A quartet of TWATS met last Saturday for one of our semi-regular gaming sessions, which once again saw me back in the chair (two games running, Temporary Unpaid Chief TWAT! Two!) for a bit of nautical naughtiness and a return to Shipwreck, a ruleset we have used twice before. However, instead of the usual plastic snap kits (and I'd worked on the Type-054A stats especially), we were using Steve's rather tasty little collection of Soviet and Royal Navy ships.
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| In the blue corner, the Royaaallllll Naaaayyyveeeeee! |
As usual, this was an umpire-led game (a daunting task requiring much support from a Singleton or two, a tasty little malt), with Admiral Andy donning his No. 3 dress, whilst Shaun and Steve began rattling off the Soviet National Anthem in true Red October (the film) style. The aim of the game was simple. The British, comprising of the Invincible (damaged so no flight operations), a Type 42 (the Sheffield), two T22's (Broadsword and Battleaxe) and a Type 21 (Amazon), had to get to the far end of the table. To stop them, the Soviets had the Slava, a Sovremmeny and two Krivak II's. Would the plucky British get away with it, or would the Soviets find the sunrays of freedom cheering them on?
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| In a different blue corner, the Soviet Military Maritime Fleeeeeet! |
Steve and Shaun decided from the get go to split their forces, Steve taking the Sov and a Krivak II, Shaun the Slava and the other Krivak. Aiming for a pincer movement, Steve decided to approach with radars on but, as was apparent by the distance on the table, nothing was detected. A couple of movement turns saw the opposing forces approach each other, and it during movement turn 4 that Andy detected the Sov. A double movement turn (with the agreement of the players) saw the second ship of Steve's flotilla detected by the British.
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| A naval Rorke's Drift: them horns look dangerous... |
It was only during movement turn 6 that Steve's group detected the Sheffield and Battleaxe. Being a cautious type, Steve launched two SS-N-22 Sunburns at the Sheffield, a sensible choice given the Sea Dart present. Now we were into combat turns.
Andy went loud with his radars and Steve's ships were painted. Battleaxe launched a pair of Exocets at the Krivak, whilst Broadsword had two at the Sov. The second combat turn saw the Sheffield down one of the Sunburns, yet it wasn't all one way as three of the Exocets were shot down by the Soviets. Combat turn three saw a brace of Sea Darts deal with the errant Sunburn, whilst a trio of SA-N-7's handled the final Exocet.
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| Vampires, Vampires, Vampires! |
Back to movement now and it was it was radars-a-go-go with everyone detecting each other. Steve decided more shots were in order so launched all four SS-N-14's from the Krivak II against the Invincible as the Sov lofted four Sunburn's at the Sheffield. Shaun, on the other hand, decided that he was sick of the top weight on the Slava. He fired all sixteen SS-N-12's at the Invincible. It was almost an afterthought for his Krivak II to shoot two '14's at Battleaxe and two at Amazon. Andy's response was to fire his remaining Exocets, a pair at each of the enemy vessels.
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| Shaun turning to engage the British |
Needless to say, the following few minutes of play decided the afternoon.
Invincible and Sheffield engaged the incoming from Steve, shooting down one from each missile group. To the south, the Slava tackled the incoming Exocets and downed three out of four.
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| Are 16(!) SS-N-12's overkill? |
The next round of fire took out the last of the Exocets targeting Shaun's duo, whilst Steve managed to shoot down three of his incoming. As for the British defence, Sea Darts accounted for another two of Steve's missiles, leaving Sheffield and the Invincible to face off against a pair of missiles each.
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| One or two may have slipped through the defensive screen... eek! |
With the incoming down to very short range, and a single Exocet that didn't bother the Soviet defences too much (CIWS shot), it was all on the British to survive the onslaught. Amazon was targeted by two missiles, and shot one down with Sea Wolf before handily avoiding the final one via its EW capabilities. Sheffield was less lucky, taking a direct hit and receiving heavy damage. The two Type-22's were untouched, which was handy as they would have to deal with the after effects of the barrage against Invincible. Of the final 13 missiles, two were hit by Phalanx fire, three were decoyed by chaff, and six succumbed to EW. Even then, of the two that hit, the first impact only caused light damage. Could the pride of the Royal Navy survive to fight another turn? Shaun's dice rolling said no. The final hit was catastrophic, sinking the carrier and effectively ending the game. With more SAM's and bigger guns, the Soviets ruled the table and it was time to retire to the bar and sample that Singleton (again).
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| I'm not saying it was an inadequate reply but... |
This was a fun game and it was enjoyed by all, despite two of the players knowing very little about floaty boats of this period. The North Atlantic setting was a nice change and, given the end result, demonstrated that quantity (of big SSM's) has a quality all of its own. I mean, sure, you'd not shoot off everything from a Slava in real life (especially the one or two missiles with added buckets of sunshine), but it was a good example of how under-gunned so to speak an RN surface action group could against a Slava. If that hadn't of been there, they would have had a better chance. Maybe a thought for a future play through when we return to Shipwreck some day.
Once again, many thanks to Stanley Masonic for the use of the bar. Sadly, our regular victualler was on holiday (the very cheek!) so samples of Cooplands finest was our back up.
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