Dardanelles Submarine Game

Last night we were at Sylvain's for two games.  The second was a Star Wars X-Wing game GMed by or host which was very enjoyable.  For the first game of the double header I put on Bob Cordery's Dardanelles Submarine game which can be found over at Bob's treasure trove of goodies his blog
Wargame Miscellany.  This game which was originally published in the 80s or 90s in a Wargames World annual (the yellow specials by Wargames Illustrated).

This game replicates the very successful attack by HMS/M B11 which avoided mines, patrol craft, gun batteries and hostile currents in a very enclosed space to torpedo the Turkish battleship Messudieh (see details over at Bob's site here).  It's a great little game and well worth the hour's diversion.

In our game, our intrepid adventurers wound their way through the hazards through a combination of good luck, good planning and bad umpiring (just kidding) to find them selves perfectly placed for an attack on their target.  The first torpedoes missed at close range, so the B11 lay low until nightfall so that they could reload the tubes and have at her again.  This time the first fish missed but the second struck home and sank the Messudieh.

Their return journey was far less arduous than the original's had been.  Historically, Messudieh open fired as she sank and B11's crash dive threw her compass off.  A nine hour blind crawl on dead reckoning followed.  When B11 finally surfaced, the oxygen was so low that her diesels wouldn't fire up!