"Good Carrier searching game mechanisms" Topic

With regard to boardgames… or boardgames that can be used for miniatures (either): What's your favorite carrier-searching-airstrike sort of game?

Specifically we were talking today about looking for a game that:

1) Has complete double-blind hidden movement and searching, AND

2) Doesn't require a referee, AND

3) Allows you to launch planes to search… without revealing where your own TF, just because you're searching.

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It's that last point that is the most baffling. I don't think I've ever seen a carrier game that doesn't either require a referee, or which lacks true "hidden" movement, because you have to reveal much of your own positions, in order to have a right to search spot X. (After all, if you're searching spot X, you must have a plane-launching ship nearby….)

* * *

If anybody can think of a game that accomplishes all three of the above, I'd be grateful for a recommendation.

Another job for the Feldmachink!

link

The only one I can think of is for solitare.
Carrier, by Victory Games. It is a tough game, though probabally not what you are looking for.

link

Another possiblity is General Quarters. I do not remember how they are set up with air search though. I did try them for WW I in the North Sea using the Jutland campaign rules. So it might be possible to adapt rules from a game like Jutland.

God Bless you

The old Avalon Hill game Midway managed all of those pretty well – but it's a strategic boardgame, not a gridlesss minis game.

"The old Avalon Hill game Midway managed all of those pretty well "

Yeah, their solution was just to say that each side gets X number of searches, period, which I suppose is OK for a snapshot of time in a small battle area, but it has a lot of basic problems. For example:

- If your fleet's searches are based upon having a certain number of plane-launching ships, then can you really search anywhere on the whole board, no matter where those ships are?

- Do you always get the same number of searches, at the same unlimited range, no matter the fate of your ships and bases?

"Another possiblity is General Quarters"

I've only played that with a referee, and he seemed to be necessary for all of the blind movement.

"Another job for the Feldmachink!"

I don't understand how that would help. You'd still have to tell your enemy, "I'm searching Spot-X… do you have anything there?" To which he says, "ahhh… so you have something in range of Spot X, do you….?"

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The old "Flat Top" game, of course, had a system that ostensibly didn't require a referee, and we played a lot of it, but the massive amount of record-keeping puts me off nowadays. (A game that spends more effort worrying about the fuel of an airplane, than about the effect of a bomb: very 1980s!)

And it didn't really solve the problem, since you were still searching hex-by-hex, which meant your opponent could guesstimate where those planes came from, because of the places you were able to search.

Not to mention: it was always too easy to cheat. Or just to honestly forget that one's planes had been out longer than they were allowed to be.

Why do you have to tell your enemy that you are searching when using the Feldmachink?

A somewhat similar mechanism, proposed IIRC in Don Featherstone's "Naval Wargames", was to construct a grid of matchboxes, and have players insert tokens in the appropriate locations representing their forces, then take turns searching some limited number of boxes. I've never tried this, because I dont use many matches, and disposable lighters make a rubbish search grid, but it seems to me that I would lose track of my own forces pretty quickly using such a scheme.

Presumably, we are not that interested in executing the actual search stuff, dammit, we're wargamers, we want to get the toys on the table and start shooting at each other. It's pretty easy to do the maths for an exponential search if one knows the number and speed of searchers and their sensor sweep width. The problem is the probability of containment -- are the enemy in the area being searched? It seems to me that there might be some scheme for determining this without giving too much information to either side based on the principles of public key cryptography. Unfortunately, I know nothing whatever about public key cryptography, so I cannot tell whether it can really be done or not.

All the best,

John.

Why do you have to tell your enemy that you are searching when using the Feldmachink?

Well, presumably, I'm searching because I don't know where he is, thus there is nothing on the table or game board to indicate where he is. (No counters, cards, miniatures, whatever.)

Rather, there is some sort of grid, or hexes, or areas, in which he might be lurking. So I have to tell him where I am searching, right? I want to know whether or not he's hiding in Spot X.

