MBX Naval Operations Guide

By Scott Gainer

General considerations

(1) I presently plan to game the naval portion with a modified Harpoon 4 game set. Modifications include mine warfare rules (below) and some changes in accoustic parameters for ASW (differences in CZ properties and layers).

(2) Keep track of logistics, your ship's and planes don't have infinite magazines, or self-replenishing fuel. Harpoon Classic/2 players should be aware that you will not have an unlimited supply of iron bombs in your magazines

Formations

To assign a ship or plane an formation station give a distance and bearing from the guide or formation center. Designate station keeping (always holds that spot), sprint and drift (runs forward, stops to listen, runs forward again) or sector (moves from place to place in a box). Sectors will require the distance and bearing of the sector corneres from guide or formation center. Example: Guide is USS Neversail, HMS Someplaceinengland station AAW keep 100 at 15,000 yards from guide, USS Hangerqueen Sprint and Drift ASW100/10,000x240/10,000, USS Nolibertycall sector asw 090 /5,000; 100/8,000, 120/5,000; 110/8,000.

What I will do is plot the various vessels and aircraft stations ona piece of tracing paper or clear plastic with a formation course arrow on it to track vessel positions, which I recommend you do as well, changes of course will have station changes and times to station computed. Pay attention to where your ships are, they can run aground.

You should also provide me with a formation speed, and where other than flank, a staioning speed. If you are not sure of the exact speed Stop, Creep, Cruise, Full and Flank will do. Some standard formations you might find handy:

Column (Line Ahead) ships follow the leader at designated intervals.
Line abreast: ships line up abeam of one another at set intrvals.
Echelon: ships formate alonmg a diagonal relative to the leader.
Vee: essentially a pair of echelons on opposite sides of the leader.
Plane Guard: destroyer, frigate or other vessel stationed astern of the carriers and helo ships at 2,000 - 6,000 yards to recover downed aircrew. Helicopters are also used but called Angel.
Some manuvers that may be of use;
Reverse: all units turn to the reciprocal heading, maintaining their present distance and bearing from the guide.
Turn: All units turn to a designated heading, maintaining their present range and bearing from the guide.
Column Turn: All units manuver to pass through the same spot the guide did while it turned.
Formation turn (wheel); Units turn to new heading manuvering to maintain station relative to the guide.
Formation reverse: Units reverse course and manuver to maintain position relative to the guide.

Try not to get complicated in formations and manuvers.

Mine Warfare

Mine warfare is another subject not often treated in games, mostly because it's slow, unglamerous work. You will each have a number of mine and countermine options available to you.

Mines

Fuses:

Contact: vessel has to hit it to deteonate it.

Influence: detonated by magnetic fields, sound, presure, seismic influences or combinations thereof.

Autonomous: torpedo firing mines such as CAPTOR and KRAB, use passive sonar to produce firing solutions.

Command: fired from shore stations.

Delivery: you will have mines that are deployed form surface vessels, submarines and by air. See individual side instructions and intelligence briefs for availability by fusing and delivery options.

Detection: variable; active sonar, observation of delivery, intelligence reports and (worst case) detonation will provide you with information on fields of mines.

Countermeasures: surface minesweepers, helicopter sweep sleds, ROVs and swimmers are used to eliminate or neutralize mines.

Minefields

To keep my life simpler all mine fields will be standard nautical mile square blocks with a maximum of 100 mines per block sweeping and Ph will be based on N/100 of mines in each field. More than 100 mines per nautical mile will tend to cause fratricide problems through strikes by contact weapons or sympathetic detonations.

Minefields will be restricted by water depth and mine type (for example you won't be able to deploy anything but autonomous mines in water more than 3,000 feet (1,000m) deep). The longer a field persists the greater chance there is of drifters outside the original field and in your own safe lanes (Q routes). Areas of extreme tidal range or strong currents will also produce drifters.

Hit probability of vessels transiting fields Ph= .9xN/100 where N = number of mines in the field. Hits will be calculated on the basis of vessel speed while in transit and vessel size. Damage will be computed on the basis of torpedo hits of similar warhead size compared to the bursting charge of the mine. Normal damage control rules will apply.

Detonating mines will be deducted from future Ph calculations for that field.

Minefields will be designated by the lat/long (ddd mm ss) of their SW corner.

Mine Countermeasures:

I plan two approaches to mine countermeasures: Abstracted and Tactical.

In the abstracted approach minesweeping will follow schedules based on sweep methodology and mine type. As long as the sweeping operation is unmolested the abstract method will be in force.

Surface sweeps for contact and susceptible influence mines;

Q route through field: 30 minutes for 1 sweeper per field segment, 20 minutes for 2, 10 minutes for 3.

Whole field: 120/U=T whereU = number of sweepers and T is sweep time in minutes.

Airborne sweeps for contact and susceptible influence mines.

