2018 Naval Campaign, Game 4 Rendezvous

Here we are back on the Blue gaming mat with Game 4 of our ongoing Naval Campaign, regular viewers will know by now we are following the sortie of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau into the Atlantic in early 1941, known as Operation Berlin. Links to the previous games are below,

Our first Game was a confused night action as the Germans broke out into the North Atlantic.

http://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/2018-ww2-naval-campaign-game-1-breakout.html

The second game saw the two German ships causing chaos amongst a Convoy with some U Boat support.

https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/2018-ww2-naval-campaign-game-2-hx106.html

Whilst game 3 saw a very interesting encounter with a Danish Trawler

https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.com/2018/06/2018-naval-campaign-game-3-denmark.html

Team Germany

Historical Background

As the two sisters searched the seas for merchant ships and convoys to prey on, the risk of meeting a group of transports escorted by larger warships was always a risk, the biggest risk even though very small was locating a Convoy whilst it's escorts were in the process of changing. In early March 1941 this nearly happened so this is my what if scenario for that event.

Germans under heavy calibre fire

German Briefing

After three successful outings your powerful force has fallen on a Convoy of Transports, it looked like easy pickings and you moved in for the kill to save expending your stores of 11" shells.

A typical Atlantic squall had hidden the British Battleship escorting the merchants until it was too late and you are now engaged in combat, one old Dreadnought wont cause your two modern ships too much of a problem but there are other problems on the horizon. Survive until nightfall so you can use the darkness to escape.

Convoy

British Briefing 

Even with the two German Battlecruisers loose at sea the convoys can't be stopped, the fragile war effort would fail without them. Your SL Convoy has been escorted so far by the British Battleship Barham (should be Malaya but I don't have the model).

Barham Group

The Convoy (use the reminants of the convoy from game 3) is going to be guided home by the HMS Repulse group and they have come to meet you. As the exchange is taking place the Germans are sighted heading straight for the Convoy. So far they have avoided ship to ship combat but today they have closed the range and shells are being exchanged.

Repulse Group

Also by pure luck a third group of ships lead by HMS Renown (see top photo) has been despatched from Gibraltar to search for the Battlecruisers and support the Convoy route. This group has an aircraft carrier, things are going to get interesting.

Carrier Group (should be Furious but again no model)

Set Up 

Apologies for the poor quality of the set up photo this week, after all this time I should know to check each photo for quality before moving on.

Anyway this slightly blurred off centre photo will have to do. Table is 12 x 6. North is to the right, East closest to the camera.

Germans are sailing ESE about 3 ft in from the western table edge, on the Northern table edge.

The British Line up as follows,

Repulse group heading NE with rear ship touching the South and East corner.

Convoy Group 1ft in from the western table edge heading East.

Barham Group heading ENE 6 inch in from the southern edge just in front of the Germans.

Renown Group heading NW on the southern table edge 12" from the eastern table edge.

Carrier Group is off table behind the Repulse group, we put it on table to show it's presence but the actual ships are out of range of the Germans.

Umpire Notes 

Unlike with the other games so far in this series no Umpire is required, there are no ships to id or Danish Trawlers to confuse the players, like in previous games, this is a straight up fight.

We determined that night would fall at the end of the gaming day (11am to 4pm with a generous break for Fish and Chips).

Both Germans engage the Barham, it was going to be a long hard day for the old girl.

How did we get on

Another fun day on the Blue baize and a day we learnt how powerful these German ships are, with Battleship Armour and modern guns, they might only be 11.5" but outrange the, what are really WW1 ships, they were facing.

Game carrier deck plan

Whilst the Germans engaged the Barham, ignoring the Convoy, the British returned fire, but with the Renown and Repulse closing range they could only bring limited guns to bear and at a range where they couldn't really do much damage.

The main response was taking off from the Eagle, it's a bit like a ballet using aircraft carriers in our rules but as deck officer for the day I managed to get the first wave in the air without issue.

