de bellis magistrorum militum - Wargames Research Group

NAVAL EFFECTIVENESS INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this exercise is to determine and quantify the relative
values of items of naval equipment in performing a warship's operational
tasks. This raises the question of what weighting should be placed on each of
those tasks. Preparing for the last war involves serious risk. For example,
the RN entered the Falklands War with ships optimized for trade protection
against submarines, with defence against surface ships and air attack as a
secondary consideration, yet found itself opposing an enemy with only one
operational modern submarine, but a large number of SSM and gun-armed ships
and greatly superior numbers of aircraft. Warships relatively recently
scrapped would have been more suitable. Indeed, had Vanguard been retained
in service (as the Iowa's had been by the USN) her heavy guns, huge anti-
aircraft battery and armour largely impervious to SSM would have been
decisive. Similar mistakes now appear to be being made, with the RN losing its air
defence fighters in favour of ground attack aircraft more suitable to
invading Iraq than, for example, fighting the greatly improved Chinese navy
and air force. It may be said that there is currently no likely risk of war
with China, but this argument carried to its logical conclusion (and which
smacks of the notorious moving "Ten Year Rule" of the 1920's) would lead to
the scrapping of all naval capability except disaster relief, fishery
regulation and anti-piracy patrol. The only safe course appears to be to assume that anything can happen
within the lifetime of a ship and give equal weight to anti-submarine, anti-
aircraft, anti-surface vessel and army support. Luckily, the capabilities
required for these also suffice for the lesser tasks. For example,
helicopters capable of attacking submarines with homing torpedoes, sinking
FAC with missiles or landing troops are also useful in disaster relief. The method of comparison chosen is a manual war game with human decision
input. This requires less setting up than a computer game and has the
important advantage that all factors are transparent, not concealed in the
software. The finished product could be converted into a computer game, but
this is not within my expertise. The only practical advantage would be
depriving players of knowledge of enemy forces and actions. A manual war
game must allow this knowledge (but prevent it being acted on
unrealistically). Existing commercial manual war games for modern naval warfare have certain
disadvantages. Though generally accurate, they tend to emphasise often
minor technical differences between specific sensors and weapon systems to
an extent that often drastically slows play and sometimes obscures tactical
principals. They have also failed to cope with the problems raised by
variations in sensor and weapon ranges from some hundreds of miles to less
than a mile and by speeds varying from that of a supersonic missile to that
of a stalking submarine. Play is typically with largely unrecognisably
small models on a very large playing area, most of which remains empty. In contrast, the rate of play in this game approximates to real time.
Roughly comparable weapon systems are grouped and awarded the same value.
Only coarse distinctions are used, typically in the region of 17% (the
difference between a score of 4 and 5 with a 6-sided dice). Finer
distinctions are often spurious, unobservable in battle, and tend to be
argued over excessively by people incapable of perceiving a larger picture
and who believe that percentages (which they confuse with probabilities)
are somehow more "scientific" than fractions. The weapons considered are from 1950 onwards, to enable historical checks
on assumptions. Strategic nuclear weapons are not included, but tactical
nuclear weapons are. This is partly for historical comparison, but also
because a torpedo would possibly be the best form of delivery for North
Korean nuclear weapons, enabling attacks on USN carrier battle groups,
troop convoys and South Korean and Japanese coastal cities.
SUBS & SAMS MODERN NAVAL WARGAMES RULES
1960 TO 2020
This rule set is split into sections concerning: GAME PHILOSOPHY OVERVIEW OF GAME MECHANISMS ENVIRONMENT SEQUENCE OF PLAY SHIP AND SUBMARINE MOBILITY CHARACTERISTICS MOVEMENT COMMAND AIDS SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AIR AND SURFACE COMBAT UNDERSEA COMBAT MINE WARFARE RESILIENCE TO DAMAGE SHIP-TO-SHORE OPERATIONS DERIVING ELEMENT COSTS SHIP AND SUBMARINE LISTS AIRCRAFT LISTS
GAME PHILOSOPHY These rules are formulated on the principle that modern naval combat is not
solely an electronic chess game. The stakes for participants are high,
technology frequently does not fulfil its promise, tension is constant and
there are very likely to be short episodes of sudden excitement, extreme
apprehension and deadly danger calling for rapid decisions to avert
disaster. 30 seconds of intense activity should ideally not be simulated
by 15 minutes or more of looking up multiple tables in a thick rule book,
however accurate this may be.
