Naval Warfare in the Age of the Dreadnought.
These rules are designed for naval wargames in the era from the introduction of the turreted battleship until air power took over from surface action as the dominate factor in naval war - this includes the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, WWI and the early part of WWII.
These rules are primarily designed for games where each player commands a squadron of about 4 capital ships & maybe a squadron of light cruisers & a flotilla or two of DD’s. Such games with 1 or 2 players a side can be played comfortably in an evening.
Smaller actions with a ship per player (like the Hood v. Bismark) are good for a quick fun game or as training for beginners.
It is designed for multiplayer games with each player commanding either a single ship or a squadron of a few ships. The principles of the game are:
1. The game is played on a hex grid. The scale of the ship models doesn’t matter as long as they fit in a hex.
2. Each ship has a ship’s log to record proposed manoeuvres and damage. These are magnetic boards with paper overlays with details recorded by positioning magnetic counters.
3. The players secretly record their proposed movement each turn.
4. All the ships are then moved simultaneously in accordance with those proposals.
5. Firing of main guns, secondary armament & torpedoes is then resolved ship by ship.