Ship combat: long and bloody?

[wbyrd]

historically a lot of ship to ship combats were drawn out affairs. With the exception of lucky hits, or one ship being seriously outgunned the typical results was one captain breaking off before he took crippling damage.

Paul Jones engaged the Sloop Drake, aboard his sloop the ranger, the battle lased an hour and a half by Captain Jones testimony.

a portion of the record of the "Bonhomme Richard" vs the Serapis
John
"In less than an hour afterward the flag of England, which had been nailed to the mast of the Serapis, was struck by Captain Pearson's own hands, "

in this case two well armed frigates with state of the art weapons ( for the day) slugging it out at point blank range took nearly an hour.

The ironclads Monitor and Virginia fought for the better part of a day only doing minor damage to one another.
durig the battle of samar

At 07:35, Roberts turned and headed toward the battle. She charged toward the heavy cruiser Chōkai.


At 08:51, the Japanese landed two hits, the second of which damaged the aft 5 inch gun.

in this battle destroyers and destroyer escorts engaged the main japanese battle fleet including a super battleship...and the battle took over an hour to resolve.


in game using Mongoose rules the several ship to ship battles were fairly quickly resolved. In the three engagements I can remember off the top of my head... the vessels. corsairs, then a second corsair, and a close escort broke off when they started taking structure hits...and most of the damage was delivered by the missiles based on The groups vessel... a fat trader converted to a pirate hunter.

 

[McPerth]

in game using Mongoose rules the several ship to ship battles were fairly quickly resolved. In the three engagements I can remember off the top of my head... the vessels. corsairs, then a second corsair, and a close escort broke off when they started taking structure hits...and most of the damage was delivered by the missiles based on The groups vessel... a fat trader converted to a pirate hunter.

MgT Corsair is (IMHO) poorly desined for its mission, as it involves combat more often than not and yet is fully unarmored, while even a free/far trader has some armor (enough, in fact, to neutralize 2/3 of non-nuclear missiles or beam lasers).

In MgT core rules, the only turret weapon really usable against armored hulls is the PB, and having no power needs, I'm quite amazed it's not more used (should I have a Gazelle, the first thing I'd done would be to upgun it to CT/MT standards, with PBs and triple lasers).

 

[Timerover51]

historically a lot of ship to ship combats were drawn out affairs. With the exception of lucky hits, or one ship being seriously outgunned the typical results was one captain breaking off before he took crippling damage.

Paul Jones engaged the Sloop Drake, aboard his sloop the ranger, the battle lased an hour and a half by Captain Jones testimony.

a portion of the record of the "Bonhomme Richard" vs the Serapis
John
"In less than an hour afterward the flag of England, which had been nailed to the mast of the Serapis, was struck by Captain Pearson's own hands, "

in this case two well armed frigates with state of the art weapons ( for the day) slugging it out at point blank range took nearly an hour.

The battle between the USN Bonhomme Richard vs HMS Serapis lasted a lot longer than 1 hour, as it started at about 6 PM and the Serapis surrendered at about 10:30. I would strongly suggest that you read about the armament of the Bonhomme Richard when it comes to comments of state of the art weapons. With the first broadside from the Bonhomme Richard, two of the three French 18-pounders on the engaged side exploded, as they had been condemned by the French Navy as too dangerous to use. That was also the case of many of the Bonhomme Richard's French 12-pounders. The Richard was a converted East Indiaman and not built as a warship. The USN Bonhomme Richard was also fired into several times, apparently deliberately, by the accompanying frigate USN Alliance, whose captain was later judged insane.

The ironclads Monitor and Virginia fought for the better part of a day only doing minor damage to one another.

Neither ship had weapons capable of damaging the other. Not until the US Navy put 15 inch Dahlgren smoothbores on the monitors did a weapon that could damage effectively a Southern casement Ironclad. The South never did have a weapon on its Ironclads that could effectively damage a Union Monitor. The action between the Confederate Ironclad Atlanta and the Union Monitor Weehawken lasted roughly 15 minutes, with the Weehawhen firing a total of 5 shots, apparently two from its 11 inch Dalhgren and three from its 15 inch Dalhgren. It should be noted that the Atlanta was aground at the time.

durig the battle of samar

At 07:35, Roberts turned and headed toward the battle. She charged toward the heavy cruiser Chōkai.

At 08:51, the Japanese landed two hits, the second of which damaged the aft 5 inch gun.

in this battle destroyers and destroyer escorts engaged the main japanese battle fleet including a super battleship...and the battle took over an hour to resolve.

