Pooltime Ponderings on Recent Italian Wars Game

It being summer I get my my regular exercise swimming laps in my local outdoor public pool.  I show up when it opens at 8am with a bunch of older and grumpier old farts and then head off to what ever office I'm haunting for the rest of the day.  This morning while getting my cardio in under clear blue Prairie skies I did some pondering about the recent game that I GM'd.  There were two problems encountered - slow deployment times and too much disruption - under the Pike and Shotte/Black Powder/Hail Caesar system.  Here's what my oxygen starved brain came up with.

Slow Deployment From Column of March
The issue here is that for the scenario I wanted to have the attacked deal with the issue of entering on in column of match and deploying on the go.  But with basic P&S movement rates this becomes a slow process, especially when the columns have to deploy. 

In this particular scenario had I let the attackers come on deployed they likely would have rolled over the defenders.  I also have issues with too perfect deployments when historically sub commands showed up early, late or in the wrong place on occasion. So incorporating some ideas filched from Sam Mustafa's Blucher rules, here's how I would approach this scenario next time under P&S/BP/HC.

I'll use this map as a reference.

1. The attacker puts his units into divisions and gives an order of march for  the units within divisions and for the divisions themselves.
2.  The defender plots his deployment up to line X on the map, keeping units in cover or dead ground (including everything behind line Z)  off board.
3. The attacker then gives orders to each of his divisions subject to the restrictions of his deployment move below.  So given Curt's order of march we might have something like.  "The cavalry division advances and deploys on the front slope of the hill facing X on the map.  The main body deploys and advances to a position just north of the woods in the pass.  The rear division advances onto the northern hill and then deploys."
4. The attacker then moves his divisions on one by one according to his order of march.  They get a special deployment move equal to X plus the number of moves indicated by a command roll.  So for this action I might make X=2 and then each division would have between 2-5 moves to make based on their command roll.  To avoid getting too cheesy I'd restrict these so that they couldn't close to withing musket range (16") of the enemy, so that the defender has a bit of a chance to react as they come on.
5. Each deployment move would be a regular infantry move (8" for our P&S games).  Each column would enter in column of march and need to deploy, this taking one move to deploy a whole division.  Cavalry would be moving at a walk, but an all cavalry division could make a free deployment.
6. The orders should note when deployment takes place.  Given the sample orders above a bad roll (i.e. 2 moves) would see the centre division deploy then move 8" on table.  On the same result the rear division would move two moves (16") without deploying.
7. Blunders on a deployment could see a division be delayed, too far left or right or too far ahead depending on the result.
8. The defender gets to go next and for each division can elect to either have one move without a command roll, or take their chances on a command roll.  This allows them to reposition as the enemy advances and possibly get some shooting in.

The same thing could be used with reinforcements arriving from off table, where the entry point is some distance away from the enemy.-

Too Many Disorders
Under the P&S/BP/HC any natural 6s on shooting cause a disorder, preventing the target unit from doing anything in their next move.  This seems to cause the attacker's a undue hardship in the recent game - Stacey rolled many 6s leaving the attackers effectively pinned in a fire zone at times.  I am thinking of letting the target unit taking an immediate save roll against disorder once all the shooting on the unit is completed.  This lets better troops more likely to shrug off disorder while inferior troops will be more likely to be disordered.  I think that there may be two exceptions when no save roll is permitted.  First, any units charging into contact are auto-disorder by fire.  Second, any unit taking two or more disorder results in shooting are also auto disordered.

Any that's what my brain came up to this morning, we'll see what a night's sleep does with these ideas.

Transposing Savo Island Pt. 2

OK let's work the key features into a 1941ish Med action.  One of the nice features from a gaming perspective is that the initiative swung back and forth between sides as did control of the air.

