Naval wargaming

[Erik]

Last night I had my first go at Naval Thunder, using 1:2400 ships from GHQ. We played a small encounter with only 6 ships a side. I must say that I like the way the system works and the many critical hits are easily managed and ad real flavor to the shooting phase.

On thing troubles me though, and this is something that also struck me when playing Age of Dreadnought. The best way to finish of your opponent is to rush their ships with your larger ships. Get in close and use massive superior firepower to sink them quickly while socking up hits with your heavy armour and many hit points. It is my opinion that historicly big ships would rather use their superior range to awoid getting hit at all and small ships would try to close fast in order to have a chance of getting through their opponents armour.

Is there any rules that allows fore smaller ships to damage bigger ones if they manage to get in close. Otherwise I think we may have to use some sort of armourreduction at shorter ranges to give the bigger ships  an incitement to stay at longer range and smaller ships to close range quickly.


Cheers
Erik

[fastolfrus]

Vaguely recall some rules from years ago where big guns firing at small ships actually scored less damage at close ranges - the shells pass straight through the target without exploding.

A lot of the smaller ships have torpedoes, so close range might be tempting for them.

[SteveBurt]

Small ships should be able to damage large ones at close ranges - and most small ships have torpedoes, which are very dangerous to large ships.
Having said that, rushing to close range with a battleship could work; the Warspite did it against German destroyers at the second battle of Narvik.
Maybe have victory criteria that makes damage to large ships count for more htan damage to small ones?

[Etranger]

Torpedoes make it very risky for larger vessels in the vicinity of hostile smaller vessels. The fear of torpedo attacks had a material effect on the outcome of the battle of Jutland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jutland

[Yarkshire Gamer]

The best way would be to add some context to the game, getting close and taking damage with a superior ship might win a game but turning up back at Port  (if you can make it without sinking) with a badly damaged capital ship would probably get you a court martial.

Maneuvering and using small ships should put off your opponent closing the range too. A Torpedo a midships will ruin your day.

The only query regarding the rules would be, if you are closing the range you will only have half or less Guns firing than your opponent, you are crossing the T. Therefore the none closing player should be getting a greater number of hits.

Regards, Ken
The Yarkshire Gamer

[Erik]

Thanks for the suggestions. Torpedoes are definitely the answer. The reference to the Battle of Jutland got me thinking, that torpedo attacks should cause some sort of moral check for large ships. If they fail they have to drop back and reassess the situation. This would also cover the Court martial comment, as captains would be very worried about losing their ships.

Cheers
Erik

[LCpl McDoom]

Long time ago, use to play with the 'General Quarters II' rules for Great War Naval actions, and they seemed to have this quite well covered. Big ships with their main armament could stand off and bombard each other, whereas smaller ships with less capable guns would have to close up to get into the fight. And smaller ships, like the destroyers of that era, would get even closer, to unleash torpedoes. That was why the big ships then started to outfit with more secondary and tertiary armament who's job it was to counter smaller boats conducting torpedo attacks. That helped a lot, as it's really difficult to track an attacking fast-moving agile vessel by using a lumbering 15" gun turret! 

I know some folks weren't fans of GQ2 for various reasons but we got some good games out of it with a few house rules added on.