The Japanese sighted the US escort carriers and their escorts at 0653 and Kurita broke off the action at 0911 (Japanese reports contained in the United States Strategic Bombing Survey publication Campaigns of the Pacific War). The Yamato opened fired at 0700. The US ships involved were 6 escorts carriers (merchant ships built as slow aircraft carriers with about 1/3 the number of aircraft as a fleet aircraft carrier), 3 destroyers, and 4 destroyer escorts. The Japanese ships involved were 4 battleships [the Yamato (one of the two largest battleships ever built), the Nagato (mounting 16 inch guns), and the Kongo and Haruna (more battle cruisers than battleships)], 6 heavy cruisers with 8 inch guns, 2 light cruisers, and 11 destroyers.

The US lost 1 escort carrier, 2 destroyers, and 1 destroyer escort sunk by the Japanese surface ships, while the Japanese lost 3 heavy cruisers to combined surface and air attack. The survival of any of the US ships is still a matter of astonishment to most students of the battle.

The following comment by Admiral Sprague, commander of the US Navy Task Group engaged is, I believe, worth quoting. The quote comes from the US Army Official History of the

Said Admiral Sprague: "The failure of the enemy main body and encircling light forces to completely wipe out all vessels of this Task Unit can be attributed to our successful smoke screen, our torpedo counterattack, continuous harassment of enemy by bomb, torpedo, and strafing air attacks, timely maneuvers, and the definite partiality of Almighty God."

 

[wbyrd]

Corsairs aren't that poorly designed. A corsair is mainly intends to attack commercial shipping. they are not intended to fight warships. They are intended to RUN from warships.

they are better armed than the traders they stalk and fast enough to make a quick exit. They need to be modified from the stock version in the books (since they have empty weapons slots.) but just by filling those slots with a pulse laser and sand caster

total
3 beam lasers (long range sniping, missile/fighter defense)
3 Pulse lasers (close range combat/small craft defense)
3 sand casters (defensive system)

the are better armed than most traders,fast enough to get in and out, and just rugged enough to survive a low intensity fight against non warships.... which is what a Corsair or raider is meant for.

 

[wbyrd]

I would strongly suggest that you read about the armament of the Bonhomme Richard when it comes to comments of state of the art weapons. With the first broadside from the Bonhomme Richard, two of the three French 18-pounders on the engaged side exploded, as they had been condemned by the French Navy as too dangerous to use. That was also the case of many of the Bonhomme Richard's French 12-pounders. The Richard was a converted East Indiaman and not built as a warship. The USN Bonhomme Richard was also fired into several times, apparently deliberately, by the accompanying frigate USN Alliance, whose captain was later judged insane.

I did not know this....thanks for the info ...I may need to pick yer brain at some point I never claimed to be a naval Historian.

I was simply referring to these events to illustrate the fact that most naval engagements are long drawn out affairs. even when one side seriously outguns the other.

 

[JimMarn]

I watched a documentary where statements were made by the surviving crew members of the USS Roberts and others.

Some of the IJN ships couldn't fire at them do to them getting in so close the IJN ships couldn't lower their main guns. And the IJN ships were loaded with armor piercing rounds. The destroyers and destroyer escorts hulls were too thin to activate the AP rounds from the IJN Battleship and cruisers. They then switched to regular rounds and started damaging the US ships.

Admiral Kurita turned away because he thought he had run into the main US fleet operated by Admiral Halsey.

One quote I remember, "Hey, they ( the IJN) are getting away !"

 

[Timerover51]

I watched a documentary where statements were made by the surviving crew members of the USS Roberts and others.

Some of the IJN ships couldn't fire at them do to them getting in so close the IJN ships couldn't lower their main guns. And the IJN ships were loaded with armor piercing rounds. The destroyers and destroyer escorts hulls were too thin to activate the AP rounds from the IJN Battleship and cruisers. They then switched to regular rounds and started damaging the US ships.

Admiral Kurita turned away because he thought he had run into the main US fleet operated by Admiral Halsey.

One quote I remember, "Hey, they ( the IJN) are getting away !"

The "too close to depress to hit them" actually occurred during the night engagement off of Guadalcanal on November 13, 1942, where the US destroyers were so close to the Japanese battleship Hiei (in one case, about 20 yards) that its 14 inch guns could not depress enough to hit the destroyers, while the destroyers shot up the battleship's bridge with 20mm fire and were too close for their torpedoes to arm. Bob Ballard explored Iron Bottom Sound in 1993 looking for some of the sunken ships, and Chuck Haberlein, a friend of mine, was along to do ship identification. I spent some time with Chuck while he was still at the Naval Historical Center's Photo Division looking at the raw video Bob took while using the submarine Alvin. It was quite interesting to see some of the 14 inch hits on destroyer superstructures where you had a 14 inch hole going in on one side and a 14 inch hole as the projectile exited on the other.