Planes away

With our British planes missing in action we used our back up counters which came from the Victory at Sea rules, the die represents the number of turns left on table.

The first attack was a close run thing, German AA wasn't too effective and 11 aircraft managed to launch torpedoes but only one hit it's target and that exploded harmlessly against the belt.

A nervous moment for the Germans

Whilst the aircraft were returning to the carrier and a second strike was being prepared the two on one action against the Barham was really starting to hurt, Barham was in a bad way and lost 3 of her 4 turrets, limping badly and only a couple of good hits off sinking her escorts made smoke and she disengaged from the fight.

A badly damaged Barham retires from the action

With things going badly and with the two remaining British Battlecruisers no match for the German ships the British Admiral ordered the remaining aircraft to attack rather than waiting for the first wave to re arm and re group. The 6 fighters and 6 Swordfish made towards the Germans.

Round 2

Gneisenau was the target again, this time the AA was better and less than half the aircraft made their attack runs, sometimes however it's luck not numbers that makes the difference. Another torpedo struck home, this time there was a large explosion and a hole in the belt of the Germans Starboard. The ship was on fire, loosing speed and taking on water.

The above photo shows the carrier in full action, the second wave has just landed on the deck. The first wave is rearming whilst one flight of fighters waits in the hanger and one is in the lifts heading for the deck.

But even with that damage the British were not going to make any in road into the German ships and with the day ending and the British unable to mount a third air strike the Scharnhorst and her wounded sister were able to escape.

At the end of the game both German ships had lost just over a quarter of their damage value, mostly to hits on the deck and superstructure. Gneisenau had lost 5 knots of speed after repairs and both had secondary guns missing.

Barham however was a wreck, if she made it back to port she would be being repaired for a long time, Renown had also taken some hits losing around a quarter of its damage points as well but all her systems were active and she had only lost a couple of knots of speed.

A close encounter and all nicely set up for the final game where the British will throw everything at the two sisters to stop them from reaching home.

2018 Naval Campaign - Game 3 - Denmark Forever !

It's Game 3 of this years Naval Campaign and by now both sides know the score, at the end of the last match up the two German ships were finally identified as the Battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. It's early 1941 and we are following the sortie of those two ships into the Atlantic or Operation Berlin as it became know.

Our first Game was a confused night action as the Germans broke out into the North Atlantic.

http://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/2018-ww2-naval-campaign-game-1-breakout.html

The second game saw the two German ships causing chaos amongst a Convoy with some U Boat support.

https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/2018-ww2-naval-campaign-game-2-hx106.html

Convoy HX115

Game 3 is something a bit different and based on an actual event during the course of Op Berlin, as before I have put the historical background and Umpire Notes at the end of the post if you are playing along.

German Briefing

After a couple of encounters with British Forces things have been going well with this litte cruise in the Atlantic. A number of Allied ships have been sunk and although there is a couple of dents in the belt armour to date you haven't taken any real damage.

Another Convoy has been sighted on the Horizon and as you move to engage the Merchant ships your lookout makes you aware of a small boat steaming towards you on an intercept course.

German Ships - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau carrying forward any damage from Games 1 and 2.

"Hans, waz ist daz"

British Briefing 

Warnings have flashed across all the Allied ships in the Atlantic, the Germans have two big cats out hunting. You are commanding a small convoy designated HX114 however your prayers are not answered when two ships are spotted on the Horizon and they don't look very friendly.

One ship has left your convoy and is making smoke, doing full speed towards the Germans, you always thought the Danish Captain of the vessel, the Chilean Reefer was a couple of vouchers short of a toaster, your fears have been confirmed.

On your last contact with Fleet you were promised big gun support, lets hope they are close by.

British Ships - Convoy, although a different one from Game 2 we used the surviving ships from Game 2.

HMS Rodney and 2 escorting Destroyers off table.

