Steam and Sail at Fix Bayonets

It has been a little while since I last updated my blog (sorry about that). Work and home life have kept me busy the last month and I haven't been doing much game stuff. But now that Fall is here, I'm hoping that will change. With that in mind I took at trip down to Ft. Steilacoom for the Fix Bayonets! one-day game event. Kevin was planning on running a American Civil War naval game with the recently purchased Sail and Steam Navies from Bay Area Yards and I was interested in seeing how these rules played out compared to the Ironclads rules that he normally uses.

Kevin brought out a hypothetical scenario he has run before, where a motley group of Confederate ships is attempting to escape to Cuba when it is intercepted by a Union group. The twist is that the interception happens right after a storm passed over the ships, so visibility and speed are initially limited by the stormy waters. Additionally, the Confederates had a little damage done to their ships by the storm.

The Confederate group was made up of the ironclad ram Stonewall, the commerce raider Tallahassee, the cruiser Texas (this ship was being built for the Confederacy by France, but never went into service, it is not the casemate ironclad of the same name), and the unarmed blockade runner Owl. I was running Texas and Owl.

Confederate force with Tallahassee (foreground), Stonewall, Owl, and Texas

On the Union side had the large screw-frigate Niagara, side-wheel steamer Vanderbilt, and screw-sloop Kearsarge.

Union forces with Vanderbilt (left), Kearsarge, and Niagara

The Union outgunned the Confederates, but the Confederates had the only ironclad. The victory conditions were pretty simple, the Confederates had to exit off the other side of the board (final victory would be determined by how many ships exited), while the Union had to stop them.

Since this was the first time any of the players had played with the Steam and Sail Navies rules, we spent a little time going over the rules and ship cards. There is no movement plotting with the rules, you just set your speed, and gunnery happens before movement, which is a little different than most games. Gunnery is sort of a mix of the common To Hit die roll and buckets of dice for damage. Basically the gun range determines the base To Hit number and the die roll is modified by different situations (crew quality, multiple guns in a group firing, etc.). A hit location die is rolled at the same time as the To Hit die to determine what section of the target is hit (if there is a hit). The armor for the location is compared to the penetration value of the gun. The difference is the number of dice the attacking player rolls for damage. The damage die rolls really only do damage is you roll an 8 or higher, but if you get three of the same number (assuming you are rolling three or more damage dice) you hit a gun or get a critical hit. After gunnery, ships move with one side moving all of their ships and then the other side moves. After that there are morale checks and damage repairs to finish the turn.

The game started out with both sides out of visual range (due to the storm) and moving slowly. As the storm passed the visibility increased and both sides sighted each other. The Union forces had Kearsarge in the center to stop a straight run by the Confederates, while Niagara and Vanderbilt work around the edges. Niagara got off some early shots at Texas that knocked out the bow pivot gun on the cruiser. On the next turn Niagara switched to firing shell and did some heavy damage to the cruiser, slowing it and damaging its steering. On the other side of the Confederate formation, Vanderbilt and Kearsarge were trading shots with Tallahassee and Stonewall, without much effect on either side. Owl was trying to make repair her engine (which were damaged in the storm) to get up to maximum speed.

Niagara continued to pound away on Texas, which was having trouble getting off any effective shots because of the suppressing effects of Niagara's guns. Additionally, Texas took some critical hits that slowed her down and eventually put her dead in the water.

Owl with the damaged Texas

Tallahassee and Vanderbilt traded broadsides in an uneven exchange, with little damage done to Vanderbilt while Tallahassee's magazine exploded leaving little of the ship behind. Meanwhile, Stonewall was able to use her 10" gun to inflict some heavy damage on Kearsarge, including a critical steering hit.

Kearsarge takes a hit

Owl finally repaired her engines and increased speed, leaving the other Confederate ships behind. Niagara closed in to finish off the wounded Texas.

Niagara moves to finish off Texas

Vanderbilt was turning to go chase down Stonewall, but didn't realize Kearsarge had steering damage and the cruiser collided with the side-wheel steamer. No damage was done to Vanderbilt, but Kearsarge took some hull damage as the steamer pushed by (I'm sure there will be a Court of Inquiry later to determine who was at fault here).

