First fleet action questions

vihkr

Mongoose
I finally played my first (5 pt raid) fleet game on Friday. I had the Scharnhorst and the Lutzow (Deutschland-class) and a light cruiser+destroyer escort with 2 U-boats and some ME109s for air cover. My opponent had the Ark Royal and several heavy and light cruisers as well as destroyers and a sub. His plan was to sink at least one of my battlecruisers with air power and cruisers and generally mess me up. I was going to rely on the same cruisers to sink his carrier at range while taking flank shots with U-boats.

We used the base rulebook with none of the tournament rules nor any house rules. The scenario was Carrier Duel (start 48" apart).

When we called it, I had lost one sub, light cruiser and both my aircraft. The capital ships had taken some damage and a couple of speed reductions and fires but nothing major and they were still fightable. Most of his cruisers and destroyers were at the bottom or crippled, his aircraft had been wiped out and the Ark Royal was seriously on fire and near crippled. Neither one of us was expecting this result.

Observations/questions:

1. Are aircraft seriously underpowered in this game? He played them really well: he crept his carrier forward and launched all of his aircraft, attacked me en masse and tied my fighters up with his fighters. He concentrated his attacks on the Scharnhorst. If his aircraft didn't get shot down by the combined AAA fire from my fleet, he would drop a torpedo, which would frequently miss or have no effect due to the torpedo belt.

2. Torpedo belt is perhaps too extreme. The Scharnhorst, with 6+ armour and a torpedo belt was nigh unstoppable. She must have taken well over a dozen torpedo hits from aircraft, cruisers and destroyers and we were both amazed when it shrugged it all off and pulled away, albeit at reduced speed, which she quickly repaired. To be fair, she suffered more at the hands of the concentrated shelling of the cruisers and destroyers. Instead of a re-roll at 6+ to damage, perhaps a 50-50 chance would be better.

3. Are torpedos too weak in this game? Beyond the episode with the Scharnhorst, above, I also ambushed a pair of his light cruisers with my two subs. I hit one cruiser with 4 torpedos and I failed to cripple her, at which point she sped away at flank speed.

4. Concentrated fire from capital ships is quite devastating. Once his air power had been spent and his ships closed to secondary/torpedo range, I started sinking them rather quickly. Every turn at least one would go to the bottom.

Are the above observations due to only having played one game or is this the general feeling of others as well?

Thanks,
Madis
 
Items #1 and #2 are primary issues of the game being addressed by the supplement that is being released this month.

I don't think many people on here find torpedoes are too weak (once you fix the torpedo belt.) I'd say try giving it a few more games.

Yes, big guns to a lot of damage in this game. . . which is the way I like it! :)
 
Soulmage said:
Items #1 and #2 are primary issues of the game being addressed by the supplement that is being released this month.

I don't think many people on here find torpedoes are too weak (once you fix the torpedo belt.) I'd say try giving it a few more games.

Yes, big guns to a lot of damage in this game. . . which is the way I like it! :)

Thanks for the response. I tend to agree with the big guns threory myself--going to try the Tirpitz next, methinks. However, if they fix the aircraft rules, a pair of IJN carriers sounds tasty too. :twisted:
 
Cheers all,

I was Vihkr's opponent in the game he decribes here, and offer the following summary of the game from the RN perspective.

My Fleet:
1 x Carrier - The Ark Royal (w. 6flts of Swordfish, 4flts of Fulmars)
2 x Norfolk-class Cruisers (HMS Ajax, HMAS Sydney), B sqn
2 x Leander-class Cruisers, C sqn
2 x Le Fantasque-class Destroyers, A sqn
1 x S-class submarine

As one would likely find in Real Life, the Sch. could not be left untouched as her main guns can certainly reach out and touch virtually any ship on the board. I had to concentrate the torpedos of the Ark Royal's aircraft and the A sqn destroyers on crippling or sinking the Sch. so that the Cruisers of B and C sqns could tackle the Lutzow once her partner had been removed from play. The remaining destroyers could be managed by the A sqn destroyers and the remaining Swordfish from the Ark Royal.

This was not to be.

The german U-boats appeared on the port-aft quarter of the fleet, which found the destroyer screen in a poor position (on the wrong side of the fleet) to engage immediately. Using the SA "Flank Speed" they were able to cover the withdraw of the B sqn cruisers, close on and render the U-boats ineffective at the cost of a destroyer. As expected, the Locating and Depth Charging of the U-boats was seemingly accurate and pretty damn satisfying.

After that, things were just ugly for the RN. The strength and virtual invincibility of the Scharnhosrt meant that the 12 or so torpedo hits accounted for next-to-nil damage, with more effective fire coming from the 6" and 8" guns of the cruisers of B and C sqns. That was until the Scharnhorst's guns ranged on the cruisers and went to work. Each sqn lost a ship in the minimum possible number of turns, while the Scharnhosrt simply lumbered away from the fountains of water made by numerous torpedo hits and the ineffective fire from the cruisers' secondary batteries. Cursed be the belt. Cursed be RN secondary cruiser batteries.

I was able to keep the Scharnhosrt and Lutzow's fire concentrated on the lesser ship enabling the Ark Royal to keep supplying waves of Swordfish. However, Vickr and I were completely astonished at the lack of effective damage produced by a seemingly rediculous number of torpedos striking the Scharnhorst from my S-sub, Swordfish, and cruisers.

