Another Cruel Seas battle. Mike counldn't make it today (with the British Fleet and the water coloured battle mat) so Jim and I played a German training battle in the muddy inland waters of the Dutch coast.
I wanted to use the newly painted ships so I took the Minesweeper, the Flak ship and an S-38. Jim had 4 S-100s. I was going to give one S-100 a veteran crew and Minesweeper a green crew but I forgot (as it turned out it wouldn't have made too much difference)
We started with the minesweeper and its escorts sailing across the diagonal of the table with the 4 S-100s in the opposite corner at slow speed. The objective was for the minesweeper to get off the table at the corner where the S-100s were.
The attacking boats split into 2 groups with one coming straight at the minesweeper between the 2 islands and the other coming around the island to hit the convoy from the side. I accelerated my S-Boat to meet the 2 in the centre. I kept the Minesweeper at 12 knots so that it would not get further away from the flak boat (which has a top speed of 12 knots)
The first gunfire happens between the islands but there are no hits on either side. The lead attacking boat has launched some torpedoes. Given the size of the minesweeper there is no point in trying to turn to avoid the torpedoes, it is better to keep straight towards them and hope they pass on either side.
The minesweeper gets a shot from its 3" guns but it misses as well. The 88mm gun on the flakship does manage to get a hit and damages one of the attacking S-boats
On the next turn the torpedoes reach the the minesweeper but one is a bit wide and the other misses its roll to hit. The S-Boat that fired them has a bit better luck and gets a few gun hits on the minesweeper.
I tried to delay moving my S-boat but kept drawing dice that activate my ships so I ended up colliding with the other S-boat. We both took a fair bit of damage in the collision. (and it prevents the enemy boat from firing at the minesweeper this turn so that is something).
The other ship in the collision was force to turn hard to starboard and head towards its partner but sadly one of its torpedoes hit the minesweeper. It wasn't quite enough damage to sink the ship but in the following turn the other S-boats managed to do enough with gunfire to sink it.
My S-boat also had some rudder issues from the collision and ended up behind the island and wasn't going to have much effect on the rest of the fight. The flakship collided with another S-boat (at least in this collision the bigger ship does more damage to the smaller so I come out ahead -- but don't get to fire any of the 5 guns that are on the ship). One of the flanking ships fires torpedoes at the flakship, and lights a fuel fire with gunfire
The following turn the torpedoes hit the flakship and it is sinking as well. My remaining S-boat decides to flee since it is already heading off the board so it is an overwhelming victory for Jim.
The bigger ships are interesting and I think if they had better luck with the to-hit rolls they could have had a bigger effect on the game.
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