Mass Combat naval combat elements

[Andreas]

I was reading Mass Combat and some things struck me as odd. The Fast Attack Boat element has very low TS.

A "Capital Ship" (battleships and large modern cruisers) has 400 times more TS than a "Fast Attack Boat" (torpedo boats and missile boats) of the same TL. Is that really resonable? Many Fast Attack Boat dissadvantages are already taken into account by it's Class and Mobility.

Also is a doubling of TS each TL to low? Things like modern radar and anti-ship missiles are huge advantages.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Andreas

IA "Capital Ship" (battleships and large modern cruisers) has 400 times more TS than a "Fast Attack Boat" (torpedo boats and missile boats) of the same TL. Is that really resonable? Many Fast Attack Boat dissadvantages are already taken into account by it's Class and Mobility.

The historical success rate of fast attack craft against heavy opponents is low. While they have weapons that the heavy ship has to worry about, they rarely actually hit with them, and when they do, the victim often survives. Many of their historical successes were against opponents that were already badly damaged, or were in harbour without damage control crews active and most of the watertight doors open.

Edit, also, Mass Combat is a pretty simple system. Naval wargames with real simulative power tend to be much more complicated.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The historical success rate of fast attack craft against heavy opponents is low. While they have weapons that the heavy ship has to worry about, they rarely actually hit with them, and when they do, the victim often survives. Many of their historical successes were against opponents that were already badly damaged, or were in harbour without damage control crews active and most of the watertight doors open.

Edit, also, Mass Combat is a pretty simple system. Naval wargames with real simulative power tend to be much more complicated.

I did not think that fast attack craft tend to be that ineffective (for example the wikipedia articles on the subject does not give that impression). Sure they are less effective than larger ships but I can't see anything that motivates such an enormously large TS difference. Do you have any recommended reading on the subject?

[johndallman]

For early fast attack craft, there are some fine examples at the battle of Jutland, where a massed torpedo salvo at the British battle line, which took evading action, caused one hit, reducing the victim's speed by about three knots. There were some other hits in various parts of the battle which caused one instant sinking, of a very obsolete German pre-dreadnaught that was surprised at close range at night, and may have contributed to other sinkings.

I don't know of a book specifically about this, but reading accounts of twentieth century naval battles and counting the torpedoes-to-hits-to-sinkings ratios should be revealing. Anti-ship torpedoes aren't harmless, but capital ships usually survive them.

For guided missiles, we haven't had all that many examples. The Israeli destroyer Eilat was a WWII-vintage ship of 1700 tons, nothing like a TL7 capital ship. PNS Khibar and PNS Shah Jahan were also WWII vintage, 2300 tons and 1700 tons respectively.

Missile boats are deadly against merchant ships and craft of their own size, and they're cheap enough to use aggressively, which magnifies their effect when they get a target they can handle, but they are out of their league against big warships.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I don't know of a book specifically about this, but reading accounts of twentieth century naval battles and counting the torpedoes-to-hits-to-sinkings ratios should be revealing. Anti-ship torpedoes aren't harmless, but capital ships usually survive them.

But sinking ships is not the only impact on the battle. Forcing a ship to turn away to comb the torpedoes, or hitting it for a "mere" 3 knot speed loss can have tremendous effect on the ability to maintain a cohesive formation. Though it escaped practically unscratched, Yamato did much less damage than it could have off Samar, mostly because it was caught in a spread of torpedoes and steaming the wrong way for most of the engagement.

And at Jutland, the fear of torpedo attack was part of why the engagement occurred at long range where the British BCs' thin deck armor was such a massive liability.

Not meaning to weigh in on either side, just pointing out that kills of weapon A versus kills of weapon B is not the only metric (Deadliest Warrior, I'm looking at you).

[fifiste]

How is the fact that small ships might not have capabilities for long (both time/and space) missions away from supporting harbours simulated in Gurps Mass combat?

[chimchim]

Originally Posted by RyanW

But sinking ships is not the only impact on the battle. Forcing a ship to turn away to comb the torpedoes, or hitting it for a "mere" 3 knot speed loss can have tremendous effect on the ability to maintain a cohesive formation. Though it escaped practically unscratched, Yamato did much less damage than it could have off Samar, mostly because it was caught in a spread of torpedoes and steaming the wrong way for most of the engagement.

And at Jutland, the fear of torpedo attack was part of why the engagement occurred at long range where the British BCs' thin deck armor was such a massive liability.

Not meaning to weigh in on either side, just pointing out that kills of weapon A versus kills of weapon B is not the only metric (Deadliest Warrior, I'm looking at you).

Neither side had any fast attack craft at jutland the destroyers that fired those torpedoes were full fledged warships not torpedo boats.