The Adventures Of Harvey Knight - 2

The aftermath of Lt Cdr Knight's first mission in command of the flotilla had left him sleepless. That last shot from the Kobold had come so close to destroying his boat and despite the small reputation he had acquired from the attack it had left him feeling he'd been too reckless. After a couple of nights tossing and turning he went to the Medical Officer for something to help him. And it did. By the next mission he felt his old self again - confident and ready to take on the Germans.

The flotilla's next mission was another convoy attack. This time there only seemed to be a couple of escorts so Knight was hoping it would be relatively straightforward. In fact it offered the chance for a bold ambush; the convoy had to work past a series of inlets and Knight was able to place his flotilla in them, ready to ambush the convoy from the landward side. True he's lose the advantage of the moon, but it put the freighters between him and the escorts. A quick attack and then away before the escorts could even respond.

Knight's own boat was still in for repairs, so he transferred his flag to MTB 414 under Lt. Steward. The other boats were MTB 418 (Lt Brian Porter) and MTB 430 (Lt. Orion James).

Lt James came in separately from the other two boats; a risk given his crew's inexperience, but a chance to hit the lead freighter.

The MTBs edged forward in the darkness, but the Germans were suspicious. A small verpostenboot fired a starshell which illuminated their approach, but still failed to spot the attackers. The British found a freighter.

And that's when it went wrong. For some reason the crews of MTB 414 and 418 froze at the moment of attack and both freighters began to move past the optimum position for torpedo attack.

As the British blundered about, the second German escort was revealed - a well armed Siebel ferry, with plenty of light guns. Its opening shots damaged MTB 414. Knight seemed to attract effective gunfire.

By the time the two British boats got it together they were too close to the freighters to launch torpedoes. Stewart's crew managed to damage a freighter with gunfire, but it would take time to sink it by that approach. And the flak ferry was now closing slowly, spitting fire and inflicting more damage on MTB 414.

The freighters turned to avoid presenting their broadside to torpedo attack. This convoy was well- coordinated. The vorpostenboot went after MTB 430, which had been slow in its approach.

Finally some initiative from the British. seeing MTB 430 in danger, Lt. Porter fired up his engines and took his boat in for a torpedo attack on the German escort. With the moon in his favour ...

... it was an easy hit, and the German vessel was sunk.

Lt. Stewart took his boat to teh seaward side of a freighter, but the freighter turned again, throwing off the crew's aim and threatening to collide with the little MTB.

Freed from the danger of the German escort, Lt James in MTB 430 launched torpedoes at the lead freighter, but they went wide.

Only Lt. Steward in MTB 414 had torpedoes left at this stage, and he turned towards the second freighter, which was already under attack from the gunners on MTB 418.

But with activations like this, what were the British to do? Knight ordered all boats to break off and head for home.

So a promising attack had been thwarted by a combination of bad luck and inexperience. At least they flotilla had a small escort sunk to their credit, and only one boat was damaged, so things weren't a total disaster.

Or were they? On the way home, the crews were concerned to see a couple of small grey shapes in pursuit - S-boats!

With his damaged boat Knight resisted the temptation to fight and ordered the boats to pile on speed, hoping to escape the Germans. But the enemy was closing quickly. Lt James in MTB 430 opened fire, with the Germans returning in kind. No damage was inflicted.

Showing great initiative, James laid smoke to cover the escape of the other two boats. The Germans seemed to be put off by this, and floundered in the darkness. Maybe with the element of surprise gone they no longer felt up for a fight. Be that as it may the British escaped.

(This second action was a surprise event that the British were not allowed to avoid. I randomised the start position of the opposing flotillas, with the edge opposite the British deployment being their escape edge. The Germans came on in a position to chase the British, and could have intercepted them, but they rolled some appalling activations after their initial attack and lost momentum.)

So Knight returned home after a mission that initially seemed promising, but had quickly gone wrong. Lt Porter's crew were happy with their sinking of a German escort, though, and organised a celebratory drink at the Speckled Eagle. Knight was happy to join it; he'd been less reckless in this mission, and felt a lot better about himself. Or maybe that was just the beer.

