"Guadalcanal naval fights" Topic

I just finished re-reading Hornfischer's "Neptune's Inferno", about the naval fighting during the Guadalcanal campaign.

I was struck by the things during night-fighting that would be near impossible to replicate on the gaming table. The three surface fights that ended with US victories, Cape Esperance, the night cruiser fight and the night battleship fight all included serious 'friendly fire'. At Cape Esperance, US cruiser fire sank a US destroyer and crippled another. During the cruiser fight, the cruiser Atlanta was raked by fire from the San Francisco that killed all on the bridge, including Rear Admiral Scott. During the battleship action the BB Washington sank a US destroyer.

There were also many near-collisions and some actual among both fleets.

At the final battle of Tassafaronga, the US CO believed that Japanese submarines must have fired the torpedoes. He didn't think any destroyers could fire accurately at that range. Any WWII naval gamer knows the Japanese Long Lance torpedoes are deadly.

I haven't played any games of this aside from SPI's overly simplistic board game "CA" back when I game tested for them. Do most tactical games of this period give the US ships an advantage for radar-guided fire-control?

One last thing. The US fire-control was aided by early analog computers that took into account the rolling of the ship and such. I know the Japanese navy didn't use radar for fire control. Did they (or anyone else) have anything like computer assisted fire-control?

Mechanical computers for calculating a firing solution go back to WW1, at least. These don't physically move the guns, but the beleaguered sailor sets dials to the various observed measurements and out comes numbers you shout through a tube. There are some great training videos on YouTube on how they work, and everyone should force themselves to sit through at least one – you'll be astounded.

US radar was far from perfect, but I think most games either give the US a bonus for it or base their tables on historical hit results, which of course would include the radar benefit.

As for your more important questions: these are the two big problems with wargames: 1) players know a lot more about what's going on than the admirals ever did, and 2) the vast, vast possibilities just can't all be tucked into a game.

As for the first, never mind that you have an accurate map and know where all the enemy units are, never mind that you know exactly what the odds of getting a hit are and what the weapon ranges are, never mind that you know the exact victory conditions, never mind that your forces do just what you tell them, or at worst won't do what you tell them, never mind that you know what can and cannot happen in terms of random events, critical hits, reinforcements, etc. You know exactly where all of your own forces are and their condition. In real life commanders and their staffs put a lot of effort into keeping track of where their subordinates are and what their doing, and sometimes instead of doing or not doing what you order they do something else entirely.

As for the second, combat is really chaotic and lots of weird things happen. It's hard to put that into a game without the weird things taking over the game. Rules restrict players to what is reasonable, but successful commanders make their forces do very unreasonable things. The D-Day invasion, for example, violates the stacking rules of most WW2 games – you just "can't" have that many divisions in a hex!

But you are asking the right questions: the rules should evoke the period, and if gameplay is too dissimilar to the historical accounts the game is very unsatisfying.

I'll be very eager to read others' responses to the OP.

I think the only way to get this close to historical would be by networking computers and play it like a MMORPG. Each player commands one vessel and the computer doesn't help with ship ID or navigation waypoints. So players would be responsible for knowing ships' silhouettes and would come to value the "Line-Ahead" formation ("I just follow THAT guy?").

Although, without the years of experience, lack of actual responsibility and no chance of death, it could easily become chaos (moreso than the real thing). And you just know at least one BB skipper is going to spend the batle trying to ram/runover destroyers (any destroyer).

U.S. radar-guided fire-control was Excellent but the Admirals didn't understand it or how to use it. Just look at where the U.S.S. Helena keeps getting put in the line formations. one way to simulate this in gaming would be for the players to face away from the game and show them quick glimpses of ship outlines.

I recall a GQIII scenario for a night battle. 4 players, each given ships, they do not know who's team they are on, have to use blips on the table until identified. They do have rules for radar, night fighting, etc. Sounded good, one I will be trying next summer after I complete some other projects.

In one set of rules I read, during night combat if a ship establishes visual contact with a friendly ship that is not part of its formation, you roll a D6. On a 6 you must fire on that ship for one turn. There are also GQ night fighting optional rules out there on the net somewhere.

I will second Marcus and say the US radars were pretty good but until the late 43 the US admirals didn't trust them. Also US did not respect the Long Lance until late 43 as well.
To play before 43 you must saddle the US player with thinking like the US did or have an umpire that mixes up the well known data so no one "knows" it. That is actually more "realistic".
My rules for DD actions, Release the Hounds, introduce simple C2 and it really makes for a much more challanging game. They do not model friendly fire though as that is far too painful to experience!

Cheers

Joe

Another good read on the topic is Russell Sydnor Crenshaw's South Pacific Destroyer, about his experiences as an officer (eventually XO) on USS MAURY (GRIDLEY class).

Concur that is a good book as is Osprey's duel US DDs vrs Japanese DDs.

Joe

I don't know about other rules but the General Quarter 3 system seems to be an interesting way to handle night actions. Each side has to declare specific arcs of search and success or failure is determined with different charts for visual only or visual plus radar. Each side has dummy makers and they must steer a constant course and speed until they detect something that is not a dummy. I like this part of it because it allows the side that detects first to launch torpedoes first. The detected ships have to continue what they are doing bcause they have not yet detected an actual enemy ship. Also, the gunfire charts for each fleet have both a day range scale and a night scale. If a fleet has radar fire control that is factored into its night range scale. All that being said, I have not tried to run a night action myself yet.

