An 80's Naval S.A.G.A (Surface Action Group Affair).

The last Saturday in August saw another semi-regular gathering of the TWATS and in a sublime case of history repeating itself, I was in the chair for a game of Shipwreck and once again taking advantage of Steve's collection of Cold War floaty boats. If we do the same thing for the last Saturday in August next year, this could become a tradition. 

Iiiiiiin the Red corner!!!

There were five in attendance so I'd come up with an asymmetric scenario of four British destroyers and frigates against a lone Soviet cruiser. I had not counted on Steve being busy with his brushes and bring the Americans to the table. Oh well, best laid plans and all that.

Aaaaaand in the Blue corner!

Instead, we had a straight forward slug-fest, albeit it with a little room for tactical shenanigans. Andy and Shaun took control of the Soviet surface group made up of a Kirov-class battlecruiser, two Sovremmeny-class destroyers, an Udaloy-class destroyer and a Krivak II-class frigate. Paul and Steve had the American fleet, centred around an Iowa-class battleship, two Ticonderoga-class cruisers, a California-class cruiser and a Perry-class frigate. Yep, each side has a sacrificial target, but would they use them wisely?

In the middle of the area of operations were two small islands and each side basically had to get past the other. There were no aircraft to get in the way of the ship to ship combat. 

The Krivak in the distance looks kinda lonely.

The early turns were a selection of single and double moves to eat up the distance between the two forces, with the Americans switching on the Iowa's surface search radar but neither finding anything nor being detected itself. During this period, the Americans stayed in formation whilst the Soviets pushed the plucky little Krivak II out in front and eventually warmed up its radar, yet still detecting nothing. Someone had been thinking...

Turn 9 (these were very quick movement turns at this stage of the game) saw the Americans detect the Krivak's emissions and loft four speculative Harpoons from the Iowa. This led to the first combat phase, and with the Krivak beam on to the approaching US ships, it was able to use both its SA-N-4 mounts to take down the quarrelsome quartet in two combat turns (CT's). 

Back to the movement and the US go to flank speed. The Krivak got a radar fix the US's port wing consisting of a Tico and the OHP, yet still the US still hadn't picked up a hard lock on the Krivak. Even so, more missiles went a-flying. 

A pair a piece from the Iowa, port Tico and the OHP should have been enough, yet some deft Soviet missile fire (and some absolutely cracking dice rolls from Shaun) saw the last of the Harpoons downed without too much sweat, whilst the Soviet return of four SS-N-14's at the port Tico did raise eyebrows as the last of them was taken out by the cruiser's Phalanx. 

Vampires ahoy! (and guess who can't count!)

It was time for the gloves to come off, and with a good data link back to the main fleet, the Krivak did what it was supposed to do and let the gang know exactly where the Iowa, port Tico and OHP were. Each of the Soveremmeny's fired all eight of their SS-N-22's, one octet at the port Tico, the other at the OHP (overkill, I know, right?). The Kirov, having none of this "which is better?" bollocks, rippled all 20(!) of its SS-N-19's (no nukes in game, btw) at the Iowa.

Our American friends decided that the Krivak had lasted long enough, tasking the OHP to fire the last of its Harpoons at the offending frigate. Since they had not detected the main Soviet fleet, that was their only possible response. This began that last CT phase. 

The eight Harpoons were whittled away by the Krivak's dwindling supply of SAMs, with all but one of the SSM's succumbing to defensive missiles. It was at this point that the fortunate frigate ran-afoul of the flurry of fire, and some duff chaff dice rolling led to a single hit, bad enough to cripple the ship, yet not destroy it. Heroes of the Soviet Union medals all round me thinks. A tally of the remaining SAM rounds revealed a total of 2 remaining for the front mount - it was that close. 

Hard right turn, Clyde!

The American's were too busy to celebrate their first (and only) win as they had to deal with the incoming horde of SSM's. Both Tico's got in on the act, with the port ship proving the most capable as expected as they were an actual target, and it was never really in doubt that they wouldn't avoid some Sunburn issues. 

However, as the port Tico was busy saving itself, that left the OHP on their own, and that single arm launcher counted against it. They managed to down four of their Sunburn's, yet ineffective Phalanx and chaff dice rolls meant that it took four direct hits. The Krivak had been more than avenged as the Soviet claimed the first sinking of the game. Yet the game wasn't over yet...

Vampires ahoy! (With the right count now!)

