I've just embarked on modifying FT into WWII for a beer and pretzels game of
What If... for instance if the Bismark and Tirpitz had survived to take on the
British Home Fleet or if the Japanese had managed to take down a carrier or
two at Pearl and left the Americans with only crisers and battleships to slug
it out with for the middle years of the war. Scenarios such as Musashi vs Iowa
class or even a quick and dirty version of Midway that is playable in an
afternoon.
I've currently made the following modifications -
Range bands are now 6", 12", and 18" for C,B, and A batts respectively.
Torps are range 6" with a to hit number equal to or less than the number of
torpedoes fired. Armor reduces the damage done by torps.
Ships are assigned weapons based on historical data
Max velocity is rated at 1"= 5 knots with 1/2" being the smallest
increment
Acceleration is 1/2", 1" or 2" for Capital, cruiser and escorts
respectively
Carriers are rated for full complement of aircraft - e.g. Enterprise =
90 aircraft, 50% fighters, 25% dive bombers, 25% torpedo bombers
Dive bombers hit on a 6, damage = 1d6 - deck armor level
Full carriers can launch or retrieve 2 squadrons (12 planes total) per turn,
escort or light carriers only 1. Carriers can either retrieve or launch but
may not do both in one turn.
There are a few other details but this is the general gist. The aim is to
maintain FT simplicity in terms of calculating damage and movement to
allow actions of 30+ ships that can be completed with only 5-10 minutes
per turn.
Comments are welcome.
--Binhan
> I've just embarked on modifying FT into WWII for a beer and pretzels
[snip]
> Comments are welcome.
Binhan - sounds interesting. I've had people tell me they've done
conversions for FT Napoleonic Naval (Full Sail?), and I've been playing
with ideas for a Modern Naval version - mainly for my own use,
especially
as I was tempted into buying 130+ beautifully painted & based 1/2400
modern
ships at the bring-and-buy at the last show I went to... :) [with this
size of fleet you NEED Q&D (Quick and Dirty) rules!]
I would certainly be interested in seeing the full text of your rules when
you've done them; it's up to you and other list members whether you want to
post them to the list or privately email them.
> On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Dean Gundberg wrote:
> I did decide that if you double the thousand number of the full load
I
> don't think ships could be built and subject to normal FT rules. In
I had originally thought to do a similar thing with 500 tons equalling 1
mass box but then some designs would never fit within the allotted mass-
i.e. escort carriers of 11-15,000 tons carrying 30 planes. So idecided
to reverse engineer the ships by assigning weapons then calculating boxes
based on actual mass and survivability - e.g. the Bismark having more
boxes to represent higher degree of compartmentalization.
> This is the area I have put a ot of thought into. I decided that
> Turrets with 2 or 4 guns go up or down a level in damage (see below).
All
> batts are effected by screens as normal (screens represent level of
> damage on a roll of a 6, B8 guns have normal 12" range bands and
> higher.
I made simple assumptions for gunnery C bats represent 5-7" guns at the
following rate - 2 5"=1 C bat, 6" are 1 for 1 and 7" are 2 for 3 C bats.
B bats are 8-12" with 8 costing 3 for 2, 10" costing 1 for 1 and 12"
costing 2 for 3 B batts. A bats are the big guns with 14" 3 for 2, 16" 1 for 1
and 18" 2 for 3". Odd sizes such as 15 are runded up to the next larger ratio
so 15" would be counted as 1 for 1 as 16". There are massive gernalities here
but the idea was to keep it fairly simple to make sheets from stats. Arcs are
left standard PSFA with most secondaries only firing
P or S. There are 2 types of 5", anti-ship and Dual purpose which are
designated by having a triangle within the circle.
Armor is based on belt thickness with 0-2.9 being level 0, 3-5.9 being
level 1, 6-8.9 being level 2 , 9-11.9 being level 3 and 12+ being level
3 with extra armor boxes that come before normal hull boxes, approximately 5
boxes per inch of belt above 12. e.g. Iowa class get 5 more boxes and the
Yamoto gets 15 (should get 20 but I think that's excessive)
I'll be trying out some of these ideas this weekend with a battle between 2
Massachusetts Class battleships, Yorktown and 6 destroyers against the
Bismark, Graf Spee, Yamoto and 6 destroyers. I'll probably write up a quick
summary of game to post.
