Q" gun on the Tribal-class ship can also swivel 270 degrees, but it can't shoot to the rear of the ship for some reason, possibly because it is blocked by other guns or other aspects of the ship. Is that a correct interpretation of the gun arcs on your ship cards? I'm wanting to be clear on this because your response to my review said that "Quad pom poms had a 90 degree fire arc", and with that in mind I'm now not sure I understand exactly how the gun arcs should be played.

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    You mentioned mg's but didn't say type or when or how you fired them.
    I didn't fire machine guns at the ship. Maybe you misread it when I said I had an Me 109 and thought I wrote "mg".

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    If you employ the bearing change to ships and allow them to move, however slight, believe me its a different ball game trying to hit them.
    I'm definitely going to use the rules regarding the ability of ships to change bearing when I actually play a full air-to-ship game, as I think that is a great way to reflect what a ship could do to try and avoid a torpedo attack! We were thinking, however, of having a ship draw a chit when the torpedo was dropped, and drawing one again every time the torpedo moved (twice a movement phase), with the ship spotting the torpedo and being able to start changing its bearing as soon as anything other than a "zero" chit was drawn.

    Before I go any further on the torpedo attacks, I have to ask -- where did you post the cards representing the torpedoes? I found a set of "torpedo running" cards that you posted, but they don't have center dots in either red or black (or any color at all), and I was wondering if you posted other torpedo cards elsewhere. I'm assuming your "torpedo running" cards are the ones you expect to be used, and as such you intend the user of the torpedo cards to draw a red dot in the center of one side and a black dot in the center of the other. Or am I wrong, and I'm missing one of your files, or the dots aren't showing up on my computer for some reason?

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    Torpedo attacks came in at the bow to ensure a hit, after working out angle, speed of target, approach speed and dropping height. So to keep it simple a lot of accuracy was laid by the wayside.
    Torpedo attacks came in at the bow? I may be misunderstanding you, but are you saying that a plane would fly directly toward the front of the ship, aiming lengthwise along the ship above its deck, and drop the torpedo in front of the ship with the goal of hitting the ship's bow -- which was angled to deflect water and so had very little contact surface and would also be likely to deflect incoming torpedoes? That's not how I've come to understand how torpedo attacks were carried out, but I may be displaying my ignorance.

    From what I've read, torpedoes were aimed at the sides of the ship because the sides provided a huge target for torpedos, one that was incredibly larger than trying to hit the bow of the ship head on.

    An airplane dropping bombs would come in lengthwise along the ship and fly in from the front (or rear) to cruise along the deck because, assuming the airplane's angle of attack was correct, a lengthwise attack provided a much greater surface for the bombs to hit than if the plane came in dropping bombs from the side.

    Torpedoes were aimed at the sides of the ship, however, because all they cared about was contacting the ship's hull, and the amount of hull surface was much greater along the sides of the ship than on the direct front or rear of the ship. Torpedoes also had several things going for them that bombs did not. Once a torpedo was in the water, its onboard guidance system was designed to bring it up to the water level required for an optimum hit against the ship's hull. Sometimes the guidance system failed and the torpedo passed under the ship, but that was because of a faulty mechanism, not because of an error on the part of the person dropping the torpedo. Also, the torpedo had its own propulsion System, so once the torpedo was dropped in the water, it would propel itself in a straight line toward the ship. I don't see how "approach speed" and "dropping height" really affected very much whether a torpedo detonated when it hit its target.

    Yes, the plane dropping torpedoes did have to account for the speed of the target ship, but if that is to be considered in the game, I believe it should be reflected in the most logical and appropriate way -- by having the target ship move forward, possibly taking it out of the path of the incoming torpedo. If the pilot judged the ship's speed correctly and set the torpedo's angle of attack as needed, then (assuming the torpedo wasn't faulty) it would hit the ship and detonate. As you already have rules to handle a ship changing bearing, it would seem that adding rules for ship movement would be a very simple addition which would not impair game play at all -- as you've shown with your World War I air-to-ship rules, for which you already include rules for handling a ship's movement and changing it's forward speed. In the World War I air-to-ship rules, the rules for ship movement are quite simple, and I assume they could be integrated with the World War II air-to-ship rules just as easily.

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    The torpedo rules were kept as simple as I could to stay within the flavour of the game. In the main I wanted a no dice rolling set of rules, that kept within the spirit of the main rules and were simple and fun to use.
    I agree. The rules should be simple and not have any dice rolling. However, you already do employ randomizing aspects in your rules. For example, if a torpedo hits a ship and detonates, then the attacker draws a "D" damage chit and, if the chit indicates special damage, then a special-damage card is drawn for the ship. So when I indicated that you should use a random factor to determine if a torpedo detonated after hitting a ship, I meant something similar, with the attacker drawing a chit, and maybe the torpedo explodes if the chit is anything but a zero. It's just a suggestion, though.

    Nonetheless, it must be realized that a torpedo attack was basically in two dimensions, while a bombing attack was in three dimensions, and I feel the rules for each should be handled differently.

    On the idea of imposing randomness, let's take another look at your rules in regard to a torpedo only exploding if its center dot overlaps the ship's hull. The "torpedo running" cards you have are about 2.75 inches long, and a Tribal-class ship's hull is about 0.75 inches wide. Considering those measurements, if a torpedo was to randomly overlap the hull of a Tribal-class ship, it would detonate a little more than one-third of the time if either a red or black dot allowed for detonation, and a bit more than one-sixth of the time if only a red dot allowed for detonation. Is that what you intended? Were torpedoes that unreliable in World War II? Otherwise, we have to assume that your rules are intended to indicate that whether a torpedo detonated depended on the distance it was dropped into the water away from the ship, and I still don't see how that could realistically be the case.

    I have to admit that, although I've found articles online mentioning that some types of torpedoes were more unreliable than others, I haven't found anything indicating just how reliable different torpedoes were. As a result, I don't really know if an Axis contact torpedo should explode nine-tenths of the time three-fourths of the time or one-half of the time or whatever, and I have the same ignorance regarding how often magnetic torpedoes failed to detonate. I do know, however, that one US ship captain early in the war said he fired five magnetic torpedoes against five Japanese ships, and all of the torpedoes were aimed dead-on against the ships and should have exploded -- but apparently none of them did, with all of them being duds.

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    Read some of the actual games we've played using the torpedo rules and you'll see we get around 50% hits.
    Check out Midway rising campaign.
    RECON show report.
    any of the WW2 after action reports on HMS Bedale (she takes some battering around the globe).
    Attack on Rabaul. (Carrier in harbour attacked by allied aircraft).
    I looked over the results of your Midway Rising campaign, and I saw several situations where airplanes bombed ships, but I didn't see any torpedoes in use. Did I miss something?

    When I tried to look at your mission reports involving the HMS Bedale, they all said "intentionally deleted". The same is true of the after-action report regarding the Rabaul. As a result, I don't know what happened during those scenarios.

