Introducing the Italian fleet:
Italian E-Boat lookalikes (see below, very nice paint jobs with the diagonal red and white stripes):
Italian (very light) MAAS Boats: Strikingly fast because they have a mega Italian engine inside but little around it protecting it (see below, think Molotov Cocktail on the water waiting to be lit):
Italians enter bottom-right in two flotillas, while the Allies appear top-left (RN) and top-middle (Ruskies). I had relinquished my naval command in favour of trying to get a more holistic grasp of the rules, which meant I became "bottle top puller outer of a bag" to determine who goes next - a very important job and for "a suitable inducement I may be able to help you sir" (see below, please note the aesthetic placement of islands cunningly blocking line-of-sight):
Speed boats seemingly scattering about to the four corners of the board. Apparently there is a plan somewhere (see below, one rule that seemed strange to me was that there was little concealment - maybe we were just going in "Gung Ho" for a quick game (see below, the "wake markers" create a very nice atmospheric feel to the watery table-top - the Russian forces have divided into two to cover both sides of the right hand island which means they are outnumbered 2:1 against the Italian E-Boats, with blue splash markers denoting that short-range "gunnery" has started):
The Italians fearlessly sallied forth against the combined Allied fleets in this "What-If" scenario, sending the pseudo E-Boats against the Russians and the "bonny wee fast things" against the heavily armed RN contingent - which turned the "fast things" into match sticks in pretty short order (see below, disturbingly everything is "visible" as long as you can trace LOS - no "dummy markers" here or fear of friendly forces being in the area! One Italian E-Boat was lost in exchange for a Russian "flak-boat" [my made-up word not really historical]):
The Russian stuff blazed away and then started to burn, then something exploded and sank. The Italians definitely had the upper hand here, but the RN are coming to help out (see below, a bow pointing skyward denoted the resting place of one of Stalin's finest gunboats with a tank turret on it):
An embarrassingly "run aground and burning Italian E-Boat" is surrounded by Russian and RN "men-o-war". The crew have disembarked on dry land and have been spared the fate of a watery grave (see below, the other two Italian E-Boats seeing nothing to torpedo but lots of shiny RN MGBs to lose a stand-up fight against decided that discretion was in fact the better part of valour and "bugged out" 0 nobody blamed them):
The remaining "little fast things" of the Italian Fleet spotted a design flaw in the scenario in that their main armament was primarily a torpedo and there was nothing to torpedo. The signal flags to "bug out" were duly hoisted. And so end'eth my initial exposure to Cruel Seas, "First Thoughts"? ... it really was meant to be an exposure to activation chit and basic LOS combat, so in that sense it worked, but I would like to see a scenario that required guile, suspense and
"hidden movement".