AA50: Battleships and the hit that never was

The damage has a variable cost. If you take away the abilities of the BB if it gets a hit, the BB is worth less as a purchase. The whole point if to maintain the genetic template of the units and leave them intact. The issue to solve becomes ONLY the problem of free repairs, where the damage means nothing to a BB because it just auto repairs. The a cost should exist to repair and this cost should be variable. The unit itself should not suffer because then who is gonna buy the BB? The cost of 20 IPC is BASED on it not changing its values if it gets hit. When you house the game you try to avoid as much as a footprint and just make small changes to make it somewhat realistic and balanced. If the BB with one hit now is a 2-2 unit, its cost of 20 IPC is useless. People will never buy them. The goal is to maintain the integrity of each unit and make is desirable to buy in various situations.

A)  I have never seen the hit taken at the “end” of combat, it’s usually the first hit in the game.  But that’s just me.

B)  I agree your house rules are a bit on the lengthy/confusing side.  Just my opinion here, but I think all house rules need to be a one step process that is very easy to remember and does not lend itself to needing to be referred back too by those using them for the first or second time.

Back on point:

I like two different rules for BBs that are damaged:

1)  Damaged BBs stay damaged until they return to a home port (not just an allied IC, but one that the nation owning the battleship owns.)

or

2)  Roll a D6 and that’s the IPC cost that has to be paid IMMEDIATELY to repair all damaged battleships.  If insufficient funds are available to repair the ship, the ship is sunk.  Since you collect income at the end of your turn, this should not be a problem.  If you are damaged while attacking, you may use the money you collect at the end of your turn to repair the ship.

ie:  America attacks with 1 battleship and damages it.  They roll a die and get a 4.  Since they spent all their money in the buy new units phase, they elect to pay for the repairs out of their end of round income.  So instead of collecting 48 IPC, they collect 44 IPC.

Later, Japan attacks and again damages the Battleship, since America has not gone yet, they must immediately pay the 3 IPC the Japanese player rolled to repair the ship.

Note:  You may only elect to sink the ship if you do not have the money needed to repair it.  Sailors are not suicidal, they will not jump into the water and swim across the ocean just because you feel inconvenienced. hehe.

example 2:

England attacks the Italian Battleship damaging it and rolling a 6 on the die.  Italy only has 4 IPC left because they damaged their BB previously and had to pay to repair it.  Since they cannot afford to repair the ship again, it is lost and sunk with only the one hit.

Jennifer’s second rule is the best.  I always see people either using the first, or a combination of the two (having to pay at a port) but I always thought that nobody would be willing to move a battleship out of their naval campaign to repair and would rather just use it until it dies before building another (if necessary).

I do, however, think that you should be allowed to choose not to pay and allow the battleship to sink.

I wouldn’t even consider a house rule that would sink a battleship after only 1 hit because you don’t have the $, or just don’t want to repair it right after a battle. They’re to expensive. A 2 hit ship should take just that 2 hits. It should be your option to port BB for repairs or keep it at sea as a 1 hit ship (w/damage marker). You could also say damage rolls @ 2 or less are miner repairs that can be done at sea, and 3-6 must be done at port. I also like IL’s in and out of port if you have movement pts, keep those bad boys at sea. Allboxcars idea of reducing a BB’s dice roll from 4 and movement of 2 is logical, but I think it pushes to far from OOB rules.

All the thing needs is after one hit it will cost a D6 to repair. If you roll a 6 you COULD force another roll of D6 to reflect substantial damage ( you add both dice)

Secondly you cant damage a second BB before you sink the first BB. That makes more sence, so these auto hits actually cost a BB if you really want to sink it you can.

Lastly, a damaged BB can only be repaired by moving into any sea zone where you or an ally has an adjacent factory. You can just move into the SZ and then move to another SZ.

Thats the only thing you need and anything more is too complicated for this type of game.

IMO

Well its true that when warships fight they select their own targets. Also the BB had longer range guns and could pick off targets before they themselves got in range.

