« 4.0 Recording Damage
As a vessel sustains successive hits, that vessel's Ship Log is used to record damage and its effect. Areas affected include armament, speed, hull (flooding), fires, damage control and other supporting features like steering, searchlights and the conning tower. Steps One, Two and Four of the Damage Phase are used to calculate damage or its after-effects (See Damage Control for descriptions of Step Three):

Step One - Fire & Flooding: Check for complications of ongoing fire and heavy flooding. All commanders whose vessels have active fires and/or heavy or severe flooding must roll once for each fire, and once for each flooded compartment on the Fire and/or Hvy/Sev FL lines of the Critical Effects Chart.

Step Two - Hits: Vessels which correctly guessed the ranges of enemy vessels or positions during the Gunnery Phase may now roll for hits on the Shell Hits Chart. Any hits which occur as a result are then applied to the vessels or positions in question. All shell hits are considered to occur simultaneously. Hits scored by weapons which were then lost during the Fire & Flooding Step are removed and may not applied to the target vessels.

During the same step, players also calculate and apply damage for any torpedoes which struck vessels during the Torpedo Movement Phase of that turn. Use the Flooding Occurrence and Effects Charts to roll for damage and effects of each torpedo hit. Torpedo hits are considered to occur simultaneously with all other torpedo and shell hits for that turn.


Step Four - Sinking & Uneven Flooding: As a vessel suffers flooding, each of its four main compartments will be marked with the most severe type of flooding (if any) present in that area. Each level of flooding carries an inherent point value; light flooding equals one point, moderate equals two points, heavy equals three points and severe flooding equals four points.

Uneven Flooding: If opposing vessel compartments suffer from different flooding levels, the uneven weight distribution of the water will cause the ship to tilt or list. If the difference is from side-to-side, the ship will list to port or starboard. It the difference is between fore and aft sections, the vessel will be "down by the bows" or "down by the stern." A famous example of the former was the civilian ocean liner Titanic, which before sinking, was dramatically down by the bows. Players whose vessels suffer from uneven flooding must consult the Uneven Flooding chart and apply its effects to the ship in question. Note that a fore/aft disparity is less likely to result in the loss of a ship.

Sinking: When the total flooding points present on a vessel reaches five or more, the player must roll on the Sinking Chart. If the modified die roll matches the corresponding Sink Roll numbers, the vessel in question has irredeemably begun to sink. At this point, all weapons cease firing, all damage tracking and control stops, and the vessel stops moving. The value of one additional die roll equals the number of turns the vessel will take to sink. Until it sinks, it will remain a navigational and line-of-sight obstacle as well as a generator of smoke if it was on fire at the time sinking began.

« 4.1 Damage Types
Six of the charts on the Battlefleet Combat Sheet contain abbreviations of damage which may be "inflicted" on participating vessels. Each of these damage codes triggers a very specific set of events, including fires, flooding, explosions and damaged or destroyed weapons. The glossary below offers definitions of all damage codes. Immediately following are guidelines for recording and positioning the various damage types.

« 4.2 Damage Locations
Some types of damage require players to establish where on the vessel that the damage occurred. Some damage only applies to random positions or features, whereas other types of damage must be applied in a specific order. Refer to the Battlefleet Randomizer to randomly select awkwardly or oddly arranged weapon positions.

Propulsion - Propulsion boxes are marked-off progressively, beginning with the highest value and working down to the lowest value, at which point the vessel may no longer move. Each of the boxes may only have one damage or destroyed mark on them at any one time. Propulsion hits which occur beyond the available boxes are recorded in the margin and must be repaired before repairs to any propulsion boxes may be attempted. Damaged boxes are always "bumped" down to make room for destroyed boxes.
Example: A destroyed-box result is inflicted on a cruiser which already has two boxes destroyed and four damaged (dead in the water). One damage mark would be recorded in the margin, and the third damaged box would be converted into a destroyed box. The vessel will now have three destroyed propulsion boxes, three damaged propulsion boxes, and an additional damage to "propulsion access" which must be repaired before any repairs of the propulsion boxes proper may be attempted.

Main - Each main armament hit must be randomly assigned to a position, which is usually an easy task due to most main guns being positioned in two turrets. Most players assign a 1 through 6 roll to the forward turret and a 7 through 12 roll to the aft turret. French style battleships with a lozenge arrangement should use the embattled-side rule and break the location die roll into thirds instead of halves. All main positions are available for damage regardless of their current status. Hence, a main position already destroyed from several hits may be hit yet again, something the attacker will consider a "wasted" shot. A previously destroyed main position which sustains a hit will still trigger a critical hit check unless its magazine has been successfully flooded by the vessel's commander.

