Convoy Action Playtest AAR - HMS CROCUS, Spring 1942

This evening I’ve been playtesting my new solitaire convoy escort game. If you think of “B17 – Queen of the Skies” but driving a Royal Navy warship rather than a 4-engined bomber you are on the right lines.

So, its 1942 and we are commanding HMS Crocus, a Flower class corvette. Our crew is well trained but it’s the first time out for many of them (we have no “special” crewmen who would give us bonuses in certain situations). We have a full load of depth charges, a 4” gun,  a radar that seems to be working well and pantry stacked with hot chocolate!

Setup:

I’m using the random generation system to determine the exact scenario, and it turns out that it is Spring 1942. We are escorting a Fast convoy from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Liverpool. The escort strength is normal, the weather is generally good. Our station is at the rear of the convoy.

As we are running a Fast convoy we have 5 game turns to play. The first is the North American coastal turn (“zone A”), we have 3 open ocean turns (Zone B), and one turn in the Western Approaches as we close with our destination (Zone C).

Each turn we roll for a random event, then for any encounters.

 Turn 1 – North American coast

Random event – we roll a 2, which means there is a Support Group close by. This increases our effective escort strength to “Heavy” for this turn.

Encounter - The die roll is a 4, which means no encounter. Alas the presence of the SG is for naught.

The convoy plows on into the North Atlantic

Turn 2 – Open Ocean Square 1

Random event  - we roll a “no event”. An uneventful trip so far. But maybe too quiet.

Encounter – the die roll is a 3. Doenitz’s boats must be hunting elsewhere

Turn 3 – Open Ocean Square 2

Random event – A 10 is rolled, +2 for Zone B = 12. Maximum German effort. We’ve run into an accumulation of wolf packs, and will have to roll twice for encounters.

Encounter 1 – Contact, and we have a possible submerged U boat contact astern of the convoy. Our ship is dispatched to confirm and engage.

Phase 1 - The CO uses the “step aside” tactic to help avoid any incoming torpedo, and to possibly give the impression that we haven’t seen the contact. Contact level is “probable”, but then our radar picks up a periscope – contact raised to “Positive”. The bridge crews’ eyes are peeled for any incoming torpedo, but nothing is seen.

Phase 2 – we are now closing on the U boat. Contact is maintained, no change. Which means he’s probably not going deep. We may have caught him napping.

Phase 3 –As we don’t think he’s going deep we set depth charges for Shallow and we run over the contact. DCs away! The sea erupts as the spread detonates. We commence a turn to re-engage – and see a damaged u boat broach the surface! (natural roll of 10)! Gun crews close up and we go to a surface action.

Surface action:

We move to the Surface Engagement Battleboard, with the U Boat at Medium range. We make 3 critical hit rolls to determine the damage that the U boat has suffered in the DC attack. 

Rolls are 2, 8 and 10. 2 is “no effect”, 8 is “20mm damaged” but the 10 is “hull holed, boat sinks”. The U boat just makes it to the surface in time to allow some of the control room team to escape to the water, but before more than a handful get out the boat sinks, taking the rest of the crew with her. We decide to pick up survivors; 5 German sailors are pulled from the sea. The skipper is not one of them.

Having claimed our first kill we resume our position in the screen.

Encounter 2 -  No encounter (d10 roll is 2) – a tense night as we skirt through the wolf pack, but the screen is working too well to let the U boat commanders get a shot in. The turn ends

Turn 4 – Open Ocean Square 3

Random Event: Die roll is 3, +2 for Zone B = 5: engine trouble. We drop out of the screen and slow whilst the chief engineer makes repairs. On completion we speed up to try to regain our place at the back of the convoy.

Encounter:  Die roll = 9, so there is an encounter. The encounter type die roll is a 6, so its another ASDIC contact.

Phase 1 - The contact is ahead and seems to be heading in the direction of the convoy, “step aside” won’t really work in this position so we move to close the distance rapidly. Contact quality isn’t great, only a “possible”. Radar isn’t spotting anything.

TORPEDO! – the lookouts spot the wake of a torpedo closing rapidly from ahead. We are already on the right heading to comb the tracks, a slight alteration and the torpedo passes down the port side. That was close. There’s definitely a U Boat there, but the ASDIC contact still isn’t great.

Phase 2 – contact is still “possible”. Since we know there’s a boat somewhere that means ASDIC is having a hard time getting an accurate bearing. Whether he’s going deep is anyone’s guess

Phase 3 – Set DCs for Deep (I have a feeling he’s there but went deep when he launched his torpedo). The DCs detonate, but there’s no sign of any wreckage. We turn to re-engage.

