Monday, May 20, 2019

Huzzah! 2019 Gun fight on the Arctic Circles

For Huzzah I dusted off this scenario add in fog banks and an island to add some terrain.
I also provided secret orders to both sides that changed the goal of the game (especially for the Germans)
Early maneuvers had the Tirpitz turning away and maneuvering so it the Pricntz Eugan and the Lutzow could operate together .
This also turned the Tirpitz away from the Washington.
Tirpitz hit the the HMS Exeter hard
Washington had early encounters with a Uboat  Which did harm and was sunk by it destoryer escort
Exeter scored one lucky hit on the Tirpitz starting a fire but Bill who was running the German Battleship made the first of many clutch damage control rolls to put it out.
Tirpitz got its first and most significant hit on the Washignton a flooding critical that would dog Admiral Ken Howe all game.  (He was as unlucky in his DC rolls as Bill was lucky)
John Magifico snuck  the USS Cowell into torpedo range of the Tirpitz...
 and managed to stick two Fish into her. Cowell when down under a deluge of 5.9 inch shell form every ship in the German fleet.  The German luck held and two turns of DC checks had the damage set to rights.
Meanwhile the US Cruisers had two rounds of unanswered gunfire at the Germans as radar allowed them to see and hit them when the German's could not respond.
Both Sides smashed each other with heavy shells at close range.  The Lutzow was lost to the Germans and the Tuscaloosa also went down.  Both Wichita and Printz Eugan were badly wrecked and heading toward a possible collision as Wichita had lost control of its rudder and Printz Eugan had sustained a bridge hit.  With the Washington withdrawing to the support of the convoy's Destroyers and time running out in the session I had to call this a win for the Tirptiz.   It could probably have pursued the Washington and Sunk her or bypassed her to attack the convoy.  The Convoy would probably have scattered and suffered serious losses as a result of this battle.   Damage control was key had the Tirptiz not been exceptionally lucky on its DC rolls (and the Allies correspondingly unlucky) the results would have been very different.

No comments:

Post a Comment