Chilean Reefer  - Armed Merchant see Umpire Notes

HX114

Historical Background

Sometimes, in a battle, there is an odd man out, a hero who makes a last stand, someone whose deeds are written down in History. In the mass of merchant ships of HX114 there was a Danish firebrand commanding the Chilean Reefer, ship registered at just 1,831 gross tons.

The moment the German ships were sighted the Reefer sent off a message reporting the vessels and an accurate position. He made smoke and steered towards the Battlecruisers and to the disbelief of the crew of Gneisenau, opened fire on the mighty ships with his tiny deck gun.

Captain Fein of the Gneisenau and his crew were perplexed by the actions of this tiny ship and rightly so, they had never seen anything like it. Was this some carefully disguised armed cruiser, was it a decoy for some, as yet unseen threat. Might the Reefer be armed with torpedoes or even rigged to explode ?

Fein showed up most respect and moved his Battlecruiser to a safer distance and opened up with main 11 inch guns. However the Chilean Reefer proved to be a hard nut to crack, a tiny target in a rolling sea. It took 73 rounds to sink the Danish ship, the most fired at any single target during Operation Berlin and no doubt would make her one of the most expensive, per ton, ships to sink of the war.

The German Captains were however right to be concerned, while they were seeing off the threat from the Reefer a blip appeared on the radar screen, an approaching group of ships. A short while later the imposing shape of HMS Rodney appeared on the skyline.

HMS Dave to the rescue (cue puzzled looks from none UK residents)

Rodders flashed a challenge and the Gneisenau replied with the call sign of HMS Emerald, a three stack light cruiser. Even if the crew of Rodney had been knocking back the Sherry all day they would have noticed something was amiss.

"What Ship ?" asked the British, however the Germans weren't hanging about for a chat, turning tail and working up to top speed. The last view the Germans had was of the dying flames of the Chilean Reefer and the searchlights of the British ships as they scoured the sea for survivors.

Not often you see two Battlecruisers being chased by a Freighter !

Set Up

I forgot to take a photo of the table before the start of the game so here is my best description.

12 ft x 6 ft table, sea surface with no other terrain. Take North as one short side of the table.

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sailing East, line astern, 20 kts, 2ft in from the Northern table edge with the rear of Gneisenau on the western table edge.

The Convoy should be set up steaming North on the outer edge of the maximum range for the Germans.

HMS Rodney will arrive on the Eastern side of the table steaming towards the Germans at maximum speed at maximum gun range.

The Chilean Reefer should be set up half way between the Convoy and the Germans on the Eastern side of the table steaming towards the Germans, making smoke.

This is designed to be a short fun game for no more than a club evening.

Umpire Notes.

This game is all about the Chilean Reefer (CR), having had some fun messing with the British players mind with the identification of the Germans in Games 1 and 2, it was time to play around with the Germans heads.

Like hero figures in fantasy games sometimes you need to bend the rules a bit to make something work, so here is how I got the Reefer to work.

The German ships should not be allowed to simply open up on the CR and it's the job of the Umpire to make the scenario work. The Battlecruisers need to identify the ship and to start with seeds of doubt need to be sewn, it could be a German refuelling ship trying to escape the British for example.

The following is a suggestion of lines to feed the Germans, all designed to represent the confusion caused by the merchant on the day,

"It's difficult at this range to identify the ship through the smoke"
"Through the mist you can see crew working on the deck of the ship and a Captain with a ginger beard looking at you"
"The man in the Ginger Beard is waving his fist at you"
"The ginger bearded one is moving some boxes on the deck"
"Was that a puff of smoke from behind those boxes"
"That was a gun ! Are those torpedoes ?"

I armed the CR with a 4" gun and no torpedoes (but the Germans didn't know that) and made it very difficult to hit. The first 8 salvos fired at the CR will automatically miss (to represent the high volume of shots fired without a hit".