There were still the issue of twenty "Shipwrecks" (not 22 according to one photo... oops! That was corrected before anything important happened though), and despite some truly fantastic AEGIS directed defensive shooting, nine still made it to CIWS range on the Iowa. Phalanx accounted for two of those, as did chaff, but the remaining five found their mark. Even with "on the fly" amendments for the presence of an armoured hull, there were too many well rolled hits and the Iowa was gone. And with that, the two fleets parted to lick their wounds, with the Soviets definitely the better off. 

Oh, Heavens Preserve us!

This was another fun game using Shipwreck and the addition of Steve's naval know-how demonstrated the benefit of having an umpire and players who know their stuff. Tis a game more than just about dice rolling. 

That being said, your humble umpire did offer both sides the opportunity to expand the game (to either or both side's benefit) via the liberal application of a fine single malt (there were several behind the bar) to the umpire, yet neither side did. Has there ever been a more fitting example of fair play from two competing sides? Probably, but hey, if you don't offer, you'll never know! Also, damn them!

A tough little ship, that one!

One thing that was was quite clear was that when the vampires were loose, there was a lot going on and much to keep track of, leading to my muttered comment of "Next time, can we do f-ing muskets?" 

I might return to the asymmetric scenario for our next naval game, but that'll be a while off yet (next August bank holiday weekend, gents?), as there are many more periods we can play with before a return to Cold War naval is warranted, and a benefit of being in such a varied group of TWATS.

A British Tar is a soaring soul, and a very tempting target... - TWATS meeting 26th August 2023

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. 

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?

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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). 

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. 

Cruisin' for a bruisin' - game report.

For the second time this year (we truly are spoiling ourselves here), there was an assemblage of Tantobie Warfare And Tactical Society members at The Commie on a Saturday for another afternoon game. Two in two months, I know! I was in the chair for this one and had decided to give the Shipwreck rules another go with some of the rather decent "click together with a dab glue required" ships I'd acquired from Wish a couple of years ago. Markers for missile fire and helicopters, well, good old pen and paper would suffice. Joining me would be Andy and Shaun, neither of whom count modern naval as their thing so this would be a very good example of a game being ran by the umpire.

A life on the ocean wave...

The scenario was US Navy versus the Soviet Navy. Two Tico-class cruisers (Yorktown and Thomas S Gates) escorting a Sacramento-class combat support ship (Seattle) which the Soviets have to stop using two Slava-class cruisers (Slava and Admiral Flota Lobov). There was no air support other than the ship's own helo's, and no submarines either. Andy decided to be a hot dog snaffler for the day, whilst Shaun was already chomping at his pickled beetroot(!). As for the table, this was seven and a half feet by four and a half, so just about enough space for the game. The Americans were tootling along at one end, whilst the Soviet Navy was skulking about some islands at the other.

A note before we get to the game itself - I had hoped that we could get two games in, one as per the rules, the other with some pre-chosen amendments to the shooting mechanics and Aegis use. However, as with all of our games, there was as much convivial social interaction (i.e. talking, gassing, wittering and piss taking) as there was game playing, so only one game was played which meant that I decided towards the end to include one of the amendments anyway (which I'll explain about later). One thing that is essential to the TWATS is that it's not just about playing the game. Indeed, often the game is secondary to the purpose of the gathering. You may disagree and that is totally fine, but we as a group have never been laser-focused on rolling dice. Each to their own, as they say, but then we do hold our gatherings in a pub... with beer... and beef butties. It's how we roll (so to speak...).

They're just a Slava to love...

Anyway, to the game, and the first movement turn was a general US advance, the Seattle between the two Tico's. The Yorktown launched a helo with it's radar on to see what was ahead. It didn't see anything but the radar was detected by the Slava, which had taken up position in one of the channels between the islands whilst the Admiral Lobov had taken the other. Turn two saw the helo move further ahead as the ships from both sides slowly closed the gap. Turn three was pretty much the same, though the Slava did launch it's sole Ka-27, whilst both sides failed to gain/maintain detection. Turn four saw the helo from Yorktown detect the Ka-27, which itself was detected by the Slava due to its radar emissions. 

