"How do you wargame modern naval ?" Topic

I have recently rekindled my interest in modern naval wargaming through a combination of finding a collection of Navwar UK/USSR 1/3000 ships that have been long neglected, reading the John Wingate trilogy (Frigate, Submarine, Carrier), and the current geopolitical tensions. I have reviewed a number of rule sets (Harpoon, Rules for Modern Naval Warfare 1950-1985, and a variety of free downloads). The problem I have is that unlike the Napoleonic or WWI naval wargames that I am used to where manoeuvre, speed and positioning are key elements of a game – modern naval wargaming resembles a shooting gallery; place your forces and let your opponent throw everything against them and see if they survive, and if they survive return the compliment.
This may well be fun but could get a bit dull after a while.
The only way I can think of introducing more decision making and force and target selection is to game at an operational/campaign level which has it's own limitations representing limited knowledge and I presume the need for an umpire or other double blind system.

I have thought about integrating the movement, search and detection rules in Harpoon's Captains Edition with the tactical resolution of another set of rules to bring out the different ship/aircraft/sub capabilities.

Apologies for the long ramble just interested to hear how other people have tackled this to get a fun wargame session – of course I could go back to using my PC version of Harpoon but then I will not get to paint or push my ships around a table !

I have never ventured in to modern naval because I'm really only interested in surface actions. These days it's just hard to come up with plausible reasons for ships to fight ships. Seems like they are really mostly just targets as you describe.

At least with WW2 there are smaller surface and night actions, plus coastal forces.

I have played in several Harpoon games over the years, and have greatly enjoyed scenarios run by the designers at conventions. To make it more than just a shooting match, other factors need to come into play. Such as an objective. One such scenario involved a French frigate extracting a spec ops team from Libya, while Libyan missile boats sorted out all the naval traffic(freighters, tankers, fishing trawlers, etc.) to find the frigate and engage it. Secrecy was part of the scenario,so even though the missile boats didn't sink the frigate, it was damaged, so points were awarded for the obvious damage, that had to be explained. You could have ships on escort duty, protecting a certain vessel, or rescuing a damaged vessel, and getting it to safety. The possibilities are many. Another scenario I recall is a NATO task force out to find and finish off a wounded Soviet carrier. The smaller actions can be quite fun, not all need to be Jutland 2.0. That is just surface, subsurface is a whole different aspect unto itself. I have done a scenario with a UK frigate(w/helo) vs a Soviet sub. While a ref would be optimal, it played out well with 2 players. Then there is air,from bombers attacks to fighter engagements, to recon and airliners, all sorts of possibilities are there. A campaign would provide lots of scenarios as well. Captains Edition Harpoon could speed things up a bit, interesting idea.

Small actions or unusual actions are the easiest and, I find, the mos satisfying. I've run a number of Falklands scenarios and campaigns which have worked well, as have my Cod War and modern coastal games. One of our more interesting larger scenarios was a multi player mini campaign set in a mythical state slipping into civil war.You had players for the three factions in country, all of whom had secured some air and sea assets, a British task force engaged in executing a NEO, and US, Russian and other nations with ships in the area engaged in various potentially nefarious activities. It all started in a time off tense peace, but slowly degenerated into a shooting war, but quite low key and some interesting engagements as I recall.

On a PC. : )

A lot depends on how you set up the scenario (mini-campaign) you are playing. I've played a number of scenarios with smaller ships and limited forces where there is maneuvering and multiple chances for ships to attack each other. That said, if you expect to use WW1/WW2 tactics or scenarios with modern ships, you will probably be disappointed. While there are some cases where you will see gun actions, the more likely result (especially with larger navies) is long range missile or air attacks.

In my opinion, games work best when there is a reason for players to have to think about planning their attacks and ammunition limits (most ships only carry a limited number of missiles, so expending them all against the first target you detect might not be a good idea). For modern naval games, I think that the level of maneuver and attack planning that most people associate with naval combat happens at a grand tactical, or even operational, level rather than the tactical level (which is what you see in WW1/WW2 games).

For larger scale, fleet size naval conflicts I've been toying around with the idea of having my table top be a large area where task groups maneuver and check for detection, and then having a "tactical display" where ships are set up in position for resolving missile and air attacks (probably sub attacks too). Gunnery battles might have to be done slightly differently.

Using Captain's Edition Harpoon would be a good place to start with the maneuver and detection models. Then your favorite tactical rules can be used to actually resolve any attacks.

