Naval Thunder - 2nd Battle of Guadalcanal

Washington

On Tuesday evening Mog and I played our first game of Naval Thunder for a very long time.

I prepared the ship charts from the scenario at the back of the book,
The US forces were Task Force 64:

US Destroyers

• BB Washington (Flagship) 
• BB South Dakota 
• DD Walke 
• DD Benham 
• DD Preston
• DD Gwin 

The Japanese force was made up of the following elements
Bombardment Element

• BC Kirishima 
• CA Atago (FF) 
• CA Takao

Sweeping Element

• CL Sendai
• DD Uranami
• DD Shikinami

Detached Scouting Element

• DD Ayanami

Screening Element

• CL Nagara 
• DD Samidare
• DD Teruzuki
• DD Inazuma 
• DD Asagumo 
• DD Shirayuki
• DD Hatsuyuki

Sendai

Setting up the mission we then randomised who got the forces, Martin was the US Navy and I was the Imperial Japanese Navy. The two forces edged closer and the Ayanami was soon exchanging shots with the US destroyers. The action started in earnest on the fourth turn, engaging a radar target a Salvo of 16" shells crashed into Sendai sinking her immediately, Benham finished off the badly outnumbered and out-gunned Ayanami who in her death throes set Benham on fire which was also abandoned sinking.

Things continued well for the US Navy, next turn a salvo from Washington sank Shikinami, while a salvo from South Dakota sank Uranami whose torpedoes had missed the battleship. Walke torpedoed and sank the light cruiser Nagara, thinks were looking bad for the Japanese Navy.

However, the US destroyers were now badly outnumbered themselves, Walke, Preston and Gwin were soon despatched to the bottom. 

Another fantastic radar controlled shot from Washington knocked out B turret on Kirishima. 

Nagara about to meet a sticky end

The Japanese destroyers now closed on the US battleships who had lost their screening destroyers and soon  24" Long Lance torpedoes were cutting through the water towards their targets. Cry foul, out of all the torpedoes launched only a single one struck Washington and exploded with little effect against the torpedo bulges. For their troubles Teruzuki was sunk by the 5" secondaries of Washington and Shirayuki by the 5" guns of South Dakota. Kirishima too another four 16" shells from Washington.

It was time to call a close, the Japanese had taken a pounding, loosed all their torpedoes to ill effect and the remaining ships were in grave danger from the 16" guns of the two US battleships.

I don't think I would play it any more different the next time, just hope for better effect from the Long Lance torpedoes and not quite so many long range 16" gun hits from the US Battleships.

IJN & USN Reinforcements

I've been a bit slow on the painting front over the past few weeks, what with the WAB GT and all that. However I have managed to polish off a bunch of Navwar 1/3000th ships that have been lying around.

Amongst this lot I painted I now have all the ships that I need in order to do a re-fight of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Whether we actually get around to doing that is another thing, but at least the option is on the table.

The list of ship painted this session included:

• USN Carriers: Lexington and Enterprise
• USN Cruisers: Minneapolis, New Orleans, Salt Lake City & Pensacola
• USN Destroyers: 20 various destroyers
• USN Sea-plane Tender: Langley
• USN Oilers: Neosho and Tippecanoe
• IJN Carriers: Shokaku, Zuikaku and Shoho
• IJN Destroyers: 14 various destroyers
• IJN Mine-layers: Okinoshima and Tsugaru
• Cruise Ship: Orcades

Sad lad that I am, I now have 239 ships painted for the Imperial Japanese Navy, Koninklijke Marine (Dutch Navy), Kreigsmarine, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Navy, Royal New Zealand Navy and US Navy and can fight all of these actions with the stuff I have painted:

• Battle of the River Plate
• Battle of the Java Sea
• Battle of Sunda Strait
• Battle of the Coral Sea
• First Battle of Savo Island
• Battle of the Eastern Solomons
• Third Battle of Savo Island
• Fourth Battle of Savo Island
• Battle of Empress Augusta Bay

As I said, sad sad lad....

I took a lot of pictures but most of them came out pretty shoddy, here is the best of the bunch...