Once that has passed the CR should be very hard to hit, now this very much depends on your rules but at just under 2000 tons it won't last long when hit. As it's making smoke that halves any hits in my rules, added to that factor in its small size.

We use a ship card to represent the deck of a ship to allocate hits and smaller ships use an 8 x 4 grid which normally has a near miss location in the corners (see below) for the CR I increased the number of near miss boxes so that only boxes 2,3 to 2,6 and 3,3 to 3,6 counted as a hit. I dropped any critical hits as the small size of the CR meant it wouldn't last long enough once hit to worry about them.

I allowed the Reefer to move after all the other ships without written orders and gave it (an unrealistic) top speed of 24 knots.

Although present the Convoy is a bit of a side show. From the end of turn 1 the British player rolls 2d6 representing the distress call from the CR and on reaching a cumulative score of 24 the Rodney appears next turn.

A ship card example

How did we get on

An enjoyable experience for the British seeing the bemused looks of the German player as they tried to work out what the hell was going on !

The Chilean Reefer managed to get fairly close before opening up on the Gneisenau, a hit on the 11in gun turret hardly scratched the paint, it raised a smile and a return salvo of secondary guns.

The mention of the possibiity of torpedoes on the CR focused the mind of the German player and the Convoy was quickly forgotten as they started to manoeuvre to avoid the Danish ship.

"That man with the Ginger Beard, he crazy"

Added to that Rodney had arrived and was starting to close the range, this lead to the rarely seen sight of two Battlecruisers being chased by a small Armed Merchant, a moment well worth a photo !

As the Germans made for the safety of the table edge the luck of the Reefer finally gave out as a 11" shell tore her in two. A sad end for a brave ship and crew. The Battlecruisers escaped to fight another day.

End Ex

Game 4 coming up soon when the Germans stumble across another Convoy but this time they aren't as lucky, this time the British are in the middle of a escort hand over and the Germans will need to fight their way out.

2018 WW2 Naval Campaign Game 2 - HX106

Welcome back to part 2 of the 2018 Naval Campaign. It's all been a bit hush hush as both players sift through maps and Intel to try and work out what the bleeding hell is going on.

Game 1 saw a confused night action in which the British lost a light cruiser and the Germans a Destroyer. Two large German ships have been sighted but there true identity has not been confirmed. The Germans disengaged after a couple of salvos from the a Battlecruiser, but now they are loose in the Atlantic.

German Ships based on the sightings of Game 1, but are they right ?

The first game write up can be found on the link below.

http://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/2018-ww2-naval-campaign-game-1-breakout.html

As with the first game an Umpire is pretty essential for the action as unknown German ships are involved. Umpire Notes and Historical Background are after the player briefings, don't read them if you are taking part.

"Breaker Breaker Rubber Duck"

British Briefing

After your first encounter with the German Raiders, Convoys in the Atlantic are on full alert. Things are bad enough with packs of U boats around now there are surface forces too.

You may not have a positive identification on the ships involved yet, but whatever they are they are going to be dangerous.

You are in command of a large convoy consisting 20 Merchant ships with escorts. Due to the threat you have a Battleship in support. There are two dark shapes on the Horizon, hopefully you will see the sunset.

British Destroyer Escort

Convoy Escort

HMS Burham - Clemson Class Destroyer,  HMS Malcolm (Destroyer Leader)
HMS Saladin & HMS Sardonyx (Admiralty S Class Destroyers)
HMS Skate (Admiralty R Class), 2 Corvettes and 2 ASW trawlers.
HMS Ramillies Revenge Class Battleship with escort HMS Hero and HMS Hasty

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice I have used different ships from my collection for the game (even I don't own every British Destroyer of WW2).

Convoy under fire

Convoy

HX 106 had over 40 Merchant ships attached, I randomly selected 20, named below. I have given their tonnage for reference. The convoy speed was set at a generic 20 knots which is high for the merchants but works well for us.

