Down the Rabbit Hole - "Fixing" Bronekaters in Cruel Seas

OK this is a bit of a stretch. A little while ago I did a comparison between the models available for Soviet Bronekaters (BKs) in Warlord Games new rules "Cruel Seas", which deal with coastal warfare in WW2. Which is sort of the first problem right there, as the inclusion of a river gunboat in the game certainly could raise a few eyebrows. On balance I think it is reasonable in the overall big picture as they could and were used on lakes such as Lake Lagoda and close inshore. What is less understandable is the stat line they get in Cruel Seas, and indeed the prominence in the Soviet listings - there are four Bronekater types listed, and only 2 MTBs or other genuine coastal warfare types, which is a bit strange. Even more so is the stats they are given, which seem to be a bit off when you compare both to the real world examples and some of the other ships in the game.

So I'm going to add to this extraneous layer of questionable inclusion by adding another layer of my own, based on my admittedly limited knowledge and research - ignorance of subject matter never was a bar in this sort of thing! Also it is worth noting that as the game uses a points system and lists the way to "build" boats using this, the results will be "legal" as far as that goes in the game. 

As I mentioned earlier Warlord give stats for four versions of the Bronekater, listing Early, Middle and Late Bronekaters, plus Project 1125. The details for all four are very similar, in fact suspiciously cut and paste as you can see below, and I think a bit more depth and detail can be offered.

I should add that in the errata published by Warlord recently they changed the weapons on the Project 1125 to 2x 6-Pdr for 55 points. This is (almost) certainly wrong!

Firstly, what are they actually talking about when they say Early, Middle etc? The Soviets deployed 2 main types of BK, the Project 1124 and Project 1125. Given the Project 1125 gets a specific mention that leaves the Project 1124 as the likely candidate for the Early\Middle\Late version. I'm going to proceed on that assumption.

There are some nicely illustrated pages on Engines of the Red Army here and WW2 Armoured Boats of WW2 here which give some details of the two main types, and I will be using them mostly in what follows, but any errors and assumptions are my own. 

The Project 1124 was around 25 meters in length and displaced around 50 tons, the Project 1125 was a couple of meters shorter and displaced about 36 tons. Both had armoured weapon positions, machinery and bridges. The main feature of both versions was they used complete tank turrets for their main armament, either taken from T28 or T34 medium tanks. This is a little unusual. No other nation as far as I can see thought of this, but hey, those whacky Soviets! It does make quite a bit of sense when you think that the main use for these boats was in confined rivers engaging targets on or near the bank at quite close range. This means they are armed with 76mm (3") guns, which of course is our first problem with the Cruel Seas stat lines, as they are all listed as 6-Pdr (57mm) guns. To add a bit more confusion there was a version of the T34 turret that mounted a 57mm, but there is no evidence this ever ended up on the BKs -  in fact it would be counter productive to do so as that gun was mounted to give additional anti tank capability against the new generation of German tanks the T34 started to encounter, but it is safe to say Tiger tanks don't float. I've tried asking them if this is a mistake or deliberate, and if so, why?  But no response as of yet. You could argue (I suppose) that a tank turret is a lot more confined than an open deck mount and therefore less efficient at engaging moving targets like other vessels. Then again, other tanks move...... So for my first "buff" I will be "upgrading" both types to 3" guns vice 6-Pdr. It is safe to say the down side of this is you can't expect a tank turret to engage aircraft. As far as I can tell these tank turrets retained their co-axial machine guns but I'm conveniently ignoring these - as Warlord seem to do.

The second issue is the number of guns. The Project 1124s mounted one turret forward and one aft, ie two main gun turrets, the Project 1125s mounted a single turret forward. All the Cruel Seas versions have only one turret, except the errata version of the 1125 which has two..... which is problematic. So the 1124 is getting a second turret, and the 1125 is losing one. On the subject of turrets on of the advantages of using a tank turret is you get a lot (in relative terms) of armour plate thrown in too. The rules cover this by making BK turrets immune to critical hits from guns of 40mm and below. Given the amount of armour involved in both the T34 and T28 turrets this seems reasonable. They don't seem to get any additional protection for the armour on their wheelhouse and other gun positions. This can be "fixed" by giving them the "Armoured Wheelhouse" trait used on later S Boats in CS, which seems reasonable. 