Q route = 6/U=T
Field = 24/U=T
Note: airborne sweeping is restricted to water less than 200 feet deep.
ROV sweeps
Q route: (270/U)/(100/N)=T
Field: (1080/U)/(100/N)=T
Swimmers
Q route: (450/U)/(100/N)=T
Field:(1800/U)/(100/N)=T
note: double time for each water temperature decline of 10C below 37C.
Divers are restricted to water depth of less than 120 feet. Add 60 minutes to time between fields for each
30 feet of depth below 30 feet.

Dispersal charges (Mk 18 etc.) requires N/3 Mk 18 per Q route, N Mk 18 per field.
T = 15N/U per field
T=(15N/U)0.3 per Q route
Tactically units are gamed individually, hopefully this wont happen often as it can be real time consuming.

Surface sweeps for contact and susceptible influence mines:

3 kts, swept lane per sweeper 500 yards wide, each pass reduces Ph for vessels in the lane by 33% (it never reaches zero, there is always a 1% chance, or better, of being hit by a stray mine for both hostile and friendly ships).

Airborne sweeps for contact and susceptible influence mines:

60kts, swept lane 250 yards wide, each pass reduces Ph for vessels in the lane by 33% (see above). Limited to water depths of less than 200 feet. H 53 E, Haze, Hip, Super Frelon have sweeping variants.

ROV:

3 kts approach speed, 5 minutes to plant charge, must retreat 500 yards before detonation. Attacks are made on an individual mine basis. After 5 attacks vehicle must be recovered (30 minutes) to reload charges.

Swimmer:

Raft/CAST delivery: raft speed 20 kts, 15 minutes per mine per team (5 minutes to localize and move to the mine, 5 to plant the charge, 5 to recover). Depth restricted to 120 feet (yes, I am familiar with exotic gas diving, let's keep this simple).

SDV delivery:

SDV speed 3 kts, 10 minutes per mine per team.
Depth restriction still 120 feet, SDV battery endurance 2 hours.
Depth penalty: 1 hour surface interval per 30 feet below 30 feet depth per operating hour (I'm assuming the safety divers trade off with the operators)

Dispersal charge:

Raft speed 20 kts. Compute travel time to and from target plus 10 minutes alongside mother vessel to rearm. 1 Mk 18 per mine.

And now you know why nobody makes movies about minesweeping (although my old ship, the Gallant, once appeared in an Elvis Presly movie:>)

Underway replenishment (UNREP) and vertical replenishmnet (VERTREP)

I'm using the US standard for all replenishment (assumes that non-NATO navies have adopted the same methods for simplicity's sake)
Rates of replenishment will be controlled by the number of stations on the replenishing ship and the receiving ship.

Dry cargo and ordnance: 3500 lb/station/ 5 min. or 21 tons/hour
Fuel: 1 ton/station/minute

VERTREP: 6000lb/load, rate dependant on distance between replinishing and replenished ship, 5 minutes at each end for load/unload.
Submarines can only replenish from a tender or next to a stationary vessel.

Unloading/loading of fuel and cargo in ports is a function of individual port capacity and how the material is packaged. See individual ports in the forces sections. Port operations will be abstracted.

Steaming conditions

Condition I: General quarters, all weapons and sensors manned, fatigue rate builds fairly quickly.
Condition II: relaxed GQ, personnel rest near battle stations, slower rate of fatigue accumulation..
Condition III: All sensors manned, some personnel near weapons stations, takes about 5 minutes to achieve full GQ status. Fatigue neutral.
Condition IV: Selected sensors manned, weapons typically unmanned, about 15 minutes to full GQ. Allows fatigue dissipation.

EMCON

Electronic warfare will be important to your naval battles. Here are some standard emissions control plans. You can roll your own with specific combinations of emitters.

EMCON A: no emissions, visual communications only.
EMCON B: generic emissions; LN-66, DON K, fathometers.
EMCON C: line of sight emmitters; vhf/uhf radio comms, plus generic emissions.
EMCON D: EMCON C with active sonar
EMCON E: All emitters active.

Sonar modifications:

I will compute sonar predictions based on historic physical oceanography data from the NOAA Atlantic dataset. CZ will follow paraolic paths rather than appearing as the cylinders most of you are used to from earlier gaming experience. Other effects will also be computed. In some areas, notably around the edges of pack ice, you may expect tp encounter significant biologic effects, including deep scattering layers. Noise from ports and other vessels will be a factor. Currents, such as the Gulf Stream, will influence sound propagation. Accoustic torpedoes may become fratricidal if launched in salvos. Unlike H2 you won't be able to detect anything in your baffles.

Icing

In polar regions, icing will create maintenance, stability and air ops problems. When icing exists breakdown rates for equipment, especially deck mounted equipment, will increase. Repair rates will be slowed. Removal of ice will increase crew fatigue levels and cannot be carried out in condition I. Icing will prevent air operations except for recovery of helos by Beartrap equipped ships.

END OF GUIDELINES.