Arthur F Corwin 10516          Botavon 5848          Capsa 8229             Chana 8077
Edward F Johnson 10452       Contractor 6004      Clea 8028                Evanger 3869
Garonne 7113                           Harpagus 5773       Horda 4301             Laguna 6486
Lodestone 4877                        Malmanger 7078    Mirza 7991             Oilfield 8576
R J Cullen 6993                         San Fabian 13031   Temple Arch 5138 Torburg 6092

Nearly there with ID !

German Briefing

You have broken out into the North Atlantic and cause as much havoc in the shipping lanes as possible. Your escorts have gone home you are on your own.

Now is the chance to cause a bit of havoc as you have seen a Convoy on the Horizon.
U boat wolf packs are operating in the area and you may receive some support from them during your Mission.


Remember the Furhers orders, do not get heavily engaged with any Capital Ships.

At last! 

Table Set Up 

This action takes place in daylight. Set up the convoy as shown with the Corvettes and 2 Destroyers flanking it, the two ASW trawlers and remaining Destroyers in front. The British Battleship is set up as a counter with its two escorting destroyers on the far side of the convoy.

The German ships (remember that they may not yet be positively identified) are placed just inside their maximum range so they can open fire on the convoy on turn 1. The ships placed on table will be the last "identification" in game 1.

Table Set Up

Umpire Notes and Historical Background

It is highly likely that the 2 German ships will not be positively identified at the start of Game 2. Refer back to Game 1 (link above) for the rules regarding identification. It's now daylight so the British will receive 1 id roll per ship per turn until they get it right.

For this game the Germans will roll 1d10 each turn that they can see the British marker, adding the scores up until they reach a cumulative score of 25 at which point the British ship is revealed.

In addition the Germans are supported by 3 U boats. Rather than any tedious plotting methods the submarines remain hidden at an unknown location until a time which either a ship from the convoy or Ramillies is unescorted. For the purpose of our rules this means that there are no escorting vessels within 20cms of the ship.

Once unescorted the ship is open to attack from 1 of the U Boats and so on until all 3 U Boats have attacked.

During Operation Berlin the two German Battlecruisers evaded the British screen (Game 1) and sailed into the Atlantic on the 4th Feb 1941. The Germans chose to attack the northern convoy route from Canada to the UK (HX and SC convoys), they were aware that convoy HX106 was at sea.

The Convoy was sighted on the morning of the 9th of February however after just 11 minutes the Germans positively identified HMS Ramillies and Admiral Lütjens called off the action and withdrew. He was annoyed as he believed the game was up and the British now knew the identity of his small but powerful force.

HMS Ramillies frantically signalling her escorts to return to station.

Little did they know that even at this late stage the ships were still unidentified, look outs from the convoy believed that they were looking at Admiral Hipper, they still thought that Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were in port.

The game should easily be completed in a club night, once the Germans become engaged by the British they should withdraw.

HMS Grenade "goes off"

How did we get on 

A short but interesting little action, the British took a while to identify the Germans, but before they had done even that they had sent three of the covering Destroyers off at full speed to have a go at the Battlecruisers.

As this was happening the British player started to roll out the Battleship from the rear of the convoy to get it in a shooting position.

The Convoy was starting to take large calibre hits and ships were sinking, the Destroyers however were getting closer in a tense match up. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were firing their secondary armaments as fast as possible at the approaching foe.

Charge !

Scorpion lost all her turrets in one go as the destruction of one led to the failure of the others. Acasta was unlucky, suffering the same fate as a Destroyer in the previous game, a bridge hit forcing her to disengage.

Back at the Convoy the British player was getting a bit giddy, the remaining Destroyers in the escort had started to accelerate leaving the back of the convoy uncovered. The U Boats weren't shy and although both were observed prior to firing their torpedoes they sunk two of the convoy ships.

