Phil Dunn's sea Battles, Naval Wargaming 1650-1945

Articles

Phil Dunn’s WWII Campaign, some suggestions
By Clive Essery of the Naval Wargames Society

Phil Dunn's WW2 campaign is a very good one but having played it, I found a few things that I would like to improve. Therefore I came up with the following rules.

1 The two sides should not have the same ships in their arsenals, therefore specific countries should be assigned to the two sides. Only one copy of each real life ship can be in an arsenal before the game starts – multiple ships can be built from the same design after the game starts.

2 The two sides should have a balanced mixture of designs dating back to WW1.

To satisfy 1 above, I listed all of the ships (or classes) in each major country at 1939 and played around until I got two roughly balanced combinations. In some areas one group is better than the other and vice versa.

I found that a group (Blue) with USA, France, Germany and Italy was roughly balanced by (Green) Britain and Japan.

I then worked out random numbers to decide on how many of each type of vessel each group would have. Once the number of vessels within each group is known, dice can be rolled to pick the exact vessels with no duplicates being allowed. Eg Green can have Repulse and/or Renown but not 2 of either of them.

To satisfy 2 above, I split the years into 3 periods. Ships that were laid down before the end of WW1 (called W1), ships that were laid down after WW1 but before the end of the London Treaty (called IT, or inter-treaty as most ships of this period were not laid down before the start of the Washington Treaty), and the final period is after the end of the London Treaty (called PL or Post London). Note, not all ship types are available in all periods, especially carriers, all of the early ones were ships laid down in the W1 period but converted to a full carrier in the IT period. It is their design as they entered war in September 1939 that counts.

There is a table of the probability for each period for each type of vessel below. Note before choosing which side to play, the two protagonists should bid for the side they want. They could say Blue but minus 1 IT BB and 1 IT CV for example. If they bid opposite sides then they both get the full set of ships that they roll. If they bid the same side then the one giving up the most value wins and has to reduce their rolls by that amount. The looser of the bid in this case doesn't have to give up anything at all. Note also from a value point of view a vessel that is from the IT period might be better than one from the PL period as the latter may never be completed. When discarding ships in this way, reduce the number of ships to dice for before actually deciding which ships a side will have – that way they cannot get rid of the worst ship of that period.

For the purposes of deciding ship types a BC is equivalent to a BB. Carriers are divided into two types VA (carrying at least 48 aircraft as designed) and VL which carry less aircraft as designed. Cruisers are divided into three types CA (with 7" guns or larger), CL (with 6.1" guns or smaller), AA (with only Anti-Air guns). Destroyers are divided into three types DF (flotilla leaders with more or heavier guns), DD (standard destroyers) and DE (old DD converted to escort role, or slower speeds designed as escorts).

Note for all three types of destroyers, the number rolled is the number of squadrons (4 identical class ships per squadron if possible). If it is not possible to have 4 identical ships of the same class, then pick ships of similar capacity (speed first then gun-power next). It is also possible to mix the DF and DD squadrons so that each squadron has one DF and 3 DDs once all squadrons have been chosen.

Note also that not all types exist for both sides for all periods. Whilst it may seem that Green has more vessels, these are often not as powerfully armed as those in the Blue fleet. However your combat rules should give a stability bonus to firing from British and German vessels when in the rougher extremes of the northern areas. Say maybe from the northern tip of each side's island to the top of the map.

I would also increase the number of merchant ships compared with the original campaign too, and also added three new types of ships:

Large Liners, capable of between about 30 knots and able to carry one army group

Small Liners, capable of between about 25 knots and able to carry half an army group

Oilers, capable of 20 knots and carries 50 units of fuel oil – these can refuel in a sheltered coastal area any vessel sailing in formation with them when both vessels are stationary. One large, or two DF or smaller sized vessels can be refuelled on each side at the same time.

Note, normal merchantmen as described in the game cannot carry troops and Oilers cannot be used to transport crude oil nor can Tankers transport fuel oil.