Kearsarge and Vanderbilt meet under less than ideal circumstances

With Kearsarge and Vanderbilt effectively out of the chase, Stonewall made her way off the board. Now that Texas was finished, Niagara turned to go after the speedy Owl. Niagara fired at the blockade runner, doing some damage and starting a fire, but the attacks failed to slow Owl. Owl was able to put out the fire and exit the board.

Owl escapes with only minor singes

Since Owl and Stonewall were able to exit with only minor damage, the Confederates were declared the winners.

The rules were interesting and I'm looking forward to playing them again. Niagara seemed like a monster (especially when compared to Kearsarge, Texas, and Tallahassee) and it caused a lot of hits and critical hits to Texas. But I don't think you will see that kind of damage in battles with ships with fewer guns.

The rest of Fix Bayonets! looked like it went well. There were a couple Sword and Flames games, a 25mm WWII skirmish game, a Sharp Practice game, and a Regimental Fire and Fury game. It was a nice little event. You can see pictures that others took here.

Looking at Rules: Kiss Me, Hardy

In my search for a good set of rules of rules for my 15mm Age of Sail ships (you can read about other rules here, here, and here), I finally decided pick up a copy Kiss Me, Hardy from Two Fat Lardies (TFL). The Lardies have a good reputation for their rules, so it seemed like a low risk purchase. With that in mind, here is my overview of the Kiss Me, Hardy rules (I should also note this overview is based on reading through the rules and some solo walkthroughs of a game).

Kiss Me, Hardy comes as a 50 page PDF file, but there is a lot of white space and partial pages so the rules aren't really that heavy. The rules are designed for use with 1/1200 scale ships, but the author says they can be used with other scales. However, I don't think he was thinking about the 15mm ships, which is what I am looking for. Ranges in the game are measured in cm (but I expect you could modify this if needed) and the game primarily uses D6s, but there are times you will need some other dice.

Like other TFL rules, there isn’t a set turn sequence; instead a deck of cards (you have to make these yourself) is used to determine what action is taken. There are cards for checking wind change, resolving boarding actions, and each squadron/formation has a Move card and Fire card. When a card is turned up that action is resolved. However, a player can hold back their Fire card for use later in the turn, but it must be played before the next turn.

For movement, each ship rate (based on the number of guns) has a base movement number ranging from 10 cm for 1st rates to 16 cm for small ships (sloops and cutters). The base movement is modified by die rolls (D6s) based on the wind position for the ship. Turning is handled through the use of a turning circle. There are special rules for tacking (turning through the wind), maintaining formation, and collisions. Overall, the movement rules are pretty easy to deal with.

For firing, the base number of dice (D6s) for broadside firepower is based on the number of guns on the ship, ranging from 14 dice for 120 gun ship to 2 dice for a ship with less than 20 guns. The base number of dice is modified by crew quality, if you are firing a full broadside, and a few other factors. The “To Hit” roll is based on range. In addition to the normal fire dice, you also roll a D10 for special damage. If the D10 roll is less than or equal to the number of hits rolled, special damage is checked on the target. When firing, the player declares if they are shooting at hull or rigging and each hit does 1 damage point. Ships hull hits are based on the number of guns they carry (a 74 gun ship has 74 Hull hits and a 36 gun frigate has 36 Hull hits). For rigging, ships have Primary and Secondary boxes based on their movement (there are three Secondary boxes in a Primary box). Most rigging hits mark off Primary boxes, but sometimes Secondary boxes are marked.

Once ships start taking damage, there will be times when the ship is required to make a Strike Test (basically a morale check). If the ship fails the test, it must retire from action or (in certain cases) will surrender to an enemy ship.

If two or more ships are locked together, they can fight a boarding action (when the appropriate card is turned). Each side rolls D6s (1 for every 10 remaining Hull hits) and adds them together, with the highest total winning the stage. This continues until all the decks on a ship are taken or the defenders throw the attackers back.