HMS Hero and HMS Hasty sped towards the U Boats last known location, that is until the Captain of the Ramillies reminded them they should be escorting the Battleship and they returned to their station leaving the Corvettes to go sub hunting.

Guess who needed 3s to hit !

Back at the other end of the table the remaining 2 Destroyers pressed home their attack, the turretless Scorpion being sunk on the final approach, Grenade had the chance to launch torpedoes but decided to give it one more turn to get closer to increase the chance of a hit. She never got chance to launch, the explosion from a fuel fire taking her to the bottom.

As the Ramillies came into range the Germans turned away. The British had lost 2 Destroyers as well as the merchants Arthur F Corwin, Botavon, Capsa, Contractor, Edward F Johnson and Torburg or 47141 tonnes, the latter 2 to U Boats.

The two German Battlecruisers are loose in the Atlantic, will they meet their match in Game 3.  

2018 WW2 Naval Campaign - Game 1 - Breakout

It's that time of year again when we go all Nautical on you here at YG. A little bit of Naval Wargaming goes a long way and with periods a many and time short it's always been a tradition here to get at least one decent crack at some seaborne action around Easter time.

It's a secret, shhh

I had decided on a theme for this set of games a while back but with the games being based on a historical action I didn't want to give the game away too soon. So before we began neither team knew what war they were in never mind what ships they had. So you know more than the players from the post title !

So if you fancy playing along don't read on ! You definitely need an Umpire for these games to keep the facts from the players. With that in mind I have put the historical background at the end of the post with the Umpires notes.

Starshells light the way

We use a set of rules I wrote going on 30 years ago and all the scenarios are played on a 12 x 6 table. However with the additional information in the Umpires notes the Campaign should work with any rule set.

The game takes place at night so you will need to use suitable mechanisms from your rules to simulate that.

And the prize for the first ship spotted is.... A salvo of 5.9" shells

2018 Naval Campaign Game 1 British Briefing

It’s early 1941 and the war in the North Atlantic is in full swing. Operatives in Europe have reported a number of “large” German ships leaving port and heading for the open sea.

Intel is vague but the source is credible, the Admiralty are convinced that the Germans are up to something and have sent forces to sea across a wide area in an attempt to locate these ships.

You are in command of a small squadron consisting of the Light Cruiser Phoebe and two Tribal Class destroyers. Nearby you have the Battlecruiser Repulse and 2 further Tribal Destroyers in support.

Your Mission is to locate and identify the ships not to become heavily engaged.
It’s dark and damp when at 01.00 hours you become aware of a contact on your starboard bow.

2018 Naval Campaign Game 1 German Briefing

The Furher has given you his personal blessing in this most important mission, you are to take the Battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau into the North Atlantic and cause as much havoc in the shipping lanes as possible.

Once you pass Iceland you are on your own, reliant on oilers to keep you moving you must avoid heavy action with other Capital Ships as repairs at sea are your only option.

U boat wolf packs are operating in the area and you may receive some support from them during your Missions.

As far as you are aware the British don’t know you are at sea. It is essential that you do not reveal which ships you are commanding to the British, the umpire may place other ships on the table, go with it.

It’s 01.00 cold, dark, damp. You are to the east of Iceland with two Narvik Destroyers in escort and these are due to turn for home soon, you have a contact bearing North to your front.

See the British off before proceeding into the open ocean.

Searchlights On

Set Up

The German ships should set up in the corner of the table, the two main ships in line astern with the two destroyers screening in front. As it's dark ships should be represented by numbered counters, the Germans have two extra false counters to place in the screen.

The British Light Cruiser force set up at maximum gun range for the Light Cruiser away from the German destroyer screen. The British Battlecruiser is as far away as it can be from the Germans patrolling the far table edge. Again all ships are represented by numbered counters. These remain inactive until a German ship is spotted.

Bad luck for the British as HMS Nubian disengages with a bridge hit.

