ADLG-R Ottoman Turkish v Later Polish

For a change from Cold War Commander Simon and I played a game of ADLG-R on Thursday. I used Ottoman Turks so Simon picked the most suitable opposition, Later Polish, complete with Winged Hussars!

I went for the later version of the army with a centre of musket armed Janissaries and two wings of carbine armed cavalry giving a decent frontage which would hopefully allow me to envelope the Poles.

The Ottomans attacked in the plains. The Poles have a strong right flank of mounted, a mixed German and Polish infantry centre and a left flank based on a hill and a war wagon:

On the left the Ottomans advance their mounted (largely to give them room to evade!) and capture the village with some mounted sharpshooters:

With no artillery the Ottoman infantry also advance with one elite unit being committed to taking the hill. The Ottoman right wing mounted mostly await developments:

Janissaries charge uphill into Polish infantry. Tatar light horse prepare to join in:

Both sides start to take shooting hits:

Impressively the Janissaries sweep the Polish infantry aside in one brutal combat:

Polish cavalry prepare to charge:

The Ottoman cavalry successfully evade but expose a Janissary unit to a cavalry charge:

The overall situation from above:

The Janissaries are making rapid inroads into the Polish infantry centre:

Even the Janissaries charged by cavalry have managed to break their opponents:

Deciding that evading again isn't really sensible and having put a few shooting hits on the Poles the Ottoman cavalry stands when charged:

Janissaries battle on in the centre:

As they are largely at a disadvantage at impact the Ottomans are very happy with a first round of combat that sees them inflict more hits than they take:

The Janissaries are smashing the Polish infantry:

The Ottoman cavalry also achieve a break-through:

The Polish centre and left have collapsed with Janissaries bursting through the lines:

The cavalry fight isn't quite so one-sided but the Turks are still doing well:

With all the Polish infantry wiped out the Poles break and flee everywhere:

An unusually crushing victory for me at ADLG-R, the Ottomans were nowhere near breaking and only lost a single Janissary unit and a couple of cavalry elements. 

If this was down to luck or skill I'm not sure, generally the infantry match-ups favoured me while my mounted did better than expected against Simons superior cavalry (though my guys were actually decent quality all being armoured and half elite).

As ever was nice to get an army I've not used in a long time on the table and try being the Ottomans rather than the Poles for a change.

Bag the Hun Imperial Japanese Navy v United States Navy

A return to 'Bag the Hun' after a considerable gap with Jerry. I took the Japanese while Jerry had the Americans (using the slightly less powerful Wildcats instead of Hellcats).

As Jerry hadn't played at all and I had only played two games before against Gary a long time ago we started with a simple 4 v 4 zero's against Wildcats game.

The Zero's attempt to get behind the Wildcats:

Unfortunately the Wildcats turn the tables and end up behind the Zero's!

In a scene familiar from the previous two games one Zero explodes immediately and another suffers a catastrophic structural failure:

Another Zero catches fire while the pilot from the structural failure plane manages to bail out:

The Zero on fire explodes leaving one Zero against four Wildcats and effectively finishing the fight:

For the next game the Japanese had a flight of three Betty bombers escorted by four Zeros against four Wildcats. The Betty's quickly came under attack from the Wildcats:

The escorting Zero's attempt to distract the Wildcats:

Remarkably the combined fire of the Betty's resulting in a Wildcat being shot down!

One Betty is on fire and has an engine knocked out:

The Zero's have failed miserably to engage the Wildcats:

The fire on the damaged Betty worsens but the pilot skilfully avoids more damage from the Wildcats:

Despite the crew's efforts the Betty blows up:

The Wildcats have outmanoeuvred the Zeros yet again:

The remaining Bettys escape off table:

At this point we called it a day. Over the two games the Japanese lost three Zeros and a Betty to the Americans single Wildcat. 

Unlike the previous games where the disparity in losses was perhaps largely down to the vast superiority of the Hellcat over the Zero the Wildcat and Zero seemed better balanced so probably this was down to my incompetence and Jerry's skill!

Bag the Hun is certainly a comprehensive and interesting rule set and the game was good fun. I think though that you'd need to play it regularly (or even practise!) to be able to select the best moves for your planes from the numerous options to ensure you end up in the right place at the right time which is (realistically no doubt) difficult to achieve.

I've seen a few campaign reports from other players which have a lot of character and have invested in 'Squadron Forward' as it also has a number of scenarios to play.