One positive thing was that the repair crews had more capacity for him this time, and his own boat would be available for the next mission. MTB 414 and MGB 103 were still lightly damaged though.  

The Adventures Of Harvey Knight - 1

Thomas has now added a campaign system to Torpedoes & Tides. Since I'm still trying out scenarios and poking around with the rules, it seemed a good way to structure things, so I thought that I would give it a try.

Essentially you play the lead commander of a flotilla of  torpedo boats, and get sent on various patrols and missions, hoping to gain experience and build a reputation.

I generated Lt Cdr Harvey Knight, who leads a flotilla of 72' boats - four torpedo boats and two motor gun boats - on the east coat of England. Not every boat will go on every mission; you need spares.

There's a small cast of characters as well; the other boat commanders, and some personnel back at base, but aside from giving them names you don't need to do anything else at this stage. All of the boat crews start as green; Lt Cdr Knight will have to work hard to bring them up to scratch.

For the first mission the flotilla was tasked with intercepting a convoy off the Dutch coast. Harvey took his own boat, MTB 413, as well as Lt Stewart in MTB 414 and Lt McDonald in MGB 103. The convoy had three small freighters, as well as three escorts, two R-Boats and a Vorpostenboot.

The plan was to attack the tail of the convoy. They quickly spotted a freighter. MTB 414 went in fast, dodged being spotted by an escort and launched both torpedoes at the German vessel.

BOOM! It sunk. 

An R-boat opened fire to no effect.

Lt McDonald in MGB 103 ran alongside the flank of the convoy, looking to pick out the next freighter, so that Lt Cdr Knight in MTB 413 could take that one out with his torpedoes. However the Germans were now thoroughly alerted, and the freighters were piling on all speed to escape, whilst a big Vorpostenboot came into view. The first shot it fired showed that it was well armed with big guns.

(I made some random rolls to determine information about the escorts. This was a nasty thing for the dice to throw up on a first mission. And in Torpedoes & Tides, even slow ships like freighters can crack on if they remain on blinds, so it's vital to spot them as soon as possible in order to force them into 'normal' actions')

Attacking the rear of the convoy had been something of a mistake. The three British boats piled on the speed, but soon lost touch with the other two freighters which disappeared into the night. This just left them dealing with the German escorts.

Another shot at MGB 103 inflicted light damage.

Knight decided that enough was enough and sent the other two boats home. He would stay for one shot at the Vorpostenboot rather than suffer the shame of going home having fired no torpedoes. Unfortunately his attempt to do this was thwarted by McDonald in MGB 103, who laid smoke to cover his exit and blocked Knight's shot.

At this point Knight should have followed his other boats home, but he was now intent on trying to sink the big escort (now identified as the Kobold). However the R-boats were now preventing him getting a clear shot with his torpedoes.

The Kobold opened fire on him as he worked past the smaller craft to line up a run. MTB 413 was lightly damaged.

Torpedoes away! 

They missed, and a confused helm order saw MTB steer not to the port and safety, but to starboard and a dangerous run home right past the Kobold.

Another hit! The Kobold's gunners were shooting well tonight.

MTB 413 was now battered. And at that point the Germans scored yet another hit. But for one the dice were with the British; all damage resolved as suppression; one more proper hit would have sunk the boat and ended Lt Cdr Knight's career (and the campaign) on the first game.

All of the British boats got home, with MGB 103 having suffered light damage and MTB 413 in a very bad way. Going after that escort was a very stupid thing to do.

However they had sunk a freighter and the experience was good for the crew of Stewart's MTB 414. Amazingly Knight's reputation improved as well; the story of his attack on the Kobold somehow ended up showing him in a favourable light, and people had begun to notice him.

Less good was that the repair yard was at capacity, and little work could be done on the two damaged boats, which would be  unlikely to head out on the next mission. Next time Knight would have to hitch a ride on another vessel.