    As far as the RECON show reports, I only saw one that mentioned torpedoes at all (http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sho...ighlight=recon), and it just said a ship was hit by torpedoes but didn't detail which rules were used. I say that because in that report you have a photograph of the torpedoes used, and when you show them detonating, the center of the torpedoes was NOT overlapping the target ship. Instead, only the forward tip of the torpedoes was touching against the hull of the ship, which seems to indicate you were using rules that had torpedoes automatically detonating as soon as they struck the target. Am I correct in that?

    Finally, although I haven't play tested the skip-bombing rules, I noted this passage in your own air-to-ship rules regarding the probability of skip bombs hitting their target: "[Skip bombing] consists of a string of from two to four bombs dropped from such an altitude and distance from the target that a complete miss is improbable. ... A surprisingly high percentage of hits is obtained by this method." As such, it would seem that skip bombing should be easier than you have in the rules, and shouldn't require the bomb template's center to overlap the hull of the target ship. The main problem in real life regarding skip bombing, it seems, was not that it was difficult to hit the target ship, but that the plane dropping the bombs had to drop them so close to the ship that the plane would be an easy target for the ship's anti-aircraft guns. I am not an expert on skip bombing in any means, however, so my assumptions regarding its effectiveness may be wrong.

    By the way, I hope you realize that all the time and effort I'm spending critiquing your rules shows that I do, in fact, like them a lot, and I find them fascinating and look forward to using them in my games. If I didn't like the rules, I would have just ignored them -- but because I think they have great potential and could be a strong asset to the gaming community, I'm simply hoping that my observations will help make the end result all the better.

    Take care, and tally ho!

    -- Eris

  20. #20

    Default

    A lot to take in.

    I should note that after reading your response I looked back over the card you have for the Tribal-class ship, and I realized I was confused about one thing ... it only has one "Q" gun (quad two-pdr), and I thought it had two of those guns because your card has two "Q" firing arcs on it -- one on the port side, and another on the starboard. After looking at the Hunt-class ship, which also has one "Q" gun
    Q gun on the tribal is a double mount, quite close to each other. Hence only 1 hit would take both out so only one letter 'Q' not two and two arcs of fire. The Hunt was a single mount and had a more clear arc of fire. The tribal rear and front lines are obscured. Also if you don't change the bearing, as they did, you can't bring guns to bear. Hope that clears that one.

    [QUOTE]Torpedo attacks came in at the bow?[QUOTE]

    I should have made clear that they started their runs angled towards the bow (from the port or starboard not front) to ensure the torpedo running time and angle would intercept the ship somewhere along the ships estimated course. There is an instance of RAF Beaufighters coming in low to port or starboard simulating a torpedo run. Then when the target turns bow on, straffing along the length of the ship and dropping bombs! Cunning fellows these RAF boys.

    I don't see how "approach speed" and "dropping height" really affected very much whether a torpedo detonated when it hit its target.
    Because later in the war (if you red the atatchment in the rules) the Americns developed ply wood add ons to torpedos. Then they could drop from up to 2,000 ft (or there abouts) at full speed. The norm pre this was to fly low and slow.

    On the idea of imposing randomness, let's take another look at your rules in regard to a torpedo only exploding if its center dot overlaps the ship's hull. The "torpedo running" cards you have are about 2.75 inches long, and a Tribal-class ship's hull is about 0.75 inches wide. Considering those measurements, if a torpedo was to randomly overlap the hull of a Tribal-class ship, it would detonate a little more than one-third of the time if either a red or black dot allowed for detonation, and a bit more than one-sixth of the time if only a red dot allowed for detonation. Is that what you intended? Were torpedoes that unreliable in World War II? Otherwise, we have to assume that your rules are intended to indicate that whether a torpedo detonated depended on the distance it was dropped into the water away from the ship, and I still don't see how that could realistically be the case.
    My problem here was the aircraft were in 1/200th scale and the ships 1/1200th scale. So do we use a 1/200th scale torpedo or 1/1200th. I chose 1/1200th, the actual torpedo length (average is around 8mm in this scale). About the width of an Hunt class destroyer. My dots are around 5mm, hence using the dots. Otherwise at 1/200th scale....the dot is 45mm (5 times wider than the ship model).

    When I tried to look at your mission reports involving the HMS Bedale, they all said "intentionally deleted". The same is true of the after-action report regarding the Rabaul. As a result, I don't know what happened during those scenarios.
    Apologies I had a run in with someone complaining of my caricaturing the Japanese language and initially blew everything off the site. However I was convinced to stay and am slowly re-doing the AAR's. Rabaul was the catalyst.

    Finally, although I haven't play tested the skip-bombing rules, I noted this passage in your own air-to-ship rules regarding the probability of skip bombs hitting their target: "[Skip bombing] consists of a string of from two to four bombs dropped from such an altitude and distance from the target that a complete miss is improbable. ... A surprisingly high percentage of hits is obtained by this method." As such, it would seem that skip bombing should be easier than you have in the rules, and shouldn't require the bomb template's center to overlap the hull of the target ship.
    Again I tried to keep this simplified. It would seem that skip bombing was best done at dawn with the target silhouetted against the rising sun on a dead calm sea, with the ship preferably at anchor. Damage was extreme especially from near misses which like Barnes Wallis' bouncing bombs hit the side of the target and sank, exploding alongside or underneath. Again how to replicate this and keep it simple. Any ideas gratefully accepted.

    We used two types of torpedo marker at RECON. The flip over card one and a marker provided with the Kates from Armaments in Miniature, a very good..nay..excellent US company. The cards were used with dots, the AIM marker has both front edges angled which are great for the strike angle so we used that as the template for a hit or miss. Perhaps that's the idea to go with. Angled template and draw a chit. A zero is a miss, any damage number a strike and full damage and any special damage draw a special damage card. What do you think?
    See you on the Dark Side......

  21. #21

    Default

    More Info on us torpedo attacks:
    During World War II, U.S. carrier-based torpedo bombers made 1,287 attacks against ships, 65% against warships, and scored hits 40% of the time. However, the low, slow approach required for torpedo bombing made the bombers easy targets for defended ships; during the Battle of Midway, for example, virtually all of the American torpedo bombers were shot down

    Type/Country Length mm
    Japanese long lance 1/1200 8
    Japanese long lance 1/200 45
    US type 18 1/1200 5
    US type 18 1/200 31
    British type 18 1/1200 6
    British type 18 1/200 35
    See you on the Dark Side......

  22. #22

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    However, the low, slow approach required for torpedo bombing made the bombers easy targets for defended ships; during the Battle of Midway, for example, virtually all of the American torpedo bombers were shot down...
    True... but, to be fair, they were flying p.o.s. Devastators (obsolete by 1942) and were, for the most part, attacking without sufficient fighter cover into the teeth of the Japanese CAP. Regardless, USN bombing was far more successful than torpedo attacks.... Many Avenger pilots preferred bombs.

