FT to WW2 conversion

Remember this was done about 8 years ago with the original FT rules. The
thought being a player could run a Task force of up to 20 ships while allowing
up to 8 players in game. The general idea that players could concentrate on
being Admirals moving fleets, not Captains maneuvering ships.

The quick one page summary of the conversion is -

Roughly the break down for gunnery was this:

3 - 18" guns = 4 class 3 beams
3 - 16" guns = 3 class 3 beams
3 - 14" guns = 2 class 3 beams

2 - 12" guns = 3 class 2 beams
2 - 10" guns = 2 class 2 beams
2 - 8" guns = 1 class 2 beam

1 - 6" gun = 1 class 1 beam, not dual purpose (can't fire at fighters)
2 - 5" guns = 1 class 1 beam, possibly dual purpose

12.7 mm-20mm AA guns, roughly 20 per PDS
20mm+ AA guns roughly 10 per ADS

There is some fudging for strange arrangements like the quad turrets on
certain ships or triple mountings of 8" or 10" guns.

Torpedo mountings were 1 TT per TT, so a DD with twin triple mountings had 6
single shot torpedoes. Some ships had the capability to reload (most
submarines) and had a record line for ready torpedo expenditure (in most cases
only one additional salvo, as the other torpedoes are not easily accessed.)
Depth charges were treated like torpedoes against submerged submarines at
short range, you rolled to hit, then a roll for damage.

Tonnage was based on actual reported weight, not the propaganda Treaty
displacement, although some of the British ships were problematical depending
on whether their bulges were flooded or not.

Speeds were roughly based on 1 MU (inch) per 5 knots with board scale for
ships being about 1 MU per 1000 yards. We used 1:2400 scale models
for ships.  Engines were one box per MU, so most ships had 4-6 engine
boxes.

Turn rate was fixed - 3 points for small (destroyers), 2 points for
medium (cruisers) and 1 point for large/capital (battleship/carriers)
Maneuver systems were represented by 2 "rudder" boxes, a left and a right. You
needed both or none to maneuver straight, if one box was destroyed, you could
only turn in the direction of the remaining box. DC parties could "repair" the
box once.

The largest game we ever did was a total (both sides) of 6 carriers, 14
battleships, 22 cruisers, 38 destroyers and 4 submarines, plus an
additional 10 stands of land based planes. The game took about 4 1/2
hours to complete with 6 players. The key parts to running the game relatively
quickly was grouping the DD's into squadrons, and ships into fleets and moving
them as a group. Also having huge numbers of dice handy made things quicker
(we used 42 oz. Big Gulp cups to contain the dice, and rolled into a medium
sized box (the dice were color coded into
groups of 10 to make them easy to count - for instance if you needed 36
dice, you grabbed the red, blue, white dice and 6 yellows).

--Binhan

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