AA50: Battleships and the hit that never was

We are talking about naval combat between surface naval ships.

My point is: the enemy doesn’t present themselves made to order, Fog of War and the numerous variables effecting the course of a turn’s engagements with respect to limitations of target acquisition.

It does not at Midway and Midway is not a surface naval action but its just carriers and carrier based aircraft fighting.

If Yamamoto’s main body was able to get in the action they were to be used to finish off the American fleet, but the battle was called off after the terrible loses. In ww2 the only time a warship could be targeted and not sighted was by the Yamato class battleship which was supposed to use its planes to act as spotters because the range of the Yamato’s guns was greater than the distance it could ‘see’ any targets. IN the actual war this was never used because this warship never got in any action that could use this advantage.

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 12:02:23 pm
The example again for your edification was stated as : battleships and other surface warships fighting each other. I am not aware of this form of sea battle at Midway.

But for your edification, may I suggest Leyte Gulf then.
Or better yet, perhaps you can suggest a naval campaign of a turn’s length unfolding as you describe…

The Battle of Surigao Strait. Meanwhile, on October 24th, Rear Admiral Shoji Nishimura’s southern forces failed to synchronize with other Japanese central forces (Vice Admirals Shima and Kurita) because of strict radio silence that had been imposed. When Nishimura entered the narrow Surigao Strait, Shima was about 25 miles behind him, and Kurita was still in the Sibuyan Sea.

As the Japanese southern forces passed the cape of Panoan Island, they ran into a deadly trap set for them by Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf’s Seventh Fleet Support Force. In order for Nishimura to pass the strait and reach the Leyte landings, he would have to run a gauntlet of torpedoes from PT boats, evade two groups of destroyers, proceed up the strait under close-range fire from six battleships and then break through a screen of cruisers and destroyers.

Mistakenly, Nishimura’s fleet proceeded farther through the Surigao Strait. The destroyers Asagumo, Yamagumo, and Mishishio were hit by torpedoes that severely crippled them. Battleships Yamashiro and Mogami were then riddled by 16-inch armor-piercing shells delivered by American long-range battleships, ultimately sinking the Yamashiro.

Battle of Samar. On October 25, 1944, Admiral Kurita passed through San Bernardino Strait at 3 a.m. and progressed southward along the coast of Samar.

Under Admiral Thomas Kinkaid’s command, three groups of the Seventh Fleet, each with six escort carriers, eight destroyers and destroyer escorts, would ultimately be responsible for stopping Kurita. Admiral Thomas Sprague’s Task Unit Taffy 1, Admiral Felix Stump’s Task Unit Taffy 2, and Admiral Clifton Sprague’s Task Unit Taffy 3, led the way. Each escort carrier carried about 30 planes, comprising more than 500 aircraft in all.

Incorrect communications led Admiral Kinkaid to believe that Admiral Willis A. Lee’s Task Force 34 of battleships was guarding the San Bernardino Strait to the north, and that there would be no danger from that direction.

The Japanese detected Taffy 3 at 6:45 a.m. and took the Americans completely by surprise. Then, with 18-inch guns, Kurita targeted the escort carriers for the fleet carriers — thinking that he had the whole of the American Third fleet in his sights.

In defense, Admiral Sprague’s destroyers began to unleash munitions, scattering the Japanese formations as their ships turned to avoid torpedoes. The Yamato found itself between two torpedoes on parallel courses, and for 10 minutes it headed away from the action, unable to turn back for fear of being hit.

The American destroyers Hoel and Johnston, and destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts, were sunk, while four others were damaged. However, they had provided enough time for Sprague to get his planes into the air. American fighter planes attacked with whatever they had aboard, including depth charges for some. With artillery raining down all around him, Sprague turned and fled south. The rear carrier Gambier Bay sank while most of the others were hit and damaged.

Taffy 3 could now see the light as Taffy 2 (the next unit to the south) appeared over the horizon, which forced Kurita to the north. The Japanese commander had suffered the loss of his heavy cruisers, the Chokai, Suzuya, and Chikuma, which had been sunk by Taffy 3’s desperate sea and air attacks.

With thoughts of perhaps once again steaming in the sea off Palawan, Kurita disengaged the Yamato, Haruna, Kongo and Nagato, followed by the few remaining cruisers and destroyers. As they turned and fled to the north and then west through the San Bernardino Strait under continuous air attack, the Nagato, Haruna and Kongo were severely damaged.