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    More Info on us torpedo attacks:
    During World War II, U.S. carrier-based torpedo bombers made 1,287 attacks against ships, 65% against warships, and scored hits 40% of the time.
    Huh. Missed these stats until I re-read the post. 40% success seems... dramatically higher than I would have expected. Are these numbers saying that an attack against a warship is one attack, regardless of the number of attacking aircraft...? Or do the numbers imply that 1,287 aircraft dropped torpedoes and roughly 514 were successful?


  23. #23

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by fast.git View Post
    True... but, to be fair, they were flying p.o.s. Devastators (obsolete by 1942) and were, for the most part, attacking without sufficient fighter cover into the teeth of the Japanese CAP. Regardless, USN bombing was far more successful than torpedo attacks.... Many Avenger pilots preferred bombs.

    This was not the point I was making, just that pre-US re-thinking how to drop torpedos everyone dropped low and slow not high and fast.


    Huh. Missed these stats until I re-read the post. 40% success seems... dramatically higher than I would have expected. Are these numbers saying that an attack against a warship is one attack, regardless of the number of attacking aircraft...? Or do the numbers imply that 1,287 aircraft dropped torpedoes and roughly 514 were successful?

    Unsure as that is all the quote I took mentions. Not how many attacks were multiple torpedo attacks. I take it that 1287 were torpedoes dropped and 514 were successful hits. In the rules I have mentioned specific hits on specific types of ships and capital ships come out at 50%.

    See you on the Dark Side......

  24. #24

    Default

    Cool. Thanks for the quick response, Neil.

  25. #25

    Default

    Lots to take in but all good stuff. Thanks Neil.

  26. #26

    Default

    After all the discussion and the feedback I'm in favour to revisit the rules and work in some of the ideas put forward so expect v2.0 to come out soon.
    See you on the Dark Side......

  27. #27

    Default A Belated Response With A Few (Hopefully Helpful) Suggestions

    Skafloc,

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    We used two types of torpedo marker at RECON. The flip over card one and a marker provided with the Kates from Armaments in Miniature, a very good..nay..excellent US company. The cards were used with dots, the AIM marker has both front edges angled which are great for the strike angle so we used that as the template for a hit or miss. Perhaps that's the idea to go with. Angled template and draw a chit. A zero is a miss, any damage number a strike and full damage and any special damage draw a special damage card. What do you think?
    Howdy again! Sorry it took me a little while to respond, but I've had a bit of time to think about your rules, particularly in light of my recent determinations regarding approximately 1/2400 being the correct scale for Wings of War/Glory based on flight maneuvers and firing ranges, as opposed to the 1/200 scale of the airplane models themselves (detailed at http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sho...d-Firing-Rules).

    (FYI, that scale calculation is only an approximate because the game's movement cards are a bit imprecise at times when compared to a plane's real-life performance results.)

    I should also note that the thread I just mentioned also contains several recommended minor rules modifications to account for a more precise scale of playing.

    For pretty much all intents and purposes, game scale is really only a significant factor when ground (or naval) units are considered. When played as it is "right out of the box," the main point of the game is the interaction of aircraft maneuvering around and shooting at each other, and it doesn't really matter that the 1/200 scale of the miniatures doesn't match to the 1/2400 scale of the movement cards. (Yes, there are official rules for bombing and anti-aircraft fire, but those rules are rather abstract, and as such don't lend themselves easily to accurate scale measurements.)

    Game scale becomes quite important, however, when you bring in detailed ground targets that have a specific size, especially when those targets also have defenses with precise firing arcs -- such as in your naval air-to-ship rules.

    There are two ways to handle using 1/1200-scale ship models in the game.

    The best way I recommend is to photocopy the necessary movement cards and increase their size to 200 percent of normal, and to use the minor rules modifications I recommended in my other thread.

    However, you could also simply play it so that units on the ground are at 1/1200 scale and units in the air are at 1/2400 scale, and that when something (such as a torpedo) crosses from the air to the ground its game scale changes to compensate. That would require no changes in the game's maneuver cards, but in my mind it would create an overly unrealistic aspect to any air-to-ground simulation.

    I originally decided to determine game scale because I was wanting to figure out the best way to handle air-to-ship torpedo attacks. I felt that the torpedo templates you presented in your air-to-ship rules were much too large, and the idea of flipping the torpedo template over for movement and only scoring a hit if the center dot happened to overlap a ship's surface seemed very unrealistic.

    After determining the game's approximate true scale, I believe the way to handle torpedo rules now seems remarkably simple.

    For this, I'll assume the ground (naval) aspect of the game is set to 1/1200 scale. Also, based on my previous calculations (in my other thread), I'll assume one turn phase equals 2.75 seconds.

    Let's consider the German lt1a1/f5b torpedo. It was five meters (16.2 feet) long and traveled at 40 knots. At 1/1200 scale, it would only be 0.16 inches long, and it would travel at a distance of 1.83 inches per phase. To represent it, a 1.83-inch paper rectangle could be used, with a dot in the center of one end representing the torpedo. Squiggly lines could be drawn down the rest of the paper to represent the torpedo's path.

    The example target will be a Tribal-class destroyer. With a typical real-life length of 377 feet for ships of that class, its 1/1200 representative would be 3.77 inches long. It could travel at a speed of 36 knots, which at 1/1200 scale would equate to about 1.65 inches per movement phase.

    Let's say the destroyer was running as escort for a merchant convoy, and it traveled to match the convoy's speed. Convoys in WWII had different average speeds, with the fastest being around 13 knots (usually for convoys carrying troops and other passengers), the medium being 9 or 10 knots, and the slow convoys going about 4 to 7 knots.

    If the merchant ships and the destroyer escort all traveled at 9 knots, that would equate to about 0.41 inches per movement phase.

    (FYI, although convoy ships and their escorts maintained a distance of several thousand feet apart, that's still small enough to be represented on a large game table when put into 1/1200 scale, allowing for a well-gunned escort ship and one or more merchant ships to all be on the playing surface of the same game. To quote one of the more interesting sites ( http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com...ic/convoy.aspx ) about convoy facts and figures in WWII, "Though in relation to the areas of ocean the space occupied by a convoy was miniscule, it did not appear so to the observer. Normally a convoy was formed in a rectangular shape, with a much wider frontage than depth. Ships most commonly occupied nine to eleven parallel columns, each averaging five ships. Both weather conditions and the need to avoid collisions could affect the formation. The distance diagonally across a convoy of 45 ships might be 8000 yards. Escort vessels were about 3000 yards further out in order to stand a chance of detecting U-boats before they came within torpedo range of the merchant ships. Thus the perimeter to be defended might amount in some cases to 60,000 yards, or 30 sea miles.")

    Even though the destroyer and merchant ships are moving relatively slow, it would still require a plane dropping a torpedo to be good at its job, particularly if they're dropping their load a long distance from the target ship. And they just might do that, as a plane was pretty much a sitting duck while it was getting ready to drop the torpedo because it had to fly along slow and straight to make sure everything was lined up correctly.