Thus it doesn't matter whether or not I can physically hide anything on the table. The fact that I can search Spot X, means that I must have something within a plane's range of Spot X. And if Spot X is in the middle of the ocean, not near any land base, that must mean I have a carrier, or some other plane-carrying ship nearby.

That's the classic problem: the act of searching reveals an unrealistic amount of intelligence about one's own location, and thus forces players to make unrealistic choices, either not to search at all, or to do so in ways designed to fool the enemy via the game mechanics.

Would it be possible to use a computer as the referee? Not being very computer literate, is there a computer program that has both sides enter their ships' locations into the computer and the searching side enters the grid(s) searched?

This would seem to solve the double blind part of the equation. Just food for thought.

It would be cool to have a phone app for it

Under the WebGrognards web page there is a search program written for Excel.
grognard.com/board.html
Under the Great War at sea, double blind search system.
Its written mainly for that game system by Avalanche Press but i dont see why it couldn't be adopted for a similar gridded game.

I have been unable to figure out how it works and I didnt see any instructions. (so if someone does figure it out, please let me know). It appears that each side inputs their movement hexes and the program automatically applies the GWAS search modifiers and lets the player know if they have spotted something.

I recall seeing another similar program years ago somewhere else, (edited out)….found it here.
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however they are written for visual basic 6.0.

Why do you have to tell your enemy that you are searching when using the Feldmachink?

Well, presumably, I'm searching because I don't know where he is, thus there is nothing on the table or game board to indicate where he is. (No counters, cards, miniatures, whatever.)

Rather, there is some sort of grid, or hexes, or areas, in which he might be lurking. So I have to tell him where I am searching, right? I want to know whether or not he's hiding in Spot X.

The beauty of the Feldmachink link is that you don't have to tell your opponent where you're searching.

LT

I like the GQ way, but it required you to plot your turns movement. Then if you have a plane and an enemy TF in the same hex in the same turn, you roll a die to see if the TF is spotted.

The beauty of the Feldmachink link is that you don't have to tell your opponent where you're searching.

I've tried a couple of times now to read and understand the Feldmachink link, but perhaps I'm just dense. I don't really see how this solves the problem.

If your task force is in Area 15, and I search and find something (because my dowel is sticking out of the Feldmachink, which I now have to show to my opponent, to confirm that he's been found)… then my opponent will know that I must have some plane-launching TF of my own, within range of Area 15. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had the ability to stick a dowel in slot #15 in the first place.

Same basic problem, just a different gadget.

Not to mention that something like the Feldmachink appears to be a simple either/or proposition; unless I'm missing the subtlety of it, there doesn't appear to be a way to have different levels of contact, such as:

* You spot something on the surface
* You spot an enemy task force with at least one large capital ship.
* You spot the USS Yorktown, five cruisers, and eight destroyers.
* Oops, sorry Chief… we thought it was the Yorktown… now that your strike planes are here, turns out to be an oiler, instead….

Yeah, their solution was just to say that each side gets X number of searches, period, which I suppose is OK for a snapshot of time in a small battle area, but it has a lot of basic problems. For example:

- If your fleet's searches are based upon having a certain number of plane-launching ships, then can you really search anywhere on the whole board, no matter where those ships are?

- Do you always get the same number of searches, at the same unlimited range, no matter the fate of your ships and bases?

You're blinding yourself to the general effectiveness of the system. You can easily modify the number of searches per turn to suit different conditions. The boardgame covered Midway and nothing but – but the basic mechanics worked fine in the Coral Sea expansion, and they could be tweaked to fit other settings or even other genres like scifi. You'll have to put some minimal work into deciding how many operational search craft constitute a area search opportunity, and you could add some chrome by tacking on rules restricting the range of the search, but that isn't hard – just pick some numbers, test them in play, and correct till you get results you like.

"You'll have to put some minimal work into deciding how many operational search craft constitute a area search opportunity, and you could add some chrome by tacking on rules restricting the range of the search, but that isn't hard"

No, I understand that. What I'm saying is:

Once you establish that the US player has "an area search opportunity" because he has ships in the area… then how does he search that area, without letting the Japanese player know that he has ships there? (Or within search range of there?)

