Getting real? Wargaming the current war

I don't normally do solo wargaming. To me it always used to smack of desperation - "Billy No Mates" and all that. Even through lockdown I rarely bothered, unless it was something written with solo play as an option (like Zona Alfa).

I also don't tend to do games based on current events. I'm not pontificating here. Philosophically I don't really see a big difference in playing a game which involves thousands of my representative troops being killed in a mad charge against a Roman Legion, or fighting through the rubble of Stalingrad. However the last really "current" conflict I played was back in 1982 when me and some friends at Hartlepool Wargames Club (Hi Dave Lakey!) played out some "What if" games as the British Task Force headed for the South Atlantic, before the real shooting war began. I don't think we really expected it to turn into a real shooting war. When our games resulted in a couple of Royal Navy warships being sunk by missiles I don't think we thought it would ever happen. Subconsciously I think I shied off from then on. I played lots of "What if" Cold War goes hot stuff, but no actual "live" conflicts. 

Anyway I digress. Mark F has been sorting through a box of spare 1:3000 scale warships dating back to the 80s, and asked for some help identifying what was what. I dutifully dug out my old 1982 copy of Janes Fighting ships and my model collection, and started to try and match his blurry pics to what I had. (seriously m8 my eyesight is bad enough - take better pictures!). This got me to thinking about current events, particularly the loss of the Slava Class missile cruiser Moskva. Interest peaked I dug out my old rules (Shipwreck) and decided to see what happens. Shipwreck was published in 1999 and was written with the 80s and 90s era in mind. Moskva was straight out of that era, and the Ukrainian Neptune missiles are very similar to US Harpoon* missiles, so that would do for my little experiment.

Scenario 1 - Wide Awake

I set the scene as much as I can work from open source material. Moskva is cruising with no close escort, and is attacked by a pair of Neptune SSMs fired from a land based launcher. Targeting is assumed to be a passive shot - ie the Ukrainians know the general area the cruiser is operating in, but don't have a precise fix. How the Ukrainians have a firing solution is currently unclear but I suspect someone from Langley may have made a call. Anyway the action starts as the two missiles reach maximum possible detection range for the Moskva's radar. 

Undetected missiles in grey

Onboard Moskva the radar operators are awake and alert. They make a detection attempt on the two incoming missiles, and much to my surprise, good dice results mean both are detected and identified as hostile. Someone hits the klaxon and alarms blare! However there is not a lot the ship can do at the moment. The main anti aircraft system is the S300F (SA-N-6). This is an area defence system and at least in Shipwreck can't target the incoming sea skimming missiles. That will have to be the job for the point defence systems - Moskva has a pair of OSA-M (SA-N-4) launchers, a twin 130mm gun and three groups of AK-630 gatling Close In Weapons Systems (CIWS). Not all of these can bear of course, but they're all brought on line.   

detected - red!

The missiles are coming in fast and low. They're subsonic, but they will still cover the distance to the ship in less than 2 minutes.... 

The SA-N-4 shoots first as the missiles get to very short range . Two missiles streak out, but miss. Moskva launches Chaff, but this will be resolved later.

The guns go into action. The 130mm and the front CIWS group open up, but miss. The starboard side CIWS however gets lucky, killing one missile. One left.

The remaining missile suddenly veer away, distracted by the chaff cloud, and crashes into the sea. All on board cheer with relief! A warship has shown it can defeat an ASM attack, just as designed.

Scenario 2 - Asleep at the Wheel?

We don't know if Moskva was aware she was under attack, but the pictures that have emerged show her SA-N-4 system is still stowed, and the missile directors are arranged fore and aft, which strongly suggests she was not. Maybe she was in passive mode, just listening, which it has to be said seems strange for an AA cruiser in a warzone, but stranger things have happened.

In this case the missiles are not detected until they are on their final attack run - Shipwreck assumes either someone sees them at very short range, or the seeker heads are detected when they go active.  Either way this is bad news. This time all the defenses miss - bad dice and no warning. The chaff isn't launched in time....

