Convoy Chaos! A Torpedoes and Tides Battle Report

I've now played a full solitaire game of Torpedoes and Tides, using the Campaign Rules.   I used all my Fairmille models to give me a flotilla of three MTBs and two MGBs.   The lead character was Lt. "Rocky" Rhodes but he didn't do so well so another boat commander ended up being my main character.  

I gave all the dogboats Q3, so the flotilla isn't green, but it's fairly new to the war, so just barely Competent  I rolled a Convoy Attack mission. We pick up the action in front of the Senior Naval Officer.

***

Lt John Miller, RCNVR, "Dusty" to his friends, stood uneasily in front of the desk of Commander Jennings, referred to soto voce in the flotilla as "The Dragon".    Jennings had been a year from retirement when the war began, and although he had been a dashing torpedo boat skipper in the last war, his approach was by the book and he did not like undisciplined Canadians.

Jennings put down the after action report and pointed his pipe stem at Miller.  "Well, you did well, at least, but it was a damned poor show all around."

Miller, still short of sleep, struggled to recall the events of last night.   The convoy had been there on its reported route, and had first been spotted by Lt Harry "The Hammer" Fields in his MGB.  "It's hammering time!" Fields had shouted over the radio as his guns unleashed on a small German escort, an R-boat at close range.   

The Canadian flotilla approaches in darkness under blinds.  The white cotton depicts a fog bank.  Harry's MGB is close enough to the Raum-botte and a freighter behind it that they come off blinds.   Harry fires, but to no effect.

"I don't know what Rhodes was thinking, having you all charging in pell-mell like that.   Officer cadet heroics have no place here!" 

"We were all eager, sir, it was our first show."  Miller recalled their flotilla skipper, Peter "Rocky" Rhodes, ordering them to "get stuck in, full throttle" and Miller suddenly finding himself within spitting distance of the small escort, its tracers flying overhead and chewing up his Fairmille's woodwork.

Miller's boat takes a point of damage and is now operating on one red dice.   Because the German now has initiative, and the R-boat must move at least a short move forward before turning, it bashes into the MTB of Lt Rouleau.   Both the British and German boats take damage.

The German R-boat skipper is undergunned but gamely hangs in, happy to play bumper boats and spoil the British attack.  Meanwhile, the other MGB in the flotilla, under Bruce "Fairway" McGregor, lights up the German freighter but doesn't do any real damage.  The red chits are for the optional muzzle flash rules, meaning that a boat that fires is easier to hit.

"There's a difference between eager and stupid," Jennings growled.  "I'd say getting your boat cut in half is just plain stupid."

Rhodes is too close to the oncoming German minesweeper, the large escort.   It was a hard way to learn the collision rules, especially as the British lost the initiative at this point and the Large German ship cuts through the MTB like a knife through butter.

"Yes, sir.  I hope my report made it clear that Lt. McGregor was able to rescue Rhodes and his crew while under fire."

Miller recalled glancing at the minesweeper, her secondary armament lashing the water as McGregor's men cooly plucked their mates from the sea.

"That was a good show, McGregor showed guts.  Good sort of man to have in a gunboat."

Jennings allowed himself a flinty smile.  "And you managed to redeem this dog's breakfast of a show."

"It was hard to miss at that range, sir.   Got the last freighter amidships and she broke in two.   We were able to get out in the confusion."

Miller fires two fish at close range, if he was any closer there wouldn't have been enough time for the torpedoes to arm.  He's rewarded with one hit, which does catastrophic damage to the freighter.

Jennings sat back in his seat and relit his pipe before looking up at Miller from under his bushy eyebrows.  "The MO is looking over Rhodes and his lot.  I can't produce dog boats from thin air, so you're down a boat and I'm giving you the flotilla.  Do better than Rhodes and you might keep it.  Go get some rest, you'll need it.  Dismissed."

***

At the dockyard, the base chief engineer says he's busy and shorthanded.  I roll a 5 on 2d6, and since I have one boat with two damage (Rouleau's MTB) and two boats with 1 damage (McGregor's MGB and Miller's MTB), I decide to fix one point on Rouleau's boat and one on Miller's.   The MTB's take precedence.  

