NCC1717 | 10 Feb 2018 6:16 p.m. PST |
This weekend the local HMGS-South group played a fictitious naval battle set in the Adriatic in WW1. On June 15, 1915, a few weeks after the Italian declaration of war on Austria-Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian fleet sails to attack Brindisi and to lure out Italian fleet. The Italians are alerted and hope to avenge Lissa. link
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Shagnasty | 10 Feb 2018 9:57 p.m. PST |
Interesting concept and nice looking ships. |
Doctor X | 11 Feb 2018 12:41 a.m. PST |
Looks like a good game! I'm envious of your program that runs on OpenOffice. I'd love to give it a go. I've been fiddling with ShipBase III for a few years now trying to fix the ROF and other issues it has and it is a PITA to edit. |
Yellow Admiral | 11 Feb 2018 10:30 a.m. PST |
After four hours of play we ended the game with the Austro-Hungarians having lost 2 battleships and all their destroyers and the Italians having lost most of their destroyers. Several cruisers on both sides were badly shot up. LOL! According to my gaming experience, this is how all WWI naval battles end. :-) I'm not sure how to break this paradigm. Gamers will never be as fearful of losses as real life captains and admirals. It's impossible to run a campaign if the first battle is always Ragnarok. A fleet without light forces is bound to be pretty ineffective. - Ix |
BuckeyeBob | 11 Feb 2018 12:00 p.m. PST |
Doctor X….shipbase 3 ship data. line 15 is MG ROF, 27 is SG ROF and 39 is TG ROF. I cracked most of the data code decades ago. if you want a copy of the DOS data code send me a private email glenmwilli at msn dot com |
NCC1717 | 11 Feb 2018 12:22 p.m. PST |
I'm not sure how to break this paradigm. Gamers will never be as fearful of losses as real life captains and admirals. There is a function in the code that might help. For each side, and for various types of ships, a mode can be set which will trigger a turn away or retreat: - no retreat - close range and closing rate - high damage and ratio (firing ship vs target) - medium damage and ratio - heavy shell incoming - medium/heavy shell incoming - any incoming fire I have not used this yet beyond testing, and don't know how players will feel about losing control. |
Bozkashi Jones | 11 Feb 2018 1:37 p.m. PST |
I'm play testing some home-brew rules where I've lifted some mechanisms from Chain of Command by Too Fat Lardies (I hesitate to say that a naval version would be 'Wet…') In this I have 'Resolve', which is basically force morale – once it fails then command and control become more difficult (fewer command dice) so the player will withdraw wherever possible. It basically simulates the niggling feeling in the commander's mind of "what will the Admiralty/Kaiser say…?", something that we, as wargamers, don't have. I'm not sure how it would work for fleet actions, though; I developed it for smaller engagements where it seems to work fine. Nick |
A C London | 11 Feb 2018 4:33 p.m. PST |
I wonder if there isn't a tendency for WWI rules to exaggerate the vulnerability of destroyers / torpedo boats? Losses in surface actions don't seem to have been that high. And that didn't generally stem from a reluctance to commit them. |
NCC1717 | 11 Feb 2018 6:17 p.m. PST |
As an example from this battle, one Austo-Hungarian unit of 6 Huszar class boats was destroyed by the fire of 4 Italian armored cruisers. The ranges were from about 3000 yards down to about 1300 yards, with most of the hits at around 1800 yards. The cruisers fired about 429 shells to get 3 hits with 10" guns, 2 hits with 7.5" guns and 13 hits with 3" guns. |
Doctor X | 12 Feb 2018 11:40 p.m. PST |
The ranges were from about 3000 yards down to about 1300 yards, with most of the hits at around 1800 yards. Assuming no big visibility issues the DDs should've been sunk. That's pretty close. |
Doctor X | 12 Feb 2018 11:42 p.m. PST |
BuckeyeBob – Thanks! I got that file from you a little over a year ago. It's editing all those lines for all the different ships that is making me nuts. No patience for such things. Appreciate your help! |
Blutarski | 15 Feb 2018 9:00 p.m. PST |
"I wonder if there isn't a tendency for WWI rules to exaggerate the vulnerability of destroyers / torpedo boats? Losses in surface actions don't seem to have been that high. And that didn't generally stem from a reluctance to commit them." - – - I once ran the numbers on DD and TB vulnerability to gunfire as evidenced at Jutland. I'll try to find the document. Drawing from memory - Guns </= 4in required a large number of hits to put a large DD/TB out of action. The most common result was disablement of motive power and crew casualties. Outright sinkings were uncommon Guns in the 5.9-6in or greater range were much more effective. Far fewer hits were required to disable and/or silence the target ship, with sinking a good deal more likely if heavily hit. A