Advanced optional rules for turrets in BFG

[RCgothic]

In the ideal system, Battleships would be only slightly better defended against AC than Cruisers, if that, and bombers, particularly in large waves with fighter support against unsupported ships, would be overwhelming.

Substantially supported capital ships (eg 2-3 capital ships in BtB, or more escorts)) should be effectively immune to bombers (but not ABs or Torps, which don't have to line up careful attack runs, but go straight in like an arrow).

Try this system:

• Ships keep their turret value, but this is only used for the removal of incoming Ordnance on a 4+. Turrets may fire at every incoming threat, including torps/torpedoes at once.
• Bomber, AB or Torpedo waves are removed in their entirity if they encounter a fighter marker. If Fighters are included in a wave that contacts a fighter marker, these Fighters are still removed first on a 1-1 basis.
  • These nerfs to Ordnance are a balance to the nett buff they receive in the folloing point, and incentivises fighter escorts.
• Bombers roll D6-2 attacks each, with the following modifiers: -2 for each Captial ship in BtB, -1 for each escort in BtB, and +1 for each surviving fighter in the wave.
  • This makes BBs only more effective at killing the AC, not at defending their attack runs - all capital ships will now need support, and even BBs will be rapidly overun if they are caught unsupported by bomber waves.
  
  For example: A Retribution class Battleship is caught unsupported by a wave of 4 Bombers and 4 Fighters.
  
  Under the current system, 2 Fighters get shot down. The bombers make an average 0.5 attacks each, plus two supporting attacks from fighters. Total 4 Attacks.
  
  Under the new system, 2 Fighters get shot down, the bombers roll D6-2+2 for an average 3.5 attacks each, and a total of 14, three times stronger.
  
  This time, give the same BB a pair of cruisers in BtB, and 3 fighters get shot down (6 turrets thanks to turret massing), and the bombers roll D6-2-(2x2)+1, or D6-5, for an average of 0.167 attacks each and 0.67 attacks total; The group of ships is effectively invulnerable to bombers.
  
  The drawback is of course that ships in base contact share shields and are far more vulnerable to direct fire weaponry as a result.

[commander]

Well, to keep it KISS, I would throw out massed turrets and introduce flak-ships (escorts), such as firedagger or modified escorts (half range (R15 cm) WB's, can shoot at AC as turrets do or be used as R15 WB), OR introduce fleet turrets into IN.

[Sigoroth]

Hmm, the problem with RCGs system is that fighters should not be able to destroy a wave of any size bombers. At most 2 per 1. And this is pushing it.

On thinking about it I would also limit massing turrets to escorts only. So escort + escort would share, escort + cap ship would share, cap + cap would not. This is for a few reasons. In reality escorts are used for anti-air defence of larger ships. Also the shared shields downfall really isn't much of a downfall on capital ships. I figure that only escorts would be manoeuvrable enough to get close enough to provide such support.

I also like Barras' idea of the fighters on CAP counting as an extra turret and shooting against all incoming attacks. Being the last line of defence and not having adequate time to properly engage the incoming bombers or torps seems right to me.

However, I like RCGs way of resolving the number of bomber attacks, independently of the number of turrets on the target. I would combine Barras CAP idea with a modified version of RCGs bomber attack run idea.

• Ships keep their turret value (maybe drop BB turrets), but this is only used for the removal of incoming Ordnance on a 4+. Turrets may fire at every incoming threat, including torps/torpedoes at once.
• Fighters on CAP act as a turret against incoming ordnance attacks unless intercepted and removed by other fighters (removed as normal).
• Bombers roll D6-2 attacks each, with the following modifiers: -1 for each fighter on CAP, -1 for each escort in BtB, and +1 for each surviving fighter in the wave (to a maximum of D6-1 per bomber).

[RCgothic]

Hmm, the problem with RCGs system is that fighters should not be able to destroy a wave of any size bombers. At most 2 per 1. And this is pushing it.

This idea really is incidental, and not a key point of the suggested system. 2-1 would certainly be enough to provide icnentive to support Assault Boat waves.

I am glad you like the key concept of the suggestion, that bomber attacks is not directly affected by the turrets.

