| Archive for Axis & Allies ForuMINI Specialised in the World War II Axis & Allies Miniatures and War At Sea Games |
| ARK |
British 100 point buildThis started out as part of a 300 point OOB fleet I that I used vs Duck Crusader tonight. I was thinking about it on the way home and thought that it wouldn't make a real bad 100 point fleet.Repulse x1 33pts Belfast x2 28pts Arunta x2 14pts Jameca x1 15pts Hurricanex2 10pts total 100pts |
||||||||
| Europa1942 |
wouldnt a german u-boat fleet roll over this? | ||||||||
| afilter |
Yes, it probably would. I would go with something more like this: HMS Repulse x1 33 pts HMS Saumarez x1 8pts Martlet x1 6pts HMS Belfast x1 14 pts HMS Fencerx1 14 pts Swordfish x1 10pts HMAS Arunta x1 7pts HMCS Haida x1 7pts 99 pts |
||||||||
| ARK |
This fleet was built under the OOB rules which means you can only bring one sub per capital ship. Thus the sub swarm is not a huge fear. | ||||||||
| swarbs |
And if I remember the OOB rules you need to take a bunch of support for a big ship anyway, so there probably won't be more than one BB at 100 points either. In the limitations of your rules, this one might work. Flotilla Leader helps you get an advantage in initiative and stay out of ER range of BB's, hopefully getting some torpedoes off, and you've got the ships to spread out and take objectives too. Having never played your way, I couldn't say for sure, but it seems like it's worth a try. | ||||||||
| afilter |
Not familiar with OOB, are they house rules? Where can you find them? |
||||||||
| ARK |
Here is the link for the Order of Battle house rules
http://aaminis.myfastforum.org/about9123.html |
||||||||
| Duck Crusader |
His cruiser happy fleet from last night almost swamped my Germans in spite of the three U-boats my CV and 2 BBs allowed me. Trust me, under OOB this is a very good fleet, even if it doesn't have any subs. We're hooked on this rules modification now, it's a really great way to balance the fleets in a simple and fairly historical way. Try them for yourself and see. | ||||||||
| drittal |
you should add that for every Ca you have to run 3 shrimp boats. | ||||||||
| Duck Crusader |
Historically cruisers often acted alone or in pairs, so they're exempt from having escorts. Capital vessels never went anywhere without them. | ||||||||
| 'Warspite' |
In mid-ocean the Royal Navy often let battleships and cruisers operate without escorts, that's why they zig-zagged. Many of the warships called in to sink the Bismarck were lacking in escorts. HMS Rodney came to the party alone and I seem to recall that Force Z was only made up of HMS Sheffield, HMS Renown and HMS Ark Royal. I also seem to recall that a German U-boat came to periscope depth to find Renown at one end and the Ark Royal at the other. Sadly she had no torpedoes left but she may have been the U-boat which led Ultra decrypts to tell the Admiralty to warn the rescue ships of a U-boat threat which is why they steamed off and left many Bismarck survivors in the water. |
||||||||
| Duck Crusader |
But we're dealing here with the average behavior of all the navies. |
||||||||
| 'Warspite' |
When a navy has world-wide commitments as the RN did then there is no average or general behavior. Large vessels did travel without escort and not just in the RN. I seem to recall the USS Indianapolis was travelling unescorted when she was torpedoed after delivering the A-Bomb. In the Mediterranean or the closer reaches of the North Atlantic/North Sea expect an escort. In the South Atlantic or if there is an emergency such as the Bismarck incident then escorts are probably unavailable or unnecessary for a warship. Such escorts would be ear-marked for convoys especially after 1940. |
||||||||
| Duck Crusader |
So, is this a game of individual behavior between ships, or one with small squadrons and fleets? Fight a lot of one BB/CA battles do you? 
