More Little Boats (and even smaller boats)

Colin and took our Cruel Seas boats for another outing at club on Friday, joined by Keiron who seems to be in danger of catching the CS bug.

A British raiding force of 2 Fairmile Ds, each supported by a pair of Vospers were attacking a small harbour where a Type 34 Torpedo Boat and a Tanker were moored up. It will take 2 moves for the Germans to come to action stations, at which point they can fire and cast off, but not move until the following turn.
As the arrived at the target, they saw a small convoy of three merchantmen, escorted by 3 Kriegfischkutters approaching the harbour. At this point the British divided their forces, half the boats heading for the original target, whilst half veered off towards the convoy.

The German convoy enters the table.

The German Torpedo Boat and tanker, moored in harbour, are unaware....

...of the approach of the British raiders.

The little Kriegfischkutters veer aware towards the oncoming British.

Whilst casting off, the Torpedo Boat manned the forward 4" turret and took a long range shot (and I rolled a 1!). After a direct hit from a 4" shell there isn't much left of a little Vosper.

The convoy starts to scatter and the lead Kriegfischkutter exchanges shots with the closest Vosper, both ships taking damage.

Shocked by the early loss of a Vosper with it's full load of torpedoes, the British start to put fish in the water in the direction of the Torpedo Boat.

As the Type 34 pulls out of the harbour she starts to turn to avoid the spread of torpedoes....

...and succeeds in narrowly getting out of the path of the torpedoes....

...then I roll another 1 with the 4" gun! Having already taken damage, it almost wasn't worth rolling the damage dice.

And the Type 34 took out a third Vosper with it's secondary guns.

As the torpedoes move closer to the convoy, the ships continue to take evasive action.

A merchantman and a Kriegfischkutter almost collide in the confusion and as a torpedo strikes home, damaging the ships engines.

Now one of the Fairmiles explodes!

Trying to line up a torpedo on the Type 34, the last Vosper gets careless and runs into the Torpedo Boat. Then a critical hit on the Type 34 sets off one of it's torpedoes and damages the steering.

A second torpedo hits the first merchant and send her to the bottom.

A second merchant takes a hit.

It's not a dud!

The Type 34's 20mm guns finish off the last Vosper (not much was needed after the earlier collision).

A torpedo hits the tanker as she starts to pull away from the dockside, but this one is a dud!

The Luftwaffe finally make an appearance, but the Stuka misses the last Fairmile.

Who its the third merchantman. This time the British score a "broken back" on the critical hits table and the vessel rapidly sinks.

Out of control the Type 34 veers around and takes a double hit from the Fairmiles two 6 pounder guns, with is enough to finally sink the torpedo boat.

Turning their attention back to the convoy, the last British crew take out one of the Kriegfischkutter escorts.

But in the following move is sunk in turn by the last undamaged escort.
All the British raiders were now accounted for, but the Fairmile still had fish in the water...

.....one of which scored a second hit on the last surviving merchantman which sent her beneath the waves.

The situation at the end of the game, The Germans have 2 Kriegfischkutters left (well one and a half really) and the tanker makes it's escape.
Working out the VPs for this scenario, the game was a draw. 100 VPs for each merchant, 75 for the Type 34 minus 50 VP for each British boat lost. They needed 100 VPs for a win, zero or less would have been a German victory.

No one minded, because we had had a lot of fun!

Other games at the club that night.

A Necromunda game (or Kill Team, I forgot to check).

A 6mm Sci-fi battle with Futurewar Commander.

A WW1 naval engagement with much smaller ships (I think by Tumbling Dice).

WW2 US vs Japanese Chain of Command game.

I thought Banzai charges across open ground were a Japanese tactic?

Not fair, using real tanks against the Japanese tin cans in tracks.