Other ideas that are still in the works are submarines, AS warfare, smoke
screens and land-based heavy bombers. in additon there are some national
differences in terms of planes, i.e. American fighters are armored to
level 1 while japanese fighters ave higher speeds - 18" move.
--Binhan
> >
I pick these axamples out on one criteria only. Whilst I know little
about the American/Japanese side of WW2 naval combat, for which these
rules may well work, I don't feel they are especially well designed for the
atlantic theater.
The issue that at the heart of this is German 11" guns. They were well built,
definately main armament and thanks to very high mussel velocities
could fire futher than many 14"-15" guns. Whilst this is a specific
example, if you are creating ships by reverse engineering designs, you will
find you loose the "flavour" of the war with this kind of system.
The general idea is excelent, but I do feel it needs some tweeking. People
interested in fast play naval rules for WW2 (and WW1) would do well to look at
General Quarters pt 1 (and pt 2). The rules are quick and easy to play and
record keeping is simple. Campaign rules are also included and these work
well. Although FT IS more simple, it may not be by the time you have added all
your rules modifications.
Range of weapons is another issue that I feel neads reassesing. I remember the
most striking thing to me when I started playing naval engagements was the
shear range a ship could fire. These little 2" models could fire in excess of
100"!!! It does of course depend on the scale etc. you are playing, but
remember that by WW2, engagements were possible at distances of 15miles or
so...
-Entropy
> At 03:18 PM 6/1/97 -0600, you wrote:
Well, you beat me to it (sort of). I was planning to do the same thing for
pre-dreadnoughts (I have a number of Russo-Japanese war ships). I'd love
to
see your more detailed version, if you could e-mail it to me. In fact,
if
you wouldn't mind, I'd like to add pre-dreadnought rules to your rules
(kind of a conversion of a conversion).
> On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, M Hodgson wrote:
> I pick these axamples out on one criteria only. Whilst I know little
> [quoted text omitted]
Conversely armor allocation between different countries makes a pretty big
factor - i.e. German and British arrangment of props and armor made
their rudders and props highly vulnerable to torpedoes while American
battleships used the outer props to shield the inner ones and the rudder. Also
the arrangement of deck armor played huge roles in determining survivability
at long range since shells fired at long ranges tended to be on higher arcs,
meaning that that tended to "plunge" at the end making them strike more
downward than across and making it more likely to get a deck rather than a
belt hit. German and British ships were designed for closer action where
trajectories were relatively flat. But the point of using FT is to make some
generalizations and use rules that give you a "feel of what it was like"
rather than being a totally accurate simulation. The point of beer and
pretzels to to keep things simple and fast paced at the sacrifice of accuracy
and detail. There needs to be enough detail to make it more interesting than
checkers but far less than say SFB or Squad Leader.
> The general idea is excelent, but I do feel it needs some tweeking.
I am attempting to modify the rules in such a way that, like FT, a beginner
could learn all the rules needed to play in 5 minutes and play a competent
game with just a short cheat sheet. Currently almost all the rules fo this
will fit on 1 side of 1 page, including all the weapon charts. It will not be
exactly FT, but as previously mentioned I'm trying more for the feel of FT.
> Range of weapons is another issue that I feel neads reassesing. I
models
> could fire in excess of 100" !!! It does of course depend on the
Actually that was one reason I modified the ranges for A bats to 18". This
correlates roughly to 1,000 yards per inch (although 16" and larger guns
actually fire farther than that) which places Torpedoes and planes almost
within scale (6,000 yards for torpedoes was medium range for most types and an
aircraft would probably make an attack run within 2 miles of the target) Of
course the ships are not in scale but neither are they in FT and all my
measurements are carried out Middle (or front middle) funnel to middle funnel.
--Binhan