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Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2003 4:32 am
Posts: 2934
Location: Colorado, USA
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Tas, this one is for you?
Well this weekend I did a horrible, horrible thing. I played a new wargame genre and had lots and lots of fun?
So you know what that means. That?s right Louie is getting into a new wargame genre.
Let me explain the details.
The era is Pre-dreadnought through WWI naval combat. Big ships with big guns what is there not to like. Now I have always been intrigued by this era but I have never seen a good rule system that was really playable on the table.
I have seen systems that where massively complicated and at most you could run maybe one or two ship per side because of all the rules.
So my friend, Lamont, brought a rules system called ?Fear God and Dreadnought!? Now the system was pretty much like all the rest. It would take you 30 minutes just to figure up all the modifiers to roll a to-hit dice. But Lamont has done an amazing thing.
He has programmed a Microsoft Excel sheet that tracks all the hideous amount of modifiers found in the game. The excel sheets does all the following:
1. Checks visibility from all ships to all others. Yes, the rule book actually makes you check all that.
2. Plots precisely your position on a grid map. As such the miniatures involved only represent the general depositions of the fleets. So are no arguments about placement or measuring. If the computer says you?re out of range your out of range. The plotting also includes keeping track of all torpedoes fired.
3. It provides you a to-hit number and the number of guns you are able to fire. So it takes into account your angle to the target ship and already has adjusted for such modifiers as your speed, target speed, angle to target, sea state, visibility, number of guns firing, and range. Can you imagine looking all this up at the table.
The only thing a player has to worry about is their ship?s speed, heading, and target. As such you can actually manage a squadron of ships very easily. This makes to game go by very fast and makes it fun.
So with this in mind allow me to re tall my first battle report
The background:
At the start of WWI the German Battlecruiser SMS Goeben and Light Cruiser Breslau were in the Mediterranean. They were chased by the British Navy in the Black sea and made it to Turkey. Turkey, who was still neutral at the time, took the ships and their crews, they where later ?sold? to Turkey when Turkey entered the war for the Central powers. So we have two German ships, manned by German crews, flying under a Turkish flag. Weird huh? 
The Russians send a raiding force of five Pre-dreadnought battleships and 3 light cruisers to intercept and destroy the Goeben. There were some destroyers but they where not part of the fight being way out of position when the German/Turkish ships where sighted.
The battle:
As the battle starts The Goeben and Breslau are heading toward the Russian Light cruiser scouting force with the Russian line of Pre dread battleships behind them. Let the fight begin.
Being outnumbered five to one really makes the decision easy on what is the ?better part of valor.?
We ran like dogs. Our advantage was the fact we could out run the Russian ships. Even my Battlecruiser was faster than their light cruisers. So my plan was to give them a stern chase where I could keep them at extreme range while having slightly better odds for my return fire.
The German ships under my command started a gradual turn to starboard. We did not want to maneuver too radicaly to give a few good salvos into the Russians.
First blood was scored by the Germans as the Goeben landed two hits against the Russian light cruiser Almaz. The damage she sustained quickly took her out of the race. And she dropped out of the battle line. But the Russians quickly exacted their revenge.
Despite her speed and evasive maneuvering the Light Cruiser Breslau took two hits (what can you say they had less than a 20% chance). One shell penetrated deeply into the engineering section and her reduced speed would spell her doom. At 13 knots the Breslau could not even out run the Russian battleships. I could only imagine the cold reality that now faced by her Captain, realizing there was no way to save his ship.
With grim determination the Breslau turned 180 and charged straight at the Russian light cruisers. She had two torpedoes and meant to use them. The volume of fire against her was incredible. The full weight of the Russian fleet was firing on the poor doomed ship.
Breslau fired her torpedoes but both failed to hit. (I know, not a good heroic ending but war is hell). With her last weapon expended Breslau succumbed to the mass fire. Several 12? shells blew her part and she sank into the Black sea.
In the meantime the Goeben had put a good distance between the Russians and herself. She tried to keep the Russians at a distance using her superior speed. At times she would turn to present her full broadside of 8x11? guns to the enemy. She targeted the Russian Light Cruiser Kugul but the range combined with the low visibility and her high speed made for difficult shots. She fired off numerous sakvos, but she never again hit a Russian ship.
During all this the Goeben was surrounded by splashes of 12? and 6? shells from the entire Russian navy. Despite the fact they could barely see the Battlecruisers they where making every effort hit her, but they failed to score a hit.
In the end The Goeben made a high speed run into the fog and the Russians lost contact.
Game over?=)
The details or gaming stuff:
This was a blast of the game despite the fact that we couldn?t hit the broadside of a barn. The low visilbility made the biggest impact there. It was a fun chase and it was very challenging game. As the fox being hunted I had to use my outnumbered but superior ship to keep away from the mass firepower presented by the Russian Squadron. It was working at the end but the Russian players where getting frustrated because I would not stand and fight. While I had a 15% chance of hitting, which I never rolled, they where getting like 5% chance or less.
A big part of my decision not to fight was caused by what I called a ?logic? error in Lamont?s spreadsheet. The sheet makes all the visibility checks from all ships to all others. The way he programmed it is like this?if a friendly ship can see and enemy ship all friendly ships can see that enemy ship.
In our example the Goeben was being shot at by the Russian battleships because their light cruiser screen could see me.
While this makes sense at first I realized the logic error later. While it is true that scouting ships like the light cruisers where used to detect the enemy and report back to the main fleet the position of the enemy fleet. It was impossible for the technology of the day, signal flags and limited wireless, to transmit data that would allow you to fire on a reported enemy position beyond your own visual range.
After discussing this with Lamont he is going to build a check in the spreadsheet that will allow you to only fire at targets your ship can actually see. So while your scouts may report your enemy heading North by NorthWest at heading 350?. They can?t tell you where exactly where to fire.
Well as least that sounds right to me.
I would have been more aggressive if I didn't have to worry about the fire of the Russian battleships from the beginning. It would be real interesting to run it again with that change.
We also gave Lamont some feedback on the critical hits. At the moment they are a little severe. The critical table mostly suffered from the phrase in the critical hits table that says take X% of your ?remaining? damage. As such we had the Breslau crippled not from the shell that hit her, but because she was to darn healthy when she took the hit. He is looking at revamping those. They where his own invention because he said not even the computer could handle the rolling required by the actual rules. He said it was like 17 rolls just to figure out your searchlights where gone.
The only thing missing from the program is to find a way to make ships follow each other in a line of battle. He is working on it.
Well there?s my Sea Story I hope you liked the details. With my new found drug I have just ordered 11 Battlecruisers from GHQ. I need help please.
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