Cruel Seas: Royal Navy v Kriegsmarine

My first face to face game for a considerable while saw my Royal Navy force take on Mike's Kreigsmarine at "Cruel Seas". 

As Mike had not played before and I hadn't played for ages we decided to play through a few of the introductory scenarios in the rule book.

First up was "Ships in the night" in which two Vospers face one E-boat with the objective being to exit off the opposite board edge ideally while sinking the opposition.

Vospers ready for action:

An E-boat appears in the distance!

One Vosper is quickly sunk by the E-boats firepower and the E-boat exits the board successfully to win the encounter:

Scenario 2 was "Torpedo run" where an E-boat attempts to shepherd a tanker across the board while two Vospers attempt to sink it.

The tanker plows on through the waves while the E-boat attempts to get between it and the Vospers. One Vosper has launched torpedoes!

Close up of the torpedo launch:

One torpedo is heading for the tanker, will it hit? Yes! Will it explode? Yes! The tanker is heavily damaged but still afloat. Can the E-boat save it?:

The Vospers close in for the kill but the E-boat is perfectly placed to defend the tanker:

Disaster for the Germans as the E-boat takes damage to it's bridge and fails to change course leaving the tanker undefended:

The tanker is finished off by the Vosper's and the crew abandon ship giving victory to the RN:

Scenario 3 was "To the rescue!". An RAF Fairmile rescue launch has been badly damaged and drifts helplessly in danger of imminently sinking. Four Vospers, one specially equipped to rescue the crew, attempt to save them before three E-boats can capture or sink the crippled vessel.

The stricken launch in the distance:

The rescue Vosper is almost at the launch, unfortunately accurate fire from two E-boats sinks it before it can collect the crew:

A second Vosper attempts to close with the launch, it can still rescue the crew though it will take longer without the special rescue kit. Meanwhile the remaining two Vosper's attempt to distract the E-boats:

One Vosper closes right in on the Germans, inflicting some damage on the nearest E-boat:

Disaster strikes as the Launch sinks! The crew take to the life rafts and the nearest Vosper desperately attempts to pick them up while an E-boat closes in for the kill:

The E-boat blows the Vosper out of the water helped by a second E-boat:

Only two Vospers remain now out of four and another is quickly sunk. The remaining Vosper retires as the situation is now hopeless:

The final scenario was "Spy boat" where a Fairmile MGB attempts to drop an agent off on enemy held coast while being stalked by E-boats.

Enemy coast in sight! In the distance an E-boat can be seen but it has not spotted the Fairmile yet:

The Fairmile approaches slowly hoping that the watching E-boat won't spot it and unwilling to travel at speed over the minefield between the island and the shore:

The Fairmile crosses the minefield successfully:

The E-boat finally spots the enemy and calls up reinforcements:

The Fairmile reaches the shore successfully but the enemy is closing in:

A short exchange of fire results in the Fairmile being put out of action. Any surviving crew will be stranded on the enemy shore!:

Great fun and excellent to be playing "in real life" again! As ever a tough task for the RN in the scenarios, the E-boats are far more powerful than the Vospers which are very fragile and every time I've played these scenarios it goes badly for the RN.

In total I lost 4 Vospers plus a Fairmile and only managed to sink the tanker largely due to the torpedo strike and the hit on the E-boat bridge at a vital time. I don't think I got close to sinking an E-boat at any point.

Hopefully I'll get to play more Cruel Seas as it has potential to be an interesting game if you can get the balance between the forces right. Convoy attacks might work better and between us Mike and I have quite a few merchantmen so we could do a decent sized convoy together.