Falklands, Iran-Iraq (missile boats but amphibious assault too), Tanker War. Both the Soviets and the USN escorted ships into the upper Gulf. Mines, enemy aircraft that you are not allowed to kill without cause, actual surface battles with small forces. The ships weren't always tankers as the Soviets sent war material to Iraq

There's a cool scenario waiting to be written about the Soviet withdrawal of their noncombatants (in this case 21 women and 17 children) underfire by Eritrean secessionists (well that's what the Soviets called them)from the Soviet naval base on Dahlak.

So you have an old tanker, being used as a transport, escorted by a Natya I, Scout, threading through small islands some of which have Grad multiple rockets launchers and keeping a weary eye out for "Swedish" boats with multiple recoilless and machine guns. I assume the Swedish boats are Boghammars like the ones the Iranians used.

One of the escorts is AK-213 described as an artillery boat. I don't know her class, possibly a Stenka class?

Or Scount, again, half a year later rescuing Soviet fishing trawlers from Morocco

Post-Apocalyptic with fuel, ammo and food/water shortages.

I can't say I've run a lot of them, due to some of the concerns you've mentioned, and the complexities that can be involved in many cases.

I think Don is right, computer gaming is ideal for this.

However, I find minis a lot more satisfying to look at, and play with. In modern combat, having a GM and simple rules is helpful. There are some ways around not having a GM though too, if you're creative, and can trust your opponent(s). See the end of this posting for ideas on that.

I definitely need to do a bit more of this type of gaming, since a lot of my collection is just languishing in storage. May have to pull some out, and give them a little more sea time.

It also depends upon the period you've selected, and the rules you choose to use.

1950s era (and I suppose the 1960s too, in some cases) hypothetical conflicts can be interesting, since you're pretty much using WWII tactics in many cases, with slightly more modern vessels.

I played a solo game with a couple of Riga class vessels vs. "modern" West German S-Boats with torpedoes. It was pretty fun, and those Rigas are a tough nut to crack, unless you have a lot of MTBs, or can surprise them. I used DM's Bulldogs Away rules for that.

The West Germans want a rematch, and plan to have more boats next time.

I've also used Bulldogs for a hypothetical missile boat action around the Danish Isles, at the start of WWIII. Came up with some house rules for patrolling, to make that scenario interesting for solo play. Due to the tight terrain around the islands, and since it was night, the battle occurred at fairly close range.

2 x Willemoes class boats vs. 3 x Osa class vessels. See here for a narrative of the battle:

TMP link

I've also used them, and Shipwreck for hypothetical/semi-historical missile boat actions between the Israelis and Syrians too. Good fun.

Ran a Falklands Conflict air attack by the Argies against the RN amphibious landing in San Carlos Sound a number of years back. The vessels were anchored, so were sitting ducks, but there were a variety of vessels, so the "pilots" got to choose what to attack, and from what direction (I gave them a couple of operational choices for that, in addition to their on table, tactical maneuvering).

The Brits had to deploy their two Sea Harriers outside of their vessels' Air Defense Exclusion Zone to avoid becoming "own goals", and to come up with a plan for the CAP coverage, since they had limited time on station (another pair of jets were waiting in the wings to relieve them, with a little overlap if the timing was just right – then four SHARs would be available for a short period of time).

I'd like to think that was a pretty entertaining game. The players all seemed to enjoy themselves, despite losing some jets, and having a lot of dud bombs as in real life, during the war (had them roll separately for being on target to hit the ships with their bombs, and then again for seeing if they actually exploded – only about 20% did detonate, so lots of hurrahs, followed by severe let-downs, which added to the drama of the attacks. Even unexploded bombs could cause some damage, though much less than when they worked as designed.). Used Shipwreck rules for the vessels and damage to them, and Clash of Sabres for the air-to-air battle (home brew rules for the SHARs and Aim-9Ls).

As in the real conflict, some damage was done to the vessels, but none were sunk. A few were damaged, or set on fire. A number of jets were downed. Each player was in charge of a flight of four jets of varying types for the Argies. British pilots got one SHAR each, and ran the defensive ship AA and SAMs.

In an epic turn of events, an Argentine pilot, whose jet was damaged, managed to down a SHAR with a head-on cannon shot by killing its pilot (1% chance of that occurring – golden BB shot, since the SHAR was only damaged). The Skyhawk pilot managed to nurse his plane back to base, to become a hero of the Argentine people.

