Photos from Recent Air/Sea Game pt 1

I managed to get Sean's photos from last Friday's game.  Sean being an artist by trade and a very good photographer, the quality of the photos is greatly improved over my normal bog standard pickies.  Sadly I have neither the talent, equipment or inclination to match his output.

Sylvain looks Professorial, Conn looks enlightened, I look for my glass of wine!

The RN Admiral looks confident while his convoy and escorts brew smoke screens.

Our host looks smug!

   

The smoke and flames mark where an Italian destroyer blew up from a magazine hit.

  

Action is getting tighter

Flames mark the end of the Italian destroyer (same one as above) plus the end of the Bolzano.

WW2 Naval Game With Air Support

This week I ran a WW2 Naval Game based on a Mediterranean convoy action.  I based it on the Vigorous & Halbard convoys of June 1942,when the Royal Navy's resources were stretched go their thinnest. The actual convoys are described in Vincent P O'Hara's book In Passage Perilous which I highly reccommend.  In June '42, the Italians with some Luftwaffe help stopped both convoys and won a surface action with the Western convoy's escorts.

I beefed up both sides, especially the Brits and included the air support - in the Battle of Panteleria there were air attacks simultaneously with the surface action!  The rules were General Quarters 3.

Forces are shown below.  Curt and Sean took the Italians and Sylvain and Conn the Brits.

 

In addition there were the following air assets ( all on call and arriving randomly except for the CAP flights).

• 2 flights of RAF Hurricanes from Malta providing Combat Air Patrols (CAP)
• 3 flights of Blenheim torpedo bombers from Malta
• 3 flights of Swordfish with fighter support of 2 flights of Fulmars from HMS Eagle
• A group of two blights each of JU87 dive bombers, JU88 bombers and MC200 fighters operating from Sicily
• 3 flights of SM79 torpedo bombers also from Sicily

The surface action wasn't my best effort.  I had the two sides make contact within gun range and on opposite courses, so it turned into a Space Invaders or Micro Armour type shooting gallery with limited tactical maneuvers.  Next time around I'll remember to go with the raiders overhauling the convoy in a stern or quarter chase.

A large part of the exercise was to try the air rules and give me a reason to learn them!  Highlights included:

• The Blenheims came on first.  The Italian destroyer screen shot down 1 flight and chased another off damaged.  However, the third flight torpedoed and sank Bolzano.
• The mixed JU87/JU88/MC200 group came on next, with Sylvain attempting to intercept with the CAP. One flight of Hurricanes took a short cut over the convoy and was shot down by friendly fire from the escorts.  Seriously dude, what part of "Anti-Aircraft Cruiser" don't you get?
• The MCs ganged up and shot down the other Hurricane flight.
• Meanwhile the Luftwaffe went in on the Convoy.  The escort's AA fire was ineffective and one freight went down from a direct hit from a Stuka.  The other Stuka and a JU88 missed a second transport.

At this point we'd hit midnight and I was about to turn into a pumpkin so we called it a night.

Sean took many photos and sent me a link.  I'll post the best in a day or do.

What Are the Odds?

Fridaynight was board game night.  First up was Chariotteer (aka Formula I) run by Curt.  Curt (the bastard) drugged my horses which hobbled my whole race.  It went better than it should have as two teams (Jeremy and Stacey) flipped and crashed out so I finished a close third having lost a bid for first at the post.

For the second game I trotted out Terry Pratchett's the Witches  which was good silly fun.  Link to a review

The box notes that you don't need to know the Discworld series to play the game, and test results show this is this case.  Yep, in a random survey of 4 long time gamers we batted 0/4 on Pratchett.  I wish I knew something about probability so I could work out the odds of that!  I knew it was an odd event when Sylvain asked "why do I know the name Terry Pratchett?".

Anyway for those of you who don't know, Mr Pratchett is the best selling UK writer, the top selling non-US bases writer in the USA and he's bloody good!

I love his books because:

• He's bloody funny and a damn good read.
• He has a better way with words than most others and I'm a lover of puns.
• He creates a better thought out world and characters than most "serious" fantasy writers.
• His books have some very biting no wicked social criticism of religion, politics, money, class and other classic comedy topics.
• He writes about things that relate to what I do for a living (death, money, a academics etc).
• He's bloody funny and a damn good read.

 So if you are one a of few who haven't done so,go read yourself some Pratchett.  I recommend Mort or Going Postal.

Not Dead Yet

It's been a while since I've posted mostly because of a severe case of real life that came up unexpectedly.  August was a blur that saw us dealing first with a kid who came had to give up her summer job on the Atlantic Coast having come down with mono, and then dealing with her toxic roommate situation for the fall college term.  In the end SHMBO and Iflew out to Halifax, backed up one flat, moved  the contents into storage,found a new flat and moved the stuff in.  I had to fly back in the 3rd so that I could teach at 8:30 am on the 4th!  My wife stayed on a week and a half to sort out legal (seriously) issues from the ex-roomie.

Any way all seems settled now and we all seem to have survived.  My daughter's uni term seems to be going well and my students haven't murdered me yet.  

I have had a chance to play a couple of games in September.  Given the wack jobs and stress I dealt in with in August a pleasant evening with sane company would be just the ticket.  Since that wasn't available I opted for gaming with Curt, Sylvain et al.  Curt ran an excellent Chainof Command SCW game featuring a downed Stuka and then it was board game night is week. Next week I'm aiming for doing El Cid.

Come Cheer Up My Lads 'Tis to Glory We Steer

The naval game over at Clint's site http://clint-anythingbutaone.blogspot.ca is heating up and we should see shots fly next turn

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.