Harpoon 5e - Jumpstart (Redacted).pdf

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Harpoon V Jumpstart
An Introduction and Example
by Larry Bond,
Chris Carlson &
Kevin Martell
Harpoon V Jumpstart
2
Introduction
This free Jumpstart explains the rules system to new players and familiarizes veteran
Harpoon
players with the many changes we have made to the fifth edition rules.
The previous fourth edition was last updated in 2001(!), so there’s a lot of catching up to do, not only in terms of new systems that have appeared, but better ways of
modeling the complex interactions and technical details of modern naval warfare.
Seriously, there are a lot of moving parts. For example, a detection by radar is affected by the range of the contact, its signature (which is not the same as its size),
the type of radar, the radar’s technology level, the weather, the contact’s proximity to land, and how quickly the detection is processed (a new feature in this edition, the
combat system). And then there’s offensive jamming.
Harpoon
is a complex game. It is playable because we have worked hard to ruthlessly simplify the many interactions and abstract, or “black-box” processes that would
otherwise slow manual play to a crawl. We want the game to be about making decisions, based on real-world trade-offs.
This game requires that you learn about naval warfare. Like any game, the more you understand, the better your chance of winning. The rules explain, in real-world
terms, how radar, sonar, and other sensors work. Some of it is arcane; all of it is real. And in naval warfare, finding the other side is the hard part.
Table of Contents:
Rules Summary
Sample Scenario: Guardian
Ship and Aircraft Data
Standing Orders
Excerpt from the Fifth Edition Rules: Ducting
Scenario Play
About SimPlot
About Harpoon
About The Admiralty Trilogy Group
About The Wargame Vault
page
3
4
6
17
18
19
38
39
39
39
If you have questions about this Jumpstart or any other part of the
Admiralty Trilogy
game system, please email
us at adtrgroup@aol.com. Visit the Admiralty Trilogy Facebook page or our website at admiraltytrilogy.com. We
always answer our mail.
Cover: A Harpoon missile fired from the Mk141 launcher aboard USS
Shiloh
during a live-fire exercise (US Navy)
Copyright Notice
Although this Jumpstart is free, and distribution to friends and even strangers is encouraged, it is copyrighted by the Admiralty Trilogy Group, Larry Bond, and
Chris Carlson. If material from here is repeated elsewhere, it must cite this document as the source.
Includes all corrections & changes through 10 July 2020.
Harpoon V Jumpstart
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Rules Summary
If you’ve played other wargames before, this rules summary explains the basics:
Harpoon
is a tactical miniatures game, with players taking on the role as a ship captain or formation commander. Turns are simultaneous and can be either thirty minutes or
three minutes long, depending on the level of interaction between the two sides. Players first plot their actions for the upcoming turn, then move according to the plotted orders.
They execute any ordered weapons fire (“Planned Fire”), then find out what they can see with radar, sonar, or other sensors. If a new threat is detected, they are allowed to use
some weapons against it immediately (“Reaction Fire”), and the turn ends with a housekeeping phase, adjudicating damage and such.
The game covers combat between ships, submarines, aircraft, and land installations like coastal missile batteries or radar sites. It does not include ground combat.
Harpoon
also does not cover some naval evolutions, such as underway replenishment, as they are not combat evolutions. We could write the rules for them, but it’s boring.
Damage is measured in points, with different weapons inflicting different amounts, depending on many factors, including warhead weight, explosive type, as well as other
factors. Ships and land structures are also rated by the amount of damage they can absorb. It is possible to simply sink a ship or destroy a land target with a large enough (or
many smaller) weapons, but ships and land installations are more often disabled by “critical hits.” These are vital systems, such as fire control or propulsion, that are knocked out
by a weapon hit, and reduce the target’s ability to fight. Depending on the circumstances, some critical hits may not have much effect (e.g., a disabled sonar during an air battle).
Others can be instantly fatal (a magazine detonation). The type of critical hit inflicted varies with the weapon and the target type.
Scenarios usually start out with both sides undetected by their opponents, but this is not a rule. Modern naval warfare is about finding the other side before they find you,
organizing your forces for an effective attack, and then executing the attack. While many discussions of naval warfare focus on antiship missile defense, or protecting a formation
from submarine or surface attack, a defensive mindset will not win the game.