With respect to the Japanese large caliber, 8 inch and above, armor-piercing projectiles, they were optimized by the Japanese for performance if hitting short for a stable underwater trajectory to hit below the armor belt of cruisers and battleships. The problem with that is that it required a longer than normal delay time for the fuze, so if they scored an above water hit and did not hit heavy plating or a resistant structure, the round was very likely to go completely through without detonating. The greatest damage to the USS San Francisco, Admiral Callaghan's flagship, was done by the battleships secondary battery of 6 inch guns firing Common or High Explosive rounds. It was fire from those guns that killed Admiral Callaghan.

You might want to look at Bob's book, The Lost Ships of Guadalcanal, to see some of the photos. For a very good account of the naval fighting at Guadalcanal, it is very hard to beat S. E. Morison's book, The Struggle for Guadalcanal. For those looking for a briefer overview of the US Navy's experience in World War 2, I would recommend Morison's book, The Two Ocean War. Jack Coggins book, The Campaign for Guadalcanal, is an extremely well illustrated account of the campaign, drawing heavily for its text on the US Army and US Marine Corps official histories and Morison's book. He has a couple of pages devoted to terrific visual charts showing the organization of a US and a Japanese infantry division.

 

[Timerover51]

I did not know this....thanks for the info ...I may need to pick yer brain at some point I never claimed to be a naval Historian.

I was simply referring to these events to illustrate the fact that most naval engagements are long drawn out affairs. even when one side seriously outguns the other.

You are welcome. For more on me, see the YouTube video link in my signature.

 

[McPerth]

Corsairs aren't that poorly designed. A corsair is mainly intends to attack commercial shipping. they are not intended to fight warships. They are intended to RUN from warships.

they are better armed than the traders they stalk and fast enough to make a quick exit. They need to be modified from the stock version in the books (since they have empty weapons slots.) but just by filling those slots with a pulse laser and sand caster

total
3 beam lasers (long range sniping, missile/fighter defense)
3 Pulse lasers (close range combat/small craft defense)
3 sand casters (defensive system)

the are better armed than most traders,fast enough to get in and out, and just rugged enough to survive a low intensity fight against non warships.... which is what a Corsair or raider is meant for.

And which warship are they supposed to outrun? The Gazelle has thrust 4, so the corsair may not outrun it. And with its armor 8 the corsair is unlikely to damage it.

Also, the design wastes one hardpoint capacity (being 400 dtons, it could have 4 turrets instead of 3).

Another example of bad design (or more likely an errata) is that it has computer 2 (rating 10) and has Auto-repair/2 for its repair drones, that needs a rating 20 computer to run (so overloading the computer and being useless). That adds 5 Mcr to the cost over an Auto-repair/1 ad makes the repair drones useless, as the software can not be run by the computer.

And about merchants, free/far traders have armor 4. As long as they have sandcasters, the probability to damage them is low with the weapons given. And even without them, the weaponry you talk about is unlikely to damage them. Unless nukes are used (and if you play 3I they are supposed to be difficult to obtain, due to Imperial Rules of War), only pulse lasers (if using the rules changes in HG) will damage them more often than not, but they are inaccurate.

If nukes are used, a single missile hitting the corsair (being it unarmored) might be quite damaging to the crew (due to being unarmored), while the free trader is more likely to survive it unschratched (with armor 4, only a 9+ will damage one crewmemeber, and never more tan one).

Fat traders, being unarmored, are more vulnerable to them, but the corsair is no better armed that they can be, both having 3 turrets and no armor (the fat trader also wastes one hardpoint capacity). Off course the corsair can this time outrun the trader and flee, but if you rely on this against merchants, that says no good about the design...

 

[Dagrill]

My question: is it other GM's experience that ship fights drag on for 12+ rounds? The Gazelle actually ran out of missiles near the end.

Hopefully they learnt a lesson? You need to pick your battles carefully.

Combat can drag on as Armour is gradually whittled away and Hull/Structure gradually reduced.

I designate the core rulebook Gazelle the export version and used by MegaCorps and StarMercs as a cheap escort. I've designed a TL14 Gazelle closer to the original and a Stealth Gazelle as a IN Scout.

