Well Wednesday has come around again and with the dreaded Count Andrew not yet recovered from his head severing by King David last week it was just left to David and Dave to “do battle”. As David was touching up the paint work and terrain of his WW2 Coastal Warfare collection this was out on the table so the decision was made. Ships it is.

While still in the process of developing some simple rules David decided to use Axis and Allies “War at Sea” rules as the system is simple and has some interesting mechanics.

The scenario consisted of two British destroyers (HMS Onslow and HMS Cossack), and two mine sweepers (HMS Bramble and HMS Niger), escorting 3 armed Isles class trawlers back to harbour. The objective was to get two out of three trawlers safely home.

The dastardly Germans had 8 S-boats (61 through 69) and a submarine (U 52) poised to attack.

The Germans won the first initiative roll and quickly moved to engage the convoy’s escorts with torpedoes while the British turned to face the threat and engage them with their superior gunnery.

The first salvo from the Tribal Class destroyer “Cossack” was right on target and blew two S-Boats (61 and 65) out of the water, but not before their torpedoes were released on their deadly journey.

The first two thudded into the hull of the destroyer but failed to explode, but just as the captain and crew were celebrating their luck the next two ripped the destroyer apart sending it to a watery grave.

The mine sweepers were attacked by another two S-boats with exactly the same result – HMS Bramble going down for the cost of the two S-Boats (62 and 69).

The O class destroyer “Onslow” was more fortunate with some long-range torpedoes failing to hit.

The U Boat was still out of range of the trawlers with its torpedoes, and so concentrated on the remaining minesweeper, HMS Niger. The sweeper was hit and began to turn away just as two more S-Boats (64 and 67) arrived to finish off the crippled ship.

Meanwhile HMS Onslow, who was attempting to rescue its drowning comrades, enacted a swift revenge on both of the S-Boats (64 and 67). The resulting broadside showered the mine sweeper crew with splintered plywood.

At the same time the rear trawler was attacked by four torpedoes blowing it apart, however not before its 3.7inch gun took out S-Boat 63.

The mission was now on a knife-edge with only one escort, the HMS Onslow, left to defend the remaining two trawlers, and only U-boat 52 and S-Boat 68 left on the German side.

The trawlers continued on their journey with S-Boat 68 speeding into extremely close range to attempt to unload its deadly cargo. The combined shooting from both trawlers was able to make sure it met Davy Jones before the torpedoes could be fired. Around this time HMS Onslow’s sonar had pin pointed the submerged U-Boat and was steaming ahead at full speed to engage it with depth charges.

The cat and mouse game above and below the water did not last long with U-Boat 52 able to fire a full salvo of torpedoes before the destroyer was able to get into depth charge range.

The situation was ominous with the trawlers totally defenceless against a submerged submarine. All that remained to be seen was if they could get within the safety of the harbour before the submarine could do enough damage to sink one of the trawlers.

Just as the first trawler entered the safety of the harbour several huge explosions were heard to its rear. Sadly a second trawler with badly needed medical supplies was lost within sight of safety, giving the Germans a bitter-sweet victory.

While the game was exciting and went right down to the wire we found the rules did not work well for this scale of ships. Designed more for large fleet scale actions between carriers and battle ships they were just too deadly for Coastal Warfare. The ships had fire power in abundance but little defence, and so were able to dish out a lot of punishment without being able to receive any.

The ability for the S-Boats to shoot every turn was unrealistic, as the actual occasions of them being able to reload at sea was very rare.

We did like the area movement which assumed the ship captain knows what he is doing and places the ship in the ideal defensive or attacking situation and avoids the use of turn markers. The ship cards also worked well with their simple gunnery, anti-submarine, and anti-air factors making for a very quick resolution and avoided complex tables.

The need for more “hit points”, and a staged damage effect (run away and sunk) were obvious.

Despite these shortfalls the rules will form the basis of a very good game.