Secondary weapons also needs looking at, and here it gets a bit complicated. Both versions had their secondary machine guns mounted in turrets, initially lifted directly from the design of the T28 tank. As the war progressed it became obvious that the original 7.62mm DT machine guns were not cutting the mustard, and that the threat from air attack meant something more was needed. This saw the early MG turrets replaced with either single or twin 12.7mm DshK heavy machine guns in mounts that could elevate to engage aircraft. The actual number, type and position varied wildly, other than to say the mount on top of the wheelhouse tended to be twin DshKs in all but the early T28 turreted boats of both types.

Lastly there were a few more "options". Either due to a lack of spare turrets, or a desire to give them a gun that could engage aircraft, some 1124s mounted a pair of Lender 3" AA guns in open mounts in place of the tank turrets. These were the standard naval 3" AA guns mounted on some older surface warships and dated back a few years, but seemed to do the job. Finally there were versions of both the 1124 and 1125 that mounted a set of rocket rails at the rear. On the 1124s these replaced the rear tank turret, on the 1125s these replaced the rear MG \ HMG.

So lastly a quick look at the other stats - Speed and Hull Points. In Cruel Seas both types are given a speed of 21 knots. The on line sources vary quite a bit but 21kts seems about correct for the 1124s I think,  the slightly smaller 1125s seem to have been a little slower, with speeds of around 19 knots. Rating speed in CS is usually in 3 knot brackets for game use, so dropping the 1125s to 18 knots seems reasonable. 

Hull points are a bit err problematic. The problem is there seems no particular method in allocating Hull Points. I did a quick chart of the stats already given and it mostly equates to about 1 hull point per ton of displacement rounded up to the nearest five, but there are some that are wildly out, particularly the S Boats and larger. I've asked on the Warlord forum about this, but again with no response as of yet. The 30 Hull Points Warlord gives all BKs seems very ungenerous considering both their size and the fact they are armoured  - at least bullet proof, which is more than can be said of some of the other boats in Cruel Seas, particularly when compared to some other boats of similar displacement such as the Vospers and PT Boats which are rated as 40+. With this in mind I decided to give them slightly more Hull Points, closer to their actual tonnage. As this factors in to the points totals it should not give them an unreasonable advantage in the game. 

So with all that in mind here is my all singing all dancing re-stat of the Soviet BKs in Cruel Seas. By Early I am assuming either T26 or early T34 turret types, the rest being up-gunned as circumstances allowed and dictated.

Ship	Turn	Size	Slow	Combat	Fast	Hull	Equipment	Points
Project 1124 Early	R	S	7	14	21	50	2x 3” gun turrets*, 1 MG*, Armoured Wheelhouse, Armoured Turrets	85
Project 1124	R	S	7	14	21	50	2x 3” gun turrets*, 1x twin HMG, Armoured Wheelhouse, Armoured Turrets	85
Project 1124 PVO (AA)	R	S	7	14	21	50	2x 3” guns, twin HMG, Armoured Wheelhouse	85
Project 1124 Rockets	R	S	7	14	21	50	1x 3” gun turret*, 1x Rocket Rack, 1 x twin HMG, Armoured Wheelhouse, Armoured Turret.	100
Project 1125 Early	R	S	6	12	18	40	1 x 3” gun turret*, 3 x MG* Armoured Wheelhouse, Armoured Turrets	70
Project 1125	R	S	6	12	18	40	1 x 3” gun turret*, 1 x twin HMG, 1 x MG*	65
Project 1125 Late	R	S	6	12	18	40	1 x 3” gun turret*, 1 x twin HMG, 1 x HMG	65
Project 1125 Rockets	R	S	6	12	18	40	1 x 3” gun turret*, 1 x twin HMG, 1 x Rocket Rack, Armoured Wheelhouse, Armoured Turret	90

As with all boats above "Tiny" size rating, they all should have 2 "free" MGs as well, which I think is supposed to represent crew using small arms. Smoke pots or generators seem to have been a common addition too - again no surprise given their intended usage, so you can throw them in too for an extra 5 points. It's not exhaustive, but as it's already twice the length of the Warlord entry it's probably enough. A couple of points. Weapons listed as turrets have the Armoured Turret rule from page 91 of the main rule book. I would also suggest optionally these weapons should suffer an additional -1 to hit due to their cramped mountings. Any weapon listed with an asterisk (*) is in an enclosed mount and cannot fire against aircraft. There are no points mentioned anywhere for these additional factors, but I think that on the whole they probably balance out so I will not invent anything more to further complicate things.

I hope this helps give a bit more flavour to the Soviet Bronekaters in Cruel Seas. Comments welcome, and if you like this sort of stuff why not click the "follow" button over there on the right?

Cheers