On thinking about it I would also limit massing turrets to escorts only. So escort + escort would share, escort + cap ship would share, cap + cap would not. This is for a few reasons. In reality escorts are used for anti-air defence of larger ships. Also the shared shields downfall really isn't much of a downfall on capital ships. I figure that only escorts would be manoeuvrable enough to get close enough to provide such support.

Here I have to disagree with you, for two reasons:

Firstly, current lists don't include many escorts - Zelnik's 4820pt list has none! My standard 1500pt list includes just 6. Considering bombers are usually manouevrable enough to attack the least defended target, ordnance gets a boost under this idea thanks to fighter suppression and the reduction in a battleship's defences, the defending ships need a good supply of modifiers. Allowing Capital ships the -2 modifier doesn't FORCE anyone to change their lists.

Secondly, I think you're plain wrong about how effectively Capital ships support each other. At the battle of the Philippine sea, the Japanese waves that broke through the picket fighters was thwarted by a screening line of battleships and cruisers and caused next to no damage. At the battle of Leyte Gulf, an air attack on two Obsolete Fuso class Battleships was thwarted by good coordination, and analysts suggest the Prince of Wales and Repulse would have easily survived their fatal encounter had Prince of Wales had its early-warning radar operational and it hadn't been crippled by a freak critical hit in the first strike that caused flooding of the engine room, a loss of power, and the disabling of her AA guns.

So I think it needs the -2 modifier for Capital ships back. I also don't agree that it should be to a maximum of D6-1. If a ship is caught undefended, it's caught undefended. I do agree that it should be noted the limits are 0 and 6! Consideration of ships with 0 turrets should be added.

Also, just to clarify what you mean by fighters on CAP: They count as +1 turret, and roll 4+ to hit against every incoming Ordnance Wave AND they give a -1 modifier to the bombers attack roll?

So:

• Ships keep their turret value, but this is only used for the removal of incoming Ordnance on a 4+. Turrets may fire at every incoming threat, including torps/torpedoes at once.
• Surviving fighters on CAP, if not removed by enemy fighters, do not remove additional Bomber, Assault boat or Torpedo markers, but count as an additional turret, rolling a 4+ to hit against each incoming wave of Ordnance.
• Bombers roll D6-2 attacks each, with the following modifiers:
  • -1 for each surviving fighter on CAP
  • -1 for each escort in BtB
  • -2 for each capital ship in BtB
  • +1 for each surviving escort fighter in the wave
  • +1 if the ship is crippled
  • +2 if the ship has no turrets.
  
  
• The maximum attack roll per bomber is 6. The minimum is 0. Rolls may not be modified to exceed these values.
• Modifiers are not gained from ships or stations in base contact that have 0 turrets.

[horizon]

Forcing more escorts into lists, aka making escorts more worthwhile = good.

[RCgothic]

This change would still make escorts more worthwhile, but it wouldn't penalise lists as they currently stand. Perhaps -1 for all ships in btb if people feel strongly about it.

A central battleship could still be made effectively invulnerable to a combined wave from 2 Emperors without overlapping the bases if capital ships only gave -1. (8 fighters on CAP with 7 ships in contact)

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Firstly, current lists don't include many escorts

This is more people choosing cruisers over escorts. What to do to make people bring escorts is another issue. Perhaps by making them better vs ordnance we can see an increase in their usage.

Secondly, I think you're plain wrong about how effectively Capital ships support each other. At the battle of the Philippine sea, the Japanese waves that broke through the picket fighters was thwarted by a screening line of battleships and cruisers and caused next to no damage.

Japanese pilots during this time were very green already, with the vets gone. Not surprising they were turned back. And note that the battleships and cruisers at that time frame were using their secondary weapons as AA weapons as well. Nothing equivalent exists in BFG officially except for the CWE Shadowhunters.

At the battle of Leyte Gulf, an air attack on two Obsolete Fuso class Battleships was thwarted by good coordination,

Not the cream of the American pilots. 3rd Fleet was off attacking Kurita and Ozawa. Nishimura was just facing the pilots of 7th Fleet who mainly had GP bombs. They didn't have much torps since their role was to support the landings and subhunting.

and analysts suggest the Prince of Wales and Repulse would have easily survived their fatal encounter had Prince of Wales had its early-warning radar operational and it hadn't been crippled by a freak critical hit in the first strike that caused flooding of the engine room, a loss of power, and the disabling of her AA guns.

