> --- agoodall@att.net wrote:
I assume that 5" is a typo and you mean the 15".
All of the Jane's that I have list shell weight and muzzle velocity
only, not max range. Of the Conway's, only the 1922-1946 lists ranges,
and then only for the UK. 1860-1905 lists weights & MV. 1906-1921 has
no armament tables. 1947-1995 has brief descriptions, but no data.
Also, all of the 15" were in mounts with a maximum elevation of 30
degrees and the older 12" and 13.5" were limited to 20-25, while the
newer 14" and 16" mounts went up to 40 degrees and the 8" and smaller could
elevate past 45. some 6" mounts could go up to 80. This has quite an effect on
the max. ranges.
As for how the ranges convert to FT, I figure that the engagement ranges were
"effective range", while the list values were "maximum range". I feel that
this translates into FT as effective range being
the 3rd range band for K-guns, as this is where you get 50% hits (4+
on d6),and one FT "shot" can represent the firing of several shells, rather
than playing out each round. It's all up to your individual tastes
> At any rate, I hadn't thought to look at MT for ideas. Instead, I
I used PDS for small rapid fire like 20mm Oerlikon and 40mm Bofors. B1
for 3"-4" DP and QF. K-guns started at K1 for 5", K2 for 6", K3 for
8" K4 for 10" and 11", etc.. Big gun single mounts are 1 class lower, triples
1 class higher, quadruples 2 classes higher (so KGV quad 14s are K8 and the
twin is K6).
This was after FB2 was out, and I was disappointed with the absence of KV
integral armor, as I had been looking forward to it.
The way we treat it is that each level of IA uses 5% of the ship's MASS per
level, with a minimum of 4 MASS per level, and costs 4 pts per MASS. If you
feel this is too cheap, you can always raise the minimum to 5 MASS per level
and the cost to 5 pts per MASS. We usually allow both IA and screens up to
level 3, some settings (like B5) up to level
4.
Armor is indicated by a hexagonal box at the end of hull rows in the
same pattern as for stealth hulls as described in the Weap/Def Archive
(2, 1-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4), though we have tried 3, 2-4, 2-3-4, 1-2-3-4.
When a ship takes a threshold check, roll for each hex of IA. If the hex is at
the end of a finished row, roll a normal threshold check. If the hex is at the
end of an unfinished row (damage boxes remaining),
then roll a "protected systems" roll; +1 to target number, as for Core
Systems. So unlike MT armor, it can be lost. Luck plays a role and instances
can occur where a ship loses all its armor after the second threshold, as well
as a ship with one hull point remaining and full armor level.
IA cannot be repaired during a game. In a campaign, IA can only be repaired at
a fleet base or mobile yard. Neither a ship nor a tender can repair armor. We
have been discussing allowing IA repair by tender or self in a very high tech
setting like Andromeda, where the ship can synthesize almost anything, given a
system to plunder for raw materials.
Against B weapons, IA acts just like screens of the same level. No effect
against rerolls.
Against K weapons, IA has two effects.
1) subtract the level of the IA from the class of the K-gun to find the
target number for double damage, with a minimum of 1. E.g. a K5 hits a ship
with IA2. The normal target number is 5 or less, but against IA2 it is 3 or
less. 2) Subtract the IA level from the total damage done by each hit. E.g.
The previous example would do 5-2=3 damage or 10-2=8 damage depending
on whether the roll for double damage is successful. Not that this makes IA2
immune to K1 fire and IA4 immune to K2 fire.
Another approach to K-guns that we discussed but never tried was to
have a single effect, which is to subtract the level of the IA from the
K-gun class before doubling when determnng damage, but have no effect
aon the target number. E.g. the K5 always does doule damage on a 5 or less
regardless of IA level, but the damage would be 3 or 6. This method gives
total immunity to weapons equal to or less than the IA class, which is why we
never tried it.
Against point target weapons that do full dice damage, like PTs and SMs,
subtract the IA level from the TOTAL damage done by each weapon. Each SM in a
salvo is treated as a separate weapon, but if it is class 2 or 3 or for
classed PTs then the subtraction is made from the total, not each die. We give
both PTs and SMs penetrating rerolls on a "6", unaffected by IA.
Against area effect weapons that do full dice damage, like PBLs and
Narn E-mines (we use a longer range version of the one in EFSB, but
with same damage system as EFSB), subtract the IA level from EACH DIE.
IA has no effect on E-Mine rerolls.
Against EFSB-type heavy beams, subtract IA level from each die, but do
not subtract it from rerolls.
Maybe this will give you some ideas. I am not sure if it is balanced at either
x4 or x5 for cost, but when we use it it is usually in a setting were everyone
uses armor (like B5, BSG, BFG, & home grown) rather than one side armor and
the other screens.
J
PS The K-gun & IA conversion was never ment to represent real world wet
navies, just "inspired by" -type spaceships.
