Vital Values for Units with 1 Hull Point

It is largely irrelevant. I suspect there are a handful of SAs out there that do something based on vital armor that might matter, but for the life of me, none of them are coming to me at this point.

It's one of the great mysteries of our time.

I agree with waratsea4 that RB gave them a vital to be consistent, and in case a future SA interacted with vital in a way that would affect those units. I don't think any such SA exists right now.

I have taken torpedo boats several times, but they are easy picking for air attacks, as they are basically defenseless. They sometimes evade ship hits, but that SA says only ships not aircraft.

I'm pretty sure I first heard that explanation in 2008 or so...

You'd think by now some enterprising card designer would've made an SA that interacted with that particular dynamic...


Maybe Patrol Boat Leader...
If you control three boats with Vital Armor 1...

...they each get one extra die of AA?
...functions like Wolfpack for torpedoes...

I believe a big flaw in the game was the 2011 update which disallowed Torpedo attacks against MBT's; should of included Bomb attacks;
  Let Dick Best of Midway fame try laying one even close.

Did it happen very rarely;  the threat was from staffing;

 Again i think the SA Great Agility with minor changes for MTB make a lot of sense. 

 If you hit the vital exactly cripple it instead or what ever you come up with!!

So, add that to the already existing patrol boats, keeping everything else pretty much the same...
Would that be enough to justify new cards?
I'm thinking maybe Weeds' idea of an installation might be best as it could effect boats of any nation.

I do think the easiest way to improve MTBs across the board would probably be a neutral installation of some kind. There has been a bit of "power creep" in MTBs since set 1, and while the newer MTBs have improved the situation somewhat, they remain pretty marginal units. Suddenly introducing a "fixed" MTB for one Navy wouldn't be all that fair.

We already have the Advance Naval Base, which helps, by placing 5-vital ships up on islands. Its value is pretty variable though, because you can't control island location in most games, and once the ships/MTBs leave the base, really the only thing it does to help them is a relatively weak range 1 AA barrage. I honestly use the Advance Naval Base for small DDs/DEs more than MTBs, though I have tried it. It helps, but I've never found using it with MTBs to be all that successful outside of a night game.

I like waratsea4's idea, but I don't know that I would combine the MTB base with a Seaplane base. Both are interesting concepts, and both MTBs and Sea Basing units have their issues, but separate cards would be my preference.

For MTBs, two ideas:
- Maybe an SA similar to Vet Bombers...once per turn, you get to add ___ to a friendly MTB. What ever that ability is, I wouldn't necessarily limit it MTBs originating at the base. Just one more thing to keep track of. As for what goes in the ___, I'd add some kind of ability to help against air attack, which remains the MTBs biggest weakness in this game.
- Perhaps an MTB "director" SA that works kind of like Sub Hunter or Radar Picket, allowing some number MTBs that are in a sector with no enemy ships to move some distance after all ships have moved. Losing initiative with MTBs can be a real killer, and the ability to preposition them after all surface ships have moved would significantly increase their offensive value.