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).
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Rounds needed to shoot down non-kamikaze aircraft |
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41 |
30,100 |
4,500 |
1,000 |
550
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Rounds needed to shoot down kamikaze aircraft
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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
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