WW2 Convoy Battle

The worst/best of the heatwave now over we moved into the shed for a much anticipated Cruel Sea battle. Having played a couple of games of Cruel seas and expanding the collection last year I had planned a ‘big’ game which would use the Boats as well as some of my 6mm aircraft collection.

The German navy and aircraft would be attacking an incoming convey, the British navy supported by the RAF would attempt to fend off the assault. I was pretty ambitious with the scale of the game rather than using the aircraft rules attached to cruel seas we would be returning to our homegrown ‘aeronautics’ rules for WW2 combat. This meant we would effectively be playing two games at once but with the chance that the aircraft and ships could interact and I had worked out a way for the rules to cross over. It turned into some madness but a lot of fun.

German E boats with the Luftwaffe approach the convoy using the coast as cover

British MTB’s leave the harbour to cut them off ?

RAF Typhoons fitted with 20mm cannons arrive to take on the E boats form the sky

The convoy arrives at the top of the picture protected by (what turned out to be) a very powerful escort of 2 Fairmile patrol boats. In the foreground the E boats sweep in to launch their torpedoes

Ouch the convoy also has a US destroyer which arrives last. Their powerful 4” guns immediately cause a problem. The Fairmiles are armed with 6 pounder guns which were highly effective, but the E boats manage to lunch off a number of Torpedoes

Madness but a lot of fun , my 13 x6 foot table , ships and planes all over the place !

The MTB’s start to engage the second squad of E boats, the two es are BF 109’s after the typhoons

At this point I should say the dice gods were squarely in the British camp this day, the Germans could hardly hit a thing, the British on the other hand were dishing out the punishment, knock the one E boats rudder out causing it to crash into the friendly boat !

After several turns and a lot of German torpedoes quickly launched in the water the Destroyer and the Fairmiles gradually sink the E boats one by one ! You don’t last long in an e boat when hit by a 4” shell !

But the convoy has been distracted by the Eboats while the JU87’s gradually make their way across

In the final turns of the game their swoop down causing a lot of damage to the convoy

But probably not enough to give the Germans the win so the Royal Navy win the day ably supported by the RAF who did manage to cause some damage to at least one of the E boats

As I said a lot of fun what ever the outcome, my only real mistake was not realising how slowly the convoy would move even at full speed I should have started them in the middle of the table but forced the support to arrive from the edge….but thats for next time.

Earlier in the week I also had another game down with George this time giving his beautiful itlaian wars collection a run out.

Beautiful stuff and a pleasure to play

The Venetians has the numbers if not the quality of troops but they just about held out for a close run win

My commander before the majority of his cavalry was wiped out !

The stars also aligned for a change so I managed to get out in the hills

Striding Edge leading up onto Helvelyn a famous scramble in these parts and a lot of fun

A view from the tops looking north, a hot day and my legs are still feeling it three days later

That’s it for this week and catching up, finally a bit of painting but nothing yet finished to share.

Thanks as always for checking out my blog

Matt ❤️