Shoho, Shokaku & Zuikaku

Neosho, Tippecanoe & Orcades

14 Japanese Destroyers

Another North Sea Engagement

Steve and I had another game of WWI Naval Thunder at Maelstrom Games a week last Thursday. Unfortunately, it was a couple of weeks ago I have lost the notes of all the ships involved so this may be a bit sketchy.

This time I would play the Germans and Steve would play the Royal Navy. The scenario was that a squadron of four German Battle Cruisers escorted by a squadron of four German Light Cruisers were returning to home ports when they encounter a flotilla of Royal Navy destroyers at maximum visibility (24").

The Light Cruisers immediately increase speed and chase after the destroyers, who also turn and try to disengage. Chasing the destroyers the Light Cruisers encounter a squadron of three ancient Armoured Cruisers, completely out gunned and out-ranged by these Royal Navy ships the Light Cruiser squadron executes a turn to port and increases the range, eventually getting out of range, but not before one of the Light Cruisers has taken severe hull damage.

Now it is the turn of the German Battle Cruisers to pound the British Armoured cruisers, but the fire is not so effective, knowing that is it only a matter of time before the Armoured Cruisers are pounded to bits, Steve also disengages these and out of the mist a squadron of four old pre-Dreadnoughts appear. With a surfeit of targets the Battle Cruisers start to engage the ancient Battleships allowing the Armoured Cruisers to re-engage and add their weight of fire. The German Light Cruisers wisely stay out of the way as they would add nothing to the engagement

The superior fire-power of the German Battle Cruisers is telling and for little damage to themselves the old pre-Dreadnoughts are soon in a right old state. However, all is not lost for the Royal Navy, the Destroyer Flotilla rejoins the engagement and launches as salvo of torpedoes at the Battle Cruisers, the lead Battle-Cruiser, Seydlitz, is badly hit in the engine room and her speed is reduced drastically.

It was time to end the game, as the German player, what was to be done, should we risk more damage to the Battle Cruisers from the emboldened destroyers and continue the engagement or should we disengage and leave Seydlitz to her fate.

The forces were:

Germans:
4 Battle Cruisers, one was severely damaged, the other three took light damage
4 Light Cruisers, one was severely damaged

Royal Navy:
1 Destroyer Flotilla, lightly damaged
3 Armoured Cruisers, one severely damaged, one heavily damaged
4 Pre-Dreadnoughts, three severely damaged, one heavily damaged

Apologies for the state of the photographs, there seems to be a blur on my lens and I stopped taken shortly into the game .

German Cruiser Blucher

German Cruiser Dresden

German Battle Cruiser Squadron

German Light Cruiser Squadron

The two German Squadrons

The Light Cruisers encounter the Destroyers

Royal Navy Destroyer Flotilla

Royal Navy Armoured Cruisers

The German Light Cruisers turn to disengage

Somewhere in the North Sea - 1915

At Mansfield Wargames club we have has a few games of Naval Thunder: Battleship Row / Bitter Rivals and these have given some great games for a club night that as well as being easy to pick up give a fun game with a result that usually feels about right.

Steve has a massive collection of WWI ships for both the Grand Fleet and the High Seas fleet so he recently purchased a copy of Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts

Yesterday evening at Maesltrom Games we played our first game of WWI naval using Naval Thunder to a scenario of Steve's devising.

A squadron of Royal Navy Battle-cruisers encountered a similar number of German Battle-cruisers. The initial forces were:

• HMS Lion (flagship)
• HMS Princess Royal
• HMS Queen Mary
• HMS Tiger

Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary, Tiger

• SMS Lutzow (flagship)
• SMS Derfflinger
• SMS Seydlitz
• SMS Moltke

Lutzow, Derfflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke

The squadrons were approaching on a roughly parallel course at extreme range. As the Royal Navy Battle-cruisers were renowned for being poor shots they would have a +1 crew capability for shooting only.
Peter and myself would take the Royal Navy, Karsten would take the Germans and Steve would ensure it all ran smoothly.