SPECIAL RULES

German Ship Recognition

One of the keys to the start of Campaign is the British uncertainty over the identity of the German ships, there has been no positive identification at this point and the available Intel is vague. So the following rules are in place,

Each time one of the German "big ships" are illuminated roll 1 dice per ship per turn, to begin with 1 d8.

1 or 2 Ship "identified"  as a Hipper Class Heavy Cruiser
3 or 4 Ship "identified" as a "Pocket" Battleship
5 or 6 Ship "identified" as a Scharnhorst Class Battlecruiser
7 or 8 Ship "identified" as a Bismark Class Battleship

When the ship is "identified" place a relevant ship model on the table..

Is it Tirpitz ?

Roll again the next turn and use that roll as the "identification" for that turn. So for example, in turn 1 a star shell illuminates a German counter, the British player rolls a 7 for id and believes they have seen Tirpitz, the following turn the ship remains illuminated and the British player rolls again, this time it's a 3, the observer checks his Janes Fighting Ships and believes he has seen Admiral Scheer.

Once a counter has been identified as one of the choices twice then that choice is either ruled out or in the case of 5/6 it correctly identifies the ship. So in our example above if the ship was illuminated for a third turn and the British player rolls a 7 again it would be identified as Tirpitz again which would rule out that for the next turn so that the next roll would be on a d6 (three valid selections left). Two successful rolls against Scharnhorst would positively identify the ships correctly.

As an Umpire it's a joy to watch the British scratch their heads when the first ship change happens.

Or is it Prinz Eugen ?

The German Destroyers are identified on their first illumination, the blank counters are removed.

Historical Background and Umpire Notes

The Campaign is based on Operation Berlin the raid by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, after a failed attempt to sail in December 1940 (due to a storm) both ships sailed from Kiel on the 22nd January 1941, they were spotted by an agent in Denmark and the Admiralty warned. Ships were despatched but the main fleet were stationed in the Iceland Faroe gap, the Germans spotted a couple of cruisers in that area and headed for the Denmark Straight instead.

Our first scenario is loosely based on this first contact, the ship involved was HMS Naiad, the captain concluded his sighting was merely an illusion and decined to shadow the ships. I changed the ship to HMS Phoebe (same class) to avoid the players guessing the real events portrayed in the game. The Germans also didn't have a Destroyer escort but I added one to make it harder to id the main German Ships.

If Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are engaged in main gun combat it's up to the Umpire to monitor any damage / hits to prevent identification by shell weight etc.

The game should easily completed in a club night. The Germans will disengage if they are threatened a Torpedo attack or  come under accurate fire from the British Battlecruiser.

Or is it Admiral Scheer ?

How did we get on.

A good little introductory scrap for our first game. The British set off quite boldly towards the unidentified markers and it wasn't long before starshells were in the air and the Destroyers had identified each other and had engaged in combat. Narvik vs Tribal is a decent match up but luck was not on the side of the British, early on HMS Nubian disengages with a bridge hit leaving the British outnumbered.

The German Destroyers weren't being shrinking violet either, they had got close enough to illuminate HMS Phoebe with search lights giving the big German ships a target. No luck here either, the first shot effected it's Magazine, no explosion thankfully but it left the Light Cruiser down to 3 rounds of Ammo.

Z23 sinks.

The advantage of using your searchlights is seeing other ships, however it also means everyone can see you ! HMS Phoebe and Z23 sank in a short space of time but for the German player a LC for a DD is a decent trade.

The End of HMS Phoebe

Just as those ships sank the British Battlecruiser Sqn came into range and things got a bit more exciting for the Germans, a late attempt at a Torpedo attack by the last remaining Tribal Class destroyer was scuppered when it suffered a rudder hit.

No rudder, No turny

So at the end of the first game both sides had taken casualties. The British had not yet positively identified the German Raiders, the Germans were out into the Atlantic and the chase was on.