U-Boats Off Messina

Based on a recommendation in the 'Torpedoes & Tides' rules I picked up a copy of Pat Hreachmack's 'Clear The Coast', which is a collection of over 30 WW2 small ship action scenarios, many of which are adaptable as scenarios for T&T. At our club the other weeks we'd been discussing how submarines might fit into the game. Given the small time-scale of the actions the answer is really 'they mostly wouldn't', but one of the scenarios in 'Clear The Coast' features them, and I thought I'd have a go at adapting it.

Of course the first thing I needed was a couple of submarines. Theses were made in a hurry, and I want to redo them at some stage although you all know that I will probably never get around to it. 

So it's the night of 12/13th July 1943, and two U-boats are slipping through the Straights of Messina between Sicily and Italy, heading south. They are on the surface, but once they clear the narrows they can submerge.

But with Germans ships slipping through the straights on a regular basis, the British are waiting for possible targets. Three Vosper MTBs are lurking in the darkness.

OK, here's the scenario.

British - three Vosper 73' MTBs. These are MTB 81, MTB 77 and MTB 84 (see rules for stats)
German - Two U-boats (U 375, U 561). I'll post their stats below.

All crews on both sides are Q3.

The board is 60cm x 80cm (if using 50/80/120mm sticks). Short edges are North and South. The east edge is coast. Aside from that there is no terrain or mines. There is a partial moon to the South*.

All vessels start on blinds.

U-561 starts with its rear edge against the northern edge of the board, 1D3 x L from the East edge. U-375 is 1 x M directly in front of it.

One British MTB starts 1D3 x L from the western edge and 1D3 x L from the eastern edge facing West. The other boats are placed each side of it facing West and 1xS away (so they are in line-abreast).

Roll for initiative.

And that's it. I haven't worked out VPs for it, but obviously the British are trying to sink one or both U-boats, whilst the Germans are trying to get them both off the South edge with no, or minimal, damage. The British mustn't lose any boats. The Germans can only exit via the North or South edges, whilst the British can exit from the North, South or West. However if a boat exists the West edge roll a D6. If it scores equal to or less than the number of hits the boat has taken, then the boat is considered lost to Axis shore defences. Anything hitting the East edge runs aground and is lost. 

Here's how it ended up for me, with the U-Boats heading straight for the British boats. The British got the initiative.

Their line swung around to investigate the contacts, and immediately spotted U-375. 

U-375 fired a starshell at the British blinds ...

... and this enabled U-561 to spot and fire at one of the British boats (MTB 413 in this scenario. My boats have fixed labels and I wasn't changing them). The shot, from an 88mm deck-gun, came close but not close enough. 

MTB 413 swung around and fired torpedoes at the lead U-Boat, but missed.

(After playing my campaign it was exciting to have 73' boats with four torpedoes!)

Distinctly unorchestral manuevers in the dark, as everyone's activation rolls failed dismally.

U-561 fired again, and a shell smashed the bridge of MTB 430. 

The U-boats began to head south as fast as they could go. MTB 413 lined up another shot. It was at the stern of U-375, but at least the target was silhouetted against the moon. That was enough. BOOM! The U-boat began to sink, and not voluntarily. 

MTB 413 now had no torpedoes left but closed with U-561 looking to supress the gun-crews and make it easier for the other two British boats to make their torpedo attacks. MTB 430 was suffering obvious difficulties from its damage, but MTB 414 was now coming up after having lost contact with the action earlier. 

Another near miss as U-561 kept up a steady fire. 

However fire from MTB 430 caused the German crew to dive for cover. MTB 414 made its approach. But the German crews were still fighting hard, and managed to score a hit on the approaching MTB. The British boat caught fire. 

As the fire reached the bridge the captain ordered the torpedoes fired. Through the smoke and flames they were overjoyed to see the second U-boat heel over and start to sink.

So both U-boats were sunk. The British suffered bridge hits and light damage on two boats, with one of them also having fire damage as well. Overall it was a pretty successful attack for the MTBs though.

Here's the stats I used for the U-Boats:

Q3 C3 - Short, Large, Over-Gunned, Large Calibre, Unarmed (Stern), Secondary Armament (C1)

These are boats with a 88mm gun on the front deck. In fact around July 1943 these were being removed in favour of more AA-guns abaft the conning tower. The original scenario states that it's not clear if either of the German boats had had this refit. The author suggests maybe rolling a 50/50 chance for each boat. With the refit the stats would be:

Q3 C3 - Short, Large, Under-Gunned

Note: In theory a sub should also have the Torpedoes trait, but within the context of any scenarios likely to feature one I think they're probably irrelevant. Add them as you wish. 