That covers the basic rules for the game, but there are also rules anchoring, running aground, small boats, galleys, fireships, bomb vessels, shore batteries, static defenses, and even land actions.

Another good rule (in my opinion) is the Ship and National Characteristics rule. This covers crew quality breaking crews into three groups (Jolly Jack Tars, Sans Culottes, and Landlubbers). Each group can further be broken down into Elite, Average, and Poor (exception, there are no Elite Landlubbers). I really like this rule since it gives eight basic crew levels without adding a lot of rule text. Another nice touch is the optional rule for modifying vessels, which allows for some further customization of ships.

The rules play pretty fast and should work well for large and small fleet actions.

Pros: Quick play, random turn sequence, different crew types, and lots of optional rules. Probably good for convention games.

Cons: Standardized ships and guns (this is okay for the scale used), PDF download (this can be a pro or con depending on your point of view).

Fighting Sail

What better way to commemorate the 99th anniversary of the victory by USS Constitution over HMS Guerriere than to play a sailing ship battle? Okay, I didn't really plan to play a game because of the anniversary, I was working with Mark Waddington to set up a game day and it just sort of worked out that way.

The primary reason for involving Mark was that he was supplying all the ships for the game. I think he started scratch-building the ships in mid-2010 and finished them up earlier this year. The 1/600 scale models are the ships available in 1812 and 1813 on Lake Ontario, which will covers the main battles on that lake during the War of 1812. Mark did a great job with these ships. The ships look really great and are very sturdy (the masts are brass tubing). For rules, I was introducing my own heavily modified version of the Prevailing Winds rules from Thoroughbred Miniatures. While I liked the gunnery in the original rules, I didn't like everything about the movement rules or very much of the boarding rules. So, I changed the things I didn't like and added some new stuff to come up with the rules.

The game was taking up a slot in the "Truants" gaming schedule (this is the group educators and other absconders that Kevin and Mark started to play games on Fridays during the summer, Kevin posts more about their games on his blog). I wasn't really sure how many people were going to show up for the game, so I had plans for a small scenario, with about 10 ships, and a large one with 16 ships (the Battle Off Burlington AKA the Burlington Races). We had 9 people show up for the game and because of all the players, everyone thought the bigger battle was the way to go, so we started setting up for that. Admittedly I had a few misgivings about going with the larger battle, since I didn't think that many of the players had experience with Age of Sail games, but I went ahead with what the crowd wanted (which may have been a mistake, but more about my mistakes later). After quickly going through the rules, we were ready to start the battle. 

The front portion of the British line. (L to R: Earl of Moira, Royal George, and Wolfe)

British center (L to R: Lord Melville and Earl of Moira)

The British force was made up of six ships; a pair of 20+ gun corvettes (Wolfe and Royal George), a 16 gun brig (Earl of Moira) and 14 gun brig (Lord Melville), and two 12 gun schooners (Sir Sidney Smith and Beresford). The British start the battle in a bad position. The do not have the weather gauge and while they have a heavier broadside, their ships are armed primarily with the shorter-ranged carronades.

The front of the American line (Gov. Tompkins in the foreground, with General Pike towing Asp)

The Americans had 10 ships, two 20+ gun corvettes (General Pike and Madison), one brig (Oneida), one large schooner (Slyph), and six smaller schooners (Governor Tompkins, Conquest, Ontario, Asp, Fair American, and Pert). Most of the American ships carried long-guns that could deal damage at long range, but since most of their ships were smaller, they wouldn't be able to take much damage. 

The American fleet ready for battle

The British plan was to continue sailing their current course, letting the Americans close, and then tacking to put themselves on an opposite course from the Americans. The Americans planned to put the wind to their back and close with the British. As the Americans closed, the General Pike, the American flagship, opened fire at long-range with her 24lb battery. The attack did only minor damage to the British flagship Wolfe, but it showed the British that they had a long way to go to get into gunnery range for their carronades. 

General Pike opens fire!

