11 replies to this topic

[William MacGillivray]

What is the point of secondary battery armour?It only applies to capital ships, but (with the exception of the few BC ships) nothing lighter than an 11 inch gun can get any equivalent hits on them.However, all such guns can penetrate BD armour at the very minimum, and no secondary batteries are armoured at greater than BD (most seem to be CL armoured, a few are CA or CS, and for the Hood, they are unarmoured).Personally, I feel that 8in guns should be allowed the same 1/2 hit equivalents against BB & BA as they get against BC & B (and possibly 6in guns a 1/4 hit equvalent against capital ships, with net 1/4 counting as no hits) to allow for cruisers knocking out secondaries and other lightly armoured structures. Otherwise, why did Prinz Eugen bother firing at Hood?

[Cpt M]

Under the rules, a non-penetrating Hull hit scores a 1/2 Hull box. So, under your suggestion, as it stands, we may have the unusual situation of a 8" (or 6") gun armed cruiser taking down a ship the likes of the Iowa or Yamato by gunfire alone. Not a likely outcome, and one I'm sure you're not advocating. A possible solution may be to allow the "x 1/2" multipler for 8" guns (and possible "x 1/4" for 6" guns) but consider non-penetrating hits (hull, main turrets, etc) as no hits. (Considered as "x 1/2*" perhaps?) And, if the point is to make secondary guns venerable to fire by 8" and 6" guns, then the secondaries would have to be moved outside the "armored box" on the BA-B* column. It would definitely slow play and there is the question of whether the benefits are justified by extra complexity (playtesting would need to be done to answer that).

[Cpt M]

Under the rules, a non-penetrating Hull hit scores a 1/2 Hull box. So, under your suggestion, as it stands, we may have the unusual situation of a 8" (or 6") gun armed cruiser taking down a ship the likes of the Iowa or Yamato by gunfire alone. Not a likely outcome, and one I'm sure you're not advocating. A possible solution may be to allow the "x 1/2" multipler for 8" guns (and possible "x 1/4" for 6" guns) but consider non-penetrating hits (hull, main turrets, etc) as no hits. (Considered as "x 1/2*" perhaps?) And, if the point is to make secondary guns venerable to fire by 8" and 6" guns, then the secondaries would have to be moved outside the "armored box" on the BA-B* column. It would definitely slow play and there is the question of whether the benefits are justified by extra complexity (playtesting would need to be done to answer that).

[William MacGillivray]

Under the rules, a non-penetrating Hull hit scores a 1/2 Hull box. So, under your suggestion, as it stands, we may have the unusual situation of a 8" (or 6") gun armed cruiser taking down a ship the likes of the Iowa or Yamato by gunfire alone. Not a likely outcome, and one I'm sure you're not advocating.

So unlikely that I don't think we need worry about it. There are an awfully large number of hull boxes on those ships.However, remember that many vessels worked on the "all or nothing armour" principal, so parts of the hull (usually the ends) would not be protected and could be holed with minor effect, but these could affect the streamlining of the hull and so the speed.

And, if the point is to make secondary guns venerable to fire by 8" and 6" guns, then the secondaries would have to be moved outside the "armored box" on the BA-B* column.

No. The point is that the secondary armour would have to be penetrated, but at present you can't even register any hits.

[Cpt M]

Ok, lets expand this a bit...Using the modification you suggest (allowing 8" to score "x 1/2"), we have 4 IJN 8" gun CAs engage the Washington (with BA armor). After multiple turns the CAs score some 20 hits. They knock out a few secondaries and score 14 hull hits (which, as non-prnrtrating hull hits are reduced to 1/2 hits for a total of 7 hull hits), and sink the Washington through gunfire alone. Now, I'm pretty sure this result falls in the ahistorical column. If a result this absurd, no matter how remote, is possible, then the rule modification must be rejected. And I won't comment on extending this to 6" guns (a string of Clevelands sinking the Yamato by gunfire??)...BTW, the "All of Nothing" principle, simply put, means those areas vital to the survival of the ship under the heaviest possible armor while those areas that can be safely exposed are left unarmored (or minimaly so). The loss of the unarmored ends should not, would not threaten the survival of the ship.I understand the desire to make the secondary batteries of BA class ships vunerable to 8" fire (and there may be some validity in that), but the modification you suggest raises a very unpleasant unintended consequence.

[Jim O'Neil]

Coastal, I think you miss the point. Not ALL of Washington's hull was armored... those cruisers could have caused her to lose some speed... they could not ever sink her with 8 inch fire. They could however , have hammered a lot of "Unnecessary to the survival of the ship" things like all her fire control, all her 5" guns, all her AA Guns ... and her command positions ... sure they could stand in the armored conning tower, but could they see out? USS WHasington would be reduced to a ...say ... 15 knots ship with 9X 16" guns in local control ...absolutely vulnerable to air and submarine attack, let alone dealing with another BB.