Both missiles hit the Moskva. One strikes forward under the bow CIWS cluster. It disables the guns but does only light damage. The second hit is a different story, hitting amidships and causing crippling damage. All power is lost and a fire rages. 

Damage control fights bravely, but two turns later the fires spread and the ship has to be abandoned. It sinks shortly after that. 

Not sure what this proves, other than even 23 years after publication Shipwreck works as a set of rules. Also the slightly disconcerting thought that possibly I'm ok with "current" wars as long as my countrymen are not doing the dying, which is food for thought. Will I be doing more from this war - nope. I'm still uncomfortable with that. However now I have dug out the rules and models maybe I will give them a spin again in a fictitious Cold War gone Hot scenario.

* The R-360 Neptune is a Ukrainian developed weapon that is based on the Soviet Kh-35 anti ship missile. The Kh-35 bears a startling resemblance to the US designed Harpoon, to the point it is often referred to as Harpoonski 

Thanks

Denmark Straight - some Naval gazing

There was a suggestion in May that it would be nice to try out the Denmark Straights around the anniversary using different rules and compare results. True to form our gaming group managed to be so disorganised that it took until late June to hit the table at Asgard Wargames in Middlesbrough (purveyor of fine toys for the discerning war gamer).

We set up using Dave Manley's suggested start positions (see Dave's excellent Blog here) and we had three players. Player one - Mark playing Bismark\Eugen , player two (me) playing Hood (aka "the Big Firework") and Prince of Wales (PoW), and Paul playing the shadowing cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk. Rules are the venerable GQ2 - complete with rusted staples holding them together, models Navwar\Davco from Marks collection.

An aside here - Mark is of the general opinion we should follow each recorded decision \ event faithfully whereas the others tend to say "bugger that" and want to try other options. What happened tonight was really interesting. Up to the point in game events prevented it, both British players followed the historical decisions made by their historical counterparts and "Mr Scripted" tried to deviate. I think this was because when faced with the situation, the British made the right decisions but in real life they didn't pay off. When our RN players faced the same circumstances the decisions were remarkably similar to their historical counterparts.

Anyway back to our story. Hood sighted Bismark and Eugen and it was game on. The British immediately tried to close the range and Hood targeted the lead enemy (Eugen) and PoW shot at Bismark. This is of course historically accurate. Admiral Holland on Hood knew that his vessel was particularly vulnerable to long range plunging fire so wanted to get closer to avoid that. Of course that meant sacrificing half his firepower as he would have to steam straight at the Germans and mask his rear turrets, but that was a risk that had to be taken. As for shooting the wrong ship, Hood allegedly got confused because they were expecting Bismark to lead, and both German ships have remarkably similar outlines. With their first salvos the RN achieved nothing, and it was with some trepidation that I handed the shooting dice to Mark. Both his ships targeted Hood, and Bismark scored a critical hit. There was a sense of dread in the air as he rolled his crit result - it couldn't happen, could it?

Hood is hit

Actually no. Hood emerged from the pall of smoke and spray with some bulkhead damage and one turret out but refused point blank to blow up. This felt like a major victory. Norfolk tried a speculative long range shot at Eugen but missed.

Turn two and the Germans turned slightly towards the British, and again concentrated fire on Hood, and a second hit dropped her to half speed. Hood fired again at Eugen, and there was one of those "Ouch" moments when a couple of 15" shells tore through the cruiser inflicting serious damage to hull and turrets. To make matters worse for the Germans PoW landed a solid hit on Bismark that damaged a turret but the critical hit on the hull failed to penetrate the armoured belt. Norfolk missed, but Eugen got a straddle in return.

