To All the Ships at Sea

It appears that in our gaming circles we are seeing more interest in naval games. From the pre-dreadnought era to the near future several gamers are painting up their fleets and getting them ready for battle.

It has me thinking of the balance within designed naval campaigns. Since the pre-dreadnought there have been a limited to the number of naval super powers. And the limited number is just two.

To be a naval super power the nation needs three things.

• A battle fleet with the ability to project power outside of their home waters.
• Logistics to support the battle fleets.
• National Policy willing to project this power.

Often a nation meets two of the points but not the third.

Prior to The Great War the Royal Navy was the only fleet able to meet these criteria. This ended with the alliance with Japan and the recall of the fleet to home waters. No other navy will meet these criteria until the post war period when the two English speaking almost came to blows.

Germany in the First World War was only a regional power and not a real super power. Their surface raiders operated worldwide but were little more than a nuisance.  The submarines attempted to blockade the British Isles with little strategic success to show for the losses.

Not until after the war was there a period of two naval super powers when the Royal Navy and the US Navy fleets projected power throughout the world. This period ended with the parity offered by the Washington Naval Treaty to Britain, the United States and Japan.

Not until the middle of World War II did the United States become the world sea power that we have lived with to the present time. The Chinese today can project power only into the western Pacific, and possibly the Indian Ocean. The Soviet Navy of the Cold War was only able to project power through the Black, Baltic Seas and the Arctic Ocean even with their limited carriers and allied ports in the Third World.

So what does this mean for gamers? Not a whole lot. Just remember that any Cold War engagement with the US Navy will normally have a carrier nearby to intercede.  And woe to the gamer without air assets to protect his ships. It also makes regional fights more interesting.

As for me I will continue to take my submarines out to sea and engage the enemy closely. As a gamer you are not really heavily invested if you do not come back to port.

Pleasant sailing.
Jonathan

Cold Wars AAR

For me this was one of my better Cold Wars HMGS Conventions.  I ran two games; played in a third and watch a few interesting games as well.  Attendance seemed to be down but that did not deter anyone from having fun. 

Mark Kinsey and myself ran two games dealing with Lebanon 1982 and Dr Mercury had two 28mm games covering the conflict as well. All in all the Vista Room in Lancaster was a little bit of Lebanon (in the Middle East that is).

On the Purchase front I picked up a pack of Modern Havoc 15mm Insurgents to add to my PLO.  These twenty additional figures are armed with AK47s and RPGs and will add a lot of additional figure poses for the table. Unfortunately I had to increase my figure count by the same twenty. Oh bother. Also picked up trees for the village. This was not a big purchase show for me.

Now on to the battles and After Action Report

The first fight was “Lebanon 1982 - Fight at Ishiya” This is a village in the Bekaa were the IDF is looking to move north as fast as possible while destroying as my of the PLO infrastructure as possible.

The Battlefield - Image from Doctor Merkury

Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way. The IDF had a platoon of infantry with Magach support.  While they had two perfectly good roads to use, they set up on the table edge and started to move through the rough terrain. Now as a game master I should have place the figures on the road and said you start here. My fault.

The IDF started by approaching a cluster of houses and found a PLO arms cache, but also civilians, militia and a news crew. Now after failing to spot the news crew (even though I had figures on the table) they proceeded to use the machine guns and Magach tanks on the people and buildings getting a clean kill on the entire news crew.

Things could not get worse for the IDF, well they could and did. For over three turns they continued to pummel the buildings. It took an order from over the radio to get them moving, ever so slowly. In desperation (on the game master’s part) I said something like, “I paid a lot for that latex road and you guys need to use it.

Once they got on the road they moved towards a market building and encountered a second PLO team with a machine gun. This slowed up the column again and the reinforcements. The IDF received a jeep platoon.

At this time the Syrians appeared on blinds (we were using a Lardies rules). It was funny that the IDF was not concerned about the new column approaching the village center. The Syrians had two platoons of T55s and a platoon of BTR60s.

It was only when the command tank was hit by an RPG and received engine damage that the IDF realize they were in trouble. The command tank earlier lost their commander. The Syrian Infantry and lead platoon of T55s fired on the tank and the crew bailed to a building. More on that latter.

The rest of the IDF column made a run for the edge and it looked like they were going to make it, until the PLO moved their one heavy asset, a Charioteer, to stop them. There is something humorous in having a 1950s tank (or tank destroyer) frightening off the IDF. Only by luck was the PLO tank unable to get the last M113 in the column. (In the future I need to write up some PLO specific tank rules. Should make for interesting and comical battles.)

Back to the tank crew. They were holding up in a building being shot at by a platoon on Syrian and a defiant group of PLO. There situation did not look good, so the jeep platoon went in to recover them. Luck was still with the Syrians as they were able to get into a firing position and disabled the jeeps and captured their crews and the crew of the tank.

This game was a PLO and Syrian victory. I think the IDF commander was lucky to have been an early causality, if not Ariel Sharon would not have been happy with the results.

The second battle was “Clearing the Orange Grove”, an infantry fight based on a scene in Waltz with Bashir. This was to have the IDF moving through an agricultural area on the coast road.

This operation was smaller with only a platoon of infantry. Each player had control of a M-113 with three fire teams. 

This operation followed doctrine with the infantry working with the APC. This time the PLO came off for the worse. Their teams put up a good fight, but the combined firepower of the IDF contained any PLO threat.

This is a game I will want to bring back to a convention.

I want to thank all of the players and Mark for taking part in the two games. I hope to use Mark’s Orange Grove (that he forgot) in the future game.

Please look at Daddy’s Little Men and Doctor Merkury’s Lab for more (and better pictures) running a game does not allow time for taking pictures.