Monday 25 January 2016

Dawn breaks over the Skagerrak

 Following on from the previous Herring War encounter (see this earlier post), as dawn broke the fleets were again in contact.  For this quick game Jerry played the Danes while I commanded the Norwegians.  The 'rules' were a slightly developed version of the single page we used last week.
Above can be seen the Danes appearing from the East (right) with a battleship, cruiser, and two TBs.  The Norwegian coast defence battleship has appeared from the South, accompanied by a small armed freighter.  In the NE corner can be seen a pair of Norwegian freighters heading West while three TBs have just arrived from that direction.


 Frantic manouevering soon began...
 The DA ships were clearly trying to 'sandwich' the NO battleship, while the latter had shielded it's TBs from DA gunfire.  Shells were soon landing close to the DA cruiser...
 The gunnery range in use again.  Pete was dragged away from setting up his own game to try it out.
 A hit on the NO battleship - happily the '1' meant it was a dud.  Don't buy your ammo from Masden!
 By now things were really hotting up!  The two hits on the distant DA cruiser resulted in it losing it's remaining guns and reduced to half speed. Meanwhile the NO TBs sail on through a hail of fire!
 The gunnery range.  The number of target sized has expanded from three to five to cope with a wider range of situations.
 The final reckoning.  While the Danes blazed away at them, my TBs got close enough to each loose off a pair of torpedoes.  All six hit...but four of them were duds.  A stiff letter has been sent to Whiteheads...
 As it happened, the remaining two were enough.  A double '1' rolled by an armoured ship causes a massive internal explosion and total loss.  Yes, just like the double '1'1 in the photo...
 As the Danes detonated we resolved their gunfire....
...which sank two of my TBs.  Still, not a bad rate of exchange!

2 comments:

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Looks a very cool nautical endeavor :)

Tim Gow said...

Geordie
It kept us happy - and I've decided that the game will make a COW session this year.