Mers-el-Kébir with the French at Sea

So on Saturday we had a short playing session at the library due to other conflicting obligations.   So since we had just a bit of time, we decided to play a twist on the British sinking the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir.  In order to speed up the scenario, we ignored the British aircraft carrier as well as all of the destroyers on both sides.  This left the players with:

• British (Rear Admiral Marty)
• Battleship Squadron
• HMS Hood (Admiral Class)
• HMS Valiant (Queen Elizabeth Class)
• HMS Resolution (Revenge Class)
  
• Light Squadron
• HMS Arethusa (Arethusa Class)
• HMS Enterprise (Emerald Class)
• French (Contre-amiral Kevin)
• Modern Division (Dunkerque Class)
• Dunkerque
• Strasbourg
• Old Division (Bretagne Class)
• Bretagne
• Provence

Kevin chose the French since he thought that he could redeem his performance from last week in which he lost two battleships and two battlecruisers in exchange for a North Carolina class.  Once again, we chose to use the L shaped table configuration because the extreme range of the Dunkerque's guns is 80 inches and we felt that this would permit some pre-contact manoeuvring. 

British Deployment with HMS Arethusa leading HMS Enterprise on the right and HMS Valiant leading HMS Resolution and HMS Hood.

Strasbourg leading Dunkerque on the far side and Bretagne leading Provence on the near side.

Kevin looking over his SSDs in order to maximize the effectiveness of his task force.

 

As the ships approach contact, the British light cruisers lay down a smoke screen in order to help protect the outnumbered battleships.

Kevin finds the smoke to be vexing, and measures the range to the light cruisers.

The French are out-ranging the Brits by a substantial margin (80" to 60").  Therefore the British light cruisers create a smoke screen in order to protect the more valuable capital ships.  These actions proptly made the cruisers a target in the eyes of the French and many poorly paraphrased lines from Scotty were uttered every time the HMS Enterprise was hit.

Kevin is turning his battlecruisers to face Albion's battleships, accepting that at this range it would be better to be a harder target to hit and suffer the armour penalty if hit.

As the Brits fire off their first salvo, one hit is recorded, and the result was a main battery hit on the Strasbourg.  Since the French turrets had a 60mm steel partition between the two half of the turret, we decided to give the French player a 6+ save to see if he would loose the entire turret of 4 guns or just half the turret, leaving it 2 guns.  In this case, Kevin failed the save, and the whole turret was lost...or so we thought.  It was pointed out that the British hit should not have counted since the British player forgot to add the +1 for crossing the T.  With this new modifier, the roll to hit failed, and the Strasbourg's turret reappears as if by magic.

The smoke screen from the light combatants.

Kevin sinks the two light cruisers... The smoke lingers on

In the next turn the French succeed in sinking the British light cruisers and the British score a main battery destroyed on the Dunkerque. 

The French fleet as night falls.

The Final position, and the peanut gallery looks on.

So we had to call this game earlier that usual.  In the final tally the French only had minor structural damage on the Dunkerque and the British lost both light cruisers.  So we called it as minor French victory.

The Battle to Determine the name of Chips: French Fries or Freedom Fries

It looks like so far my blog is only posting the games in which John is absent.  This is not my intention, but it looks like that because it's been a while since I've played at the HRGG when John is there.  Regardless, today John had a great reason for not gaming... picking up his wife from the hospital. (Good luck on your recovery Beth.)


So today we decided to break out my new WW2 French fleet and since we didn't have any Italians ships any of our collections or any painted Brits (I'm working on them, but they aren't fully painted yet), we decided to get a little tong-in-cheek and picked the Americans - hence the title of the post. 

