Editing World in Flames (section)

== Naval combat ==

To initiate combat, two fleets in the same sea area either commit or submerge their submarines, then perform die rolls to determine whether the units (which can also include land-based and carrier-based aircraft) spot each other, which side has the element of surprise and to what degree. The way that surprise points are spent can have a decisive impact on the course of events. If at least one stack of units is deemed to spot the enemy fleet and neither side uses surprise to evade the other, combat is initiated.

There are three types of naval combat: naval air combat (one or both sides attacking the other side's ships and aircraft using fighters and naval bombers), submarine combat (submarines attacking convoys and being attacked by [[anti-submarine warfare]] (ASW)) and surface combat (ships and submarines attacking each other directly). The right to select the combat type is conferred firstly by surprise, secondly by aircraft, and thirdly by submarines facing enemy convoys. If these conditions are either not present or not invoked by either side, a surface combat will be fought.

Naval air combat requires that an air-to-air battle is fought if either player has fighters allocated to defending their units. Any bombers cleared through are then subject to anti-aircraft fire from the defending ships. Surviving naval bombing factors are then used to determine what damage is inflicted on the enemy fleet. Surface or submarine combat is decided by adding the combat factors of all involved ships or subs on each side. ASW is provided by surface warships (each of which is assumed to always have a screen of destroyers), by naval bombing factors or, in the late war, by Western Allied convoys. The sum of the relevant type of combat factors is cross referenced with the number of units in the opposing fleet to determine results. Surprise can at this point be used to increase the amount of damage inflicted, to decrease the amount of damage sustained and/or to choose a specific target -- carriers and loaded troop ships being popular choices. In naval air combat, the first and subsequent odd-numbered targets are selected by the owner of the attacking bombers.

Inflicted damage takes the form of one or more instances of units immediately "aborted" to a friendly port, "damaged" or "destroyed". Each result must be assigned to a unit, which then makes a roll to determine if its armour reduces the damage by one level. A ship can be chosen to suffer more than one hit, but two "damage" results will destroy it. As can be expected, battleships are more likely to reduce damage successfully than more lightly armoured units.

After all results are assigned, each side has the option of aborting all remaining ships in the combat, returning them to an eligible port and flipping them. If neither side aborts, they roll again to spot each other and combat can occur again. Any round in which there is no hostile contact ends the naval combat phase for that sea zone.