single BB main battery caliber HE hit (or a common shell that succeeded in exploding before passing through and beyond the target ship would be sufficient to sink a DD/TB. Lightly built DD/TBs did not always present sufficient resistance to activate the fuze of a heavy caliber AP projectile. Crazy over-aggressiveness with light forces is sadly a hallmark of many naval games. Too many gamers consider the DDs as torpedo-armed throw-aways. The historical reality of the matter was that DD/TBs (and their crews) were quite highly valued. No sane admiral would dream of sending his precious heavy ships to sea without an ample anti-submarine escort provided by these DD/TBs. In fact, the Grand Fleet advisory to destroyers advancing to the torpedo attack was to approach no closer than 5,000 yards to the enemy battle-line in daylight, as the increased risk of loss from enemy defensive fire was too great. B
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NCC1717 | 17 Feb 2018 2:31 p.m. PST |
Good points, thanks Blutarski. A few comments with respect to this game: The code does not model individual destroyers, only a composite unit. The 'number of boats left' is just a ratio of the remaining strength to the original strength. The original number of boats is also used to limit the damage that can be done by a single hit. No shell, however large, will do more than one 'boats worth' of damage to the unit. A destroyed unit does not imply all boats are sunk, only that there are no functioning boats from the point of view of the players. The slow speed setting torpedo ranges for the DD/TB units in this game were: AH-I 10,936 yards at 21 knots AH-II 6,562 yards at 20 knots IT1, IT2 3,281 yards at 30 knots With the possible exception of AH-I, I suspect these boats were not suitable for daylight torpedo attacks. The latest British or German boats in my WW1 scenarios (with ~10K yard/28 knot torpedoes) would be likely to launch torpedoes and turn away before getting within 5,000 yards of the target. In the player's defense, I did instruct them in the pre-game brief that their governments (unlike the historical counterparts) expected a fight to the finish. |
Blutarski | 17 Feb 2018 7:45 p.m. PST |
NCC1717 - Some info for your next WW1 Adriatic engagement - AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN TORPEDOES 45cm L/5 --- 1905/1906 --- 95kg warhead 3,000m @ 32 kts; 6,000m @ 19.5 kts Underwater tubes: Erherzog Karl Cl, Sankt Georg Cl. 45cm L/5 --- 1909/1915 --- 110kg warhead 5,000m @ 33.5 kts; 10,000m @ 20.5 kts Deck-mount tubes: Huszar Cl, Kaiman Cl, 110t TB Cl. 53cm L/6.3 – 1909 -------- 180kg warhead 1,000m @ 41 kts; 10,000m @ 29 kts Underwater tubes: Tegetthoff Cl. 53cm L/7.18 – 1914 ------- 180kg warhead 1,000m @ 41 kts; 10,000m @ 36 kts Deck-mounted tubes: "Rapidkreuzer" (Saida?) - – - – - – - – - - ITALIAN TORPEDOES A100/450 ---- 1911 ------- 100kg warhead 800m @ 34 kts; 1,000m @ 31 kts; 2,000m @ 24 kts A100/450 ---- 1912 ------- 100kg warhead 800m @ 34 kts; 1,000m @ 32.5 kts; 2,000m @ 26 kts A100/450* --- 1912 ------- 100kg warhead 1,000m @ 42 kts; 2,000m @ 38 kts A110/450 ---- 1913 ------- 110kg warhead 2,000m @ 38 kts A115/450 ---- 1914 ------- 115kg warhead 1,000m @ 41 kts; 2,000m @ 36 kts; 3,000m @ 30 kts A180bis/533 – 1916 ------- 180kg warhead 9,000m @ 27 kts A180bis/533 – 1917 ------- 180kg warhead 9,000m @ 25 kts - – - – - – - – - - FWIW. B |
NCC1717 | 17 Feb 2018 8:20 p.m. PST |
Thanks again Blutarski. This data looks like what I have from Friedman's WW1 book. I used the L5 1905/1906 644kg model for the Huzars since he doesn't say when they switched to the L5 1909/1915. I had to guess what to do for the Tatras and the Italian boats, so I used the L5 1909/1915 and the A115/450. It is a problem that, in general, I have lots of torpedo and shell data, but only spotty information on when any particular ship got issued what. |
Blutarski | 17 Feb 2018 9:55 p.m. PST |
Hi NCC1717 - The Austro-Hungarian torpedo info came from an Austrian reference source and forwarded to me by a friend. The Italian torpedo data I took from Aldo Fraccaroli's book "Italian Warships of WW1". B |
Bozkashi Jones | 19 Feb 2018 2:50 p.m. PST |
@ Blutarski "Crazy over-aggressiveness with light forces is sadly a hallmark of many naval games. Too many gamers consider the DDs as torpedo-armed throw-aways" This is one of the reasons I introduced the idea of "resolve", or force morale. This is common practice for land gamers, so why not naval? My rules stemmed out of making small actions (less than 6 ships) interesting and not just a dice rolling competition. My yardstick is the Lofoten Islands action in 1940 – played with 'disposable heroes' this is a walkover for the Germans (18 x 11" guns v 6 x 15"). Introduce force morale and you start to see players behave as Lütjens did. Nick |
Bozkashi Jones | 19 Feb 2018 3:01 p.m. PST |
Oh, and NCC1717 – that looks like a fantastically fun game! |