Hydraulic critical hit

[Bill Smith]

I am thinking of introducing a house rule, where a critical hit 9 becomes a “hydraulics critical hit” This would result in all powered mountings becoming disabled for small and medium ships and a single powered mounting becoming disabled for large and huge ships.

Hydraulic failure due to battle damage is a fairly recurring theme in British MGB actions, and it led to a preference for hand operated weapons where possible. In many instances the powered twin 20mm installation on Fairmile Ds was replaced with a twin manual mounting to ensure the ship still had some operating weapons systems if the hydraulics failed. Indeed in the early BPB MGBs the propellers had to be turning for the hydraulic turrets to work , meaning that the guns could not be traversed when the boat is stationary!

It is fairly easyt to see which British weapons are power operated in the game. These are the twin HMGs found on early Vospers and Fairmiles, the unshielded 6 pdr and the twin 20mm as found on Fairmile.

For the Germans, I am less certain. Presumably the 37mm and the quad 20mm and the turreted 3″/88mm.

Does anybody have any additional info on this?

• This topic was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by Bill Smith.

[invisible officer]

The German S-Boote had no hydraulic turned arms.

German big ships had electrical powered hydraulics, each turret having its own electrical driven pumps.

Movement by hand was an option in all ! (See : Die Geschichte der deutschen Schiffsartillerie by Schmalenbach p. 155, he was commanding artillery officer of Prinz Eugen)

So on German ships that rule would do nothing.

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