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Operation Rhine Exercise

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Darkman:
Hey Mark

I'm happy we revisit this topic.  I hope we find a not too complex way to figure out naval movement.

Maybe some CAP rule that ships and planes can react on the return to port movement phase trying to intercept ships that return home and forcing them to 1 round battles

Darkman:
Hello Mark,

after a longer break on this Topic i want to give a deeper look into that.

The Bismarck had a range of maximum 8,870 nmi (16,430 km; 10,210 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
A VII Submarine had a range of maximum  8,500 nmi (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 10 knots 
A IXB Submarine had a range of maximum 10,500 nmi (19,400 km; 12,100 mi) at 10 knots
A IXC Submarine had a range of maximum  13,850 nmi (25,650 km; 15,940 mi) at 10 knots
A XXI Type Submarine had a range of Maximum 15,500 nmi (28,700 km; 17,800 mi) at 10 knots

From Port Hamburg to New-York it is 4195 nautical miles. (direct line)

It's too bad that the direct line isn't even reachable for naval vessels. It would be at least 9 Zones to reach the east coast along the english channel
But another Route along the danish straits are 8 movement zones.

So we could say 8 strategically for the Bismarck might be correct and in combat and hiding situations you would use more fuel.
The Submarines feel a bit under ranged maybe. But maybe the XXI type can get a special rule for increased movement maybe 12 (instead of 8 ) sea zones.

But after reading a book about Operation Rheinübung. Germany had also supply ships in Position to extend the range of the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen.
Maybe we could either let Merchant Raiders do the Job or introduce a supply ship for Germany to give them an increased Operation range.

Maybe we can introduce a new movement Phase / intercept Phase where ships & Planes that didn't move in the normal Phase can now move in order to attack Surface ships or move into sea zones where they can snap fire / intercept Surface ships that try to move back to friendly port.

Another rule i really would like to see is that ships that are attacked by a snapfire can at least fire back... modified or not.   If i read the rules correct , you can defend against submarines snapfire with  ASW, Air snapfire with AA .. but you can't defend against surface naval snapfire fire , which i think is a bit strange. Correct me if this is already possible

What do you think?

Mark:
I have been giving this some thought and have not come up with a good alternative yet.

You can reach North America from Hamburg via strategic movement, but you are correct, you can not so this via the English channel.  I think this is more due to map distortion (having North America up in the corner rather than in a sea zone or two off the map directly across from Spain & France.)

8 strategic movement seems to work pretty well.  I could see increasing it to 10 even without that much play difference - but 8 seems to work pretty well for most movements.

6 movement for strategic warfare also seems to work with the game mechanics.  Units may not be able to take the historical route to get to convoy zones - but they can reach them (i.e. the Bismarck can't loop up North of Iceland to reach a sea zone to do economic damage, but can reach a convoy zone through another route).  If we extend the range too much, then weird things start happening, like the Bismarck attacking US coastal shipping off of New York or something . . .

I'd like to come up with some kind of naval movement in the mech phase, but nothing seems to work right that we have thought of yet.  The intercept / reaction movement idea is not a bad one, but, I think the UK would just keep their surface fleet always in react mode and we would never see the German surface ships sortie.  I think I like the chit draw better, with the British fleet potentially having the opportunity to sortie and intercept on a later chit draw that a different phase. 

Maybe this would not be a bad thing. . .what actions could naval units do on the mech movement and combat phase? Maybe there is an opportunity to trim movement to 3 tactical and 6 strategic.  If you move tactical 3, you can move tactical 3 again on the mech phase.  If you move strategic 6, you could move strategic 6 again on the mech phase.  Amphibs and strategic attacks can only take place on the regular movement phase (increasing amphib range to 3 spaces).  We would do away with 8 space strategic movement (as units would get to move 6 in the regular phase, 6 in the mech phase and another 6 in the NCM phase).  If the Bismarck moved 6 to attack a convoy zone in the regular movement phase, it could get attacked by British ships within 3 spaces during the mech phase.

Perhaps we could let ships accompanies by a replenishment ship or a merchant raider get +1 movement?  This would enable the Bismarck, accompanied by a merchant raider to move out to 7 spaces.

One thing I do not like with the current naval movement dynamics, is the ability for enemy ships to sail around a fleet after it has moved to block is movement back to a friendly port on the NCM phase - forcing the naval units to move to another port.  For example, in our latest game, Cunningham and the British fleet move to interdict German supplies from getting to North Africa by attacking the Tobruk port supply sea zone.  On a later chit draw, the Italians move a couple cruisers off of Alexandria, owning that sea zone, and preventing Cunningham from returning to Alexandria and forcing him to NCM to Gibraltar instead.

The above suggestion could perhaps address that too, if Cunningham was within 3 spaces of Alexandria, he could swing back on the mech phase and attack the Italians.

Naval 'mech' movement would be handled like ground mech movement - i.e. the initiative owner would move all his units first followed by the initiative loser.

I don't know - something to think about.

Mark:
Another alternative is a redesign to the North Atlantic - I came up with this this morning. . .which I think I may be liking better than what we have. . .

georgemak1:
The example that Mark gave above happened to me a couple of times. It's unrealistic, and frustrating the least, it's something that needs to be fixed ASAP.

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