"Line of Fire & Screens" Topic

I've recently come back to gaming after a 25 year hiatus & because of my location in the back of beyond, needed something simple….so decided on WWI naval. I've been using the FAI rules with the optional extras….but one area doesn't feel right & that's the question of intervening ships….
I understand the '3000 yards & the heavy line in the gunnery tables' but it seems overly restrictive especially as CLs, CAs & DDs were often used as a screen.
So….can anyone shed some light on this? How do other rules deal with it & do players have any in-house rules? Thanks

No expert, but suspect WW1 era masking was more of an issue than later periods due to coal fired boilers and the vast amount of smoke generated at battle speeds…?

I would concur with Boz.

That having been said, no captain liked having projectiles flying over his ship.

B

I don't know FAI, but the last set of naval rules I read used a simple system: Intervening ships may be fired over without penalty as long as they are smaller than both shooter and target. Otherwise, fire is blocked. Quick and easy, it allows flotillas of light ships to do their screening duties as well as torpedo attacks between the main battle lines.

Is it historically accurate for them to be between the lines while the battleships are slugging it out? I must let someone else address that. The books I have at hand show only the capital ships in diagrams, with light units being somewhere else or perhaps just omitted.

Vidgrip…..my thoughts are similar to yours but FAI don't allow this unless the target is at a relatively long range 12 or 15k yards. I've been struggling to find much on-line info re DD & CL tactics in WW1… seems DDs were placed ahead or astern of the BB battle-line & at opportune moments would conduct multi-flotilla high-speed drives at the enemy battle-line to fire torpedoes….with CLs providing either cover against enemy DDs attacking their own BB battle-line or to counter enemy DD attacks against friendly DDs conducting their attack….

Dolphinless,

[ 1 ] Google search under "British Destroyers at Jutland: Torpedo Tactics". You should be able to access a useful article by the good Mr John Brooks (whose name should be familiar to all here … I hope).

[ 2 ] Go here – link – and read through the reports of the various destroyer flotillas.

[ 3 ] Go here – link – and scroll all the way to the bottom to the "Tactics" section. You might find other items here of interest as well.

Enjoy.

B

Thanks Blutarski…. I had seen some of those resources before….and have modelled & then put the tactics into effect with only 8 RN destroyers… I've recently doubled the number of destroyers & added some Town-class cruisers & hope to try again tomorrow…. I shall let you know how it pans out.

Nice if you could take some photos too Dolphinless!

I've never played WW1 with the number of DDs I should, so I'll be fascinated to know how you get on.

Nick

Hi Dolphinless,

Do report back on your work.

I have a copy of the 1916 RN torpedo handbook, which contains a lengthy section on tactics. In brief -

A torpedo attack made by an individual destroyer against an individual target ship was typically pressed to a launch range within 5,000 yards. These were fairly rare in daytime for obvious reasons.

Daytime flotilla attacks were typically made as "browning attacks" against a formation of opposing capital ships. Pressing such an attack closer than 5,000 yards was considered unnecessary and too risky in the face of massed secondary counter-fire. The center of an enemy squadron line was usually considered the aiming point.

The optimal launch point for an attack was considered to be about two points before the beam of the enemy. Launch points within 45deg of the enemy's bow were inferior, as were launch point abaft the enemy's beam. Torpedo launches from a point greater than 45 degrees abaft the enemy's beam were strenuously discouraged as useless efforts.

Note – the above guidelines work magnificently, IF you are using rules with realistic torpedo mechanics. Otherwise, not so much.

- – -

WW1 British torpedoes (the large majority of models) could be set for different speed/range combinations, very roughly speaking -

> short range / high speed (4-5,000 yds @ 40-45 knots.
> medium range / medium speed (10-11,000 yds @ 30-32 knots).
> extreme range / LOW speed 15-18,000 yds @ 18-20 knots).
Note – extreme range (ER) torpedoes introduced in 1916, IIRC.

- but could only be set when outside the torpedo tube. Hence, British DDs would typically carry, say, two torpedoes at Medium Range setting, one at Short Range setting and one at Extreme Range setting. That is one reason why (I believe) British destroyers did not launch full salvoes; a second reason was that n flotilla did not want to shoot its entire bolt in a single go; a third reason was that torpedoes were very expensive creatures and were not to be wastefully expended.

I always play my WW1 sea battles with a full allotment of light cruisers and destroyers. The destroyers take position several thousand yards on the disengaged bow of the battle-line in division columns. The light cruiser squadron positioned slightly ahead of the destroyers. If you have extra light cruiser squadrons (like Beatty in the Run to South) keep one trailing along on the disengaged side of the rear of your battle-line in case you are forced to reverse course.

The responsibility of the destroyers is to attack the enemy battle-line: (a) should a good opportunity present itself; or (b) if you need to encourage the enemy to turn away.

The responsibility of the light cruisers is: (a) to protect your battle line from enemy destroyer attack; (b) support the attack of your destroyers against the enemy.

The above is not intended to be a fully comprehensive tactical manual, just a decent start to sensible handling of light forces on the table-top from a salty old naval commander. Good Luck and Splice the Mainbrace when you get back to port.

BIG PET PEEVE – It is NOT the job of light cruisers to rush in against the enemy battle-line at the start of the game and get blown up right away in exchange for possibly landing a couple of meaningless 4in/6in hits. Not in any way suggesting anyone here would do so, but I just cringe when I see it (mostly at cons).

FWIW.

B

BIG PET PEEVE – It is NOT the job of light cruisers to rush in against the enemy battle-line at the start of the game and get blown up right away in exchange for possibly landing a couple of meaningless 4in/6in hits.

