Question to Mr. Donald M. Scheef

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Donald M. Scheef
E5
Posts: 1629
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2006 2:24 am
Location: Waukegan, Illinois USA

Post by Donald M. Scheef »

Thank you for your flattering opinion of my knowledge, but I'm afraid that I'm the wrong person to ask about modern naval wargaming. All my actual shipboard experience was in the engineering spaces of a SSBN. As a hobby, I concentrate on the first half of the 20th century. Sorry, I haven't any ideas on how to manage OTH missile guidance and multiple-launch capabilities.

Don S.
"When a fire starts to burn,
here's a lesson you must learn:
something-something and you'll see
you'll avoid catastrophe."
D'oh!

chrisswim
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Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:22 pm
Location: Jacksonville, FL

Modern Naval Ideas

Post by chrisswim »

Fireball,
What rule set are you using or planning to use? The rules you use should provide that info, based upon the ship, its capabilities and the time frame being used to reflect 'real time' and play -ability. The rules of Harpoon had two movement dimensions, as I recall, a 10 minute turn and 30 second turn.
A rule producer, Clash at Arms produced modern naval rules as I recall. Heard good comments about that.
As for table warfare, probably not use US carriers unless you set up a special scenario. Cruisers and small seem to have worked well. Although there was a scenario from Harpoon Yearbook/Quarterly that was interesting within the Black Sea the Tibilisi was in Ukraine port but crewed with Russian loyalist was trying to escape through Turkey. Bosphorus Straight.
As for navies, is using current, Japan, China, US, Russia, UK can all get in the mix with East China Sea and South China Sea and the Chinese 'islands'. Older US ships for the Philippines. Move into the Indian Ocean with India, UK, US, as an idea.
May want to try 14-16 feet length of table by 4-6 feet wide ocean area.
Chris

Guroburov
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Location: Coppel, TX

Post by Guroburov »

Hey Fireball,

As Chris put it nicely, it all depends on the rules set you use. I've been following a lot of the modern naval groups (lurking and learning). Their biggest complaints/concerns are over the speed and range of missile systems making ship maneuvers virtually pointless. The missiles move so fast that most ships at that scale would move about 1/4" by the time the missiles hit. I still plan to buy modern naval miniatures some day but just for the fun/joy of owning them. For modern gaming I'll probably stick to the Fleet series board games. I found there that, yes, an American carrier group is a very ugly thing, even from 1980. That said, you can still take it out if you're willing to throw enough at it. I managed to pull it off exactly once.

On the other hand you could have really exciting non missile games with lighter ships. Chris really hit it squarely if you look at smaller actions between China, Korea, Japan, and India. Put a Russian or American destroyer or two in that and go nuts.

Steve

cool, and that was my 100th post :D

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