ORIGINAL: Xargun
What should happen is to stop allowing all ships to move 1 hex per turn to simulate tugs and include the tugs into the game. Why not ? We have nearly worthless AGs ... why not tugs... If a CV (or other ship) is crippled within enemy aircraft range and you had no tug nearby to haul it to safety you would scuttle it... Also increase the VP discount for a scuttled ship.. Instead of saving 10% make it something like 50% - that would get more ships scuttled..
Between having to have a tug to move a crippled ship AND a 50% VP discount for scuttling I think the problem would be resolved.
Tugs were never used on combat task forces. In the real world, crippled ships were towed by escorts. In some cases the escorts had trouble towing the ship. On
www.combinedfleet.com they have an article on the last days of the Kumano and the struggle to tow her back to a ship yard. In her case a merchant ship attempted to tow her to safety. Most of the time it was destroyers that did the towing. Sometimes cruisers.
ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
The 50% discount seems a bit steep... The problem really arises (i think) because of the distorted time scale in flooding in WITP. IRL, there was none of this protracted multiday saga of a ship trying for days to control fires and flooding. The ship's fate was usually decided in hours, not days. Ships that were gutted by fire DID in fact start to slowly take on water, but they were scuttled well before flooding ever became a really serious problem in most cases. It was also realized that if such a ship ever got to port, she was never going to be repaired, and could only be scrapped. This option is not available in WITP, of course.
In previous incarnations of the game, it was possible to CAPTURE an enemy ship (War in the South Pacific). It was really rare, but i suspect people would be a lot more nervous if they thought some Marines/SNLF might board their gutted carrier/bb and capture it and would thus they would scuttle more often. The possibility of capture was something of a concern IRL, but commanders were a lot more nervous about an enemy boarding party finding sensitive information (code books, etc.) without capturing the ship. Again, WITP doesn't have these features.
A player might be a lot more willing to scuttle if they thought there was a chance that all their dispositions would be revealed by a code book seizure. Yes, commanders could (and did) order destruction of sensitive materials, but that usually didn't work in the (fairly rare) cases where a ship fell into enemy hands.
When the Hornet was abandoned to the Japanese in 1942, it was a disgrace to the Navy. The escorts tasked with scuttling her had bad torpedoes that just went "thump" against the hull. The Japanese surface ships that scared off the US destroyers sank the Hornet themselves. They could have captured her though.
When trying to two a crippled ship away from a fight, there is always the risk that the enemy will show up for a surface duel, or enemy air will attack. An escort attempting to tow a capital ship is a sitting duck if attacked. Towing is a very risky task.
The code book information is also very critical. In the chaos of a damaged ship, there is no guarantee that the code books were destroyed. There is also other classified or secret information aboard a warship that nobody wants to fall into enemy hands. I have read that the Japanese sent divers down to the Prine of Wales and Repulse and they were able to bring back up equipment that advanced Japanese radar technology.
Bill