• Red should have an advantage in spotting and night fighting.  Translation the Brits are red and the Italians are Blue.  The combination of radar and RN night fighting training gave them a huge advantage early in the war.  
• Blue is escorting a fleet of transports that have successfully landed on Red territory.  The Italians didn't achieve this in history, but the possibility existed especially in the Aegean and on Crete.
• The Blue squadron is patrolling a straight that stretches from one board edge to the other, but there is an island midway in the straight so Blue needs to split his forces into two groups.  The Aegean certainly gives lots of opportunities for real or fictional locations that fit.  Translation Savo becomes the Greek Isle Savos.
• Red cannot linger and needs to get his squadron away in good shape to fight another day.   US air power ruled the skies over Guadalcanal and lame duck Japanese ships caught in the area come day break were quickly sunk.  Translation, replace US a Naval air power with the Luftwaffe.  This gives us a similar situation to the RN's situation during the assault on Crete.  They smashed a couple small convoys at night but paid a heavy price to the Stukas in the day.

So in summary with a have plausible location and forces to give a very similar balance to the scenario using forces from another theatre in the same period.

Transposing Naval Scenarios Part One

When I was in my teens, my guitar teacher used to have me transpose the chord progressions from Beatles tunes to different keys.  He did it as a learning exercise and also for practical reasons like finding a set of chords that worked in first position.  The exercise reminds me of something that gamers do regularly : take a scenario from history and use if in another period if setting.  C. S. Grant does that in his scenario books with games based on battles like Fontenoy, Thermopylae, Sedge moor and Flodden which can be used for ancient, medieval, hires & musket or modern eras.  When I am bored I like to think up ways of doing this with naval battles from history.

Case in point would be the Savos Island games our group (and the Mad Padre) played last year.  The genesis came from my reading a history of the Guadalcanal campaign (Neptune's Inferno).  There are series of nasty, brutish and short naval battles that have been played many times using US and Japanese fleets.  I wanted yo game the fights but didn't have the "right" ships.  In this situation there are two options.  The Sylvain option involves considering building the entire fleets for the Pacific War.  Yes he has threatened to build all of the ships required, but he may have been cured!  The Tim Gow option involves taking something on hand and making it work - much more to my taste, attention span and budget!  I had WW2 ships from the Mediterranean theatre.  A glass or two of red wine for lubrication and a think through and Bingo!  Savo becomes Savos and we're dealing with Italian amphibious operations in the Aegean interdicted by the a Royal Navy.

So here goes the Dummies Guide to Naval Transposition.  For simplicity I will use Red and Blue fleets in place of the IJN and USN.

Step One Identify the key features of the scenario

• Blue is escorting a fleet of transports that have successfully landed on Red territory
• Blue has detached a squadron to guard against Red's forces.  The Blue squadron is patrolling a straight that stretches from one board edge to the other, but there is an island midway in the straight so Blue needs to split his forces into two groups.
• Blue plots his patrols in advance and should move at economical speeds until contact us made. I used string to mark the patrol areas and scatter dice to note where the head of each column lies on turn one.
• The scenario takes place at night, spotting, identification and target acquisition will be critical.  There should be a chance of "friendly fire".
• Red has a force of roughly equal size to Blue but should have significant advantages in fighting ability and spotting ability.
• Red is ordered to pass through the straight and attack the transports.  Red plots his course in advance and follows his plots until contact is made..
• Red cannot linger and needs to get his squadron away in good shape to fight another day.  Historically US air power ruled the skies over Guadalcanal and lame duck Japanese ships caught in the area come day break were quickly sunk.
• In historical context Red wins if he exits the board yo attack the transports.  However, Red also wins by crippling the Blue squadron at low cost.  Historically, The IJN achieved the latter at Savo Island and withdrew without bothering the transports.
• Blue wins if the Blue squadron is able to sustain the patrol lines and the transports are safe.  Historically the USN achieved this in later actions in the campaign.

Now taking these key points and translating them will come in part two.

Interesting Naval Post

Naval Warfare is one of the blogs I follow.  Today's post covers the USS Idaho and Mississippi - but not perhaps the ones you're thinking of!  This pair was sold to the Greek Navy just prior to WWI.

By my reckoning, the pair could be factored into the following conflicts

• Pre-dreadnought era what ifs (they originally appeared in White and Buff)
• Balkan Wars what of (assuming the sale took place in 1912 not 1914)
• World War I
• Post War Greek-Turkey Wars
• World War II (ok one was disarmed but what if...)