The British decided to change course, tacking to put themselves in a better position to fire at the oncoming Americans. Unfortunately, a couple of their ships failed the tacking rolls and ended up "In Irons" for several turns. The Americans continued to use their long-guns with great effectiveness, making the British situation that much worse. As the game progressed several of the smaller American ships came too close to the British and paid the price as the British carronades smashed their hulls. Just as things were starting to look better for the British, a critical hit dismasted their flagship. It was shortly after this that we called the game.


The action drawing to a close

The Americans lost the schooners Slyph and Gov. Tompkins, the brig Oneida was dismasted (by a critical hit), and several other small schooners were beat up. The British lost the schooner Beresford and the flagship Wolfe was dismasted. While this wasn't a decisive action, the victory edge seemed to swing in the Americans direction.

Overall, Mark's ships were a hit, the rules worked okay, and most people seemed to have a good time with the game. There are some items I need to revise/change in the rules, along with some minor corrections and cleaning up. Some of the major items are: I need to change how the order of movement is determined, make the turning rules clearer, clean up the crew rules, and tone down some of the critical hits. I also need to look at making the ship records a little easier to read. We didn't get a chance to try out the boarding rules, so I'm not sure if they work. But boarding was really meant for smaller actions (gunboats vs. gunboats and other small ships).

I did make several mistakes setting up and running this game. The first was going with the larger scenario. I think the smaller one would have been better since none of the players were familiar with the rules and some weren't familiar with Age of Sail games. The second was not going over the rules better with the players to make sure they understood how to move their ships (there seemed to be a lot of issues with turning and tacking in the game), how crew manning worked, and the various advantages/disadvantages of their ships. My other mistake was getting into a couple small tiffs with some players about the rules. This put me in a somewhat negative mood during and after the game, making the whole experience less enjoyable for me and probably the for the other players too.

The positives are that it seems like there are only small changes needed for the rules and the gunnery worked pretty well. Now I just need to get to work finishing my ships, so that I don't have to borrow Mark's!

A Quick Update

July has proved to be a busy month for me. I was able to spend one Saturday playing in Kevin's miniatures baseball tournament. But between work and family visits, I haven't had much spare time to work on my wargaming projects.

I did see a post on The Miniatures Page (TMP) asking about some 1/600 or 1/700 fishing/crabbing boats and I promised to post some pictures of the Working Boats kit from Loose Cannon Productions. So, here they are:

The kit comes with a dozen boats, the best of which (in my opinion) are the two fishing boats. They really turned out well and can be used in lots of different scenarios.

Things are starting to settle down and my future blog plans include writing a post about the mid-July "Are You a Modern Naval Wargamer" TMP poll, providing a rules review of the "Kiss Me Hardy" rules from Two Fat Lardies, and (hopefully) some gaming posts.

But I'll finish this short entry off with a picture of my miniatures baseball team in my home-made stadium.

A Couple More Books

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the main focus for my gaming is the smaller battles of the War of 1812 and the battles against the Barbary Pirates. It seems that I talked Mark Waddington into scratch-building the opposing War of 1812 fleets from Lake Ontario (who knew I could be so persuasive!) in 1/600 scale. Now that he has finished up the ships (I hope to share some pictures of his ships soon), we've been talking about the rules for playing out the battles. But since I've been busy with other stuff, I'm trying to re-focus on the project by going back through some of the books on the battles on the Great Lakes. I thought I share my thoughts on a couple of books I've been going through to get back up to speed. Both books were written by Robert Malcomson.

Warships of the Great Lakes 1754-1834: This book is a lighter history of the warships and battles on the Great Lakes, including Lake Champlain and Lake George. Even though it is s relatively short book, only 160 pages, it still does a good job covering of the different ships. There are lots of tables giving information about the ships and some nice illustrations. There are more detailed books out there about specific battles, but I can't think of any others that cover all of the battle on all the lakes during the three wars of this period (French and Indian War, American Revolution, and War of 1812). It is a nice book to have if you are interested in the lake battles and is a good supplement to some of the other books on the lake battles.