Reattack, Phase 2 – as the reverberations from our DC attack subside the Jimmy reports “contact lost Sir”. We execute and repeat the lost contact procedure several times but come up with nothing. And as we are currently detached behind the convoy there’s no additional ships there to help us. He’s probably got away.

Somewhat dejectedly we leave the scene and rejoin the convoy a few hours later. At least the enemy was submerged and not able to catch up. I wonder why he was dived though? Probably spotted us before we made ASDIC contact. But I guess we’ll never know. (we draw a playing card and keep it hidden until the game end; this will tell us what happened, after the war when the archives are opened)

At this point, play was interrupted for a few minutes.....

Turn 5 – Western Approaches.

We are almost home, but in many ways this can be the most dangerous part of the trip. But not this time.

Random event is 5, +4 for Zone C for a 9. Some of our escort detaches to assist another convoy. Not really what we want. But the encounter roll is a 5 “no encounter”, and so after a fairly eventful trip and one U boat and some of her very lucky crew “in the bag” we make it in to Liverpool for a quick turnaround before joining another escort force for a load of empties in ballast. No rest for the wicked!

But what happened to the U boat that we attacked in Turn 4? We turn over the card we drew in the encounter and it’s the 9 of Hearts. Its an odd number so he did go deep (we guessed right) and for a “no visible result” damage effect (the most “severe” that we caused) this equates to minor damage. The boat remained submerged, was not able to reach our convoy and itself returned home safely.

And so ends the log entries for HMS Crocus for this particular trip. Playing time (once I had removed the feline interloper who stopped play for a few minutes) was just over an hour. I picked up several areas where tweaks were needed, and a few additional elements that I worked up – rescuing survivors being the rime example.  It was a fun game and I think resulted I a pleasing narrative that had something of the feel of the Cruel Sea about it.

Right, I’m off to find come dark choccie and condensed milk – time for a large hot mug of kai!

INWarD 2020 - Fire on the Lake

Today is the International Naval Wargames Day for 2020, and the subject of my game is a battle between German and Allied steamers on Lake Tanganyika  sometime in 1915. To the North the Belgian steamer Alexandre Delcommune, Commandant Goor in command, is escorting two civilian steamers loaded with supplies for the allied base at Lukuga. Accompanying the Delommune is the Belgian patrol boat Netta.


Smoke is spotted to the South and within minutes the German steamer Graf von Gotzen and her consort, the Kingani, hove into view, under the command of Gustav Zimmer Their mission, to stop the supplies from getting though.

For the first few turns both sides close the range, the Netta heading to the West to try and draw off the Kingani, which is initially successful. But soon, the Gotzen draws into range of the Commune and she opens fire. The German opening fire is surprisingly good, and a heavy shell slams into the Belgian (loses 1 hull point). Belgian fire in return falls short.

The range closes, and Gotzen's next broadside scores two good hits. Delommune loses her heavy gun, more hull damage, and a hit to the boiler room which halves her speed. But from the Wast is heard the sound of petrol engines, as two British motor boats, Mimi and Toutou, speed in to draw the German fire.

For the next few minutes everyone's gunnery goes to pot as no hits are scored. But that lull is broken as Delcommune suffers two more hits from Gotzen. Her engine room is hit and Commune drifts to a stop, whilst hits low in the hull cause more flooding (by now she has lost 75% of her hull points). Mimi and Toutou have the range and a light shell hits Gotzen's 105mm gun, disabling it.

The British boats can only fire forwards so they speed past the German raider, their machine guns blazing but no damage caused. Both boats turn tightly and form up on her stern. Gotzen administers the coup de grasse on poor Delcommune, as her last hull points are shot away and the Belgian is in a sinking condition. The civilians on the steamers expect the worst, but fire from the British boats disables Gotzen's 88mm gun. Meanwhile Kingani and Netta trade shots, causing minor damage.
Gotzen switches targets to the annoying British motor boats, but they are small targets head on and very difficult to hit. Gotzen is not, and the British score more hits, causing a minor flood but more importantly disabling Gotzen's 37mm guns (she can still use rifles and machine guns).

Zimmer realises that intercepting  this cargo requires too high a price. With all his main guns disabled or with their crews wounded and out of action, and with the British boats seemingly able to lob 3pdr  Hotchkiss shells into him with near impunity he decides of break off the action. As Gotzen raises steam to disengage a Short seaplane makes its appearance and executes an almost perfect bomb run - but its bombs land either side of Gotzen which is doused in spray but otherwise unaffected.