In the opening turn we turned slightly away from the Germans to open the range - we out-ranged them quite considerably so tried to make that pay. Indeed in the first couple of turns we were able to fire unopposed at the Germans, although our poor gunnery accounted for naught. In more good news, a squadron of Royal Navy fast Battleships steamed into the fray:

• HMS Barham (flagship)
• HMS Valiant
• HMS Warspite
• HMS Malaya

Despite our poor shooting things were looking up for the British.

Of course this was not to last, in the next turn we also sighted German Battleships entering the area in the form of the following:

• SMS Koenig
• SMS Grosser Kurfurst
• SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm
• SMS Markgraf

The German Battle-cruisers had also found the range of ours! Derfflinger had a rather spectacular salvo at HMS Lion, three shots hit the hapless Battle-cruiser, all three penetrated and all three caused critical hits in the engine-room, our flagship had been reduced from 7" per turn to 1" per turn in a single salvo. We attempted to move the flag to the next ship in line - the Princess Royal - who misunderstood the signal and broke off the contact with the enemy steaming away. The flag was eventually moved to the Queen Mary. What a turn, one Battle-cruiser was crippled, one Battle-cruiser had sailed off and German battleships were in the vicinity.

Lion belches steam from the catastrophic engine-room damage, Queen Mary breaks off and the rest of the squadron is in confusion

The Germans do not have it all their own way though, before breaking contact the Princess Royal scores a hit below the waterline on the Derfflinger and she starts to list badly which the damage control parties struggle to contain.

Unable to keep up with the battle-line, HMS Lion is still fighting gamely, a salvo of 13.5" shells crashes into Derfflinger worsening the list, Derfflinger quickly capsizes.

The British Fast battleships are now engaging closely with their German counterparts, but they are find to their cost that their shells are not as good as they thought. There is a rule in Naval Thunder to simulate the poor quality of the British shells, if your penetration dice is an odd number, the result is downgraded so that a penetrating hit becomes a non-penetrating hit and a non-penetrating hit has no effect at all. Well, we rolled very poorly and although we were shrugging off hits from the German 12" guns, our own 15" monsters were having hardly any effect at all. 

To paraphrase 'There is something wrong with our bloody guns'

After nine turns of play we though the  game had played out very well and the effect seemed about right. The British certainly had the material superiority, but with poor shells and poor gunners on the Battle-cruisers had only sunk a single German Battle-cruiser. Meanwhile, the Germans had managed to cripple the Lion but had not been able to put the killer blow on any of the Royal Navy ships.

Here are a few more images from the game, all the ships belong to Steve and are mainly Navwar models

The new flagship - HMS Queen Mary

The Princess Royal, before leaving the fight.

Derfflinger prior to being sunk

HMS Lion is hit thrice in the engine room

Savo Island refight with Naval Thunder

A few weeks ago Greg, Ben and myself refought the Battle of Savo Island using General Quarters III, thsi was a resounding victory to the Allied forces.

Having had a couple of games of Naval Thunder last week with Quinton we decided to give the battle another go with these rules.

We used the "Battle of Savo Island" scenario from Bitter Rivals Quinton would use the Japanese while Greg and Ben would take on the Allies. I would generally facilitate and get in the way.

Things started well for the Japanese, they sneaked undetected to within close range of the southern group and let leash. Chicago, Canberra and Patterson were all badly damaged by gunfire with only minor damage  to the Japanese. However subsequently all the ships in the Southern Group turned their guns on Aoba which was raked by effective fire and sunk, but not without the loss of both Chicago and Patterson. Long Lance torpedoes thudded into Canberra and she was also stricken but did cause severe damage to Kinugasa in return.

By now the southern group was reduced to Bagley who was putting up a doomed but game fight. Only a single American torpedo found its mark and that proved to be a dud - damn those magnetic detonators!

The Northern Group was now into the melee, Vincennes took heavy damage in the initial salvo from the Japanese 8" guns, but Kinugasa was delivered the Coupe De Grace. As the engagement drew to a close Vincennes was accounted for and Quincey badly damaged but Kako was also severely damaged in return.

