The rules for star shells make sense as you're not firing at a vessel so much as lighting up a patch of space.  You then get to spot anyone who drifts through that area during the following turn -- so I don't see the problem there.

And with searchlights, you're directing the beams on to an enemy hull and then following them into the next combat phase.  Searchlights can only reach so far, and anyone you light up during the end phase is likely going to be in range during the next turn. 

May not be everyone's bag, but they've never felt awkward and I've never heard any complaints about the rules when we play over here.

No need to apologize.    But I'm not a fan of adding another phase to the game. 

I thought about offering it up as a seperate phase, but to me that just adds more steps to track as opposed to making a notation on the ship's sheet.  I was thinking of the earlier means just because it seemed to cut down on the number of dice rolls you'd have in a turn and it (rather than rolling for all those light guns and MGs, you'd have one toss for an FAC running the gauntlet) and it, too, would force FACs to weather flack before making their attack runs. 

And it didn't seem to give the light guns too much power if they're losing the ability to be used in any other fashion that turn.

To each their own

October, 1911 -- The explosion at Hankou was a masterpiece of intelligence work. Within seconds after lighting the fuse (literally) Russian agents had  cemented Sun Yat-Sen's dependence on the RSDLP for financial and military support to maintain his utopian “Republic” -- all for the simple reason that he had no where else to go.

For years, China's notorious political exile had sought support for his “Three Principles of the People” – only to find that any school of thought with Socialist leanings garnered nothing but fear and resentment amongst the world's industrial powers.

The Revolution sparked by the Potemkin mutiny of 1905 had displayed Communism's reliance on violence. Four years later, Lenin's military was still waging war with Czarist forces throughout central Russia. And escalating tensions between the Japanese and their Soviet counterparts over Korea only served to alienate the revolutionary even further. Small wonder then that in November of 1909 he resigned himself to accepting Communist patronage as a guest of the Revolutionary War Council.

Back home, Sun's organization (a coalition of political dissidents who labeled themselves the T'ung-meng hui) was well intentioned, but poorly organized. It took little effort for spies to infiltrate its network. And when ammunition stored in the Houkon safe house detonated, the Chinese authorities who responded found weapons, supplies and the fledgling party's membership rolls. The rebels were forced into action at a time when they were still hammering out a common ideology.

The Republican Revolution managed to overthrow the Qing dynasty in short order. By December of 1911 Sun had returned to his homeland, nominally in control of 15 of China's 24 provinces. But the widening rifts between the movement's leadership “necessitated” Soviet intervention to keep the newborn nation from crumbling.

Along with weapons and munitions, Russian advisors brought a wealth of knowledge that gave the Chinese president an edge over the regional warlords standing in the way of national re-unification.

In March of 1912 the Whampoa Military Academy took in its first crop of officer candidates,  instructing cadets in everything from political theory to logistics to the latest fleet tactics employed by the world's ether fleets.

Administered by a Kuomintang politico named Ch'en Ch'i-mei, the Academy would produce skilled and motivated officers ready to command China's first generation of ether ships -- a pair of heavily gunned cruisers manufactured under Soviet supervision.

By May of 1914, however, Ch'en was openly questioning Soviet intentions.  Sun's Kuomintang, a party formed around the T'ung-meng hui, was the latest political embodiment of Chinese nationalism.  And more than ever, ideolouges were calling for an end to foreign intervention in China's internal affairs. 

To Ch'en, such a goal was impossible when Beijing was infested by Soviet military attaches.  Men who who  increasingly influencied the conduct of nationalist campaigns, or else imposed Marxist concepts on a government which -- until now -- had only flirted with the idea of Communism. 

In July of 1914, Ch'en was assassinated.  Authorities assumed the culprit was connected to one of the nebulous "counter-revolutionary" cells funded out of Tokyo.  But when intercepted communiques pointed to a young Soviet official named Mikhail Borodin, Chiang Kai-shek, an up-and-comer in the Kuomintang and Ch'en's former protege, took matters in his own hands.

Within weeks of Ch'en's death, KMT troops loyal to Chiang assumed control of Chengzhou Island and attacked Russian centers throughout Guangzhou province.  Crate loads of documents were forwarded by courier and Sun, confronted with growing evidence of Vladivostok's plans, ignored Soviet protestations of innocence.  By early September, Beijing had been "cleansed" of foreign interlopers.  But any elation on the part of Chiang and his allies was short-lived......