Regards

David

 

[Dagrill]

MgT Corsair is (IMHO) poorly desined for its mission, as it involves combat more often than not and yet is fully unarmored, while even a free/far trader has some armor (enough, in fact, to neutralize 2/3 of non-nuclear missiles or beam lasers).

In MgT core rules, the only turret weapon really usable against armored hulls is the PB, and having no power needs, I'm quite amazed it's not more used (should I have a Gazelle, the first thing I'd done would be to upgun it to CT/MT standards, with PBs and triple lasers).

I find most Corsair type ships don't really work with rules, the Buccaneer in Book 6 Scoundrel relies on reaction drive & 60 tons of Fuel to give it Thrust 6 for brief periods and is seriously under-gunned. I suspect Particle Beams are Military grade and only used by military ships though & any civilian with them is assumed to be a Pirate, which I guess is the norm in the Trojan Reach.

Regards

David

 

[wbyrd]

And which warship are they supposed to outrun? The Gazelle has thrust 4, so the corsair may not outrun it. And with its armor 8 the corsair is unlikely to damage it.

Also, the design wastes one hardpoint capacity (being 400 dtons, it could have 4 turrets instead of 3).

Another example of bad design (or more likely an errata) is that it has computer 2 (rating 10) and has Auto-repair/2 for its repair drones, that needs a rating 20 computer to run (so overloading the computer and being useless). That adds 5 Mcr to the cost over an Auto-repair/1 ad makes the repair drones useless, as the software can not be run by the computer.

And about merchants, free/far traders have armor 4. As long as they have sandcasters, the probability to damage them is low with the weapons given. And even without them, the weaponry you talk about is unlikely to damage them. Unless nukes are used (and if you play 3I they are supposed to be difficult to obtain, due to Imperila Rules of War), only pulse lasers (if using the rules changes in HG) will damage them more often than not, but they are inaccurate.

If nukes are used, a single missile hitting the corsair (being it unarmored) might be quite damaging to the crew (due to being unarmored), while the free trader is more likely to survive it unschratched (with armor 4, only a 9+ will damage one crewmemeber, and never more tan one).

Fat traders, being unarmored, are more vulnerable to them, but the corsair is no better armed that they can be, both having 3 turrets and no armor (the fat trader also wastes one hardpoint capacity). Off course the corsair can this time outrun the trader and flee, but if you ely on this against merchants, that says no good about the design...

to prevent a serious case of thread drift I am going to have to reply to this somewhere else... Curses on staying on topic..a thousand curses upon it.


on topic I think Lengthy ship duels are the most common. IN GAME most of the most time consuming ( round wise ) battles I have been involved in are the result of things other than the ships and weapons involved.

in My 20 or so years I have observed the following conditions leading to extended ( disclaimer: this is only in my experience.)

• 1)Awkward starting positions, requiring rounds of maneuver to get into position/range to fight.
• 2) poorly chosen combatants....ships that are not well suited to the situation this is often a case where you really do not get a choice in the matter however
• 3) tactics, not good, not bad, just tactics that extend the combat
• 4) Dice, the dice gods are unhappy, or are in a mischievous mood.
• 5) players know what they are doing, they make good decisions at the right time and so does the Referee...neither side can gain an advantage.
• 6) vessels evenly matched, they can't hurt one another, or gain a tactical advantage over one another.
• 7) The referee has something planned and needs to have the battle drag out without loosing either vessel...it happens...boy does it happen.
• 8) the players have inadvertently picked a fight they can not win. Leaving the Referee scrambling to avoid a total party kill.and the party does not realize they really need to run for it.
• 9 poor coordination among participants. players cant get their ducks in a row miss key opportunities, or actually set the party back.

 

[JimMarn]

The "too close to depress to hit them" actually occurred during the night engagement off of Guadalcanal on November 13, 1942, where the US destroyers were so close to the Japanese battleship Hiei (in one case, about 20 yards) that its 14 inch guns could not depress enough to hit the destroyers, while the destroyers shot up the battleship's bridge with 20mm fire and were too close for their torpedoes to arm. Bob Ballard explored Iron Bottom Sound in 1993 looking for some of the sunken ships, and Chuck Haberlein, a friend of mine, was along to do ship identification. I spent some time with Chuck while he was still at the Naval Historical Center's Photo Division looking at the raw video Bob took while using the submarine Alvin. It was quite interesting to see some of the 14 inch hits on destroyer superstructures where you had a 14 inch hole going in on one side and a 14 inch hole as the projectile exited on the other.