So what happened historically? The two sides discovered each other when U-375 almost collided with MTB 81. MTB 81 realised there were two German boats present and got in a torpedo shot at he second, U-561, sinking it. The other two MTB chased after U-375. One had a torpedo misfire and the other simply missed. U-375 submerged and escaped.

*The scenario says a partial moon, but doesn't specify the direction. I used THIS SITE to determine its direction. 

Treasure Hunt

Three of us played Fjord Serpents last night. We tried the Salvage scenario, and adapted the initiative sequence for three players. Each of us had one big snekkja and one small karvi.

Here's my ships set up. 

Terrain was two islands towards the edges of the board and one shipwreck in the centre. The islands had one loot counter each, whilst the wreck had lots. In the background Ralph's ships head towards the wreck. Caesar and I sent our little karvis to the islands for a quick pickup. Our snekkajs headed for the centre. I could see that Caesar was aiming form my snekkja with the intention to board, so I raised the sails and sped away from him 

I passed alongside Ralph's karvi.

Caesar rammed it and initiated boarding, with his berserkers to the fore, led by a hero. The hero dies in the first round of combat.

Ralph was collecting loot. I ran aboard his snekkja with mine, looking to capture it and take the loot he had collected. 

A couple of long fights ensued. Caesar slowly whittled down the crew of Ralph's karvi with weight of numbers. Meanwhile Ralph and I saw our snekkjas locked in a stalemate of a fight, with neither side inflicting much in teh way of casualties. My hero sang heroic songs and inspired his crew, but couldn't translate all that work into actual hits. Ralph's hero let his crew fight and simply repaired damage. 

Eventually Caesar took Ralph's karvi. And Ralph scored some hits on my crew. But at that moment my karvi came up in support ...

... and we had to end the evening. Caesar and Ralph had both collected a fair bit of loot each, but Caesar looked set to wait for the fight between Ralph and I to end before swopping in and taking stuff off the victor. 

It was all good clean fun, although the lack of frequency with which we play this game meant that we still had to look a lot of stuff up. The rules are a little unclear in places, and the mechanisms for combat, whilst clever, do take a bit of time to get your head around. 

It was nice to have a break torpedo boats for an evening.

The Adventures Of Harvey Knight - 10

The 12th MTB flotilla was soon out on another patrol, heading for one of its hunting grounds off the coat of France. Knight's MTB 413 was accompanied by Orion James' MTB 430 and the green crew of Lennox Dean's MGB 91. This would be good experience for both Harvey Knight's and Dean's crew.

But as they approached the French coast an ominous shape was spotted in the darkness. Heading straight at them, making no attempt to hide on its approach, was a German destroyer!

The British boats poured on the speed as the destroyer closed with frightening rapidity. 

And then opened fire.

With two green crews the British escape was disorganised. So disorganised that whilst my brain told me that one boat was MTB 430 and that another was MGB 91, I actually swapped them over in terms of models. Which is my way of saying that in the following pictures the part of MTB 430 will be played by MGB 91, and vice versa. 

Anyway, the destroyer kept firing and a hit on Knight's MTB 413 damaged the engines. There was little changes of outrunning teh big German vessel now. 

Dean's MGB 91 was ordered to run for it as it had little hope of damaging the destroyer. Meanwhile Orion James brought MTB 430 round to engage the destroyer with torpedoes, hopefully buying the damaged MTB 413 time to escape.

Torpedoes away! But they missed. 

The destroyer continued to engage Knight's boat as he sought cover in a patch of mist. 

A near miss on MTB 430, but no damage. 

The destroyer was fast, and was soon ahead of MTB 413, blocking its escape. Knight turned sharply away and headed away from the German vessel, trying to buy time. Maybe he could line up a torpedo run of his own. 

Orion James came up again. He had no torpedoes, but he did have an reasonably experienced crew and some depth-charges. In desperation he sped towards the German vessel. It fired at him, and a fire started on the little MTB. Putting the helm over James attempted to pass teh destroyer's bow and drop depth-charges as he did so. 

The manuever failed, and the little boat was run down by the destroyer and smashed to pieces. Amazingly most of teh crew survived, clinging to life-rafts. But the impact had badly damaged the bows of the destroyer as well. MTB 430's sacrifice might yet not be in vain.

The damaged destroyer kept up its aggressive attack on Knight's limping MTB 413. And it was inevitable that the frantic dodging and weaving ... 

... would lead to another collision. Knight's boat was now seriously damaged, whilst the destroyer escaped unharmed. But Knight had depth charges too.

Despite its damage Knight pulled his stricken boat past the destroyer and fired off charges as he did so. They hit, and the already damaged destroyer began to list and sink. 

There was no hope of continuing with the night's patrol. Knight coaxed MTB 413 over to the remains of MTB 430 and picked up the survivors (Orion James among them), and then headed for a rendezvous with MGB 91 and the trip home. 