In these battles within the Leyte Gulf campaign,show the situation if surface gunnery warfare. In modeling this it looks like the idea that the Americans had more ships, so they allocated the destroyers to take the brunt of the Japanese ships, while the carriers retreated from the scene. Many of the main japanese ships were targeted and damaged or sunk. In terms of damage its not the case that only Battleships were damaged… cruisers were damaged and carriers sunk.

At leyte Kuritas fleet did sight and attempt to sink the jeep carriers only to find supporting ships screening the retreat of the carriers. He saw exactly what he was up against and so did the Americans. This case shows that the combatants knew who and what they were dealing with, otherwise the Americans would not be running away to protect Jeep carriers if Japanese were just attacking with destroyers. Note the damage on the japanese battleships, can also indicate that the Americans were targeting these because they had ranged guns that could still hit the carriers…so they needed to fight them

Under my rules the defender can retreat after any round. Under my system the BB that rolls a one can declare its target ( which can account for some other ships sinking than destroyers)

The damaged battleship in all these cases retires from combat. Its not realistic that they continue to fire and take the free hits and perform at 100%. So you not allow a player to take more than one free hit on his battleships and instead have a cost for repair…otherwise he just gets the free hits and loses…nothing.

I prefer this rather than taking the BB attack value down to a 2. This is because a battleship = 3-4 or more such ships and the damage does not necessarily mean that ALL the Battleships are damaged, but perhaps a number of them took a hit. I also think that the rule of altering the combat value of a 20 IPC unit to say 2 is much greater than a rule which says: you cant allocate a second first hit on another BB group, before you either sink a damaged BB, or allocate a hit on a new non- BB unit. The second is more realistic and better for the game.

You can also read up on the action of the Bismarck in may 1941 and how the Bismarck fought its battles with Hood,KGV and Prince of Whales. All combat was the same as it was at Leyte in terms of how warships fight surface actions.

check on Operation Rheinübung

Another example is the battle of Java Sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Java_Sea

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 12:02:23 pm
AS is describe earlier, a realistic solution is to line up the players fleet with less ships and the attacker matches up his ship with the defender….

Seriously… realistic?  It’s hard enough to get your own forces to line up meekly let alone get everyone to square off for broadsides.

realistic in terms of history. Perhaps not fun for some players.

Don’t get me wrong if a Turn represented a couple of days and this was a tactical game then Bob’s your Uncle. But cherry picking your targets in A&A…?
Sorry. Not working for me.

Their is no one “sea battle” that lasts longer than a few days. The various campaigns are loosely modeled in AA, The combat at sea is modeling key battle. For example, Midway is not 6 months of real time! You must remember a turn could be between 4- 6 months representing many battles and only the most important battle is what your actually playing. Each battle does not necessarily model 6 months of fighting. Thats misguided.

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 12:02:23 pm
4) When a BB is hit its new combat value is 2.

Whoa. I’m sorry but read up a bit. When I suggested losing one hit reduced the combat value of a BB didn’t you say it was… too complicated and made the BB such a bad buy no one would ever buy them?

Yes i will reread my 500+ WW2 books in my library. I will tell my Stanford History professors to take back the A’s and i will mail back my masters in History because i typed: “When a BB is hit its new combat value is 2.” :mrgreen:

I think the BB at 2 is a poor idea actually, but it could work but only as a secondary choice. I prefer the most KISS rule… which is only that you cant take a second first hit on a bb till you allocate a damaged BB first or another new non- BB ship. Thats the simplest rule to fix it w/o cost for damaged bb or reduction in BB attack to 2.

In these battles within the Leyte Gulf campaign,show the situation if surface gunnery warfare. In modeling this it looks like the idea that the Americans had more ships, so they allocated the destroyers to take the brunt of the Japanese ships, while the carriers retreated from the scene. Many of the main japanese ships were targeted and damaged or sunk. In terms of damage its not the case that only Battleships were damaged… cruisers were damaged and carriers sunk…All combat was the same as it was at Leyte in terms of how warships fight surface actions.

Yes indeed. And did the Americans “allocating the destroyers to take the brunt of the Japanese ships” remind you of anything? Not just BBs sniping away at each other as you claim is “historically” accurate.