A true combat system would have each defending ship laid out in a row and the attacker matching his ships against the ship he wants to fight, extra ships by either side can be rearguard or double up against one or more ships. It is not realistic to assume i have my battleships ignoring enemy battleships which have the same range as my main guns and instead firing against destroyers, when the Battleship is far more potent to me.

but to keep it KISS, in terms of damage the idea that players take a hit because ITS CHEAPER to do that is hardly realistic at all. SO if you got 3 BB and 3 DD and i got 2 BB and 3 CA and get 3 hits you can potentially not lose any ships at all and still have maximum firepower even though you only got 9 hit points and i took out 3… your fighting capacity was reduced by 30% and your still at 100% makes no sence at all.

At least KISS would say: you take the three hits as follows:  one BB sunk one DD sunk, which is 30% damage and not cheated under the OOB.

Yea that makes sense. I’ve also used house rules that any time you roll a 1 you choose casualties for enemy. That way you have have a chance to take out a BB or other units. More targeted.

Setting aside the principle of owner casualty selection, your comment would be valid in a battle that unfolds as a single head-on set-piece confrontation.
But a BB cannot select what they cannot “see” and the scale of engagement doesn’t get into formations, relative position, line of sight, initiative, time of day, toast of the day, etc. so who’s to say what targets were where when?

In nearly ever sea battle involving surface ships, when ships are sighted for targeting decisions they do decide which target is more important. They identify exactly which ships they are shooting at and decide which once in range they want to fire at. Its not happening in such a manner where nobody knows anything and they are just firing guns at anything and have no information of what they are engaging.

You must be confusing the targeting capabilities of modern weaponry which uses advanced naval radar and sonar and sends missiles against targets 50 miles away. IN WW2 Everything is ‘sighted combat’…

Sorry but Incorrect.
Midway is a fine example where the combatants did not just line up to present themselves for targeting.

Rest assured I am not confused. Perhaps you’re confusing WW2 with the Wooden ships era when all warships kept within sight of each other for C3I 24/7?

Also you have to remember a turn is not a single engagement but a series of engagements over a period of time when not all forces will be equally in play.

I agree that the defender choosing casualties has its weaknesses but the degree of detail you’re demanding is simply not in keeping with A&A’s scope.

Midway was not a surface naval battle. We are talking about naval combat between surface naval ships . WE are not talking about carrier based planes taking off and sinking carriers… So the only naval combat that EXISTED was lone planes attacking ships. IN the game this would be modeled like the Hawaii attack except both combatants were too far away to attack with ships, so they used planes. IN both cases this battle would be modeled by using one carrier from each side attacking the other. This would be keeping in the scale of AA. The other hundreds of ships that also participated would be in a sea zone behind the Carriers.

Carriers since they are the fastest ships moved alone to maximize the impact of the carrier strike and present the maximum range for this weapon.  The slower Japanese battleships and cruisers were far in the rear and never got in the battle.

The example again for your edification was stated as : battleships and other surface warships fighting each other. I am not aware of this form of sea battle at Midway.

IN a realistic game between just surface ships the longer ranged guns of the battleship get preemptive fire to model the fact that they are using this to their advantage. The only way to model this is to allow preemptive fire for these units.

Second, that ships are always sighted in surface naval combat and pick their own targets. AS is describe earlier, a realistic solution is to line up the players fleet with less ships and the attacker matches up his ship with the defender and must at least match up each defending ship, before he can allocate any additional ships to ‘double up’ on the defender.

If planes of both combatants are used then air dogfight occurs using my lower air combat values… when one side has planes and the other side does not the extra planes hits are now targeted hits.

Now in the actual game to make it KISS you do this:

1)Allow BB preemptive fire (unless another Battleship is present- E.G. assuming both sides have battleship groups negates the advantage.