Norfolk is straddled

Turn three and Hood was now moving slow enough due to damage to force the Admiral to detach her. Mark was also thinking about detaching Eugen. Initially he had planned to deviate from the script and try a torpedo run but the damage suffered dissuaded him and Eugen starter to turn away. Hood and PoW now completed turns to open their A arcs and get all their guns to bear on the clearly identified bulk of Bismark, which was stolidly holding her course and still allowing the range to drop.  British gunnery now kicked in - big. Both Hood and PoW scored heavy hits on Bismark, and the range was short enough to ensure that this time they were getting through the German armour. Fires broke out but were quickly extinguished. Bismark fired at Hood again, and another hit saw her steam lines ruptured and speed fall away. Norfolk straddled the departing Eugen.

Eugen turns away

A arcs open - "Shoot!"

Turn 4 and it was clear pithy messages to the Fuhrer were going to be needed. Hood and PoW hammered Bismark with relentless accuracy, hitting turrets, Bridge and Fire Control. Return fire was now weak and caused no additional damage. Eugen and Norfolk exchanged fire as Eugen tried to disengage, but in doing so the German inadvertently ran towards Suffolk. Hood had got her boilers up again and was making a respectable 15 knots, even though the old lady had taken a beating. Bismark was now reduced to a single main turret and was low in the water.

That's a Paddlin! (tm) - British dice doing their thing

Turn 5 and it all ended for Bismark when again the British Battleships scored very damaging hits, and burning from stem to stern she slowly rolled over and sank. Eugen ran, but her top speed was reduced due to damage and she was outnumbered 2-1 by Suffolk and Norfolk. Both sides straddled the targets but with no hits.

The end

Turn 6 & 7 and Eugen was desperate to escape, and for a while it looked like she may just manage it, then a hit to her machinery slowed her again and the British Cruisers closed in to batter her into submission. The killing blow actually came from Hood, who landed what was now a very speculative shot from long range.

So a resounding victory for the Royal Navy. Tactically Mark made one mistake in trying to close the range when he would have been better served to have maintained it or even tried to open it a bit. That decision was with hindsight a crucial one as he sacrificed his better armour and weapon range. Stat wise Bismark is clearly better than both Hood and PoW, but the margins are not enough to allow her to shoot it out with both at the same time, and the early hits on Eugen that forced her to try and disengage meant that was the position she was in. Hood had managed to reach the point where she could start causing serious damage with most of her main battery intact, and after that the sheer weight of fire of two Battleships against one really told. Historically this was Admiral Holland's plan, though he never lived to complete it. British dice rolling was also very good \ lucky, German not so much.

What we left out. PoW entered the battle with some serious defects in her main battery and should have been firing with her main armament reduced by one level to represent this. When we thought about this we realised that this really would not have changed the result as due to a quirk in the rules if firing with full value (30) or reduced (24) the dice rolls PoW was making were so good the damage would not have been any different. We also didn't represent the apparent advantage the Germans had with their position  making it easier for them to spot targets.

Great game and a lot of fun. I feel dangerously motivated to try another.

First Salvo - Russo-Japanese Naval rules try out

I mentioned a couple of posts ago how I got mugged in Memory Lane by Dave Manley and his White Bear Red Sun (WBRS) campaign for the Russo-Japanese War at Sea. Dave is very much the doyen of British Naval Wargaming (at least in my eyes) so I tend to view anything he produces with a certain reverence. He's also a thoroughly nice chap.

WBRS is bundled with Dave's "Broadside and Salvo" (B&S) fast play rules. After my first reading I was a bit sceptical because B&S were clearly very fast play and missed many of the elements I had come to know and love from my previous pre-Dreadnought rules sets. Long tables and calculations to establish if your 6" of Krupp armour was superior to 9" of Harvey steel, and just how much better or worse are those 1898 10" guns compared to the 11" of 1899? This is all gone, replaced with a simple broad classification - so all Battleships are Battleships and all have the same factor, and speed, and there are no multiple fire arcs or even turning circles - Madness! how can this work?