I think that they'd look right at home in the Fezian and Rusland Navies.

Convoy Action 1941 - The Final Act

We fought out the rest of the convoy action last night.  To allow Curt and Sarah the use of their dining room table, we marked the ships' positions with tape and rolled up the sea mat in the interim.  

When we rolled up the mat last week the situation was as follows. 

1. Sylvain had a Kriegsmarine raiding group of the Scheer, Lutzow and Hipper had attacked a convoy.  The raiders operated in a single group against the tail of the convoy, coincidentally attacking from downwind.  This allowed Curt to concentrate the escort and use smoke to shield the convoy, but allowed Sylvain to hit the escort hard.   The raiders were absolutely untouched but out of torpedoes.
2. Curt's convoy  of 8 merchantmenwas almost untouched but able to steam at full speed.  The  fast transport HMS Manxman was long gone on its merry way to Gib.
3. The close escort of 6 destroyers (3 H class and 3 Hunts), 2 C class AA cruisers was on its last legs.  Curt had used up all his chemical smoke and most of the ships were badly damaged.  The attack from the rear also gave them the chance for torpedo attacks, but while he placed these well and had multiple attacks they all missed. 
4. A cruiser squadron from the RN covering force (HMSs Gloucester, Ajax, Arethusa and Euryalus) had arrived on table but been hidden from German eyes by smoke until the range was very close.  Further RN reinforcements were possible.

Sylvain opted to continue to close with the convoy, giving Curt the option of backing off with the cruisers or placing themselves between hunters and prey.  Curt opted for the latter and they steamed for a close encounter of the nasty kind!  Curt focused his fire on the Scheer, while Sylvain split his between all four RN cruisers.  But initially the 11" guns of the raiders hit the light cruisers hard, while initially their heavier CA armour was proof to the 6" replies.  

Then a few key turns changed the entire battle around from a German victory to a British one.  As the range closed, the cruisers 6" guns were able to go through the Germans' armour and opportunities for torpedo attacks got better.  (One problem with attacking from astern is that your opponents fish close at 70kts and yours close at 10kts!)  The Scheer was hit several times and slowed while German fire had an off period and largely missed.  Next turn, the Scheer was torpedoed and clearly in trouble.  Curt split his fire between the two pocket battleships next turn, sinking the Scheer and badly hurting the Lutzow - knocking out both turrets and slowing her.   German fire was very effective in return leaving 3 of the 4 cruisers badly shot up and with rudder hits.

By this time, further British reinforcements had arrived in the form of 3 J class destroyers and 3 flights of Swordfish torpedo bombers.  We abstracted out the denouement.  The swordfish focused on the Hipper and the destroyers on the Lutzow.  The Swordfish attack missed and the Hipper got back to Brest undamaged, but the DDs survived close range fire to torpedo the Lutzow and leave almost dead in the water.  Sylvain opened the sea cocks before the Swordfish returned or the Warspite and Rodney showed up.

Photos are from Curt.   Again the German ships are by Sylvain and the British and merchants are mine.  

The sides close with the Scheer taking fire and on fire, but largely unhurt.  The convoy legs it at 10 kts.

Red post it notes mark torpedo spreads (a very useful game aid).  Despite them, things are still rosy for the raiders as the spread in the foreground is a dummy!

Curt launched two Walrus float planes to distract Sylvain, just before the hanger on one cruiser was wrecked!  We have the Gloucester, Ajax, Arethusa and Euryalus in line.

Scheer on fire, followed by the Lutzow and Hipper.

Torpedoes away!

Close up on the Scheer - a very nice paint job Sylvain!

Three flights of Swordfish escorted by Fulmars, all operating from HMS Eagle.  In the back ground is the Scheer, by this time the fire is the least of her problems!

Another close up of the raiders - like the glaciers you should see them before they go for ever.

All in all this was a good, challenging game.  At one point, Curt's wife Sarah wondered in and asked who was winning.  Sylvain replied that each side thought the they were losing!  For much of the game I worried that I had given Curt an assignment with no chance of victory (when I wasn't worrying that I gave Sylvain no chance) but he pulled off a major coup.  As GM I put the reinforcements on table to try and balance the situation.  In the end the Swordfish and J class in time to mop up the remnants, rather than stem the tide.

