Polar Bear Tournament

+++ BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE
+++ 13 DECEMBER 1939
+++ SOUTH ATLANTIC RIO DE LA PLATA

This game was played on the International Naval Wargaming Day, the birthday of Fred T. Jane (6 August 1865), the author of Jane‘s Fighting Ships.

After a brief introduction game, the sinking of HMS Rawalpindi we went to the main event, the Battle of the River Plate.

Interestingly the Battle of the River Plate and the fate of HMS Rawalpindi are tied together. The attack on the Northern Patrol was to ease the situation of Admiral Graf Spee. The defiant stand of Rawalpindi was a sensation in the United Kingdom.

Ten surviving crew members of the HMS Rawalpindi were honoured at a special parade on Horse Guards Parade in London on 29 November 1939. The men had recently been rescued from the North Sea and were personally thanked for their bravery by the Second Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Charles Little. Only a few days after they had seen their mates die.
“Whose glorious fight against overwhelming odds deserves the respect and honour of the House and of the nation”
First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, addressing Parliament December 1939, famously honouring the heroic and doomed final battle of HMS Rawalpindi.

The attack of the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst did nothing to alleviate Admiral Graf Spee´s predicament.

On 13 December at 05:20, the British squadron was proceeding on a course of 060° at 14 knots with Ajax at 34°34′S 48°17′W, 390 nmi east of Montevideo. At 06:10, smoke was sighted on a bearing of Red-100, or 320° (to the north-west). Harwood ordered the Exeter to investigate. She swung out of line, and at 06:16, she signalled by lamp: "I think it is a pocket-battleship". Captain Bell ordered Flag N hoisted to the yard arm – "Enemy in sight".

Harwood decided to aggressively close. He signalled “Proceed at utmost speed”, equivalent of a ‘General Chase’ signal, an order to close and kill – not lame – a fleeing enemy.

The rest is history.

We played this battle, ‘captain’ Matthew Belayneh taking on the role of his countryman Henry Harwood, while Andri took the role of Hans Langsdorff.

The battle started pretty straight forward from the initial set up. Some exchanges of salvos took place with minor damage. Matthew tried to close the distance between his Leander-class cruisers and the German pocket-battleship, in hopes of getting within torpedo distance while HMS Exeter used its broadsides. Since the Leander-class HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles had their sterns to the Graf Spee, limiting their fire of the small 6” guns, but also presenting a smaller target.

It was Graf Spee that scored the first heavy salvo, taking out more than a third of the hull points of HMS Exeter.

Next turn Andri had a chance of crippling the Exeter with another such salvo. But no dice, their salvo was ineffective. Now the combined fire of the Royal Navy ships was starting to tell, and HMS Ajax was dangerously close. This turn Andri concentrated his fire on the Ajax and crippled her, taking out all turrets but one.

Captain Matthew won initiative for the turn, and they lined up for engagement. The young captain´s inexperience now showed as he chose to fire first from the crippled Ajax, the brave crew manning the last remaining turret firing a round that just bounced of the armour of the Graf Spee. The he realized that it was now the Graf Spee’s turn to fire before he could use his remaining two ships and a heavy 11” salvo raked the Exeter and crippled it, the Exeter losing all its turrets, now a slow-moving crippled hulk that would not take any further part in the game! HMS Achilles however did manage to cripple the Graf Spee and closed in to use its torpedoes!

Despite being crippled, Graf Spee still had both turrets active and had a reasonable 9 hull points remaining. The Germans won initiative while HMS Achilles ran next to it to let lose its torpedoes. Graf Spee was firing at point blank range at the silhouetted HMS Achilles and let lose a heavy salvo crippling the ship and its valiant crew. However, two turrets remained as well as two torpedoes. Matthew fired both torpedoes and both found their mark. The Graf Spee has no torpedo belt, and the torpedoes did 24 points of damage against the remaining 9 hull points, bringing victory to the Royal Navy.

A victory, despite all the Royal Navy cruisers ending the game crippled!

What a game. There were so many tense all or nothing moments. Had the last torpedo attack failed, the Graf Spee would have made good its escape and with its turrets active it might even have been able to sink one of the enemy ships. For the Royal Navy it was a victory hard won, yet an important one in those dark days.

“The pocket battleship Graf Spee which has been for many weeks preying upon the trade of the South Atlantic, has met her doom. And throughout the vast expanse of water the peaceful shipping of all nations may for a spell at least enjoy the freedom of the seas.”

Winston Churchill – radio broadcast 18 December 1939.

It became a propaganda victory, eclipsing that of HMS Rawalpindi which was soon mostly forgotten.