2. If a BB rolls a one it can select the hit on the defender. Could be any unit

3. If you got a hit on a BB, it now costs money to repair =D6, if you roll a 6 consider it a critical hit which means you roll a second D6 and add result as the cost of repair of damage

4. If you got more than one BB you cant assign hits on all the BB’s… instead you must select to either sink the BB, or sink a new ship. When a BB is hit its new combat value is 2.

5. BB is repaired by moving to any sea zone next to a factory ( yours or allies). If you spend one MP to do this, you can use the last MP and keep moving.

6. When planes are involved they fight at aerial combat values

7. when one side has planes, these hit at normal values.

8. alternatively, you can have a player declare that if he rolls a one in defense he can declare that a enemy plane is eliminated ( only if he does not have planes)- This would need play testing. I have played the other rules for years.

We are talking about naval combat between surface naval ships.

My point is: the enemy doesn’t present themselves made to order, Fog of War and the numerous variables effecting the course of a turn’s engagements with respect to limitations of target acquisition.

It does not at Midway and Midway is not a surface naval action but its just carriers and carrier based aircraft fighting.

If Yamamoto’s main body was able to get in the action they were to be used to finish off the American fleet, but the battle was called off after the terrible loses. In ww2 the only time a warship could be targeted and not sighted was by the Yamato class battleship which was supposed to use its planes to act as spotters because the range of the Yamato’s guns was greater than the distance it could ‘see’ any targets. IN the actual war this was never used because this warship never got in any action that could use this advantage.

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 12:02:23 pm
The example again for your edification was stated as : battleships and other surface warships fighting each other. I am not aware of this form of sea battle at Midway.

But for your edification, may I suggest Leyte Gulf then.
Or better yet, perhaps you can suggest a naval campaign of a turn’s length unfolding as you describe…

The Battle of Surigao Strait. Meanwhile, on October 24th, Rear Admiral Shoji Nishimura’s southern forces failed to synchronize with other Japanese central forces (Vice Admirals Shima and Kurita) because of strict radio silence that had been imposed. When Nishimura entered the narrow Surigao Strait, Shima was about 25 miles behind him, and Kurita was still in the Sibuyan Sea.

As the Japanese southern forces passed the cape of Panoan Island, they ran into a deadly trap set for them by Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf’s Seventh Fleet Support Force. In order for Nishimura to pass the strait and reach the Leyte landings, he would have to run a gauntlet of torpedoes from PT boats, evade two groups of destroyers, proceed up the strait under close-range fire from six battleships and then break through a screen of cruisers and destroyers.

Mistakenly, Nishimura’s fleet proceeded farther through the Surigao Strait. The destroyers Asagumo, Yamagumo, and Mishishio were hit by torpedoes that severely crippled them. Battleships Yamashiro and Mogami were then riddled by 16-inch armor-piercing shells delivered by American long-range battleships, ultimately sinking the Yamashiro.

Battle of Samar. On October 25, 1944, Admiral Kurita passed through San Bernardino Strait at 3 a.m. and progressed southward along the coast of Samar.

Under Admiral Thomas Kinkaid’s command, three groups of the Seventh Fleet, each with six escort carriers, eight destroyers and destroyer escorts, would ultimately be responsible for stopping Kurita. Admiral Thomas Sprague’s Task Unit Taffy 1, Admiral Felix Stump’s Task Unit Taffy 2, and Admiral Clifton Sprague’s Task Unit Taffy 3, led the way. Each escort carrier carried about 30 planes, comprising more than 500 aircraft in all.

Incorrect communications led Admiral Kinkaid to believe that Admiral Willis A. Lee’s Task Force 34 of battleships was guarding the San Bernardino Strait to the north, and that there would be no danger from that direction.

The Japanese detected Taffy 3 at 6:45 a.m. and took the Americans completely by surprise. Then, with 18-inch guns, Kurita targeted the escort carriers for the fleet carriers — thinking that he had the whole of the American Third fleet in his sights.