DEVELOPMENT STAGE The original project is now completed and paid for, but I will continue to
develop the rules into a complete set. The initial ship and aircraft
libraries will be progressively enlarged, first expanding laterally to take
in most contemporary (and near future) types, then backwards in time as far
as 1960. All data are from open sources, based on theoretical capabilities
moderated (and where necessary over-ruled) by actual combat results.
Numbers inevitably change as more of the collected information is analysed.
Even though starting with a good general knowledge of the subject,
collection, collation and analysis has been time consuming. Compiling the
ship and aircraft libraries has brought to light the need for several rule
changes, not all of which have yet been completely implemented.
OVERVIEW OF GAME MECHANISMS PLAYING AREA
Because of the distances involved, it is usually impractical to restrict
play to a single continuous table with a constant distance scale, since
this leads to vast expanses of empty table. Ideally, the size of table and
models should so correspond that a model ship at the centre of the table
subtends the same angle to the player's eye as the image in binoculars of
the real ship at combat range. Alternately, it has been suggested (I hope
light-heartedly) that 1/6000 models should be painted a fluorescent light
green to represent radar images... The practical limit on the size of each table is arm reach. Ideally, no
point on the table should be more than 24" (or 600 mm) from an accessible
edge. If using large models (1/1250 or above), it has in the past often been
necessary to use two or more tables a notional distance apart. These rules
replace this by using spacer batons to effectively remove empty areas from
a single table, which is also much simpler in practise than using a
variable distance scale. They cannot be placed closer to any vessel than
its horizon. FORCES
Combat is assumed to be between a moderate number of elements, not "Grand
Fleets" (which have no parallel in contemporary warfare). Each side selects
combat elements up to an agreed (or arbitrarily or randomly selected)
points total. DISTANCE SCALES
For the sake of realism, all distances are expressed in nautical miles
(nm). Measured is between nearest base edges When using 1/6000 model ships, 1" measured on the table represents 1 nm in
real life, enabling distances to be read from an expanding tape measure
with no calculation. The on-table distance must be doubled for 1/2400 or
1/3000 models. 1 or more long batons laid on the table between groups each represent a gap
of a variable and often large number of nm. They are assumed to be of
infinite length. TIME SCALE
Play is divided into two kinds of periods, representing two kinds of
activity (which a cynic might describe as boredom and fear). The first kind
is a Cruising Hour (CH) and represents 1 hour of real time. The second is a
Tactical Bound (TB) and represents 10 minutes of real time. The current
period is a TB if any player wishes to use a weapon at less than horizon
range. A TB may also split into up to 6 phases to represent different
layers of defence against missile or aircraft attack. A single or consecutive TBs are assumed to be coincidental with the early
part of the next CH. COMBAT ELEMENTS
Each ship or submarine is represented by a scale model permanently directly
mounted on a rectangular (preferably magnetic card) base to a scale of 2 nm
long (increased to 3 nm for large ships) by 1 nm wide, which in the case of
a surface ship is painted with a wake. Cast bases provided by manufacturers
are discarded. Individual shore-based maritime reconnaissance aircraft and
ship-based helicopters are represented by 1/2500 scale models on a 1 nm
diameter base. The difference between aircraft and ship scale can be
rationalised as the aircraft being visually identified at shorter range. Ships are classed as: Submarines are classed as:
Giant if at least 40,000 tons full load. Giant if nuclear powered
and at least 15,000 tons submerged.
Large if 15,000 to 40,000 tons full load. Large if nuclear powered
and less than 15,000 tons submerged.
Medium if 5,000 to 15,000 tons full load. Medium if diesel-
electric and at least 2,00