> Jared wrote:
> I assume that 5" is a typo and you mean the 15".
Yes, that was a typo.
> All of the Jane's that I have list shell weight and muzzle velocity
Warships International had an issue where they discussed gun trials
between the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War. I can't remember
if they discussed maximum range, but they did talk about the accuracy (in
terms of hit probability) at several ranges, giving a very good idea of the
maximum effective range.
I have several source books for the Russo-Japanese War, and so I know
the maximum range used for engaging, which is more realistic to model than
theoretical maximum range anyway.
> As for how the ranges convert to FT, I figure that the engagement
I took a different tack. I found information on the number of minutes of
sustained fire that was required to sink a ship, based on trials done
before the Russo-Japanese War. The war came out with similar statistics.
The average time was 50 minutes, but that was from the fire of one battleship.
Using this as a gauge, I came up with a method of calculating hull boxes based
on average chance to hit. Surprisingly, the result was fairly accurate.
One problem I have is that beams are linear in the number of dice added,
while real life guns are non-linear in accuracy. I tried to fix this,
but eventually just abandoned the whole _Full Steam_ idea. I've since
gone back to it and feel that while it's not 100% accurate, it's fun and
simple. This is why I'm looking at it again.
Each shot does, indeed, represent more than one actual shot. In fact, each
shot represents firing from one turret. This is another problem. I've had to
double up the guns on the ships. It works for 12" guns, which were mounted two
to a turret, but it means that smaller guns are rounded up. I'd prefer to have
one gun on the actual ship represent one gun on the ship sheet, but that means
that a 12" turret (two guns) would require 12 dice to roll at close range, and
24 dice at long range. Add in, say, the five 6" guns on the Fuji at close
range and you're rolling 39 dice! That was way too excessive. Chopping them
down by half that makes the game faster to play, though some realism is
stripped out.
I'm still working on this as it's the one area of the rules I'm really not
crazy about.
> I used PDS for small rapid fire like 20mm Oerlikon and 40mm Bofors.
That's sort of what I did with the anti-torpedo boat guns.
> This was after FB2 was out, and I was disappointed with the absence of
I looked up my copy of MT (I never did play KV before FB2). Integral armour is
just screens that can't be taken out by a threshold check.
Funny enough, this is _exactly_ what I came up with to represent armour
in _Full Steam_.
> The way we treat it is that each level of IA uses 5% of the ship's
I didn't bother coming up with a point or mass system. Instead I worked out a
way of creating a ship based on historical data. Since it's a historical game,
I don't have to worry about coming up with a ship design system.
> So unlike MT armor, it can be lost.
That's an interesting idea, though not realistic for the Russo-Japanese
War period. McCulley's report shows the location where shots hit several of
the Russian ships. At no time did a shot hit the same location twice, so the
idea of degrading armour just doesn't fit this era.
> PS The K-gun & IA conversion was never ment to represent real world
Those are some interesting ideas, though.
I encountered similar problems when doing the conversion of FT I to WW2
Naval - for instance an Iowa class battleship had 9 Class A (Beam 3)
guns mounted in three turrets, twenty Class C (Beam 1) mounted on the sides,
10 PDS and 4 ADS. Belt armor was represented by shields, but
ignored if fire came from the front/rear arc or from long range
(plunging fire). Hull boxes was based on displacement, roughly 1 box per 1,000
tons with some fudge factor based on anecdotal evidence of strength of design.
Interesting enough, large American carriers (Essex Class) were serious ship
killers with 10 stands of planes (representing 120 planes) With limited launch
and recover facilities (one stand per turn, flight deck only allowed to launch
or land, not both in the same turn) it would take
5-6 turns for a strike to form then a large cloud of planes would
descend on some poor hapless target and pretty much annihilate it. (18
torpedo shots can ruin a battleship's day) then take another 10-12 turns
to land, re-arm and launch again. The main concern was the opposing
fleet's aircraft attacking while your own planes were down for
re-arming.
There was a problem with Battleships and heavy cruisers annilhating destroyers
at long ranges, which historically didn't happen much. Another issue is that
in real life, salvoes are very much hit or miss, with rarely anything like a
"grazing" shot. Getting slammed with 1,600
lbs of armor-piercing steel is going to hurt, but a near miss is only
going to get you wet, so in reality there should be a "to hit" roll then a
damage roll.
Submarines were ok with a referee but oddly unsatisfactorily slow and
unpredictable, a good salvo of 6 torpedoes into a key ship could change a
battle in an instant, but getting the submarine into the correct position was
a very difficult job.
--Binhan
> -----Original Message-----
> I encountered similar problems when doing the conversion of FT I to
guns mounted in three turrets, twenty Class C (Beam 1) mounted on the sides,
10 PDS and 4 ADS. Belt armor was represented by shields, but
ignored if fire came from the front/rear arc or from long range
(plunging fire). Hull boxes was based on displacement, roughly 1 box per 1,000
tons with some fudge factor based on anecdotal evidence of strength of design.
