Critical hits

[Forst22]

My vote is definitely for starting at 0 and working up, with criticals at 5,10,15,20 etc.

This treats all sizes of ships the same.
When the ship is fresh, and all its systems are As good as they can be it won't suffer a crippling hit until it has sustained some noticeable damage.
You will know when a ship is in danger of sinking, when it becomes "battered", a visible state even within the smoke and low visibility environment.

We always declare/Mark ships that reach battered status, or have suffered a critical such as funnel or gun damage, as these are visible landmarks to the fighting crews that a ship is in trouble. Damage to the hull is less visible until it lists/gets low in the water etc = battered!

The rules are great, always enjoy playing them!

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

I'm pretty sure this is what is going on behind the scenes in the PC game World of Warships with rudder control, main armament and some deck mounted kit  suffering damage or HE causing fires, or AP penetrating into internal systems as you are in combat. I presume shell fire also has consequences in HI?
I remembering power diving into combat using WW1 aerial on two occasions only to roll a critical so that a) my wings came off and b) my guns jammed before a shot was fired.
Critical rolls make for interesting games!

Neil

[Forst22]

If I recall correctly, shop of the era used solid shot only.

So ironclad were basically battered until they fell apart/sank?I

Explosive rounds were in there infancy!

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

Shells of this period were still anti-personnel rather than armour piercing. They were in effect over-sized grenades so poorly clad or unprotected vessels were vulnerable as were exposed field batteries etc.

Arguably one of the best depictions of shell fire was the opening Battle of Richmond scene from the film Sahara (2005)

Neil