Am I missing something?

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For example, one of my gaming buddies suggested (to use the Midway example), that Midway Island gets 4 PBY searches, and each US carrier group gets 1, for a total of 7 US searches per turn. Most people could live with an abstraction of just: 7 searches anywhere, never mind about the range.

But if the Japanese bomb and knock out Midway, then what happens? There are still 3 US searches, but now they're not PBYs, but short-ranged floatplanes and carrier planes. So, does the US search pattern change, and how does it change, without letting the Japanese know where those US task forces are?

Without wanting to sound like a heretic, don't you need a computer game if you want this level of hidden movement, and all the details of ranges from start locations, with constantly moving fleets?

Without wanting to sound like a realist, this is one of those discussions during which it quickly becomes obvious that some of the participants will not be satisfied unless they can park a PBY in their driveway and mount search radar on their roof. I've already played the real thing; when I play a game I'm willing to let it be a game.

LT

If you are specifically looking for a map mechanism because you enjoy the searching part of an engagement this won't apply …however it is possible to abstract the whole search phase.

Looking at carrier battles it seems that most follow the pattern:

A. One side detects the other.
B. That side launches strike.
C. Survivors launch counter strike.
D. Repeat.

Now sometimes A happened simultaneously and their could be strikes passing each other on their way, and some times strikes could not find their targets or ran out of fuel and had to return.

So to put this on the table top then each side would be divided into task groups. There could be land bases as well.

Aircraft are allocated to search, strike, or CAP.

First round only long range land based aircraft can search. Assign a percentage chance of finding something, preferably modified by number of planes searching and the area to be covered. Say a base 10% per possible target group.

Any target group located can then be attacked by long range strike planes from that land base and the located group has an increased chance of being detected in next rounds carrier air searched unless they turn back. There should be some chance that the strike does not find its target for whatever reason. Again you could just use 10 percent just to put a number out there.

Second round all searching aircraft participate. Same as before a chance to find each enemy force modified by number of searching planes and size of the battle area.

Land bases are automatically detected and subject to carrier strike.

Now strikes can be assigned to located targets as in the first round and the action commences.

If a strike came from a an un-located carrier force, there is now a chance that the enemy has been able to locate that group and can strike it in the third round. Say an 80% chance of such.

Third and follow on rounds same as the second until one side gives up.

OR

At the players choice before hand at some point surface combat can occur. Given the historical examples in the Pacific at least say 3 or 4 rounds of air combat and then surface task groups can also be used to search out and attack enemy forces.

Again at any point a group can be instructed to break off and therefore play no further part in the action after the amount of search rounds already completed has been completed again. That is to say if a task group participates in two rounds of search in order to break off it must survive two more rounds of search as it steams out of the battle area.

Some notes:
Search aircraft would not be available for strikes in the immediately following strike round.

Aircraft can be reassigned to a different mission after each strike phase is completed.

You can dice to see if carriers are caught with loaded decks anytime a force conducting a strike is also the object of a strike.

You could devise a simple way to determine just how much info the owner of a spotted task force needs to divulge about the composition of that force.

This approach is very simple but it would cover the resource allocation factor in searching versus striking while still putting the focus squarely on the combats that result.

Well that is the idea anyway : )

The example M C LeSingeDew gives is used in the GQ3 supplement The Solomons Campaign with a little modification

Looking at carrier battles it seems that most follow the pattern:

A. One side detects the other.
B. That side launches strike.
C. Survivors launch counter strike.
D. Repeat.

IN A, there could be simultaneous detection.
There is no step C, instead, the system moves to the next strike phase. The same side could potentially launch a second strike before the other side launches one.

Both the detection phase and location phase have modifiers for local weather conditions.

There is a provision for handling multiple task forces as potential targets.

set your percentage chances and roll off the detections and strikes.

The beauty of the Feldmachink link is that you don't have to tell your opponent where you're searching.

I've tried a couple of times now to read and understand the Feldmachink link, but perhaps I'm just dense. I don't really see how this solves the problem.

