"WARP" stands for Warfare Area Rating Points. This system assigns numeric values to ship classes, aircraft, and other units that have an effect on game play. It allows the player to rank the relative value of two units in terms of their overall military utility. Using a subjective judgment, each ship class is rated in four naval warfare areas on a scale from one to five. The categories are ASuW, ASW, AAW, and StW.
ASuW = usefulness in detecting and destroying surface vessels
ASW = usefulness in detecting and destroying submarines
Area AAW = usefulness in detecting and destroying aircraft or missiles attacking a formation
StW = usefulness in detecting and destroying land targets There are also four sensor categories corresponding to the four warfare categories. These are:
Surface Search – the ability to detect targets on the sea surface
Acoustic Search – the ability to detect targets acoustically
Air Search – the ability to detect targets in the air
Land Search – the ability to detect targets on land
Example: An Aegis cruiser has a capability of five in AAW, but 0 in Air search. An E-3 Sentry has a five in Air Search (and Surface search, for that matter) but a 0 in AAW, because it can't kill anything. Making the Warfare and Sensor categories mutually exclusive prevents units from getting a double bonus. These values are not linked to any objective or measurable standard, but are relative rankings, where a five is the best at accomplishing a mission in that warfare category and one means it is poor at accomplishing that mission. A unit may be poor because it has only a few good weapons or a lot of outdated weapons. A zero means it has no capability in that category at all. The unit is also rated on its survivability - how hard it is to kill. This subjective rating includes the unit's point defenses, its countermeasures (decoy launchers and defensive jammers), maneuverability for an aircraft, signature, and its sheer size. The values range from 5 (very hard to kill) to 0 (a grape). The unit is also rated in a utility category, which represents the usefulness of the unit in ways not covered by the four warfare areas. The values range from one to ten. An example might be the ability of a aviation ship to carry aircraft, or the ability of a strike aircraft to also serve as a tanker.
Ships and their embarked aircraft are considered separately. A helicopter-armed frigate may have good ASW sensors and poor ASW weapons. It would then have only a mediocre ASW value. If it has one or two dedicated ASW helicopters embarked, it effective ASW is significantly increased. If more capable helicopters are embarked, its net rating goes up.
The individual ratings in each area are summed, and that value (its WARP rating) represents its general value to a naval com-mander. This unit value can be used in many ways in Harpoon 4 :
- To measure losses at the end of a scenario. The value of the enemy units and friendly units lost can be totaled up.
- As an incentive for SAR. A lost aircraft might cost 1 or 1.5 points, but a recovered aviator cancels the loss. A sunken ship also generates a "Survivor" group worth WARP points. Those survivors can be rescued, offsetting the loss.
Example: An F-14 is shot down and both pilots are successfully recovered. No victory points are lost, but the player is short an F-14 for the rest of the game.
Example: A frigate worth 12 points is sunk. It has a crew of 240 men, and (using the rules in Harpoon) 180 of them make it into the water. There are (180/240)*12 or nine WARP points' worth of survivors in the water. If they can all be recovered, the player's net loss is only three points, and the services of a frigate.
As a way of establishing the size of a game. Players can agree to each field a force of some set WARP point value. We will be using WARP ratings in Harpoon 4 in several ways in upcoming games and scenarios. Please send us any comments or thoughts you have on the WARP system.
| Example WARP ratings | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | ASuW | AAW | ASW | StkW | HHtK | Utility | Air Srch | Surf Srch | Sub Srch | Land Srch | Total |
| Kirov | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 |
| Knox | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| SH-2F | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Los Angeles | 4 | 0 | 5 | 2/4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16/18 |
| Victor II | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| Nimitz | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 |
| A-6E Intruder | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
| F/A-18C/D | 4 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 |
| F/A-18E/F | 5 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 |
| EA-6B Prowler | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| Aegis Cruiser | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 |
| E-3 Sentry | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| E-8 JSTARS | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 10 |
| SURTASS | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| The values for tactical aircraft represent an entire squadron. Points for individual aircraft would be calculated by dividing by the number of planes in a squadron. | |||||||||||
BT
Back to The Naval Sitrep #16 Table of Contents
Back to Naval Sitrep List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1999 by Larry Bond and Clash of Arms.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com