All the crews in the flotilla get an experience point for being in a battle.  McGregor's crew gets an experience point for rescuing Rhodes and his crew.   Miller's crew gets three points for sinking an enemy freighter.

Rhode's reputation is not enhanced by losing his boat and two of his MTBs not firing any fish.   Rhodes' reputation goes down by 1 and is now -1.   

I now check for an event and Miller is awakened the next day to the unwelcome news that the base is getting a surprise visit from an Admiral.   There's enough time to make and mend and clear away last night's empty gin bottles.  The flotilla makes a good showing and the Admiral is pleased with his fighting Canadians.

I now need a personality for Lt Miller so I roll up the following stats for him:

Stamina: 3; Charisma: 3; Tactics: 4

We'll see if Dusty Miller has what it takes to keep the flotilla and do better than poor Rhodes.   

A note about the ship models:

The R-boat is a 3D print of a file from Thingverse (do a search there under Cruel Seas and you'll find all manner of helpful files).  The minesweeper and the three merchant ships are from Skytrex, and may get properly painted before their next outing.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls!

MP+

Fast Boats for Torpedoes and Tides

 One of the pleasures of running my WW1 naval game last year was getting to know Thomas Brandsetter, who has recently published his rules for coastal naval battles in WW2, Torpedoes and Tides, which can be found on Wargames Vault.

I read the rules eagerly, and appreciated the linked game narrative approach that Thomas demonstrates on his blog, The Raft.  Like some of the campaign-driven games in the Too Fat Lardies stable (Sharp Practice, Platoon Forward), Thomas' rules also provide a vehicle for new boat commanders to rise through the ranks, or die horribly.   

I needed some boats, so my dear friend Trish, the genius behind 4P Press, pointed me towards some STL files on Thingverse.  Just do a search there for Cruel Seas and you'll find lots, all scaled in 1/300 for the Warlord rules.  For the core of my British force I printed and painted five Fairmiles,  three MTBs and two MGBs.  The hulls are all in one piece a printed clearly on my Bambu filament printer.  The guns were a little more fiddly but look ok from a distance.

The masts are made of copper wire and the Red Ensigns ship in Skytrex Cruel Seas kits, of which I bought several.

To oppose them, a quartet of menacing Kriegsmarine E-boats, two S-100 and two S-38 boats, all Skytrex plastic kits.  They assembled cleanly, though I had to go online to various blogs to see how the parts went together.  Skytrex evidently thinks that these things are self-explanatory and don't require instructions.

They all look quite good on the Geek Villain naval mat.  I'm quite happy with GV products.

Next up in the shipyards is a Bangor-class RN minesweeper, a resin kit, nicely detailed.

I hope to have a first playthrough to report on soon.   

Cheers and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

First Time Playing Snorkers: Good Oh!

Just before I went on holiday this month (St Vincent in the Caribbean, quite nice) I had a chance to drive the two hours to Stratford (Ontario) and have a rare gaming day with old chum James.   Having both been bitten with the nautical bug, we wanted to play a game James has been quite obsessed with, Snorkers! (Good Oh!), which is billed as "an exciting, fast-paced WW2 naval wargames ruleset".  

James has a number of games under his life-vest and agreed to teach me the rules.  He pulled no punches!  For our first game we decided to use models from my 1/2400 collection and pitted two RN cruisers (Ajax and Achilles) and three Tribal class destroyers against two German CLs (Koln and Nurnberg) accompanied by three Karl Galster class DDs.  Here is the RN force steaming ahead out of a mistbank at full ahead.  The game tokens are 3D prints.  The ships are all metal models from GHQ.

 

The Kriegsmarine prepares to accept battle.   I put all that work into painting the ships and bases and none at all into preparing some nice labels.  Mea culpa.  At least the three GHQ Galster class ships look good.  The CL in the background is a rather old Panzerschiffe model, though still available for purchase!   The white cotton in the background represent mistbanks which obscure LOS and which can move randomly or dissipate.