If your task force is in Area 15, and I search and find something (because my dowel is sticking out of the Feldmachink, which I now have to show to my opponent, to confirm that he's been found)… then my opponent will know that I must have some plane-launching TF of my own, within range of Area 15. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had the ability to stick a dowel in slot #15 in the first place.

Same basic problem, just a different gadget.

I guess I don't understand. You never plan on doing anything to your opponent? If so then you just don't tell him you discovered something in that tube. However you do know that there is something there. Now if you need to know exactly what is there, without your opponent knowing you know, then Featherstone's matchbox method works. You put what forces are in a location in matchbox. When he searches that matchbox he looks at what is there then puts it back. You know nothing.

Not to mention that something like the Feldmachink appears to be a simple either/or proposition; unless I'm missing the subtlety of it, there doesn't appear to be a way to have different levels of contact, such as:

* You spot something on the surface
* You spot an enemy task force with at least one large capital ship.
* You spot the USS Yorktown, five cruisers, and eight destroyers.
* Oops, sorry Chief… we thought it was the Yorktown… now that your strike planes are here, turns out to be an oiler, instead….

You are correct. Unless you use a computer or referee you can never have that amount of subtlety. I suppose you could put misleading information in the matchbox and change it turn by turn but that doesn't seem like a good system.

I've tried a couple of times now to read and understand the Feldmachink link, but perhaps I'm just dense. I don't really see how this solves the problem.

If your task force is in Area 15, and I search and find something (because my dowel is sticking out of the Feldmachink, which I now have to show to my opponent, to confirm that he's been found)… then my opponent will know that I must have some plane-launching TF of my own, within range of Area 15. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had the ability to stick a dowel in slot #15 in the first place.

Well, YEAH. You aren't using satellites, you're using visible search aircraft. And one assumes they have to communicate their findings, so that's another way the enemy will know they are there.

Not to mention that something like the Feldmachink appears to be a simple either/or proposition; unless I'm missing the subtlety of it, there doesn't appear to be a way to have different levels of contact, such as:

* You spot something on the surface
* You spot an enemy task force with at least one large capital ship.
* You spot the USS Yorktown, five cruisers, and eight destroyers.
* Oops, sorry Chief… we thought it was the Yorktown… now that your strike planes are here, turns out to be an oiler, instead….

Perhaps you can rate your fleets and searches by length – a short dowel for a single aircraft or a single enemy vessel, a longer dowel for a concentrated effort with a spread of search aircraft, or a group of targets. So the limited search/single vessel might not combine to be long enough to show sticking out, but you've got an idea that more searching might reveal more info. Or maybe the search dowels could be marked with success levels, so that the more of a search dowel is exposed, the more information has to be revealed.

Sorry, it isn't all wrapped up for you with percentages of intercept and so forth, its just my suggestion that the tool could be adapted to the task as originally defined above, IF you want to do some definition of levels of effort and so on. Or not – I've got no dog in this fight – the last game I played with this kind of search effort was computer Harpoon in the 90s, the last boardgame I played with it was Flat Top in the 80s.

I use a percentile system. Basically, you set your fleet on a hide table, with each TF represented by its size (a 6 ship TF would be 1-6, the next would be 7-12 etc) and you determine the number of searches by how many seperate TF's you have (each TF gets one search, two if radar; each search plane gets 2 searches in day and one in twilight etc). Then the searcher rolls percentage dice for each search and if they roll a number that is on the enemy fleet's hide table they roll a reconnaisance roll, which 1= no further info, 2=TF size +- 50% and guess one ship type, etc up to 6=All ship types are given with numbers of each. The player then decides whether they will launch airstrikes, attempt surface engagement, hide from the enemy (halves their hide number the next turn) or shadow the enemy (doubles the enemy size the next turn). Once a TF acts on a die roll it's done even if it has more searches left.

Hope that makes sense…

this looks like it is just begging for a simple computer table using 3 sheets of an excel spreadsheet. It's not exactly rocket science to set this up. As time permits, I'll work on something for an ETA of 6 months.