Demo & Curry night. HG 74
What a great fun Saturday night that was! Plenty of good chatting and fellowship over
lots of food, (Our curry night) followed by a very good Wargame that had all
the participants laughing as well as enjoying it. Eighteen adults attended
although only 8 remained for the Wargame itself.
The game to be played was 'Deadly waters (c)', my recently completed game
from the as yet unreleased Cruel Seas series. The first one 'Rising Storm
(c)' covers the start of the Battle of the Atlantic. The one we played
concerns the convoy runs from the UK to Gibraltar during the most hectic
time on that route. The game date fell into late 1942, so the escort was
reasonably strong.
I put Brett as the Escort Commander…..mostly because he kept complaining
he knew nothing about warships! He was leading a Canadian escort group from
the destroyer HMCS Athabraskan, and had five corvettes in company. Simon
took the front right flank. Scott had the front left flank and left flank.
Trevor was on the right Flank and Hugh at the rear.
Les and Rick were Axis commanders. I ran the rules.
The convoy HG 74 sailed in nine columns, each of three merchant ships,
giving 27 in total.
They had a pretty easy time of it for the first 2/3rds of the convoy run to
Gibraltar. At one point a HF/DF signal was picked up by Athabraskan, but
Brett chose not to pursue this. Often that would be a bad idea, because the
submarine (U117) was obviously sending off a sighting report. However Brett
was lucky. The next two nights and days were beset by bad weather. The
Condor's could not fly and other U Boats didn't make contact, so they were
never actually subjected to a wolf pack assault. The weather was bad, but
didn't stop the convoy from plugging on.
The Germans had a bit of bad luck when a British submarine intercepted and
sank one of their U Boats as it carried out a transit of the Bay of Biscay.
This reduced their numbers by one submarine in the event of any multiple
attacks being rolled.
Then when the convoy was less than 72 hours from the destination; things started to go
wrong.. The first trouble was the freighter 'War Pathan'
loaded down with cargo, and a deck load of aircraft. The ship suffered a
serious cargo shift and a machinery breakdown that left her wallowing in the
heavy seas. After some deliberation and 'terse' exchange of messages….those from Scott suggesting to DO SOMETHING!!! (Anything!) A decision was made. The
convoy ploughed on, but left Simon with the Corvette HMCS Barrie behind to
tend to the immobilised vessel. It took him five hours before the weather
moderated and he could get a tow across. By then he was fifty nautical miles
behind the ten knot convoy, and the best he could make towing was five knots
None the less he eventually got the War Pathan underway.
Back at the convoy the change of weather made it easier for the shadower.
The type IX U Boat U 117 which had been shadowing for two days, and was
commanded by Rick, closed in for an attack during daylight. By sheer luck
the point of contact was where a gap had been left in the screen when the
Barrie left to help War Pathan. Rick quietly slipped in and torpedoed two
vessels. The medium sized tanker 'Wallingford', with a load of aviation fuel
blew up, while the 'War Hindoo' surprisingly survived the attack on it.
Somewhat annoyed at the resilience of the small freighter, Rick gave it
another torpedo from his stern tubes as he passed. That was sufficient and
the freighter followed the tanker to the bottom. Rick dove deep!
Now the escorts were aroused. After a bit of deliberation….(and some
blatant suggestions from his junior commanders)…..Brett ordered 'Artichoke
.While the correct action to take, the gap in this was again that caused by
the Barrie having been left astern. Rick was able to dive to deep, and sneak
out the back of the convoy. He was briefly picked up by Big Trev in the
HMSC Ville de Quebec, which got a brief contact and some depth charges were
dropped without result. After that U 117 made its escape. Once they realised
the U Boat had escaped, the corvettes HMCS Dauphin and HMCS Snowberry,
picked up survivors. Only ten from the Wallingford, but forty from War
Hindoo.
Fifty or so miles behind the convoy, the 'events beyond the convoy' chart
was consulted, and the disabled 'War Pathan' was torpedoed and sank. Simon
quickly slipped the tow….and set off in search. However U404 escaped a
wide of the mark depth charging. Simon increased speed to rejoin the convoy,
after picking up 20 survivors. Considering the speed of a flower class
corvette being somewhat unspectacular, this took him five hours plus. Even
then he was only at the rear when the next event unfolded.
The Barrie had no sooner arrived at the rear of the convoy than night fell
and darkness brought with it squalls and low visibility. During that the
Cargo Ship 'Northwest' got out of station and collided with the rear of
Daedelus'. The latter ship lost her rudder and propellers, leaving her
helpless, but without too much floatation loss. Northwest came to a halt
temporarily, but with stove in bows was unable to make more than five knots,
which was half the convoy speed. Simon once again volunteered to help (His
crew probably hated him!) and went to the aid of Daedelus. HMCS Chicoutimi,
the ship commanded by Hugh was to provide an ASW screen while Barrie towed
the Daedelus. This little group of two ships and two escorts became a
sub-convoy that we ran separately, rather than use the events beyond the
convoy chart. They got underway at five knots and radioed Gibraltar for help
They were promised air cover the following afternoon and two old V&W class
destroyers were sent out to help bring the damaged ships in, but the
destroyers could not arrive until the next evening.