That's a pet peeve of mine too. Most gamers treat light forces as ammo to be expended going for The Big Hit™ on a capital ship or two. Most games I've played with whole squadrons of battleships have almost no light ships left by the end of the game. I've tried to prevent this with advice, shaming, victory conditions, deliberately imbalanced victory points, explicit instructions, and even direct orders. Only serious veteran naval gamers seem to even try to get it right.

On the bright side, I have found this is less of a problem with FAI than it ever was with GQ 2. Bloody rules ruin survivability. A more realistic pace of damage helps loads to keep the ships on the table long enough to leave again, like their historical counterparts.

- Ix

Thanks all….tried this out yesterday (alas no photos)…I had 2 divs of BBs (8), 1 of BCs (4), 16 destroyers in 4 half-flotillas & 8 Town-class in 2 Divs.
HSF consisted of 4 divs of BBs, 1 of BCs & 8 TBDs
I had my CLs line abreast in a screen ahead of the 3 columns of capital ships. The DDs were placed on the flanks & between the BB/BC columns to give flexibility of deployment.
BBs formed nicely into line with broadsides against German BBs still in column. (My opponent always stays in column until he gets within about 9000 yds!)
I sent all DDs in 4 columns with CLs trailing…HSF detached a division of BBs along with 8 TBDs to confront my DDs.
I managed to get in close to this one div of BBs (about 3000 yds) with all 16 DDs, but took a lot of damage on the way in. Still managed to loose off plenty of torps with 3/4 launched of them just ahead of the German beam. I got 6 hits resulting in one magazine explosion, 1 BB DIW, & another BB down to 2 hull boxes.
Unfortunately, I had left my CLs too far back (about 6k yards) to provide any real close support, especially against the HSF TBDs.
This has been my most effective use of DDs yet.
Clearly, DD numbers count.
However, we found all the firing between DDs, TBDs & BBs on the approach very, very tedious & I'm looking for a way to abstract it

That sounds like a fantastic game with oodles of ships on the table!

I think you got lucky with your opponent's tactics – sending battleships to counter destroyers indeed!

In an old, old edition of Miniature Wargames there was an article called '15 Minute Jutland', so called because tactical moves were 15 minutes long. In those rules destroyer flotillas were treated as a single entity. To launch attacks there was a simple formula comparing the firepower of the target formation which then determined how many destroyers were disabled or sunk and how close they got before loosing their fish. Hits were then worked out with a high proportion of certain scores meaning the flotilla had spent all its torpedoes.

I tried a few games and they worked really well, though they lacked the granularity that many like. Unfortunately I can't find them now and they don't appear to be available online.

Glad to hear of such a big game – and I'd still love to see some photos.

Nick

Dolphinless,
It's my understanding that secondary armament was fired as a salvo by the entire battery (at least on capital ships) with all guns given the same range and azimuth. So let's say a salvo of 6 rounds with director control on a typical BB.

I determine the % chance to hit for a single gun and then use a slightly modified binomial table with two D10. I can determine with good probability the number of hits with one die roll.

My tables show a salvo of six guns each with a 5% chance to hit will result in a 1-75 for 0 hits, 76-98 1 hit, and 99-00 two hits. One die roll handles it for each salvo.

I'm not sure what time scale FAI or other games are but I'd expect a rate of fire of about 4 rounds per minute to take into account the time of flight, observation by the gunnery commander, new range and azimuth settings done by each crew.

Wolfhag

Wolfhag…..would like to use with a binomial table for all of this tedious shooting, but my maths skills are under-graduate engineering from 35 years ago…..so will need some refresher work. I fear that abstracting the variable may also be too time consuming….but I'll have look.
Bozkashi….photos would be nice also, but my opponent always has his 4 year old running about, we're always very pressed for time & the beer upsets my (limited) camera skills…however (isn't there always one), we did a re-run of "The Run to the South" a couple of weeks ago & I wrote a fairly detailed AAR (with photos)….I'll see if I can get it attached in my next post

AAR for a re-run of the Run to the South:

link

(hope the link works!)

Dolphinless,
Math skills? You don't know me very well.

Definition: a frequency distribution of the possible number of successful outcomes in a given number of trials in each of which there is the same probability of success.

It a "scientific" table developed by the math wizs that statistically determines the probable outcome with one die roll so you don't have to do the math. One advantage I see is that you are going to get more realistic outcomes with one die roll. There is no math needed, it's already done.

Anyhow, here is a version that I've used in determining infantry causalities but you can use it for any type of firing or targets.

link

In the far left column where it says "target" just substitute # of guns firing. I use it for secondary guns.

For the primary guns, I use a version of "salvo timing" in 5-second increments rather than traditional turns to determine when a salvo is fired and lands. If the salvo straddles then # of hits is determined.

Each ship tracks its target "range keeping error". The smaller it is the better chance of a straddle. Certain factors increase the error and certain ones decrease it. It's a complicated process (the reason analog computers were used) that I've abstracted down to a somewhat playable version without having to do any math calculations.

Wolfhag

Thanks Wolfhag….I've been playing with the mechanics of FAI & setting up a binomial table in Excel (ugh)…. not sure how it will work, as for example, in FAI at very short range, rolling a d12, a 1 or a 10 results in a hit, a 2 two hits and a 3 three hits…..so I think too many spreadsheets are required as it's not a straight % (I think!!).
We seem to have gone a little off-topic…

We seem to have gone a little off-topic…

Me again.

Wolfhag