Historically the Graf Spee was not destroyed this way, Kapitän zur See Langsdorff retreated to Montevideo. There he believed that he was being surrounded by British warships. The reality was the total force comprised the undamaged Cumberland with a full ammunition load, and the damaged Ajax and Achilles with depleted stocks of shells. To reinforce the propaganda effect, these ships, which were waiting just outside the three-mile limit, were ordered to make smoke, which could be clearly seen from the Montevideo waterfront.

The Germans were entirely deceived and expected to face a far superior force on leaving the River Plate. Admiral Graf Spee had also used two thirds of her 283 mm (11.1 in) ammunition and had enough left for approximately only a further 20 minutes of firing.

Ultimately, Langsdorff chose to scuttle his ship in the River Plate estuary on 17 December to avoid unnecessary loss of life for no particular military advantage, a decision that infuriated Adolf Hi**er.

The crew of Admiral Graf Spee were taken to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Captain Langsdorff shot himself on 19 December. He was buried there with full military honours, and several British officers attended.

---

This invites the question of the action of the two captains, the RN Captain Edward Kennedy og HMS Rawalpindi who decided to put up a hopeless and defiant battle against Gneisenau and Scharnhorst to withhold the centuries of tradition and honour of the Royal Navy.

"We'll fight them both, they'll sink us, and that will be that. Good-bye"

Captain Kennedy

But by his action condemning 237 other crew members to their deaths.

Or Kapitän zur See Langsdorff who decided not to go out guns blazing and chose to scuttle his ship in the River Plate estuary to avoid unnecessary loss of life of his almost 600 crew for no military advantage.

I leave it for you to decide.

6 August is International Naval Wargaming Day

It is the birthday of Fred T. Jane (6 August 1865), the author of Jane‘s Fighting Ships.

Fred T. Jane published The Fred Jane Naval Wargame in 1898 to complement his famous naval reference book. August 6th is celebrated by enthusiasts as International Naval Wargaming Day in honour of his birthday and pioneering contributions to the hobby.

To celebrate this day, here is my contribution, the Battle of the River Plate, rules Victory at Sea!

Far East furball!

+++HELL IN THE SKY
+++JANUARY 1942
+++SOUTH CHINA SEA NEAR SINGAPORE
Wasn't I lucky when Robin Petch came to visit on his travels on the Seven Seas. Almost a year has passed since he was here last.

We played a couple of campaigns I have been designing for Flames of War, Firestorm Poland and Firestorm France, but we had to get in a good game of Blood Red Skies, and since it was Wednesday, a quick game of Buffaloes vs. Ki-27 'Nates' was just the thing, with me taking the side of the Empire of the Sun, and Robin of the Empire where the Sun never sets.

I came better out in deployment, Robin's aircraft were in two places and I had all four aircraft between them. I also came out better rolling for advantage, Robin's Buffaloes are poor quality.

I went in heavy against two of his aircraft but before I could take full advantage of my numbers his Ace came to my side, so I sent two Ki-27's to fly past him, ready to bounce his rear if he continued on his path.

Then my Ace managed to tail a Buffalo and quickly shot it down. Robin was probably aware of the trap that I had set and since my Ace was neutral he brought up two Buffaloes and fired at my Ki-27 from the side scoring a couple of Boom chits but no further effect since I had 11 dice to dodge his deflection shooting.
Using No Stalling my Ace once again managed to get to the rear of a second Buffalo, shooting it down as well. That is two claims by an Ace which readers will realize is unusual for an Ace.

Now the Ki-27 I had sent to encircle the Buffaloes entered the fray and the RAF Ace was added to the tally.

Only one Buffalo remained and it was disadvantaged so I charged in my rookie and fired at it head on. My rookie failed to hit but the Buffalo scored a hit and a boom chit. But the game was over.

Imperial Japanese Army Air Service
3 boom chits against 4 aircraft

RAF
3 Buffaloes lost
7 Boom chits against one remaining Buffalo

FIRESTORM POLAND – Playthrough

Here is a full Generals Game playthrough. The Generals Game omits Flames of War games, it is played as a simple board game. I strongly recommend you play a few to familiarize yourself with the campaign. The outcome of battles is resolved by the simple roll of dice, one d6 for each side modified by Firestorm Troops and terrain.
The game is 5 turns.

TURN 1
In Firestorm Poland the Polish forces are reactionary, only Germans and Soviets when they invade from turn 4 place arrows normally. This is historically accurate as the Polish forces adopted a forward defence in the hopes of keeping as much territory from the Germans before an expected truce would come. This turned out to be very different as it was a war of annihilation, and the Germans knew that the Soviets would enter on their side.