    With all that in mind, I think the most accurate -- and also easiest -- way to handle torpedoes at 1/1200 scale is to create several small paper rectangles cut to the length of a torpedo would travel in one movement phase (i.e., the 1.83-inch paper rectangle for the German torpedo I mentioned above) and marked with a dot in the center of one end representing the torpedo's contact point. (The torpedo itself would only be about 1/8th of an inch long in scale.)

    Continue to use your existing torpedo rules in most respects, such as the speed the plane must be travelling when it drops the torpedo, and the chance a magnetic torpedo might explode the moment it hits the water, and requiring a non-magnetic torpedo to hit a ship's hull at an angle greater than 30 degrees.

    The following changes should be added to make torpedo bombing more realistic (and exciting!):

    Torpedo bombing was very dangerous because the bomber had to fly low, slow and straight for a long time before dropping its load, making it an easy target for anti-aircraft guns and defense craft. To reflect this, torpedo bombers have to fly two slow straights in a row at level one before dropping the torpedo. (US planes later in the war are an exception, as noted in your rules.)

    Each movement phase, the target ship and the torpedo move along across the table at their respective speeds. Although the torpedo
    keeps going straight until it hits a ship or goes off the table, the target ship can change speed or turn into the path of the torpedo using rules you already devised in the air-to-ship rules you posted. (FYI, ship movement rules were described in the WWI rules.)

    If at some point during its movement the tip of the torpedo intersects the hull of a ship, then the torpedo potentially explodes. Simple as that.

    If the torpedo is considered "unreliable" (such as for German magnetic torpedoes throughout the war), a chit is immediately drawn to determine whether it's a misfire. If the chit shows a "zero", then the torpedo failed to detonate and is removed from play.

    A chit is then drawn to determine damage (this will be the first chit drawn for normal torpedoes, and the second chit drawn for "unreliable" torpedoes).
    * If this chit is a zero, the torpedo did not damage the ship. Immediately draw another chit -- if that next chit is another zero, the torpedo missed the ship and travels under it, potentially hitting any other ships in its travel path. If the follow-up chit is not a zero, then the torpedo was a dud and is immediately removed from play.
    * If the chit has a number but does not indicate special damage, then the torpedo explodes normally. Immediately draw another chit -- if that chit is a zero, then the torpedo only does half damage. Otherwise, full damage from the torpedo is applied to the ship.
    * If the chit indicates special damage, then the torpedo explodes and does full damage to the ship PLUS a special-damage card is drawn for the ship to determine what extra damage has been done.

    To clarify --
    A) If the torpedo is unreliable, draw a chit. If it is a zero, the torpedo misfires and is removed from play. Whether or not the torpedo is unreliable, go to step B
    B) Draw a chit. If it is a zero, go to step C. If it is a number without special damage, go to step D. If it is a number with special damage, go to step E.
    C) Draw another chit. If it is a zero, the torpedo passes under the ship and continues on its way, potentially hitting any other ships in its path. Otherwise, the torpedo is a dud and sinks harmless to the ocean floor.
    D) Draw another chit. If it is a zero, the torpedo explodes but only does half damage. Otherwise, it explodes and does full damage.
    E) The torpedo explodes, causing full damage to the ship. Draw a special-damage card for the ship and apply the results in addition to the torpedo's normal damage.

    In your revised torpedo rules, you indicate that players should draw "D" chits to determine if a torpedo damaged a ship, and I'll assume the use of "D" chits whenever I recommend that chits be drawn. FYI, the various damage chits -- A, B, C and D -- have very different possibilities of results, providing different chances of drawing a zero or a special damage. When drawing D chits, the chance of drawing a zero is 43 percent, the chance of causing any damage is 57 percent, and the chance of drawing special damage is 23 percent. As a result, because of the drawing of an initial chit to check for malfunction and can only do damage if a zere wasn't drawn either time, an "unreliable" torpedo causes damage only about 32 percent of the time.

    What do you think? It seems both simple to play and reasonably realistic while still requiring the pilot to be skillful when dropping and aiming the torpedo (and still giving the target ship the chance to move out of the torpedo's path).

    On another note ...

    Because of the distance traveled by an airplane when movement is scaled to 1/1200 (or 1/2400), I've found that planes can fly completely past a ship in one movement phase without having a chance to drop bombs or be hit by a ship's defense guns. In light of this, I recommend that when a plane is conducting surface attacks, ground defenses can shoot at the plane at ANY POINT the plane flies through their attack zone. Also, in such a scenario, a plane can drop bombs or shoot at ground forces at ANY POINT during the plane's movement for that phase. (FYI, I believe that rule change would work rather well no matter what scale a game is being played at.) What do you think?

    Finally ...

    I've been thinking about the realism of a ship's crew shooting anti-aircraft guns at incoming planes.

    Without a doubt, any plane coming toward a naval vessel could potentially be hit by an anti-aircraft guns long before they got to the ship. Standard guns had incredible ranges (as indicated in your air-to-ship rules on Table 6, with examples including a QF 2 pdr, quad mount Mk. VII, which had an effective range of more than 13,000 feet, and an Oerlikon 20 mm L85 cannon, which could hit targets 4,800 feet away).

    But I feel that just because the anti-aircraft guns could hit a target at a huge distance shouldn't mean they always did, and that an enemy plane that flies through their arc of fire shouldn't always automatically always have to draw a damage chit.

    Looking at the game, a targeting ruler is about 7 inches long, which in 1/1200 scale would equal about 700 feet.

    Using math, perspective size is determined by ((screen distance) * (subject actual size) / (subject distance)). An A6M Zero is about 40 feet in width (wingtip to wingtip) and about 10 feet in height. Therefore, if you were looking through a window 12 inches from your eyes and saw the Zero approaching from 700 feet away, and you marked on the window the apparent size of the Zero, then the marks would be 0.69 inches wide and 0.17 inches high. (You can easily represent this by making the calculation, then marking it to the correct lengths on a piece of paper, then holding the paper a foot from your eyes. That's how large a Zero would seem to you from 700 feet away.)

    That's pretty small, but maybe it seems that way to me because I'm not a great shot. But let's say the plane is two ruler lengths away in the game. That would be 1400 feet distant, which would be about a third of an inch wide and less than a tenth of an inch tall. Taking it out to four ruler lengths away, you're at 2800 feet, which would appear in perspective to be about a sixth of an inch wide and less than a 20th of an inch tall. I figure that would be very hard to see on a perfectly clear day, and pretty darn impossible when there's any haze in the air.

    The same applies no matter what direction the plane is in perspective to you ... including above you. Therefore, each peg height above the gunner makes the plane appear tinier and tinier, and therefore harder and harder to hit.

    I like the ranges and values you set up in Table 6, but I think they can be improved by a minor rules addition.

