Early International Naval Wargaming Day Battle

I hosted another outdoor gaming session over the weekend and decided to run an early International Naval Wargaming Day game. The reasons for the early game is that August 6 is on a weekday and most of my gaming group are busy on the weekend. So this looked to be my best chance to get in a naval game with other people. I have something in mind for a solo game on August 6, but more on that later.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with International Naval Wargaming Day, in 2017 David Manley, well know rule writer and naval gamer, kicked off the first International Naval Wargaming Day as a day to "Celebrate the birth of the father of naval wargaming, Fred T. Jane, by running or taking part in a game of your own!"

For this year's game, I wanted to get the 1/1250 pre-dreadnought ships back in action. We are using the Fire When Ready rules, with some local variations that beef up the damage ships can take and limit the damage of smaller guns against armored targets.

A quick "vanity" shot of my French battleships with some coal smoke

I had proposed a couple order of battles for the game, which would pit a combined Austrian-German squadron against a French squadron. The general idea being that the Germans were visiting Austrian ports in the Adriatic and the French decided to send a squadron to demonstrate their disapproval. As the squadrons meet, someone says something that is misunderstood and the shooting starts (it wouldn't be much of a fight without shooting). I was able to talk the others into trying a 5 ship on 2 ship battle.

The Austrian-German squadron was made up of the light battleships Erzherzog Karl and Hapsburg, and the armored cruiser Sankt Georg.

Austrians ships (left to right) Sankt Georg, Hapsburg, and Ersherzog Karl

The Germans contributed the armored cruiser Furst Bismarck and (barely) protected cruiser Vineta.

German ship (left to right) Vineta and Furst Bismarck

The French force consisted of the battleships Charlemagne and Jena. 

French battleships

This scenario was designed to have a slower, but heavier force (the French) facing off against a lighter, but more numerous enemy (similar to Graf Spee at River Plate or the hypothetical WWI Goeben vs. British armored cruisers).

The Austrian-Germans turning in line

The Austrians heavy ships led the way, with the expectation that they would be able to better withstand the French guns. But this deployment did cause the Germans to be blocked and unable to fire for the first few turns.

The view from the French side

As expected, the French concentrated their fire on the two lead Austrians. Throughout the game French die rolls were really good. Early in the battle Erzherzog Karl took a lot of hits that slowed the battleship and jammed the rudder.

Erzherzog Karl being battered

The jammed rudder forced some fancy maneuvers on the Austrians to avoid a collision with the damaged battleship. At this point, the Germans decided this was a good time to strike out on their own, splitting up the squadron.

the combined squadron splits

The Austrians had been getting hits on both Charlemagne and Jena, but not doing a lot of damage. But the first German shot from Furst Bismarck did cause some excitement as it hit and started a raging fire on Charlemagne. The Austrians started another fire on the French battleship. While this was good news, there was also some bad news for the Austrians as Erzherzog Karl failed a morale check and began turning for home.

Raging fires on Charlemagne

With the Austrians and Germans split, the French shifted fire to the Germans. Their first shots only damaged the Furst Bismarck, but the second round of fire crippled the armored cruiser, While Vineta was almost sunk (once again the French die rolls were good as each of the German cruisers suffered a Bridge special hit that prevented return fire).

With both cruisers in bad shape, the Germans decided it was time to break off. The Austrians were in slightly better shape, but with the battle now 2 on 2 they also decided call it a day.

Austrians heading for home

Victory went to the French, but the battle was not as one-sided as it seemed. Charlemagne would eventually put out the fires, but not before one explosion, and was at her morale check point when the fires finally went out. Jena only took moderate damage and was still in good fighting shape. The good (and timely) French die rolls certainly made it look like the French had an easy time. But it could have turned out differently with average die rolls on both sides, it would have been a closer battle.

The test rule that limited the damage of smaller guns against armored targets definitely helped the French, but it also limited the damage done by the French secondary guns. Overall it seemed to work well and we will probably keep it.

Before we broke up for the day, I grabbed a quick photo of David's German and Japanese ships. I believe these are all manufactured by Hai, but David repainted and mounted all of them and they just look great.

Germans and Japanese (with red funnels)

As I mentioned at the start of the post, I will probably put together a solo game for the real International Naval Wargaming Day. See you then.