Lords of the Lake: The Naval War on Lake Ontario, 1812-1814: This is probably the best book I've read about Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. The book does a get job of setting the stage for the action on the lake, talking about the major characters involved, and then following through with not just how things happened, but why. The book does a good job of describing the hardships each commander faced with building a fleet in what was essentially a wilderness. It also covers the interaction between naval and land forces around Lake Ontario and in other theaters. This makes it a lot easier to understand the different strategies employed by each side during the different stages of the war. The appendices have a breakdown of the ships available throughout the conflict and those that were present at the different battles.

Lords of the Lake is a pretty easy read (even at over 400 pages), has some good maps and illustrations, and extensive endnotes. Malcomson even includes a glossary, so you can make sure you understand the various nautical terms used in the book (such as the differences between a schooner, sloop and snow). I highly recommend this book if you have any interest in the naval battles on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812.

A Few More Items from Enfilade and More Reading Material

Work is currently keeping me pretty busy, but I wanted to follow up on my Enfilade posts with some a couple notes about items I purchased at Enfilade and provide some links to some more reading material for my regular readers.

First off, some of the stuff I bought at Enfilade. Friday afternoon/evening I wandered around the vendor tables to see what new stuff was available. One of the places I spent some time at was Monday Knight Production's tables. Will Thompson and his gang really support the Enfilade convention by buying up a good number of vendor tables and by putting on games most of the weekend. I hope he makes money at Enfilade and always stop off to see if he has anything that I might be interested in. This year I found a couple things that I liked. First off was some resin boats. While these are really intended to be row boats for 28mm figures, as I looked them over, I thought there were about the right size to convert into small sailing ships for my 15mm projects. So, I picked up three of them. 

28mm rowboat ready to become a 15mm sailing ship.

I will need to put an insert into the center section to raise it up and probably cut off the oar locks, but I think they will make some nice gunboats for my fleet. The boats are about six inches long and seem to fit right in with the size I was looking for, as you can see in this comparison photo with the Thoroughbred Sea Eagles cutter.  

Comparison between the Cutter (top) and new boat.

Monday Knight also does the Science Fiction Galactic Knights rules and miniatures. For those of you that are familiar with these, they are the old Superior Models Starfleet Wars line of figures. When I was a kid I used to drool over these figures and rules in the various magazines I used to buy or read. Every year at Enfilade I think about picking up some of the figures that I could never afford as a kid, but I typically resist and spend my money on something else. But not this year! This year Will brought along his newly resin cast versions of the Super Galactic Dreadnoughts for the game, he was running a convention special, and I couldn't resist.

My very own super galactic dreadnoughts

Will did a great job of casting the resin versions, the detail is really nice and they are substantially cheaper (and lighter) than the metal versions. I got a chance to compare a painted resin and metal version and was really hard to tell them apart (until you picked them up). I picked out the two ships that I always really liked, the Terran and Entolmolian versions, and happily handed over my money. 

Terran SGDN

 Entolmolian SGDN

I don't know if I will ever get a chance to play with these ships in a game, but even if I don't, it was money well spent. It isn't too often that I find stuff that takes me back to my early teens that I still want. I showed off my new toys to Kevin on Sunday and after relating his own story about the Superior Miniatures, he decided pick up a copy of the Galactic Knights rules (which he promptly blamed me for on his blog). So, I will probably get a chance to run them around sometime in the future.

Finally I want to suggest that those of you interested in naval stuff check out the Naval War College Review website for some interesting reading material. Currently they have issues of the Review going back to the Spring 2001 and there are some really interesting articles in them. While a lot of the stuff is too much along academic/political lines, there are articles that most wargamers would find interesting too. Here are links to a few that you might find interesting:

• The Development of the Angle Deck Aircraft Carrier: Innovation and Adaptation, an interesting article on the development of angled-deck carriers in the Royal Navy and US Navy.
• Asymmetrical Warfare at Sea: The Naval Battles off Guadalcanal 1942-43
• Reflecting on Fuchida, or a "Tale of Three Whoppers", by Jonathan Parshall, one of the authors of "Shattered Sword."
• Major Convoy Operation to Malta, 10-15 August 1942 (Operation Pedestal), an in-depth look at Operation Pedestal from planning to execution. A great article for anyone looking for some insight into the operation for a campaign game.
• US Navy Surface Battle Doctrine and Victory in the Pacific, a look at the pre-war doctrine, the lessons learned in early combat and how they were implemented with the fleet.