I would also arm each of the "neutral" ports so that a conquering side really would have to conquer them. I would suggest the following forces for each port (they could be increased or decreased depending on the size of the port if desired):

2 x Hybrid Dreadnoughts (eg Danton), 2xOld Cruisers (eg Challenger) and 8 Old Destroyers (eg River). Also half an army group and one squadron of old fighters – combat equivalent to the Fighter-bombers in the original campaign but half the Fighter range and cannot carry bombs.

These forces will not surrender, if forced into combat and overpowered (60% material loss) they will attempt to retreat to another port owned by the same country. If there are no other ports or they cannot escape then they will fight to the death and scuttle their ships if they can no longer fight.

If one of the sides defeats the defending ships and aircraft then they must undergo army combat with the defenders, who may again retreat if possible unless forced to surrender.

Once a side "owns" a port they must leave at least half an army group to control the port and the surrounding country, but that half army group can also be used to construct airfields and ports as per the original rules.

Note the old fighters operate from grass strips which will be of no use to the invading player.

I would also of course strongly recommend a more modern set of rules to game out any combat. I have not played any of the more modern rules and use my own home grown set.

Building ships – I would not allow a ship to be built in multiple shipyards which will considerably slow down the rate at which new ships enter service. All of the ships being built at the start of the war (all of the PL ships) already occupy a slip (if less than 50% complete) or a completion area (if 50% or better complete) and already have all of the iron required available for them. This cannot be used to complete another ship unless it is of the identical class, though existing turrets could be used to build or upgrade other ships (15" turrets for Vanguard or Gneisenau for example).

To build a new ship (after the start of the game), steel must be provided at the start of the week for the next weeks build programme. If insufficient steel is available then work must stop on that vessel. If it is decided to clear a slip to build a different vessel then the partially built ship will need to be dismantled (this will take as long as the amount of time spent on building it so far) and 2/3rds of the steel recovered can be smelted down and reused for a different ship the following week. If this is done with one of the vessels started before the war then only 1/3rd of the steel may be so recovered (so as not to tempt the players too much to rip down their bright new battleships to build destroyers).

I would also strongly recommend sticking to the percentage rules for submarines and aircraft carriers. Too many of those could quickly turn the came into a boring one.

For PL vessels these are all partially complete.

For vessels started in 1939, the vessel is d6*5% complete

For vessels started in 1938, the vessel is d6*5% + 20% complete

For vessels started in 1937, the vessel is d6*5% + 40% complete

For vessels started in 1936, the vessel is d6*5% + 60% complete

For vessels started in 1935, the vessel is d3*5% + 80% complete

For vessels of the same type (eg BB) then reduce the second vessel to roll the same percentage complete by 5% until it is not the same as any other.

For example, if three PL BBs are rolled and the first is started in 1935 and is 85% complete and the second is started in 1936 and is 80% complete, then if the third is also rolled as 85% complete (either started in 1935 or 36) then it is bumped down to 80% then 75% complete so that no two ships will complete at the same time.

I have also added in two additional aircraft types – Reconnaissance (RE) which are the Sunderlands and Condors of the nations, and would be built in replacement of one HB squadron. These would be based at a Seaplane Base at the homeland harbours (or another airfield if using Condors – usable only by the Reconnaissance aircraft and containing only one squadron).

Because of the fact that the aircraft types are generic in the campaign it would be best to give both sides long range reconnaissance seaplanes.

Seaplane Bases could be built at captured ports, they would only hold a maximum of 10 RE aircraft and would cost half the cost of a normal airfield to build. Although the ramp to get the aircraft out of the water would be more complex than anything at a normal airport the size is only half of a normal heavy bomber airfield.

These seaplanes can be left in the water of the port while the base is being built but they could not be rearmed or repaired other than with machine gun bullets. They can be armed with depth charges in an anti-submarine role at a fully built seaplane base.

Reconnaissance aircraft have about 16 hours flight time but at low speed (say 150 knots) and can take off but not land in darkness.

