Haze Gray and Underway

 My fleets for my up coming submarine games are now ready including aircraft.

The more famous fight is the HMS Conqueror against TF 79.3. In this action the Conqueror fired four torpedoes and hit two targets. While the ARA General Belgrano was hit by two torpedoes one of her escorts was lucky and was hit by a dud.

In this fight we have:

HMS Conqueror – Churchill Class SSN

ARA General Belgrano – Phoenix Class Light Cruiser
ARA Piedra Buena – Sumner Class Destroyer
ARA Hipólito Bouchard – Sumner Class Destroyer

The Belgrano was carrying an Alouette III but I am uncertain if it was used as a utility helicopter or as an ASW asset.  As I can find no record of the Argentines using the Alouette for ASW operations I will not use it in this game.
(Image is from Wikipedia)

In the next battle we have a more balanced ASW operation.

Here we have the ARA Salta trying to get closer to the British carriers.

ARA Salta – Type 209

HMS Brilliant – Type  22 Frigate
HMS Yarmouth – Type 12 Frigate
3 Sea King Helicopters No.820/826 Squadrons

It is reported that the Salta fired six torpedoes but they all misfired. While a blessing to the British it was a sad event for the Argentine.

Now I need to find a couple of able body sailors to take them to sea.

Painting Table

My paint table is finally opening up as the last of the summer and fall plants have left the basement and not a moment to soon.

Modern warships are coming together for two submarine games I will be running in October. While both are historical one is a little shaky as it involves the ARA Salta in its attack on the British.

For World War I have British naval infantry, early war cavalry and Ottomans for the Mesopotamia Campaign.

A little farther back, the Dark Ages, I have Picts and Normans in the queue. Image is from Splintered Light's website. The Normans are for their campaign in southern Italy a conflict I was unaware of. With luck there will be new rules from TOOFATLardies latter this year.

I have also been looking at the Lardies rules for naval combat in the Age of Nelson called Kiss Me Hardy (love Richard’s titles). That means I will be looking at some 1/2400 scale ships. I will probably start out with a handful of ships from Tumbling Dice. Thank you Chris for the article in the Lardy on setting up a campaign. Love those 6th rates and sloops.

Osprey Latest Poll.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Osprey Publishing is looking to re-release or create fresh titles for their New Vanguard Series of vehicles covered in the past. Their list on the poll was I thought vanilla. We had the standards for modern tanks the T72, M1, and the Challenger 2. For IFV (battle taxis) there is the BMP and to round out the list was the late WWII stalwart the Churchill.

For me it was a moment of one of these things is not like the others. When 80% of your list is modern and you are going to offer a WWII vehicle the Churchill does not normally come to mind. But think again, I had a co-worker who was British and he had served in the Army post war (national service?) He was assigned to an engineer unit and they had Churchills. While I am not sure of the variant I want to lean towards the Kangaroo as he talked of it more as a taxi/truck than a specialized piece of engineering equipment.

As of today the vote is close with the M-1 @ 25% followed by BMP (24%), Churchill (19%), T-72 (18%), and the Challenger 2 @14%. Take the time to let Osprey know what you want to see next by go to their home page. Remember those WWII gems severed on for a long time afterwards and have a place in many a Cold War army.

One Crowed Hour

A good time was had by all last night as members of the York and Lancaster clubs got together to take part in the RPG classic, Traveler.

It was the scenario One Crowed Hour and it did take an hour longer than was expected. Than again the players were not cooperating much.

We were on a star liner that came out of jump and were heading towards a gas giant. That we found out latter. Several of us worked on the launch (with only one member of the party able to get on it), repaired the controls (sort of) and helped control the rowdier members of the passengers and crew.  In the end I won, sorry Jayson, as I rescued the girl and rode the liner down to a crash landing.

It was a hoot and hope to do something like this again. Thank you Mark.

Falklands 1982 - Submarine Action

I have always been a big fan on the second edition of Harpoon by GDW. It was a great mix between game and simulation. You can as a game master work at making the scenarios fair. At least to a point. I feel that the later editions by Clash of Arms have made Harpoon more of a simulation than a game.

So when the idea went out for a naval day at the club I jumped at the idea of doing a Harpoon game based on the Cold War. While I first thought of doing a Third World War naval battle in the North Sea. After running through the games a number of times I found that I was going to need more time than a normal game day. I also needed players familiar with modern naval games. This we will have to work on.

So instead of a convoy battle in the North Sea (I will revisit this in the future) I headed south to the Falklands. Chal has me looking again to the Falklands War 1982 so I will be running a battle that might have occurred on May 1-2 1982 were an Argentinian submarine was engaged with the British. I say might, as the information is still sketchy.

So I will be looking for three to four players to command the ships, air assets and the submarine. If you are attending on September 13th please let me know if you are interested in one of the commands. Knowledge of Harpoon is nice but not required.

In the Name of Roma

Fellow Lardy Chris Stoesen wrote In the Name of Roma as a supplement for I Ain’t Been Shot Mum, Troops Weapons and Tactics and Chain of Command. All I can say is this is so much more than a wargaming supplement. It tells the early campaign history of the Italian forces in Russia in great detail. While I have read a much about the Russian Front the Italians part in the campaign is an area that I knew little of outside of the Stalingrad campaign. This supplement fills a large gap in my knowledge of the campaign and has me looking for more. Thank fully Chris offers that "more".

This eBook is broken down into several blocks. There is one that covers the history of the 1941 campaign for the Italians in general and the 80o Roma Infantry Regiment in particular. Order of Battle and gaming materials are next followed by the six campaigns and 30 scenarios. While this is a TOOFATLardy supplement, it is easily used for any platoon or company level game system.

Chris Stoesen covers the units and the order of battle in great detail. We read of the L3/33 being used successfully against Soviet infantry and their T37 tankettes. There are games were the Italians are using their Legion (CCNN), Bersaglieri or Esploratori platoons. All interesting and colorful units in both the history and for the table top.

There is the struggle on the Italian side of using their limited transport capabilities (often civilian vehicles) to move their battalions around. Logistics being almost more of an obstacle for the Italian Corps in Russia (CSIR) than the Soviet troops. These troops were promised both a short campaign and logistics from the Germans. They received neither.

With six campaigns and game aids any arm chair historian or wargamer will find this meaningful reading. At 285 pages there is a lot of meat here. The bibliography alone is worth the price of this eBook. I hope Chris Stoesen will continue to write such insightful supplements.