"Hit location and damage system for ships" Topic

What system or rules do you think best simulates where a round hit a ship and damage to internal system whether penetration occurs or not? What rule do the best job for simulating flooding?

Do people favor a points based system?

Wolfhag

Honestly? I'm not interested in that level of detail, just the effect on the general capabilities of the ship – speed, gunnery, fire control, floatation, magazine explosion….

For which GQ is fine.

Same here. If you were looking for simpler alternatives, or don't mind abstractions, there was the old Broadsides and Boarding Parties that was a pirate game with an interesting 'sector' based damage system. There is also the system Battleship Galaxy used, which was a random pin point system.

Naval Warfare Simulations' Dreadnaught Rising and Battleship Zenith have a pretty robust damage system which includes listing and its affect on ship performance (gunnery, speed, capsizing, etc.)

Regards,

Scott Chisholm

try naval thunder. simple but effective for what you want.

For that level of detail probably Seekrieg V. But also a pretty good one is Len Heintz's (sp?) set he has for free on the web. Individual compartments for damage. There is also Battlestations by Zimm for the ultimate in detail, though there is only stats for about 10 ships. You could also scrounge up Clear for Action or Cordite and Steel, which both have individual ship damage charts…

I enjoy that level of detail but do admit that games are not fast when using it, especially with more than a handful of ships per side. Len's Fire on the Waters uses a 2D6- 36 hit location system which I liked so much that I developed a D100 based one for my own rules and ship charts.
Alan Zimm's Battelstations was made into a PC based game called Action Stations that has 12 or so hit locations.
The various Fighting Steel PC games from SSI also had specific hit locations. I enjoyed running the damage control functions on those games probably more than the actual targeting and firing aspect.
IMO Seekrieg V uses a more generalized system and flooding damage effects rather than actual specific hit locations for the most part.
Most naval rules (GQ3, Naval Thunder, VaS, SeaPower, Avalanche Press) that have a hit damage system are very generic and may state turret or gun hits, or torpedo tube hits, but have very generally stated other damage (i.e. hull hits, flooding, lose of FC).
All of them are fine for quicker games that still give a good feel for damage inflicted.

It seems to me that level of play would be great with each player a captain of his/her own ship rather than a fleet or squadron. Players could be in separate locations, but referees knowing all would be necessary. A computer program would be helpful to put the players in real time. Sounds like high pressure fun and everyone ends the day with their favorite beverage and pizza.

Rustymusket
Exactly how I used my set of rules. email games with 6 to 8 players, each commanding his own ship, knowing only what is visible to them. I acted as GM (rolled the dice and figured the hit locations). Pre-game I provided each the schematic of their ship and their objective. Each turn I provided some commentary as if I were various officers advising the captain (i.e. gunnery, torpedo, damage control, lookout reports) provided pictures from ship perspective so they saw hits/misses-- shell splashs (golf tees), smoke and other ships (they had to ID them on their own). I passed along radio messages, and to the ship hit, the locations, damage and flooding reports. The captains provided DC orders, targets for guns/torps, movement orders and other instructions.
I enjoyed the games, esp. watching the captains act somewhat cautiously not seeing or knowing what all they were up against and being concerned about the damage they had taken.
Most of the players, tho not really into naval games, commented that they enjoyed the experience too.
(BTW, we ran a number of WW2 ETO and NA games the same way, via email using a variation of a popular skirmish ruleset).

The Best that I ever played was "Battlefleet" by the late Terry Manton. Terry had studied, used, developed and refined this all his life and the product was excellent. He had it down and made it as playable and fast moving as could be given the time needed for the system. He had developed it from the original Janes Fighting ship diagrams, but his game was far and away more sophisticated. My own tastes never went to that level of sophistication but if yours do, try and get a copy of the rules. They're long out of print but some people still use them.

Terry had advanced that mechanic in naval wargaming about as far as it could go.

For me it depends on the nature of the engagement. If I'm fighting a small cruiser/destroyer action (e.g. the Arctic convoy battles) then I like hit locations and all the detail that goes with it as it adds to the 'feel'. For this I use rules adapted from Paul Hague's books which use plan views to plot the track of shells and the damage. I can decide whether to counter flood to prevent listing, etc.

On the other hand, if I'm commanding a large force (e.g. for a WW2 fleet action in the Med) then I prefer to abstract much more so I can concentrate on getting my various squadrons in order and developing my battle plan. For these battles I use 'Battlestations! Battlestations!', which are fast moving and fun.

Nick