Knight's reputation didn't improve off the back of this encounter. Yes, he was praised for sinking an enemy destroyer, but it came at the loss of yet another MTB, as well as the serious damage done to his own boat. And things got worse. The repair crews were already stretched and whilst they got MTB 413's engines back into working order they were unable to do little more in the way of repairs. And in addition there were no replacement boats available for MTB 430 or MTB 418. On the plus side, James' crew were recovered so they wouldn't lose their accumulated experience, and all of the boats picked up valuable experience as well. However the 12th MTB Flotilla was now down to one functioning MTB, with a second badly damaged and two others waiting to be replaced. For the next mission they would be relying on the two MGBs. 

The Adventures Of Harvey Knight - 9

After his escape from France, Harvey Knight was keen to get out on the sea again. He had a new boat and a mostly new crew, so they needed experience. And the same was true of two of his other boats. So supported by Stewart's MTB 414, Knight took out his own MTB 413 and Lennox Dean's now green MGB 91 on the next patrol.

Lurking off  the French coast they came across a small convoy - two transports and three escorts. They approached it under the cover of an offshore island and some fog. The escorts, already suspicious, turned towards the approaching British.

The convoy was moving rapidly down the coast, so Knight ordered all boats to attack at full speed. They immediately spotted the first escort - a destroyer!

The second escort was an R-boat. Stewart pushed forward, aiming to get a fix on one or both transports. 

The German destroyer sped up to avoid being torpedoed by Knight's boats and, with the R-boat, engaged MTB 414. Amazingly neither of the German ships scored a hit.

With the destroyer up-moon, Knight tried the best torpedo shot he could get on the destroyer , but missed. 

(German destroyers are C2, so are very hard to hit with torpedoes.)

Stewart identified a transport in the convoy, but couldn't get a line with his torpedoes, so contented himself by shooting at it. It had no effect.  The destroyer engaged him with its big guns, but missed once again. 

Stewart saw a chance to torpedo the freighter. With the destroyer still shooting at him, this would be his only chance. 

His torpedoes missed. 

Both British MTBs had fired off their torpedoes and, with teh destroyer in play, it didn't seem safe to hang around and try to use gunnery to sink a transport. The British turned for home. 

What of MGB 91 you ask? Dean had been bringing it around the rear of the convoy through the fig. But now he joined his SO in turning for home.

The third escort - a KFK - fired some parting shots as the British sped away. The destroyer was turning to pursue as well, but had to avoid colliding with the R-boat and the transports. 

And so the British disappeared into the night. 

Neither side had taken any damage, and the British hadn't sunk anything. But two crews had survived a close encounter with a destroyer on their first mission, so it was good experience for them. 

Obviously Harvey Knight didn't see any improvement in his reputation off the back of this encounter, but two crews picked up a little experience. Disappointed by his crews' failure to hit anything with torpedoes he organised some additional training in that area, but the green crews didn't really benefit from it. 

It would take at least one more mission to get the crews to a state Harvey would be happy with. 

More Ships

In the past week I have been spending odd moments doing some more vessels for Torpedoes & Tides. And here they are.

At the back are two British minesweepers. The designs are based on the Halcyon class, but the stats in the game cover a range of other vessels too, so I didn't get too wound up in trying to mimic one particular class of vessel. In front of them is another Siebelfahre. I started this with the first batch but wasn't quite sure how to finish it off. It's an up-gunned escort with 88mm guns.

In front of the all are two markers for rescue scenarios. I've been reading about air/sea rescue operations in WW2, and came across refuge buoys. These were developed early on by the Germans and then later used by the British. I made a German one and British one to use as markers when you find the downed airmen. 

Here's the British minesweepers in closeup. 

And a comparison with the German M 1935 class. I'm wondering how a game featuring minesweepers and destroyers would play out under these rules. 

The Siebelfahre. Not desperately exciting, but it adds a potentially nasty escort option - a shallow-draft vessel with a big gun. 

My Siebelfahre flotilla - three transports, one flak escort and one 88mm flak escort. 

The rescue buoys. The smaller one represents a German Rettungsboje. Around 50 of these were anchored in the English Channel in 1940. They contained bunks for four people, as well as supplies, a cooking stove and apparently even books and boardgames. Flags and lights were used to indicate that they were occupied and the German air/sea rescue services would check them every few days. Airmen and seafarers of both sides made use of them, although obviously any Allied servicemen found were made POWs. The striped one is a British Air-Sea Rescue float. Bigger than the German float it had bunks for six. Sixteen of them were made and moored along the routes bombers took too and from Europe. 

A British MTB checks out a German buoy, just to give you an idea of size.