Naval Units

[Jennifer]

A common house rule I used to play with included many more naval units.  We also divided all water territoires into four each. (NW, NE, SE, SW.)

This allowed for more dynamic game play and yes, it did seperate islands in island chains so you could conquer part of an island. =)

Naval units we added were:
Name, cost, attack, defend
Destroyer Escort (DE), 6 IPC, 1, 2
Destroyer Dreadnaught (DD), 8 IPC, 2, 2
Light Cruiser or Cruiser, 10 IPC, 2, 3
Heavy Cruiser, 12 IPC, 3, 3
Escort Carrier, 10 IPC, 0, 0 Carries 1 fighter or two Hellcats
Hellcat, 6 IPC, 2, 3 flight range 2

[losttribe04]

Thats awesome! That more than doubles the navy we use now, so what did you use to tell them all apart from other countries as well as diffrent types of units?  :?

[Jennifer]

We used little round cardboard circles cut out of shoeboxes and the letters:

EC = Escort Carrier
DE = Destroyer Escort
DD = Destroyer Dreadnaught
CR = Cruiser
HC = Heavy Cruiser
HFgt = Hellcat

As for nationalities, it was a simple matter of using some modelling paint in the appropriate color to paint around the circles (which really were more like hexegons cause no one I know can cut a real circle. :p )

Let me tell ya, it made Island Hopping much more fun.  Actually, we got so wrapped up in naval battles we forgot, for the longest time, that you’re supposed to be taking capitals!

[tekkyy]

thats quite a few units
I don’t think you need escort destroyers and escort carriers though

if anything they should be very weak, no attack value, and much cheaper than transports
otherwise they over power the existing “normal” naval units

have you considered escorts being implicitly represented?
like make transports attack 0 defend 0
(pay 2 extra IPC to make them about to defend at 1)

(of course we are not talking about AARHE here)

[Imperious Leader]

CVE = Escort Carrier
DDE = Destroyer Escort
DD = Destroyer
CL = Light Cruiser
CA = Heavy Cruiser
HFgt = Hellcat

This is proper military nomenclature aside from  hellcat.

but correct too many units…

no such thing as destroyer dreadnought BTW

Dreadnought is a word for a specific kind of ship that existed in WW1, while a very large battleship can be called a dreadnought.

[losttribe04]

Yeah,

That would be nice to have escort ships cheaper than 8 IPC’s to use as fodder. One idea we toyed around with was the use of DUCks. If I remember it correctly it stands for Deployable Unarmored Catamaran. Its a land sea unit the Army uses it has 4 (?) wheels I think, but other than that it looks like a boat. We thought about giving it the following:

Movement 2 spaces (land or sea) / Cost 4 IPC / DEF none / ATC / none

after having been on both Troop Transports and DUCks we decided it could only carry 1 INF

The reason we never added it to the game was b/c of the size of the unit it couldn’t pass an ocean, so we wanted to make a way where it couldn’t end its turn in the sea. The dilemma was it would work great from England to France but it was a pacific unit for the most part. So we thought of adding movement to 3 but that didn’t seem fare b/c it would be faster than tanks on land and faster than any ship at sea. so as fun as it would have been we scraped the idea.  :x

[losttribe04]

Here is a Pic I found of the DUCk.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Jennifer]

Well, destroyer escorts, as best I could tell, were just gimped destroyers.

Escort carreirs, however, found much more use in our games then full carriers.  By being much cheaper (and bear in mind this was classic, not revised, so they were almost half the cost) you could more of them in the water, doubling your effective hellcat carrying capacity for almost the same cost. (Also meant the enemy needed more hits to sink your fleet!)

[Imperious Leader]

Of the units you mention escort carriers seem to be the only viable ship.

DDE are infact low grade “gimp” destroyers but still are destroyers

Escort carriers were built in great quantity… id use Milton bradley carrier for it

attack 0
defend 1
carry one plane

cost 8-10

[tekkyy]

@losttribe04:

The reason we never added it to the game was b/c of the size of the unit it couldn’t pass an ocean, so we wanted to make a way where it couldn’t end its turn in the sea.

