As a personal view, I think the former makes sense.
The swordfish aren't materially different from the ones I'm going to use in the game after, playing a generic "victory at sea" battle. So giving them extra 'punch' in this scenario seems wierd.
By comparison, the Italian warships are in a different state. They're under-crewed, not closed up, stationary targets, heck, they might even be ammunitioning or fuelling as the attackers turn up.
Given the manouvrability of flights versus ships, actually getting underway doesn't really matter all that much. Making it also remove a condition where torpedoes become more accurate and more deadly changes things dramatically.
A similar question about Attack on the Northern Patrol.
Don't get me wrong, the situation is historically accurate. Rawalpindi's commander described the upcoming engagement as "We’ll fight them both, they’ll sink us, and that will be that" and that's pretty much what's going to happen.
however, as a scenario, I'm not entirely sure what the RN player can actually do to influence the outcome, which kind of makes it an unenjoyable scenario to try to play.
Rawalpindi is so [censored] slow that it's not like it can try to evade, or even turn enough to have much chance of hiding in its own smoke, since it starts broadside on to the Kriegsmarine ships, and at 3" speed undamaged it can only ever turn once, and if it uses a special action to turn it can't simultaneously be making smoke.
It can shoot - but it has AP-2, Weak, 6" guns, so you're only firing them for the sake of rolling dice - it's physically impossible for them to even damage the 6+ armour, Armoured Deck warships even if you roll a 6 for every single dice.
The Kriegsmarine start (if I'm reading the 3d map right) at about 18" and 21" range respectively, well within half range of the big 11.1" guns in the A and B turrets, and with the merchant cruiser side-on to them.
If Rawalpindi uses the Evasive special action, it's being hit on a rerolled 3+ (about 44%) and if it does it's moving too slowly to turn.
In the first turn, the 12 guns in Scharnhorst and Gneisau should land about 5 hits, which is about 9 damage, enough to turn Rawalpindi to shattered wreckage in two average salvos.
Note that that completely ignores the secondary guns on the Battlecruisers (something like 26 extra attack dice, all theoretically ranging - albeit at long range - from the first turn of the game), the possibility of the Battlecruisers getting to point blank range and increasing their accuracy, or turning to unmask their X turrets, or Rawalpindi having to stop evading to perform damage control to fight escalating criticals.
I don't mind the scenario. It happened, it's historically accurate. But if it's a wargame, then the RN needs to have a victory condition which is credibly achievable, and surviving 5 turns of fire is not. I struggle to see what any RN player in this scenario can do other than go "......and I'm dead." Suggesting there needs to be any way for Rawalpindi to beat off two 500 point battlecruisers is obviously ridiculous, but as written, it cannot run, there is literally no point picking up dice to shoot, it cannot hide, and it somehow needs to survive 5 turns against ships which will kill it in less than 2 with average rolling.
If the Rawalpindi started at maximum visual range of 30", then it would at least be medium range for the opening shots, and deploying Rawalpindi head-on (since it was trying to attack) means the battlecruisers need a 5 to hit it, not a 3. If the ship was evading, that'd reduce the number of hits it's likely to take by a factor of 4, which is a good start.
In so far as Rawalpindi really achieved much, I gather it was successfully identifying and reporting the presence of the two battlecruisers. Some sort of objective re "getting within 30" and living long enough to get a radio message off" seems more realistic (albeit it's gonna be a quick scenario!)
