The Stronghold Rebuilt: ww2

Showing posts with label ww2. Show all posts

Wednesday, 29 April 2026

The Adventures Of Harvey Knight - 11

Harvey Knight's las mission had been aborted when his flotilla had run into a German destroyer, and encounter that had left his boats seriously mauled even if they eventually sunk the enemy vessel. This it was that in terms of operational ships he could now only count on one MTB (Edwars Stewart's MTB 414) and the two MGBs (Lennox Dean's MGB 91 and Ewan McDonald's MGB 103). His own MTB 413 was still badly damaged, and the flotilla was waiting on two replacement MTBs.

So this was the perfect time for a war correspondent to turn up, looking for a chance to do a story about the flotilla by accompanying them on their next mission. To be fair Harvey felt that maybe his reputation could do with a boost. All he had to do was keep the journalist alive.

The much depleted flotilla was assigned the task of picking up a friendly agent from the Belgian coast. For a force that was primarily gunboats this wasn't a bad mission to be assigned, so long as they didn't run into any large enemy vessels.

It was a moonless night, so good for the kind of work they were doing. However as they approached the rendezvous it was obvious a large German patrol was in the area. The two MGBs sped towards the coast before the Germans could spot them, whilst MTB 414, commanded by Edward Stewart, but with Harvey Knight and the journalist on board as well, headed towards the patrol in order to act as a distraction.

The MTB bumped into an R-boat, which opened fire.

Meanwhile the rest of the German patrol had been worryingly active, and as MGB 103 reached the pick-up point a Vorpostenboot ranged up and opened fire, causing some light damage.

MGB 103 sheered away, and returned fire.

(This was a mandatory turn on the All At Sea table, so I assumed that it would cause the boat to break contact with the pickup.)

MGB 91 came up in support, but another Vorpostenboot appeared as well. Firing became general.

The fourth escort was another Vorpostenboot; the flotilla had obviously run into a major patrol. And Harvey had lost contact with his two gunboats in the general melee.

Under heavy fire from two V-boats Lennox Dean brought MGB 91 into the pick-up point. Amazingly he only suffered light damage; it helped that his small boat was hidden against the shoreline.

The R-boat was also coming up, hotly pursued by MTB 414. The MTB opened fire and badly damaged the R-boat, which began steering erratically.

Despite the fire being directed at them, Dean's crew picked up the agent, whilst their commander assessed how they would make their escape.

MGB was running close to the V-boats, and had even damaged one with gunfire. However it had taken another hit in return.

In desperation McDonald threw his boat across teh bow of one of teh V-boats, launching depth-charges as he did so, but they exploded too far away from the enemy vessel to cause any damage.

(An All At Sea roll caused him to turn directly towards the German vessel, so any move would have been a collision. But he had the two actions needed for a depth-charge attack, so went for that instead of shooting and then colliding.)

The R-boat ran into some rocks off the coast and was soon hard aground.

At the same time one of the V-boats ended up stuck on some nearby shoals. MGB 91 was now making a run for it.

Eager to impress the journalist, and at least contribute to the mission in some way, Knight got Edward Stewart to bring his boat around and make a torpedo run at the immobilised V-boat.

The torpedoes passed close, but missed.

Unfortunately at the same time MGB 103 ran aground on the same rocks as the R-boat. The two crews worked together to save their crews, but with two V-boats now turning back int the fight there was no change of a rescue for the British crew, and they would end the night as POWs.

Surviving long-range fire from the grounded V-boat the two other British boats headed for home.

The crews of both boats picked up some valuable experience. Indeed Stewart's crew are close to being Veterans now. But the loss of MGB 103 and its crew soured the mission. The journalist got his story, but Harvey Knight got no increase in reputation out of it. And things got worse. Harvey was invited by a neighbouring squadron to give a talk on tactics - he was an experienced officer with much action under his belt, after all. But still shaken from his recent adventures his talk was poor and his listeners learned little. Harvey was beginning to beginning to doubt himself, and both his mental and physical health were in a bad way now. To make matters worse there were still no replacement boats available.

On the plus side, the repair crews worked like Trojans and completed nearly all of the repairs, so Harvey got MTB 413 back. Only MGB 91 needed minor repairs still.

So for the next mission Harvey Knight can only call on two MTBs and a lightly damaged MGB.

Will things start to look up for Harvey Knight? Find out in the next episode.

Saturday, 18 April 2026

Action In The Gulf Of Riga

One thing I've wanted to try with Torpedoes & Tides is a fight between large vessels. Obviously within the scope of the game, large is a relative term (Indeed it's relative to motor launches and gunboats for game purposes). And their stats don't have as much granularity as the smaller vessels. If something's big it's pretty much dangerous and difficult to damage.

Still, his afternoon I gave it a try. I adapted another scenario from 'Clear The Coast, this one being set in the Gulf Of Riga in November 1944. The Germans are evacuating troops from a peninsula to the north of the Gulf, and have sent in a patrol to sweep for Russian vessels looking to disrupt the evacuation. They come across three Russian gunboats.

Here are the forces.