Turn five saw some juggling of aircraft as the Yorktown's first helo was replaced by it's second. The Thomas S Gates put its first whirly-bird in the air as well, Andy wanting to form a reconnaissance screen ahead of his force. Slava's Ka-27 moved forward, probing with its radar and finding all three US ships. As the Americans were still not radiating, they had to rely on passive means to detect the Ka-27... which the Seattle did but the two very expensive anti-air cruisers didn't. Such are the dice rolls. Andy then decided to switch everything on. The Yorktown detected the Soviet flying menace and promptly fired two Standard surface to air missiles. One hit later and the Soviet helo was no more. 

It's not Harpoon, but it'll do for a map.

Turn six, and things became really interesting as everybody lit up (their radars, there were no smokers in the group). Shaun also launched his last helo, this one from the Admiral Lobov. The Yorktown's helo detected the Slava and was counter-detected, the Thomas S Gate's chopper didn't find the Lobov but neither was it found by the Soviets. At this point, Andy decided to have a pop at the Slava, utilising data links between the ships to fire two Harpoons each from the Tico's at the Soviet cruiser. Onto the combat turns!

The first combat turn (6.1 so to speak) saw the missiles on their way. 6.2 saw the Slava try to detect the missiles as they reached medium range, picking up three of the four and launching a pair of SA-N-6's at each of the incoming missiles. All three of the detected anti-ship missiles were downed. Combat turn 6.3 saw the final Harpoon detected at short range and shot down by another brace of SA-N-6's. 

Andy, at this point, was questioning his ability to actually sink the enemy. There then followed a discussion over tactics, the effect of air power and the differences in approach between the US and Soviet navies on ship to ship combat. Handily, food also arrived at this point: beef sandwiches with fried onions, peas and chips, and lashings of gravy too. Once again, Jean surpassed herself with the victuals. So, fortifying ourselves with another couple of pints of Consett Ale Works Pale Ale (except for poor Shaun, who was drinking lightweight pokey-pola as he was driving), we returned to the table.

Movement turn seven kicked up a gear here. A round of detection dice led to everyone knowing where where everyone else was at with the exception of the Thomas S Gates, who got ignored, and the Slava who seemed to have had dice on his side. Thus began another round of combat turns.

Combat turn 7.1 and it was SAM heaven as the Slava and Admiral Lobov each fired a pair of SA-N-6's, blotting out the two forward deployed US helo's. In return, the Thomas S Gates fired a pair of Standard SM-MR2's at the Lobov's helo, and it too made a rapid connection to the sea. 

Combat turn 7.2 was the biggie, as far as the Americans were concerned. Chastened by his lack of success with a mere four Harpoons earlier in the game, Andy decided to unload his remaining twelve SSM.s (six from the Yorktown, six from the Gates) at the Admiral Lobov. This left Andy with just the Standard SAM's as any long range anti-ship firepower but needs must.

"Authentic" (ahem) wave simulation on the table.

CT 7.3 saw the Lobov detect 8 of the incoming Harpoons, whilst the Slava detected 9. Sadly for the Slava, the geometry wasn't right for any kind of supporting fire so the Lobov had to deal with the incoming on it's own. Firing one SA-N-6 per target to maximise potential hit rolls, Shaun shot down 6 Harpoons. Not bad at all. 

7.4 saw three of the six remaining Harpoons detected and this time Shaun launched a pair of SA-N-6's at each of the offending trio. Two kills, four remaining. It was squeaky bum time for Shaun as the final four made it to very short range and, in keeping with the rules, he couldn't fire anymore SA-N-6's so was left with CIWS and chaff. 7.5 saw detection pick up only three incoming, with dice rolls killing two. With just chaff remaining, Shaun bravely rolled and managed to decoy one last Harpoon away. That final missile slammed into the Admiral Lobov, causing heavy damage and knocking the SA-N-4 system out. Dead in the water, he would need some good repair dice the next turn.

Which, in Movement turn 8, the lucky so and so got! Back up to half speed and with combat systems up and running, the Lobov was back in the fight. A duff round of detection rolls solved nothing, so onto turn 9...

The Yorktown was blind and deaf to anything (it was poor dice rolling again), whilst the Gates found the Slava. The Slava, in turn, found the Yorktown and the Seattle, but not the Gates. Shaun, using some pretty good logical deduction, knew he was facing two shooters and had detected two ships, so decided to fire every SS-N-12 he had (16 from the Slava, 16 from the still functioning Lobov) and see what would happen. 

This does not look good...

Combat turn 9.1, the Yorktown detected half of the incoming raid and the combined fire of 8 Standard MR2's between that ship and the Gates (got to love data links) shot down seven, so 25 remaining. Good shooting but not enough... 