One of the adjustments I had to make to these rules is the way they handle speed.  Ships can go from stationary to full speed in a single turn, whereas in other naval rules I'm accustomed to, there is usually a "throttle" rule where ships can only increase or decrease speed by so much per turn.  Not a criticism, just an adjustment I had to make.  And since lighter ships like DDs can move some 20" on the table, and then shoot, there's not a lot of time for fancy maneuvering.   An aggressive player can launch a devastating attack in one turn.  Here I managed to launch a torpedo at James' lead Tribal, but I don't recall it exploding.  German and USN torpedoes in the early war can be duds, which can be quite distressing.

Torpedoes in this game are wicked and deadly.   Launch and impact occur in the same turn, regardless of range.  Targets get a chance to evade, but if a ship is hit by one torpedo, its usually crippling for a bigger ship, and fatal for a smaller one.  Here a torpedo is about to find its mark and send some Nazis to the bottom.  One of the things I learned about torpedoes from this game is to use them before you lose them.  If you have a ship in range, its best to launch everything you have rather than to sink with fish in the tubes.

Of course gunfire is important, and I found the system fairly simple and workable.   Unlike crunchier games which require rolls to penetrate, Snorkers works in a fashion reminiscent of rules like Dan Mersey's Dragon Rampant.  Depending on the defence rating of a ship, you need so many hits to cause damage, and of course there is the possibility of exciting critical hits.   

After our Saturday night game had chased the Nazis away from Narvik, we decided to play a game set in the early Pacific.   For this game we used James' models, which are all 3D prints done in 1/1800 scale.  Even with the larger scale there is just not as much detail as there is in the GHQ models, but the overall look of the larger ships on the table is quite impressive. 

In this game I took the USN and put two CLs and a CA, with about ten Fletcher class DDs, up against James' similar IJN force.  We also gave ourselves an air wing so we could see how airstrikes and AA fire went.  Here the Japanese split their focus on the USS Quincy and some of its escorts, and did no damage to speak of.  I was a little luckier, getting a torpedo hit on one of James' CAs.

Once again, James showed me how deadly the torpedo can be in these rules.   I had been content to hold my main force back while sparring with James' most advanced DD squadron, and was getting the best of it, but in that time James brought the rest of his DDs up and raced them through a mistbank, at which point there were fish in the water everywhere.  An IJN DD can carry multiple centre-mounted launchers and can fire torps through wide port and starboard arcs, and so my three cruisers all blew up and sank before they could engage James' heavy cruisers.    We called it a game and it was a good learning experience.

So this isn't an exhaustive review of Snorkers, but I would say that it is true to it's billing in that it's true to its billing as "an exciting, fast-paced WW2 naval wargames ruleset".   It has a minimum of dice rolling, but when you do throw dice, you can be throwing a bucket's worth.   The maneuvre rules are simple (there is the obligatory template for turns) and things happen very quickly.  The turn sequence is somewhat randomized by card draws, which is arguably a more playable approach than simultaneous movement plotting, and thus makes Snorkers more suitable for solitaire play.

 The core rule book provides lists for most ship types that featured in the early war navies of Britain, Germany, Italy, the US and Japan, and it can be argued that for surface actions, WW2 naval gaming is really only interesting from 1939-43.  After that, most battles are just aerial massacres.  There is also an expansion for the French Navy and a new one that provides more focus on the early Pacific war.  In short, if you are looking to wet your feet in WW2 naval gaming, Snorkers would be a good place to start.

Finally, to end our gaming Saturday, I wheedled James into trying the MMP Siege of Jerusalem game I've touted in earlier blog posts.  James took the ruthless Romans, and benefitted from cards that allowed him to build siege ramps against the two key locations I had to defend to have a hope of winning the game.  Without my lovely wall defensive modifiers, it was a long struggle but late in the game the Romans achieved a sudden death win by capturing both Herod's palace and the Temple.   Kudos to James, he's not that interested in boardgames, but he is quick learner and an excellent tactician, as well as a great host and good friend.

You can read James' account of these games here.  Thanks mate, you're a grand friend.

Thanks for reading and blessings to your die rolls!

MP+

Back to the Denmark Straits: Some GHQ WW2 Famous Adversaries

 The naval minded among you will know that today, 27 May, is the anniversary of the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck.  It seems like a fortuitous day to show off these recently completed 1/2400 naval models from GHQ.