As is likely to be expected one American destroyer - Helm - was sunk by friendly fire in the confusion.

The final state was:

• Chokai - Moderate damage
• Aoba - Sunk
• Kinugasa - Sunk
• Furutaka - Undamaged
• Kako - Heavy damage
• Tenryu - Undamaged
• Yubari - Undamaged

• Chicago - Sunk
• Canberra - Sunk
• Patterson - Sunk
• Bagley - Sunk

• Astoria - Light damage
• Vincennes - Sunk
• Quincey - Heavy damage
• Helm - Sunk
• Wilson - Undamaged

• Blue - Moderate damage
• Ralph Talbot - Moderate damage

All in all a great game that ended in a draw, a lot better result than the last time when the Americans did far too well.

Sorry for the quality of the photographs, Victoria was using the 'main' camera so I made do with the rubbish iPhone one.

Allied Northern Group

The Japanese cruisers

On fire and badly damaged Bagley goes in with the torpedoes

Japanese Air Armada

On Tuesday we are planning a game of Bag the Hun at Maelstrom Games using Japanese and Americans. John has already painted up all the Japanese we will ever need, but I have had a bag of Tumbling Dice Japanese aircraft in the lead mountain for a long time, so I took the opportunity to get these painted up.

The aircraft were painted using Vallejo Acrylics and Doms Decals transfers were used.

As well as playing Bag the Hun with them, I'll also be using them for air attacks in our 1/3000 WWII naval games using General Quarters or Naval Thunder.

Here are all 33 aircraft painted up this weekend.

12 Mitsubishi A6M3 Zero fighters

3 Mitsubishi G3M Nell bombers

4 Mitsubishi A5M Claude fighters

4 Aichi D3A Val dive bombers

6 Nakajima B5N Kate torpedo bombers

Mitsubishi F1M Pete float planes

All 33 aircraft

Naval Thunder - Double Header

On Tuesday evening at Maelstrom Games Quinton and I tried out our first game of Naval Thunder.

As well as Battleship Row, I had also purchased the Bitter Rivals supplement so we played the Battle of the River Plate scenario. We had not played before, but the rules seemed straight forwards enough. I would play the Royal Navy and Quint would be the Kreigsmarine.

Things started badly for the Royal Navy some excellent shooting from the Graf Spee coupled with some terrible shooting from the Exeter and the first Royal Navy vessel was heading to the bottom. Achillies and Ajax had closed the distance and were soon engaging the Graf Spee.

The 6" guns on the two light cruisers were more effective than the 8 guns of Exeter and the Graf Spee was soon down to a single 11" turret and was slowed down, but Achillies was also dispatched.

In a final dance of death Ajax and Graf Spee had a round of shooting that was reminiscent of the HMAS Sydney / Kormoran engagement both were heading to the bottom.

Crikey, it was only half past eight, time for another game. Fortunately, I had also printed out the rosters for the Battle of the Denmark Strait. This time I would play the Kreigsmarine and Quinton would take the role of the Royal Navy.

Playing to history, my first salvoes from the Bismark were soon straddling the Hood, although no momentous explosions were noted, but the Fire Director was knocked out on the Hood. True to form, the Prince of Wales was firing badly but did hit the Prinz Eugen with a single 14" shell. Deciding that her 8" guns were adding nothing to this engagement I broke off with the heavy cruiser.

The Hood turned to engage the Bismark with broadsides while the Prince of Wales continued on an interception course. However, the Hood was soon listing badly and slowed to just a few knots, with all this damage and without a Fire Direction center the Hood was out of the engagement. The Bismark now engaged the Prince of Wales in a close range fire-fight. Although badly damaged with one 15" turret out and a lot of structural damage one 15" salvo crashed into the Prince of Wales which suffered a magazine explosion and sank without a trace.

The Bismark was soon steaming into open seas, the adventure would continue.

This was our first couple of games of Naval Thunder and they do give a fast and fun game and we have already arranged another game for a couple of weeks time.

I did not take any pictures during the game.