Re: [GZG] FT: Modern Naval

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Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
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rpoon is probably a pretty good simulation, but it can make for a sucky
game at times. "

As I know folks that played in the Red Storm Rising games (the ones that
were used to create the story), I agree.  In the Total War scenarios it
so often down to who fires first.

Michael Brown
mwsaber6@msn

From: Tom B 
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 8:05 PM
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu 
Subject: Re: [GZG] FT: Modern Naval

" Harpoon handles this by putting everything on the same scale more or
less.
A ship in tactical turns may be moving 0.25" while a missle moves 4+" a
turn
depending on the missle in question.  Some can just STREAK out there but
are
mostly used to knock other missiles and aircraft out of the air.  I'd
have
no problem giving surface ships a "thrust" of 1-4 depending on how fast
it
can go with the vast majority doing 2-3.  Missiles would be doing 12" at
least per turn."

Hmmm. Colour me skeptical. Harpoon 855 kph. Ship... 60 kph maybe? That
seems to me more like 1" for the ship and 14" for the missile. It's not
2-3 times, it's more like 15x. 

And as to the comment about guns and the nature of naval encounters: 

Guns get more use than you would think. Yes, they can serve in the role
of point defense, but they also serve in the role of close in defense
against things like MTB, hydrofoils, and various high speed attack
boats. The kinds of things which *can* do damage to your ship. They can
also be of some use if you come under engagement (god forbid) in a
harbour, some sort of inside passage, or in any sort of landing support
operations. 

The problem most Harpoon scenarios have is they assume an all out open
shooting war. In most cases in our world, you have piles of civilian
ships plying the world's waterways. You often have to obtain *visual*
target identification. So your wonderous OTH missile is no good if your
ROE says no-go. If you have to get into visual range, guns can be quite
useful. 

Also, note that most naval ECM systems can spoof. You may think a target
is something and find out it is something else - they can spoof up or
down or off into other classes. ESM is only so good at pulling out what
a contact really is. If you get two separated in time, is it the same
ship? Maybe, maybe a second ship. If it had some positional or course
uncertainty, doubly possible. Oh, and maybe it has changed
characteristics....

There is still a lot of space for things like visual recognition and
gunfighting from ships. It isn't usually in open-war fleet battles
(those will boil down to big missiles, aircraft, and subsurface
threats). But in many other situations other than open war or not open
see situations, you just can't blast away at an enemy contact without
being darn sure of what it is.

I remember playing Harpoon long ago, double blind, and only making
passing contact with the enemy (never getting into engagement range) -
enemy sub. I also remember playing some sort of plane (PC-3?) with
harpoons against a pair of Sovs... Krivak and Sovremny or something?
Anyway, one was a missile cruiser. I came in low from about 10:30 as it
turned out. I detectd them before they picked me up. I was able to dump
an entire missile salvo ( 4 missiles ) the bank away and fly off board.
The enemy players never saw me. The 4 harpoons badly savaged both enemy
surface craft, in part because they could not get pivoted fast enough to
bring their CIWS into line. They tried intercepts with countermissiles
and failed (part of it was they didn't see the harpoons sea-skimming
until quite late or something like that). 

Harpoon is probably a pretty good simulation, but it can make for a
sucky game at times. 

TomB

-- 
"Now, I go to spread happiness to the rest of the station. It is a
terrible responsibility but I have learned to live with it."
Londo, A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like
administering medicine to the dead." -- Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine

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