The other aircraft type is Floatplanes (FP), carried by some battleships and cruisers and used for local reconnaissance or spotting fall of shot. Note the Japanese built several Floatplane carriers which could carry fighters and bombers as well as reconnaissance aircraft – they also had one that could carry a single long range seaplane and several submarines that could carry floatplanes. If used these fighter and bomber seaplanes should not be as manoeuvrable as the non-floatplane variety because of the weight of the floats and awkwardness of flying with them.

Floatplane Recce aircraft have about 8 hours flight time, allow at least an hour to get on station and another to return, leaving about six hours on search. They cannot take off in the dark and must land about an hour before dusk.

There are about 12 hours of daylight in this region at this time of the season. This means that floatplanes can be on station about an hour after dawn and must be replaced six hours later with the second plane spending four hours on station, and returning to its mother ship an hour before dusk.

All reconnaissance planes can spot smoke from a substantial force at about 40 nautical miles but must close to within five miles before they can identify any ships within that force. By the time that they have identified the ships and got a radio message off, about 45 minutes will have passed from first sighting the smoke.
Side Blue Green
Countries USA/France/Germany/Italy Britain/Japan
2d2+5 3d2+5
BB IT 2d2 d2+1
BB PL 1d2+3 d2+2
VA IT d2+1 d2+2
VA PL d2-1 d2+1
VL IT d3-1 d2+2
VL PL d3-1 d2+2
CA W1 None d2+1
CA IT 3d3+3 3d3+5
CA PL d3-1 None
CL W1 2d2+1 3d2+1
CL IT 4d3+3 6d3+3
CL PL 2d3+1 2d2+3
CAA IT None d2+3
CAA PL None 2d3+3
DF IT 4d3+2 4d2+3
DF PL d2+2 2d3+2
DD W1 None d3+1
DD IT 4d2+3 4d2+4
DD PL 2d2+4 d2+2
DE W1 d2+2 3d3+4
DE IT 2d3+2 None
DE PL 2d2+2 d2+2
SS IT 2d3+24 2d3+24
SS PL 2d3+14 2d3+17
LL d2+2 d2+2
LS d3+5 d3+5
OI 2 2
MM 3d3+14 3d3+14
TA 3d3+14 3d3+14

A spreadsheet showing the names or classes of the various ships that fit into each period is also enclosed.

Other rules that I added was an eight day week of twenty hours a day (6 hours of dark, one hour of dawn, 12 hours of daylight and one hour of dusk). The build/repair rate needs to be changed so that the correct amount of building is done per day. I did this to make some of the calculation easier, eg 1000 tons of steel applied per week is 125 per day instead of some totally indivisible number.

I added new buildings – Oil Refineries and Steel Works to convert the Crude Oil into Fuel Oil and Iron Ore into Steel respectively – these of course can be targets of long range bombing and can be built using the same rules.

I put one Yard into each of the five ports. In my original design, two of these yards could work on a single Battleship or Fleet Carrier, and the other three could work on 2 merchantmen of any type, 1 Cruisers or Light Carrier, 1 DF, 2 DD, 3 DE and 1 SS simultaneously. Each yard had one slip for the designated vessel type and one completion area. Hence a BB Yard could have a Fleet Carrier (VA) on the slips and a BB completing or any other combination. A larger slip could be used for a smaller vessel if necessary.

I did this because I wanted to limit the number of ships being built at one time, but it would be possible to have five yards with 1 BB, 1 CA, 2 MM, 1 DF, 2 DD, 3 DE and 1 SS in each if it was desired to build more. Note the above random factors could give up to 9 BB or VA vessels under construction at the start of the war so this would probably be a good idea.

For the carriers I have attempted to guess what their complement of aircraft would be in September 1939 unless this is known and chose to reduce it by one third. Introduce Deck Parking when you get to July 1941 in your campaign and add 50% to each of the aircraft complements. Eg 59 becomes 86 and 67 becomes 100.

I also have a list of codes that I have used for each type of vessel, building, place etc if you think that might be of use.

I am also in the process of producing a programme that will play this campaign but haven't got a huge way with it yet.