8/10 SBGC Meeting: WW2 Naval using GQ3, The Battle of Byeokjegwam, and The Battle of Arnhem

The SBGC convened for its August meeting last Saturday, Ix ran a WW2 naval wargame using General Quarters 3, Pete the Battle of Arnhem using Rapid Fire Reloaded, and Chris an Imjin War scenario using Daimyo

I had originally hoped to play in Richard's Battle of Helm's Deep game using AD&D Battlesystem but he unfortunately fell ill and had to cancel. The SBGC doesn't often get fantasy miniature wargames and I would've liked to see his fantasy collection arrayed on the Helm's Deep terrain. Hopefully I'll get a chance next month!

Instead I chose to play in Ix's WW2 naval game. I've played a bit of naval wargaming but mostly those from the Napoleonic period, I've shied away from WW2 naval because I was always under the impression that it would be too complex, granular and time consuming, and from the initial look of it, that seemed to be the case with General Quarters 3, the quick reference sheet looked rather intimidating with all the charts and tables. Fortunately, to my surprise, the game was easy to learn and very fast play.

This game would face the players against the GM in a sort of cooperative scenario. Our mission was to take our fleet of small British destroyers and stop the KMS Lutzow, a heavy cruiser, and its escort from reaching its home port. We outnumbered the heavy cruiser 9-2 but it outgunned us and had stronger armor.

This was a night mission with limited visibility, and we didn't know where the Lutzow was, so we deployed in a wide line to prevent it from slipping past us. This meant we would almost certainly find the Lutzow but we'd be far apart and would find it difficult to mutually support one another. If the Lutzow was able to punch a hole through our line it'd be able to sail past us leaving us behind.

We were able to detect the Lutzow and its escort on radar, we deployed star shell flares to illuminate it and were able to acquire our target.

There was a brief exchange of cannon fire from both ships. Our main guns had little effect on the heavy cruiser's armor at this range, and we got rather lucky and the Lutzow's return fire also had little effect.

We got extremely lucky when our center flotilla launched half its complement of torpedoes at the Lutzow and managed to destroy it. Our center player, Jim, rolled very well and Ix rolled very poorly on his damage effects chart. Much to our surprise we had managed to sink the Lutzow and it's escort in 3 turns.

Because the game had only ran for 1 hour before we completed our objective, Ix decided to elongate it by throwing 5 more German ships our way from the opposite direction. We turned our fleet around to face the new threat.

Star shells did their work on illuminating the approaching German ships and we were able to identify 5 more German destroyers approaching us. These were slightly better armed than our destroyers, but we still out numbered them 9-5. However our fleet was scattered by our fighting against the Lutzow and these were all in formation.

Our fleet commander, Mike, having witnessed the effectiveness of torpedoes, launched half his complement at the approaching German ships, hoping to catch them while they were all still clumped together, but he unfortunately missed. The German return fire was devastating and immediately sank 2 of Mike's ships, actually destroying the ship carrying our admiral.

As the German's approached my flotilla, I launched my own complement of torpedoes. Unfortunately, being new to the game, I misunderstood how torpedoes worked and I fired them too late, when the German ships were less than 2000 yards away from me. They were able to clear out of the arc of fire of the torpedoes and return fire, badly crippling one of my destroyers. But on the other hand, because we were so close together, I was able to escape the German's returning torpedo launches.

On the next turn I pushed my ships to maximum speed and got as much distance as I could, turned my ships to the other side, and launched my last complement of torpedoes. The greater distance of the launch widened the torpedoes arc of fire and made them more difficult to evade. The torpedoes hit their target and was able to sink one more German destroyer.

Jim, our center flotilla, had sailed far ahead of our fleet to engage the Lutzow and its escort and was lagging behind, but at this point he was finally able to make it in range of the German ships and arrived right on time to save my bacon. He launched his final complement of torpedoes and fired his battery, managing to destroy more German destroyers.

Now there were only 1 or 2 opposing ships remaining and Ix decided to call it a British victory. His ships would try to sail back home with ours in pursuit.

This was my first time giving WW2 naval wargaming a try and it was very fun, and dispelled my illusions of it being too complicated and laborious. I'd like to give GQ3 another try some day except with the addition of aircraft carriers, I'd like to see how they play. I might even do my own WW2 naval wargaming collection, after all, they're easy as hell to paint and about the size of a quarter so finding storage for the stuff should be as easy as throwing em in a random drawer. 

Next up, some pictures from Chris Salander's Battle of Byeokjegwan game, pitting Japanese forces against Chinese/Korean forces. He's provided his own battle report which I will shamelessly copy and paste below

"After Action Report    The Battle of Byeokjegwan  1593

    The Chinese and Korean army descended from the mountains in three commands.  On the left were all of the Korean infantry and at least an equal number of Chinese infantry.  In the center was a command of Chinese infantry. The right wing of cavalry was led by Li Rusong, who was also the army commander.

 

    The three Japanese commands were almost the same.  The left was commanded by a young and ambitious Shintao daimyo, Kobakayama, with mostly Shinto soldiers.  The commander of the right wing was a young and ambitious Christian daimyo, Tachibana, with mostly Christian soldiers.  They shared command.  The center daimyo tried to not get caught up in the competition between these two.

    The frozen river between the two armies interfered with charges, encouraging shoot-outs. On the right the Chinese cavalry struck first, grinding down and throwing back the outnumbered mounted samurai. The Japanese infantry in that part of the battlefield formed a giant square.  After many Chinese riders died on the pole arms of the Japanese infantry, Li Rusong changed direction. All of the heavy and medium Chinese cavalry were diverted into a massive charge against the Japanese center, where the front line units were armed with bows and their cavalry were in the rear. (Think Murat at Eylau.)

    It appeared that a big wave was about to crash against the Japanese shore.  But the delay in crossing the river and enemy bow fire diminished the first Imperial cavalry to come over to the point where the Japanese infantry could stand up to them.  Then the Japanese teppo moved forward.  They blasted the enemy cavalry out of their saddles, until the wave was mostly gone.

    The great tragedy of the game was the fact that almost all of the Chinese center and left units never left their starting positions.  The one exception was a heavy infantry unit with fire sticks that blasted its opposition until it was left alone in the middle of the battlefield, unsupported. 
    
    The Japanese right wing commander, Tachibana, was incensed by the cowardice of the Chinese and ordered his entire command to attack.  They knocked out a unit of cannons and threw back the Korean heavy infantry. As more Japanese units continued to reach the enemy battle line, their opponents were compressed into a tightly packed mob, with no room between units. Unfortunately, at that point 3 players had to leave.

    If the battle had continued for at least two more turns, the better quality and more heavily armored Japanese right wing would have crushed the Chinese and Korean left. That would have forced the Chinese army to withdraw, with the center units acting as a rear guard. "

And last but not least, Pete's Arnhem game.

Alright, that's all for this post, guys, coming up in about 16 days is Pacificon, where the SBGC will be once again running a majority of the mini game's being played at the convention. Can't wait! Until next time, folks!