Convoy Action AAR Pt1

Well after a week's delay we went to sea and fought it out over the convoy last night.  Forces on table at the start were as follows.

Germans (Sylvain) 
Admiral Scheer and Lutzow -  CAs with 6*11" guns 26kts speed)
Admiral Hipper - CAs with 8*8" guns 32kts

Royal Navy (Curt)
Cairo and Carlisle - Anti-Aircraft CLs with 8*4" guns, 28kts speed
Manxman - Abdiel class minelayer - 6*4" guns, 36 kts, acting as fast transport.
Hasty, Hero and Hotspur - H class DDs with 4*4.7" guns, 4 torpedo tubes, 35kts
Dulverton, Beaufort and Krakowiak (Polish) - Hunt class DEs with 6*4" guns, 28kts
Convoy of 8 merchantmen 10 kts speed 

I was non-player Gm and handled the Ship forms, damage rolls, random acts of fate etc.

The initial set up was as follows.  Visibility was 20,00yds, or 1m at 1cm=200yds.  The escorts were arranged around the convoy to provide cover for air or U-boat attacks, and the convoy was steaming south at 10kts.    I gave Sylvain the option to split his force into two groups with the first group at limit of visibility at A and the second at B. I figured that he would split his force and move them as indicated by the dotted lines.  The RN had reinforcements that would arrive at some  time and I as GM would place them at X on arrival. 

To me splitting the force would force the escorts to split up and give twice as many opportunities for a break through.  Moving south and then east would head off the convoy, allow the Germans to use their entire broadsides, and clear the smoke more favourably given the wind was blowing to the northwest.

Lesson 1 - Never Assume That Your Players Will Do What You Expect Them To.

Maybe it's a Quebecois vs rest of Canada thing, but anyway Sylvain had other ideas.  He kept his ships in a single group and moved them due east.  To be fair he didn't know where the reinforcements were to arrive, nor did he know exactly where his second group would appear.  And he figured that he could take on one half the escort group while the others worked their way round the convoy.   To my mind he made his own task more difficult, but his call.

This also made my life more difficult as I had to figure out how to juggle the reinforcements given the unexpected tack taken.  I had a variable arrival time for a squadron of 4 British light cruisers (D12 < game turn number) with the arrival point at X.  There was the possibility of heavier units and an air strike for the British, and a possible air strike for the Germans.  However, the timing and appearance of anything beyond the cruisers was to be a judgement call based on how the balance was running.  

Since Curt didn't know what his reinforcements were, or where or when they would arrive I just made a quick change and when the cruisers appeared the arrival point had shifter south to Y 26,000 yds from the Hipper - outside visual range and show a "blip" on the Dete screen as shown below.

Lesson Two A Lot of Diddly Squat Still Requires a Lot of Concentration!
Curt's escort group was essentially running on charm and good looks - he didn't have a gun that could hurt the Germans outside of point blank range and only 4 of his ships had torpedoes.  However, a second player on the RN side would have helped a lot and he had a lot to juggle.

Sylvain asked on turn 1 what the standard escort tactic was, and Curt showed him a masterful display.  Place yourself between the enemy and your charges, occupy space, make your self a tough target to hit, use a lot of smoke and try for a torpedo attack.  I have to give Curt a lot of credit for enjoying a game that set him up basically as a sitting target with little chance to fight back.  But he did seem to take to the challenge.

Lesson Three - As Curt Says GQ Gives Not Just a Game But a Good Simulation
Here's short summary of events. We played 9 turns in the evening (about 3 hours of play and an hour of game time).

