Yesterday, we were down to Lawrence and myself, as the rest of the gang were doing Pike and Shotte!
As an experiment, we did a destroyer action against my Coastal Forces Rules solo system. The rules are really optimised for MTBs and similar, so it was interesting to see how they would work for bigger ships!
Our scenario involves 3 German destroyers running down the channel being intercepted by 2 Royal navy destroyers...
Our opponent, 3 Wolf/Mowe class Torpedo boats.
Our force, 2 Hunt class 2 escort destroyers.
Our ships were in line ahead...
...and were paralleled by the Germans.
The Germans acted first, turning to close the distance.
Our ships began a turn too, hoping to cross the stern of the Germans.
We opened fire at extreme range.
Unfortunately, our shots fell short.
The Germans continued their turn, firing.
A lucky hit demolished my searchlight mount.
The German ships now got into position to launch torpedoes.
Our ships had turned obliquely on to the Germans, making a small target. We fired as the Germans came into arc.
Falke was straddled and hit, losing X turret.
My HMS Farndale lost its 20mm flak mount in return.
A salvo from Kondor missed however.
Undeterred, both RN ships stayed on course, returning fire.
Kondor lost an aft turret.
Damage notwithstanding, the Germans continued closing.
Despite their fire being made less accurate as they turned, the Germans now turned to parallel our course.
I was content to maintain our current heading for now though,
Our fire was causing more damage than the enemy's.
...but now the German maneuvering seemed to be throwing our aim off!
Fortunately, it affected theirs too!
As we closed, it became obvious a torpedo attack was imminent.
Our fire now destroyed the Vierling mount on Kondor.
The Germans only managed to straddle Middleton in return.
Oh, what to do, what to do!
As we passed, both sides kept firing, but no more hits were scored.
Kondor, not surprisingly, shot a full load of torpedoes...
...which Farndale just avoided!
Poor Middleton looked doomed, however.
Despite desperate evasive actions, one torpedo exploded, fortunately in the ship's wake, causing a minor leak and a jammed forward turret.
The other torpedoes skimmed her bow and ran on.
My HMS Farndale fired as I turned port, the damaged HMS Middleton was too far away, and lacking enough guns to help effectively.
The other German boats were moving to shoot more torpedoes, so I was forced to turn hard to port...
...and move to disengage.
HMS Middleton turned to follow me back to Blighty.
The Germans, with 2 damaged boats, were happy to let us go, and with dawn (and the R.A.F.) approaching, headed back to France.
So ended the game, rather indecisively!
We thought, in hindsight, that, rather as expected, the solo rules are better with small boats!
The complexities of destroyer actions really demands a human guide to work well, so next time we will do an opposed game!
It was ok today though, its nice to run little boats around now and again!
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