A few of these ideas have since been implemented, but we can still do better. Note: a couple of pictures went with this, but it still reads okay, I hope.
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Naval Artillery Command and Control for Aces High
The addition of naval forces into the simulation Aces High adds a tremendous diversity to the game. While I fully appreciate the fact that AH is first and foremost an air warfare simulation, it’s nonetheless worth exploring ways to improve these other facets of the simulation; i.e. ground forces and naval vessels. Hence, I have spent some time thinking about the implementation of warships in general, and naval artillery in particular, with an eye towards making them a more effective – and hence more utilized – aspect of the game. After all, if no one’s conning and using those naval forces, no one will have any reason to attack them; at that point, you may as well remove them from the simulation. I have provided a critique below on the limitations as I see it of the current naval forces in AH, and how I think they might be improved.
1) Modeling Battle Damage – I don’t refer here to the special visual effects of damage, such as oil-slicks, smoke, fire, etc (though I hope that’s in the works). Rather, I’m talking about being able to cause damage to specific parts of a vessel, and to be able to see that damage when you look at the ship. I also refer to modeling the effect of damage on a ship, such as listing, settling, inoperative airplane elevators on carriers, and reduced speed. Damage should then be automatically repaired over time, unless the ship sinks of course. Then, I’d like to see the ship sink in a realistic manner; they didn’t always blow up in a cataclysmic explosion like the battleship Arizona.
2) Conning the Battle Group – The conning – or steering/guiding – the carrier battle group is currently done by setting and clearing waypoints on the clipboard map. Fine, as far as it goes, but there are other actions the task group commander (TGC) needs to be able to control. The TGC should have the following additional options: set the TG’s speed (do you slow down to allow a damaged ship to keep in formation, or leave it to the wolves?); toggle zig-zagging on and off (rapid but short turns to port and starboard of the base course); and alter the steaming formation (line-abreast, line-astern, AAA screen). This last item becomes very important if a fleet engages an enemy fleet in a gun duel!
3) Ah, yes…let’s talk about the naval gun-directing interface in AH. The guns big gun turrets in AH are manned, aimed, and fired individually; the aiming is done from inside the actual turrets. This is neither historically correct, nor particularly effective in the simulation. There are seven gun positions on the AH cruiser, and six on the carrier (see the figure below). Since a player can only fire one turret at a time, and only one shell per turret, fire is uncoordinated and virtually useless. There are also a lot of turrets that aren’t fired at all by players. I can see this for the small caliber AAA guns, but why leave four out of six of the 5-inch turrets on the cruiser un-utilized?
In reality, the main battery, secondary battery, and even sometimes the tertiary battery on large surface combatants were not aimed and fired from the individual gun turrets. They were aimed from positions known as the gun-directors (see figure below). A large ship like a cruiser or battleship had two main gun-directors located in towers fore and aft. In the gun-director tower was a binocular-like device mounted on a pedestal. The gunnery officer pointed this device at the target, and the determined the range and bearing to the target. This information was displayed on a repeater in each turret to be fired at the target. The gunners in the turret would then train the gun out to the proper bearing and elevate the guns to achieve the correct range. A ready-to-fire signal was sent back to the gunnery officer, who then responded by ordering the guns to fire. All batteries of a type that could bear on the target would fire together in a broadside. The cycle was then repeated. The gun-directors were in towers to give them maximum line-of-site range.
I suggest that the guns in AH be set up the same way. Create a gun-director station similar to the bombsight position. Cruiser and carriers would have two gun director stations, one for the main batteries one for the secondary batteries. All turrets of a type would train out and fire together, aimed by the gunnery officer in the gun-director station.