Yeah its stupid for certain units to end turn in the middle of the sea.
Like a fleet of transport full of land units.
Should penalise land units ending their turn in the sea.
Pay upkeep or something.

[losttribe04]

I think its bad business to leave land troops at sea at the end of NCM anyway. If I’m going to Japan they make a pit stop in Alaska. Other than that you shouldn’t have to leave them at sea. The reason I do that it b/c should an attack come if I had to I could use transports as fodder w/o losing land troops.  8-)

[Jennifer]

An idea that was raised once, to me, was why have the transport at all?  Make Carrier Groups and Battleship groups include them.  BB’s can carry 2 ground units (1 must be infantry) just like transports in AAR, carrier groups can carry 1 ground unit of any type.  You then have a whole fleet of transport units to use as cruisers/destroyers/whatever.

[losttribe04]

That would be a good idea; however, I have been on ship I wouldn’t like the idea of being a land combatant on a Naval war ship. Its to crowded already. I always figured 1 INF to represent 1 division now days thats about 16,000 people, and 1 ARM to represent 1 tank or CAV division 495 tanks unsupported. Transports are needed I think to keep the ratio somewhat in balance.

[Jennifer]

The thought was that a battleship doesn’t represent just one battleship in this game.  It represents a battleship fleet including oil tankers, escort warships, medical ships, troop transports, landing craft, etc.

[Imperious Leader]

The thought was that a battleship doesn’t represent just one battleship in this game.  It represents a battleship fleet including oil tankers, escort warships, medical ships, troop transports, landing craft, etc.

you left out cruisers, subs,destroyers, and carriers and the kitchen sink…

I really dont understand why so many people look at the pieces this way…  The only thing that can realy be extrapolated is that a battleship represents a group of these ships

an infantry unit = a corps of infantry ( 3-5 infantry divisions)… it does not include tanks, planes etc…

[tekkyy]

although one argument is that with the introduction of destroyer piece in revised, and cruiser piece in house rules…

a battleship piece or a carrier piece don’t have to implicitly include escort ships, maybe just auxiliary ships

of course that means all naval units should be a bit cheaper

so with your proposal in the first post, what costs do you use for standard units like battleship and carrier, Jennifer?

[Ddraiglais]

I have no problem having one (or a very small group of) CV or BB being represented as one piece and costing as much as they do. Do you have any idea how much capital ships cost? Why do you think that so few countries even try to build them? Then there is the cost of operating them. That isn’t even considered in the game. In modern times it cost a million dollars a day to keep a CVN at sea. I doubt WW II CVs were that much, but I guarantee it wasn’t cheap.

[losttribe04]

Well I agree CV didn’t cost that much in WWII but two things to consider would be how much inflation has gone up and two modern US CV’s all have reactors to make them more efficient. Sure you need to replace nuclear fuel rods but not like you would in WWII with fossil fuels.

Not only that I think how much units cost is trivial b/c they cost other countries the same amount. Also no matter what you do a Navy’s return will never equal it’s investment b/c you don’t gain anything capturing international waters your Navy will abandon the next turn any way.

In short you never win with a Navy at best you only have minimal losses.

-LT04

[crusaderiv]

In my WAW games i added.

heavy & light cruiser,escort carrier,destroyer and escort (escort may be use as a mine layer)
But there’s also, Oil tanjker Att= 0, Def =1, move = Increasing warship movement to 3 sea zone.

As a UK special unit= Liner ship. Att: 0, Def=2, move= 3.
Liner ship may transport 4 infantry but cannot be use for amphibious assault.

AL.

[Jennifer]

The significant difference between the Cruisers and Destroyers is that the Destroyers can find submarines, but the cruisers can conduct shore bombardment.

I’ve toyed with allowing Cruisers to carry 1 infantry unit as well.  We had to prevent it for England, Russia and Germany since it really skewed things to the British favor. (for slightly more money you can buy transports that shoot really well….kinda deters a German air assault, eh?)

Also, the escort carrier, which may seem useless, actually is nice.  A)  It carries hellcats.  B)  It makes good fodder.  C)  It is a good breaker against naval assaults.  D)  2 Hellcats protecting a transport is a viable defense.