No because Japanese pilots during this time were the seasoned vets bombing with high accuracy. British ships didn't have the anti-air defenses to tackle the shift in power from battleships to air power at that point in time. People were even underestimating Japanese pilots, planes, bombs and torps during this time. PoW and Repulse would still be sunk. Maybe a bit longer without the freak hits. Radar would not have helped.

[skatingtortoise]

the reason we currently have the turret suppression rule is to simulate bomber waves being improved by having a fighter escort. against turrets, this doesnt seem to make much sense unless theyre throwing themselves in the line of fire. why is it this way? because in terms of AC currency, 1 bomber = 1 fighter. they both take up exactly the same amount of resources, and are removed in exactly the same ratios. this is why a mixed fighter/bomber wave is no better than a full bomber wave when being intercepted by other fighters. if a wave of 8 AC hit 4 fighters, whether those 4 AC lost are bombers or fighters doesnt matter, they may as well be assault boats. hence, no incentive to take fighters.

with this line of thinking, i really like the 1:2 ratio for fighter vs bomber, as it really does give a real incentive to bring fighter support, for the right reasons - to hold off enemy fighters. the issue now is that defending becomes much easier than attacking, because if you and your opponent both have the same launch capacity, you can stick with fighters and not have to worry about bombers.
this would be difficult to balance i think. the only thing that comes to mind is to have bombers make a flat d6 attacks regardless of turrets - making them difficult to get to the enemy in numbers if they have lots of ordnance, but devastating if they do. this could also encourage more CAP, to protect against short range pure-bomber waves.

my last idea to encourage escorts is to have escorts contribute their whole turret value instead of just a +1, making high turret escorts very handy in groups of 3, surrounding a capital ship. another option would be to lift the cap on massing turrets for escorts, so you could gain a max of +3 from capital ships, or a +6 from escorts if you surround yourself. +8 for big bases.

(i know ive repeated a lot of ideas here, but i think these KISS. thoughts for the thought god, ideas for the idea throne.)

[Dark Depths]

The drawback is of course that ships in base contact share shields and are far more vulnerable to direct fire weaponry as a result.[/list]

I'm not sure the rules say they share shields if BM's are only in contact with one of the ships.  See page 4+10 of the F&Q2010.

All this discussion over whether people take enough escorts seems a little pointless.  People do take escorts, when they need too. So changing the relatively good ordnance rules just to make escorts slightly more atractive does seem a little over the top.  But that's just my opinion!  (Sorry)

Also, that Zelnik's 4820pts fleet that was mentioned does have falchions in it, as he states later in his posts.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

the reason we currently have the turret suppression rule is to simulate bomber waves being improved by having a fighter escort. against turrets, this doesnt seem to make much sense unless theyre throwing themselves in the line of fire. why is it this way? because in terms of AC currency, 1 bomber = 1 fighter. they both take up exactly the same amount of resources, and are removed in exactly the same ratios. this is why a mixed fighter/bomber wave is no better than a full bomber wave when being intercepted by other fighters. if a wave of 8 AC hit 4 fighters, whether those 4 AC lost are bombers or fighters doesnt matter, they may as well be assault boats. hence, no incentive to take fighters.

This is a problem with the AC rules not representing attrition. Basically each fleet has unlimited amounts of squadrons. If a good attrition rule can be put in place then this problem can be fixed.

with this line of thinking, i really like the 1:2 ratio for fighter vs bomber, as it really does give a real incentive to bring fighter support, for the right reasons - to hold off enemy fighters. the issue now is that defending becomes much easier than attacking, because if you and your opponent both have the same launch capacity, you can stick with fighters and not have to worry about bombers.
this would be difficult to balance i think. the only thing that comes to mind is to have bombers make a flat d6 attacks regardless of turrets - making them difficult to get to the enemy in numbers if they have lots of ordnance, but devastating if they do. this could also encourage more CAP, to protect against short range pure-bomber waves.

