"Rules for deception in naval games" Topic

Has anyone worked with rules to allow one side to deceive the other by using flags, disguises ( modified bridges and stacks) or signals? Something like what was done at St Nazaire?

I have some rules in "Flaklighter" that cover some of the tricks coastal craft used to use such as blinking back a random reply to a challenge signal. Recently I read of an encounter in the RCW where three Bolshevik craft flew White colors to tow away a prison barge and liberate the captives.

How could you do something like this in a game?

You would need a gamemaster and he could work it into the scenario. You tell one side what they see but what they think they see isn't. You would, of course need duplicate ships to switch out at the critical moment. Real or simulated dice rolls to determine when or if the disguise fails.

Yes, this sort of thing is much simpler to do with an umpire and scenario specific stuff than trying to come up with general rules.

I knew a bloke that could deceive anyone within the rules.

But we dont let him referee anymore!

I've seen it done in a WWII Ardennes scenario. One player played a part loosely based on Otto Skorzeny's paratroopers disguised as Americans. We were several turns into the game when we realized what was happening, and by then he had caused a lot of mayhem and confusion.

It worked like this: There was an umpire, and at the start of the game, he handed cards to each player outlining their forces and their own objectives. One of the guys, who was ostensibly an American player, found out from his card that he was really a German. He was in all the American planning huddles, and appeared to be doing his part in the battle.

But during the battle, he was passing information to the umpire, who then passed it on to the Germans. He also would suggest to the other American players that they move here or there or some other thing to disrupt the defenses. He had a recon unit consisting of jeeps with infantry in it, and these were spread all over the battlefield. These kept quietly going into patches of woods or buildings where other American units were concealed, and then would drive out a turn later after having destroyed the American unit. But no one realized it was happening because it was hidden from view and the umpire would not say, "Your unit was just destroyed". Instead, when the American commander would go to move or fire, he was told that the unit in the terrain was "not responding".

I thought it was a pretty ingenious system, although very simple.

The best I can suggest for a non-umpire game and generic is if there is any kind of sighting/contact/identification mechanism roll you simply apply a penalty and count the unit as non-sighted/IDed to represent the confusion at the level of detail required – eg if you roll to see and roll to ID then affect the roll to ID, if its a roll to spot in one then just hit that.

However the best way is simply to have an umpire or blind system in place….