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Old 08-07-2017, 07:38 PM   #41
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: GURPS Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances

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I took it as obvious that a target wouldn't be dodging if it didn't know it was being attacked. Yes, I suppose that there are hypothetical situations in which a ship might believe it was possibly under attack, and dodge accordingly, but really, there, "deduces" is just an extreme case of "observes".
Note that in this movie.....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050356/...nm_flmg_act_73

.....Robert Mitchum does anticipate unseen torpedo attack and avoids it through some sort of significantly difficult roll v. Shiphandling or possibly Tactics. In WWII, while engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with an expertly commanded U-boat Mitchum calls a course change for no obvious reason though it certainly looks like he's carefully considering _something_ and just after it's completed we see a pair of torpedoes pass by 10 yards off the port side on a now parallel course. Probably cinematic but who knows what the limits of a true veteran commander are.

Note that this is not only an excellent movie it's the obvious inspiration for the TOS episode Balance of Terror where the Romulans are first encountered. It also links to The Hunt for Red October with a "singing sailors" scene.
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Old 08-07-2017, 07:42 PM   #42
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Default Re: GURPS Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances

Danger Sense in that case, I think.
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Old 08-07-2017, 07:49 PM   #43
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Danger Sense in that case, I think.
Didn't look like that sort of thing to me.

I interpreted it as a sort of internal "If I were hunting my ship from a U-boat last contacted _here_ I would maneuver _so_ at _this_ speed and launch torpedoes at _this_ time which means I need to go hard a-starboard _now_" anticipation. The movie was very much about a master level equivalent of a game of chess.
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Old 08-07-2017, 07:51 PM   #44
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Default Re: GURPS Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances

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Didn't look like that sort of thing to me.

I interpreted it as a sort of internal "If I were hunting my ship from a U-boat last contacted _here_ I would maneuver _so_ at _this_ speed and launch torpedoes at _this_ time which means I need to go hard a-starboard _now_" anticipation. The movie was very much about a master level equivalent of a game of chess.
Yeah but that's the realistic version of Danger Sense, subconscious cues leading to avoiding danger, like the feeling that this particular pile of trash is an IED.
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Old 08-07-2017, 08:05 PM   #45
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Yeah but that's the realistic version of Danger Sense, subconscious cues leading to avoiding danger, like the feeling that this particular pile of trash is an IED.
I did not judge it to be a subconscious process. Rather, it appeared to me to be a conscious anticipation based on a high degree of skill.
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Old 08-08-2017, 12:44 AM   #46
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Default Re: GURPS Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances

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Aside from looking like an idiot, you'd be at best zig-zagging across much more ocean than you actually wanted to cross and most likely running your engines at flank speed - which means wasting an enormous amount of fuel and putting lots of unwanted wear on your machinery.
The vehicular counterpart to "Yes, you can Dodge all the time - but that means you're in combat mode, so you're burning FP as when in combat".

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If you do add penalties of that sort to torpedo attacks you might also need some way of modeling firing spreads of torpedoes to increase chances of a hit and/or hinder evasion attempts.
Possibly apply the autofire rules? But this was outside the scope of my book - Steam Age ships weren't really equipped or inclined to throw away multiple fish on a single shot. Someone working on a higher-TL vehicles book would be welcome to expand my rules substantially.

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I would note that this why ships were expected to zig-zag in WWII.
The vehicle equivalent of an infantryman moving around a bit on the advance, as opposed to a civilian walking in a straight line down the street. Useful, but not a full Dodge in GURPS terms. Maybe enough to preclude opponents getting more than one turn of Aim?
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Old 08-08-2017, 04:45 AM   #47
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Default Re: GURPS Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances

Zig zags were a more strategic or higher level tactical option. WW II subs were slow underwater. Many attacks consisted of spotting a ship, surfacing outside of it's sight and running to a spot where you can ambush. If they zig zag on a routine basis the course they plotted to intercept is based on a bearing the ship isn't on anymore.
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Old 08-08-2017, 09:47 AM   #48
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Possibly apply the autofire rules? But this was outside the scope of my book - Steam Age ships weren't really equipped or inclined to throw away multiple fish on a single shot.
Good to know! Were their longer-range shots any good against targets that weren't at anchor? The Mk. VIII stats allow a run time of more than four minutes, which seems long enough that a moving target could easily 'dodge' entirely by accident
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Old 08-08-2017, 01:21 PM   #49
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Default Re: GURPS Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances

I'm honestly not sure how much active service some of those early torpedo designs saw. An awful lot of late Victorian military tech went untested, until WWI shook things out. Somebody who knows WWI naval history a lot better than me might be able to say how well torpedo engagements went.

But I suspect that those nominal maximum ranges do imply carefully lined-up sneak attacks rather than targets which were doing anything fancy. "Slipped into the enemy harbour and sank the battleship Xyz at anchor" does seem to come up more often than tales of engagements on the high seas.
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Old 08-08-2017, 02:46 PM   #50
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Default Re: GURPS Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances

Before and during WWI, torpedoes did real damage, but mostly in short-range surprise attacks, usually by submarines. Surface ship torpedoes mainly caused an increase in the range for gunnery, trying to stay out of torpedo range, or at least to make hitting hard. This effect started when torpedoes first went to sea, but became much more important when "heater" torpedoes were invented in the first decade of the 20th century.

To stand any chance of hitting with an unguided torpedo at significant range, you need an accurate course and speed for your target. The main point of zig-zagging was to make estimating those numbers harder. I reckon a zig-zagging target gets to use its full speed on the Speed/Range table, without any discounts for it going mostly towards or away from the shooter.

The munchkin version of this is zig-zagging irregularly, with random changes in course. This is OK for a ship by itself, but wholly impractical for any kind of formation like a fleet or convoy. It probably does give you the dodge at -3 for an unobserved attack.

Ships may also chose to dodge when they have reason to believe a torpedo may be on the way. For example, at Jutland, the German torpedo boats made a long range torpedo attack to cover the German battle fleet's withdrawal. Their behaviour made it very obvious what was happening, so they got shot at with the British battle line's main armament. Once they had turned away, the British assumed any torpedoes would have been launched, and made a drastic change of course. Given the distance of the attack, this gave enough bonus that the dodge succeeded automatically. However, they'd been forced to change course, which was the main point of the attack.

During WWI, there was a severe problem with imaginary submarines. People were always worrying about them, and in coastal waters with lots of junk floating around, they'd be spotted several times a day, usually producing drastic course changes.
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