AA50: Battleships and the hit that never was

[allboxcars]

Thank you Imperious for providing excellent examples of fleets not joining battle en masse and inflicting casualties on the choice targets.
Yamamoto’s main body not entering battle, Nishimura’s failure to synchronize his forces so that he could target select warships, and in general the deployment in anything other than one big mass of ships targeting the capitol ships….

Well, your support for my point of view is greatly appreciated.

@Imperious:

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.

@Imperious:

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!

As for the most important battle…. uh, okay. That’s unsubstantiated and solely your opinion.

@Imperious:

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?

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.  :-D
Happy Gaming.

[Imperious Leader]

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.

[Imperious Leader]

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.

[allboxcars]

@Imperious:

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.

OK now you’re just making up things I say.

I’ll break it down for you:

1. Sea Zone = Big Ocean.
2. One Turn = Lot of time.
3. One piece = lot of ships.
4. Combat = things not going as planned.

There is no realistic or historical claim that putting a BB in a sea zone means you get to fight whatever you choose there.

No phone calls Imperious. Sighted warfare requires you see the ships. Again, I refer you to numbers 1-4 above and that should be clear it is not always up to the capital ships how things unfold.

Heck, let me reference the wiki articles you provided:
Leyte: clearly the Americans chose their Destroyers to take the brunt. So, in other words: not the Japanese’s choice.
Java: the ABDA were incapable of selecting the convoy as their targets. In fact the Japanese sunk their own minesweeper. (A roll of 6 I guess.)
Savo: A fine example of fighting fleets in groups and the Fog of War as surface warships fumble around uncertainly.
Bismarck: Well, an odd battle since the number of actual vessels is so small and it resembles a bar fight in a phone booth. Even so the article clearly states that the Hood was firing on the wrong ship for most of the battle.

Ask Larry if you like, I don’t anticipate he’ll say BBs get a First Strike Capability. Seems to me that he designed that ability for subs.

And as for my “read UP a bit”, if you press the UP arrow or scroll UPwards with your mouse for a bit you will find your initial evaluation of my suggestion which I am referencing way way back at the beginning of this thread.

I did not mean to imply you were uneducated or any other groundless ad hominem.
Believing the quote function to be a trifle heavy-handed, I invited you to scroll up at your leisure.

All in all, the BB First Strike just ain’t working for me. All IMO.

[Imperious Leader]

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.

OK now you’re just making up things I say.

I’ll break it down for you:

1. Sea Zone = Big Ocean.
2. One Turn = Lot of time.
3. One piece = lot of ships.
4. Combat = things not going as planned.

There is no realistic or historical claim that putting a BB in a sea zone means you get to fight whatever you choose there.

I have no idea why your saying this because its not what i ever said. I did say the BB rolling a one should be able to select its hit.

I did also say a BB could also have preemptive fire because it has ranged guns that outclass the other warships. Thats the essential aspect of advantage of having the bigger guns.

I also said that all warships ( not just the BB) could under a system thats a bit tedious allocate hits against targeted the ships it chooses to fight. At Leyte the US destroyers went after the Battleships and ignored the destroyers. The japanese BB’s in turn tried to fight the carriers and missed, But in all cases both sides see the enemy and sight them and decide who they want to fight. Thats clear enough and we don’t need your 1-4 list to establish that.

No phone calls Imperious. Sighted warfare requires you see the ships. Again, I refer you to numbers 1-4 above and that should be clear it is not always up to the capital ships how things unfold.

Good now you understand.

Heck, let me reference the wiki articles you provided:
Leyte: clearly the Americans chose their Destroyers to take the brunt. So, in other words: not the Japanese’s choice.

No you miss that you didn’t read. The japanese went after the Jeep carriers and missed, then retreated. The US went after the main japanese ships, which is why the japanese lost capital ships. The Americans in the other battles at Leyte attacked each japanese group and sank or damaged the best ‘pieces’ The japanese loses are not mostly destroyers. So your point is ridiculous.

Java: the ABDA were incapable of selecting the convoy as their targets. In fact the Japanese sunk their own minesweeper. (A roll of 6 I guess.)

Combat loses and damage to cruisers for the most part. Why and how do you overlook this?

