My only experience with naval rules were GDW's Harpoon, and C-in-C's old rules that came with their 1/4800 ships many years ago. I have the free Seekrieg, and have read much of GQ. What I was hoping to find when I began my quest for WW2 naval rules was something similar to GDW's old Harpoon, something good for a few ships per side, and detailed just enough to really feel the pain for the ship(s) involved.
Ben King delivered. I would call this Seekrieg Very Lite, as opposed to GQ Heavy.
The rules are very well written & presented, and just a splash of chrome short of being a legend in it's own time. The rules are divided into 2 parts, the surface, and the air. I have played the surface twice, and no air as of yet.
The game itself is a Kinko's production (hence the missing chrome) and requires the player to do some one-time preparatory work. For example, their are several player aids that need to be cut out. There is a ruler 2" long which is used for moving your ships 0-35 knots. Several turning circles of different sizes are used to turn the ships (a nice idea); also, you need to cut out torpedo wakes for aerial, regular, & long lance torps (to be explained later). Also, I customized my own player aid card (cut & paste) to exclude the air rules charts for gun-only games. In addition, I recopied the above onto different color paper (beige for charts card, lt. blue for ruler, circles, wakes) & laminated them. A more professionaly produced ruleset would have this already done & cost 3x the price, so I can't complain too much. And I wouldn't have gone through all this trouble if I didn't believe 'this is the one'. You also need to create your ship logs, although Ben has done this for several ships in his scenario books.
To restate, the rules are minimalistic, well written, and nicely presented (not too much ink per page). Eight pages of low density, large font, illustrated writing tells all you need to know to have a gun game.
First, let's move. The game is Igo, Ugo. The provided ruler is used for moving straight, and the turning circles are used to turn while moving. I really like the turning circles. Bigger ships get bigger circles.
Second, let's shoot. There are 3 types of Fire Control a given ship can have: Standard, Early Radar, Gunnery Radar. A battery of heavy guns with Standard FC will roll a d20 + d5 for hitting, while a heavy battery with Gunnery Radar FC will roll 2 x d20. Here's how: range is dictated by these dice. The first ship has a max range of 25" (dice total) and the second ship has a range of 40". You measure the distance to your target & need to roll = or > the distance with your assigned dice to straddle. Easy. Sophisticated. There are different dice combinations for heavy, medium, light & very light batteries with the different FC's. To your roll, there are a few modifiers that can be applied. For example, every turn you stay on target, you get a +1 to your dice roll.
When you score a straddle, you roll a d20 on a hits chart to determine the # of hits (crossing the 'T' doubles the hits).
Now you check for penetration by consulting another chart. Each ship has two armor ratings, Main Armor (MA) & Deck Armor (DK-used in plunging fire ranges; as in HMS HOOD, etc.)
Now that you have determined if penetration had occurred, you consult the next chart to determine how many boxes to check off on the targets log. Penetration gives you full damage, no penetration gives partial or no damage (fewer boxes to check off).
Penetrating hits or Torpedo hits can lead to a trip to the Vital Damage chart, to check for catastrophic damage to the target's Steering, Propulsion, Gunnery, or, you guessed it, Magazine. You guessed it, a magazine hit can be fatal.
Torpedo combat is easy. Remember those torpedo wakes I cut out & laminated in paragraph 4? You simply lay those down & if a target ends it's move on one, BOOM! The best way to score a torp hit works as it did in real battle, via a crossfire (such attacks by Kates sank the Lady Lex). No matter which way you turn, you go BOOM!
Aerial wakes are 5", regular are 6", and Long Lance are 10".
We played two games of the Bismarck – Hood battle, and both were concluded in a few hours. The tactics used were similar to actual events. The Hood rack towards Bismarck to get past plunging fire ASAP, while the PE sacrificed herself to keep POW busy while the two monsters duked it out. The first game ended with PE lost, Bismarck, Hood, POW bloodied & retreating as in River Platte. The second game also lost PE, but the Hood took a plunger which really screwed up the propulsion, and the Bismarck out ran the POW (while pounding the crap out of it), & won the game.
The game runs well for a few ships per side. We made an agreement to not bother firing secondary batteries, as they do very little to capital ships & aren't worth the time. We used only main batteries & torps.
Here is a sample of the logs I created for this battle (Ben provides the templates)
link
There are some nice supplementary booklets you can buy to play the game:
1) Battleships at Midway. This is a fascinating & thought provoking what-if large scenario where the Jap Surface Fleet charges the US Battle Fleet (Pye's BB's which were at port) to get through & sink the Enterprise & Hornet Task Force. 2 people could do this in a weekend which would clearly be a labor of love, but I think you would need a few more people at a tourny or some PC help to make it more workable.
2) Small Gun Actions I: Denmarck Strait, River Platte, & a few small Murmansk convoy actions (mainly German & Brit Battlecruisers).
3) Small Gun Actions II: Several Mediterranean actions.
4) Coral Sea: The battle with the historical OOB, focusing on the air rule element which looks sweet, but I haven't played as yet.
5) Fleet Book-Germany: A book of ship logs created for Hitler's 'Plan Z' Navy. Nice reference.
In conclusion, it is EXACTLY what I wanted in a WW2 naval game. And once you learn this set, the WW1 ruleset (Dreadnought) can be learned in 10 minutes max. It plays almost the same (no radar, etc.). There is some one time work for you to do (prepare the player aids, ship log charts, etc.), it touches the right bases for detail (such as vital damage, plunging fire, etc.) while not going overboard. Not shooting small guns against big ships speeds play, and at a minimum, I would suggest some very minor editing of the rules (a few key italics & underlines) to drive home key points. If Ben wanted to take this to GDW's Harpoon level, a professional publisher could do it. The engine is there; what's missing from this game gaining alot of attention is some Harpoonish chrome.
As you can see from my two battle experiences, the game readily provides a fun trip to a believable result, in just a few hours. Perhaps the best part is the game occurs afterwords, as the two players talk about their strategies over a few cold ones.
goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