CT 9.2 saw 14 detected out of the 25 and a further 7 kills from nine missile shots, Seattle's Sea Sparrow getting a look in.18 vampires left after short range fire.

Combat turn 9.3 was the very short range engagement and here is where I made the change to the rules. I permitted the Standard's and Seattle's Sea Sparrow to fire again. Some truly excellent dice rolls from Andy took out another 8 of the SS-N-12's, and of the final 10, Phalanx fire from all three ships (who were in close order so I allowed the Gates to fire even though she was not a target) dealt with a further six. Andy really could not have asked for better results. But that still left four missiles aimed at the Yorktown and the Seattle.

And now, the end is near, and so I face the final...

With just chaff left, the luck of the roll left Andy, and all four anti-ship missiles found their target. The two hits on the Yorktown were fatal, sinking her in pretty short order. The Seattle, however, barely flinched, sustaining light damage from the first hit though the second hit raised that to heavy damage, Still, she was afloat. 

By now, the afternoon was waning and the game was over, with a solid win for the Soviets. They had destroyed one cruiser, heavily damaged the supply ship and the Americans only had SAMs to shoot back against two ships. Ok, one of those was damaged but still able to fight. They too, like the Americans, would have to rely upon using SAMs to shoot for any longer range stuff, and they had a definite advantage if it came down to guns.

Both Andy and Shaun enjoyed playing the game, and it was a hoot to umpire too. This is where umpires come into their own, certainly in the games we play, as it is umpire knowledge and understanding that guides players who may not know the period or topic. As for the rules, well, they played well, but seem to be a bit more dice heavy than I would like. Certainly, the detection rolls for missiles could, in my humble opinion, require tweaking. One solution would be to have a single roll at initial detection range and then have that count for the rest of the flight in. If you wanted, you could bring in sea state to make things a tad more realistic and then have a single roll per batch at each range band. Just a thought, but something worth considering as the core rules are pretty sound. 

Then we come to SAM fire (not samphire, though that is lovely on salmon). Aside from the hit values, which in this game I took as absolute, rather than one under to drive off, two under to kill - nope, you get the hit roll, it kills, I have an issue with the way the game handles Aegis. With the Mk26 twin launcher, an early Aegis cruiser can loft four missiles every ten to twelve seconds. According to the rules, they can only fire four missiles per combat turn. That didn't, and still doesn't feel right given that a combat turn can represent one to two minutes of real-time. One way to take that into account was to permit SAM fire in v-short range. The other is to increase the number of missiles fired per turn. The same goes for VLS systems. This part needs work and it'll be something I'll be thinking about before the next time we play this, which admittedly won't be for a while as variety is a plus point to our group. Of course, I could just have mis-understood the rules... another feature of umpire-ran games :-)

Still, this was another good game and one that kind of played out how I expected it to, minus the inevitable tweaking that we always seem to do with rules. Hopefully you have enjoyed reading this and if late Cold War naval is your thing, try and grab a copy of Shipwreck and its add-on Freeplay '88. They're definitely worth a go. 

If you're interested in the ships used, you can find them on Wish, usually for a few quid for 8. I bought two sets, hence the multiple Slava's and Tico's. For the price, they're decent. Now, to find similar scale models to fill out the fleets...

A kick in the Spratleys

Saturday saw another gathering of the TWATS, again in reduced numbers due to work and personal commitments. I was in the chair and had decided to give Shipwreck an airing. I’d bought this rule set years ago, alongside the Freeplay ‘88 supplement but never got round to putting anything on the table,,, as I hadn’t anything to put on the table. However, last year I bought an 8 pack of snap together plastic ships off Wish. The eight ships included are the Hood, the Liaoning, a Type 54A frigate, a Burke-class destroyer, a Tico-class cruiser, a Slava-class cruiser, a Sacramento-class supply ship and what the packaging refers to as a Kilo-class sub but I think it’s a Seawolf-class SSN. Quite liking these, I bought another pack from Amazon in December. In each instance, the price was just over a tenner for the eight. With these, I could put a game on.