That is just a sample of some of the greate articles and analysis offered, along with book reviews of books that you don't often hear about, and all available online for free. I hope you'll take look through some of the reviews and the Naval War College Press publications and that you find something you like.

Enfilade Recap Part 2: My Games

For Enfilade 2011, I ran my games on Saturday morning and afternoon. The morning game was Operation Morvarid, covering a missile boat action during the Iran – Iraq War, and the afternoon game was South Pacific Nights, covering a hypothetical World War II engagement between American and Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands.

Operation Morvarid was a little different for me in that the order of battle and mission was set for each side. I usually like to mix things up by having players select their forces and/or missions for a game, but this time I just went with some limitations for each side.

The scenario was that the Iranians had just completed a raid on some Iraqi oil terminals, the Iranians are trying to withdraw from the area while the Iraqis are trying to intercept them. The Iranians started out with the LST, a patrol boat, two Kaman class missile boats, and an AB-212 helicopter. The problem for the Iranians was the missile boats each only had two Harpoon missiles and they were pretty sure there would be more than four Iraqi boats. The Iraqis had four missile boats (two Osa Is and two Osa IIs) and two P-6 torpedo boats. While they had plenty of missiles (16 total), I added a special rule that said because of their poor training, any missile shot outside of visual range would be treated as a snapshot (this incurs a hefty negative modifier for shooting).

The Iranian LST and patrol boat had to start about in the middle of the board, while the missile boats could set up anywhere and all the ships were trying to exit off the south end of the board. The Iraqis entered on the north board edge, but could delay entry and come on the east side (moving one foot south for each turn of delay). Each side also had a fishing trawler that could act as dummies, adding to the ‘Fog of War’. The only terrain on the board was a small rain squall that blocked visual line of sight. The Iranians placed all of their ships near each other in the center of the board and the Iraqis had one pair of missile boats enter on turn one, while the other boats raced down the east side of the board.

As soon as they saw the blips on the north, the Iranians sent their helicopter (armed with a couple rocket pods and a machine gun) to investigate. The helicopter spotted the two Osa I missile boats and fired off a rocket pod at the nearest one damaging it. The Iraqis returned fire with some shoulder launched SAMs. Unfortunately for the Iraqis, both missiles missed.

SAMs fired at the helicopter.

The helicopter fired off its other rocket pod, sinking the damaged Osa and headed off to investigate some other radar blips. The Iranian missile boats turned north to engage the remaining Osa, each firing a Harpoon missile. The Osa captain saw the incoming missiles and decided it would be better to fire blind than to (probably) sink with missiles still onboard and launched his missiles at different targets. Two went toward the Iranian Kamans (whcih had revealed themselves) and the other two went at the blips he thought were most likely the LST and patrol boat.

A bad day for this Osa.

The Osa captain guessed correctly and his boat was plastered by the Harpoons, but he had hope to do some damage to the enemy. Two of his rolls were misses, but then his dice got hot and he hit one of the Kaman missile boats causing heavy damage and caused light damage to the patrol boat. The patrol boat also suffered a "confusion at the helm" critical hit, forcing it to make a starboard turn and almost collide with the LST.

The near collision between the Iranian patrol boat and LST.

Meanwhile, on the eastern board edge, the torpedo boats and remaining Osas were entering. The helicopter spotted the two P-6 torpedo boats and decided to strafe them. His shot did light damage to one torpedo boat, but the 23mm guns on the boats took out the helicopters engine, sending it into the drink.

At this point the game became a real chase with the Iraqi boats trying to chase down the LST and the remaining Iranian missile boat trying to stop them. The Kaman fired off its last missile at an Osa, which returned the favor by firing missiles back. The Harpoon missed its mark, but the Styx didn't, damaging the Kaman. The Osa captain then decided to finish off both damaged Kamans with its remaining missiles. With time running out (the LST was poised to exit the board), the remaining Osa launched all four missiles at the Large Slow Target.

