I've been thinking about an idea one of the big gun guys (Katori I think it was) posted in the scenario section, and have modified it a little bit to simulate carrier raids. I'll throw my general idea out there, and see what everyone thinks. I've also posted this in the Treaty section for any of the treaty guys looking in that area. My initial draft of the rules so to speak are oriented towards the treaty/fast gun types of rules but I'm sure could be easily adjusted for the needs of big gun as well. What I am thinking of is a carrier raid scenario, where each side has a carrier, in addition to the usual combat ships. Each side would have a base that they start from, with the object to "attack" the enemy base. The way this would work is, at each "base" would be some kind of opertions area: the place where the carrier is to launch and recover its aircraft. When "war" is declared, the two sides will sortie their carriers from the base, with whatever escorts are deemed sufficient/necessary. The carriers will move to the operations area to begin their "attack". Once in the operations area, the carrier captain will start a 5 minute timer. He must remain in the operations area for the duration of his "5" while his aircraft attack the enemy base and return to the carrier. If the captain does not remain in the operations area for the full 5 minutes, the raid is a failure and no points are awarded. If the captain remains in the area for the full 5 minutes, HALF of the total points value is awarded for sucessfully destroying the enemy base. When the captain returns to his own base, the other half of the points are awarded. Ships would be able to go on 5, then reload as necessary, and get back out there. Maybe if a capital ship (BB or BC) is in the process of reloading when an enemy carrier finishes a raid, that ship is "destroyed" and can't return to battle...perhaps even providing sink points! Cruisers and Destroyers should be exempt from this, and captains with "sunk" capital ships should be able to return to battle with a cruiser or destroyer "secondary ship" if they have one. This will leave the two fleets with a lot of strategy choices on how they want to accomplish the mission. Do they escort the carriers with their heavy fast battleships (since most carriers are 30+ knots, they my have to slow down for many of the treaty BBs)or maybe escort them with cruisers. Do they attack the enemy carriers with fast battleships, or maybe cruisers...or perhaps a combination? Slow WW1 dreadnoughts are not left out, as they are PERFECT for defense of their base. The carrier fleets will have no choice but to go to them and try to survive, which makes escort choice important. Maybe you send your whole fleet against their carrier and leave yours unescorted to fend for itself. There are alot of possiblilites and a role for every kind of ship that can be built. Maybe, you try to bait the enemy fleet into using up its ammunition, and going on 5, THEN sending your carrier in to bag the whole lot of them while they try to frantically reload! There are a lot of different strategies and tactics that the two sides could use to accomplish the missions, which I think could make things very very interesting. With the barnstormer boats PE hulls out there, the Axis has fairly easy access to "Seydlitz class" carriers, and when his Baltimore hulls are complete, I think they can be used for USN "Wright class" CVLs. I am pretty sure existing Brooklyn hulls are close enough to use for Independence class CVLs, and one of the guys in Canada has a mold for Courageous hulls...which were made into carriers! So, carriers for both the Allies and Axis should be fairly easy to come by should someone want to use them, and they would be extremely powerful in a game such as this. What do you guys think? Mike D
Interesting idea. In my club the carriers get a big bundle of guns to represent aircraft striking ability, and they try to stand in the line of battle. They usually don't do to well, either. This could be an interesting scenario to play. By the way, what about giant carriers such as Shinano, Akagi, or Midway?
Why not? Shinano (converted Yamato) hulls are already easily available, and there are some lovely carriers available to be build by guys who like the scratch builds. If there is any interest in hyptheticals at all, that opens up hulls such as the Kaga, Akagi, and Lexington which could be viable for both carriers and BB/BCs. I only mentioned the Seydlitz and Independence/Wright CVLs because they were built on converted cruiser hulls which are already in production and would be easy for people to build in numbers. Obviously I'd rather see Enterprise vs Zuikaku in some kind of battle! Mike D
Aren't some carriers armed? last i checked i saw one in the ship list information that one of them was 3.5 units...
Yes some carriers are armed, but realistically, they are a joke as combat ships. Arming a carrier in fast gun is a quick way to frustration and a TON of patching. Mike D
In BIG guns the Carrier is allowed one 1/4" cannon for every ten planes it carries. The cannons are split evenly between foward and rear firing. so a ship with 100 aircraft would have five barrels facing forward and another five facing aft.
One of the problems with carriers big targets. Also they fight in to close and are like a bill board and get peppered with shot. How about making a game that has the carriers Captains operate from opposite banks of the pond. No one could venture to that side of the bank to get a close shot. If however all the surface forces were sunk than and only then could one go to that side of the pond to get at said Captain and his carrier. We made carrier guns at one time gun barrels 12 inches long in the 80s. This is when I was a member of NASWACA out of Washington State
I love carriers, and i think that they should get some, if not many, guns in the ircwcc. Even if they are big targets, you just have to be careful with it, and take risks accordingly, like the Admirals of the Second Great War
For Treaty we compromised with them, and basically give them battleship units with fore and aft only guns like a cruiser, so the tactics would be to use them like super-cruisers. I'm building the American Light Carrier Belleau Wood right now, and I actually have pretty high hopes for what I should be able to do with it. I expect it to be a very fun ship.
I post updates, but I don't really do pictures and such. My stuff doesn't look all that hot, so it's better to follow the quality build threads.
That works for me. The threads are great and all, but actually seeing a boat is way cooler. Im visiting my first battle(i know, i know, its been a few months, but this was the first one i could attend) and i hope to gain a lot of insight into the hobby, and esp. the building techniques.
my club did a carrier scenario a few times. Basically the scenario is the carrier (whatever) has suffered damage at sea from enemy planes and is largely inoperable and adrift. The team that "owns" the carrier is sending help to repair/refit/tow her to safety. The other team is sending a force to destroy her. For this battle we usually just build a mockup of the carrier in question out of cardboard (because, hey, it's free and we can!) and then we coat it with parafin wax or something to make it waterproof and we just float the carrier out on the pond for use as a prop.
in our club the carriers carry planes on deck they are "lanched" at the enemy and can actually sink BBs. take that yamato, the planes are your usual balsa scale planes with metal noses, the max range is about 5-7 feet, after that they drop, and float around or put a dent in it. right now as the rules are written no carrier can have more than 2 catapults. and there only one shot. on guy has a reload system that he is trying to promote. have it poseted on another page.
We're looking at getting some kind of scenario battles to get carriers more involved then the standard "fleet battle" or the fast gun campaign.
Remember that the Japanese converted the battleships Ise and Hyuga to hybrid carriers. They stil had 8 14" guns. So how would that affect things?
The WWCC couldn't figure out what to do with hybrid-type carriers, and most of them were pretty ugly anyway, so we simply said don't build 'em. Until someone figures out a fair, fun, and effective way of representing them, we'll stick with that.
They are a problem. If you went with air group size they would get 2(?) guns back but as they never actually sailed with planes.... What did you try? And they are very UGLY!