With respect to the Japanese large caliber, 8 inch and above, armor-piercing projectiles, they were optimized by the Japanese for performance if hitting short for a stable underwater trajectory to hit below the armor belt of cruisers and battleships. The problem with that is that it required a longer than normal delay time for the fuze, so if they scored an above water hit and did not hit heavy plating or a resistant structure, the round was very likely to go completely through without detonating. The greatest damage to the USS San Francisco, Admiral Callaghan's flagship, was done by the battleships secondary battery of 6 inch guns firing Common or High Explosive rounds. It was fire from those guns that killed Admiral Callaghan.

You might want to look at Bob's book, The Lost Ships of Guadalcanal, to see some of the photos. For a very good account of the naval fighting at Guadalcanal, it is very hard to beat S. E. Morison's book, The Struggle for Guadalcanal. For those looking for a briefer overview of the US Navy's experience in World War 2, I would recommend Morison's book, The Two Ocean War. Jack Coggins book, The Campaign for Guadalcanal, is an extremely well illustrated account of the campaign, drawing heavily for its text on the US Army and US Marine Corps official histories and Morison's book. He has a couple of pages devoted to terrific visual charts showing the organization of a US and a Japanese infantry division.

I have all of Admiral Morison's official history of the US Navy. Hmm... For Gudalcanal I have the book by the Marine officer in charage of the US Marines on the island. I haven't read it in several years, it may have been written by General Vandegrift. My boxes of books are a few hundred miles away, so I cannot look up the title.

And the 'too close to depress their guns' statement came from one of the USS Robert's survivors. Documentary on what is now called 'American Heroes Channel' i.e. AHC. about the Battle at Leyte Gulf and Taffy 3.

 

[Timerover51]

And the 'too close to depress their guns' statement came from one of the USS Robert's survivors. Documentary on what is now called 'American Heroes Channel' i.e. AHC. about the Battle at Leyte Gulf and Taffy 3.

After having gone over the track charts of the battle in Campaigns of the Pacific War and also the Japanese accounts in Paul Dull's A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, I do not believe that any American destroyer or destroyer escort got close enough to any Japanese ship to engage them with 20mm and 40mm fire. I will need to get out a few more sources to check on that. After looking over the Wikipedia article on the ship, a lot of the data there is highly questionable. At 5,000 yards, the 8 inch guns on the IJN Chokai would not have been depressed at all to engage the ship. I will have to check Campbell's Naval Weapons of World War 2 to determine what the elevation would have been. As for blowing off the stern of the Chokai, the Chokai was one of the ships credited with sinking the Gambier Bay just before Kurita ordered the cruisers to form on the Yamato.

 

[JimMarn]

I thought the bow of one of the heavy cruisers was hit. I'm sure there are errors in what they remember from the combat. Its figuring out what is error and what is fact.

I remember them saying one of the US destroyers did pass down a row of IJN cruisers.

 

[Putraack]

Hopefully they learnt a lesson? You need to pick your battles carefully.

Combat can drag on as Armour is gradually whittled away and Hull/Structure gradually reduced.

The next session, they were certainly aware that they still didn't have armor on their ship, and were much more cautious about engaging anyone.

 

[wbyrd]

I thought the bow of one of the heavy cruisers was hit. I'm sure there are errors in what they remember from the combat. Its figuring out what is error and what is fact.

I remember them saying one of the US destroyers did pass down a row of IJN cruisers.

The Johnston closed to within maximum torpedo range, and at 9,000 yards (8,200 m) she fired a full salvo of ten torpedoes.[11] At 0724, two or three struck, blowing the bow off the Kumano

Someone on the torpedo crew earned their pay for sure.

on several occasions one of the destroyers/destroyer escorts came under concentrated fire by multiple heavy warships. the Japanese battleships were firing colored shells to aid in targeting...and reports state that several ships came under fire from all three of the IJN battleship.

 

[Solomani666]

My group is now into the 2nd adventure of "Pirates of Drinax" and they (perhaps foolishly) tried to take a Gazelle-class escort head-on. The combat that followed tied up quite a lot of the game session, and resulted in both ships battered to pieces. The Gazelle lost all of its Structure first, so the players got away with their own ship, but nothing else.

My question: is it other GM's experience that ship fights drag on for 12+ rounds? The Gazelle actually ran out of missiles near the end.

IMTU Missiles are deadly. I use the effect of the final missile hit roll as a multiplier for missile damage. Therefore missiles can do 1d6 to 6d6 of damage. Also any combat effect of 0 does half damage.