Yes it reminded me of the idea of matching each ship with another enemy ship and the extra ships (in this case the carriers having the option of retreating) This option was considered too complicated for you. Unfortunately for you that example is “Not just BBs sniping away at each other” because only one side has BB, I can infer that in this battle the BB did not roll a one and the attacker retreated after a round hitting one destroyer and the defender hitting and damaging one BB. The idea in this example is that surface combat is done by seeing who your shooting at, rather than some claim by you that combat occurs by some kind of long distance phone call of some coordinates captains relay to targeting crews. Both sides typically see what kind of ships they are fighting and fight the ones that they feel are the most potent creators of damage and engage them. They are attacking Battleships and not the support ships, because the BB’s have the longer ranged guns and can blow the carriers up.

To model this you assign the OOB and add that the BB rolling a one can assign its hit to any target defending. This would be the case unless both sides have the BB. IN the above case only Japan had the BB.

Also, In terms of AARHE we used to have have destroyers and cruisers as screening units at 1:1 basis ( each DD or CA can screen out another ship that can be targeted for a hit allocation. After many revisions and playtesting this idea was too tedious. However, we did keep the option that Naval ships can option to attack air units using the intrinsic AA gun capabilities:

from AARHE:

Anti-Air
Certain naval unit has an Anti-Air value. This is the number of Anti-Air rolls each hitting on a 1.
Hits must be allocated on enemy air units.

Unit Anti-Air Value:
Destroyer 1
Carrier 1
Battleship 2

Cruiser 3

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 03:03:10 pm
Their is no one “sea battle” that lasts longer than a few days. The various campaigns are loosely modeled in AA, The combat at sea is modeling key battle. For example, Midway is not 6 months of real time! You must remember a turn could be between 4- 6 months representing many battles and only the most important battle is what your actually playing. Each battle does not necessarily model 6 months of fighting. Thats misguided.

Misguided and misquoted. For indeed that’s what I’ve been reminding you of.
After all, it is you that has all hands of both entire fleets sitting there shooting at each other for an entire turn.  Heaven forbid a hit go to a lowly DD acting as a fleet screen. What an unrealistic waste eh!

I didn’t quote anybody except remembering what Larry Harris told me a number of times over the years when i asked this question. Larry said the scale and time are not measurable and can fluctuate even from one turn to another. Thats a primary reason why he never has committed to any time frame ( E.G. turn = X time, ship = X ships) he has however, gave us guidelines of what it is on average and that is consistant to what i quoted.

A combat loss against a DD is entirely consistent under the idea of allocating ships and matching them up. IN that case the defender had extra ships so the attacker had one ship and was attacking 3 defenders. IN that case the defender can allocate his hits because he has screening units.

IN the case where the attacker outnumbers the defender than NO. that would not happen in every case, because at some point the attacker would have more ships and the extra ships that also hit would be hitting other defending ships.

Example: attacker 2 BB 2 DD, defender 1 BB, 1 CA

Attacker takes 2 BB vs. the 1 BB and 2 DD vs. 1 CA
in combat both BB hit  and the 2 DD miss
the defender must remove his BB, the BB rolls back and misses, the CA rolls and hits, but must hit one DD.

combat over ( attacker retreats).

This is what we had in AARHE and it worked fine except it took long time.

Now to model it under KISS rules using a new example:

Attacker  has 3 BB
Defender has 3 BB

att gets 3 hits
defender gets 4 hits

defender takes off 1 BB and damages a second ( has 4+4 for next round)
attacker removed two BB ( has one 4 for a second round)

Under OOB:

defender still has 3 BB ( no effect on his firepower)
attacker lost one BB has two left (has two for second round)

Now the solution to the problem of this in terms of realism is you need a rule to prevent the second BB from getting hit before you allocate a BB for sinking. This way the attack has some tangible results rather than "hey i didnt get much damage thanks to the free hits and automatic repair. To solve this can involve different ideas, but the most simple idea is preventing the damage, damage damage and making it damage, sunk, damage equation.

Quote from: Imperious Leader on Today at 03:03:10 pm
Yes i will reread my 500+ WW2 books in my library. I will tell my Stanford History professors to take back the A’s and i will mail back my masters in History because i typed: “When a BB is hit its new combat value is 2.”

Oh good for you. Maybe you can convince one of them that naval battles are polite little affairs where all participants get to pick their partners.
Perhaps you’re confusing it with a school dance?

Look at the Hood action again. Bismarck knew exactly which ship is was firing at and which one to fight first.