|
||||||||
| 'Warspite' |
I was answering your original point that (historically) capital ships 'never' went anywhere without escorts. The RN regularly operated without escorts especially in areas which were perceived as low risk or if operations such as the Bismarck action dictated it. I seem to recall that HMS Hermes and HMS Dorsetshire were sailing without escort when they were jumped by IJN aircraft in the Indian Ocean but I am willing to be corrected on that one. HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales had left their escorts behind and they did not catch up to the scene of Hood's sinking for more than two hours. When they arrived there were only three survivors. I also recall HMS Renown operating off the Norwegian coast in 1940 and sending her escorts back due to bad weather. She went on alone. Escorts were in short supply 1940 - 1943 which is why the RN borrowed 50 old destroyers from the USN. They were not always available and had to be prioritised. Also Royal Navy tactics cannot be 'averaged'. The RN was capable of being quite conservative MOST of the time but then it would take amazing risks operationally. Sending HMS Warspite into Narvik Fiord to engage destroyers at point-blank range or ramming HMS Cambletown into the lock gates at St Nazaire are two cases in point. The Swordfish were flown into Taranto at night expecting large losses from the barrage balloons. In practice only two were lost and both from gunfire. |
||||||||
| Duck Crusader |
OK, point taken. But the basic idea here is to provide for more realistic fleets. I can't name nay actions that consisted of three BBs, two CVs and nine subs on each side, yet I was seeing similar fleets all the time before. Try a few OOB games and tell me what you think. | ||||||||
| Yossarian78 |
One must also remember that capital warships (even older battleships) were capable of much higher cruising speeds than escorts and transports. The chances of submarines being able to maneuver to a shooting position in open ocean were greatly reduced. The risk was generally seen as minimal especially before the genesis of the wolfpacks. | ||||||||
| Duck Crusader |
Again, not the point. Try the rules and see if you like them. | ||||||||
| Planetary Eulogy |
Even with wolfpacks, submarines represented a minimal threat to large formations of surface warships, if for no other reason than that they lacked the speed to maneuver to contact. Certainly, under the right conditions, a wolfpack could crack open an escorted merchant convoy. But any squadron consisting entirely of warships could break contact with submarines pretty much at will. Submarines had some value in fleet engagements as reconnaissance pickets, and they certainly represented a threat to cripples or even undamaged capital ships in one off, target of opportunity type situations. On the whole, Duck is right, here. These sub swarm fleet builds are a pure gaming device with no real correspondence to history. I think you're also extrapolating a bit too much from the British experience in the Atlantic. The Battle of the Atlantic presented some notably unique circumstances that both allowed and required the Royal Navy to operate capital ships in a manner otherwise inconsistent with standard naval doctrine. For starters, the U-Boat threat and the convoy system made for a constant shortage of escort vessels. This didn't allow the British to provide the sort of escort they would have liked for capital ships operating independently of the merchant convoys. At the same time, other circumstances - chiefly the lack of powerful, squadron scale surface forces on the part of the Kriegsmarine - made operating small groups of unescorted capital ships feasible. Remember, most navies escorted their capital ships primarily to screen them from surface torpedo attacks launched from DDs and CLs, rather than to protect them from the (relatively) minimal threat that submarines represented. With this in mind, it's worth noting that the Royal Navy did not send unescorted capital ships into the Med or the Indo-Pacific. |
||||||||
| Duck Crusader |
Oh, I can think of one time they did so against the Japanese, famously in fact, sending out a cruiser and a capital ship without escorts or aircover. look how well that worked out.
Still, not the point for this discussion, which is about squadron operations. Again, if you haven't tried them yet use the OOB houserule for a few games and see if you like them. |
||||||||
| Planetary Eulogy |
Repulse and Prince of Wales were being escorted (by 4 DDs) at the time of their sinking. |
||||||||
| Duck Crusader |
Ha! I did not know that! Thank you. So their fleet would have been 1 capital ship, 1 CA and 4 DD, very similar to what we've been talking about. | ||||||||
| Planetary Eulogy |
1 BB, 1 BC and 4 DDs, yes. The only thing that's really missing is a CA or CL, and that wasn't that uncommon among small surface groups built around capital ships. So, yeah, Force Z comes very close to representing your ideal OOB fleet. I've said it elsewhere but it bears repeating: the OOB House Rule is probably the best modification I've seen to the basic WaS game engine. Around here, we no longer play under any other rules except in convoy scenarios. I don't see how anyone who doesn't have a Yellow Brick Road address could object to the OOB rules. Great work. |
||||||||
| Stormhawk4107 |
I love playing over that attack in Battlestations Pacific. If you do not destroy the two ships fast enough they call in 2 more destroyers to aid in the AA barrage. | ||||||||
| Lowecore |
anything that balances the game is more important than historical reproduction I think. Even if people don't admit it, everyone likes to win. |