I've used GQ3's night rules in a partial (solo) action. Also included are optional rules for the US TBS and Japanese wireless ship to ship communications.

In a night battle between two Myoko's and 3DD's (Adm. Takagi) vs. the original TF64 Minneapolis, Boise, HMNZS Leander and 4DD's, Admiral Wright) .

The Americans picked up the Japanese on radar at 24,000 yards. Fire cannot be opened until the flagships have a visual on the enemy. The Japanese had a major advantage at this, as reflected in the night acquisition charts.

However, the Japanese failed visual acquisition rolls until the Japanese destroyers and the Allied task forcr sighted each other at 7800 yards. The Americans were crossing the Japanese "T"

The IJN destroyers were in line abreast ahead of the cruisers, still out of visual to both sides. Wireless message from destroyers will not reach the Myoko until next turn. TBS allows 3 brief messages per turn, received the same turn. Rules call for ships to fire on the closest enemy. Adm. Wright orders ships to open fire.

The Americans crippled 2 destroyers. One, with all turrets destroyed, failed a morale check and disengaged. The division flagship also had all turrets destroyed, was on fire, and suffered a bridge hit. She would continue on a straight course toward the Allied line, to be blown apart the next turn.

The third destroyer, undamaged, launched 8 torpedoes at the Boise, and missed. As it turned to open it's broadside 5" arc, it collided with the Myoko, still proceeding ahead, since the situation was unclear to Takagi (all he could see were the American gun flashes, and his own burning ship). Myoko suffered a hull hit, the destroyer had a bulkhead ripped open. Things have been pretty much going the Allies' way at this point.

Things now get ugly. Since the Allies have the burning Japanese destroyer (illuminated target) as the closest target, almost all ships will concentrate fire on her. This leaves the remaining Japanese ships pretty much free to fire on targets of opportunity. For at least one round, anyway…..

It is impossible to fully implement the fog of war. But GQ3 does a really good job of forcing you to play it the way it was.

Sorry to highjack the post but…

Joe Legan, I read about your "Release the hounds" rules here and in another post, and I am interested. Are you going to release them commercially? Are you still in a playtesting stage? If you need playtesters, I volunteer: I have ships and friends somehow familiar with naval wargaming. Let me know, thanks and best

One way to play is to incorporate some of the following:

Don't play "historical" games. It's not fun just to recreate a battle that you could read about and enjoy that way. If the gametable battle doesn't turn out just like the real one, people will get ticked off. Instead put one or both sides in something like a historical setting and force pool, but mix things up so "unexpected" things occur. "But there wasn't an old battleship at XXXX". "But it only takes 47.2 minutes to sail between Savo Island and xxx". Running a ship onto a rock and damaging it is a nice way to spoil some cocky guy's night.

Start the game with ships in first sighting contact. (why not? and it saves time- why spend an hour doing little?)

Use dummy markers for ships that are not seen yet. Use a couple extra for each side. Number them. Each side moves their real and dummies. The Umpire moves some too. (Some of these might be forces owned by one side, with known orders from the admiral but not yet under his control. "He did WHAT!!! The stupid !!!") (try not to chuckle).

If you have several players on a side, let the umpire control some dummies, that could turn into one of the players ship positions. These are owned by a player, but not yet controlled by him. They might not show up where they were supposed to. Let his friend decide to shoot at those unexpected ships or get closer for a positive ID. Make it clear that this is part of the scenerio design and not just a capricious move on the umpire's part. You might make the exact result be the consequence of die rolls that the player is asked to made. Later present the owner with a card explaining just what the options had been and not that you are just pulling his chain. Don't expect to get a Christmas card from the guy.

Scatter some "rain squalls" around and allow them to move slowly and even change themselves. When a ship enters the squall, have the owner write his next 5 – 10 moves (what ever is about twice what he needs to clear the squall) and have the umpire figure out when he pops out again. Don't update the marker each turn- just leave it where it disappeared. From a fabric store you can buy what I think is called bunting, a thin white, non-woven fabric that is used for reinforcing and stiffening parts of dresses etc. It is light, thin and easily ripped into irregular shapes. Use this for the rain squalls and have the umpire move it around like a slow ship.

Roll each turn for changes in the sighting distance. Be sure that DD's are harder to spot than CA, CL or BB;s. Small ships with an island behind them are harder to see. Japanese knew how to use float planes for recon, spotting and dropping flares around enemy ships. Have them go out on a defined search pattern with some chance of spotting or not spotting targets.

Please pile on with other crazy-making ideas.

It's a mechanic from Infinity, but I really like the way it works: Instead of being deployed as the model of whatever, you only see a marker of some type. You must 'discover' the marker before you can shoot at it.

Markers can move, etc, but as soon as they do something that requires rolling dice, the marker is revealed as whatever model (and then you typically have a penalty to-hit due to the camo).

Valerio,

I actually just finished it and will start looking around for a publisher after the holidays. If you want to see some battle reports they are on my blog:
platoonforward.blogspot.com
Most of the reports are for small craft (look at the second to last report ) but I assure you it works for destroyer actions as well [ see Polar Coast from Jan ].

Biased opinion but it is different in that not only does it focus on C2 but it is simple enough that every ship has only 4 states of damage but has the chrome of turret hits, flooding and armored bridges for certain E-boats.

Cheers

Joe

Lion- That's pretty much what GQ3 does. Before a force/ship can be fired on, you have to first detect it and then acquire it. The first means you've found 'something', the second that you've ID'd it. And that can lead to some cases where you've detected a contact that never gets acquired due to the vagaries of the die roll.