The combat system is also very recognisable as a DBM style modified opposed roll \ compare result system. I was prepared to look for another rule set and just use the campaign system, but I thought in fairness we could at least give it a try, so last night that's what we did. I set up an imaginary meeting between a squadron of Russian Battleships supported by some Protected Cruisers and Destroyers, and faced them off with a slightly smaller squadron of Japanese Battleships with Armoured Cruisers and Destroyers in support. And we "Had at it!"

And we were very pleased with the result. It turns out that binning all that minutiae allows the players to concentrate on the important tactical stuff and have fun without too much book keeping. OK it is nowhere near as much fun as Fred Janes' gunnery system but then I can't ever see myself going that far for any game (not to mention the logistical and Health & Safety implications of walking around with long pointy sticks!)

So here we are with our quickly thrown together scenario. A Russian Battleship Squadron with Protected Cruiser and Destroyer support against a Japanese Fleet of what we hope was comparable strength - the Russians had one Battleship more but the Japanese had Armoured Cruisers rather than Protected Cruisers.

Initially this went well for the Russians, who scored some early hits on the Japanese Flag and drove their Destroyers off at the cost of one Protected Cruiser (the squadron Flag) crippled by a torpedo. Then, as if scripted , the Russian luck ran out. The Flagship was heavily hit and started to burn as coincidentally the rest of the fleet had some awful command results.

Still burning, the Russian Flag hauled out of line to try and get the fires under control, and the Japanese tried another torpedo attack. You will notice in this pic there is no sign of the Russian Destroyers or Protected Cruisers. The Destroyers had missed the attack signal and were as a result still steaming AWAY from the main action, while the Protected Cruisers were still out of range to do anything and their poor Command dice, made worse as their Admiral tried to find a boat to transfer him to another ship in the squadron meant they would remain ineffective.

Insult was then added to injury as the now leading Russian Battleship came under concentrated fire from both Japanese Cruisers and Battleships and was silenced. With two of their four capital ships now out of action the Russians turned for home and we called the game there.

We were very happy with the rules, and they are a lot more nuanced than they first appear, with the added advantage they play fast. So assuming the order comes from Navwar and I get it painted we will be Heading East in the New Year to play out the drama of 1904.

Oh, wicked, bad, naughty Zoot! - Russo Japanese War

"She has been setting a light to our beacon, which, I've just  remembered, is grail-shaped.  It's not the first time we've had this problem.."

Or how it is easy to become distracted from your planned path

You may recall I mentioned attending Battleground 2017. What I didn't mention is that my friend Mark who runs the excellent blog Geordies Big Battles was part of a demo team on the day, with a game representing the Battle of the Denmark Straights, where HMS Hood was sunk by the Bismark. (as an aside, why do we say HMS Hood but never KMS Bismark?"

Anyway in the run up to the show Mark asked me to pop over to run through the scenario to see if there were any issues i.e. play with his toys while the associated wives were not around. This was of course irresistible.

So we played the game as is traditional in these cases on the floor in his lounge, and I enjoyed it - good old General Quarters before the bloat set in, with 1:3000 Navwar \ Davco ships. As it was going to be a demo we also discussed some options "prettifying" things which reminded me I had some "shell Splash" markers I had made 20-25 years ago when I was playing a Russo Japanese War campaign (more later).

A diligent search failed to locate them, but did manage to locate the Navwar 1:3000 fleets I had painted back then for the campaign. At this point I was mugged in memory lane. The campaign in question was a "quick play" one by David Manley which Dave kindly sent me a copy of after he read something I wrote in a gaming journal about the RJW. This campaign has special significance to me because it was one of the only ones we managed to run to the conclusion - or near enough anyway. On a nostalgia trip I searched Dave's site and discovered he had produced an updated version that was available from Wargames Vault and was available for less than a tenner, so I thought "why not?"

So that's why 2018 will see these guys making a reappearance, and why I'm spending some more £££ with Navwar just to be sure I have everything needed.

I would normally provide a link to the Navwar website but there is little point - for whatever reason he has decided to be an "oak of his generation" and only accepts orders through the post. Still if I want nine Divisions of Torpedo Boats I will just have to write him a letter.