At one point, I could have asked a captain of any one of my cruisers to walk across the waves on the backs of all the torpedos, knock on the hull of the Scharnhorst, and politely ask if they would kindly return to port and cease being such a bother to the North Atlantic shipping routes.

Realizing that the Scharnhosrt was virtually invincible, the Lutzow stayed on her port-aft quarter (far side of the formation from the RN fleet) for the duration of the engagement, meaning that the cruisers were only able to take sporadic shots on her before the Scharnhorst cancelled those attacks. In addition, she was close enough to the Scharnhorst to benefit from her AAA screen. She was also out of optimal position for the S-sub to close and fire on her meaning the S-sub could only attack (if only...) the Scharnhorst.

While closing on the Scharnhorst, the remaining cruisers were able to launch a torpedo attack apiece, which found a hapless German cuiser a direct course to the ocean floor.

It was approximately mid-game that I decided I was bringing the Queen Elizabeth and her 8 15" guns next time. If German capital ships couldn't find anything better than target practice with the RN that afternoon, I will give them something better to do. :twisted:

In theory, battling the Lutzow would have been an easier tact to take considering the withering AAA fire from the Scharnhorst and the ungodly strength of her torpedo belt, and the apparent weakness of both torpedo and aircraft attacks. It would be wise to manuever a harassing force into several positions to eliminate the weaker capital ship, keep the cruisers and destroyers at speed for torpedo runs, and let the Swordfish to what they are best at.

All in all, it was a hugely fun evening and I'm hooked on VoS!

Regards,
T.
 
Played the same scenario again (see force compositions in my first post in this thread) on Friday night but this time with SoulMage's house rules (thx btw) and some new tactics. We also switched teams so that Tman was in command of the Kriegsmarine and I had the Ark Royal and friends along with a third player, Jay, who was playing his first game. I even ironed the navy-blue sheet we had bought for the games table!

The Royal Navy plan, this time, was to rush the cruiser screen in for a guns and torpedo run and leave the destroyers to nurse-maid the carrier, and of course, sink the Scharnhorst! Confident with our new SoulMage-triple-powered Swordfish, upgunned secondary armament and chances to hit on more than a six we rushed in. And man did we get shot up again!

Our light cruisers managed to sink Tman's destroyer and chase off a light cruiser. Then, the Scharnhorst and Lutzow started getting hits on our light cruisers, which were at flank speed, at like 30 inches range (30,000 yards?!) by rolling 8's and 9's and by the time the Ajax got to 20", she was on fire and then was ambushed by a pair of U-Boats and went right to the bottom, but quick. Her sister managed to turn 90 degrees and get out of there but then, she too received the attentions of the secondary armament of both the German capital ships. By this point, they had crossed our T and we were in serious trouble. My heavy cruisers on our right were also closing at flank at starting to take hits from their main batteries.

Our aircraft were, once again, generally ineffective. His Me109 screen shot down anything, including our Fulmar "fighter escorts" until we managed to down one flight and we put a couple of torpedo runs into the Scharnhorst. A full 50% of our Swordfish were downed on their final approach by the combined triple-A of the capital ships. In any case, she generally shrugged torpedo hits off as well, sans torpedo-belt. Most of the incoming shells bounced harmlessly off her armour despite one lucky critical which started some fires, which were quickly extinguished.

With two cruisers crippled, one on the bottom, most of our aircraft shot out from the sky and blurry vision from too much beer and wine, we called it another victory for ze Gehmans.

Observations and questions:
1. Even with the house rules from SoulMage, the Scharnhorst is one tough mother, and she's not even a battleship!
2. British aircraft are too slow and too vulnerable to triple-A and fighters.
3. I really liked SoulMage's rules: they increased the excitement level with the ability to make fluke shots and slightly increased the amount of damage that ships were taking (could have been the dice too). Anyone try this guy's house rules?:
http://www.btinternet.com/~david.Manley/naval/VAS/VAS.html

-vihkr
 
The group I play V@S also decided to tone down torp belts after my KGV got smothered with torps by four german destroyers, when the spray settled the destoyers were horrified to see the crew of KGV lined up on deck pointing a laughing at them :D
We went for a 1 reroll per per round for each 5 or part there of of undamaged hull points. Also toned down the torps a bit to make them 'feel' different from guns (no +1 for beam on target, -1 for end on target)
 
Glad you enjoyed them!

Scharnhorst wasn't a battleship only by virtue of the fact that they never got around to completing a planned upgrade of her main armament to battleship standards. She certainly was protected like one!
 
If you have the new OOB book try the same scenario now. I bet you it will be a different outcome Planes are revamped and more effective. Take the swordfish for example 3ad now instead of the measley 1 you got originally. They can also carry bombs now too, you get ADx6 and if you take Albacores they get 9AD!! yes read it 9 AD for bombs. Also torpedoes will look like doing more damage as the Torp belt has been made less effective and . Basically roll a 1.2.3 and you don't reroll the hit as it is deemed to have missed the torp belt and hit the unprotected portion of the hull. Now it looks like the poor old Scharnhorst's days are well and truly numbered
 
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