Morschauser Afloat...and Sunk!

I tested the Morschauser derived naval set today using my Balkan Wars Fleets and sadly it did not go too well. Movement was fine and the use of 'blind' cards will make a huge difference - they will ensure that any 'kamikaze' tendencies will be kept firmly in check as a player will not know what is moving and when! Main gun firing was OK but secondaries were lethal and it was way too easy to hit with torpedoes although ironically the damage inflicted was about right.

The problem with secondaries was they they were being used 'en masse' against single targets and in retrospect should almost work on an area effect basis. For the most part secondaries (and tertiaries) were designed to hose an area with fire with the idea that if enough metal went down range then anything in the way would have a thin time of it. I think that it is correct to represent the quantity available to a given ship but it is unrealistic to expect that every barrel will be pointed at the same target. I need to give this some thought and one of the ideas I am considering is to count pairs of 6s as hits at long range rather than 6s, 5 or 6s at interim range and 5 and 6s at close range (with 6s counting as two hits).

Torpedoes hit too easily at close range - I had a 4, 5 or 6 counting - and this needs revision as well so I may adopt the 'need a 6 at whatever range' technique in the interests of simplicity with a saving roll for undamaged ships, a slightly worse saving roll for damaged ships and no saving roll for crippled vessels.

The biggest problem with this period is the sheer diversity of old and new ship types and how they fit into a set of rules. I want to show the differences between ships but what is the best way of doing this WITHOUT using ship cards?

Despite all of this the test overall went pretty well - I just need to stand back from it for a few days and clear my head a little. Over egging the pudding is a natural tendency methinks and so I need to think about how Morschauser would have tackled it and act accordingly - that means acquiring a copy of his book tout suite!