Jerry really enjoyed the game and is keen to get his vast Battle of Britain collection in action so I suspect we will be playing again soon!

Nimitz Straights of Sicily Campaign

Andy and I's second Nimitz campaign, this time the Strait of Sicily scenario. The British (me) are attempting to run a convoy from Gibraltar to Egypt over 8 days while the Italians (Andy) try to stop them.

After my experience with the Murmansk campaign I went for five TF containing a single destroyer (HMS Tynedale, Hambledon, Jervis, Khartoum and Kelly),  one containing just HMS Ajax, four dummies and a final TF with everything else in it (HMS Howe, Rodney, York, Belfast, Norfolk, Hermione, Spartan, Offa, Orwell, Mohawk, Zulu, Cossack, Eskimo, Jackal, Eagle (the only carrier) and twenty merchant ships. 

In addition I had some Hurricanes and Swordfish on Malta and a medium sized submarine force.

The general plan was to hope that Andy would find it hard to identify the convoy with effectively only a 1 in 11 chance of him hitting the right TF each time he succeeded in identifying a TF. When he did identify it all the defenders would be in place and, combined, the ships had an impressive AA ability together with some Fulmars from the Eagle. 

The initial set-up with my Sunderland flying boat getting some use! The wind was blowing down the map and the only two storms were on land:

Andy's initial move was to hit Malta with a large force of Italian fighters and bombers. Despite scrambling four Hurricanes the Italians broke through destroying four Swordfish on the ground for the loss of a single fighter:

The remaining two Swordfish find the Italian destroyer Freccia and immediately attack:

A torpedo strikes home and the Freccia is sent to the bottom of the sea:

Andy then launched another attack on Malta destroying the remaining two Swordfish that had just sunk the Freccia and a Hurricane for the loss of a single fighter again.

Malta was not finished yet though with submarines operating from the island finding the main Italian fleet (three capital ships and six destroyers):

The Italians close in on the British:

Stuka's discover HMS Ajax:

HMS Ajax is sunk:

Not everything goes the Italian's way though as the Bolzano is sunk by a torpedo from a British submarine:

The convoy is still undiscovered and on it's way to Malta:

HMS Hambeldon is the next ship to be found by the Italian air force. Surprisingly one Stuka is shot down, the other misses and the Hambeldon is undamaged!

The convoy has now passed Malta and is making good progress:

Another destroyer, HMS Jervis, is found. In another surprise outcome the Jervis shoots down both Stukas and sails on unconcerned!

Finally the Italians identify the TF containing the convoy. They are somewhat shocked by the number of defending ships and the morale of their surface force drops considerably when they consider the odds against them. The Italian air force is undaunted though and attacks the Eagle:

The Eagle is unlucky and explodes when a single bomb hits it. No more air cover for the convoy but they still have considerable AA ability from the ships:

With the Italian surface fleet sloping off to safety it is down to their air force to try to stop the convoy getting through:

Six large merchant ships are sunk, a few Italian planes shot down. A serious blow for the British:

The convoy is almost through but still vulnerable to air attacks:

The Italians are starting to run out of planes but launch another attack:

Another large merchant is sunk:

Remarkably after this encounter the Italians failed several times to locate the convoy again and it sailed on to Egypt safely.

The British got VP for sinking the Freccia and Bolzano, shooting down numerous planes and getting ten small and three large merchantmen through. The Italians had sunk the Ajax and the Eagle, six large merchantmen and destroyed several aircraft resulting in a narrow win for the British 109 to 97 VP.

The campaign was good fun and quite intense, Andy's unerring ability to choose the wrong TF to investigate meant the convoy made good progress before he got to attack it and, once he had found it, it was very apparent that any attack on it by his surface force would be suicidal. As a result all the action was air and submarine attacks with no surface action at all.

Having played two campaigns now I think they are fun but have a bit of a flaw in that, certainly for the convoys, they are unlikely to result in surface actions which is kind of the point of playing.

It feels more like playing a board game and, I suspect (from my very limited knowledge of naval warfare) may be 'realistic' in that in fact almost all of the action was by aircraft and submarines with the German and Italian fleets lurking in port and surface actions being few and far between. Next time we might do the invasion of Norway (which Andy has played once against someone else) or I might suggest we just do a points value surface action to get the ships on the table and fighting!