Let’s Sink a Battleship

        Ugly Draft Edition - 10 June 2013

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I keep looking over at the Panzerschiffe 1/2400 ships and want to get a small fleet together.  When I look at the rules that are out there, I can’t find much that qualifies between the bookends of superfast play and super detailed simulation.  I’m looking for four to ten ships a side (theoretically more over time), single ship stat lines, and some damage tracking, and flexibility up to but not including the aircraft carrier.  So, failing to find something, I decided to write something. Given my lack of play in this period, this may be something that goes poorly, but please stick with me, at the very least it will be an amusing train wreck.

I’ve looked at Great War at Sea, and the recent Imagi-Nation push for the 18th century on theminiaturespage.com, and think there’s an option that steals a little from each.  This option will also allow one that accents and amplifies national differences in a way that is cannot honestly be modeled in the dawn of the 20th century.

Expected Issues

        Interaction of speed and range, especially at the smaller range, appears to be off.

        Repair rules - there are none right now - I’m viewing late victorian warfare as not allowing for ship repair mid battle.

Turn order

        1. Write down orders for all ships. (I envision a Dry erase marker setup/ship)

        2. Commanders take turns moving one ship or squadron until all are complete

        3. Commanders then take turns placing dice representing the Intensity (pips on dice) and firepower (color), each ship without Advanced Fire control can target one enemy.  

        4. Once all are complete, roll to hit dice for each fire effectively similtaneously.  

        5.  Apply damage

        6.  Restart turn

Weapons

The basic die rolled to hit is the d10.

Weapons come in three color (Red/Yellow/White) and ships com in three armors, (Heavy/Light or Obsolete/None) and yes, three sizes, but to make this easy, generally Large ships have heavy armor and move at heavy maneuverability.  but not always.

/Reviewing some recent information, and depending on pool size, we’re looking at perhaps 9+/8+/10 instead of current.  Additionally we may be looking at a +1 to hit a stationary target./

Hit chart

* - if exceed target number by one, do 2 points of damage.

** - as * plus if exceed target number by two, cause three points of damage

Other modifiers-

        Ship at full halt - +1 to hit

        Ship on fire - +1 to hit

        Ship obscured by smoke - -1 to be hit.

if hit with a 10 or +3 over target, it’s a critical hit-roll location

        If weaker gun by one step, 50% chance for critical.

Roll d10/crit - each Crit does one point of hull plus (or more if heavier guns on lighter armor)

Damage to Red guns are either front or back, and then also subtracted from broads

Yellow and white are by location

Torps. Roll d10/torp, hit M/S on 10, Large on 9+, if hit, it’s a d3 Red hit.  +1 difficulty at 4-8”

//May need to make it closer if a 1/2400 set of rules.//

Maneuver

When decreasing speed, x2 Speed increase per turn.

Coasting, if no engines -2”/turn.

Terrain

Each empire has a DBAesque set of terrains they can use when they are the defender. Options include:

        Home Coastal

        Colonial Costal

        Islands

        Island Coastal

        City Coastal

        Open Ocean

Any nation would have a few of these-Examples

        Brits would have all,

        Russians might not have open ocean, City Coastal, or Colonial Coastal

        US wouldn’t have anything but Islands and Open Ocean, etc

                Of course this model might not work but who knows, let’s try it out.

Examples of craft

Ship references- not all accurate, but most close enough.  

BB - Modern Battleship

B - Pre-Dreadnaught Battleship

CB - Coastal Battleship

BC - Battlecruiser

YMH - Civilian Heavy Merchant Vessel

BM - Monitor

AC - Armored Cruiser

CP - Protected cruiser

C - Ordinary Cruiser

CL - Light Cruiser

YMR - Civilian Medium Merchant Vessel.  

QL - Large Q Ship

D - Destroyer, multi-functional.  

DE - Escort Destroyer

TB - Torpedo boat.

DS-Sub Hunter

GB-Gun Boat

S-Sub

QS-Small Q Ship

ML-Mine Layer

YMS-Civilian Small Merchant

Some options are variants of the above, example, italian MTBs are TBf

Rough guide, very rough, is Large is about 4000 - 5000t or larger, Small is 1500t or smaller, and Medium is in between.

Modifiers-Always lower case

        +/- : Over or undergunned-allows for extra range (White to yellow, yellow to red, and red +4 Optimal and long range), reverse for underguned

        f/s : Fast or Slow - Modifies +25% or -25% to speed.

        u/o : Underarmored or Overarmored - Model counts as one level lower or higher in armor.  You cannot go over heavy armor, you cannot go under

        p : Private - i.e. civilian

        c : Command - Flagship

        h : Subhunter

        r : Torps allow 360 attacks

        m/a : Maneuverable or awkward.  +1 maneuverable step or -1 maneuverability step

        >/< : Bigger and smaller. Adds two or subtracts two to base hull points

t : Advanced Fire control, may split fire dice.  

d : can dive and disappear from play- Declare start of one turn, cannot take any action.  At start of next turn, roll d6, on 5-6 dives. If not still no action, roll d6 next turn, 3-6, then 2-6 each turn thereafter.

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