Strength

Dutch/ USA
2 heavy cruisers
3 light cruisers
9 destroyers

Japan
2 heavy cruisers
2 light cruisers
14 destroyers
10 transports

Casualties and losses

Dutch/USA loses
2 cruisers sunk ( they had only 2)
3 destroyers sunk
2,300 sailors killed

japan loses
1 destroyer damaged

Look at Midway if you go by the “ONE BIG SEA ZONE THING” you notice that 4 Japanese carriers sunk and a few other ships damaged….targeted attacks

If you look at the American loses we lost Yorktown… targeted attacks.

Savo: A fine example of fighting fleets in groups and the Fog of War as surface warships fumble around uncertainly.

its also a fine example of the loses being allocated in such a manner thats consistent with attacking the more potent ship….targeted

Strength

USA
8 cruisers,
15 destroyers[2]

Japan
7 cruisers,
1 destroyer[3]

Casualties and losses

to Japan
4 cruisers sunk,
1 cruiser,
2 destroyers damaged,
1,077 killed[4]

to USA
3 cruisers moderately damaged,

anyway you cut it the most potent ships are getting the brunt of the damage. While you continue to ignore this thats fine, but in the game something has to account for this in terms of modeling a realistic manner consistent with the actual war loses.

On land this means like in AARHE the tank hits could go against tanks or artillery

ON Sea a combat loss goes against a ship in the higher class ( a simple way to assign this is to allow some ships to screen as in AARHE 3.0, but the extra ships can fire targeted and in doing so model the kind of damage the war illustrates.

ON sea of course Bombers are protected by flying at higher altitudes, and fighters on CAP engage attacking planes. I don’t see any need for changes here, unless you want to infer that if you attack planes and have extra fighters, then these can be used against the bombers.

Bismarck: Well, an odd battle since the number of actual vessels is so small and it resembles a bar fight in a phone booth. Even so the article clearly states that the Hood was firing on the wrong ship for most of the battle.

I guess you concede the point on this. Even typing “Hood firing on the wrong ship for most of the battle” is laughable considering that it was destroyed within minutes of the Bismarck correctly seeing it and deciding it was the most potent enemy and sinking it first….targeted

Bismarck fires at hood… the defender does not allocate a hit on Price of whales. Everybody knew in 1941 the Hood was the British #1 ship and was a stronger match.

[Imperious Leader]

Here is the OOB for battle Philippine sea> AKA the Turkey Shoot

Notice the loses are heavy in carrier…… targeted…the side that lost 3 carriers didnt lose ‘your so called screening ships’ rather they select the ship they want to attack and just sink the good stuff and leave the riffraff for another day. In surface battles its no different. Each side chooses what it wants to attack, but does not always becomes sucessful. The results always show the major loses are too the capital ships.

Look at the total inventory of each class of ship and compare the total number of them sunk and you will see easily that its always heavy on the side of the major ( not destroyers or cruisers) but rather BB and CV/ CVL/ CVE

Strength
7 fleet carriers,
8 light carriers,
7 battleships,
79 other ships,
28 submarines,
956 planes

5 fleet carriers,
4 light carriers,
5 battleships,
43 other ships,
450 carrier-based planes,
300 land-based planes

Casualties and losses

USA
123 planes destroyed (about 80 of whose crews survived)

Japan
3 carriers sunk,
2 oilers sunk,
about 600 planes destroyed,
6 other ships heavily damaged

The largest ratio of ships sunk are carriers…targeted

[allboxcars]

OK thanks I guess for the Turkey shoot stats… just never heard anyone refer to it as a surface action.

Anyway, getting back to the House Rule being proposed by you:

@Imperious:

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.

My Vote: No.
Why: IMO presumes that the BB can always engage before any other ships can damage each other. Long range gunnery is huge advantage but it’s a tactical consideration not in keeping with the scale of a turn. And it’s not like offshore bombardment against fixed defenses or a stealthy sub strike.

@Imperious:

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

My Vote: No.
Why: For discussion purposes, let us trash my BIG SEA principle and agree with you that all of the target ships will be equally available to choose from during a naval operation of no fixed number of engagements…. well, if you’re modelling the primacy of striking capital ships in surface warfare then shouldn’t this Critical Hit ability extend to all warships? Surely cruisers and destroyers didn’t fire willy-nilly.

@Imperious:

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

My Vote: Agreed.
Why: Explained at the beginning of this thread.

@Imperious:

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.

My Vote: Yes to reduced combat value. No to restrained target selection.
Why: So here we get to the crux of the exchange.

Personally, I’m of the mind that the defender choice of casualty principle reflects a number of variables outside the scope of this game not the least of which is deployments putting different vessels at risk at different times.