The Germans have two minesweepers (I used the M1935 stats) and two Vorposteboot (I used the Medium Vorpostenboot with the 88mm gun for each).

The Russians have three gunboats. These gunboats were converted from German dredgers and are listed as Moskva class in the rules. In the scenario in CtC they have a different class name, but are still converted dredgers, so I assumed that they were the same. One is armed with three 76mm guns, whilst the other two have two 130mm guns. For game purposes I classed them as the same.

I changed the stats in the rules slightly to allow for the gunboats' forward armament and the fact that they seem to be very slow indeed (dredgers aren't built for speed, after all):

Q3 C4 - Slow, Large, Large Calibre, Secondary Armament C2, Unarmed (Stern)

Here they are, since the models are new.

I used the following setup The board is 60cm x 90cm for 50/80/120mm sticks. The long edges are north and south. There is no moon and there are two patches of mist, each places 1D3 medium sticks from the centre of the board in a random direction.

The Germans are set up in a line heading east with the minesweepers at the front and with 1 x M between each vessel. The stern of the rear vessel is against the west edge, 1 x L from the southern edge.

The Russians are also in a line, heading west, with 1 x M between each vessel. The rear of the line is against the east edge, 1 x L from the northern edge.

Roll for initiative to see who moves first.

I didn't work out any VPs. In the original scenario it's a straight fight, but I like the idea that the Russians are looking to get past the Germans and get off the western edge to harass German evacuation efforts. However they should have to sink or batter a couple of German vessels before they can score for this. The Germans are just looking to sink the Russian gunboats or drive them off.

Any vessel can leave the northern edge. However it leads to the Sorve Peninsula, so is risky. Any vessel leaving that edge rolls a D6, subtracting 1 if it has taken damage and subtracting a further 1 if it is battered. On a 1 the vessel runs aground and is lost.

The Germans can leave the western or southern edge safely. Any German vessel leaving the east edge is lost. The Russians can leave via any edge, but see above for the northern edge.

Here's the game a couple of turns in, with the Germans bottom-left and the Russians top-right. Nothing is close enough to be spotted yet.

The Volga spotted a minesweeper and opened fire, missing.

The Germans were slow to react and the Bureya now came up out of the darkness. Its fire hit the bridge of the lead minesweeper.

All ships were now revealed. To the left the two Vorpostenboots were moving to engage the Zeya. One fired a starshell to give the other a better shot. Meanwhile the two minesweepers engaged the Bureya.

The Germans made good use of starshells to illuminate the Russians, and managed to score hits on all three gunboats. Volga was soon battered ...

... whilst Bureya was sunk!

The minesweepers (right) began to turn back into the action.

Volga was heading out of the fight now, but not quickly. One of the Vorpostenboots stayed closing, looking for a chance to finish it off. But the Zeya got in some accurate fire that took out some of the German vessels gun positions, reducing its fire.

The Volga continued its attempt to escape as the Germans closed in on it.

A minesweeper sunk it.

The Zeya had disappeared into the darkness so could revert to a blind. In game terms this means it can move faster, and it quickly homed in on the German's battered V-boat.

Looming out of the darkness its first shot finished off the German vessel. The V-boats are not large, so are more vulnerable to the Large Calibre guns of the Russians, and can be affected by regular firing as well.

Out of sight of the Germans the Zeya reverted to a blind again. But the undamaged minesweeper was coming up through the fog.

It closed in quickly on the Russian vessel in the darkness , revealing it but receiving a damaging shot in return.

The Russian vessel was badly damaged by this stage, but kept up a steady fire on the minesweeper, damaging it again.

The minesweeper managed a hit in return, battering the Russian gunboat.

But its own damaged caused it to collide with the wreckage of the sunk V-boat, putting it out of the fight.

However despite command issues caused by its damaged bridge the other minesweeper was now back in the fight, and its shooting finished off the Zeya.

So the Russians lost all three gunboats, whilst the Germans lost a single V-boat and had a minesweeper disabled by a collision with wreckage. All in all a fairly convincing German win.

After a slow start the Germans got in some really good shots early on, which damaged the Russians beyond the point of recovery. After that it was really about the Russians trying to stretch out the fight on the hope the damaged Germans would do something bad. Which they did. But it wasn't enough. To be fair, in their eagerness to turn back into the fight the Germans came close to a couple of friendly collisions, avoided only by a careful choice as to which vessel to move first, and through not failing activation rolls.

Still, I don't think that the balance is too off. If I feel the Russians are hard done by I may upgrade their vessels from Slow to Short, to give them more flexible movement. I'll certainly be playing this one again.

Update: I've played this through a couple of times now and the balance seems OK. I've worked out a couple of VP possibilities.

In both cases play until only one side has vessels left in play.

The first assumes a straight fight. In this case both sides score 2VP for each enemy vessel wrecked and 1VP for each enemy vessel battered.

In the second option it's assumed the Russians are trying to maul he German forces and then head west to disrupt German evacuation operations.

With this option the Germans continue to score 2VP for each enemy vessel wrecked and 1VP for each one battered. However the Russians now score points for exiting the western edge. At the end of the action, each unbattered gunboat that leaves the western edge scores 1VP for each German vessel which was wrecked or which left the fight involuntarily.

