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Ironclads Brief Guide
What has to be done before play
The program uses a ship file to hold ship details and a gun file for gun data. All ships and guns in use must be recorded. If the files are saved as new names in games the originals will be ready for use again. The grids cannot be typed into directly but data can be transferred from the input box to the grid by clicking on the grid. There is some compensation where multiple entries be made with the same value. Where a gun has the same effect over a range of hexes only enter the maximum range that is relevant. Only set partial armour for otherwise wooden vessels that have some "A" sections. These are usually Wooden Vessels but also applies to Mortar Rafts and at least one Casemate Ironclad (marked as a Wooden Vessel but with a Casemate section). Check the box for 1 turret Monitors to prevent any hits on Turret Z. Remember to save 1 record before moving to the next or the program will forget it. The Autosave function is designed for this. Turn off Autosave when flicking through entries to find data that is already recorded. To save data to disk permanently the ship or gun form must be closed with the close button not the Windows x icon.
A swift guide
Guns and ships must be set up before play begins. Forts are not recorded, the gun's penetration will have to referenced with the fort armour and the overall penetration entered. Plunging fire is used for (some) forts firing.
A gun fires by right clicking at the selected range. It uses the selected gun load and fires at the selected ship. So check the ship and load before firing. No damage is calculated if the shot hits so you can go back and fire again or type in a preferred HDT differential. Once the damage button is pressed the ship is updated and damage shown. Losses of hull may also affect the floatation, hull boxes are updated to show the floatation changes. Any special or critical damage will have to noted on paper. Extra hull, armour, crew and such are added to the original total. If a section of armour is reduced to 0 the excess damage will wrap around the same side of the ship. This may affect the wheelhouse. Hull can be reduced to negative values as the rules do not prevent this but note that a ship will probably have sunk or run out of crew by this stage.
Ramming works by left clicking the ram button for the ramming ship then moving to the target and right clicking the same button – it will by then say target. You can ram yourself but may not want to do this, just close the ram form. To ram an obstruction choose any ship as the target and check the obstruction box. Rams will update the target and attacking vessel.
The rules and charts are unclear as to the effect of grape on Monitors. The charts imply that Monitors can lose crew to grape but not stack. The rules say that Monitors can lose neither so must be invulnerable. I have kept to the rules so there is no point in firing grape at Monitors.
What this program will not do
The program will not automatically destroy a ship based on losses.
There is no tracking of speed or movement. Any hits that may reduce speed are not considered and will have to be updated from the original data cards. This is unlikely to be included in the design.
There is no undo function. This is quite a bit of work and can wait until the basic program is rock hard safe.
Various special effects from critical and special hits are displayed but not written to the ship data. They will have to be recorded, the extra die button can be helpful here. This will not be covered as the effects must be written as (pretty long) strings slowing up file access and disk space. Vessel collision and grounding is not modelled but ramming is.
There is no concept of morale. These rules are worth playing with but to be simulated all the morale factors have to be input onto a form. I believe this process will be quicker by hand than clicking a range of check boxes before getting a result.
Fires are not covered, this is because crew must be assigned to put them out.
Gun losses are not recorded.
There is no separate data sheet for forts, armour penetration must be entered into the form and results recorded by hand.