Across the Narrow Seas

 Not having been to the club for a bit, I was keen to try Cruel Seas again with John's scenario.

A mined French harbor, with rare Games Workshop
hills for terrain at the back. German defenders at
top, British attackers to lower right, Axis convoy
to come in at upper right.

Three Motor Gun Boats and three Vosper MTBs.
"Early War," so not a huge range of armament.

Two German "Kriegfishcutters," or picket boats.
Also two R-boats that doubled as minesweepers.

A convoy of Axis freighters was on the way in, and our goal was to sink as many ships as possible.

We only had six dud-prone torpedoes to do it with.

I took the MTBs (right), Mark the MGBs (left). The convoy started off board, so in Turn 1 we just moved forward with a little desultory shooting from 2-pounder and 37mm guns.

On Turn 2, though, the convoy showed up (random die roll for appearance). Another round of light gunfire, while I slowed to launch four torpedoes at the incoming big ships (they need 20cm of run to activate the exploders). The R-boats went for the mines in the entryway farthest from us. One set off a mine and took severe hit-point damage; the other also failed its roll but thankfully it was a dud. 

Closeup on the R-boats.

Germans dealing with the first row of mines.

Fish in the water!

Turn 3, the torpedoes ran 40cm, not quite enough to hit. We shot up the harbor craft some more.

John checks the range as the firing boat
turns to bring its broadside of three machine guns and
a 20mm Oerlikon to bear. Can they even hurt the target?

Turn 4: The torpedo salvo crippled the freighter even though only one went off. (One miss and two duds for the others.)

In exchange, an 88 (!) on the next ship scored a direct hit on my third MTB, which was a) on fire, b) took a rudder hit and c) took 32 points of damage - leaving 3!

Unhappy boat crew on a vinyl sea.

In what I expected to be the boat's last moments, I fired its torpedoes and plastered the tanker in the second line with MG fire, doing 13 points of damage and a bridge hit. Further fire did 24 more damage to the tanker which then (due to the bridge hit leaving it unable to steer) hit the island on its starboard bow. It was also now down to single hit points. Mark had a gunboat take half damage, but his return fire finished off one of the German harbor boats.

A view of the "second line" of the convoy, with the tanker
aiming for the island ahead of it.

K-k-k-k-krunch!!! The R-boats behind are heading
for the mines at upper right.

In Turn 5, my crippled MTB's torpedoes were duds. I spent the turn putting out the fire, but was down to slow movement which, given limited turning at that speed, aimed me either at an island or into point-blank range of enemy fire. The 88 on the following freighter took out another MTB with damage dice alone, with the two crits just icing on the cake. Two more large ships were getting away, but I polished off the stricken tanker by fire (Mark had to leave at this point, but we were down to four operational boats anyway...)

That bloody 88 can be seen amidships of the dazzle-camoed
freighter.

In Turn 6, I sank the third freighter by gunfire (good riddance to the 88) as the R-boats cleared the channel for the fourth to get away. In a characterful but not gamist move, I halted my nearest surviving boat to the cripple with the intention to offload its crew and then run. Unfortunately, this made it vulnerable and one firing phase later, it was in the same situation as the first boat - down to 4HP and with no return fire allowed next turn.

Well, that didn't help.

But at least only one of those convoy ships escaped.

In Turn 7, my surviving boats got off board. End result, the British had managed to interdict the convoy, including crucial oil, and only the smallest ship got into port. We also sank one of the harbor tug-types. In exchange, we lost one MGB sunk, one abandoned, and one which would not be able to escape the board before the vengeful R-boats got through the hole they'd finally made in the second row of mines. Surrender is probably in order. Still, a victory is a victory. 

It occured to me belatedly that smoke would have been really useful to shield my damaged boats, but it didn't matter as the rules for that aren't in the main book we were working from. Ah, well. Also, the torpedoes didn't help much - we had five hits out of six shots, but only one went off (early-war torps - coulda been even worse if these were American boats). Our two-pounders, 20mms and Vickers guns did most of the damage, which suggests the freighters were pretty darn thin-skinned! But in exchange, a mere 35 HP per British boat meant that a single round of fire could take one out of the game - as John pointed out, they are very much glass cannons.

I'm still a little disconcerted at the large scale of the game, but it still makes for a fun time and with lots of exploding dice to roll. A fine game and scenario by John. I'd happily play again, and with great opponents too. The weekend of the 15th we're planning a three-day series of games, so I should be able to make at least one; of course there is also the annual Limeys and Slimeys "regatta" coming up too for more nautical mayhem. See you around, and thanks for reading.