Look at Battle of Savo Island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Savo_Island

The combat loses among the order of battle are the cruiser class. Ships avoid the lessor ships and go for the more potent ships. You keep ignoring the reality of naval combat because in each example both sides see who they are engaging and pick the type of ship they want to fire at. They can tell if the ship is “larger” or a cruiser or whatnot and decide thats the one they want to fight.

And you typing that its combat value is 2 when a BB is hit, doesn’t bring into question what you did in school.
It just shows that maybe - just maybe when you consider it, that suggestion doesn’t merit an automatic NO from you.
That’s all.
After all, not like your opinion on it is that vital. You’re just another one of us players.  grin
Happy Gaming.

Well it certainly does not equal a silly " you need to read up a bit" comment. I find the rule plausible, but not the best idea for the solution.

Also, regarding Midway in neither case did the enemy planes ignore the carriers and try to sink cruiser or destroyers. You see they really do fight the targets they want and the supporting ships in this case do not act as screeners as they did at Leyte. Why?  because in both cases the ships were overwhelmed with enemy planes. As i said before the extra units should go after who they want.

I would consider another rule: the defender rolls for each carrier prior to first round and if he rolls a one a fighter cannot engage in combat ( considered on deck). If the carrier is sunk that plane is gone too.

To model this battle in AA:

attacker: 2 CV,1DD, 4 fighters= Japan, vs. 2 CV, 1DD, 1CA, 4 fighters ( carriers in different sea zones)= USA plus 1 fighter at midway

Japan attacks Midway with 1 fighters and takes out US fighter ( no loss)

Japan attacks one US carrier with 3 fighters ( sinks carrier)- planes in middle of sea ( move to Midway?)

On USA turn: 4 US planes attack the 2 japanese CV sink both and leave the scene. Japanese planes have no place to land and are removed from play.

Thats in the game taking 2 turns, but in real time its 3-5 days. This is what Larry was saying about the issue of time. Each battle is not always 4-6 months, but you can use it as a guideline.

The idea in this example is that surface combat is done by seeing who your shooting at, rather than some claim by you that combat occurs by some kind of long distance phone call of some coordinates captains relay to targeting crews.

OK now you’re just making up things I say.

I’ll break it down for you:

1. Sea Zone = Big Ocean.
2. One Turn = Lot of time.
3. One piece = lot of ships.
4. Combat = things not going as planned.

There is no realistic or historical claim that putting a BB in a sea zone means you get to fight whatever you choose there.

I have no idea why your saying this because its not what i ever said. I did say the BB rolling a one should be able to select its hit.

I did also say a BB could also have preemptive fire because it has ranged guns that outclass the other warships. Thats the essential aspect of advantage of having the bigger guns.

I also said that all warships ( not just the BB) could under a system thats a bit tedious allocate hits against targeted the ships it chooses to fight. At Leyte the US destroyers went after the Battleships and ignored the destroyers. The japanese BB’s in turn tried to fight the carriers and missed, But in all cases both sides see the enemy and sight them and decide who they want to fight. Thats clear enough and we don’t need your 1-4 list to establish that.

No phone calls Imperious. Sighted warfare requires you see the ships. Again, I refer you to numbers 1-4 above and that should be clear it is not always up to the capital ships how things unfold.

Good now you understand.

Heck, let me reference the wiki articles you provided:
Leyte: clearly the Americans chose their Destroyers to take the brunt. So, in other words: not the Japanese’s choice.

No you miss that you didn’t read. The japanese went after the Jeep carriers and missed, then retreated. The US went after the main japanese ships, which is why the japanese lost capital ships. The Americans in the other battles at Leyte attacked each japanese group and sank or damaged the best ‘pieces’ The japanese loses are not mostly destroyers. So your point is ridiculous.

Java: the ABDA were incapable of selecting the convoy as their targets. In fact the Japanese sunk their own minesweeper. (A roll of 6 I guess.)

Combat loses and damage to cruisers for the most part. Why and how do you overlook this?

Strength

Dutch/ USA
2 heavy cruisers
3 light cruisers
9 destroyers

Japan
2 heavy cruisers
2 light cruisers
14 destroyers
10 transports

Casualties and losses

Dutch/USA loses
2 cruisers sunk ( they had only 2)
3 destroyers sunk
2,300 sailors killed

japan loses
1 destroyer damaged

Look at Midway if you go by the “ONE BIG SEA ZONE THING” you notice that 4 Japanese carriers sunk and a few other ships damaged….targeted attacks

If you look at the American loses we lost Yorktown… targeted attacks.

