Wet Thrust/Full Steam Playtest

Well, I finally had time to try Binhan's "Wet Thrust" rules for the
Russo-Japanese war. I decided on a fairly small engagement. I gave the
Japanese the battleships Fuji and Shikishima, and the light cruisers
Yashino, Idzumi, and Suma. For the Russians, I gave them the battleships
Petropavolovsk and Borodino, and the cruisers Pallada, Aurora, and
Novik.
This is the force balance I've used in the past for playtesting
Russo-Japanese war rules the first time I try them. The forces should be
pretty even. The Russian battleships have more tonnage but are slower
than
the Japanese ships while both sides are armed primarily with 12" guns.
The
Japanese cruisers are pretty small compared to the Russian cruisers. The
edge should go to the Russians, but the Japanese have the better chance
of
"crossing the T".

When I used Binhan's rules to create the stats, one thing became
immediately
obvious: the Fuji's stats are out of whack. The Fuji had an armoured
belt of
14" to 18" thick. This is compared to the other ships of the period with
belts about 9" thick. According to Binhan's rules, the Fuji should have
"level 3 shields" and 10 armour boxes. The other ships of it's time are
either level 3 shields without any armour boxes (Petropavlovsk) or level
2
shields (Borodino, Shikishima). This is a bit strange as every other
game I
have rates the Fuji as slightly inferior to other Japanese ships due to
smaller tonnage, but here we've created a much superior ship. The
cruisers
had no shields by Binhan's rules. This would have a major effect later.

Note that I used an additional rule in my platest. I required that the
ships
could only fire at other ships within line of sight. Pre-dreadnoughts
needed
to site the fall of shots visually or they couldn't adjust their fire
properly. I also required that sinking ships stay on the table until the
end
of the turn, so that they blocked line of site for a full turn.

The ships began just outside of range of each other, each fleet in one
line.
The Russians were at an angle to the Japanese. The Japanese line moved
straight ahead, while the Russians moved to cut them off. The Russians
would
make two turns of 30 degrees as the lines approached in an attempt to
cross
the Japanese "T" but it would be the Japanese that first crossed the
Russian
"T". The turning of the Russians would cause their cruisers to have a
blocked line of site, while late in the game the rest of the Japanese
line
accidentally blocked the Fuji from firing at the Russian cruisers.

At long range the game felt about right. Fire was able to hit only
sporadically. I didn't do anything due to the fact that this was
plunging
fire (I should probably have doubled damage whenever a ship hit as none
of
the ships had a lot of deck armour but I didn't) nor did I use the rule
for
magazine explosions, though I probably should have used both rules. By
the
time the 12" guns (A batteries) got within medium range, the
Petropavlovsk
had taken about 3 points of damage. The Fuji had taken about the same,
but
it's excessive armour belt absorbed all of it.

As the range closed, damage was far more excessive. The Fuji's armour
belt
began to really tell as the Petropavlovsk crossed a threshold. Due to
Binhan's rules, the 10" guns of the Yoshino were classed as A batteries,
adding to the Japanese throw weight. 
After they got to close range, the C batteries kicked in and the battle
became quite deadly. The Fuji continued to pound the Petropavlovsk while
the
Shikishima and Yoshino concentrated on the Borodino with it's "level 2
shields." The Borodino was sunk by two broadsides and a couple of pot
shots,
turns before the Petropavlovsk! 

Next, the cruisers got within range and line of site. The Pallada
destroyed
the Yoshino in one salvo. On the following turn the other two Japanese
cruisers were sunk. The Fuji concentrated fire on the Petropavlovsk
while
the Shikishima made short work of the Aurora. One turn later, the
Shikishima
destroyed the Pallada with half of its guns and dropped the
Petropavlovsk to
two hull points with the other half. The Fuji gave the coups de grace
while
the Shikishima finished off the Novik.

End result: all Japanese cruisers sunk, with mild damage to the Fuji and
only light damage to the Shikishima. All Russian ships were sunk. 

A few things come out of this. I used Binhan's ratio of three 10" guns
equalling 2 A batteries, one 11" gun representing 1 A battery, and two
12"
guns representing 3 A batteries. I think instead of this formula a rough
approximation should be used. The capital ships should all have been
rated
for maybe 2 A batteries each. The number of C batteries due to Binhan's
calculations (14 on one ship, for instance) was far too many. A better
way
of doing this is to give capital ships one or two B batteries based on
9"
and 10" guns, and some C batteries based on 4.7" and 6" guns. The
capital
ships should have no more than 2 A batteries and a hand full of C
batteries.

The hull points seemed okay based on mass, but the Fuji had too much of
an
advantage with it's armour. The capital ships with the level 2 shields
were
at a distinct disadvantage to those with the level 3 shields, a
disadvantage
that greatly out did the difference in armour thickness on the real
vessels.
The cruisers were doubly hurt. They had a very small number of hull
points
and no shields. They died far too easily. Perhaps giving capital ships
level
3 screens, cruisers level 2, destroyers level 1, and torpedo boats none
would help. I would ignore the extra armour boxes for extra belt armour.
This shouldn't hurt things too much as--after all--things like turrent
and
casement armour aren't taken into account when threshold checks are
determined and they could be potentially more important.

The problem is the coarseness of this system. The differences between
most
of the various ships would be simply hull boxes and speed, with each
class
(regardless of nationality) being armed very similarly. At the level FT
is
played, that might be the best that can be achieved. Most of the ships
will,
indeed, look very similar at the squadron level. For a proper
Russo-Japanese
war game, the Russians need to have a qualitative inferiority, perhaps
by
giving them a lower rate of fire. I'll have to think about this.

The main surprise I got from the system was that the movement system
worked
reasonably well. It could use some tweaking for naval combat (versus
space
combat) but it wasn't too bad. The system runs pretty quickly, the above
game being completed in 1.5 hours. I think it holds promise as a fast
playing, beer-and-pretzels naval combat game. I also agree with another
poster that if too much is changed to make it a proper naval wargame,
I'd
probably just continue using General Quarters as my prefered system.

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage