Naval Rules Comparison Part 1: Find, Fix and Strike

The Rules

Find, Fix and Strike was written by David Manley and published under his imprint Long Face Games in 2019. It is available as a pdf of 48 black and white pages for $10 from wargamevault.com. David is a prolific writer of naval wargames rules and has published sets covering almost any period you can imagine, some quite obscure. He is a naval architect by profession, so he knows his stuff.

Find, Fix and Strike is a heavily abstracted game intended for fast play on a normal wargames table. This means that the ground scale is large, with 1″ representing 1.000 yards. One turn represents 6 minutes of real time. 

Movement is alternating, with the player with initiative deciding who will go first with a ship or squadron. Turning is pretty generous: ships smaller than battleships may turn up to 180° at the beginning of their movement or up to 90° at the beginning and at the end.

Shooting is also alternating, with the effects taking place immediately. Find, Fix and Strike uses a damage model similar to many other of David’s fast play rules: an opposed dice roll determines whether damage was inflicted by firing and an escalating damage ladder indicates the effects of the damage on the ship. There are no “hull points” or similar quantitative ways of keeping track of damage. Instead, damage is strictly recorded in qualitative steps, from light to heavy, crippled, silence and sunk. Each step has effects on the ship’s performace, such as penalties for shooting, defending or moving. There are also critical hits, which happen if the defender takes damage while rolling a natural 1. 

Each capital ship has an abstract attack value for its main guns and another one for the secondary light guns (destroyers only have light guns), as well as an anti-aircraft value. Armour and penetration is taken into account not only by a ship’s defense value, but also by a table which indicates which caliber of gun will cause significant damage at which distance. If a gun is unable to penetrate the enemy’s armour, it will cause no more than light damage.

The game allows cruisers and smaller ship to make evasive manoeuvres, which make them considerably harder to hit but make it impossible to shoot or launch torpedos. It also allows to generate smoke, which blocks line of sight.

The game features rules for air operations to be played out on the table top as part of a tactical battle. 

The rules also include a complete campaign system, which is based on a hex map. The author recommends using an umpire, but the campaigns could be easily modified to work without one, as David has indeed done in some of the separately available campaign packs.

All in all, the rules are very comprehensive for such a small book, covering most of the things a player is going to come across in WW2 naval combat. Only submarine operations have been excluded, as they rarely happened during tactical surface combat. 

Support

The rules are very well supported, especially for such a small publisher. David has published four campaign packs, which are available for free on wargamevault. He is also very active in the naval wargaming community. There is a dedicated Long Face Games Naval Wargaming group on Facebook, where David himself is present. He is a very approachable and generous person and always willing to answer questions and help out a player.

The game

For more information about the scenario, please see the last post.

Our game started with the lead elements of each fleet sighting each other at 22.000 yards distance. The Vildebeests, which had been shadowing the Nationalists, hovered around and waited for their opportunity. Playing the Republian commander, I decided to start the air attack only when enemy ships were damaged, as this would increase the chance of a torpedo hit.

As the range was still too large to cause significant damage by gunfire, I decided to close it as fast as possible. All my ships made evasive manoeuvres. My opponent Stephan concentrated the fire of his cruisers on my cruisers, ignoring the destroyers for the moment. Splashes came dangerously close, but nothing was hit so far.

While Stephan tried to keep the distance open, I strove to close it. With the generous turning allowances, this basically meant that we shifted our cruiser squadrons parallel. As the nationalists had an already damaged cruiser with slower speed (one of the scenario parameters), I slowly crept closer. When I was in range for doing serious damage, I stopped evading and started shooting. I did manage to lightly damage Canarias, but a lucky hit from Baleares crippled Méndez Núñez and caused flooding.

Generating smoke to cover Méndez Núñez, Libertad stopped closing the distance. The destroyers still rushed forward, but now came under fire from the enemy.  Libertad took another hit and was now heavily damaged. As a last effort, I decided to make a torpedo attack with the Vildebeests, hoping that they were lucky enough to hit the damaged Canarias.

However, the anti-aircraft fire by the two enemy heavy cruisers was too much and the Republican pilots abandoned their torpedo run. And, to top it all, Libertad was hit again, this time causing crippling damage and flooding. While the damage control team on Libertad managed to contain the flooding, their comrades on Méndez Núñez were not so lucky and the ship vanished below the waves.

At this point, we decided to end the game. Stephan had achieved his objective of taking out the Republican cruisers and didn’t want to linger around to find out if a destroyer was lucky enough to hit with a torpedo. I decided that the Republican destroyers would abandon their attack, cover the crippled Libertad and rescue sailors from the unfortunate Méndez Núñez. The planes tried one last torpedo attack, but again were driven off by heavy anti-aircraft fire.

First Thoughts

This was a brutal game for the Republicans. We agreed that the difference between the attack factor of 2 for the Republican cruisers and 3 for Canarias and Baleares makes quite a difference with opposed dice rolls, and the heavier armour of the Nationalist cruisers also played a significant role, as it forced me to close the distance before I could even think of damaging the enemy ships. This is historically plausible, as the Republicans had a huge respect for the modern Canarias-class cruisers, which outgunned them severely.

However, we also agreed that luck plays a large role in the opposed dice roll mechanic, especially once ships are damaged and modifiers are reduced.

I don’t think the Republican player has a lot of tactical choices here. I could have kept the cruisers back and tried a torpedo attack with the destroyers first, or at least aim for a better coordination between my squadrons… The aircraft never had much of a chance, which is why I initially planned to keep them back to deliver the coup de grâce to a damaged cruiser, but I never got that far.

After some initial hick-ups (which were mainly caused by me being unconcentrated for some reason and forgetting a couple of things), the game played very smoothly. We played for about one and a half hours, but I guess with more practice we can be much faster for a game of this size. If you want to try it yourself, the ship stats for the scenario can be found in the resources section of the blog or here.

I will talk about my thoughts about the rules in detail in the final installation of this series, so I won’t do it now. Let me just say that I had a lot of fun playing the game, even if I was on the losing side, and there is a lot I like about the rules!

New Mini-Series: Comparing WW2 Naval Rules

During the last two years or so, naval wargaming has become one of my main interest when it comes to miniature games. I really like that the investment in time and money is rather limited, as usually a few ships are sufficient for a game and ships can be painted quickly, especially in the small scales I’m gaming with.

I have already written about my taste when it comes to naval wargames rules in general. During the course of this year, I’d like to present a couple of rules in depth and compare some of them.

I want to start with two World War 2 rules that have a similar scope, namely Find, Fix and Strike by David Manley and Nimitz by Sam Mustafa. I’ll play the same scenario with both rules, see how it goes and then compare the outcomes, the rules mechanisms and other aspects.

I think that the rules are a good match for comparison as they have a similar scope: both aim to deliver fast games, both are heavily abstracted, especially in their shooting and damage mechanisms, and both are accompanied by a campaign system and encourage the players to use the tactical rules in the context of campaigns.

Although I will refrain from tinkering with the rules and play them stricly as written, there will be one aspect where I will add something that is not in the rules as published: namely ship data. I want to use my Spanish Civil War collection, and neither FF&S nor Nimitz provide data for Spanish ships. However, as I think that using your own research to create historical scenarios is an integral part of wargaming, this will already provide a first test: namely how well do the rules lend themselves to such amandements?

The Scenario

I have taken this what-if scenario called “Barcelona Payback” from the excellent Shattered Armada book, which is a splendid collection not only of scenarios, but also of background material and ship data for the naval side of the Spanish Civil War. It is published by Admiralty Trilogy Group and intended for their Command at Sea rules, but even if you have no intention of playing those rules, their scenario books are excellent and highly recommended.

The scenario takes a historical event as a departing point: In January 1938, the Nationalist cruisers Canarias, Baleares and Almirante Cervera roamed the Catalonian coast, hunting blockade runners and bombarding harbours. In reality, they were shadowed by Republican aircraft, but no effort to attack them was undertaken. The scenario assumes that the Republican fleet makes a sortie in force to confront the cruisers. The Republicans have the light cruisers Libertad and Méndez Núñez and two destroyer flotillas, a total of eight ships, as well as a flight of four Vickers Vildebeest torpedo bombers. The Nationalists have the modern heavy cruisers Canarias and Baleares as well as light cruiser Almirante Cervera. The scenario assumes that the Cervera was damaged by an air attack which reduced her speed. The victory conditions are equal for both sides: cripple at least two enemy cruisers for a decisive victory. 

Unit stats

Cruiser Libertad.

My main sources for devising the ship stats for FF&S and Nimitz were Shattered Armada and Angus Konstam’s Warships in the Spanish Civil War. Most of the Spanish ships were based on British designs, e.g. the Canarias class heavy cruisers were adaptations of the County class, while the Churruca-class destroyers were of the same design as the British Scott-class flotilla leaders. So I first tried to find the British ships in the respective force lists and then adjusted them to fit the data given in the sources. FF&S contains short guidelines on how to adapt ships to the types listed in the rulebook and a comprehensive list of stats for the fleets of all of the major WW2 powers (and Sweden). Nimitz includes a number of design notes which can be used to extrapolate ship stats, and on Sam Mustafa’s homepage, fleet lists can be downloaded. However, Nimitz uses a more intricate ship data sheet and there is no official editor available to create your own. Fortunately, someone has made their own editable data sheet in PowerPoint and shared it in the Official Sam Mustafa Publishing Group on Facebook. Hurrah for resourceful players!

The scenario contains one complication: namely the flight of four Republican Vildebeest torpedo bombers. FF&S and Nimitz handle aircraft in a very different way and it will be interesting to see what this means for the game. Incidentally, neither ruleset contains data for the Vildebeest. However, it seems to have been quite similar to the Swordfish when it came to role and performance, so I will use the Swordfish stats, which are provided by both rulesets.