LST under attack.

Unfortunately for the Iraqi player, all his missiles missed. The torpedo boat commander also attacked, but couldn't get any torpedo hits either. In the end, the Iranians escaped with their LST intact and a damaged patrol boat, giving them a minor victory.

Everybody seemed to have a good time and I distributed prize packs of missile markers from Fight's On to the players (thanks to Rob at Fight's On for sending me the prizes). I really like how the missile markers look with games (as you can see from the photos) and the players were happy to get their own.

Unlike the morning game, the South Pacific scenario had lots of choices for both sides. The Japanese were on a resupply mission that had to exit off the southeast board edge and could choose their forces from a group of large ships or smaller ships and barges. The Japanese selected a destroyer (instead of two sub chasers), a minesweeper loaded with supplies (instead of a group of barges), and a group of four barges with air cover from a Pete floatplane (instead of an LST). The American mission was to pick up a Marine recon team that had been observing the Japanese forces on the island in preparation for an invasion and they could choose from groups of sub chasers (with working radar), PT boats, and LCM gunboats. They chose to go with the PT boats (foregoing the radar-equipped sub chasers) and the LCM gunboats (instead of lightly armed, but fast converted PT boats). Interestingly, the LCM gunboats had the heaviest guns on the American side, each with a 3-inch gun and a pair of 37mm cannon. In addition to the island at terrain, the small rain squall made an appearance in this game too.

The game started with the Americans entering on the east board edge and the Japanese on the west. Like the Operation Morvarid game, I used the blip markers to help hide which ships were going where and included a couple dummy markers for each side.

The Japanese destroyer and minesweeper initially stayed in the middle of the board to help cover the barges and so they didn’t have to worry about running aground. The barges hugged the shoreline, while the Pete scouted ahead. The American PT boats also stuck to the middle of the board, while the LCMs moved close to shore.

The PT boats sighted the destroyer at about the same time that the Pete picked out their wakes. The PT boats made a dash for the rain squall to hide and set up an attack on the destroyer, discovering the minesweeper as they moved into the squall. Searchlights turned on and gunfire erupted as the two sides closed with each other. One PT boat was hit pretty hard as the others lined up for torpedo shots on the Japanese ships. The LCM gunboats spotted the Japanese minesweeper and started attacking with their 3-inch guns, which surprised the Japanese players. The 3-inch guns started a fire on the minesweeper as it was trying to avoid a torpedo spread, but the torpedoes caught the stern of the ship, sending to to the bottom.

Minesweeper in trouble.

As the LCM gunboats continued on their mission to get the Marines, they spotted the Japanese barges. The gunboats, which had originally been heavily-armed to combat Japanese barges, opened fire on the Japanese. They showed how effective the up-gunning was by quickly sinking one barge and setting two more on fire. Eventually they would sink all the barges.

Japanese barges burning.

The LCM gunboats then turned to their primary mission, driving up to the shore and picking up the Marines.

LCM gunboats pick up the Marines.

Meanwhile the Japanese destroyer was blasting away at the PT boats. It even took a couple (ineffective) shots at the LCM gunboats, but it took a couple hits from the PT boats and gunboats that started fires on the destroyer. Unfortunately for the destroyer, it couldn’t quite turn fast enough to avoid checking for grounding and it found itself going from full speed to all stop as it hit a sand bar near the island. The destroyer captain was able to get the ship off the bar on the next turn, but this allowed the only PT boat with torpedoes remaining to line up and launch a torpedo spread.

Japanese destroyer trying to avoid torpedoes.

The destroyer was able to turn into the spread and the American player rolled poorly as the torpedoes sped by the destroyer. At this point we decided to call the game, but continued to roll to see what would happen to the fires on the destroyer. The fires were eventually extinguished, but between them and the grounding, the destroyer had lost half its hull points.

The Japanese lost their minesweeper and all the barges, while the destroyer escaped with heavy damage. The Americans lost two PT boats and had another heavily damaged, but they were able to pick up the Marines and stop the Japanese, so they were awarded the victory.