[Consim-l] Flat Top question

[Markus Stumptner]

On Sun, 4 Feb 2007, Stephen Loughrey wrote:
> *Some air attacks are hardly even worth the effort as they are unlikely to
> sink anything and you run the risk of losing aircraft.

I don't know how the air attack system for SWWAS works, but this does 
strike me as a potential problem.  I don't remember what a single aircraft 
counter stands for (2,4,8 aircraft - probably 8), but as a matter of fact, 
a counter of as few as 4 aircraft surviving AA fire and CAP should have 
the capability to severely damage a cruiser or carrier (in effect, achieve 
a mission kill).  The decisive attack against Yorktown at Midway was flown 
by not more than 10 bombers and less than half of those got through to 
actually attack. That said, if SWWAS uses Avalanche's trademark 
roll-six-to-hit system, that might be OK - you can always roll a six even 
on a single die.  The question is whether that single six can produce 
enough damage to leave a carrier dead in the water, or unable to take on 
aircraft (as was a pretty good historical chance that it would).

This problem is what wrecked SPI's Fast Carriers, which had a standard 
old-style odds-based attack and a single full strength torpedo bomber 
counter couldn't do more than scratch the paint on a carrier - apparently 
you had to have five or so torpedoes hit at the same spot to penetrate the 
armor. :-)  So that game was a very extreme example.

Conversely, there should normally be a risk of losing aircraft; in fact in 
air attacks on naval targets it should almost be a given that some 
aircraft would be lost.

Historically, the reaction of all sides in WW2 against all kinds of naval 
threat was pretty much the same.  Collect everything you can get into the 
air and throw it against the threat.  There was never a question of 
conserving resources; the chance of hitting a ship (a much larger piece of 
equipment) was always considered worth it.

>* Flights on an anti-ship mission might not even navigate to and find the
target correctly.
>*The Long Lance torpedo is devastating and a big threat.
>*A ship might roll a handful of dice in an attempt to hit but miss, or be
lucky and score a number of hits.
>*A few good critical hits can finish a foe quickly.
>*Aerial recon reports on enemy fleets are often inaccurate, they could be
higher or lower.

Nothing to say against all this; of course they are merely features that 
the series shares with most carrier game out there, and it has to fight 
against the handicap that (unlike virtually all carrier games out there) 
you already know where the other side's task forces are while you play.

>*The naval gunnery hits seem to most often take out the other ships guns
>first (which from what I have read is pretty historically accurate).

Depends on the degree. Generally, turrets were less heavily armored than 
the main citadel of the ships of the time, and of course they were above 
the waterline.  So it was not unlikely that a ship would lose individual 
turrets during a fight, even if not by a direct hit, then by power to the 
turret being cut.  If you tend to lose most or all turrets before a ship 
is in mortal danger, then something is amiss.  Most ships that stopped 
firing would have had major engineering or flotation damage at the time, 
and usually the (essentially unarmored) targeting systems would go before 
the turrets.

Markus

Last 3 games played: ASLSK #1, Air & Armor, At all Hazards
--------------- http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/user/mst/games/ ---------------
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