Barbettes in Broadside and Ram

French Barbette Mounting

I've been thinking of ways to incorporate the barbette armament of later French and British ironclads in Broadside and Ram. A good example would be HMS Temeraire, which combined fore and aft 11'' barbette mounts with a central battery, which also allowed for limited fore and aft fire. The barbette guns were trainable and had a similar arc of fire to turrets but the central battery was designed primarily for use as a broadside. 

The solution that I've come up with is a bit of a fudge but is in keeping with the spirit of the rules, which aggregates all armament into a basic Attack Factor or AF, ranging from one to five. To keep it as simple as possible, I am suggesting that ships equipped with barbette mountings cannot use the 360 degree arc of turret equipped ironclads, many of which were monitors with no masts or rigging to get in the way, but can instead fire in a 45 degree arc from either beam. 

HMS Temeraire

In the rules this is the standard arc of fire but I have changed this to a 22.5 degree arc, so a 45 degree arc is a distinct advantage over conventional broadside ironclads. It does not, however, allow for end on fire, so I may also allow ships with fore and aft barbette mountings to fire directly ahead or directly behind. If the barbettes can fire fore or aft, this would be a quarter of the full AF, rounded up for simplicity.

I think this is a fairly reasonable compromise and means that barbettes are less effective than turret mountings, while still having an advantage over broadside armed warships. It also means that central battery firepower isn't ignored, as would be the case if I just used the turret fire mechanism from the rules. I'll give it a try and see how it works but may just stick with a basic 45 degree arc of fire to keep things as stripped down as possible?