    I recommend that when a naval gun fires at an aircraft, before regular damage is determined, a chit is drawn for EVERY ruler length beyond the first ruler length that an airplane is away from the naval gun and EVERY height peg [I}above[/I] level one. These chits put "range difficulty" into effect, making it so that even though a gun could potentially hit a target a long distance away, it becomes increasingly harder to hit the target as distances increase.
    If ANY of the "range-difficulty" chits are a zero, then the gun missed its shot. If all of the extra drawn chits are non-zero values, however, then they are mixed back in with the other unused damage chits, and then a damage chit is drawn normally to determine the shot's effect.

    This rule only applies when a gun shoots at a target that is beyond one ruler distance away or higher than one peg, so if a gun is shooting at a plane within one ruler length and its flying at one peg of height, the shot damage is determined as normal.

    For example, if a naval gun fires at a plane that is two ruler lengths away and at a peg height of three, then three chits would be drawn to determine if the gunner was able to hit his target (ignoring the first ruler length and the first height peg, that leaves one "range-difficulty" chit for the ruler length and two "range-difficulty" chits for the peg height). If any of those chits was a "zero", then the shot would automatically miss. If not of those chits was a zero, however, then a damage chit would be drawn and applied to the plane as normal.

    (Note that the "range-difficulty" chit(s) do not in any way effect the amount of damage done against a target. Instead, they are only used to simulate the increasing difficulty of hitting a plane at extreme ranges.)

    So what do you think of that idea?

    Oh, and a few thoughts about skip bombing ...

    In your rules about skip bombing, you said: "The altitude of the attack should be from 200 to 300 feet and the bomb-release line from 350 to 200 feet from the target." I'm not doubting the accuracy of that statement, but I'm curious where you got it, as I had trouble finding out exactly how far a skip bomber should be from its target when releasing its load. FYI, in 1/1200 scale, 350 feet is equal to half the length of a range ruler, so it's definitely getting the plane to get quite dangerously close to its targets guns!

    And have you considered also adding rules for mast-height bombing? That was often carried out by the same bombers which could do skip bombing, and sometimes a bomber might do skip bombing and mast-height bombing on the same bomb run! Like with skip bombing, mast-height bombers would approach the target ship at an altitude of between 200 and 500 feet at about 270 mph ... and then drop down to mast height (10 to 15 feet) at about 600 yards from the target. They would release the bombs at about 300 yards from the target, aiming directly at the side of the ship. Sounds daring and fun to me!

    Now that I've presented these additional air-to-ship rules modifications that I've been thinking over for awhile, I'll be really looking forward to seeing what you think of them. I plan to test them all out this week using the other air-to-ship rules you've presented, and I'll let you know how it turns out. Whatever the case, I bet it'll be a blast to play!

    Take care, and good luck with all this. You've done the community a tremendous service by creating these rules, and I hope I can help out just a little bit with my ideas and observations.

    Tally ho!

    -- Eris

  28. #28

    Default

    The game scale for movement of aircraft is approximately 3 seconds per card, as previously mentioned by Zoe, that being said:

    40kn is roughly 60mph.

    Dropping a torpedo from 1 mile away (1760 yds, well within max torpedo range) would roughly take 1 minute to strike a static target.
    Dropping a torpedo from 1/2 mile would take 30 seconds and sorry to labour the basic point, from 1/4 mile away it would take 15 seconds.
    1/4 mile is 440 yds which is roughly 1 foot at 1/1200 scale. At 1/200 scale it becomes 6 feet.

    The basic of aiming a torpedo was range to target, speed of target and angle required to intercept the target.

    The rule of thumb was roughly at 30kn (target speed) aim approximately 2 ship lengths in front at 500 yds.

    One could go on and on and make it more realistic and loose the basics of the game, fun, in the rules and mechanics of torpedo and bomb attack. There are far better commercially available sets out there that cover this in more accurate detail. The Air to Ship rules were produced for myself, by myself and I will not be changing them to compensate for ultra realistic rules. They were intended to be an easy pick up and play following the lines of the main air rules. Whilst I applaud your enthusiasm and as you said your enjoyment of them, please feel free to amend/change/update and publish them as a seperate file for others to peruse and use.
    See you on the Dark Side......

  29. #29

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Eris Lobo View Post
    Skafloc,



    Howdy again! Sorry it took me a little while to respond, but I've had a bit of time to think about your rules, particularly in light of my recent determinations regarding approximately 1/2400 being the correct scale for Wings of War/Glory based on flight maneuvers and firing ranges, as opposed to the 1/200 scale of the airplane models themselves (detailed at http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sho...d-Firing-Rules).

    (FYI, that scale calculation is only an approximate because the game's movement cards are a bit imprecise at times when compared to a plane's real-life performance results.)

    I should also note that the thread I just mentioned also contains several recommended minor rules modifications to account for a more precise scale of playing.

    For those who wish to, yes.

    For pretty much all intents and purposes, game scale is really only a significant factor when ground (or naval) units are considered. When played as it is "right out of the box," the main point of the game is the interaction of aircraft maneuvering around and shooting at each other, and it doesn't really matter that the 1/200 scale of the miniatures doesn't match to the 1/2400 scale of the movement cards. (Yes, there are official rules for bombing and anti-aircraft fire, but those rules are rather abstract, and as such don't lend themselves easily to accurate scale measurements.)

    Game scale becomes quite important, however, when you bring in detailed ground targets that have a specific size, especially when those targets also have defenses with precise firing arcs -- such as in your naval air-to-ship rules.

    There are two ways to handle using 1/1200-scale ship models in the game.

    The best way I recommend is to photocopy the necessary movement cards and increase their size to 200 percent of normal, and to use the minor rules modifications I recommended in my other thread.

    However, you could also simply play it so that units on the ground are at 1/1200 scale and units in the air are at 1/2400 scale, and that when something (such as a torpedo) crosses from the air to the ground its game scale changes to compensate. That would require no changes in the game's maneuver cards, but in my mind it would create an overly unrealistic aspect to any air-to-ground simulation.

    I originally decided to determine game scale because I was wanting to figure out the best way to handle air-to-ship torpedo attacks. I felt that the torpedo templates you presented in your air-to-ship rules were much too large, and the idea of flipping the torpedo template over for movement and only scoring a hit if the center dot happened to overlap a ship's surface seemed very unrealistic.

    After determining the game's approximate true scale, I believe the way to handle torpedo rules now seems remarkably simple.

    For this, I'll assume the ground (naval) aspect of the game is set to 1/1200 scale. Also, based on my previous calculations (in my other thread), I'll assume one turn phase equals 2.75 seconds.

    Zoe Brain has already stated that the approximate time is 3 seconds per card but close enough.

    Let's consider the German lt1a1/f5b torpedo. It was five meters (16.2 feet) long and traveled at 40 knots. At 1/1200 scale, it would only be 0.16 inches long, and it would travel at a distance of 1.83 inches per phase. To represent it, a 1.83-inch paper rectangle could be used, with a dot in the center of one end representing the torpedo. Squiggly lines could be drawn down the rest of the paper to represent the torpedo's path.