I will provide the data sheets for the ships in the respective play-through articles.

In the next installment, I will present the play-through with FF&S. After this, there will be one with Nimitz, followed by an article providing my opinions and conclusions. I hope that you are interested and that you will find the comparison useful!

It’s Been a While…

… since I last published something on here. I can’t say there’s a special reason, I just seemed to have lacked the mojo to write. But I really intend to reinvigorate the blog, especially now that I have left Twitter (you can find me on Mastodon, though, at tbrand@mastodon.wssmagazine.com).

I actually played a great variety of games this year. After my foray into 6mm napoleonics, which petered out because I couldn’t find rules I was happy with (this might have changed recently, though), I was bitten by the naval bug. I started printing, building and painting 1/600 ACW ships and developed my own rule-set, which according to playtesters is actually fun. I had quite a number of games with several people, the highlight being the Battle of Memphis when my mate Stephan visited from Sweden.

I also had the traditional birthday game, where I invited my mates Virago, Sigur and Martin for a large game of Sharp Practice. The scenario was based on the historical raid on Little Washington, N.C., in 1862. It was great fun and I finally had the opportunity to use the ship I built ages ago!

The big event and the real highlight, however, was our traditional summer gaming event. This time, our very own “Bernie Orclestone” Virago pulled all the stops and presented us with an assortment of fantastic bolides in the form of various 28mm chariots. Sigur also threw in his collection and we had a chaotic, wild and fun racing game! Sigur also wrote a great report on the Grand Prix of Monte Chaoso: https://www.tabletopstories.net/language/en/2022/07/the-grand-prix-of-monte-chaoso/

In autumn, Sigur invited me to for a game with his impressive 30 Years War collection. We played the Battle of Herbsthausen:

I also branched out with the naval stuff. First I painted fleets for the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and started a campaign with K., then I became interested in the 20th and assembled fleets for the Spanish Civil War and for WW2.

So, a lot of very diverse projects, and it feels like this won’t change soon. At the moment, I have difficulties concentrating on one topic or period – Last week, I had a sudden urge to play ACW, so I invited Sigur for a game of Drums and Shakos Large Battles.

This is a napoleonic ruleset from the Ganesha Games stable which, with some modifications, works very well for the ACW. We both like it and it might be the answer to my search for rules to use with my 6mm napoleonic, so of course I got the urge to do something in this direction… At the same time, I want to continue with the naval stuff, as Virago is also very interested and has volunteered to paint 1/600 airplanes for a campaign set in the Mediterranean.

Of course I also played other games, but more on those in my end-of-the-year post. I really hope that I will be motivated to update the blog more often. Let’s keep fingers crossed!

I wish all of you Happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever you might celebrate! Enjoy the festivities!

WATU: The Book, the Movie, the Game

WATU stands for Western Approaches Tactical Unit. This was an organisation of the Royal Navy tasked with developping and teaching anti-submarine tactics for convoy escorts during the Second World War. A recent book by Simon Parkin, titled A Game of Birds and Wolves, presents the fascinating story of this think tank.

There are several remarkable things about WATU. First of all, under the command of Cmd. Gilbert Roberts, they used war games to analyse, develop and teach tactics. Those games were played on the floor with model ships, with the ships’ commanders being stationed behind curtains so they could only see a small portion of the playing surface. They also couldn’t see the U-boats, whose courses were marked in a colour that was invisible from further away – quite an ingenious means of restricting information.

Another remarkable thing was that Wrens – women belonging to the Women’s Royal Naval Service – played a central role at WATU. They not only plotted the courses of the ships, but many of them also played themselves, taking on the roles of U-boat commanders or escort commanders. They became very proficient in the game and often played against Navy commanders who came to WATU to learn the new tactics.

Parkin’s book tells this story in a lively and dramatic way. Concentrating on the persons, he highlights the essential role of Wrens for the success of British anti-submarine tactics. He also stresses the importance of games as a means of analysis, innovation and communication. Highly recommended!

Coincidentally, when reading the book I also stumbled upon the new Tom Hanks movie Greyhound. K. and I decided to watch it and we were both pleasantly suprised. Nowadays, we watch almost no movies – most of them are too long, too loud and too corny (maybe we are just getting old). This one, however, had a sensible length (only 90 minutes), with the pleasant effect that it told a condensed and straight story, concentrating on the actions of the commander, played by Hanks. The only weak point was the uber-villanious U-boat-commander sending threatening messages to the convoy – a rather stupid contrievance that had no relevance for the plot. Still, all in all it’s a movie I’d recommend if you like naval stuff.

All of this made me consider gaming convoy actions. Fortunately, indefatigable naval wargames rules writer Dave Manley is already working on a solo game where the player controls a convoy escort ship. I’m looking forward to trying my hand at defending a convoy from dastardly U-boats!