The Turkish Navy is to reinforce their troops on Kronos Island. The Turkish forces must escort the LST Ertrugal of the other edge of the map. Use Islands and civilian shipping as cover. Due to the large amount of civilian shipping in the area and the fact that both navy's use the same equipment,positive visual ID of targets must be made before firing.
As stated above the targets had to be identified visually and special rules were in placed visual detection. I controlled the Turks which consisted of the Yavuz (MEKO 200 FF) and Ertrugal (Ex-US LST). I also had control of 4 merchant vessels. Joe and Christian had the Greeks, with Christian taking the Iperos (Ex US Knox FF) and Joe taking the Hydra (MEKO 200 FF). The Greeks also controlled 2 merchant vessels.
The Greeks set up in the center. I did consider separating the LST from the Yavuz, but didn't want to risk it being found alone. I place both my combat ships for the fast route and the civilian ships at the other entry points. I choose to attempt the run at night hindering their visual detections.
Right off the bat both Christian and Joe lunched their helicopters. I, not wanting to give away my position kept mine at ready 5min. The Greeks kept the missile armed Ageanhawk back whiled their AB212 scouted for targets. Unfortunately the AB212, unlike the Ageanhawk, did not have night vision and only detected the Ertrugal.
Seeing as to how my LST was now detected, I decided to open fire. The AB212 was chased off with a near hit from a Sea Zenith. The Yavuz then launched it's own helicopter and sprinted ahead of the Ertrugal. The helicopter moved to the nearest enemy ships and ID the merchant ship SS Cargo.
Unfortunately before my helicopter could ID the other ship and engage with its Sea Skua missiles, it was chased off by stinger missiles. The next turn the Yavuz and Imperos successfully ID each other. Both me and Christian then lunched 4 Harpoon missiles each. That's when things started going down hill.
Because of the angle I was at, the Yavuz's Sea Sparrow was out of arch and I couldn't engage any of the missiles at short range. When the missiles got to very short range things got ugly. Two of my missile were decoyed onto the merchant by chaff. The SS Cargo was hit by both and sent to the bottom. The other two missiles missed. As for Christians missiles, two were aimed at the Yavuz and the other two were aimed at the Ertrugal. The Yavuz managed to shot one of the harpoons down with a Sea Zenith before it received a crippling hit. The LST was hit by both missiles, but only suffered light damage losing a couple of the LCVP craft on board.
During the next turn Joe's Ageanhawk, which had been pulled back for safety started to check the other ships in the area. IDing the ferry African Queen.
As for the on going battle, Yavuz could not control the fires on board and the captain order the crew to abandon ship. Then Christian made a tactical error by coming to very short range of the LST to engage it with guns (its main gun has a range of short). This put the Frigate within range of Ertrugal's 76mm guns. The Imperos was hit by the two guns suffering heavy damage and losing both its main gun and a stinger mount. In a twist of fate my least combat effective ship did the most damage to the enemy. However, it received three hits in the process and went under.
With no more combat ships available I called it. A clear victory for the Greeks.
What I did right: Placing the civilian ships at the other entry points caused the Greeks to split their forces, leaving me with only one combat ship to deal instead of two. Unfortunately this meant poor Joe didn't get to shot at any thing the whole game.
What I did wrong: I should of kept the LST behind the Island.
What Christian did right: Kept close to one of the merchants to use as missile bait.
What Christian did wrong: Unnecessarily closing to very short range of my LST putting him within range of my own guns.
Being the first game I've played in months I still had a good time, if only my dice hadn't abandon me.
