You might see if you can find the book previous to Steel Castles, Dreadnought. I actually enjoyed that one more.

I have a pretty small 1/2400 collection, but it contains some GHQ, Viking Forge, CinC, and Panzershiffe.  If I were making a diorama, I'd go with GHQ, but for gaming (durability and simplicity), I prefer the others.

That's the way I'm leaning too - the GHQ minis are incredible, but the others (particularly the PS ships in resin) will likely survive handling a lot better, even if they are based.

Doug

Doug-

I assume you're now asking about rules, and not "Miniatures choices".

I'll also assume you're not wanting to play a "sub hunt" game, with armed trawlers and sub chasers, etc.  Grand Fleets (unless the 2nd ed is wildly different from the 1st ed)  probably wouldn't be my rules of choice for that.

So, given that subs in WWI were pretty much incapable of operating tactically with a fleet, I'd restrict them to strategic effects in a campaign.  Think "mobile minefield".  Give them some chance of finding the enemy fleet (perhaps based on location, entering the same hex, crossing a patrolled hexside, for example, if you are using a map for strategic movement).  Day vs. night should probably make a difference.  Give the escorts some chance of detecting the sub and then some chance of sinking it, perhaps based on how many escorts there are.  Make the sub (if it has survived) choose a target with at least some randomness.  At that point, you could probably use the GF torpedo rules to resolve the attack, perhaps making a sub that was detected attack from a greater range. 

If you're running a campaign, I don't think it would be too hard to come up with some reasonable probabilities.  If the campaign is a group effort, I don't think it would be too hard to come up with probabilities everyone would accept.  If there's no campaign, I'd leave subs out of it.

-Eric

I believe, at least in WW1, subs were generally steered clear of friendly naval forces and ordered not to engage in areas where friendly naval forces were operating. A friendly fire incident of that magnitude would be horrendous!

Sounds like a reasonable way to approach things - I'll check out the scenario rules.  Now, how about those aircraft rules?    Looking at the old catalog entry, I see that GF1 was described as having "rules for everything from ships to aeroplanes, Zeppelins to submarines" ... seems almost like a step backwards to take all the ancillary stuff out in the new edition, unless an rules expansion/supplement is planned for the relatively near future.

Doug

And there's the rub - if the air rules are not to be forthcoming in the near forth    then I might just buy GF1 and try to graft those air rules on.  But if that's really impossible for some reason, or if their are more ruls on the horizon, then I'm content to wait for the official GF2 version. 

Doug

An aircraft supplement for GF2 could be finished in relatively short order, if there were a demand for it.

Doug-

OK, I've broken down and picked up GF2 for comparison with GF1.  I'd been wanting to do this anyway, and this just gave me some incentive.

I think GF1's air rules could reasonably be grafted onto GF2.  Obviously, all the air-to-air combat could be handled within the GF1 rules. 

For WWI, at least, I think GF2 AA ratings could be used with the GF1 rules, if you didn't want to recalculate the AA ratings with the GF1 formula.  The formulas are pretty close for the smaller AA guns, and only differ significantly for the larger AA guns that you'd find in WWII.

Because the GF2 hull boxes are calculated differently than the GF1 hull boxes, the damage done by GF1 bombs would need to be adjusted for attacks on GF2 ships.  I've done some calculations, and I think an easy approximate conversion would be

(GF2 damage) = 1.5x(GF1 damage)

Round fractions up.

The deck armor rating in GF2 is intended for use with plunging fire, and so isn't really suitable for use against bombs.  You could calculate a deck armor for defense against bombs using the GF1 conversion rules if you have access to a Conway's, etc.  (Let's call that armor value "A", for Aerial defense.)  I think this formula would get you "A" from the GF2 belt (B) and deck (D) values:

A = 2D - B - 1

I don't think you'd want to try to do anything really air-intensive with this, but for the occasional Zeppelin or or H.12 that's out scouting and gets closer to the enemy than anticipated, the GF1 pdf would get you air rules for $9.98.

I suppose I should emphasize that I haven't actually tried any of this.

-Eric

Edit:  OK--I feel stupid.  If you get GF1, just use the GF1 deck values instead of the GF2 deck values when rolling for bomb penetration.  No conversion needed.

And I should now have a PDF of GF1 on it's merry electronic way to me - bought it this morning.  That should hold me over until there's a GF2. 

Doug

Yes. GF3 includes rules for both aircraft and submarines. Both are paid for out of your initial fleet allowance: for example, if playing a WW2 scenario, you can use up to 25% of your points to purchase aircraft.

Aircraft are split into "fighters" and "bombers". They do not move on the game board; instead, during each command phase, one side declares the use of bombers and the other declares whether or not to use fighters to intercept, then vice versa. Surviving bombers are placed on the board next to their targets. Ships may use AA guns to defend in the combat phase, at the end of which the remaining bombers attack. In the initial release, all aircraft have the same capabilities: this may change if there is enough demand for a separate air operations supplement.

Submarine counters are placed during the initiative phase, allowing ships to maneuver to avoid them during the movement phase. Their attacks are then resolved at the same time as other ships. Again, for now, all subs are the same.