In turn 1 the Germans won all their battles except against Modlin and Lodz giving the Polish side some hope.

TURN 2
In this game the Polish have 5 counter tokens, 2x armoured trains as Firestorm Troops, 2x Aircraft and 1x Counterattack. All of these can be used once in the game and are discarded afterwards. This turn the Germans continued their relentless attacks but the Polish used one armoured train to defend Prusy and used an aircraft to counter the Stuka in the same area.

The Germans failed in their attacks against both Lodz, Prusy and Tomaszow-Lubelski. The Poles were putting up a determined defence! Elsewhere the Germans pushed through and since all battles are simultaneous then the Polish HEL KOP in Danzig had no area to retreat to and the Germans captured them.

TURN 3
The spirited Polish defence was messing with the German timetable but this time the Germans could make their first attack on Warsaw, since cities need to be defeated twice the Germans concentrated on Lwow and surroundings as well. The Polish used their last aircraft to counter the Luftwaffe over Warsaw. Warsaw held, elsewhere the Germans won.

TURN 4
This turn the Soviets invaded Poland. The Polish side decided to use their one counterattack and attack from Lublin to Tomaszow-Lubelski. At least that would pin the German forces there for a turn. The Polish also committed their last armoured train to the attack. Hardly any forces were there to fight the Soviets. They need to fight nonetheless, there are just no Firestorm Troops for Poland to modify the outcome, but terrain, in this case the Pripyat Marshes still count.

Almost everything went well for the German/Soviet forces. The Polish counterattack was repulsed, and the defences of Warsaw were weakened. Lwow fell to the Germans.

After a good defence in the first 3 turns things were looking bleak for the Polish.

TURN 5
This turn was more of a mop up for the German/Soviet forces. The Soviets placed and arrow against the German controlled Lwow and there is a rule, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that designate what areas are to be Soviet and the Germans must withdraw. Lwow was now captured by the Soviets. Warsaw fell as well. The only bright spot was that three Polish armies managed to escape to Romania, forming a nucleus of the Polish forces in exile.

Both Germany and the Soviet Union ended with Strategic victories.

Firestorm Poland will be released for free from Battlefront in September.

Admiral Nelson was not happy in 1797

+++ OPERATION RHEINÜBUNG
+++ 24 MAY 1941
+++ BATTLE OF THE DENMARK STRAIT

Historical action, one of them most famous naval actions of World War II, when HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales engaged the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen.

FORCES:
KRIEGSMARINE: Bismarck, Prinz Eugen
ROYAL NAVY: HMS Hood, HMS Prince of Wales

BATTLE:
I was playing against a newcomer, Gunnar Alexander. Gunnar has a great interest in this part of World War II and has held many lectures on this battle but is a newcomer to wargaming.

We started of playing the battle of the Northern Patrol and the sinking of the Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Rawalpindi. I like that as an introduction to the game.

Then we went for the main event. The engagement was pretty straight forward, the ships closing in and HMS Hood took heavy damage from the German ships. HMS Prince of Wales was severely plagued by turret failure and could never use its full potential. A high point was when Prinz Eugen made a dash to torpedo the venerable Hood. Both Royal Navy ships concentrated their fire against Prinz Eugen but their firing was dismissal and next turn the Kriegsmarine won initiative and Prinz Eugen lined herself up next Hood. Then it was time for the Germans to be disappointed, only one torpedo struck the Hood but the torpedo belt saved her from the worst.

Yet The Mighty Hood started to succumb from the fire from the German ships, especially the Bismarck, and HMS Hood was crippled. Bismarck had by now taken moderate damage and Prinz Eugen was one broadside away from being crippled. The better part of valour is discretion and the two sides disengaged.

Another good evening and I could see that Gunnar was both enjoying himself and getting a deeper understanding of how World War II naval engagements happened. It has always been my opinion that good wargaming is the best way to understand historical engagements.

U.S. Marine mean mugging at lion statue on Saipan, 27 June 1944.

BATTLE OF BRITAIN – PSC GAMES

This is a game I enjoy every now and then. The board and figures are aesthetically pleasing and give such great atmosphere. Great visuals and miniatures are crucial for creating a truly immersive tabletop experience.

It is a funny game in that winning or losing are not important, but the journey. You get a feel for the senseless killing and heavy attrition of both sides, as well as civilian casualties.

I have modified the game to be more historical. Starting with the Kanalkampf, the Blitz and the climax Battle of Britain Day.

Last night game was a good game.