During the night a single submarine, U 117 again, carried out another attack
sinking the freighter 'Sutherland' and then slipping away into the darkness
unseen. (Rick was not only the shadower but was now being a real nuisance,
as with U 404 now acting as the squealer he was free to attack)
Dawn over Gibraltar prevented flying, but out at sea two Fw200 Condors
flying down from Biscay bases, pulled off a surprise attack on the rear of
the main convoy. Much was expected of the Auxiliary flak ship HMS Alynbank,
but unfortunately for Brett its AA fire was none too accurate. Two ships
were hit, but the bombs were light, so only minor damage resulted, with
nothing to slow the ships down. The old freighter 'Pershwah' lost some cargo
due to damage. The only concern was the heavy lift ship 'Balboa' which had
a fire in the aft hold, but that was eventually extinguished. Right at the
end of the attack, with seemingly ineffective flak bursting all over the sky
one of the huge Condor's took a hit from the corvette Ville de Quebec and
crashed. That was a pretty good effort for a corvette, considering their poor AA fire.
Next day Sunderland aircraft from Gibraltar provided air support, and during
the morning two J/K class fleet destroyers arrived from Force H to
strengthen the escort. The main convoy then arrived at Gibraltar during the
late afternoon but lost the tanker Retford Kennel when it struck a mine as
they approached 'the Rock'. The tanker blew up in spectacular fashion, but
the rest of the ships steamed in, with a relieved Brett smiling at last.
The two ships in difficulty were being escorted to Gibraltar separately by
Barrie and Chicoutimi. Some bad weather helped them, but as night fell
things cleared up and not long after darkness two U Boats made contact. (We
called this a Wolf cub pack as there were only two) The ever annoying U 117
and the type VIIC boat U190. They were unaware of each others presence when
they fired a salvo of torpedoes from opposite sides of the small convoy. The
Barrie and Daedelus were hit simultaneously by U117 and both sank at once.
Barrie had no survivors but 60 men from Daedelus got off. Meanwhile on the
other side, Ville de Quebec turned toward the attacking U190 in order to
protect the limping 'Northwest'. However Luddite Les let fly with a bow shot
which to everyone's amazement scored a direct hit, sinking the Canadian
corvette instantly and also without survivors. LLes then turned his
attention to the unprotected Northwest, but missed with his torpedoes. This
caused rather a flurry of manoeuvre on the part of U117 which was coming
from the opposite direction and almost fell victim to friendly fire. Rick
turned about and fired his stern tubes, but not only did one miss, the other
circled back at high speed. Again the U117 carried out some drastic
manoeuvres and again escaped damage. The U190 now fired star shell,
illuminating Northwest, and both submarines engaged the sitting duck with
their deck guns.
Some hits were scored, adding to the damage the ship had suffered in her
collision. Both subs quickly ran low on ammunition. In the end both opted to
leave the wallowing Northwest to its fait and headed off into the darkness.
Despite a fire, which the crew were able to extinguish, Northwest survived
for a while. Indeed it looked as if she would survive completely, but it was
not to be and after the two U Boats left, she finally foundered. Next
morning the air cover arrived, sighted survivors in the water and directed
the two V&W class destroyers to the spot. 80 survivors, a mix from both
ships, were picked up and taken to Gibraltar.
As far as wargames go, there was lots of excitement and everyone seemed to
have plenty of fun, despite many of the events being weather or mechanically
related, rather than direct combat. The new (land lubber) players achieved a
steep learning curve and looked a little more comfortable in sea boots by
the time the game was finished. They along with the experienced naval gamers
seemed to have a lot of fun, despite some of the misadventures.
Rick and LLes, had plenty of success as U Boat commanders. Rick is a veteran
of my naval games, but Les is a submarine 'ace' from many years of gaming
with me. It was good to see LLes again after a gap of several months, during
which he has been very ill. He doesn't Look at all well still, and has lost
lots of weight, but at least he laughed a lot, and talked happily to people
all night. It was good to welcome Scott Elaurant to the group. Most of us
had seen him at conventions such as CANCON but not wargamed with him before.
He certainly had some excellent ideas and we hope he will attend again. With
the newest child in the family now over 3 months, its hoped we can start
seeing more of Hugh Davie as well. Simon, Brett, Big Trev, Rick and myself
are of course Wargame animals who will lift an ear to any rattle of the dice
but we all had fun too.
Lots of fun and a really good night. Probably best of all is that the convoy
games don't take all that long to play, so after eating all that curry,
everyone left well before 'The wind blew free'…..but it might have been 'a
bit sniffy' riding home in the car with some of them! :-)))
Mal Wright
Non-torsii subligarium
(Dont get your knickers in a twist)
