Experimental/Advanced Rules Suggestions

[Poseidon]

Originally Posted by NimitsTexan

4. Submerged Submarines

At the beginning of a player's sea movement phase, he must decide whether each individual submarine is surfaced or submerged.
• Surfaced submarines move with the unit's normal movement rate and are treated as small ships for the sake of combat; they can be engaged with gunnery, bomb, and torpedo attacks, but not ASW. Small ship gunnery restriction apply to gunnery attacks against surfaced submarines. Surfaced submarines have a 2 die gunnery attack at range 0 and a 2 die AAA attack.
• Submerged submarines have Slow 2 SA. At the beginning of your sea movement step, roll a die. On a roll of 2 or less, this unit gets a -1 speed. Otherwise, the submarines are unchanged from the Advanced Rules.
[/list]

I don't see a whole lot of motivation for people to surface using this rule. I'd rather take the chance they don't move submerged. And exposing them to surface attacks just puts a relatively weak vessel at high risk. Even 'treated as small ships.'

And historically speaking I don't think they'd surface for any real reason anyway. Most (if not all, correct me if I'm wrong) attacks were done submerged, and I'd think they'd want to stay that way especially around an enemy fleet.

Here's what I've been thinkin at any rate.

What I think when I think submarine is Stealth. And I don't think WaS submarines have anything really special or unique that represents this. They are slow moving, and your enemy can see them, and chances are can get and stay far enough away and let his aircraft or destroyers get at them.

My original thought was to just have the subs off the table, and have the sub owners write their position down on a sheet of paper turn by turn. And then when they fire they are revealed and placed on the map, but that just isn't practical and would make submarines a pain, to have to mark their movement down turn by turn.

So I think when attempting to attack a submarine there should be an 'attempt to ping' rule. The destroyer/plane would have three dice and have to roll a 5 or 6 to ping. If it pings, then it can attack like normal, if it fails to ping it doesnt have enough information to depth charge. And with aircraft attacks, the same thing, representing one of your ships trying to locate the sub and inform the bomber where they think it is.

Sorry if this was mentioned before. There are alot of pages in this thread

I just think this would give something to submarines to adress Stealth.

[EvilKobra]

One possibility perhaps worth exploring is adapting the "Last Known Position" system used in War of the Ring. Using that system, a hidden sub's location would not be determined until the sub was found - no need to write anything down.

Here's a quick adaptation (needs some finetuning):

Instead of making an attack, a sub may choose to hide. Whenever it does, place a Hidden counter next to it. Subs with Hidden counters do not move during the movement phase; their location on the map represents the Last Known Position of the sub.

A Hidden sub may not attack. At any time, however, its owner may voluntarily reveal the sub by placing it anywhere within N spaces of its Last Known Position (where N is the number of Hidden counters next to it) and removing all Hidden counters, regardless of distance moved.

ASW seach is performed during the movement phase; before moving, destroyers within range 1 (2 if it has the sub hunter SA) of a sub's Last Known Position may make a roll using their ASW attack value; if it scores at least N successes, the sub is detected and its owner must reveal it as explained above. The destroyer may now move normally, regardless of the outcome of the search.

Aircraft may also perform ASW searches. To do so, they must be placed on the sub's Last Known Position during the Air Mission phase; they may then immediately roll using their ASW value; if the sub is revealed and relocated, the aircraft unit may also move to its new position.

[Vornargith]

I like it ... Sounds like it would work exceptionally well in a sub-hunting scenario.

[Poseidon]

I like that too, very much so!

Bravo.

[weedsrock2]

I agree this is the best hidden sub rule I have read so far.

Some clarifications I would like to ask:

1) I assume a destroyer rolling "N" successes means a roll of four, five, or six. Would the six count as two successes?
2) When you say the owner can reveal his sub at any time do you mean during any movement phase? Or during any submarine attack phase? Or both? I would think it would be the movement phase so he can attack in the submarine phase?

Cool!

[EvilKobra]

Originally Posted by weedsrock2

Some clarifications I would like to ask:

1) I assume a destroyer rolling "N" successes means a roll of four, five, or six. Would the six count as two successes?

I would make it a regular roll (i.e. a 6 is two successes), just to keep things consistent.

2) When you say the owner can reveal his sub at any time do you mean during any movement phase? Or during any submarine attack phase? Or both? I would think it would be the movement phase so he can attack in the submarine phase?

I meant literally at any time, even in the middle of an enemy ship's movement (not entirely sure why you'd want to do this, except of course to exert psychological pressure on your opponent). Thus a Hidden sub that is not found by ASW will remain hidden right until the very moment it chooses to attack. If its target has been sunk by its allies' gunnery, it will remain unseen and save its torpedoes for later...

By the way, with this system, I'd change the Truculent's SA to: when this unit is the target of an ASW search, you may discard one of its Hidden counters. If you do, the searching unit receives a -1 to its dice. The required number of successes is not changed.

[Torps]

That's a very tidy solution, Evilkobra.

[weedsrock2]

Originally Posted by EvilKobra

I meant literally at any time, even in the middle of an enemy ship's movement (not entirely sure why you'd want to do this, except of course to exert psychological pressure on your opponent). Thus a Hidden sub that is not found by ASW will remain hidden right until the very moment it chooses to attack. If its target has been sunk by its allies' gunnery, it will remain unseen and save its torpedoes for later...

By the way, with this system, I'd change the Truculent's SA to: when this unit is the target of an ASW search, you may discard one of its Hidden counters. If you do, the searching unit receives a -1 to its dice. The required number of successes is not changed.

Hmmm. I'll have to playtest this. In my experience subs are already very powerful in this game. This might make them almost impossible to sink and even more powerful than they are now. I think the sub should be revealed during the ship movement phase to allow it to attack during the submarine phase of that turn. This way you can keep your sub hidden from attack for one or more turns if you choose (unless it is found), but you can't do a surprise attack. Having initiative would also have 'meaning' this way if you had hidden subs since your opponent could not maneuver to attack if you choose to reveal for attack. This also keeps the 'harrased subs' rules intact. And we don't have to modify the Truculents SA either (it still applies if you don't move it from the last known position). So - subs can be hidden, or revealed (to allow to attack) by the owner only during the ship movement phase. That also keeps it simple.

The other option would be to appear during the sub attack phase. This would have a much greater element of surprise, but I am very worried it would make subs too powerful. We just went through a long testing phase to implement 'harrassed subs' to tone them down!

[Poseidon]

The whole point of a submarine was surprise attack.

As of right now, like I said before they're slow and easily avoidable, and if you put enough ASW aircraft in the area you can take it out with no problem. Or a destroyer (or two) in the area protected by a big daddy cruiser or battleship.

If people have a problem with sub's being 'overpowered' you could always make depth charges similar to torpedos. In that a hit would cause 2 hull points worth of damage.

Like I say though, I don't think they're that overpowered, especially at the moment.

[Torps]

Under the current rules subs are comparitively easy to find but are hard to kill. You usully a couple of solid hits to sink them. This makes sub hunting a time consuming business and that seems fair enough.
The new rules suggested above would be very good for a dedicated sub hunting or convoy protection scenario but I would suggest reducing each submarine's hull points by, say, 1. this would leave a system where subs are harder to find but more easily destroyed once they are located and prosecuted. The play balance remains about the same but the atmosphere of sub hunting would be enhanced.

Just a thought.....