Bismarck and Prinz Eugen:

Hard to tell which is which from this angle.   You can see how the British were confused at Denmark Strait and mistook Prinz Eugen for Bismarck, as the silhouettes are very similar.

Easier to tell them apart in this shot.  That's Bismarck on the left.

And of course their brave adversaries, including the poor doomed Hood and Prince of Wales beside her, though for some reason steaming in the opposite direction!

There's something rather sad about the fact that of these four ships, only one would survive the war.

Not much to say about the painting of these models, I start with a medium gray (Americana craft paint), then cover it with Army Painter Dark Tone wash, then a light drybrush with a light gray.    I paint the decks using Tamiya Deck Tan, and then give it a wash with Army Painter Light Tone.  The Light Tone has the added benefit of adding hints of rust to the hulls.   The bases are handcut polystyrene painted with Americana Navy Blue, drybrushed with Americana True Blue, and then stippled with light grey to give the wave effects.  The bow waves and wakes are a mixture of white craft glue and light grey paint.

Hopefully I'll find time to do a Denmark Strait matchup using the Naval Thunder WW2 rules, though in my heart I know who I want to win!   

Cheers and thanks for looking.  Blessings to your die rolls.

MP+

Shipyards Update 2: Naval Warfare Bases

 A few weeks back I showed some work in progress on basing GHQ 1/2400 scale model warships.

After some trial and error with cutting techniques, and thinking through some standard base sizes for ship classes, I've made some progress.  Here is HMS Hood steaming proudly alongside my first trial piece, a Flower class corvette.  The wake and bow waves are a combination of white carpenter's glue mixed with off-white paint.  It would have been nice to put them on a proper sea mat, but I had to settle for slapping them down on the dining room table.

I try not to look too suddenly at the Hood model just in case it blows up.

Also finished is a little Great War RN squadron, two Calliope class light cruisers with an escort of three K or Acasta class destroyers.

I figured as these are all light ships, I would exaggerate the wake to suggest travel at speeds.

I find that painting these ship models is actually easier than cutting and painting the bases.

Next up:  Prince of Wales, Bismarck, and Prinz Eugen - of course.

Cheers and blessings to your brushes, MP+

Update from the Shipyards: Making Ship Bases

Lately I've been taking a break from Ancients gaming stuff to try and formulate a plan to base my growing collection of 1/2400 scale naval models, a side project that is rapidly becoming an addiction.

There's a running joke in our hobby about whether model tanks should be based (the correct answer is yes, they should) but basing ship models seems essential as they are delicate and are constantly being pushed forward, turned, etc.   I've learned this the hard way in my first two naval games.  So below is a glimpse of the shipyard and the materials I'm using.

I found these small, fairly thin clear plastic sheets from the local DIY store.  They're small, but surprisingly pricey.  Since my Olfa craft knife wasn't doing well scoring the plastic, I also purchased a cutting tool and a clamp to hold the ruler in place as a cutting guide.

Since the Naval Thunder rules I'm using don't have any basing requirements, I'm trying to establish some standard sizes that I can repeat for ship classes, so shown below are bases for a battleship (HMS Hood), for a light cruiser (RN Leander class) and a small escort (RN Flower class corvette).  Also shown on the cork and currently being painted is a WW1 RN Acasta or K class destroyer). The models are all from GHQ.  Given the current political and economic climate, I'm not happy that GHQ is a US company, but their products and service are first rate, even though the exchange rate on the poor Canadian dollar is painful.  

I am thinking of leaving the bases clear as I have a Geek Villain fleece mat with a very convincing wave pattern, but I'm leaning towards painting them, and maybe using something textured to create waves and wakes.   I also haven't yet figured out what sort of glue to use.  In past with American Civil War 1/600 scale models, I've tried glueing them on plastic bases but the glue doesn't hold for long.   Grateful for any suggestions you may have.

More photos once I get it all figured out.   And yes, since I'm painting HMS Hood, there will be a Denmark Straight game soon.  Blessings to your hobbying!  MP+

New Years River Plate Refight

Hi friends:

In January I was either sick, crazy busy, or on holiday, so catching up now. 

On New Years Day I hosted a few games, including another go at the Battle of the River Plate.   I split the three RN cruisers between my friends Conrad and David, and I ran Graf Spee and handled the game play, since I was the only one who knew the rules.