    The example target will be a Tribal-class destroyer. With a typical real-life length of 377 feet for ships of that class, its 1/1200 representative would be 3.77 inches long. It could travel at a speed of 36 knots, which at 1/1200 scale would equate to about 1.65 inches per movement phase.

    Let's say the destroyer was running as escort for a merchant convoy, and it traveled to match the convoy's speed. Convoys in WWII had different average speeds, with the fastest being around 13 knots (usually for convoys carrying troops and other passengers), the medium being 9 or 10 knots, and the slow convoys going about 4 to 7 knots.

    If the merchant ships and the destroyer escort all traveled at 9 knots, that would equate to about 0.41 inches per movement phase.

    (FYI, although convoy ships and their escorts maintained a distance of several thousand feet apart, that's still small enough to be represented on a large game table when put into 1/1200 scale, allowing for a well-gunned escort ship and one or more merchant ships to all be on the playing surface of the same game. To quote one of the more interesting sites ( http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com...ic/convoy.aspx ) about convoy facts and figures in WWII, "Though in relation to the areas of ocean the space occupied by a convoy was miniscule, it did not appear so to the observer. Normally a convoy was formed in a rectangular shape, with a much wider frontage than depth. Ships most commonly occupied nine to eleven parallel columns, each averaging five ships. Both weather conditions and the need to avoid collisions could affect the formation. The distance diagonally across a convoy of 45 ships might be 8000 yards. Escort vessels were about 3000 yards further out in order to stand a chance of detecting U-boats before they came within torpedo range of the merchant ships. Thus the perimeter to be defended might amount in some cases to 60,000 yards, or 30 sea miles.")

    Even though the destroyer and merchant ships are moving relatively slow, it would still require a plane dropping a torpedo to be good at its job, particularly if they're dropping their load a long distance from the target ship. And they just might do that, as a plane was pretty much a sitting duck while it was getting ready to drop the torpedo because it had to fly along slow and straight to make sure everything was lined up correctly.

    With all that in mind, I think the most accurate -- and also easiest -- way to handle torpedoes at 1/1200 scale is to create several small paper rectangles cut to the length of a torpedo would travel in one movement phase (i.e., the 1.83-inch paper rectangle for the German torpedo I mentioned above) and marked with a dot in the center of one end representing the torpedo's contact point. (The torpedo itself would only be about 1/8th of an inch long in scale.)

    Continue to use your existing torpedo rules in most respects, such as the speed the plane must be travelling when it drops the torpedo, and the chance a magnetic torpedo might explode the moment it hits the water, and requiring a non-magnetic torpedo to hit a ship's hull at an angle greater than 30 degrees.

    The following changes should be added to make torpedo bombing more realistic (and exciting!):

    Torpedo bombing was very dangerous because the bomber had to fly low, slow and straight for a long time before dropping its load, making it an easy target for anti-aircraft guns and defense craft. To reflect this, torpedo bombers have to fly two slow straights in a row at level one before dropping the torpedo. (US planes later in the war are an exception, as noted in your rules.)

    As stated in the rules planes carrying bomb loads, and I include torpedo's in this, travel at slow speed until they drop the load(s) which in this instance includes the torpedo. So it always travels at slow speed until this happens or like you stated the aircraft is a late war US plane.

    Each movement phase, the target ship and the torpedo move along across the table at their respective speeds. Although the torpedo
    keeps going straight until it hits a ship or goes off the table, the target ship can change speed or turn into the path of the torpedo using rules you already devised in the air-to-ship rules you posted. (FYI, ship movement rules were described in the WWI rules.)

    FYI, as I wrote those rules I know about the ship movement. I decided to use static ships in the WW2 variant as a: too many ships adds more complications and I didn't want to. To develop a movement card for ships traveling at different speeds, different acceleration/deceleration, then turning arcs at different speeds added to many complications which again I did not want to use.

    If at some point during its movement the tip of the torpedo intersects the hull of a ship, then the torpedo potentially explodes. Simple as that.

    Yes, I've taken this on board and when I get time to amend the rules it will be included as an alternative. See the RECON SHOW report for more on this as that's the technique we used as well as the dot method.

    If the torpedo is considered "unreliable" (such as for German magnetic torpedoes throughout the war), a chit is immediately drawn to determine whether it's a misfire. If the chit shows a "zero", then the torpedo failed to detonate and is removed from play.

    A chit is then drawn to determine damage (this will be the first chit drawn for normal torpedoes, and the second chit drawn for "unreliable" torpedoes).
    * If this chit is a zero, the torpedo did not damage the ship. Immediately draw another chit -- if that next chit is another zero, the torpedo missed the ship and travels under it, potentially hitting any other ships in its travel path. If the follow-up chit is not a zero, then the torpedo was a dud and is immediately removed from play.

    This was originally trialed on a set of torpedo cards I developed but shelved.

    * If the chit has a number but does not indicate special damage, then the torpedo explodes normally. Immediately draw another chit -- if that chit is a zero, then the torpedo only does half damage. Otherwise, full damage from the torpedo is applied to the ship.
    * If the chit indicates special damage, then the torpedo explodes and does full damage to the ship PLUS a special-damage card is drawn for the ship to determine what extra damage has been done.

    Too many chit draws, too complicated. The optional version will be a chit draw but this is marked on target cards for easy reference.

    To clarify --
    A) If the torpedo is unreliable, draw a chit. If it is a zero, the torpedo misfires and is removed from play. Whether or not the torpedo is unreliable, go to step B
    B) Draw a chit. If it is a zero, go to step C. If it is a number without special damage, go to step D. If it is a number with special damage, go to step E.
    C) Draw another chit. If it is a zero, the torpedo passes under the ship and continues on its way, potentially hitting any other ships in its path. Otherwise, the torpedo is a dud and sinks harmless to the ocean floor.
    D) Draw another chit. If it is a zero, the torpedo explodes but only does half damage. Otherwise, it explodes and does full damage.
    E) The torpedo explodes, causing full damage to the ship. Draw a special-damage card for the ship and apply the results in addition to the torpedo's normal damage.

    In your revised torpedo rules, you indicate that players should draw "D" chits to determine if a torpedo damaged a ship, and I'll assume the use of "D" chits whenever I recommend that chits be drawn. FYI, the various damage chits -- A, B, C and D -- have very different possibilities of results, providing different chances of drawing a zero or a special damage. When drawing D chits, the chance of drawing a zero is 43 percent, the chance of causing any damage is 57 percent, and the chance of drawing special damage is 23 percent. As a result, because of the drawing of an initial chit to check for malfunction and can only do damage if a zere wasn't drawn either time, an "unreliable" torpedo causes damage only about 32 percent of the time.

    Unfortunately my chit boxes include 4 sets of each chit. SO chances are increased.

    What do you think? It seems both simple to play and reasonably realistic while still requiring the pilot to be skillful when dropping and aiming the torpedo (and still giving the target ship the chance to move out of the torpedo's path).