We used 1/600th jets with 1/600th and 1/700th scale naval vessels.

Without a GM, you can have each player, or side plot their movements, speeds, starting and ending points, whether they're using active or passive sensors, etc., etc., in secret, using a map of the region you're fighting over.

Then each side reveals their vessels on the tabletop, moves them incrementally turn by turn, and follows their sensor and visual spotting plots to determine when contact occurs. Once one, or both sides have contact, those who've spotted the enemy can act. Those in the dark will need to continue to follow their "orders" until such time as they spot: the enemy, incoming missiles, or are sunk or damaged.

Once they become aware of the enemy, they can then act freely. Depending upon their training, and communications gear, they may need to wait a turn to react to detected targets or inbound missiles, or in some cases may respond immediately – lesser trained crews and captains can be caught napping, which causes at least a one turn delay in their ability to respond, as they wake up to what is happening, and the fact they're under attack. If desired, you can roll a die against their training level, if that's included in the rules for a bit of variability in their reactions.

I think keeping modern naval actions on the tabletop fairly small, but with an interesting background story, or mission helps make the games more entertaining.

I hope the above helps some with your quest to enjoy modern naval gaming.

The old game Seastrike did a good job of simulating modern warfare simply.

Tactics are more about deciding whether or not to engage and with what mix of mutually supporting weapon systems.

Modern naval is a period that is hard to do well. Harpoon 4 is the best way to go, but it is a LOT of work, especially for the referee. The amount of things that need to be checked each turn can be staggering when using even a handful of ships, subs, and aircraft. However, Harpoon will teach you a lot about modern naval combat, especially how hard it is to locate ships and subs, theoretical ranges vs. when you can actually fire at things, and that you will probably need to sacrifice a large part of your air force to get near a U.S. carrier!

Our group over the years has played a Falklands campaign, a Kurile Islands campaign (involved hundreds of ships and aircraft) between Japan and Russia, plus many other actions. We gave up about five years ago as keeping track of the latest developments was tough and the work involved just to do a scenario was too much as we get older!

To repeat myself: I didn't like the tactical rules I've played because they ended up being like "Tommy vs the Zulus" (You shoot they move You shoot they move You shoot they move You shoot they move then the last surviving missiles blow the crap out of your fleet), so I made up my own, 10 miles to the inch and a turn is 8 hours. I call them "Meatheads with Missiles", but I'm not done tweaking the the stats as the Russian SAM's are pretty weak. We did play a game where the Soviets put down a US CV, It took a coordinated strike with 26 bombers and 5 submarines for a total of 76 missiles and two successful torpedo attacks.

Surface v surface is pretty much an IGOUGO shooting gallery, at least in full-on war scenarios. Same with air v surface.

Subs are just about impossible to do accurately without a referee or computer moderator, but I'm still trying (borrowing ideas from Infinity, which has a good hidden-movement mechanic). Subs attacking surface ships is a shooting gallery, except the surface ships don't get to shoot back.

I think you need to limit yourself to other than wartime scenarios, with as much hidden movement and false targets/merchant ships as possible.

But I'd still want a computer or referee to handle the details.

I'm coming to the realization that very few people on this board know anything about modern naval combat. It is very complex and any attempt to turn it into a Flames of War type game just makes it even more ridiculous. Modern naval games can be very fun and our club has run some quite large games, but they are a lot of work and can go on for multiple nights. However, you need to use rules that deal with sensors, ECM, subs, hundreds of different weapons systems, etc., as that's the only way to simulate what could actually happen.

Now by all means you're free to design some game with a ridiculous time scale, roll a D10 and on a 8+ a carrier blows up with everyone having a good time, but don't assume that simulates modern naval combat.

Aegiscg47 – I understand what you're saying, but to be honest that's pretty much true for all wargames rules, but I still enjoy playing them. I honestly don't believe it is possible to replicate naval warfare in sufficient detail and still have a game that I would enjoy. I like games to run in something like real time; if I take half an hour to determine 15 seconds of action then I am not making critical decisions fast enough. Just my preference, but wargames rules are all about compromise, and compromise is all about preferences.

Nick

Aegiscg47 – Remember, there has never been a modern battle. For historic periods one can design rules based on what actually happened. Conflicts like the Arab-Israeli wars give examples of modern ground and air combat. However, modern naval combat is all based on theory.