Re: Wet Thrust - Conversion of FT to WWII

On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, M Hodgson wrote:

> I pick these axamples out on one criteria only.  Whilst I know little
> about the American/Japanese side of WW2 naval combat, for which these
> rules may well work, I don't feel they are especially well designed
for
> the atlantic theater.  
> 
> The issue that at the heart of this is German 11" guns.  They were
well
> built,  definately main armament and thanks to very high mussel
velocities
> could fire futher than many 14"-15" guns.  Whilst this is a specific
> example, if you are creating ships by reverse engineering designs, you
> will find you loose the "flavour" of the war with this kind of system.
 
> 
Conversely armor allocation between different countries makes a pretty
big
factor - i.e. German and British arrangment of props and armor made
their
rudders and props highly vulnerable to torpedoes while American
battleships used the outer props to shield the inner ones and the
rudder.
Also the arrangement of deck armor played huge roles in determining
survivability at long range since shells fired at long ranges tended to
be
on higher arcs, meaning that that tended to "plunge" at the end making
them strike more downward than across and making it more likely to get a
deck rather than a belt hit.  German and British ships were designed for
closer action where trajectories were relatively flat.	But the point of
using FT is to make some generalizations and use rules that give you a
"feel of what it was like" rather than being a totally accurate
simulation.  The point of beer and pretzels to to keep things simple and
fast paced at the sacrifice of accuracy and detail.  There needs to be
enough detail to make it more interesting than checkers but far less
than
say SFB or Squad Leader.

> The general idea is excelent, but I do feel it needs some tweeking.
> People interested in fast play naval rules for WW2 (and WW1) would do
well
> to look at General Quarters pt 1 (and pt 2).	The rules are quick and
easy
> to play and record keeping is simple.  Campaign rules are also
included
> and these work well.	Although FT IS more simple, it may not be by the
> time you have added all your rules modifications.
> 
I am attempting to modify the rules in such a way that, like FT, a
beginner could learn all the rules needed to play in 5 minutes and play
a
competent game with just a short cheat sheet.  Currently almost all the
rules fo this will fit on 1 side of 1 page, including all the weapon
charts.  It will not be exactly FT, but as previously mentioned I'm
trying
more for the feel of FT.

> Range of weapons is another issue that I feel neads reassesing.  I
> remember the most striking thing to me when I started playing naval
> engagements was the shear range a ship could fire.  These little 2"
models
> could fire in excess of 100" !!!  It does of course depend on the
scale
> etc. you are playing, but remember that by WW2, engagements were
possible
> at distances of 15miles or so...

Actually that was one reason I modified the ranges for A bats to 18".
This correlates roughly to 1,000 yards per inch (although 16" and larger
guns actually fire farther than that) which places Torpedoes and planes
almost within scale (6,000 yards for torpedoes was medium range for most
types and an aircraft would probably make an attack run within 2 miles
of
the target)  Of course the ships are not in scale but neither are they
in
FT and all my measurements are carried out Middle (or front middle)
funnel
to middle funnel.

--Binhan