Sunday, 12 April 2026

U-Boats Off Messina

Based on a recommendation in the 'Torpedoes & Tides' rules I picked up a copy of Pat Hreachmack's 'Clear The Coast', which is a collection of over 30 WW2 small ship action scenarios, many of which are adaptable as scenarios for T&T. At our club the other weeks we'd been discussing how submarines might fit into the game. Given the small time-scale of the actions the answer is really 'they mostly wouldn't', but one of the scenarios in 'Clear The Coast' features them, and I thought I'd have a go at adapting it.

Of course the first thing I needed was a couple of submarines. Theses were made in a hurry, and I want to redo them at some stage although you all know that I will probably never get around to it.

So it's the night of 12/13th July 1943, and two U-boats are slipping through the Straits of Messina between Sicily and Italy, heading south. They are on the surface, but once they clear the narrows they can submerge.

But with Germans ships slipping through the straits on a regular basis, the British are waiting for possible targets. Three Vosper MTBs are lurking in the darkness.

OK, here's the scenario.

British - three Vosper 73' MTBs. These are MTB 81, MTB 77 and MTB 84 (see rules for stats)
German - Two U-boats (U 375, U 561). I'll post their stats below.

All crews on both sides are Q3.

The board is 60cm x 80cm (if using 50/80/120mm sticks). Short edges are North and South. The east edge is coast. Aside from that there is no terrain or mines. There is a partial moon to the South*.

All vessels start on blinds.

U-561 starts with its rear edge against the northern edge of the board, 1D3 x L from the East edge. U-375 is 1 x M directly in front of it.

One British MTB starts 1D3 x L from the southern edge and 1D3 x L from the eastern edge facing West. The other boats are placed each side of it facing West and 1xS away (so they are in line-abreast).

Roll for initiative.

And that's it. I haven't worked out VPs for it, but obviously the British are trying to sink one or both U-boats, whilst the Germans are trying to get them both off the South edge with no, or minimal, damage. The British mustn't lose any boats. The Germans can only exit via the North or South edges, whilst the British can exit from the North, South or West. However if a boat exists the West edge roll a D6. If it scores equal to or less than the number of hits the boat has taken, then the boat is considered lost to Axis shore defences. Anything hitting the East edge runs aground and is lost.

Here's how it ended up for me, with the U-Boats heading straight for the British boats. The British got the initiative.

Their line swung around to investigate the contacts, and immediately spotted U-375.

U-375 fired a starshell at the British blinds ...

... and this enabled U-561 to spot and fire at one of the British boats (MTB 413 in this scenario. My boats have fixed labels and I wasn't changing them). The shot, from an 88mm deck-gun, came close but not close enough.

MTB 413 swung around and fired torpedoes at the lead U-Boat, but missed.

(After playing my campaign it was exciting to have 73' boats with four torpedoes!)

Distinctly unorchestral manuevers in the dark, as everyone's activation rolls failed dismally.

U-561 fired again, and a shell smashed the bridge of MTB 430.

The U-boats began to head south as fast as they could go. MTB 413 lined up another shot. It was at the stern of U-375, but at least the target was silhouetted against the moon. That was enough. BOOM! The U-boat began to sink, and not voluntarily.

MTB 413 now had no torpedoes left but closed with U-561 looking to supress the gun-crews and make it easier for the other two British boats to make their torpedo attacks. MTB 430 was suffering obvious difficulties from its damage, but MTB 414 was now coming up after having lost contact with the action earlier.

Another near miss as U-561 kept up a steady fire.

However fire from MTB 430 caused the German crew to dive for cover. MTB 414 made its approach. But the German crews were still fighting hard, and managed to score a hit on the approaching MTB. The British boat caught fire.

As the fire reached the bridge the captain ordered the torpedoes fired. Through the smoke and flames they were overjoyed to see the second U-boat heel over and start to sink.

So both U-boats were sunk. The British suffered bridge hits and light damage on two boats, with one of them also having fire damage as well. Overall it was a pretty successful attack for the MTBs though.

Here's the stats I used for the U-Boats:

Q3 C3 - Short, Large, Over-Gunned, Large Calibre, Unarmed (Stern), Secondary Armament (C1)

These are boats with a 88mm gun on the front deck. In fact around July 1943 these were being removed in favour of more AA-guns abaft the conning tower. The original scenario states that it's not clear if either of the German boats had had this refit. The author suggests maybe rolling a 50/50 chance for each boat. With the refit the stats would be:

Q3 C3 - Short, Large, Under-Gunned

Note: In theory a sub should also have the Torpedoes trait, but within the context of any scenarios likely to feature one I think they're probably irrelevant. Add them as you wish.

So what happened historically? The two sides discovered each other when U-375 almost collided with MTB 81. MTB 81 realised there were two German boats present and got in a torpedo shot at he second, U-561, sinking it. The other two MTB chased after U-375. One had a torpedo misfire and the other simply missed. U-375 submerged and escaped.

*The scenario says a partial moon, but doesn't specify the direction. I used THIS SITE to determine its direction.

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