[Cpt M]

First, under the rules, a non-pentrating hit would cause 1/2 of a hull point damage (when a hull hit is scored). So, if we use your solution (assign a "x 1/2" for 8" fire on a BA-BB target), then any 8" hits on the hull would score 1/2 hull points. As I stated, this leaves open the very real possibility of sinking a BA-BB class ship (like the Washington) from 8" gunfire (given enough hits). And I don't think that is what either of you are advocating. Second, I do think your case for allowing damage by 8" fire on BA-BB class ships has merit. However, as stated above, the solution given would result in a very nasty unintended effect. How to get the effect you want without the "side effect", I, frankly, don't know. I do know that the solution presented thus far is fatally flawed. About the "all or nothing" armor system. Note that I said survival, not combat effective. The armored citadel was intended to protect a sufficient amount of the hull to maintain buoyancy and provide power for movement, and nothing more. The loss of the secondary armament and anything else outside the armored citadel was considered expendable. Keep in mind, its far easier and quicker to repair a battered hull than build a new ship from the keel up.

[William MacGillivray]

Using the modification you suggest (allowing 8" to score "x 1/2"), we have 4 IJN 8" gun CAs engage the Washington (with BA armor). After multiple turns the CAs score some 20 hits. They knock out a few secondaries and score 14 hull hits (which, as non-prnrtrating hull hits are reduced to 1/2 hits for a total of 7 hull hits), and sink the Washington through gunfire alone. Now, I'm pretty sure this result falls in the ahistorical column.

It also falls into the improbable column.Of 20 hits, on 5 would be hull hits (on average).By my calculations, it would take about 17 turns for 4 Mogami class cruisers (with 10x8" each) to get enough hull hits at 8000 yards to sink a Washington BA.In return, the Washington would be be doing (on average) 2 penetrating hull hits (in addition to any other damage) per turn on whichever ship it shot at in each of those 17 turns.Your scenario is a very remote possibility, agreed. But then I think that the chance of 8" gunfire sinking a BC by gunfire alone is equally ahistorical, and the rules allow this.

[DAVID THORNLEY]

Why are we mucking around with hypotheticals on USS Washington? Historically, this exact thing happened to USS South Dakota while Washington was sorting the situation out and blasting IJN Kirishima.South Dakota had no problems with main armament or serious hull damage, but she did suffer a lot of superstructure damage from about 40 8" hits. Friedman calls it a mission kill.As a general rule, heavy cruisers did shoot at battleships when the opportunity arose, whereas it does no good at all in the rules as written. I'd suggest extending the 1/2 equivalent hit up to battleships. If you're really concerned about sinking a BB with 8" gunfire, make a rule that non-penetrating hits can't affect the last two hullboxes or something.

[Jim O'Neil]

My suggestion would be to limit how many Hull boxes get 'armor' protection, just like on the real ship. Probably the first two or three are unarmored, then the rest are armored and act as they currently do.Secondary/tertiary guns get what armor they had, if any. RULES bend for reality, not vice versa

[Lonnie Gill]

I've followed this discussion with interest over the past few days. The dashed lines on the Equivalent Hits table were intended to indicate that no significant damage was likely. During playtesting, it became evident that mind numbing amounts of playing time could be consumed with desperately attacking large, armored targets with small batteries, hoping for that one in a million hit. So, the decision was made to bypass these attacks to avoid bogging things down.For most situtations, this works well and keeps an engagement moving. But, as several of you have noted, this is not adequate for simulating the November 1942 Battles in Ironbottom Sound where BCs and BAs found themselves under fire from 8" and smaller guns at close range. These were improbable encounters, but they did happen. And, as Bravo6 noted, rules should bend for reality, not the other way around.Therefore, here's an optional rule to deal with these situtations. The dashed line on the Equivalent Hits table is redefined as half equivalent hits against ONLY Critical hits, Secondary and Tertiary/Torpedo armament. ["½ C•S•T" would be the replacement designation.] This would enable cruiser 8" and 6" to disable a battleship's unarmored Critical Hits (fire control, bridge and rudder), secondaries (if able to penetrate secondary battery armor) and tertiary batteries and torpedo mounts. Hits on the heavily armored Hull, Engineering and main armament would continue to have NO effect. Thus, 8" cruisers can pepper South Dakota, knocking out her secondaries and fire control - just as happened - but avoids any ahistorical possibility of sinking her. Against a BC like the Hiei, an 8" battery can also get ½ equivalent hits on the hull as the listing on the Equivalent Hits table is "½." Note that any resulting Hull hits are also also reduced to half Hull hits as non penetrating. Attacks by DD 4" - 5" batteries on CAs and CLs would get similar treatment. Try it out. If you provide sucessful playtesting feadback we'll incorporate it, replacing the dashed lines with "½ C•S•T" on the surface combat charts. Owners of the Third Edition will be able to download and print the update.

[William MacGillivray]

Lonnie's suggestion seems sensible enough, but could we simplify it?Rather than specifying just which hits are going to count for a -- (or 1/2 C.S.T) hit, could we just say that all non-penetrating hits are ignored for these cases.This would have only two consequences as far as I can see: 1) Float Plane hits would count. (is this a good or a bad thing? I don't know.) 2) The last gun column on every national Gunfire CRT chart (usually a 4" or similar AA weapon) has a CL or CS penetration at minimum range, but has a -- for CA - CS equivalent hits. The above simplification would allow these guns to damage the armoured parts of lighly protected cruisers. (Otherwise, what is the point of this armour penetrating capability?)