> [quoted text omitted]
Did the "armored box" design of the Iowa's cut across the front and rear of
the ship? There should be some kind of armor against plunging fire as well I
would think.
> Interesting enough, large American carriers (Essex Class) were serious
The big thing with aircraft of the time was that it was usually very hard to
locate the target.
> There was a problem with Battleships and heavy cruisers annilhating
Another issue is that in real life, salvoes are very much hit or miss, with
rarely anything like a "grazing" shot. Getting slammed with 1,600
lbs of armor-piercing steel is going to hurt, but a near miss is only
going to get you wet, so in reality there should be a "to hit" roll then a
damage roll.
> [quoted text omitted]
Sounds like a "to hit" would be needed. Battleship shells frequently failed to
detonate when they hit destroyers as well. They were just too lightly armored
to set off the AP shells.
> Submarines were ok with a referee but oddly unsatisfactorily slow and
Hmm, sounds like real life WWII submarine ops then. They really did only
operate well against shipping away from battle zones.
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
...
> Submarines were ok with a referee but oddly
Not to mention the fact that a sub skipper has
NO desire to be anywhere near a battle! The sky,
and soon the ocean is full of high explosive shells that can ruin ones day,
and it isn't like you can see it coming.
Bye for now,
> --- agoodall@att.net wrote:
Our first iteration of Integral Armor had all of the armor take a single
threshold check, with a failure resulting in the loss of a single level. I
like this better, but several others thought this was too powerful, so it was
reduced to the system that I described.
J
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
I assume that you made no distinction between 14", 15", 16" and 18" guns?
How about 6" and 8" cruiser guns? Were they both B batts? How about the 12" on
the Alaska?
Aside: I think that classed batteries is one of the best improvements
to FT to come from the EFSB/FBs, as it allows a greater range of
choices.
> Belt armor was represented by shields, but ignored if fire came from
Sounds like sidewalls and impeller wedges:)
You do know that all ships with belt armor, including pre-dreadnought
battleships and armored cruisers either had armored transverse bulkheads
joinng the ends ofthe belts, anged the belts inward to join to the fore and
aft barbettes, or extended the belts all the way to join at the bow and stern,
right?
Just before WW1, the USN found from testing that light armor was worse than no
armor since it did not stop shells penetrating but did detonate them inside
the ship. The new pattern, called "all or nothing armoring" was to strengthen
the armor over vital areas to the point where it offered tremendous
protection, and reduce all other areas to completely unarmored status to allow
shells to pass through without detonating. This was picked up by other navies
and became the norm after WW1.
At the battle of Leyte Gulf in the Phillipines during WW2, Japanese
battleships fired AP shells at US CVEs at point black range. The shells passed
completely through the ships without detonating.
> or from long range (plunging fire).
And all ships built after the battle of Tsushima in 1905 have armored decks
precisely to defend against plunging fire.
In fact, the USN built battleships based on an "immunity zone" idea. This zone
was defined as "from X thousand yards to Y thousand yards against Z"
shellfire". Where X was the closest range at which Z" shells could not
penetrate the belt and Y was the farthest range before plunging shells would
penetrate the armored deck. The zone was usually calculated based on the
ship's own main battery size, since the ship was assumed to be facing
similarly armed contemporaries in other navies.
> Hull boxes was based on displacement, roughly 1 box
Which figures did you use? Standard load (Washington Treaty), full load, or
maximum deep load? These could be very different, for example some ships built
to Washington Treaty limits of 35,000 dwt standard could have full or maximum
loads of 40,000 to 45,000 dwt. Could make a big difference in a game.
<snip>
> There was a problem with Battleships and heavy cruisers annilhating
That is why I used K-guns. However, if you want to use the beam
battery mechanic, try this: Each beam only rolls a single die, however it has
a range equal to the
full range for the weapon, e.g. an A batt/class 3 rolls 1 die out to 36
MU. Score the roll as for normal beam dice. Each hit does a number of
points of damage equal to the class of the battery, so an A batt/class
3 does 0, 3, or 6 damage.
J
> --- "Grant A. Ladue" <ladue@cse.Buffalo.EDU> wrote:
Yes and Yes.
All KC armor 12.1" upper belt over 0.875" Special Tensile Steel backing 12.0"
lower belt over 0.875" Special Tensile Steel backing
1.5" weather deck over 6" armored deck over 0.625" suspended splinter deck
11.3" bulkheads fore and aft
and for completeness:
barbettes 11.3" behind belt, 17.3" exposed
19.7" turret face 9.5" turret side 12.0" turret rear 7.25" turret roof
17.5" conning tower w/ 7.25" roof
J