If you’ve played an earlier edition of
Harpoon
before, here are some of the big changes in the fifth edition:
First, what hasn’t changed: The turn sequence is the same, and while there have been many refinements, the damage system is unchanged. Total up the damage, figure out
the critical hit ratio, and roll D6 to find the number of critical hits. Movement is the same, although calculating aircraft endurance has been radically simplified.
But there have been a lot of additions and modifications, many of them linked to a basic change in the nature of the game. In earlier editions of the game, if you could see
someone, you could shoot at them. Turns out, it isn’t that simple.
•
Radar detection
has been modified to model uncertainties in exactly when an incoming aircraft is “detected.” Research on declassified exercise reports in the Naval War
College archives showed that just because an aircraft is within a radar's detection range, it’s not automatically spotted. That’s only the start.
• This edition adds
combat systems
to ships as a vital measure of their capability to convert a detection into a firing solution. One would expect a
Burke-class
DDG to react
more quickly than a 1950s
Adams
class DDG. Against a fast-moving aircraft, or a supersonic missile, showing that variation in response time, especially if detection isn’t auto-
matic at maximum range anymore, is critical.
Harpoon
now depicts these differences in capability between different generations of combat system technology.
• The hardest (and slowest) part of
Harpoon
to model has always been anti-air-warfare, or “AAW.” There’s a lot going on, and frankly, a manual game isn’t the ideal way to do
it. Pushing missile counters around the game board slows play just as the action heats up. A new step-by-step process radically simplifies missile movement, checking key distanc-
es (e.g., when can the height-finding radar see them?) in relation to their target. Based on the speed of the incoming bogeys, and the capability of the ship’s combat system, the
players punch a table that tells them how many shots they get at what range, and they roll their shots. No more pushing and measuring piles of missile counters.
• The surface battle has changed with more emphasis on the surface duct. This meteorological condition traps a radar wave and allows it to travel a lot farther than the
normal or standard radar horizon. Our research has shown it to be more common than we thought. How about a 70% chance in the Norwegian Sea? It’s a little tricky, but if you
can get it working for you, it’s a tremendous advantage to whoever’s using it. The Russians have built special “targeting complexes,” like Monolit-T and Titanit, designed to take
advantage of ducting, or anomalous propagation as they refer to it. As the sample scenario will show, it makes early missile boats much more powerful than before.
• Except just finding a contact is no longer good enough to launch an attack. Turns out getting a good fire control solution can take time, even with active sensors. Passive
sensors will take a lot longer. You can still use a bearing-only launch, but your “Weapon Placement Roll,” the chance that your guess was correct, is pretty poor.
Just like the real world,
Harpoon
requires a player to understand the environment and how to best employ a ship's or aircraft's sensors. You will have to work to first find
your enemy, identify him and the threat he presents, fix his position and movement, and then build a fire control solution if you want make a successful attack. And of course,
do all this before the other side does. Colonel John Boyd, USAF, referred to this as the OODA loop – Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act – and the faster a ship's commanding
officer can perform this decision-making cycle, the greater his advantage over his opponent.
Harpoon V Jumpstart
4
Harpoon V
Example Scenario: Guardian
Location:
Norwegian Sea, May 1989, 0900 hours
Environment:
Sunrise 0330, sunset 1945, moonrise 1150, moonset 0112, half moon.
Moderate seas (Sea State 4). Wind from 240° T at 10 knots. There is no cloud cover.
Visibility is 80%.
Maximum depth is Very Deep. Convergence Zones are at intervals of 30 nmi.
There is a moderate layer between Shallow and Intermediate I depth bands.
An evaporative duct is present, usable by Small and VSmall ships.
Operational Situation:
It has been 48 hours since hostilities began between NATO
and the Warsaw Pact forces. Executing the US Navy’s Maritime Strategy, the Second
Fleet has sent a three-carrier task force into the Norwegian Sea to put pressure on
the Northern Flank and threaten the Soviet bastion.
Although several Russian attack subs, both nuclear and conventional, have
been sunk, a Project 877 Kilo managed to put a torpedo into USS
Biddle
(CG-34).
Barely afloat,
Biddle
is being escorted south by a single guided-missile frigate,
USS
Doyle
(FFG-39).
Doyle
was chosen because she has a non-combat Engineer-
ing casualty, and can no longer keep up with the task force. She has no trouble
keeping up with the crippled
Biddle,
however.