The toys for the game

Joining me on Saturday were Shaun and Andy, who played as the Chinese and Americans respectively. The scenario was a simple one: a US Navy supply ship, the John Lewis (wait, there’s more) is damaged and drifting after a typhoon savaged the area. The Chinese have claimed the waters as theirs and the US Navy believe they are international waters. The Americans have dispatched a surface group of one Tico (the John James Fenwick) and two Burke-class destroyers (The Thomas Marks and Michael Spencer – told you there was more). The Chinese were heading to the Lewis with the Liaoning freshly out of trials accompanied by two Type 54A frigates. Due to the poor weather, there were no flight ops (in other words, I have no models yet for helo’s – that will change). In addition, there was a Russian Slava-class cruiser in the area due to meet up with the Chinese for joint exercises after the two countries signed a friendship pact.

The US Task Force as the game started

The set-up gave the Chinese a bit of a head start in the race to the Lewis but both sides started at flank speed for the first few turns. The Lewis was using its radar and data-link to keep the US group informed of the Chinese location, whilst the Fenwick alone had its radar active – the destroyers Marks and Spencer were under full EMCON. As the two forces approached the Lewis (and each other), the Americans were very vocal in telling the Chinese they were in international waters on a rescue mission. The Chinese in turn were pretty loud in proclaiming their socialist friendliness and willingness to escort the Lewis to a Chinese port since they were in Chinese waters.

The Chinese Squadron

As the ships closed the distance, the Americans detected the Chinese force first, the two Type 54A’s ahead of the carrier. I made Shaun roll for the Slava to make an appearance, which it didn’t.

In turn 6, the Chinese declared they were going to have to board the Lewis in order to "rescue" the crew. The Americans did not take this well.

The Chinese frigates surge ahead, the John Lewis in the distance

Turn seven saw the Chinese get painted by the Lewis’s fire control radars for their Sea Sparrow missiles. Whilst not dedicated anti-ship missiles, they could still cause some damage. The Chinese ignored this and approached closer still, though by this point, they had activated their radars and finally saw the Fenwick and her escorts. As an aside for our northern England readers, rumours that the Fenwick was equipped with an advanced chaff substitute called Window were just that, rumours, though the thought of Fenwick’s Window being a distracting was quite apt.

The Americans, and rough seas for the Spencer

Turn 9, and the US commander at sea gets a message from Pacific Fleet Command – the Chinese should not get closer than 3 miles and that permission to fire was granted. Of course, when told this, Shaun brought one of his 54A’s to within one mile. Finally, some shooting started.

Closer...

Closer still...

Very close now...

Dude! Personal space!!!

Now, I quite like Shipwreck’s mechanic of movement turns lasting 10 minutes of game time but when firing occurs, this is sorted out in up to six combat turns before another movement turn can be started. It neatly takes into account missile speed and distance as well as being neat when trying to figure out what is going on. Needing relatively low dice to get hits due to the way the Sea Sparrows were balanced for anti-ship use, Andy fired to at the closest 54A and missed. Similarly, an attempt at Phalanx fire also failed, though that was more of a desperation shot. Once that had been decided, it was the next movement turn.

"Western belligerence" was claimed by the Chinese, as they launched boats with marines on to grab what they could from the Lewis. When asked what kind of boats they would be (as there were no models for them), the reply of "don’t know but don’t say they are from Taiwan or we will fire" seemed very apt. The Americans were given the all clear to fire at will (poor lad) and the Fenwick and Marks each launched four Harpoons at the two frigates. The Lewis joined in with its remaining 6 Sea Sparrows at the the nearest frigate. It must be noted here that the Liaoning was keep its distance. The remaining frigate tried its hand with 76mm cannon fire against the Lewis and missed. Both, however, unleashed their entire payload of 8 C802 missiles each at the Americans, divided equally between the Fenwick and the Marks.

Vampire, vampire, vampire!

Another intermission here as I kind of cocked up. I didn’t read the ship cards properly which limited the number of SAM’s that could be guided at any one time. However, my defence is that modern day Standard missile/AEGIS combo’s are much more effective than even these rules have them (originally written in 1999) so I let both sides fire whatever they wanted at their respective incoming targets. So let that be a lesson, when you cock up, cock up so that both sides are receive a fair benefit of the cock up.

Another shot of the missile action.

Pretty fair exchange here

So, the first set of SAM’s went up. Andy fired three Standards per incoming missile so 24 from Marks and Spencer. Even with a miscounted points value (again, my cock up but again, fair to each side), all but one of the C802’s was shot down. In response, the Chinese only managed to down five of the eight incoming Harpoons. Final result – one hit on the Marks, one hit on the port Type 54A and two on the other. The 54A with one hit took light damage and lost it’s now empty C802 mount. The other 54A took a crippling hit first, then sunk with the second hit. The Marks took it’s hit head on, leaving it crippled and down a Phalanx mount.

