Saturday, April 12, 2014

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!

6 comments:

  1. I am very pleased that you and your group enjoyed my DARDANELLES games. It sounds as if the players did the right things to do as well as they did.

    All the best,

    Bob

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    1. It was a lot of fun and worked well as a group participation game. I realized after the fact that I should have been higher allowances for them being spotted, which have might affected the results. But they had a good run of dumb luck and smart choices.

      I remember taking the submariner's role back in the day when this was a magazine article and Ross Mac acted as GM. I seem to recall sinking a transport and getting out quick.
      Do I remember similar games about the H L Hunley or Bushnell's turtle? Or is my rememberer faulty?
      Cheers
      PD

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  2. I ran this game with my playing group many years ago when it first came out in the magazine.

    One player couldn't find the entrance at all and another died through lack of oxygen.

    It was good fun.

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  3. It was a nice little scenario - thanks for putting it on. I quite liked the quasi-RPG/kriegspiel aspect that it had.

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    1. I do think it works best with a group so that the players can sound out the various options.
      Cheers, PD

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    2. Sound out: 'Give me one ping Vasili. One ping only...'

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