Convoy Attack

Daniel and I played Torpedoes & Tides last night. Once again it was an attack on a convoy. Daniel took the German convoy, consisting of three freighters and a trio of escorts.

To make things interesting, I drew up a table of potential escorts and assigned playing cards to them. Daniel drew 3 cards at the start of the game, keeping them secret, then assigned each one to a blind.

Ace	Kriegsfischkutter (KFK)
2	Kriegsfischkutter (KFK)
3	Raumboot (R-Boat)
4	Raumboot (R-Boat)
5	Raumboot (R-Boat)
6	Raumboot (R-Boat)
7	Siebelfahre
8	Small Vorpostenboot
9	Small Vorpostenboot
10	Small Vorpostenboot
J	Medium Vorpostenboot (On a 5-6 it has an 88mm gun)
Q	S-Boat
K	Minensuchboot 1935 Klasse

In this way I had no idea what escorts I'd be up against, although when spotting blinds you get to know if the target is small, medium or large (because it affects the roll).

I had four attacking vessels: two Vosper MTBs and a pair of BPB gunboats to provide cover. The moon was full and over the coast, so I lurked out at sea down-moon of the convoy and waited.

My first moves were to send in the gunboats to identify the freighters and draw off the escorts. In the darkness MGB 91 bumped into a Kriegsfischkutter and came under fire. 

A small Vorpostenboot was quickly revealed as well. The third escort stayed on its blind and started to work around the convoy aiming for the British rear. I ignored it. 

The British attack was sluggish, with both MGBs moving cautiously and the MTBs waiting in the darkness for a suitable gap. MGB 91 continued to come under fire from the escorts.

Daniel was actively moving the transports away from the action, and with two of them still on blinds they were going quickly. So I had to act. I sent in my lead MTB and launched a torpedo at the revealed freighter. It missed. 

A lot of vessels were now revealed and the British were ready to pile on the speed, outrun the escorts and take on the transports. On the right of the picture the third escort lurked in a patch of fog. 

But the fickle hand of fate intervened. I cheered when, as I passed by the escorts, Daniel rolled activation failures and spared me from running a gauntlet of fire. I cheered with delight. 

I then proceeded to roll three ones for the activation of my lead boat, leaving my whole force floundering. In addition, because of their close proximity and the fact that even inactive vessels still move, three of my boats were involved in collisions; two with each other and one with the KFK. Nothing escaped undamaged. 

Daniel is never going to let me forget it. 

So most of my boats were damaged, I was taking fire (and more damage) and I'd failed to damage anything in return. My second torpedo boat (that hadn't collided with anything) sped forward and had launched a spread of torpedoes at the revealed freighter. They also missed. 

I closed up and resorted to gunfire. Even that didn't hit. One freighter had almost escaped and another was still on its blind. One of my MGBs was shot up by the Verpostenboot and battered. It turned for home. 

On the plus side I'd managed to break away from the escorts for now, and could focus on the freighter. It remained undamaged, despite the fire I poured into it. 

The escorts closed up and an MTB took a hit from the Verpostenboot which damaged its engines. 

My SO's boat still had one torpedo left. It closed up on one of the other freighters, revealing it and launched the last torpedo in my force. 

It hit! But whilst it scored heavy damage it didn't sink the freighter. An MTB closed up and two British boats began to rake the freighter with gunfire. 

It took a lot of firing, but eventually the freighter heeled over and sank. 

Unfortunately in the confusion the SO's boat mistook the MGB for an escort and fired on that as well!

In the foreground the other MTB was limping for home, under fire from three German escorts (for the final escort had revealed itself as a R-boat).

With all vessels damaged, no torpedoes left and the escorts closing fast the British headed for home.

The British got all four boats home and didn't bring back any torpedoes. They sank one freighter. They were all damaged, one seriously. 

The Germans got two freighters off the table. One escort had taken light damage from the collision. 

So Daniel had a convincing win. 

I did realise this morning that, as a last resort, I could have resorted to using depth charges on one of the other freighters, but I'm not sure how successful I'd have been. Lady Luck was not with me last night. 

The hidden escorts rule worked out well, and I'm looking at creating something similar for solo games where you randomly determine the size of a vessel on a blind as an attempt is made to spot it, then determine what it actually is once it's revealed.