Sadly no photos of the game, as I was quite busy, but I can report that it was a decisive win for Captain Langsdorf.    As both sides closed the distance, a salvo from the Graf Spee's big guns hit Ajax.  The first shell hit the bridge, wiping out Commodore Harwood, Captain Woodhouse, and their staff, but the second shell hit a magazine and the unfortunate ship detonated and was gone.

Shocked, the British players gamely closed, scoring some hits but taking the worst of it.  Spee turned to present her full broadside, and soon Achilles was in serious trouble, listing badly and struggling to control flooding.   The pressure was now on Exeter, and she gamely fought on as turret after turret was knocked out, while scoring some hits.   With her final salvo before succumbing, Exeter scored a hit on the Spee's rudder and leaving her victorious but steaming in circles.

Would Langsdorf be able to repair his rudder before HMS Cumberland arrived?  That was a faint consolation to the RN players, now gamely clinging to wreckage, so we called it as a German victory of sorts.  I've now fought the battle twice, and the score is Kriegsmarine 1, Royal Navy 1.   An excellent scenario to introduce players to naval gaming.    We used the Naval Thunder rules and they continue to impress me.

At present I am assembling a GHQ model of Bismarck, and hoping to do the Battle of the Denmark Strait soon.   I'm quite enjoying naval gaming as a diversion.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls.  MP+

Back to the River Plate: Reevaluating the Battle

Recently I did several posts here describing my new interest in WW2 naval wargaming, and how I picked the 1939 Battle of the River Plate as my entry point.

I was quite interested today to read this evaluation of the British performance in the battle, which naval historian Alan Zimm argues was much less impressive than the myth making and propaganda that arose after the battle.  Much of the propaganda told the story of an inferior force defeating a German monster, when in fact the RN ships had a significant advantage due to their much higher rates of fire.

Zimm finds several faults with Commodore Harwood's conduct of the fight, including:

1) sending in Exeter for a one on one fight with Graf Spee, leaving her unsupported by the light cruisers Achilles and Ajax, pursuant to an RN doctrine called flank marking, which assumed that one ship could observe and correct the fire of friendly ships attacking from a different angle; 

2) over reliance on pre-war simulations which assumed a much higher RN accuracy of fire than Harwood's light cruisers actually achieved;

3) general mishandling of information, particularly a decision to abort when he was told that he only had 20% ammunition remaining.  In fact, this report was only for one of Ajax's turrets, whereas Ajax and Achilles still had more than enough shells remaining to finish the fight.   By the time Harwood broke off, his light cruisers were at 8000 yards and closing, and were finally achieving multiple hits, which seriously degraded Graf Spee's gunnery.   Zimm believes that Harwood could have won the fight had he remained.

It's all a bit academic, as Graf Spee of course scuttled herself in Montevideo and the British got a huge boost, making up for the RN's poor showing thus far in the war.  Whether you agree or disagree with Zimm, his point about how wargaming led the RN to develop faulty gunnery doctrines, based on false assumptions about accuracy at long range, is interesting.

Cheers,  MP+

Take That You Beast Part Two! River Plate Project Progress

 Back in September I said that I was going to experiment with WW2 naval gaming, using the Battle of the River Plate as a test project.  Working relatively quickly, I've been able to get my initial order of 1/2400 ships from GHQ painted.  Here is "the Beast", the Graf Spee, sailing serenely on a Geek Villain mat.

Leander-class light cruiser:

HMS Exeter:

Commodore Harwood's squadron in search of the Graf Spee:

"I say, sir, I do believe we've found her!"  Litko splash markers.

I had a very positive experience with the Naval Thunder: Battleship Row rules by Harry Pratt, which I found for purchase as a download from Wargames Vault.  I'm grateful to Keith who runs the excellent Across the Table blog for putting me on to these rules.    Since NTBR uses a written orders and simultaneous movement system (seems to be a hallmark of naval rules!), it is not ideal for solo play, but I suspect with some more thought I could write some general battle plans for both sides with some die rolls for the commander's likely reaction as the situation evolves.  An even better solution would be an opponent!