    For in house or club play I agree, to some not all, but at shows its too long winded and time consuming. After all its the planes we fly not the sips we sail, otherwise it would be SoGS (Ships of Glory Second World War)

    On another note ...

    Because of the distance traveled by an airplane when movement is scaled to 1/1200 (or 1/2400), I've found that planes can fly completely past a ship in one movement phase without having a chance to drop bombs or be hit by a ship's defense guns. In light of this, I recommend that when a plane is conducting surface attacks, ground defenses can shoot at the plane at ANY POINT the plane flies through their attack zone. Also, in such a scenario, a plane can drop bombs or shoot at ground forces at ANY POINT during the plane's movement for that phase. (FYI, I believe that rule change would work rather well no matter what scale a game is being played at.) What do you think?

    Check the charts for how much ammunition was expended by what weapon systems to bring down an aircraft. I chose the A chit as it was the closest set to the percentages I worked out.
    Finally ...

    I've been thinking about the realism of a ship's crew shooting anti-aircraft guns at incoming planes.

    Without a doubt, any plane coming toward a naval vessel could potentially be hit by an anti-aircraft guns long before they got to the ship. Standard guns had incredible ranges (as indicated in your air-to-ship rules on Table 6, with examples including a QF 2 pdr, quad mount Mk. VII, which had an effective range of more than 13,000 feet, and an Oerlikon 20 mm L85 cannon, which could hit targets 4,800 feet away).


    Rounds needed to shoot down non-kamikaze aircraft
    #aircraft
    5"/38 non-proximity
    5"/38 proximity fuze
    41 30,100 4,500 1,000 550

    Rounds needed to shoot down kamikaze aircraft
    #aircraft
    5"/38 non-proximity
    5"/38 proximity fuze
    24 27,200 6,000 1,000 200

    WW2 German destroyers carried around 2,000 rounds per AA gun (20mm and 37mm) , at roughly 250 rounds/minute gives say 10 minutes of continuous firing per weapon. So just about every AA gun on that ship to bring down 1 aircraft.

    But I feel that just because the anti-aircraft guns could hit a target at a huge distance shouldn't mean they always did, and that an enemy plane that flies through their arc of fire shouldn't always automatically always have to draw a damage chit.

    Hence the ASD or A2+ to hit, dependant on type of gun, rate of fire, multiple systems etc. Not realistic but game playable.

    Looking at the game, a targeting ruler is about 7 inches long, which in 1/1200 scale would equal about 700 feet.

    Using math, perspective size is determined by ((screen distance) * (subject actual size) / (subject distance)). An A6M Zero is about 40 feet in width (wingtip to wingtip) and about 10 feet in height. Therefore, if you were looking through a window 12 inches from your eyes and saw the Zero approaching from 700 feet away, and you marked on the window the apparent size of the Zero, then the marks would be 0.69 inches wide and 0.17 inches high. (You can easily represent this by making the calculation, then marking it to the correct lengths on a piece of paper, then holding the paper a foot from your eyes. That's how large a Zero would seem to you from 700 feet away.)

    That's pretty small, but maybe it seems that way to me because I'm not a great shot. But let's say the plane is two ruler lengths away in the game. That would be 1400 feet distant, which would be about a third of an inch wide and less than a tenth of an inch tall. Taking it out to four ruler lengths away, you're at 2800 feet, which would appear in perspective to be about a sixth of an inch wide and less than a 20th of an inch tall. I figure that would be very hard to see on a perfectly clear day, and pretty darn impossible when there's any haze in the air.

    The same applies no matter what direction the plane is in perspective to you ... including above you. Therefore, each peg height above the gunner makes the plane appear tinier and tinier, and therefore harder and harder to hit.

    Wrong from a lot of points. To follow an aircraft and hit it is near impossible. Where you are aiming the plane is out of the danger zone before the bullets arrive. Aiming off (ie plane travelling across the arc) is not as hard but still hard to hit. However an aircraft flying towards you is easier, why?, because with trained gunners and fire control systems they all fire at a single point in front of the aircraft which the aircaft has to fly through (same technique for firing at aircraft travelling across the arc of fire). Hopefully one or more bullets will intersect with the aircraft as it flies through this 'beaten zone' in the air.

    I like the ranges and values you set up in Table 6, but I think they can be improved by a minor rules addition.

    I recommend that when a naval gun fires at an aircraft, before regular damage is determined, a chit is drawn for EVERY ruler length beyond the first ruler length that an airplane is away from the naval gun and EVERY height peg [I}above[/I] level one. These chits put "range difficulty" into effect, making it so that even though a gun could potentially hit a target a long distance away, it becomes increasingly harder to hit the target as distances increase.
    If ANY of the "range-difficulty" chits are a zero, then the gun missed its shot. If all of the extra drawn chits are non-zero values, however, then they are mixed back in with the other unused damage chits, and then a damage chit is drawn normally to determine the shot's effect.

    Too many chits, to complicated.

    This rule only applies when a gun shoots at a target that is beyond one ruler distance away or higher than one peg, so if a gun is shooting at a plane within one ruler length and its flying at one peg of height, the shot damage is determined as normal.

    For example, if a naval gun fires at a plane that is two ruler lengths away and at a peg height of three, then three chits would be drawn to determine if the gunner was able to hit his target (ignoring the first ruler length and the first height peg, that leaves one "range-difficulty" chit for the ruler length and two "range-difficulty" chits for the peg height). If any of those chits was a "zero", then the shot would automatically miss. If not of those chits was a zero, however, then a damage chit would be drawn and applied to the plane as normal.

    (Note that the "range-difficulty" chit(s) do not in any way effect the amount of damage done against a target. Instead, they are only used to simulate the increasing difficulty of hitting a plane at extreme ranges.)

    So what do you think of that idea?

    Oh, and a few thoughts about skip bombing ...

    In your rules about skip bombing, you said: "The altitude of the attack should be from 200 to 300 feet and the bomb-release line from 350 to 200 feet from the target." I'm not doubting the accuracy of that statement, but I'm curious where you got it, as I had trouble finding out exactly how far a skip bomber should be from its target when releasing its load. FYI, in 1/1200 scale, 350 feet is equal to half the length of a range ruler, so it's definitely getting the plane to get quite dangerously close to its targets guns!

    And have you considered also adding rules for mast-height bombing? That was often carried out by the same bombers which could do skip bombing, and sometimes a bomber might do skip bombing and mast-height bombing on the same bomb run! Like with skip bombing, mast-height bombers would approach the target ship at an altitude of between 200 and 500 feet at about 270 mph ... and then drop down to mast height (10 to 15 feet) at about 600 yards from the target. They would release the bombs at about 300 yards from the target, aiming directly at the side of

    Already included, the chart hat gives bonus special damage cards the lower you are. But the more chance of being shot down. Its a balance, get in close and pick where you want the bomb to go or bomb at height and employ SWAG.
    the ship. Sounds daring and fun to me!

