RE: Ramming.

In reply to Phillip Pournel:

>Looking in historical records you will find that Europian ship's have
rammed
> their foes when it was in their best interest.  For example a cruiser
ramming
> a Torpedo Boat, A destoyer ramming a submarine, etc.	When the larger
>ship has
>little to lose, I'm not so sure the rationality of the rules apply...

I agree there are some circumstances, however, when ramming has been
used
as a commonplace tactic then general assumption has been that you only
ram
the ship when you are likely to survive the experience eg. monitors with
torpedos on the ends of probes in the 19th C, galleases in Renaissance,
Triremes etc before then. As you've mentioned when you're the larger
ship
it can become an option. Quickly doing the sums in FT it becomes
reasonably
safe to ram someone when you have four times the remaining damage boxes
they have. Interestingly enough, I've always wondered what are the
effects
of armour on/for rams?

The main reason I mentioned it is that the only place I've seen rams
have
typically been as 'suicide' rams. To me a suicide ram takes a lot more
motivation than a 'survivable' ram, and they seem to be pretty bad form
to
me. It is possible that there should be a lower modifier to do a
survivable
ram as opposed to a suicide ram maybe a 4 on a d6, versus the 6 for a
suicide ram. However, it seems to me that in a situation like the one I
normally see suicide rams in (and let's face it they don't work that
often
anyway), the normal player would probably be more likely to scuttle his
boat and keep his reasonably experienced crew in a campaign. Scuttling
rules...hmmm.

Regards,

Kevin.

Kevin Mc Lean.
STEPS Co-ordinator/CLC Tutor.
Central Queensland University.
Mackay Campus.
Ph  (079) 407416.
Fax (079) 407407.