As the Gotzen and Kingani leave the field the civilian steamers pick up the survivors from the Delcommune, whilst the British muse on the fact that they disabled Gotzen's last operational gun with their final round of ammunition.......

International Naval Wargames Day 2020

Its only two months until the 2020 International Naval Wargames Day. Celebrate the birth of the father of naval wargaming, Fred T Jane, on the occasion of his birthday. Play games, solo or with friends (covid permitting), and post your action reports here, on your blog or your favourite wargaming websites. Help raise the profile of naval wargaming by supporting INWarD 2020!

Just Another Winter's Tale

After the test game recently I was looking at my winter skirmish table and thinking it looked distinctly "flat". I was unsure whether I wanted to go with polystyrene hills and feature on the table, or whether to put them under the cloth like I did in the old days. Anyway, yesterday I set to a pile of old poly packing pieces with my hot wire cutter and after an application of watered down polyfilla, some sprinkled sand, an overall coat of white paint and some relief through a distant application of desert yellow and grey spray paints I had a load of snow covered hills and a few gun/tank emplacements. I also made a set of ruined and damaged walls to provide more cover. In this case they were strips of foamcore, suitably distressed and then glued to some wide "lolly sticks" from Hobbycraft. A thin black wash to bring out the detail of the damage, and then some white flock on the bases to complete. Whilst I was at it I also made a set for my AK47 games, this time a light brown wash and sand on the bases.

The hills, emplacements and walls took no time to make and I think they look quite effective. I've just realised the hills will work fine with my 1/300 "war on the moon" sci fi collection as well. And being made of effectively bits of junk the whole lot cost virtually nothing.

Still not decided on hills on top of or under the cloth though.

A Winter's Tale

Last night  tried out my "FireForce" skirmish rules as applied to the Eastern Front, Winter 194x. I was curious to see how this set of 1960/70s African conflict rules, borne out of a set of Vietnam rules, would work in a WW2 setting.

I tried a small scenario, a German infantry platoon supported by a panther and a Stug IV engaging a small Russian force on the outskirts of a village, essentially an infantry squad, HMG, a T34, an M4 Sherman and a 45mm ATG.

The Germans distributed their squads on the left, centre and right, with the Stug supporting the central team and the panther on the right. Early Russian shots from the ATG disabled the central Sdkfz 251, and the Sherman came up to engage and then kill the Stug. The infantry team went to ground and never really moved forwards despite the urgings of their squad leader, instead they fell back into cover to avoid the uncannily god shooting of the Russians to their front and the machine guns in the Sherman. On the right the infantry headed for cover when the HMG opened up on them. The T34 moved out to engage the Panther and scored a hit on the front armour but with no effect. The tanks traded more shots until a solid hit brewed up the T34. The panther then advanced and put a 75mm HE shell into the HMG. The infantry, still shaken from the effects of the HMG, took a while to gather their wits and advance. In the meantime the Panther hit and immobilised the Sherman, then moved ahead to try to outflank it.

The Germans advance. Yellow dice indicate casualties suffered. I may think about some better markers for the future but they'll do for now

The T34 advances and gets a sneaky early shot in at the Panther - missed!

Stug and infantry advancing in the centre

The right hand section head for cover 

T34 brews up, and German LMG fire peppers the HMG

 On the left the German squad doubled across open ground and into cover, their half-track providing covering fire. From the woods they spotted the ATG and a lack of covering troops. The Russians spotted the threat and limbered up the gun, heading to the rear as the Germans doubled across the open ground to occupy the earthworks. From there they assaulted the Russian in the centre; their attention concentrated on the central German squad, they  didn't spot the threat to their flank until too late. In a fierce melee two Russians lay dead, as did a coupe of Germans but the remaining Russians, now heavily outnumbered, fled to the rear. The Germans, now in cover alongside the Sherman, rued the lack of a panzerfaust, but the Panther emerged from cover and killed the Sherman with a shot through the side armour.

The Germans on the left flank charge the ATG position

Oh for a panzerfaust!

Never mind, the Panther got him

It was all over in an hour or so and I thought it went rather well. A few tweaks in terms of leader capabilities, pinned troops and the lack of a vehicle close assault rule (now rectified), but I was very pleased with the results and I'm satisfied that I have a sound basis for a set of rules covering WW2 as well as the post war insurgencies. 