I was only using the basic NTBR rules and found them easy enough to learn.  The d10 system provides for some unpredictability, and shooting is not easy at the larger ranges.  When a shell does hit, there is a step to assess penetration vs armour (each ship has a data card which can be printed before the game and which provides this information readily).  Penetrating hits cause damage (different shells have different damage ratings, and each hit reduces a ship's hit points) but also cause critical hits, which can be quite dramatic.   There are advanced rules for crew quality, torpedoes, aircraft, etc, but I kept the first game simple.

The RN player has to put his head down and run at the Spee to get within effective range, and this means the Spee has several turns to inflict damage, as happened in the actual fight with the crippling of Exeter.   In my game, Achilles in the lead followed by Ajax attacked on one side, while Exeter tried to get on the other side of Spee.  This gave the Germans time to hammer Achilles with 11" shells, crippling her gunnery and causing a fire.   Here we see Achilles turning away from the fight and on fire, making smoke to hide her escape.   Her brave New Zealand crew never did get the fire under control and she soon sank (more Litko markers).

However, Ajax was relatively unharmed and struck a blow, causing a fire amidships.   Spee's crew could not extinguish the fire, and it spread, detonating a secondary magazine and causing significant damage.  Captain Langsdorf was now seeking to withdraw and fight another day.  By this time, Exeter was adding her fire, though reduced because her aft turret had been knocked out.  Her first salvo missed, but a second landed two fatal hits.  The first caused flooding damage, but the second hit the main magazine (two "O"s on 2d10) and the mighty pocket battleship blew up with few survivors.

At least in this encounter, German propaganda can say that she died fighting, rather than being ignominiously scuttled!

I'm  now debating whether to mount my ships on bases, which would minimize wear and tear on the models from handling, vs leaving them as they are.  The Geek Villain seascape map is quite nice and I like the look of the models sans bases.   This requires a good ponder.   In the meantime, another order from GHQ will soon allow me to fight the Battle of the Denmark Strait, although that order is currently in limbo due to a Canada Post strike.

Thanks for reading.  Cheers, and blessings to your die rolls!

"Take That, You Beast!": Getting Ready to Chase the Graf Spee

Fans of old British war films may remember that line, uttered by Anthony Quayle playing Commodore Harwood in the 1956 film, Battle of the River Plate.  It's a terrific Technicolour film and an intelligent account of a naval battle.  I have a hard time thinking of a better naval film made since, except (possibly) Greyhound.  The film is here if you want to watch it online.

Faithful readers of this intermittent blog (bless you!) may recall that I've said before that I don't need to take on any new periods, especially as I turn 62 soon and "Time's winged chariot" seems somehow nearer.   However, naval games have always intrigued me and after reading a terrific blog account of a WW2 naval battle in the Med, I felt I had to scratch this itch.

River Plate seemed like a good place to start, seeing as it only requires four ships and is an interesting contest between numbers and hitting power.   I was considering NavWar in the UK as my source for the models, but they only take postal orders and I've been thoroughly spoiled by online shopping.  Besides, I have lived through the era of sending money orders to the UK and (hopefully) receiving the models two months later, so i've paid my dues.

I selected GHQ in the US as my source, and while the white metal models are pricey, the 1:2400 scale seemed small enough to be manageable but large enough to be satisfying on the tabletop.   I was very pleased when this package arrived shortly after I placed the order online, with lots of  paper goodies stuffed inside the mailer, including an intriguing and old school glossy paper catalogue.

A sharp Olfa knife, a metal file, tweezers (mine were barely adequate) and super glue were all employed to assemble the models.  Each ship took about an hour, including breaks to keep an eye on whatever Toronto Blue Jays baseball game was on.  I present HMS Exeter, which soaked up fearful damage during the battle.

Leander class light cruiser, representing Ajax (Harwood's flagship) and the NZ crewed Achilles (which stars as itself in the 1956 film):

Force H assembled!

The dreaded Beast, the Graf Spee.   Some of the barrels on those turrets look a bit wiggly!

The next step is to paint these guys and try out the rules I've chosen, Naval Thunder.  There's also a naval fleece on order from Geek Villain and some markers from Litko.

More to follow!

Cheers and blessings to your super glue!

MP+