At this point, I enacted the third rule of the TWATS. The first one is "The umpire is always right, especially when he’s wrong". The second is "refer to rule one" and the third is "the umpire is a TWAT". And so I was. I took Shaun to one side and asked him if he wanted to call upon the Russians for help. He said yes, so on one corner of the table, the Slava appeared as did four missile tokens, each one representing four SSM’s. Yep, the Slava had shot its entire load, eight at the Spencer and eight at the Fenwick.

Ain't I a stinker!

Onto turn ten and the remaining 54A tried again with its 76mm to hit the Lewis, more bum dice here from Shaun. An emergency message from the Varyag claimed that an unfortunate error had meant the launch of all of the Varyag’s SSM’s. Totally an accident and unintended(!). However, whilst Andy was prepared to rescue survivors from the sunk 54A, he knew he had been well and truly kippered. Not that this was to stop him. Cleverly (and totally unintentionally), he bypassed the multiple missiles per target rule and had the Spencer and Fenwick each fire one SAM per incoming missile. As each ship was acting individually, I ruled that this would have no effect on the accuracy of the missiles and with a total of 32 against 16, the incoming Russian barrage was dealt with smartly. At the end of this combat round, a quick check of the ammunition situation revealed that the Fenwick was down to 106 SAM’s and the Spencer down to just 34!

Turn 11 saw the Russians once again claim a technical malfunction and also making a pretty sharpish withdrawal. Whatever the agreement between the two governments, there was little appetite for a further missile exchange, especially as the Americans still had a good number of Harpoons left. The surviving 54A also turned tail and joined the Liaoning in leaving the combat area, not even helping to rescue their own sailors, something the John Lewis was more than willing to do. Everything else would be sorted out at the UN.

The first run for a rule set is always just a case of seeing if the game mechanics work. In the case of Shipwreck, whilst the scenario was simple, it revealed that they aren’t half bad and with a little updating to to take into account current day weapons capabilities, will see future use. One thing that was remarked upon was the possibility of adding politics to mix. Several years ago, Andy and I ran a political game set in "not Iraq", with multiple sides and backstabbing a plenty. Something like that, with ulterior motives and the like would suit this well as it would add an extra layer to just rolling for missile fire – indeed, once the missiles start flying, there is not much more to do than hope you get good AA fire rolls. We would need more players (the previous political game had 9 including the two umpires), but in that case, it would be one player captains one ship with national orders assigned to each ship captain. Hmmm, with a bit of thought, that could be a go-er.

One thing that will be added to (after the York Vapnartak show) are helicopters. Tumbling Dice do a good range and whilst they are light on Chinese types, that can be worked around. They would also give a bit more subtlety to the hunt. Some fixed wing would also not go amiss, especially with the carrier. This could even lead to a campaign…

Some of you might be thinking, having seen the pictures that the scale of the models looks wrong. And to be fair, they all seem to be scaled so that the actual model size is about four inches. True, that leads to some funny looking size comparisons but to be honest, it wasn’t an issue here as the all measurements were made bow to bow. The models themselves are quite decent and when you consider how much I paid for them, it was enough to put on a game. True, the painting is a bit iffy and some of the fittings were rough and included a fair amount of flash on some of the pieces, but for the price, it would be churlish to complain. Main take away here is that it doesn’t have to cost the earth to put a game on and they made a decent impression on the (green) sea – a props issue that made not much difference to be honest. They were also easily visible, something that smaller scale ships would cause trouble with in the slightly gloomy light as the afternoon waned.

All told, I enjoyed this game. It was nice to try something different and there is room for expansion later on. Both participants also enjoyed it (so they tell me, though they both were well versed in political double speak by the end of the game :-)). As always, the fine hospitality of Eric and Jean at the Commercial was much appreciated, as was the Consett Ale, and the Beef Butties and Chips were well served. Empty plates and full stomachs all round and a satisfying afternoon of gaming.

Note: For non-UK readers, Marks and Spencer, John Lewis and Fenwicks are the names of department stores in UK. Fenwicks is particularly popular in the north-east of England for its Newcastle store where a large Christmas display window (hence the chaff/window reference) is set up each year. And yes, bad jokes will continue is future games I run :-).