Rules Conundrum Solved!

Regular readers will know that I've been at loggerheads with myself over which rules to use with my 15mm Winter Skirmish and 20mm Burma Skirmish collections. The answer hit me today when I remembered my old "FireForce" rules that I wrote over 20 years ago. Based on Martin Goddard's "Search and Destroy" Vietnam set, I had adapted them for use in post war African games. Looking at them just now it dawned on me that they would work fine for WW2 with a few tweaks. And that this would be ideal as I can have one core set of rules covering a range of periods and settings.

So I've set up an Eastern Front test game for tomorrow (chores tonight, plus sorting out a play sheet for the game). Fingers crossed it works!

Salamis (1)

This year sees the 2,500th anniversary of the battle of Salamis, where the Greek navies fought off the Persians (actually even more Greeks, Egypt and and Phoenicians) and saved civilisation. There's an interesting project at http://salamisday.weebly.com/ calling on naval wargamers to refight the battle in September, and I have my new ancient fleet action rules ("He Hemetera Thalassa / Mare Nostrum") coming out soon, so I decided to have a practice bash at Salamis in advance of the big day later this year.

The table I had set up was 6' by 4' but as expected the battle ended up clustered in the "north west" corner (that was OK, I had the rest of the table on which to place stacks of markers and other stuff).

The battlefield as seen from the "east". The three Persian fleets advancing on the Greeks at the top end of the table

The view from Salamis. Themistocles' Greek squadrons on the left flank, Eurybiades' Spartand and others on the right.

As the Persians close, Themistocles adjusts his line, taking the first Greek squadron closer to the mainland shore. A risky move as the shore is lined with Persian archers who can support their ships at sea. There is also a chance that, if control rolls are failed, Themistocles will find himself being hit in the flank before he can redeploy into line.

The Persians continue to close, and the leading Phoenician squadron is very close.....

But the elite Greek seaman come about, form line and charge the incoming Persians. Archery from the leading Persian squadron and their supporting archers on shore cause some casualties on the way in, which will give the Greeks a penalty in the upcoming melee (the yellow "-1" marker shows the die roll modifier that will apply in melee)

Themistocles hits the Persians, sinking ships (one stand loss) and throwing the squadron into confusion (blue "Out of Formation" marker)

The Greeks sweep through the Persian line, the second athenian squadron in place to support. On the right the Spartans hit Ariabignes' Ionian squadron.

Confusion reigns on the left flank. The second Athenian squadron blows through the remnants of the first Phoenician squadron and sweeps around to make a second attack from the rear (which rapidly destroyed them). Meanwhile Themistocles hits the second Phoenician squadron. In a shock attack the Phoenicians are shattered. But disaster on the right as Megabazus' Cypriot squadron catches the second Athenian squadron in the rear. A spirited attack sees the Athenian squadron break. And Teh Ionians have scored a spectacular success, routing the Argolid and Corinthian squadrons that were supporting the Spartan (who are rampaging through the following Persian squadrons, oblivious to the losses behind them).

 

Themistocles has shattered the third Phoenician squadronvand is set to for a grand finale against Prexaspes, but the Cyprus squadron is poised to make an attack on the Athenian rear. The Spartans and Carians face off, a battle that the Carians would lose. Artemesia's ships are the sole survivors (but make a quiet escape as the morale of the rest of the squadron evaporates).

Megabazus hits the Athenians, but his attack is badly timed; Themistocles rallies his ships and strikes a heavy blow against the attackers who, despite their advantage, take heavy losses and quit the battle. In the melee Megabazus takes an Athenian spear to the chest and dies on the deck of his flagship.

At this point the Greeks have achieved their victory conditions. Despite losing four of their own squadrons (including one of the elite Athenian squadrons), the Athenian and Spartan squadrons commanded by Themistocles and Eurybiadas have destroyed five Persian squadrons. Prexaspes signals the retreat and begins to think about how he is going to explain this to Xerses. He needs to think quickly, Artemesia is already on her way to the great king's tent to tell him her view of the battle.....

It is likely that your chronicler's memory on a few points is confused, and my plan to take photos at each stage of the battle went awry very close to the start, but the above paints the picture. The battle took about 2 hours to complete and I was quite pleased both with the game and with the models - this was my first outing for the 3D printed 1/2400 stands that I've been making over the last few weeks. 

Lookig forward to some more trireme action soon, and of course at least another Slamis refight on or around September 25th.....