I have just finished reading the PDF of The Portable Ironclads Wargame, the latest book in the Portable Wargame series provides rules for engagements between ironclad warships and gunboats by David Crook, which may be downloaded for £4.99 GBP GBP from Wargame Vault. His rules are an expansion of Bob Cordery's rules in Gridded Naval Wargames (Eglinton Books, 2018), which incorporate ideas from David Manley's Dahlgren and Columbiad (Long Face Games, 2018) with the latter's permission. Despite its title and Bob Cordery's notes on the developments of early ironclads and their involvement in other wars, this book is really focussed on rules for riverine actions in the American Civil War
The rules themselves occupy just eight pages in the centre of the book. They have been designed for ‘representational' model ships of approximately 1:500 to 1:700 scale on a grid of hexes which are four inches between the opposite sides, with each vessel occupying two hexes, but there is no reason why they could not be used to control engagements between smaller models on smaller hexes. Normal D6 dice are used throughout, as in other Portable Wargame rules.
Each turn consists of five phases: dicing to free ships from grounding or being locked together in a ram attack; firing, which is deemed to be simultaneous; dicing for initiative, the winner having the choice of going first or second; movement, including resolving ram or spar torpedo attacks, and checking victory conditions.
The Combat Resolution Overview explains the procedure: the firing player rolls a number of D6 dice, which decreases as the range increases, to determine the number of potential ‘hits'; then a D6 die, modified by comparing the gun's penetration factor and the enemy ship's armour factor, is rolled for each ‘hit' to determine the number of damage points inflicted upon the target. If, after the modifiers have been applied, the total exceeds 6, then another D6 die is rolled with the chance of scoring an extra damage point being equal to the excess. However, a D6 die roll of 1 is always a failure; while a natural 6 entitles the firer to an extra die roll with the same modifiers.
The damage suffered from gunfire is now also portrayed in more detail than in Gridded Naval Wargames: Damage Points reduce the target ship's Hull Factor until it must withdraw from the action or start to sink, and Critical Hits on various parts of the ship may cause it to lose a Gun Factor, steam power or steering.
Examples of Ship Specifications – Speed; Hull, Armour and Gun Factors; Firing Arcs and Damage Points – are only given for American Civil War vessels, but none of the other conflicts listed by Bob Cordery. Colour photographs of the author's models are used to illustrate the Examples of the Rules in Action, accompanied by detailed explanations to make the application of the rules on firing arcs, gunnery and ramming completely clear.
The Rules in Action: More Trouble Along the Missenhitti is a game report of a Union attempt to take a Rebel fort, defended by gunboats and a casemate ironclad. Each turn is illustrated by at least one colour photograph and a detailed explanation of the application of the rules to each situation.
I am already familiar with other Portable Wargame rules, so recognised some of the systems, such as for initiative and dicing to hit a target and had no difficulty following the additional rules.