In defense, Admiral Sprague’s destroyers began to unleash munitions, scattering the Japanese formations as their ships turned to avoid torpedoes. The Yamato found itself between two torpedoes on parallel courses, and for 10 minutes it headed away from the action, unable to turn back for fear of being hit.

The American destroyers Hoel and Johnston, and destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts, were sunk, while four others were damaged. However, they had provided enough time for Sprague to get his planes into the air. American fighter planes attacked with whatever they had aboard, including depth charges for some. With artillery raining down all around him, Sprague turned and fled south. The rear carrier Gambier Bay sank while most of the others were hit and damaged.

Taffy 3 could now see the light as Taffy 2 (the next unit to the south) appeared over the horizon, which forced Kurita to the north. The Japanese commander had suffered the loss of his heavy cruisers, the Chokai, Suzuya, and Chikuma, which had been sunk by Taffy 3’s desperate sea and air attacks.

With thoughts of perhaps once again steaming in the sea off Palawan, Kurita disengaged the Yamato, Haruna, Kongo and Nagato, followed by the few remaining cruisers and destroyers. As they turned and fled to the north and then west through the San Bernardino Strait under continuous air attack, the Nagato, Haruna and Kongo were severely damaged.

In these battles within the Leyte Gulf campaign,show the situation if surface gunnery warfare. In modeling this it looks like the idea that the Americans had more ships, so they allocated the destroyers to take the brunt of the Japanese ships, while the carriers retreated from the scene. Many of the main japanese ships were targeted and damaged or sunk. In terms of damage its not the case that only Battleships were damaged… cruisers were damaged and carriers sunk.

At leyte Kuritas fleet did sight and attempt to sink the jeep carriers only to find supporting ships screening the retreat of the carriers. He saw exactly what he was up against and so did the Americans. This case shows that the combatants knew who and what they were dealing with, otherwise the Americans would not be running away to protect Jeep carriers if Japanese were just attacking with destroyers. Note the damage on the japanese battleships, can also indicate that the Americans were targeting these because they had ranged guns that could still hit the carriers…so they needed to fight them

Under my rules the defender can retreat after any round. Under my system the BB that rolls a one can declare its target ( which can account for some other ships sinking than destroyers)

The damaged battleship in all these cases retires from combat. Its not realistic that they continue to fire and take the free hits and perform at 100%. So you not allow a player to take more than one free hit on his battleships and instead have a cost for repair…otherwise he just gets the free hits and loses…nothing.

I prefer this rather than taking the BB attack value down to a 2. This is because a battleship = 3-4 or more such ships and the damage does not necessarily mean that ALL the Battleships are damaged, but perhaps a number of them took a hit. I also think that the rule of altering the combat value of a 20 IPC unit to say 2 is much greater than a rule which says: you cant allocate a second first hit on another BB group, before you either sink a damaged BB, or allocate a hit on a new non- BB unit. The second is more realistic and better for the game.

You can also read up on the action of the Bismarck in may 1941 and how the Bismarck fought its battles with Hood,KGV and Prince of Whales. All combat was the same as it was at Leyte in terms of how warships fight surface actions.

check on Operation Rheinübung

Another example is the battle of Java Sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Java_Sea

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 12:02:23 pm
AS is describe earlier, a realistic solution is to line up the players fleet with less ships and the attacker matches up his ship with the defender….

Seriously… realistic?  It’s hard enough to get your own forces to line up meekly let alone get everyone to square off for broadsides.

realistic in terms of history. Perhaps not fun for some players.

Don’t get me wrong if a Turn represented a couple of days and this was a tactical game then Bob’s your Uncle. But cherry picking your targets in A&A…?
Sorry. Not working for me.

Their is no one “sea battle” that lasts longer than a few days. The various campaigns are loosely modeled in AA, The combat at sea is modeling key battle. For example, Midway is not 6 months of real time! You must remember a turn could be between 4- 6 months representing many battles and only the most important battle is what your actually playing. Each battle does not necessarily model 6 months of fighting. Thats misguided.