Secondary - Each secondary hit causes the damage or destruction of one position for each weapon type of secondary class or less. For example, if a vessel has both secondary and boat gun armaments, one position of each will be lost by an S result. Lost positions are always taken off of the embattled side of a vessel first. If no weapons are surviving on the embattled side, then other previously undamaged weapons on the non-embattled side will be affected. Weapons in beam patterns 1 or 2 are split into sections (fore, mid, aft) and must roll for the random location of their damage on the Position Randomizer. Weapons arranged according to beam pattern 0 represent a homogenous layout and do not need to have their damage randomized.

Flooding - Flooding due to shell or torpedo fire will occur randomly on the embattled side of a vessel. For example: Hits striking the port side of a vessel will be randomly established as being in either the forward, port amidships, or aft compartment by splitting a 12 sided die roll into thirds. If hit from ahead, the damage will be randomly established as being in the forward, port amidships or starboard amidships compartments. If due to an explosion, the damage will be randomly located in any one of the four compartments.

Above: Three Borodino Class Russian battleships in 1/6000 scale. Behind them are three more older style ships. Note the small splash markers, which are cut-off peg tips out of the popular children's board game Battleship.

« 4.3 Damage Control
Step three of the Damage Phase is used to repair damage and otherwise prevent the ocean from fully reclaiming the inside of the vessel. During this phase, players may attempt to repair damaged areas, flood magazines, counter-flood to correct listing or extinguish fires. All damage control actions taken during this step are considered simultaneous, and they do not need to be executed in any particular order within the step.

All damage control actions are conducted according to the results of "damage dice," up to two of which may be rolled against any one damage event. The number of damage control dice which a ship may use on any one turn is equal to the number of propulsion boxes on that vessel which were not permanently destroyed as of the current turn's command phase. This will give most ships a maximum of six damage control dice in their normal undamaged state. As propulsion boxes are destroyed (not damaged), the number of available dice is reduced accordingly.

Repair Actions - Ship-board positions which have been destroyed are not repairable, and are marked off with a full X instead of a diagonal slash mark, which indicates repairable damage. In order to attempt the repair of a damaged area, look up the corresponding roll value for that damage type as shown on the Damage Control Chart. This represents the value a ship's commander must roll in order to repair the damaged feature. Each main, propulsion and steering damage slash requires a die roll of 12 to "repair," allowing that damage slash to be erased. Secondary damage requires an 11 or 12 to repair. Fires are considered extinguished on a roll of 11or 12. Players may attempt to modify a pending sink roll by one die point by rolling a 10, 11or 12. If a position has more than one damage slash, each slash must be individually repaired, otherwise the position is still considered damaged and out of commission. Non-command related repair actions may still be conducted even if a vessel has suffered a Conning Tower hit (See below).

Command Actions - Command actions are somewhat different than repair actions in that they depend on an intact chain of command. Counterflood and Flood magazine orders may only be executed if the vessel is not suffering the effects of a Conning Tower hit.

Flood Magazine: Destroyed and damaged main gun positions remain a hazard to their ship because their powder magazines may still trigger on-board explosions if they suffer penetration hits. To protect against this danger, any main gun position's magazine may be flooded on a die roll of 4 through 12. A flooded magazine will cause its corresponding vessel compartment to gain one level of flooding; none becomes light, heavy flooding becomes severe, etc. Once its magazine is flooded, a main position is considered out of commission for the remainder of the game. If that position is later hit, the vessel commander will not have to test for an explosion on the Critical Hit Chart.

Counter-flood: A vessel suffering from uneven flooding may purposefully flood an opposing compartment in order to reduce the vessel's list and eliminate (or reduce) the uneven flooding's more dangerous effects. Counter-flooding adds to the overall flooding points present on a vessel, which will affect that vessel's sink roll. However, counterflooded compartments do not trigger flooding effect rolls or critical hits (counterflooding is done in secondary bunker areas, not in critical propulsion or weapon compartments).

A commander wishing to conduct counterflooding must roll a 4 through 12 on a 12 sided die. If successful, any one compartment on the vessel may then be flooded to whatever degree the commander wishes. Once counter-flooding is complete, reduce the damage hits to the appropriate level called for by the Uneven Flooding Chart.

Note that counter-flooding may also be used to scuttle a vessel by rolling for "counterflooding" in each of the vessel's four compartments and then assigning severe flooding to them.

Recover from CT Hit: The one command action allowed after a conning tower hit is the Recover from CT Hit roll. The controlling player of a vessel with a CT hit may roll once each turn in an attempt to reestablish command of a vessel. A die roll of 7 through 12 will reestablish a new vessel commander, and the ship in question may then operate normally from that point on. Note that because of the involuntary transfer command rule, nearby vessels may end up assuming command of a division before a damaged flagship is able to reestablish bridge control of their own vessel. See Command & Control for more details.