Line ahead, formations and orders – am I missing something?

[Dr Dave]

I bought the VaS rule book months ago and gave it a read through. I made notes and wrote a 2-page summary of the sections relevant to what I wanted to do. So on Saturday HMS Exeter sighted smoke bearing red 100, and then made the signal “I think it is a pocket battleship”, followed soon after by “enemy in sight”. So two of us played out the River Plate (twice!) and thoroughly enjoyed it. No planes, subs, scouts… all very simple. BUT…

In the back of my mind I thought that I had read a section in VaS about ships in close proximity / line (or whatever) and that they can be treated as a single ship / enitity when moving and firing, But for the life of me I cannot find it anywhere in the book. It would make sense since they’d get to move and fire as a “group” and so fire as one and get their shots of potentially before a more disorganised foe. Otherwise why did ships STILL “form up” in WW2?

But where is it in the rule book?

Did I imagine it?

[Dr Dave]

Ha! Found it!

Page 59: “Squadrons” – it does say ships must remain within 4″ of the next ship in the Sqn for this to count, but later says they all have to be within 4″ of each other! I’ll assume the former

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Dr Dave.

[Nat]

Its an optional rule for large games… I’ll just add that if you put them line astern unless both ships are destroyers you can be touching base and be over 4″ away!!!  … so you’ll find a common house rule is ‘if ships are touching base then they are at point blank range / in proximity irrespective of actual measurement‘.

ps if you look in the ‘news from the wardroom’ thread you’ll find some a 2 page complete turn guide (called the cheat sheet) & 101 guides for when you want to add flights & such to the game…

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Nat.

[Dr Dave]

Thanks Nat, but – and don’t tell Warlord this – but I’m using 1/6000 scale ships. So the ranges and model size discrepancy is much less apparent.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Dr Dave.

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