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DeadInThrench -> Naval Combat House Rule proposal (12/8/2007 5:42:40 PM)
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I have been having some discussions with Eric Nygaard, about naval combat in his Double Eagle - Rising Sun (Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905) scenario, and have come up with a house rule proposal to make things realistic.
But first, the naval system in TOAW3, has it's problems, and the defender typically gets a huge advantage and, some examples.
In DE-RS, the game starts with two Russian cruisers near Chemulpo, the port leading to Soul, and as the Japanese player you must take those two cruisers out.
They are a 1-1 and a 2-2, and if I send in a 2-5 and a 2-4 (Japanese battleships) in a direct attack mode, I will lose those two ships, sometimes taking out one of the Russian cruisers, sometimes taking out neither (like I say, the naval system has it's problems).
If instead I attack with two full stacks (18 ships total) of the best battleships and cruisers in the Japanese fleet, I will take those two Russian cruisers out, but will take losses significantly greater than I inflict. Typically this will be twice the number of ships and twice the 'loss penalty' that I inflict, and in some cases I have lost 4x the number of ships and 4x the loss penalty, and this is aggravated given the Japanese having overwhelming force (again, the naval system has it's problems, in no uncertain terms).
Now, if instead I do as suggested here in these forums, just having the wimpiest destroyer I can find directly attack, while having the rest of the Japanese fleet 'support' the attack, then I take out those two Russian cruisers, with the destroyer sometimes going down while other times, it escapes.
The problem with this approach, is I can wipe out the entirety of the Russian Pacific Fleet, while only losing a handful of destroyers, and in a human vs human game, the Russian player could use the same tactic to destroy the entire Japanese fleet, with only minimal losses.
So, the house rule I have proposed is, in naval combat, the attacking player may not set up ships so that they support an attack, unless they match or better the number of each class of ships in the defending stack, with the ships that are directly attacking.
With this, I have to have two cruisers (or better) directly attack those two Russian cruisers near Chemuplo, and I typically (with the rest of the Japanese fleet supporting the attack) lose one of em but sometimes none, and IMO this is reasonable (given the overwhelming Japanese naval advantage there).
Then, the Japanese fleet would move to blockade Port Arthur (if against a human player) and, if the Russian fleet tries to attack a Japanese stack, they will probably get the worst out of it in no uncertain terms.
Historically, in this scenario, it is not wise for the Japanese to trade ships with the Russian Pacific Fleet, because the Russian Baltic Fleet is on it's way. Instead, best to keep them bottled up in Port Arthur and let them get destroyed by land based artillery once the Japanese army gets there, which is what happenend historically.
One could argue that it would be better if the TOAW3 naval system were just fixed so that defenders in naval combat do not get any advantage. However, the problem here is this would allow the attacker to force combat with the defender not being allowed to avoid it. Historically in the RJW, at one point the Russian Pacific Fleet offerred battle with the Japanese fleet, with the latter managing to avoid it, which was to their advantage so they could save their ships to do what they did historically, at Tsushima.
My apologies for the extensive and somewhat exhaustive post here, but just wanted to get any comments anyone might have, if they have read this far <g>.
DiT
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