Savo: A fine example of fighting fleets in groups and the Fog of War as surface warships fumble around uncertainly.

its also a fine example of the loses being allocated in such a manner thats consistent with attacking the more potent ship….targeted

Strength

USA
8 cruisers,
15 destroyers[2]

Japan
7 cruisers,
1 destroyer[3]

Casualties and losses

to Japan
4 cruisers sunk,
1 cruiser,
2 destroyers damaged,
1,077 killed[4]

to USA
3 cruisers moderately damaged,

anyway you cut it the most potent ships are getting the brunt of the damage. While you continue to ignore this thats fine, but in the game something has to account for this in terms of modeling a realistic manner consistent with the actual war loses.

On land this means like in AARHE the tank hits could go against tanks or artillery

ON Sea a combat loss goes against a ship in the higher class ( a simple way to assign this is to allow some ships to screen as in AARHE 3.0, but the extra ships can fire targeted and in doing so model the kind of damage the war illustrates.

ON sea of course Bombers are protected by flying at higher altitudes, and fighters on CAP engage attacking planes. I don’t see any need for changes here, unless you want to infer that if you attack planes and have extra fighters, then these can be used against the bombers.

Bismarck: Well, an odd battle since the number of actual vessels is so small and it resembles a bar fight in a phone booth. Even so the article clearly states that the Hood was firing on the wrong ship for most of the battle.

I guess you concede the point on this. Even typing “Hood firing on the wrong ship for most of the battle” is laughable considering that it was destroyed within minutes of the Bismarck correctly seeing it and deciding it was the most potent enemy and sinking it first….targeted

Bismarck fires at hood… the defender does not allocate a hit on Price of whales. Everybody knew in 1941 the Hood was the British #1 ship and was a stronger match.

Here is the OOB for battle Philippine sea> AKA the Turkey Shoot

Notice the loses are heavy in carrier…… targeted…the side that lost 3 carriers didnt lose ‘your so called screening ships’ rather they select the ship they want to attack and just sink the good stuff and leave the riffraff for another day. In surface battles its no different. Each side chooses what it wants to attack, but does not always becomes sucessful. The results always show the major loses are too the capital ships.

Look at the total inventory of each class of ship and compare the total number of them sunk and you will see easily that its always heavy on the side of the major ( not destroyers or cruisers) but rather BB and CV/ CVL/ CVE

Strength
7 fleet carriers,
8 light carriers,
7 battleships,
79 other ships,
28 submarines,
956 planes

5 fleet carriers,
4 light carriers,
5 battleships,
43 other ships,
450 carrier-based planes,
300 land-based planes

Casualties and losses

USA
123 planes destroyed (about 80 of whose crews survived)

Japan
3 carriers sunk,
2 oilers sunk,
about 600 planes destroyed,
6 other ships heavily damaged

The largest ratio of ships sunk are carriers…targeted

My Vote: Yes to reduced combat value. No to restrained target selection.
Why: So here we get to the crux of the exchange.

But that makes the BB worth less if you “discount” its damaged status. Now its worth far less in battle and the 2 hit thing is no longer a value but a hindrance. Each BB piece is 3-5 battleships. In battle they may be damaged but to the extent of which they no longer render effective fire or now fire at 50% is not fun… perhaps the solution could be that they fire at 3??? at least this somewhat models damage, but not to the extent that its reduced to a destroyer. I prefer 3 if anything.

Personally, I’m of the mind that the defender choice of casualty principle reflects a number of variables outside the scope of this game not the least of which is deployments putting different vessels at risk at different times.

And remember, with combat value being reduced there are no more disappearing hits on BBs… so I don’t see the defender choosing to reduce all of his BBs to absorb 3 hits as less historical than sinking one and maybe some other smaller warship so as to keep his other BBs intact.

yes but its still too harsh to reduce it to 2. it costs 20 and your reducing it to a unit costing 8. Id make it a cruiser value.

If in your view of WW2 the sides agreed that no other BBs would be hit until the first one was sunk… knock yourself out.

Thats not my view, but in terms of keeping the same as simple as possible and maintaining the unit values as they are its more in keeping with leaving the rating at 4 and just not allowing the ‘damage, damage, damage’ syndrome to exist by requiring another ship to be sunk instead. This would be more consistent with the idea of ‘screening’ even at a lessor degree than what i proposed that can be tedious.

I will add these to my official house rules.