1. The raiders had a hard time hitting the escorts, but when they hit them they hit them hard.
2. Regardless, battered destroyers can take a lot of kicking and none of the escorts sank.  Curt had some really good damage control work and Sylvain's gunners kept hitting the same damaged weapon systems.
3. Curt managed beautiful torpedo plots, getting 6 possible chances of hits out of 4 spreads of fish.  However, his dice sucked and all of them missed!  The tail chase tactics of the raiders helped Curt here - with the Germans on a collision course with the fish.
4. HMS Manxman shifted into turbo mode and sprinted off at 36kts once she was out of sight from the raiders.
5. The Hipper did get clear of the smoke to eventually fire at the convoy.  Another lucky damage control roll saved an engineering hit that would have left one merchant DIW and DOA.
6. The smoke screens intended to cover the convoy also nicely covered the RNs cruisers and Sylvain couldn't identify the blip until they were very close.

All in all, the results seemed pretty darn realistic especially compared to what happened at the Barent's Sea.

In the end we called it a night, but not the end of the game.  We marked the ship positions on Curt's sea mat with tape and we're planning to finish it up next week.  The reinforcements cruisers are as follows
HMS Gloucester CA armour, 12*6"
HMS Ajax CL 8*6"
HMS Arethusa CL 6*6"
HMS Euryalus CL 10*5.25"
All good for 32kts.  They have the speed to keep up with the raiders, and add much needed fire power. However, River Plate showed that the raiders still have the gunnery edge and the RN needs to keep a mind of the convoy missions.   We'll  see how it plays out.

Convoy 1941 - Reboot the Mission

After a week's delay it looks like we're good to go with the WW2 naval game this week at Curt's , domestic gods and goddesses allowing. 

I was going to try and find an exact time to suit the forces at hand and had some fun researching the Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy histories using online sources.  However, in the end I gave it up as a bad job and decided that the ships on hand might not have all been in the right spot and any one given time, but that they or their sister ships could have been.  Close enough for Government Work in my eyes.  

One thing that I hadn't realized is how small the windows of opportunity for the Germans.  It seems that no sooner had they repaired a ship, then it got banged up and needed to go back in the shop again.  The Brits kept up the pressure with bombers, mines and submarines.  The Jerries did them selves in by running into each other, or running aground.  And then to cap it off, several ships got damaged in storms.  I guess there's something to be said for building ships for ocean work and keeping the crews up to snuff to handle basic navigation tasks.

To recap, here's the situation.

• It's the dark days of early 1941 when plucky Britain is fighting the Hun on its own.  Churchill sends a bunch of much needed kit (Matildas, Spitfires, troops etc) in a convoy bound for the Med.

• German forces based in Brest will try and intercept if off of Spain.  Forces can include the Scharnhorst, Hipper and Deutschland classes (except for ships already sunk).  Sorry Sylvain, no Bismarck (either working up, sinking the Hood or sunk), Tirpitz (still being completed) or Graf Zeppelin (in its permanent state of needing another 18 months to be completed).  Their Light Cruisers and destroyers are too light for long range ocean work.

• The RN has a close escort group of DDs and other escorts which are great against U Boats and planes, but lousy vs. heavy ships.

• The RN also has units of the Med (and or Home) fleets in the area.

• No U-boats are available to avoid the danger of friendly fire.  

• Land based are is unlikely but possible (long range) for both sides.  Carrier based air may be available.

• Seriously disabled ships will likely be sunk by U-boats (if RN) or air and surface forces (if KM).

Kreigsmarine Victory Condition Priorities

1. Avoid damage to the heavy ships (CAs and above).
2. Stop the convoy from getting through.
3. Sink enough RN ships to give it a bloody nose and gain bragging rights.

Royal Navy Victory Condition Priorities

1. Get the convoy through (mostly) intact.
2. Sink the KM heavy ships.
3. Avoid losses to RN ships.

To encourage aggression, if both sides achieve their #1 priority (i.e. the KM runs away) the RN wins a major victory.  Naval Armageddon leading to no ships afloat on either side leads to a draw - the Germans win short term by preventing the convoy from getting through but the Brits win long term as they can have less German surface units to worry about and can reallocate forces.

Naval Ops 1941 - Convoy Delayed

The plan had been for Sylvain and I to get our naval kit on table at Curt's this week, but this has been delayed by an outbreak of real life....

So next week at the same bat time, same bat place, same bat channel....

