The Naval Tactical Map

In my last post I referred to the fact that to play a game using VASSAL required images of the playing area over which a hex-grid was superimposed and that these images will, of necessity, be very large and demanding on computer resources.

Well, this is not quite totally true in the case of a map that represents the open ocean which is exactly where our Naval combat will generally take place.

The Vassal Engine allows you to create an empty map-board with a basic background colour. Over this you can still lay a hex-grid. So, in terms of the Tactical Map for Naval combat it is not strictly necessary for me to create an image as long as the combat is going to take place on an open and featureless expanse of sea.

I have recently purchased Naval Thunder: Battleship Row which is a set of Naval Wargaming rules for WW2. More importantly, the rules are designed around playing on a table-top that is in fact 6-feet by 4-feet. The rules also use the basic unit of 1" = 500 yards or 1:1200.

That being the case it is possible for me to restrict the playing area significantly and by using a scale of 1-hex equals 1" it will be a simple task to replicate a 6' by 4' table: it is simply 72-hexes by 48-hexes.

A selection of 1" wide hexes from the Tactical Map. Note that the hexes can be numbered, this is an option. The background is white but you can set this to the colour of your choice.

It was with some relief that this particular requirement for a Tactical map was so easy to achieve thanks to Vassal and to the straightforward use of 1:1200th scale. A real bonus is that many Naval wargames rules work to this scale so that players are not necessarily limited to the rules that I propose to use.

The only drawback that I can envisage is that maneuver space for ships will be somewhat limited but I'll address this by some playtesting on a real table-top as well as within Vassal itself.