Enfilade 2014 Recap Part 2 – My Games

This year I ran two games for Enfilade, one on Friday evening and the other on Saturday afternoon. The Friday game was Slow Boat from China modern missile boats game using the Bulldogs Away rules. The Saturday game was Sandy One to the Rescue a Vietnam War air game using the AirWar C21 rules.

Slow Boat from China 

This was a five player game representing a Chinese Navy attempt to escort a resupply ship to one of their island bases in the Spratly Islands. The Chinese Navy (PLAN) started out with a corvette (Weihei) escorting the cargo ship and three Type 022 missile boats. The Littoral Alliance side was made up of force from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan. The Littoral Alliance started out with two Philippine gunboats (one an old South Korean Sea Dolphin and the other an ex-US Cyclone class patrol boat, with some Hellfire missiles) and the other two players selected a Vietnamese force with a Tarantul I and Osa II, and a Taiwanese force with two Kuang Hua VI missile boats. The game started out with the two Philippine boats sitting on either side of the PLAN cargo ship, while the Weihei and three missile boats trailed behind.

Philippine patrol boats on both sides of the cargo ship, while the Chinese corvette watches their every move

Vietnamese ships move slowly toward the cargo ship

Both sides were told to avoid shooting at the other side, although the PLAN players were told that there probably wouldn’t be any repercussions for firing if they felt in danger. However, both sides were also told they were free to use non-lethal methods to slow down the other side. In the beginning both sides tried to use fire hoses to slow down or force the other guys too turn away. This caused there to be a lot of wet sailors, but also slowed down the cargo ship by shooting water into the engine air intakes.

The cargo ship slows down to clear out some water, while the PLAN missile boats move up

Not long after, the Philippine player got the word he could open fire as needed to stop the cargo ship. He turned the ex-Cyclone away from the cargo ship to open range for his missiles. Suspecting something was up due to the radio chatter, the PLAN players fired missiles and guns at both Philippine ships.

Missiles fired at the Philippine ship

The Philippine Sea Dolphin was taken out right away by close range 76mm gun shots, but the ex-Cyclone was able to get off a Hellfire shot before the PLAN missiles hit. Due to the distances (and rules), the Hellfire hit and started a fire on the cargo ship before the PLAN missiles caught the ex-Cyclone. The ex-Cyclone did take heavy damage from the missile hits, but was able to stay afloat and continue to fire off its remaining Hellfire missiles.

Cargo ship on fire as missiles head for the Philippine ship

The rest of the Littoral Alliance ships had not gotten the weapons free order, but that didn’t matter to the PLAN and they started shooting at the Vietnamese.

Missile fired at the Vietnamese

Vietnamese Osa under attack

At this point the Vietnamese and Taiwanese decided that there was no reason to hold back and began shooting at the PLAN, causing a big missile scrum in the middle of the board.

Missiles flying everywhere

The three PLAN Type 022 missile boats and the cargo ship did not survive the exchange. But Weihei tried to salvage the situation by attacking the Taiwanese, who promptly return fire.

PLAN and Taiwanese Navy exchange shots while other ships burn in the background

A couple more missiles finish off the corvette

In the end, all of the PLAN ships were sunk and each of the Littoral Alliance players got away with at least one ship (although most were damaged). The scenario seemed to work out okay and the players seemed to have a good time. If I do this again, I will probably make some minor changes to the rules of engagement to try and lengthen the amount of time before the missiles start flying.

Sandy One to the Rescue
This was a seven player game covering the rescue attempt of a downed pilot after a bomb raid over North Vietnam. There we four US Air Force players flying two each flying a pair of F-4 Phantoms (with limited fuel), while the other two flew four A-1 Skyraiders (the Sandys of the scenario name) and a CH-53 helicopter. The North Vietnamese brought in four MiG-17s and a pair of MiG-19s. They also had some 57mm AAA sites and trucks on the ground. The trucks did have a chance to move, but not very fast (they were actually moving at about 50 MPH, I wanted to give them a chance to try to get close to the downed pilot).
After setting up the Phantoms, we waited for the MiGs to appear.

F-4 Phantoms passing over some trucks and flak

The MiGs held off coming in, trying to get the Phantoms to waste some fuel, but finally moved in as the Sandy moved on to the board.

MiGs enter the game

The first bit of bad luck for the US players was that an AAA site found the range on a Phantom and knocked it out of the sky, while the other Phantom of that pair found himself being followed by a bunch of MiGs.

A MiG-19 chasing a Phantom

The first of many missile misses as an F-4 goes down from a flak hit

The Phantoms tried to keep the MiGs away from the Sandys, but they were not having much luck with their missiles.

Another missile miss

And another (but at least the A-1 did some damage)

Although, to be fair, they were forcing the MiGs to make evasive maneuvers keeping them from taking a direct path to the slow moving A-1s. The A-1s had a chance to do a little damage of their own by taking out a couple AAA sites and some of the trucks.

Sandy takes down a AAA site

A-1s destroy some trucks and another Flak site as the downed pilot puts up some smoke

The rescue helicopter slowly made its way to the downed pilot, but was constantly harassed by MiGs.

The CH-53 survives a head-on attack

And dodges a few more MiGs

In the end the MiGs couldn’t do enough damage to down the chopper and with ammo running low (or completely gone) they decided to break off the action.

The US made it out with a heavily damaged helicopter, the downed pilot, three F-4s (although one ran out of gas on the way home) and the four A-1s. The North Vietnamese had some damaged planes, but only lost one MiG-17 to an A-1.

Overall, it seemed like things went pretty well and the players seemed to have fun. I think the speed differences between the A-1s/helicopter and all the other planes might have made it not as fun for the A-1 players, so I’ll have to watch that in the future.