All at sea!

 Today, at Phil's suggestion, we had a game of Coastal Forces using my own rules

The scenario was as usual, a coastal convoy in the North sea being attacked by Scnellbooten. I had counters for all my ships and randomly removed about a third before deploying them, so neither my follow player or myself had any real idea what we were facing! - Such are the elements of fun!

The left hand column in the picture below was a mix of escort vessels and dummy markers, the other two columns had a mix of Merchantmen and dummy markers.

We deployed our S-Boats at random on the far side, Phil was at the head of the convoy, I in the middle, and Rhys at the rear.

Rhys immediately spotted a collier and a 3000 ton freighter, lurking behind HMS Middleton, a type 2 Hunt destroyer escort!

In the centre, I found nothing, all the counters I spotted were dummies!

Phil spotted two more 3000 tonners, with a Flower class corvette escorting them! Obviously, these big escorts were simply tagging along with this convoy as it would have been unusual to have such important ships escorting a paltry East coast convoy like this!

As I closed, I eventually spotted a good target...a Tanker! together with a collier close behind!

The Tanker is worth more as a target than any other ship in a convoy, naturally!!!

Far to the rear of these, a requisitioned fishing trawler chugged along, this type of ship was often the sole escort in several real convoys of the time!

Rhys was unable to spot anything other than the destroyer and the two freighters, what was he to do?

I set the ball rolling by firing a torpedo and a dummy toward a 3000 tonner behind the corvette.

With luck, if it missed, it could hit the ship behind!

My boats increased speed by cutting the electric 'stealth' engines, and switching to diesel engines and POWER!!!

Phil decided to let all his torpedoes off against the line of freighters at the front of the convoy.

Rhys's boats decided to split either side of the Hunt class destroyer, a risky move, but one that if successful could reap great rewards!

The problem would be getting past the destroyer without getting...destroyed!

The Hunt spotted one of Rhy's boats, and turned out of line to engage.

The collier behind carried on as though nothing was happening!

The Hunt fired with its 20mm and quad Pom-Pom, but failed to score a hit.

I had got close enough to the tanker to risk firing 2 torpedoes and dummies.

My target sailed on blissfully unaware of the danger...

My first torpedo now approached the freighter, which was desperately turning to comb the attack.

The torpedo exploded, flooding compartments, and left it afloat, but immobile, dead in the water!

My boats fired their last torpedo, at long range, at a collier- the trawler was already trying to hit my boats with its 3".

Meanwhile, the tanker had, too late, spotted my torpedoes approaching.

Both hit!

The tanker exploded!...

...the remains, such as they were,  sank beneath the waves.

Phil's torpedoes too, were approaching their targets. 

The freighters, having spotted the attack early enough evaded all but one of the 'fish'.

Disaster! - the torpedo scraped the bottom of the freighter and sailed on to 'sink England!'

Rhys, meanwhile, had sent one boat at high speed behind the Hunt...

The other paralleled it, using its speed to evade.

The Hunt spotted the boat and set off in pursuit.

Rhys led the boat to try and hit the freighter trying to escape in the middle of the convoy.

The boat dodged to try and avoid the fire from the destroyer.

A sharp 'jink' in...

Torpedo--Los! and a sharp turn to port!

The trawler managed to get a round near my boats...

I turned hard to starboard, and escaped toward Le Havre at high speed!

One of Rhys's torpedoes hit a freighter...

The torpedo seriously damaged the ship, but didn't sink it.

My last torpedo actually hit the collier!

The collier survived, my torpedo exploded close, causing some leaking!

Rhys's boat which had slipped behind the Hunt, now finished off the damaged freighter, which was crippled, probably to be found beached in the morning!

Well, despite getting several 'straddles' from warship guns, we managed to sink 2 ships and cripple 2 more, altogether a successful day! Poor Phil, though, despite getting a solid hit on a freighter, had nothing to show for his efforts!