This is kinda abbreviated.  And as it's just on the forum, it's my unofficial attempt at creating a background for the Chinese fleet.  But there ya go 

If two ships are moving at a decent clip (say 30-35 knots in a wet navy setting), then the one that has an easier time changing direction is going to be harder to hit.  So doesn't that mean we're talking size?

Speed and maneuverability are not the same thing.

I could be wrong......

I go with size myself because the wet navy battles I've read about seem to show that it's size and maneuverability that throws of gunners more than sheer speed.

I like 'em.    My only concern would again be in any ship carrying more FACs than it could reasonably launch before getting its butt kicked.  The Austrians have a medium ship with nine FACs, and it's been rare that I have had the chance to get them all off -- figuring the 3 per turn allowed to a medium ship.  I think you're going to have the same problem.  But in the games where it does happen, those ships are really useful.

And I think the Brits SHOULD start to use some more lightning projectors in their designs -- so nice.

Actually, Sun Yat-sen wanted a Republic.  Label is splashed all over historical descriptions.  And he was big on "the People" as he did have socialist leanings.  But I understand what yer saying -- the Sino-Soviet split could happen, I'll talk to you about what the heck they could end up arguing about.

The actual fluff is in the works.  I just wanted to propose some ships.

Chinese Flagship
Anhui class Battleship
Hull: 24 (L/3)  HVP: 130
Armour: 4
Thrust: 4
Primaries: 4d12(x2)
Secondaries: 4d12(x2)
Light Guns: 6d4(x1)
Pinyin Torpedoes: 4d8(x4)
Equipment
Machine Guns x2
Boarding Parties: 10 (two batches of 5)

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The Anhui class in my mind, has primaries turrets fore and aft, then it has those same guns in mid-ship turrets, which can't fire across the ship's hull due to poor layout (thus they're secondary instead of primary).

It is a symbol of national pride for the People's Republic, but its construction nearly wrecks the economy and its crew is green and untrained.  Note the Pinyins.  If people like it, I can continue with a few more.  It maintains the Russian emphasis on heavy armor (+1 BAV for a large ship) and it has lost some mobility in return.  But its armor is equal to that of a VL ship, and it packs a heavy punch.....while its size means that D12 guns will be at a slight disadvantage when trying to target it.

Boarding parties, yep.  FACs, nope.  ALong with the Pinyins, it's re-emphasizing the lack of value placed on life by the ruling elites.

I don't see them fielding 2nd generation Russian weapons either.  The Russians sparked the Chinese Revolution in this timeline because they KNEW the natives were not organized (nor did they have their ideology well enough defined).  That way, when they toppled the Qing dynasty, they would HAVE to accept Soviet help -- military, technological, administrative, etc etc....to keep the whole thing from toppling over. That being said, they're still going to be a large puppet state that isn't exactly trustworthy for a while in the eyes of the RSDLP.

So fairly traditional hulls.

But I don't want a straight continuation of the standard Russian ships.

Chinese weapons could include:
Torpedoes or Fire Rockets?
Decent Primary guns, but heavy on armor or speed?
I would like to incorporate boarders
Of course some FACs
No poison gas, as I see that as a European tactic
Keel Bomards? -- I don't think so
Not a whole lot of folks use gyroscopic stabilizers, so a fast, slashing fleet might be kind of neat.  Small ships, built on the cheap, with legs and maneuverability, but not very expensive and easy to hurt.  Emphasize numbers over quality.

Actually, I mis-typed.  ALL weapons are halved according to the rules in The Merchant War.  Not just guns.  So rockets can hit FACs up to 6" away. It's never been an issue until now, because no one has ever picked off an FAC from 12" before in one of my games. 

And no, I don't think they're too powerful, because it's a trade off.  I really think that against capital ships, Hale Rockets and Fire Arrows are pretty ineffectual.

Against FACs, they're a lot stronger.  And to me, the FX imagery I have in mind makes it seem plausible.

I picture the rockets as a big, snarling mess of contrails and warheads just tearing all over the place.  They're a saturation weapon.  And close up, they're going to be moving fast enough, and affecting enough space around them, that FACs -- as fragile as they are -- shouldn't WANT to be moving through that patch of space.

See?  Totally vanilla thread and folks want no part of it MUHAHAHAHAHAHA