Another Convoy Attack

I set up another test game of Torpedoes & Tides today. I'd promised myself I'd have a go at the False Nose Job scenario (covert operations), but I'd also got a yearning to run the S-Boats in an attack so I ran the convoy scenario again

Here's the vessels involved in a promo shot. The British have an east Coast convoy consisting of three small freighters escorted by two Fairmile B motor launches and an Isle Class armed trawler, HMS Sodor.  The Germans are attacking with three S30 type boats.

As you can see, I've actually painted the ships now!

Here's the convoy on their blinds, heading north with the moon behind them.

The Germans hugged the coastline, planning to attack from the front so as to gain the benefit of the moon. Two boats would run along the coast to take advantage of the cover of the shoreline, whilst one would go directly in from the front to draw away the escorts.

The Germans quickly spotted one of the Fairmiles.

Even better, they found a freighter just beyond it.

The Fairmile moved to cut off the German run along the coast. An exchange of fire saw both vessels damaged.

A second S-boat was spotted, as was HMS Sodor. There was more shooting.

A splash of water off the bow of S-61 indicated that HMS Sodor was ranging in its  3.2" gun. One of the things I wanted to try in this game was the Large Calibre trait for bigger weapons. They get a penalty when shooting at small targets, but score more damage if they hit them.

S-61 launched a torpedo at the lead freighter, but missed. The marker is entirely for photographic purposes; it has no effect on gameplay.

S-47 had been damaged in the early exchange of gunfire with one of the Fairmiles. Spooked by the shooting from HMS Sodor its captain lost his nerve and headed for home.

All of the German vessels were revealed now, as were the escorts.

HMS Sodor scored a hit on S-58, rattling the crew and forcing them to abort their torpedo run on the second freighter (which I hadn't put on the board yet despite it having been spotted).

S-61 launched a second torpedo at the lead freighter ...

... and it hit! The freighter began to sink.

But S-61 hadn't left enough room to turn out of the way, and collided with it. Fortunately the damage was insignificant.

HMS Sodor closed in, its big gun throwing up water but scoring no damage.

The position about halfway through. The Germans have sunk one freighter and S-58 is lining up on one of the others. S-61 is rather too close to HMS Sodor for comfort. S-47 is sauntering along the coat to the right, away from the action. The British escorts now need to turn to keep the Germans under fire.

S-58 fired a spread of torpedoes at the third freighter, but was frustrated to see them both miss. Both of the remaining S-boats would need to reload torpedoes, or rely on gunnery now.

And what of the Fairmile that first engaged the Germans? Its captain ran it aground on the English coast, and we won't be hearing of him again.

Using their superior speed and agility, both S-boats moved away from the escorts and turned their attention to the third freighter. Each reloaded a torpedo as well.

The British had other problems, as HMS Sodor almost ran down the remaining Fairmile.

Would this torpedo hit? The answer was No. 

There were a few minutes of relative inaction, but in that time HMS Sodor had come about and started firing on the S-boats again.

S-61 evaded the trawler and came alongside the second freighter. With no time to load its last torpedo it would have to rely on its guns and a lot of luck.

HMS Sodor scored another hit on S-58, who was now silhouetted by the moon.

The captain of S-58 opted for a bold counter-attack, and ran in fast, launching a torpedo at HMS Sodor. Once again the Germans saw a torpedo miss its target.

The 3.2" gun on the trawler missed as well.

Guns blazing S-58 collided with the trawler, taking damage, but not damaging the enemy vessel.

HMS Sodor's gunners couldn't resist a stricken point-blank range target and quickly sank the German vessel.

HMS Sodor finished the action picking up German survivors.

S-61 kept up a steady fire on the British freighter, but couldn't get a proper hit on it. And now the Fairmile was coming up astern.

The British gunners scored a solid hit on theGerman S-boat

The Germans fired one more burst at the freighter, inflicted no significant damage, and then headed for home.

I called he game there. The second British freighter would be able to leave the table  and the surviving S-boat wasn't going to last long against two escorts whilst trying to head back for the final freighter.

Not a great outing for the Germans, who did manage to sink a freighter (and see a Fairmile go aground), but had one boat flee the fight and another sunk in return.

It's really hard to hit something with torpedoes in this game (or my dice-rolling has been exceptionally unlucky). 

I was really pleased with how the game looked though.