Naval SITREP 1941

With Sylvain and I pumping out the WW2 Naval models, we gave  some thought to a naval game next week.  I volunteered to put together a scenario, with the aim of getting our new kit on table without overcrowding it in Naval Gotterdammerung.  I wanted to field our stuff in a scenario that made sense historically, gave a good game with strategic objective and let us field a reasonable amount of new kit without overloading the table, players and ump.

So here 's what I came up with.

• It's the dark days of early 1941 when plucky Britain is fighting the Hun on its own.  Churchill sends a bunch of much needed kit (Matildas, Spitfires, troops etc) in a convoy bound for the Med.

• German forces based in Brest will try and intercept if off of Spain.  Forces can include the Scharnhorst, Hipper and Deutschland classes (except for ships already sunk).  Sorry Sylvain, no Bismarck (either working up, sinking the Hood or sunk), Tirpitz (still being completed) or Graf Zeppelin (in its permanent state of needing another 18 months to be completed).  Their Light Cruisers and destroyers are too light for long range ocean work.

• The RN has a close escort group of DDs and other escorts which are great against U Boats and planes, but lousy vs. heavy ships.

• The RN also has units of the Med (and or Home) fleets in the area.

• No U-boats are available to avoid the danger of friendly fire.  

• Land based are is unlikely but possible (long range) for both sides.  Carrier based air may be available.

• Seriously disabled ships will likely be sunk by U-boats (if RN) or air and surface forces (if KM).

Kreigsmarine Victory Condition Priorities

1. Avoid damage to the heavy ships (CAs and above).
2. Stop the convoy from getting through.
3. Sink enough RN ships to give it a bloody nose and gain bragging rights.

Royal Navy Victory Condition Priorities

1. Get the convoy through (mostly) intact.
2. Sink the KM heavy ships.
3. Avoid losses to RN ships.

To encourage aggression, if both sides achieve their #1 priority (i.e. the KM runs away) the RN wins a major victory.  Naval Armageddon leading to no ships afloat on either side leads to a draw - the Germans win short term by preventing the convoy from getting through but the Brits win long term as they can have less German surface units to worry about and can reallocate forces.

We'll let Curt run the RN, Sylvain the KM, Stacy take a role on either side as seems fit and I'll act as ump, heckler and source of random annoyances.  I'll also run the Green forces (to use the Grant Teaser term) - i.e. the merchantmen and any land based air.

Sound good?

With MacDuff to the North West Frontier

This Friday night we are planning a NWF frontier game.  Here's the sit rep and map from Charles S Grant's Scenario book (a must have for any miniature gamer).

The rules I am proposing are Ross Mac's "With MacDuff to the Frontier" which can be found on his blog.  A few notes on troop types.

1. British Infantry carry Breech Loading Rifles (BLRs), in this case Martini-Henrys.  They get the +1 for BLR firepower but the range is the same as the MLRs (16", 8" short) as confirmed with Ross.  They also count as Elite.
2. Better Indian infantry (Ghurkas, Piffers etc.) count as British, other Indian infantry aren't as well trained so lose the +1 for firepower and Elite status.  These guys carry Snider BLRs.  
3. Afghan or other Native Regulars carry BLRs but aren't as well trained so don't count the +1.  They might count as militia or regulars depending on the scenario.  They also carry Sniders or equivalents (often surplus British army ones).
4. Pathan or Afghan tribesmen count as irregulars, and carry as mix of weaponry counting as Jezails on average.  They make guns over open fire pits, so get the -1 for inferior equipment.  An evil GM might rank a unit or two as Elite or fanatics, but most are just interested in loot.
5. Imperial Cavalry are regulars and carry carbines (count as MLRs as firepower drill was not great).  Many count as Veteran and lancers obviously carry long pokey things.
6. Mountain guns count as light guns, travel as pack and take a full turn to unpack and set up and prep for fire.
7. Other Imperial artillery counts as rifled (or in some cases smooth bores where forced to improvise older weaponry).  
8. Afghan regular artillery use BLRs (Krupp and Armstrongs that were better than anything the Brits used) or smooth bores.  They get the inferior equipment -1 modifying to shoot.
9. Tribesmen with artillery have smooth bores and get the -1 for inferior equipment.