And remember, with combat value being reduced there are no more disappearing hits on BBs… so I don’t see the defender choosing to reduce all of his BBs to absorb 3 hits as less historical than sinking one and maybe some other smaller warship so as to keep his other BBs intact.

If in your view of WW2 the sides agreed that no other BBs would be hit until the first one was sunk… knock yourself out.

@Imperious:

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.

My Vote: Agreed.
Why: Explained at the beginning of this thread.

@Imperious:

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

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

My Vote: Tentatively agreed.
Why: Well I agree that when planes share an airspace they should have reduced combat values. And very lethal at sea when they dominate the airspace.

@Imperious:

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.

My Vote: Tentative agreement.
Why: If I understand you correctly, you’re suggesting that the ships have an inherent AA capability?  Is this the only roll that would shoot them down when one side has air?
And I don’t mean whatever you’ve written in other rules, I am asking about your 8th point please.

[Imperious Leader]

My Vote: Yes to reduced combat value. No to restrained target selection.
Why: So here we get to the crux of the exchange.

But that makes the BB worth less if you “discount” its damaged status. Now its worth far less in battle and the 2 hit thing is no longer a value but a hindrance. Each BB piece is 3-5 battleships. In battle they may be damaged but to the extent of which they no longer render effective fire or now fire at 50% is not fun… perhaps the solution could be that they fire at 3??? at least this somewhat models damage, but not to the extent that its reduced to a destroyer. I prefer 3 if anything.

Personally, I’m of the mind that the defender choice of casualty principle reflects a number of variables outside the scope of this game not the least of which is deployments putting different vessels at risk at different times.

And remember, with combat value being reduced there are no more disappearing hits on BBs… so I don’t see the defender choosing to reduce all of his BBs to absorb 3 hits as less historical than sinking one and maybe some other smaller warship so as to keep his other BBs intact.

yes but its still too harsh to reduce it to 2. it costs 20 and your reducing it to a unit costing 8. Id make it a cruiser value.

If in your view of WW2 the sides agreed that no other BBs would be hit until the first one was sunk… knock yourself out.

Thats not my view, but in terms of keeping the same as simple as possible and maintaining the unit values as they are its more in keeping with leaving the rating at 4 and just not allowing the ‘damage, damage, damage’ syndrome to exist by requiring another ship to be sunk instead. This would be more consistent with the idea of ‘screening’ even at a lessor degree than what i proposed that can be tedious.

[allboxcars]

@Imperious:

My Vote: Yes to reduced combat value. No to restrained target selection.
Why: So here we get to the crux of the exchange.

But that makes the BB worth less if you “discount” its damaged status. Now its worth far less in battle and the 2 hit thing is no longer a value but a hindrance. Each BB piece is 3-5 battleships. In battle they may be damaged but to the extent of which they no longer render effective fire or now fire at 50% is not fun… perhaps the solution could be that they fire at 3??? at least this somewhat models damage, but not to the extent that its reduced to a destroyer. I prefer 3 if anything.

Personally, I’m of the mind that the defender choice of casualty principle reflects a number of variables outside the scope of this game not the least of which is deployments putting different vessels at risk at different times.

And remember, with combat value being reduced there are no more disappearing hits on BBs… so I don’t see the defender choosing to reduce all of his BBs to absorb 3 hits as less historical than sinking one and maybe some other smaller warship so as to keep his other BBs intact.

yes but its still too harsh to reduce it to 2. it costs 20 and your reducing it to a unit costing 8. Id make it a cruiser value.

If in your view of WW2 the sides agreed that no other BBs would be hit until the first one was sunk… knock yourself out.

Thats not my view, but in terms of keeping the same as simple as possible and maintaining the unit values as they are its more in keeping with leaving the rating at 4 and just not allowing the ‘damage, damage, damage’ syndrome to exist by requiring another ship to be sunk instead. This would be more consistent with the idea of ‘screening’ even at a lessor degree than what i proposed that can be tedious.

So in essence, lose a hit and it’s a cruiser until repaired.

I think that’s sensible.
And I’d maintain that line of reasoning for KISS, so if your House Rules include any other Bonuses for BBs not enjoyed by cruisers then they should also be lost while damaged IMO.

… although I must confess:  :evil: I still like the idea of reduced mobility… can I pounce on the bloodied but unbowed Queen of the Seas before she limps back to San Francisco? hmmm… :-D
OK that could just be me.

[Imperious Leader]

I will add these to my official house rules.