Mark had the 4 S-boats and I had the convoy of 2 merchantmen and a tanker, escorted by 2 armed trawlers. I also had a Fairmile D bringing up the rear of the convoy. On turn 1 the S-boats arrived and a merchant man and a trawler entered the table, turn 2 the tanker and a trawler came on and turn 3 the last merchantmen entered torpedo alley. On turn 4 the Fairmile would turn up like the 7th Cavalry!
It started well for the Germans, they got two torpedoes in the water lined up on the first merchantman and shot up the trawler with two S-boats. For the first two turns my trawlers' gunnery was appaling and I didn't score a single hit. Then, literally just before it slipped beneath the waves (it had 2 damage points left!), one on my trawlers got their eye in and hit one of the S-boats and took it's rudder out. The other trawler hit a second S-boat with both of it's 3 pounders, blowing some very big holes in that.
The first merchant dodged the torpedoes, but the tanker captain wasn't so lucky with the two aimed at him, he avoided the first but too a fairly central hit with the other. The tanker remained afloat after the explosion, but only just, and was quickly sunk by close range gunfire, but almost took out a S-boat in the process. With only one escort left in play two S-boats concentrated their guns at close range on the merchantmen, eventually taking him out. But now the Fairmile arrived and a badly shot-up S-boat captain found himself looking down the barrels of most of her guns, scratch one S-boat!
The last merchant came on to see 3 fish heading her way, so steamed straight ahead at full speed, hoping to get out of their path. In the end she managed it, just (had a German dice been pulled before she move a second time she would have taken two torpedo hits). In the meantime the fairmile finished off a second S-boat and the one with damaged steering left the table (whether Mark wanted her to or not!). At this point Mark's last boat decided to call it a day and legged it. He had lost 2 S-boats, but sunk a merchantman and a tanker, as well as one of the escorts, so we considered that a German win.
Some shots of the game.
Great report chap. Lovely looking games.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Will.
DeleteLooks like great fun. Love the scratch-built merchant ships!
ReplyDeleteThank you. I can't take credit for the merchantmen, I picked them and the trawlers up from a seller on Ebay. He also does various larger merchants/tankers as well.
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