Tactical Situation:
Both ships are heading south at
Biddle’s
best speed, 8 knots,
with
Doyle
to seaward, while
Biddle
hugs the coastline as close as they dare.
NATO Orders:
Escort
Biddle
south. Avoid any engagements, if possible. The air
threat is relatively low, since the Soviets will be concentrating their efforts against
the carrier task force. There is a moderate threat from submarine and minor surface
forces.
Use the coastline to limit possible enemy approach routes, but remain at least 5
nmi away from the coastline to avoid possible Soviet mines.
Air cover from Norwegian fighters and maritime patrol aircraft begins 50 + D6
nmi south of their starting position.
NATO Forces:
TG 20.41
Biddle
CG-34 (Belknap class CG)
Doyle
FFG-39 (O.H.
Perry
class FFG)
with two SH-60B embarked.
NATO Setup:
Biddle
is steaming on course 180° at 8 knots, while
Doyle
screens her
to seaward, patrolling 5 nmi out on an arc from 225° to 315°. Both ships are observ-
ing strict EMCON - no radar or radio transmissions.
Doyle’s
two helicopters are taking turns being on Alert +5. Each is armed with
one Mk46 torpedo and one drop tank.
NATO Victory Conditions:
Decisive:
Both ships reach air cover.
Tactical: Biddle
reaches air cover.
Soviet Orders:
Two rocket cutters have been assigned to finish off stragglers from
the NATO task force that was repulsed by the Northern Fleet. They are in pursuit.
Soviet Forces:
Aysberg
(“Iceberg”)
with Dubrava/Titanit targeting complex, Osa-M SAM system
Rassvet
(“Dawn”)
with Monolit-T targeting complex, Osa-MA SAM system
(both Project 1234.1 [Nanuchka III] PGG)
Soviet Setup:
The two cutters are in line abreast, separated by 10 nmi. They are on
course 180° at 24 knots.
Rassvet,
the eastern boat, is 15 nmi from the Norwegian
coast.
The two cutters are 60+2D10 nmi north of the US ships.
Soviet Victory Conditions:
Decisive:
Both US ships are sunk.
Tactical:
The cruiser is sunk.
Special Rules:
Biddle
was hit by a single 53-65K torpedo, inflicting 150 damage
points out of 254. The Critical Hit ratio was thus 150/(254-150) = 150/104 = 1.4. Roll-
ing a D6, the US player got a 3, meaning 8 criticals, plus one more for each .2 above
1.0, for a total of 8 + 2 = 10.
Of the ten criticals, because the torpedo was a wake-homer, the first two are
automatically an Engineering and Rudder. In total, the cruiser suffered two flooding,
one Weapon (no magazine detonations), a Rudder, Sensor, CIC and a Bridge Hit,
and three Engineering criticals, which included a loss of all electrical power.
The D6 flooding and fire rolls resulted in a flooding percentage of 6%, but was
redced by half afterward by damage control, and a fire percentage of 3%. Both fires
and flooding were controlled during the next Intermediate Turn, but inflicted another
15 damage points before they were suppressed.
Harpoon V Jumpstart
5
Details
Auto Engineering: D6-2 fire, 1%
Auto Rudder
Flooding, 4%
Bridge
CIC - mission kill
Sensor: SPS-48E
Engineering: D6-2 fire, 0%,
loss of electrical power
Flooding, 2%
Weapon: Mk10 launcher
Engineering: D6-2 fire, 2%
Variations:
1) Let
Biddle
make her 12-hour repair rolls on her damaged systems.
2) Replace the two missile boats with a submarine.
Critical#
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
D20 Roll
--
--
12
19
6
5
10
14
3
15
Post-attack damage control has restored electrical power and bridge control,
and she is capable of steaming at 8 knots. The loss of CIC means all weapons
without a local control mode are down, but the countermeasures are operational.
While half of the flooding damage has been pumped out, the fire and remain-
ing flooding damage has reduced
Biddle
to only 89 damage points. Before being
detached from the task force,
Biddle’s
SH-2 was transferred to another ship, to
replace operational losses.
Doyle
has suffered a non-combat related Engineering casualty which limits her
speed to 22 knots. She has fired six of her SM1MR missiles, leaving 30, and has all
four of her Harpoon missiles.

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