Honorverse strategic wargame

Jonathan_S wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi Jonathan_S,

Sounds like typical RN cruiser policy.

Did the book detail if the 8" cruisers from the '20's ever elevated their guns to the AA angles claimed, let alone ever practice?

The only thing they'd have a chance at hitting would seem to be a zeppelin.

As best I recall that book didn't specifically cover that, but I'm now reading his Naval Anti-Aircraft Guns and Gunnery and in the bits about the WWII Royal Navy experience it does cover the use of the 6" and 8" cruiser main battery for anti-aircraft use.

Unlike the dedicated high angle guns the main battery wasn't designed to engage tracked targets, but rather to form part of the timed barrage or umbrella barrage fire to break up incoming formations. (The guns didn't have the rate of fire to make it worth trying to track and kill an individual airplane; especially at high angles of fire because the loading equipment wasn't designed to operate at that elevation). But put 9 or so 6"-8" rounds per ship in front of level bombers or diver bombers approaching the formation and it can really disrupt attack coordination (not to mention occasionally get lucky and actually knock down a plane)

The British put a lot of stock and effort in the ability to quickly fire barrages of time fused AA shells, in large part to support or defend other units within a formation. During Operation Pedestal HMS Rodney even expended some 16" rounds for that purpose!?!. (Even though RN policy explicitly excluded guns larger than 8" from the barrage plan)

They even accepted compromises in the positioning of their destroyer screen in order to allow the safe use of both medium and heavy guns for AA.
The DDs had to be farther out that optimal for full ASDIC coverage, to put them beyond the self-destruct range of 20-40mm fire. But they still had to be close enough that any 4.5-8" fire would land beyond them, so not as far out as you might like for aircraft or MTB warning.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Jonathan_S,

So the RMN 8" cruisers could really 'super-elevate' to 70 degrees, even in WW2?

Wow!

I've never come across a reference where they actually did that, yet I initially accepted that when I first read it, then over the years as other claims were debunked, I assumed the headaches involved had over the years kept them from ever doing it in WW 2, since the planes were much faster and began attacks from higher altitudes etc.

Thanks again for the info, do you have any quick references?

L

Phalanx wrote:1) Manticore is OP
In the novels, Manticore has the advantage of tech and skill(especially once Haven starts murdering their own officers for failure.). Then, of course, you have Honor herself, who is the avatar of munchkin. While this advantage is marginal, the definition of a game is anything that is marginally better that players are more likely to use. Simply put, it is more advantageous to play as Manticore, so the better players are likely to be Manticore.

Phalanx wrote:2) It ain't double-blind when its YOUR side too
There are no FTL Communication Networks in the honorverse(unless the MAlignment has yet another tech toy), so giving out orders in realtime is impossible. By the time you send out an order to a ship, it may have moved. While this makes it easier to plan ambushes, it also means that any strategic game would have to reflect that all "pieces" on the board are not exactly at those places, and that they reflect more of a "last known location".

Tenshinai wrote:
While realism is generally good, sometimes it has to be sacrificed for the good of making a game work, for it to be playable.

Most games that try to impose command delays, tend to work poorly, and worse still, tend to severely penalise new players as well as any players that are poor at some types of organisation and prediction.