USN Vs IJN Night action

 Frank and I were the only war game regulars at the Relentless Dragon last night (though they had quite a showing for Game of Thrones and at least one game of X-Wing) I fielded ships form Task Force AC against his IJN Cruiser battle group. I had two New Orleans Class Cruiser and Two Brooklyn class Cruisers (one of my favorites) with 4 Fletcher and 4 Benson Class Destroyers.  Frank had two Takoa(?) class  cruises and two Light Cruisers.  We are using night rules so we use anchors to make the location of the Flag ships.

 Radar and visual sighting by the leading ships soon have real ships on the table.

 USS Minnesota is illuminated....

 and quickly take multiple hits from two Japanese Cruisers

 USS Gansevoort is also hit hard by the fire...

 We don't let the Japanese off completely with out damage landing hits on one Japanese Heavy.

 The second Light Cruiser

  Its Turn two and the torpedoes start to churner  the waters

 To my surprise we USN torpedo men have a good night scoring one hit...

 We even damage the enemies engines

 Now if my navigation were a little better as I ground two of my Fletchers... One Benson goes down and two others are damages.

 My Brooklyns open up on their opposite numbers and live up to their reputation for rapid fire and accuracy.  Both Japanese lights are battered though both are still in the fight.

 My heavy cruisers also land good damage on their opposites (despite more damage to  Minneapolis and that ship having run aground).   One Japanese Heavy is dead in the water, and the second has a locked rudder.

 The Heavy Cruiser and my damaged Destroyer collide its not go for me but its actually worse for the Cruiser which gets a punctured bulk head (one that had just been fixed)

 The second force of Japanese destroyers cuts past the island  and my heavies prepare to take aim.

 The Japanese Lights are having their own troubles

 I lose the Boise to a furious attack of Japaneses torpedoes ( I dodged some 5 attacks before the sixth got two hits).

 Both Japanese lights are down to torpedo hits the Nashville gets several hits on one of the Japanese heavies but it hangs on.

Two of the Japanese Destroyers on the right are mission kills though they might limp home.  In total I lost one heavy and one light cruisers.  Five of my Destroyers also went down.  Two Japanese destroyers are probable kills (though still limping).  Both Japanese Light Cruisers were sunk and both of the Heavy Cruisers are badly damaged.  Quincy and Nashville are largely untouched.  We had to call the game because of time. I'll call it slight tactical victory for the Japanese, they sank more ships and might well have gotten the Quincy if they got in one more good Torpedo attack.  I probably would have gotten at least one Japanese Cruiser.  Neither of these task forces would be ready to fight again any time soon.