    Now that I've presented these additional air-to-ship rules modifications that I've been thinking over for awhile, I'll be really looking forward to seeing what you think of them. I plan to test them all out this week using the other air-to-ship rules you've presented, and I'll let you know how it turns out. Whatever the case, I bet it'll be a blast to play!

    Eris a remarkable work and well thought out but not for me. Too complicated and time consuming. I have taken on board some points which I may adapt and include, however if you feel strongly that you want to re-write the rules then please go ahead and publish them in the file section. That was my main intention when I first put my set in there.

    Take care, and good luck with all this. You've done the community a tremendous service by creating these rules, and I hope I can help out just a little bit with my ideas and observations.

    Tally ho!

    -- Eris
    See you on the Dark Side......

  30. #30

    Default

    Skafloc,

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    The game scale for movement of aircraft is approximately 3 seconds per card, as previously mentioned by Zoe, that being said:
    40kn is roughly 60mph.
    Dropping a torpedo from 1 mile away (1760 yds, well within max torpedo range) would roughly take 1 minute to strike a static target.
    Dropping a torpedo from 1/2 mile would take 30 seconds and sorry to labour the basic point, from 1/4 mile away it would take 15 seconds.
    1/4 mile is 440 yds which is roughly 1 foot at 1/1200 scale. At 1/200 scale it becomes 6 feet.
    The basic of aiming a torpedo was range to target, speed of target and angle required to intercept the target.
    The rule of thumb was roughly at 30kn (target speed) aim approximately 2 ship lengths in front at 500 yds.
    Although I feel you rounded off a bit too much, the numbers all seemed to be pretty straight forward, so I'm not sure what the point was of this part post.

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    Unfortunately my chit boxes include 4 sets of each chit. SO chances are increased.
    Actually, that's a mathematical misnomer. If the chances of drawing a zero are a certain percentage with one set of chits, then the chances will remain the same with any number of sets of that type of chit because even though the total number of chits is increased, the total number of zero-chits is also increased to match.

    By the way, regarding my suggestion regarding making it increasingly harder for an anti-aircraft gunner on a ship to hit a plane at further distances, I concede that you did quite possibly cover that quite well in your "Table 6" gunnery chart. As I said, hitting such a small target as an airplane from thousands of feet away seems remarkably difficult to me, but the thing is, I wasn't trained for it, and I have no practice doing it, and as you said the men who did man the guns knew what they were doing and how to sight things in as needed to score a hit!

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    One could go on and on and make it more realistic and lose the basics of the game, fun, in the rules and mechanics of torpedo and bomb attack. There are far better commercially available sets out there that cover this in more accurate detail. The Air to Ship rules were produced for myself, by myself and I will not be changing them to compensate for ultra realistic rules. They were intended to be an easy pick up and play following the lines of the main air rules. Whilst I applaud your enthusiasm and as you said your enjoyment of them, please feel free to amend/change/update and publish them as a seperate file for others to peruse and use.
    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    Eris a remarkable work and well thought out but not for me. Too complicated and time consuming. I have taken on board some points which I may adapt and include, however if you feel strongly that you want to re-write the rules then please go ahead and publish them in the file section. That was my main intention when I first put my set in there.
    To me, having a player draw a couple of extra chits here and there didn't seem that complicated at all, but maybe that's because I'm used to games with more detailed rules than Wings of War/Glory.

    I don't want ultra-realistic, unplayable rules either. I was just trying to help you and the rest of the community out with what I thought might be useful suggestions, and I'm sorry if I bothered you. I wouldn't feel comfortable amending your rules with my own additions and publishing them without your permission because they are your rules, and you are the true author.

    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    Zoe Brain has already stated that the approximate time is 3 seconds per card but close enough.
    Twice after I noted that the game scale is approximately 2.75 seconds, you stated that Zoe said something different, and that bothers me a bit. You seem to be saying that my calculations can't be trusted, and Zoe's calculations are better than mine for some reason -- which is especially strange because my calculations and Zoe's calculations are based on the same facts regarding airplane performance compared to the maneuver cards, and it's just that when I stated my results I happened to be a little more precise than Zoe. Again, I'm concerned that I've upset you, and if so, I apologize, because all I wanted to do with my rules suggestions was to help you and the rest of the community.

    Yes, the community. Even though you said "the Air to Ship rules were produced for myself, by myself", the thing is that you released them to the Wings of Glory/War community for public use -- so the rules are for everybody now, not just for you, and when I was suggesting rules changes, I thought they would be helpful to everybody -- you, me, and every other person who would enjoy playing with the naval rules you created.

    I think you did a truly wonderful thing in putting those rules together because they provide fantastic opportunities for expanding game play in ways that the game's designers have not given us. I applaud you, and I hope you continue to other such great ideas for us all.

    I am spending so much time offering suggestions regarding modifications to your naval rules not because I think your rules are bad, but because I think they're fantastic, and I only want to help make something awesome all that much better!

    Please don't take my suggestions for changes in the wrong light. If you don't like them, that's okay. I just saw what I thought were a few little bugs that I possibly could help resolve, and I gave my best shot at trying to provide some insights you might not have already considered.

    I wish you the absolute best of luck in putting everything together for version 2 of your rules. I can't wait to read it and try it out!

    Take care, and keep 'em flying!

    -- Eris

  31. #31

    Default

    Not upset Eris, like I said I'll take on board what you've put forward as I go through amending the rules. (That's some way off at present). However we've used them at 3 shows, a lot of club games and they seem to work.

    Having just re-read Midway, especially the opening attacks by the US, how would you write in the utter incompetence through lack of training that all torpedo attacks didn't work (planes shot down or dud torpedos), heavy bombers couldn't hit a barn door at 5 feet and the dive bombing attack at shallow angle was a disaster. But that's just me being pedantic.

    Players will either use the rules or not, I for one will until something official comes up.
    See you on the Dark Side......

  32. #32

    Default

    By the way, Skafloc, I was looking over all the ship damage cards you recently posted in the files section, and I was thinking about all the other ship damage cards and other files you've posted in the past for your ship-to-air rules, and I have to say ...

    YOU ROCK!!!

    Seriously, it's absolutely amazing to me all the work you've done to enhance this game in so many ways. Yeah, I might not totally agree with you regarding your torpedo rules, but that's a minor quibble. The main thing is that what you've done is incredible, and I really want to thank you for everything!



    Thanks for being around and helping the community so much. It's people like you that make this group as great as it is!

    -- Eris



Similar Missions

  1. House Rules
    By CappyTom in forum Polls
    Replies: 29
    Last Post: 06-18-2020, 12:50
  2. Replies: 0
    Last Post: 04-26-2013, 14:53
  3. My House Rules
    By rcboater in forum WGF: House Rules
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 04-02-2013, 22:14
  4. Possible house rules
    By Pooh in forum WGF: House Rules
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 10-11-2010, 10:47
  5. Our House Rules
    By Eserchie in forum WGF: House Rules
    Replies: 6
    Last Post: 12-18-2009, 21:06

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •