Enterprise Survivor Question

[+Japanese]

Here's the scenario. My opponent's Enterprise is crippled. My aircraft sends a torpedo in and hits. My opponent rolls a 5 (for Survivor) and proceeds to remove the crippled counter and replace it with a 1 hit counter.

Seems odd to me that a crippled ship that gets hit again should miraculously become uncrippled. What is the ruling on this please.

[Y2UAsk]

There are three things wrong with your example.

First, Survivor kicks in only when the ship takes hits equal to or greater than its vital armor. A crippled Enterprise has vital armor 9. Unless it took 9 hits at once (five successful torpedoes or three long lances), Survivor would never even be considered.

Second, nothing about Survivor indicates that you ever remove a Crippled marker from the ship. It states that you take 1 point of hull damage instead of losing all your hull points at once.

Third, Survivor doesn't state that the ship remains in play with 1 hull point -- it takes 1 point of damage. A crippled Enterprise that takes 1 point of damage is going to be destroyed without getting a Survivor roll. A crippled Enterprise that takes 9+ points of damage (its vital armor) is also going to be destroyed, because even if the Survivor roll succeeds, the ship will take the minimum 1 point of damage, and that's enough to sink it.

Survivor can protect Enterprise only when it a) takes 10+ hits simultaneously and b) has at least 2 hull points remaining.

Steve