Jump to content


Photo

Engineering hits and 5.1" guns

Damage and Guns

  • Please log in to reply
2 replies to this topic

#1 Rick Brown

Rick Brown

    Private

  • Members
  • 5 posts

Posted 20 December 2014 - 05:58 PM

In the rules under Engineering hits, it says that guns greater than 5.1" cannot fire. I find this difficult to believe for the Japanese 5.5" and the German 5.9" guns, which were mounted on a variety of ships, including Raiders and submarines. Can you clarify, when these guns would not be affected by engineering hits?

 



#2 glenn_simpson

glenn_simpson

    Private

  • Members
  • 22 posts
  • LocationGold Coast, Queensland, Australia

Posted 05 February 2015 - 07:09 PM

Clearly you are correct - it is only guns that rely on remote power control that would be affected by engineering failure and you should adopt a special rule in any scenarios involving ships with guns 5.1" and larger that are not normally power operated.  Hand cranked guns such as Graf Spee's single 5.9"s and French DDs'  'semi-turret' 5.5"s, for example, would be largely unaffected by engineering hits and would fall into this category (but note that Prince of Wales' 5.25" guns had back-up manual operation but could not be effectively trained by hand after she was struck by Japanese torpedoes, due to the list of the ship, so it's not entirely straighforward). 

 

Note that power failure also means reversion to local fire control, so that penalty would apply to hand operated guns normally relying on following the central gun director's (power operated) pointer.

 

This is yet another example of GQ3's oversimplification of complex real world issues - you can accept it for speed of play, or if you don't like it, adopt your own special rules as part of the scenario you are playing.  But the answer is not in adding more complexity to the main GQ3 rules - these need to be kept as simple as possible.  Lay persons and casual onlookers already find them impossibly complex compared, say, with Monopoly. :)



#3 Cpt M

Cpt M

    Colonel

  • ODGW Retired Staff
  • 939 posts

Posted 05 February 2015 - 09:38 PM

Yes, GQ3 does use a simply rule in applying the results of an engineering loss to gunnery.  And that was intentional as determining which mount could or could not operate without power for all the possible ships is more than a bit daunting (assuming, in the first place, the information could be had).  Keep in mind, this limitation applies to not only the operation of the mount itself but the fire control system linked to it and the ammunition train supplying it.  It does little to have a mount trainable by hand without ammunition to fire.  And as for the idea that PoW's 5.25" twin turrets (which weighed 70+ tons) could be trained with any degree of accuracy manually, is something of a long stretch (and if GM'ing, I would NOT allow it).

 

That said, for a given scenario and on a case by case basis, certain mounts could be determined to be immune from such limitations.  Depending on the mount, I'd also apply a limit of salvos fired (to reflect the firing off of the on mount supply and the subsequent reduction in ammunition resupply) and the application of local control.  






0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users