But it's thin red line of 'eroes when the drums begin to roll....

Reading List - England's Last War Against France

I spend 3 days at the Actuarial Research Conference in Winterpeg last week.  Unusually for a conference it was within driving distance (590kms) so I took a car to save shekels and to give myself added mobility - i.e. hit some games stores and bookstores!  

I picked up some flaming wreckage from Game Knight, since I was so impressed with Curt's for our Tariga convoy game.  Otherwise, there was limited historical stuff but good board game materials available.  Interestingly enough they also have a section of the store devoted to wine and beet making.  Personally I've found that wine and games are offsetting hobbies instead of being complementary - but what ever floats your boat.

Better yet for me was the flagship store for McNally Robinson Canada's largest independent bookstore.    They also believe in combining vices, as they have a very nice restaurant on site!   Find of the day for me was this book, a title I failed to purchase at my local big box last year (and ruing the decision ever since).

I'm only part way through so far, but it looks chock-a-block full of stuff on obscure campaigns and battles (Oran, Dakar, Syria, Madagascar, Casablanca, Algeria...).  There's enough to keep Tim Gow building obscure models and units for months.

Smith gives a really good look at the political background before and during the war.  I also love the title, which sounds like it should be about Waterloo (or Crimea if you're Raglan).

Operation Menace - An Existing Wargame Scenario

As with many things in life, nothing I blog about is very original.   A quick google of "operation Menace wargame scenario" or reasonable facsimile pulls up a "what if" scenario of HMS Renown engaging a Vichy cruiser force as it passes Gibraltar.  It can be found at the Naval Wargames Society page in one of the All Guns Blazing issues here.

WWII Naval - Scenario Ideas

I managed to find a copy of Operation Menace by Arthur J. Marder at the University Library this week.  It's a very interesting and well written account of the failed British and Free French invasion of the Vichy French colony at Dakar, Senegal.  This was one of Mr. Churchill's pet projects and the theory was that the French would welcome De Gaulle with open arms (unfortunately no one seems to bother checking with the French on this one).

Churchill's productions like those of Shakespeare tend to be either tragedies or farces, and luckily for the Allies Dakar was much more of the farce variety being a comedies of errors and falls from Day 1.  It had many of the elements of the Shakespearean farce - assumed identities (at one point it was intended to dress the Royal Marines in french uniforms), mistaken identities, wild goose chases and mislaid messages (costing a British Admiral to be sacked as a scapegoat).  Unfortunately it didn't have the denouement of having the entire cast meet up by accident in the town square and working out all their difficulties!

The main event was a shore bombardment resisted by naval forces, shore batteries and land based air.  Unlike the attack at Mers-El-Klebir the Vichy (which is rather like shooting fish in a barrel), the Vichy were ready and gave a good account of themselves.  After several days the affair was called off when it became clear that it was going to take a full scale invasion which De Gaulle didn't want.  The most serious damage were likely the bruised egos, reputations and prestige of the British and De Gaulle.  However, HMS Resolution was damaged by a Vichy submarine and about half the air fleet was lost.

Here's a quick run down of the forces available

Royal Navy

• 2 battleships HMS Barham and HMS Resolution
• 1 carrier HMS Ark Royal
• 4 county class cruisers
• 2 WWI vintage D-class light cruisers
• 9+ destroyers

Vichy

• 1 battleship Richelieu incomplete, damaged and immobile
• 3 modern 6" gunned cruisers
• 3 super-destroyers plus one regular destroyer
• 3 submarines
• coast defence batteries

In the air the Ark flew 30 Swordfish and (wait for it) 21 Skuas the goofiest airplanes flown by the FAA during WW2.  Opposing them were about 20 P-40 Warhawks and the same number of Marylands.
I'm sure that Tim Gow can supply the air power in correct markings, and the naval toys are readily available from GQ.

Land forces were Royal Marines and Foreign Legionnaires vs Senegalese troops.  The allies had no artillery other than naval support, but apparently had French tanks on the transports.  As an aside I've always been amused by the term Free French.  Given that most of their soldiers were either FFL or colonial units, it seems to be that they were neither particularly free nor French!