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 12:02:23 pm
4) When a BB is hit its new combat value is 2.

Whoa. I’m sorry but read up a bit. When I suggested losing one hit reduced the combat value of a BB didn’t you say it was… too complicated and made the BB such a bad buy no one would ever buy them?

Yes i will reread my 500+ WW2 books in my library. I will tell my Stanford History professors to take back the A’s and i will mail back my masters in History because i typed: “When a BB is hit its new combat value is 2.” :mrgreen:

I think the BB at 2 is a poor idea actually, but it could work but only as a secondary choice. I prefer the most KISS rule… which is only that you cant take a second first hit on a bb till you allocate a damaged BB first or another new non- BB ship. Thats the simplest rule to fix it w/o cost for damaged bb or reduction in BB attack to 2.

In these battles within the Leyte Gulf campaign,show the situation if surface gunnery warfare. In modeling this it looks like the idea that the Americans had more ships, so they allocated the destroyers to take the brunt of the Japanese ships, while the carriers retreated from the scene. Many of the main japanese ships were targeted and damaged or sunk. In terms of damage its not the case that only Battleships were damaged… cruisers were damaged and carriers sunk…All combat was the same as it was at Leyte in terms of how warships fight surface actions.

Yes indeed. And did the Americans “allocating the destroyers to take the brunt of the Japanese ships” remind you of anything? Not just BBs sniping away at each other as you claim is “historically” accurate.

Yes it reminded me of the idea of matching each ship with another enemy ship and the extra ships (in this case the carriers having the option of retreating) This option was considered too complicated for you. Unfortunately for you that example is “Not just BBs sniping away at each other” because only one side has BB, I can infer that in this battle the BB did not roll a one and the attacker retreated after a round hitting one destroyer and the defender hitting and damaging one BB. The idea in this example is that surface combat is done by seeing who your shooting at, rather than some claim by you that combat occurs by some kind of long distance phone call of some coordinates captains relay to targeting crews. Both sides typically see what kind of ships they are fighting and fight the ones that they feel are the most potent creators of damage and engage them. They are attacking Battleships and not the support ships, because the BB’s have the longer ranged guns and can blow the carriers up.

To model this you assign the OOB and add that the BB rolling a one can assign its hit to any target defending. This would be the case unless both sides have the BB. IN the above case only Japan had the BB.

Also, In terms of AARHE we used to have have destroyers and cruisers as screening units at 1:1 basis ( each DD or CA can screen out another ship that can be targeted for a hit allocation. After many revisions and playtesting this idea was too tedious. However, we did keep the option that Naval ships can option to attack air units using the intrinsic AA gun capabilities:

from AARHE:

Anti-Air
Certain naval unit has an Anti-Air value. This is the number of Anti-Air rolls each hitting on a 1.
Hits must be allocated on enemy air units.

Unit Anti-Air Value:
Destroyer 1
Carrier 1
Battleship 2

Cruiser 3

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 03:03:10 pm
Their is no one “sea battle” that lasts longer than a few days. The various campaigns are loosely modeled in AA, The combat at sea is modeling key battle. For example, Midway is not 6 months of real time! You must remember a turn could be between 4- 6 months representing many battles and only the most important battle is what your actually playing. Each battle does not necessarily model 6 months of fighting. Thats misguided.

Misguided and misquoted. For indeed that’s what I’ve been reminding you of.
After all, it is you that has all hands of both entire fleets sitting there shooting at each other for an entire turn.  Heaven forbid a hit go to a lowly DD acting as a fleet screen. What an unrealistic waste eh!

I didn’t quote anybody except remembering what Larry Harris told me a number of times over the years when i asked this question. Larry said the scale and time are not measurable and can fluctuate even from one turn to another. Thats a primary reason why he never has committed to any time frame ( E.G. turn = X time, ship = X ships) he has however, gave us guidelines of what it is on average and that is consistant to what i quoted.

