• From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,575

Topic: Light guns

Kevin forwarded this to me... and I thought I'd share it with the group since it shows us to be VINDICATED in our approach to light guns... smile

cscholti wrote:

> In your games last year at GenCon, many comments were made afterwards
> about the secondary and smaller guns causing so much damage -- even more
> so than the primary guns. I know I was puzzled by it.
>
> In the latest Miniature Wargames magazine (UK), there are some fast play
> rules for pre-dreadnoughts 1880-1905 written by David Manley. ("The"
> David Manley, now of AA Engineering, creator of numerous naval gaming
> rules including Action Stations!, Form Line of Battle and Blue Steel,
> Grey Thunder.)
>
> Some interesting excerpts:
>
> "Battleships mounted  large numbers of small calibre guns, 6" to 8",
> both for use against destroyers and torpedo boats, and also to pour a
> wall of shells into the opposing battleline in the hope that the sheer
> weight of fire would make up for the low probability of hitting. Large
> guns (typically 12") were carried, but these invariably suffered from
> low rates of fire, and this meant the damage inflicted by them was on a
> par with, or often exceeded by, that inflicted by the smaller guns."
> .
> .
> "You will sometimes find (as we did during playtesting) that secondary
> batteries cause as much normal damage as heavier guns. Research will
> show that this is in line with the historical examples as the secondary
> guns typically had a much higher rate of fire and ships were as often
> sunk or disabled by multiple hits from small guns as by odd hits from
> larger guns."
> .
> .
> Maybe this is nothing new. Maybe it wasn't so much the number of hits as
> was the damage smaller weapons did. (So you modified the penetration
> chart, right?) But overall, a ship peppered by small stuff might be
> quickly disabled.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 379

Re: Light guns

I just saw this.  And I'm gonna get beat over the head for saying anything.  But....

Secondary guns are fine the way they're depicted in the rules.  Light guns, though, represent weaponry that's a good bit less lethal than the 6 to 8" mounts mentioned above.  Light Guns represent stuff less than 4", correct?

And from articles I read, such weaponry was primarily meant to engage torpedo boats at distances up to a few thousand yards.  They were never meant to tackle legitimate warships. 

I talked to Kevin about this a ways back (backed by observations from a full-blown navy fanatic) and while the guy really liked Grand Fleets as a set of rules, he had one suggestion ---  which was simply to reduce the  reach of light guns from 1/2/3 to 0/1/2.

His suggestion was based off the observation that light guns seemed to throw Russo-Japanese seenarios a little out of whack.  With WW1 (or later) hulls, primaries and secondaries can SO outshoot the light pieces in terms of range that really they're effect on a game is nil.  But in 1905, we see a lot primaries with a 2/4/6 reach in terms of range.  And when you combine the fact that they can't shoot a ton further than light guns, and their RoF is way lower, it just seems like something may be amiss.

We played with his suggestion, and it helped.  Seemed like a real minor tweak.

Hey, I friggin love the game.  I'm just sayin....

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,575

Re: Light guns

themattcurtis wrote:

And from articles I read, such weaponry was primarily meant to engage torpedo boats at distances up to a few thousand yards.  They were never meant to tackle legitimate warships.

This ain't the first time this has come up... smile

Personally, I'm just happy the game plays well -- I'll leave the "historical accuracy" arguments to others. However, there are plenty of sources to suggest that light guns aren't exactly to be sniffed at. Heck, you shoot a BB gun at a battleship for long enough, SOMETHING will happen... smile

I talked to Kevin about this a ways back (backed by observations from a full-blown navy fanatic) and while the guy really liked Grand Fleets as a set of rules, he had one suggestion ---  which was simply to reduce the  reach of light guns from 1/2/3 to 0/1/2.

This is fine as a tweak, but I will mention now, for the record, that all of the gun data in GF is based on real-world values; specifically, weight of shell, rate of fire, and muzzle velocity. That light guns can shoot farther and have a higher "punch" than some players would think may reflect inaccurate assumptions about their historical effectiveness, rather than a flaw in the game... smile

But, as always, your mileage may vary -- and if that tweak works for you, go for it!

Besides, my WW1 Brits don't have may light guns anyway...

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2005-04-02
  • Posts: 34

Re: Light guns

Having, apparently, way too much time on my hands, when I saw this discussion I got some light gun data from the NavWeaps page.  I then worked out values for them as if they weren't light guns, to see if I got ranges like 1/2/3, RoF's like +3, damage like 1, and penetration like 1/0/0.

I've attached the results as a PDF.  (I made up fake ship charts, since it automates my calculations.)  You'll see that while there is certainly variation, Light Guns "by the rules" seem a reasonable average.

The obvious objection to this would be that while the Light Guns are consistent with the model used for main guns, Light Guns may be beyond the realm for which the model is valid.  On the other hand, range is the characteristic that is the least "modeled."  It's pretty much straight from the real-world data.  So if I found I was getting historically bizarre results, range is the one thing I wouldn't tweak.

I haven't played any Russo-Japanese scenarios, and even if I did, I don't know enough about what "should" happen to object to how things worked out.  Since you're getting strange results, though, off the top of my head, I'd probably halve the number of light guns that would otherwise be able to fire to range 3.  This would represent, in some average ship, that while the 6 and 12 pounders might still fire this far, you probably are beyond the effective range of many 1,2, and 3 pounders.

-Eric

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,575

Re: Light guns

ericrrrm wrote:

I've attached the results as a PDF.  (I made up fake ship charts, since it automates my calculations.)  You'll see that while there is certainly variation, Light Guns "by the rules" seem a reasonable average.

http://mj12games.com/forum/download.php?id=40

[...]

Since you're getting strange results, though, off the top of my head, I'd probably halve the number of light guns that would otherwise be able to fire to range 3.  This would represent, in some average ship, that while the 6 and 12 pounders might still fire this far, you probably are beyond the effective range of many 1,2, and 3 pounders.

Actually, the values of light guns are already an average of the 'real-world' capabilities... some of them, if modelled individually, would be able to fire even further than 3 hexes. Also note that the number of 3- and 6-pounders is 'halved' already -- in the sense that a 3-pounder is worth 0.7 LGs, while a 15-pounder is worth 1.3.

I'm gonna stick with my theory that the average gamer may simply underestimate the effectiveness of the lighter armament, especially when grouped in bunches like on the Russo-Japanese ships.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2005-04-02
  • Posts: 34

Re: Light guns

cricket wrote:

Actually, the values of light guns are already an average of the 'real-world' capabilities...

Yes, that's the point I was trying to make--that you didn't pick the light gun ranges of 1/2/3 just because it looks nice.  I guess it didn't come through very well.  Sorry.

cricket wrote:

I'm gonna stick with my theory that the average gamer may simply underestimate the effectiveness of the lighter armament, especially when grouped in bunches like on the Russo-Japanese ships.

Could be.

-Eric