From: Wade Hinkle Subject: Royal Navy replay -- long Last night Sean Barnett hosted our local group in a replay of the Battle of the River Plate, fought out in Quarterdeck's 1983 naval game Royal Navy. To minimize his need to feel constrained by teamwork, Dean Cheng was given the German commander's role, while CONSIMer Chris Weuve took command of the 8-inch British cruiser Exeter. Sean had the HMNZS Achilles and her 6-inch guns, while I commanded the British squadron from Achilles' sister, the HMS Ajax. To recreate the British historical situation of badly needing to halt the Graf Spee's attacks on Allied shipping, the scenario's victory conditions give the British a tactical victory for moderately slowing the Spee, and an even higher level for sinking her outright. (The German also achieve at least a tactical victory by beating the Brits up, so it is possible to tie, or to net out to a low level of winning even if the Spee goes down.) Having been initially assigned the role of the German due to Dean's having missed sailing by 90 minutes (a new Dean record), I understood that the winning tactic for the Spee was to turn away from the British and maintain a distance of about 16,000 yards from Exeter while blowing her to pieces. (A very helpful color chart is supplied with the game to show armor penetration in inches at various ranges for different guns.) At that range Exeter's smaller main guns would not penetrate Spee's 3 to 5-inch armor, while both Spee's 11-inch main guns and 5.9-inch secondaries would go through Exeter's thin to non-existant protection. I then planned to finish off the smaller cruisers at leisure. In the historical battle, the British split their forces to pincer the Spee, which allowed her quickly to paste Exeter with six 11-inch hits, silencing all but one main gun turret and severely damaging her, before the light cruisers closed in range. Thinking that Dean's aggressive instincts would not lead him to open distance away, I resolved to avoid my historical counterpart's mistake and instructed my ships to form line ahead with Exeter in the rear. I ordered us to head toward Spee on an angled course that would prevent the Spee from launching torpedos as we closed to 10,000 yards. While Royal Navy uses pre-plotted simulataneous moves, the force with the superior-quality commander (me in this case) is told the first two hexes of its opponent's plot before writing down their own. As predicted, Dean did not open distance on turn 1. So far, so good. But then my subordinates both suffeed a moment of temporary brain failure and imagined that I had ordered *line abreast*. Sean pulled between me and the Spee on the first turn while Chris hid on my other side. This blocked more than two thirds of the British outgoing fire and turned Sean into smoking ruins above deck (Spee having no one else to fire at). But it did ensure that Exeter lived until turn 2. Miraculously, Achilles' engine room remained intact, and sorting ourselves into line formation with her in the lead (accomplished though my use of simple declarative sentences and good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon adjectives over the TBS), the British rapidly closed on the Spee. Dean, sensing (correctly) that another pasting had a high probability of blowing away the Kiwi, and maybe me too, stuck around. This was a mistake, as several 8-inch shells from Exeter and one lucky penetration shot by me holed Spee's hull and heavily damaged her engines. Sean and I meanwhile chewed up the Spee's upperworks. Range by then was 7,500 yards, at which our accuracy was pretty good. Though now seriously wounded, Spee for her part fought galantly, and set both Exeter and Achilles on fire in ensuing turns. But slowed as she was, she could not escape, and we now had far more surviving guns than she did. She died on the second full turn of pointblank British salvoes. We limped home. Achilles barely got her fires under control (coming within one hull box of sinking). Exeter had moderate damage, while Ajax, which had only light hull damage, had but one gun turret working. I had forgotten how much fun Royal Navy is. (And how quick: playtime was 75 minutes.) Clearly, getting the opening move right in the River Plate scenario is important. And our game reinforced the lesson that when confronting a more numerous enemy that also has inferior firepower, hold them at a range where your guns penetrate but theirs don't. But for all the mistakes on both sides, the game was in doubt until the end, and Dean came within one hull box of cutting our victory level to close to a tie. All in all, a fun evening. I'm looking forward to playing Royal Navy again. -------------------------------- Dr. Wade P. Hinkle Institute for Defense Analyses 1801 N. Beauregard Street Alexandria, VA 22311-1772 (703) 578-2895 voice (703) 845-2255 (fax) -------------------------------- From: "Patrick R. Collins" Subject: Re: Royal Navy replay -- long > not open distance on turn 1. So far, so good. But then my subordinates both > suffeed a moment of temporary brain failure and imagined that I had ordered > *line abreast*. Sean pulled between me and the Spee on the first turn while I was thinking that the bad maneuver in my game wasa novice error. Nice to see that even experienced players can make a mistake! Is it common? > scenario is important. And our game reinforced the lesson that when > confronting a more numerous enemy that also has inferior firepower, hold > them at a range where your guns penetrate but theirs don't. But for all I think this is easier said than done. After all, what to do when the inferior side comes straight on in? Not only that, but don't most games have ammo limits? So, in theory a ship could dance around at extreme range, and waste ammo, so the inferior side could then charge in without taking too much damage. Regards, Pat pcollins@prairienet.org Last Played: April's Harvest (PBEM), Landships!, Semper Fi! In Progress: Champion Hill (PBEM), Naval Action - Convoy raid http://www.prairienet.org/~pcollins From: Markus Stumptner Subject: Re: Royal Navy replay -- long >I think this is easier said than done. After all, what to do when the >inferior side comes straight on in? Not only that, but don't most games >have ammo limits? So, in theory a ship could dance around at extreme >range, and waste ammo, so the inferior side could then charge in without >taking too much damage. When playing Action Stations, one of the interesting factors of the River Plate scenario was to see just how much the magazines of both sides were typically depleted after such an engagement. Graf Spee could usually knock Exeter out of the fight and damage the others, but staying on target long enough to definitely sink one of them usually meant that only a few shells would be in her main magazines after the fight. I don't know how Jack Greene handled this in Royal Navy - in Ironbottom Sound II, most scenarios are short enough not to make this an issue (the Savo Island scenario is open-ended, but the Japanese do not want to hang around any longer than necessary), and in the early night fights, where engagement ranges are much closer, once you can see the enemy you will usually also hit him. We'll see how hitting works out in the later scenarios, e.g., Empress Augusta Bay (where historically the US kept the Japanese at long range with radar, but therefore also had to fire at long range US - I think there was a single-digit number of hits out of almost a thousand 6" shells expended by the US CL's). Very interesting replay! Markus Last 3 games played: Krieg!, Empires at War Quad, Ironbottom Sound II ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Bakayaro! Bakayaro!" ("Stupid Bastards! Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942 From: Wade Hinkle Subject: Re: Royal Navy replay -- long Pat Collins asked: >> scenario is important. And our game reinforced the lesson that when >> confronting a more numerous enemy that also has inferior firepower, hold >> them at a range where your guns penetrate but theirs don't. But for all > >I think this is easier said than done. After all, what to do when the >inferior side comes straight on in? Good point. In this case, only one of the British cruisers was faster (and then only slightly) than the Graf Spee. Even the faster ship could only have closed the distance slowly if the Spee manuvered away. And that would have forced the British to split up--not a good idea with inferior ships who can only win by concentrating numbers. -------------------------------- Dr. Wade P. Hinkle Institute for Defense Analyses 1801 N. Beauregard Street Alexandria, VA 22311-1772 (703) 578-2895 voice (703) 845-2255 (fax) --------------------------------