A combat loss against a DD is entirely consistent under the idea of allocating ships and matching them up. IN that case the defender had extra ships so the attacker had one ship and was attacking 3 defenders. IN that case the defender can allocate his hits because he has screening units.

IN the case where the attacker outnumbers the defender than NO. that would not happen in every case, because at some point the attacker would have more ships and the extra ships that also hit would be hitting other defending ships.

Example: attacker 2 BB 2 DD, defender 1 BB, 1 CA

Attacker takes 2 BB vs. the 1 BB and 2 DD vs. 1 CA
in combat both BB hit  and the 2 DD miss
the defender must remove his BB, the BB rolls back and misses, the CA rolls and hits, but must hit one DD.

combat over ( attacker retreats).

This is what we had in AARHE and it worked fine except it took long time.

Now to model it under KISS rules using a new example:

Attacker  has 3 BB
Defender has 3 BB

att gets 3 hits
defender gets 4 hits

defender takes off 1 BB and damages a second ( has 4+4 for next round)
attacker removed two BB ( has one 4 for a second round)

Under OOB:

defender still has 3 BB ( no effect on his firepower)
attacker lost one BB has two left (has two for second round)

Now the solution to the problem of this in terms of realism is you need a rule to prevent the second BB from getting hit before you allocate a BB for sinking. This way the attack has some tangible results rather than "hey i didnt get much damage thanks to the free hits and automatic repair. To solve this can involve different ideas, but the most simple idea is preventing the damage, damage damage and making it damage, sunk, damage equation.

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 03:03:10 pm
Yes i will reread my 500+ WW2 books in my library. I will tell my Stanford History professors to take back the A’s and i will mail back my masters in History because i typed: “When a BB is hit its new combat value is 2.”

Oh good for you. Maybe you can convince one of them that naval battles are polite little affairs where all participants get to pick their partners.
Perhaps you’re confusing it with a school dance?

Look at the Hood action again. Bismarck knew exactly which ship is was firing at and which one to fight first.

Look at Battle of Savo Island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Savo_Island

The combat loses among the order of battle are the cruiser class. Ships avoid the lessor ships and go for the more potent ships. You keep ignoring the reality of naval combat because in each example both sides see who they are engaging and pick the type of ship they want to fire at. They can tell if the ship is “larger” or a cruiser or whatnot and decide thats the one they want to fight.

And you typing that its combat value is 2 when a BB is hit, doesn’t bring into question what you did in school.
It just shows that maybe - just maybe when you consider it, that suggestion doesn’t merit an automatic NO from you.
That’s all.
After all, not like your opinion on it is that vital. You’re just another one of us players.  grin
Happy Gaming.

Well it certainly does not equal a silly " you need to read up a bit" comment. I find the rule plausible, but not the best idea for the solution.

Also, regarding Midway in neither case did the enemy planes ignore the carriers and try to sink cruiser or destroyers. You see they really do fight the targets they want and the supporting ships in this case do not act as screeners as they did at Leyte. Why?  because in both cases the ships were overwhelmed with enemy planes. As i said before the extra units should go after who they want.

I would consider another rule: the defender rolls for each carrier prior to first round and if he rolls a one a fighter cannot engage in combat ( considered on deck). If the carrier is sunk that plane is gone too.

To model this battle in AA:

attacker: 2 CV,1DD, 4 fighters= Japan, vs. 2 CV, 1DD, 1CA, 4 fighters ( carriers in different sea zones)= USA plus 1 fighter at midway

Japan attacks Midway with 1 fighters and takes out US fighter ( no loss)

Japan attacks one US carrier with 3 fighters ( sinks carrier)- planes in middle of sea ( move to Midway?)

On USA turn: 4 US planes attack the 2 japanese CV sink both and leave the scene. Japanese planes have no place to land and are removed from play.

Thats in the game taking 2 turns, but in real time its 3-5 days. This is what Larry was saying about the issue of time. Each battle is not always 4-6 months, but you can use it as a guideline.