Last Sunday me and Christan got together at Morning Star Games for another game of Shipwreck. This time I decided to get away from high tension peacetime operations and just have some good old fashion conventional warfare. Once again using
Harpoon as my scenario porn shop, I based this game on the One Size Fits All scenario from
Harpoon Naval Review 2003. (I've got dozens of Harpoon scenarios and will probably be playing them for a while.)
This particular scenario takes place in 1965 and featured a Dutch ASW group running afoul of a Soviet Anti-surface unit. I was playing the people's navy while Christian ended up playing the Dutch. I started the game with two Foxtrot class submarines and one Tu-95 Bear. I also had an air strike and surface units on the way.
The Dutch had the Karel Doorman CVL, De Zeven Provincin CLG, Poolster AOR, and 4 destroyers. He also started with 2 S-2 trackers and 2 Seabat helicopters already in the air. They also had a preplanned CAP mission with 2 land based F-4 Phantoms.
Turn 1: My submarines B6 and B15 started from their targets at long and medium range respectively. My subs started the game with partially depleted batteries. (2d6 war rolled for each sub to determine when they need to snorkel.) I decided to have B6 go ahead and snorkel this turn and get it over with. This turned out to be a mistake as the Christain rolled lucky and detected it. B15 had more luck being able to close to within short range of his target. Meanwhile my Tu-95 was able to pick up all but two of the dutch ships.
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| Tu-95 circling and searching for contacts. |
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| Karel Doorman launches more aircraft to support the search. Unfortunately I don't have a Poolster so I used a British Owen class in its place. |
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| An S-2 deploys sonobouys to search for Russian subs. |
Turn 2: All the aircraft converge on B6 and a couple of them fire Mk44 torpedoes, but the submarine managed to evade them. The Bear detected the last two ships. This turn B15 failed to close with its target.
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| The S-2s are on my sub like white on rice. |
Turn 3: B15 finally closes with its target and fires two torpedoes just as the carrier is launching two more aircraft.
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| B15 fires two SEAT-53 torpedoes at Karel Doorman. |
The air strike arrives with three Tu-16 bombers. Christains CAP also arrived. The bombers closed within medium range and fired six AS-1 Kennel missiles; two at Poolster and four at Karel Doorman. The terrier missiles on De Zeven Provincin managed to shot down one of my missiles.
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| AS-1 Kennel missiles in bound. |
His guns manage to shot down two of my missiles but he also hit the Poolster with a 40mm and Karel Doorman with twice with 152mm rounds. Three missiles got through; two on Karel Doorman and one on Poolster. The missile on Poolster misses but one of the missiles did hit Karel Doorman.
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| Karel Doorman is hit three times, twice by its own escort. |
The the small gun hit on Poolster did no real damage and the 152mm only damaged Karel Doorman's flight deck. The missile however send the carrier straight to the bottom. The F-4s tried to chase down my bombers but they got away.
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| Karel Doorman burns leaving the torpedoes with no target. |
Unfortunately while I was soaking in my victory the aircraft managed to sink B6.
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| And it only took 4 torpedoes and 4 depth charges. |
Turn 4: The whole force seems to bear down on B15 as it tried to detect Poolster and failed. It was hit with one torpedo and one depth charge and sent to the bottom. The Phantoms then tried to shot down my Tu-95, but only chased it off with a close AIM-7 hit.
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| Everyone hates B15. |
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| Everyone |
Turn 5: The entire fleet turned south to exit the board. Three of the four airborne helicopters land on Poolster, the other had to ditch. I had the surface strike fleet consisting of a Light cruiser and 4 destroyers (2 of which were missile armed) arriving next turn. However, without the Bear to direct my surface ships and allowing them to move at full speed; I realized that they would never catch up and called the game. Sinking the carrier had gotten me a decisive victory. Christain was able to claim a positive draw having sank both subs, his primary target. Overall a great game.
What Christian could of done better: His fleet was a little too spread out. If the destroyers were closer they could have given him some more anti-air support.
What I could of done better: I should have waited before snorkeling. If B15 hadn't have been it would have had a much better chance of evading detection.