Kevin surveys the American fleet from the French table corner

•  French Order of battle
• Task-force Baguette (Vice-amiral Kevin)
• Battleship Division (All Richelieu Class)
• BB-15 Richelieu
• BB-16 Jean Bart
• Battlecruiser Division (All Dunkerque Class)
• BB-13 Dunkerque
• BB-14 Strasbourg
• Task-force Brie (Contre-amiral Martin)
• Museum Division (All Bretagne Class)
• BB-5 Bretagne
• BB-6 Provence
• BB-7 Lorraine
• Cruiser Division
• CA Algérie
• CA Colbert (Suffren Class)
• CA Montcalm (La Galissonnière Class)
• American Order of battle
• Task-Force Burger (Rear-Admiral Andy)
• Battleship Division
• BB-60 Alabama (South Dakota Class)
• BB-56 Washington (North Carolina Class)
• Cruiser Division (All Baltimore Class)
• CA-72 Pittsburgh
• CA-69 Boston
• Task-Force Bagel (Commodore Deric)
• Battleship Division
• BB-39 Arizona (Pennsylvania Class)
• BB-41 Mississippi (New Mexico Class)
• Cruiser Division
• CA-68 Baltimore
• CL-51 Atlanta

French deployment from Left to Right:  Battleship Division, Battlecruiser Division, Museum Division and Cruiser Division

American deployment from top to bottom: Bagel Battleships, Burger Battleships, Burger Cruisers and Bagel Cruisers.

The game started with both fleets ordering full steam ahead.  It becomes obvious in a few turns that the older ships can't keep up with the more modern ships, and this will have disastrous consequences later on.

Kevin mesuring out the 80 inch range of his Battlecruiser's main guns.  Unfortunately he is half an inch short - much to Deric's glee. 

The game starts promisingly for the French scoring multiple extreme range hits against the older American battleships and the Americans unable to respond back due to the shorter range of their guns.

French fleet sailing at full speed.  Note the Bretagne Class ships falling behind.

View from the American ships from the french position.  Battleships are closer and cruisers at the back.  Older battleships are also falling behind.

As the ships close the Mississippi decides to ignore the battleships to her 10 o'clock and decides to pound the cruisers.  Algérie was first to feel the wrath of the Mississippi and was the only cruiser to survive 2 turns. 

The battle lines are closing, and the cruisers are sinking. 

As the ships closed the range,a few things became apparent:  

1. Radar fire-control has gives the Americans an strong advantage in all but extreme range. 
2. Kevin's decision to pile on two ships on each lead ship in order to "Sink a ship instead of leaving 2 wounded ships"
3. The French fast and light rounds and American's stronger armour made the American ships much more survivable than their French counterparts.  
4. 16 inch guns are brutal, and massively outclass the Richelieu's 15s

The four modern French battleships form lines of battle.  The three WW1 vintage ships are so far back that they are out of frame.

The Richelieu gets pounded by the 16" guns of the Alabama and looses both it's main turrets and all secondary turrets.  In order to save the hull, Kevin orders the ship out of the line.   

The Jean Bart pounds the Alabama into rapidly sinking scrap.  The Arizona and the Mississippi pound on the Dunkirques. 

The older American ships turn their attention to the Dunkirques, and the their armour is insufficient to stop the onslaught of heavy American shells, and they rapidly join the Alabama into a race to the abyssal depths.

The final position of the battle.  By the end of this turn, all modern French battleships are sunk and the French concede to forevermore eating Freedom Fries. 

During the last turn before we called the game, the heavy cruisers delivered the coup-de-grâce the Richelieu with extreme range fire and the floating museum ships finally got into range and scored a few good hits against the Mississippi.  However, since the ships were outclassed in speed, armour and guns they were still facing long odds even if they were unhurt.   The Washington was at just over 80%, the Mississippi was at about 65% and the Arizona was at 45% and missing one turret.


A few remarks.

• This game could have been closer if the French had played a bit smarter and had not been dazzled by their speed advantage and used the older ships as ablative shielding while using the modern ships to fire at extreme range.
• Our gaming group prefers surface actions and between my collection and Andy's there are 0 aircraft carriers.  However this does lead to some unbalancing in points since the heavier AA complement of the American ships inflate their value in an environment with no air or subs.  

 Anyways, I'm off to eat some Fren...Freedom Fries.