Night attack on Convoy FS-455, 1941
17th September 2026, 0 Comments
WWII Coastal Forces, Narrow Seas, 1/600-scale
We fancied a naval game this week – right now we’re on something of a nautical kick in the Orkney club, and we’re running it about 50/50 between land and sea (with the odd air one thrown in). Usually, we do it on alternate weeks, or at least we will until stormy winter weather and festive nonsense get in the way! With only three of us, we kept it very simple – a night attack by E-boats on a British coastal convoy.
If a convoy is designated FS, it means it’s a southbound one off the North Sea coast of Britain. This small one was heading from the Firth of Forth to the Thames Estuary. In case you wondered, FN are the northbound ones. It was a dark night, with a new moon and so visibility wasn’t great. The Germans, though, had sneaked inshore of the convoy, and one group were waiting to the west of them off Cromer, while another lurked to the east of the convoy’s path.
In the end it turned out to be something of a non-game. this wasn’t the fault of the rules – it was largely ’cause the game was too realistic! Convoy FS-455 was made up of just three merchant ships, the coasters MV Olev and MV Vigsnes – an Estonian and a Norwegian vessel, and the slightly larger British one, SS Stanmount. That much is history, but the real convoy wasn’t attacked, and reached Southend safely on 10 November 1941. So, I spiced things up for them.
First, on the night of 9th November I calmed the weather, and so five S-boats (or E-boats if you prefer) of the 4th S-Boote flotilla put to sea from Ostend, and were lying in wait off the Norfolk coast. to give the convoy a chance I added four escorts – the real convoy didn’t have any. The escort leader was Lt. Goss, of the Paddle Minesweeper HMS Duchess of Rothesay, while following astern were two Fairmile B Motor Launches and HMT Tenacity, an armed rescue tug. 
Inshore were the S-Boats S-49 and S-50 (above), while offshore of the convoy were three more boats, S-48, S-51 and S-64. The difference was, S-48 and 49 were poorly-armed, with just one 20mm gun apiece rather than two. Not that it made much difference in the game – the boats could have been armed with peashooters, and would have done just as well! The Kriegsmarine force waiting for the convoy in the darkness was led by Oberleutnant Wilcke in S-64. 
Of course, as both sides were beyond the pretty limited visibility range, the unsuspecting convoy plodded south, while the S-boats lurked ahead of them. In this game, Chris commanded the convoy, while Sean took charge of the S-Boats. We played it on a 6×4 foot table, which was more than adequate for this small and very brief night action. All I did was to thumb through the rules, when Chris’ asked rule questions I couldn’t answer – which was probably most of them! 
Then, when the convoy got within torpedo range, Sean decided to let them have it. Most of the German boats were still not spotted by the lookouts in the convoy, at least until S-49 and S-50 launched a torpedo apiece, aiming at the SS Stanmount.
Until then, all the German ships were hidden beneath blue markers (above), and even then, only S-49 was spotted, and the Duchess opened up with her bow 12-pdr (3-inch) gun. The shot missed. Oh, by the way, sorry for my lousy photos. I’d left my camera at home, and my old phone is a poor substitute! 
At least, it meant that the Germans had been spotted, and so had the approaching torpedoes. A claxon aboard the Duchess alerted the convoy with its long blast, followed by two short. that meant they were under attack, and everyone should turn to starboard. So, they began their nail-biting, ponderous turn, but as fate had it, the torpedoes screamed past the paddlesteamer, and cut across the bows of the Stanmount. So, a disaster was narrowly averted!
Then it was the turn of the other three S-Boats. Again, they all launched one torpedo apiece, and like the first pair, they then turned away into the darkness. The narrow spread of torpedoes passed through the port side of the convoy, missing Stanhope and passing across the bows of the tug Tenacity. It was another near-run thing… So far it wasn’t much of a game, and we expected Sean to launch a second attack. However, it never came. 
As we’d been talking about setting up a small loosely-structured campaign, Sean played it safe, and headed off southwards into the night – presumably to find another juicy ambush spot further down the coast. So, that was the end of our game – or rather our non-game! In the brief attack, the British only spotted two of the S-Boats, which are much harder to see due to their size, especially on a moonless night.
Actually, that’s not quite true. The British got two shots in, one from the Duchess, and the other from Lt. Marcel’s Fairmile B ML-114. This second shot hit the front of Oberlt. Meyer’s S-51, and knocked out her forward 20mm gun. Although the Germans in the offshore trio of boats fired back, they didn’t score a hit. So, it was something of a lesson in the visibility rules, and the need to creep close if you want to score a hit. A dull game then, but it had its moments!