World War II Naval , General Quarters, 1/2400 scale

We planned to do a Conquistadors versus Aztecs game, but Chris Henry who was laying on the game couldn’t make it. In these circumstances we tend to run naval games, as they can be laid on at short notice, and don’t involve a lot of organising. This was a multi-player affair, with everyone commanding a squadron / division of Japanese or American warships. Of course, we immediately fell into the trap of putting too many ships on the table, so even though we used an 8 x 6 foot table and set the action at night it was still extremely crowded!The loose premise was that a Japanese Task Force was trying to escape from a landlocked archipelago – somewhere like the Philippines. It was set in 1944, even though naval purists will note that several of the ships we used had been sunk by then! the Japanese with a cruiser squadron and a small battleship one (the venerable Hiei and Kirishima plus destroyer screen), while the Americans blocked their path with a force of heavy cruisers and another centred around the battleships Washington and South Dakota. Both sides also had reserves – the American one consisting of more heavy cruisers and the battleship Tennessee, while the Japanese had the Hyuga and the mighty Yamato (below). These reinforcements were diced for – the American reserve coming on almost straight away, while the Yamato force didn’t appear until halfway through the battle. Well, the two cruiser forces clashed and exchanged salvos, causing enough damage to sink one heavy cruiser per side. I suspect the American cruiser commander used his under-gunned Australian ship the Canberra as a human shield, protecting the better-armed American cruisers which followed it its wake! The Japanese destroyers scored a torpedo hit on the South Dakota, but their battleships were outclassed by the American battlewagons, who inflicted significant damage on the Japanese battleships.Then the Yamato appeared. It wiped out the Canberra with its first salvo, and then proceeded to sink or cripple an American heavy cruiser every turn after that. the American battleships wisely kept their distance, and kept out of visibility range of the leviathan, lobbing shells at it using radar. Of course by that time both sides had problems – the cruiser forces of both sides had been mauled, while the battleships (apart from the Yamato) had all suffered some form of damage.In the end the game was declared a draw. Despite the advantage offered by the Yamato the Japanese would have had problems getting the rest of their forces off the table, while the Americans would sensibly have hauled off and waited for dawn, when their aircraft could deal with the Japanese monster battleship.As usual we used the old-fashioned but reliable General Quarters rules. I know a new edition has come out, but working on the principle that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks we decided to use the tried and tested older set (which came out more than 30 years ago). After all, when you only play a naval game once in a blue moon you and you drink beer throughout the game then you don’t want to make things too complicated! The new edition of the rules look excellent though, and we’ll give them a go soon.

Tags: General Quarters