French Loose at Naval Thunder... Again

After having found  an old draft a previous naval game on my blog, I finished it up and posted the game on our gaming group's Facebook page.  Seeing the post, Stu asked when we were running our next naval game.  As it turns out, it was this weekend.

John and Stu measure the distance between

Derrik ponders on the British fleet.  From left to right, Robby's squadron, Derrek's squadron and Stu's squadron.

John Plotting his ship movements

Stu happily clutches the SSD of the French Battleship Richelieu after inflicting a magazine explosion on the Red Eminence.  Robby is less than impressed in the background. 

Stu holds up the SSDs of Richelieu and Strasbourg after having sunk the ships.

Andy claims the only French victory of the day - the battleship Alsace sinking the heavy cruiser HMS London.  Andy's glee is a function of scoring a kill as well as seeing the French get royally clobbered.

 

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.

An incident in the Gulf of Tonkin...

Today was a quiet day at the HRGG.  Of course with Christmas coming up soon, many had other places to be on a Saturday morning... but that did not stop a few of us to make it down to the library and game out a fictional clash between the French and the Japanese.

A one-on-one duel between HMS Canada (far end) and SMS König (near end)

Whilst waiting for the others to arrive, Andy and I decide to play a quick one-on-one duel between HMS Canada (Andy) and SMS König using my Figurehead 1/6000 scale minis.  The two ships steamed towards each other with Canada opening fire first thanks to it's larger 14 inch guns. At long range the Canada hit an unlikely number of critical hits, including a heavy flooding and and engine room hit.  Needless to say, with superior range and speed, the Canada was able to quickly open the range and pound the König to the bottom the the sea. Despite being of the loosing end, it was a fun mini-game and it shows the importance that range and speed can play in a one on one game.

Now, with that out of the way, it was time for the baptism of fire for my brand new GHQ French light ships.  Since for obvious reasons France did not build ships from 1940 to 1945, it was decided that the battle would feature exclusively Treaty ships.  (* denotes ships built after 1940, but was used for the battle due to limited number of suitable models.)

Glenn looks over his SSDs whilst pondering a strategy.

 

Order of battle: 

1. French
1. Task-force Andy
1. CA Algérie 
2. DD Fantasque
3. DD Terrible (Fantasque class)
2. Task-force Martin
1. CA Foch (Suffren Class)
2. DD Épée (Hardi Class)
3. DD Fleuret (Hardi Class)
4. DD Lansequenet(Hardi Class)
2. Japanese
1. Task-force Bear
1. CA Myoko (Nachi Class)
2. DD Akizuki*
3. DD Teruzuki* (Akizuki Class)
2. Task-force Glenn
1. CA Kako (Furutaka Class)
2. DD Asashio 
3. DD Kagero 
4. DD Shiranui (Kagero Class)

The Japanese steam towards the enemy...

with Bear unaware that his lead destroyer is in reverse :-)

Both sides started the game my steaming directly for the enemy with Andy squaring off against Bear and me squaring off against Glenn. 

French turn to present their broadsides to the enemy... and they need to roll 14+

As the ships close, the Japanese are surprised that the French out-ranged them.  Prior to the game, all players were able to inspect the SSDs of the opposition, however since they saw the Japanese out-range the US, they thought that it would be the same case with the French. The French players rubbed their hands in glee as they saw the enemy ships enter extreme gun range of the heavy cruisers... until we do the math and realize that we would need to roll 14s. The system goes up to 13, and so the shot is impossible.   

Andy plotting his movement and Bear looks on smugly assured in the invincibility of his ships

As the ships close, Andy and Glenn are frustrated by their inability to hit the enemy ships, while me and Bear hit the enemy with some regularity.  (A quick note, Andy and I were sharing the same dice)

My destroyers get ready to split the Japanese line...

And the aftermath at the end of the turn.  No more Japanese on this side of the board.

  

As we continue to close, I see an opportunity to split the Japanese line and take it.  By the end of the turn all of Glenn's ships are sinking to the bottom of the sea. 

Bear moving his ship in the unenviable position of facing 2 heavy cruisers

Since my cruiser was in better shape than Andy's, I go to trade broadside to broadside with Bear and Andy crosses the T.  Unfortunately, Bear rolls a lucky salvo and ends up sinking my cruiser, and Andy has an unlucky salvo since none of his dice is higher than a 5.  On the other hand, my three wounded destroyers finish off Bear's final destroyer. 

Start of the final turn's Gunnery phase.  4 French ships to 1 Japanese Ship.

With the ships damaged and bloodied, Andy and Bear go broadside to broadside, and simultaneously sink each other.  (When did  I write that before...)

So the end result is the French have 1 undamaged destroyer and 2 damaged destroyers.  On the other hand, the Japanese have no ships afloat.  This was a good game, but this game goes to show how vulnerable Treaty cruisers are when facing each other.  I can't wait to get more games of this system next year.