I don't agree with the 1:2 ratio. If we follow real life, a squadron of fighters attacking multiple bomber squadrons without escorts would result in almost, almost destroying one squadron of bombers. When the fighter protection came in, bomber losses went down to minimum numbers.

Chubbybob, an old BFG vet tried integrating attrition rules in place by using only limited number of AC squadrons per ship. I just don't remember if he used 2x or 3x the AC strength per ship. Once you include attrition rules, you will then see fighters escorting bombers on the table.

[RCgothic]

I don't agree with the 1:2 ratio. If we follow real life, a squadron of fighters attacking multiple bomber squadrons without escorts would result in almost, almost destroying one squadron of bombers. When the fighter protection came in, bomber losses went down to minimum numbers.

Chubbybob, an old BFG vet tried integrating attrition rules in place by using only limited number of AC squadrons per ship. I just don't remember if he used 2x or 3x the AC strength per ship. Once you include attrition rules, you will then see fighters escorting bombers on the table.

There's no reason for our future-tech sci-fi fighters to follow what was true in WW2 if it suits game balance to do otherwise. Watch a group of F22s get in amongst an undefended squadron of strategic bombers and it wouldn't be implausible for the F22s to take out 8 Bombers EACH, which could be a 10-1 Squadron ratio given the fighter squadron's additional numbers. It's not implausible to suggest a 2:1 ratio.

The attritional method in addition to offering incentives to escort, nerfs Ordnance overall (as it runs out), slows down gameplay (due to additional time spend working things out) and creates an exponential amount of book-keeping, particularly for joint waves from squadrons. It's not the simple solution.

[skatingtortoise]

ofcourse you could achieve something similar by having 1 lb able to launch 2 fighters at a time instead of one. you keep the 2:1 ratio and unlimited ordnance. not sure how this would affect gameplay.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

There's no reason for our future-tech sci-fi fighters to follow what was true in WW2 if it suits game balance to do otherwise. Watch a group of F22s get in amongst an undefended squadron of strategic bombers and it wouldn't be implausible for the F22s to take out 8 Bombers EACH, which could be a 10-1 Squadron ratio given the fighter squadron's additional numbers. It's not implausible to suggest a 2:1 ratio.

And you think the next generation of bombers won't improve enough that the F22s would have a hard time? Fighters and bombers have each evolved at the same rate. The existing ratio still has not changed. F-22s would still have a hard time taking down B-1s with its speed and have a hard time finding the B-2s with all its countermeasures. The F-22 has to find the bombers first these days, something not done easily enough.

Also, look at the Russian doctrine where it would use supersonic bombers to take on the American Carrier Battle Groups. They would find the battlegroup, launch the Backfires then fire from tens to even hundreds of kilometers away.

Missile warfare actually would even make things harder since the chances of getting a kill is harder for the reason one is relying on radar or heat seekers which can be countered. This compared to WW2 where fighters were seeing bombers fill their windscreens.

Whatever improvements fighter tech gets, you can be sure bombers will not be far behind. This is so because the bombers have to survive whatever current dominant fighter can dish out.

The attritional method in addition to offering incentives to escort, nerfs Ordnance overall (as it runs out), slows down gameplay (due to additional time spend working things out) and creates an exponential amount of book-keeping, particularly for joint waves from squadrons. It's not the simple solution.

One hasn't even really introduced an attritional rule yet so how can you say it will nerf ordnance overall? If the nerf does occur then a change in the rules making ordnance slightly better can be introduced. While I agree it is not a simple solution, I think it is the better solution than just assuming 1 fighter marker will wipeout an entire unescorted bomber wave.

[skatingtortoise]

how about a different take on it - how about fighters needing to kill fighters on a 2:1 ratio? so a wave of 4 fighters attacking a wave of 2 fighter 2 bombers would only have enough to finish off the fighters, and make them actually useful at defending bomber squadrons. the issue here would be making defensive fighter screens very tough to break and dealing with odd numbers, but in the end any change is a balancing act.

[commander]

Or just some fast rules for dogfights and bomber busting, not just removing markers because they met.