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I'm playing around with a scenario which includes some WWII-era destroyers but have realized that I have no idea what a naval battle between a couple of destroyers on each side would look like...

How long would such a battle last? Hours or days? Would such a battle typically continue until one or more ship had been sunk, or break if off before that?

I appreciate that there are many variables involved (quality, mission, conditions, etc.), but any general guidelines assuming that the sides were evenly matched and neither had been given a "do or die" mission?

Read up on some of the battles around the Solomons. Lots of destroyer actions there.

Iron Bottom Sound

OK, interesting. Most of those battles were at night, but I guess the main difference for night battles would be that there would typically not be aircraft involved?

From what I've seen for those battles and few others, it looks like these naval battles were quick and bloody--a couple of hours (or less), with at least one side usually losing a ship or more, with others damaged. It seems like almost all of the losses were caused by torpedoes.

Lobster, have you figured out how to simulate torpedoes yet? Couldn't you use the "Anti-Naval Only" flag?

I've been working on Soviet ground forces lately but there are a bunch of Soviet MTB at Hanko I need to account for. I'll have to go back to that and see what I can come up with.