Alternate Battle for Malaysia Dec. 10th 1941
I ran this scenario back in late May / early June (Memorial Day holiday for folks in the U.S.)
Motivation for the scenario:
Perhaps like many of us, I found it "disappointing" that two such graceful ships as the Prince of Wales and Repulse met an unceremonious end by way of bombs & torpedoes from Japanese twin engined bombers. So, partially inspired by the recent volcanic eruptions in Hawaii -- I needed an excuse for why the Japanese planes could not find the British Task force -- I tried to put together an alternative scenario where, due to an unexpected volcanic eruption some where in the Indonesian archipelago, the British ships had a chance to go down fighting. The results of my research were interesting as I was hoping that either the Fuso and/or Yamashiro had been used in Malaysia. But no, it was the Kongo and Haruna. Battle-cruisers. Suddenly this was getting interesting; the Prince of Wales was certainly a match for either of them and the Repulse had fewer but *much* better guns. However the British didn't have nearly enough escorts and probably would have been torpedoed to death by Japanese light forces. So I added the Exeter because I knew it was "somewhere in the Vicinity" - plus or minus 1000 miles or so :-). And limited the Japanese light forces And Heavy Cruisers in the interests of keeping it somewhat a 'fair fight' -- which may need to be revisited based on the result of play. I also limited the number of ships overall because it was just me, so running 13 ships plus the rules was a lot to handle.
Historically the British Task Force was out searching for some part of the Japanese forces invading Malaysia, so in this scenario, they found them. This is sometime between Dec. 8th and Dec 11th, 1941. I will pin it down once I refine the scenario and look at a Map again to see what would be a most likely meeting place.
The island with the palm trees was mainly included to convey the idea that the space was constrained plus I wanted to see how badly out of scale 1/285 palm trees would look. I am not primarily a modeler so it's not my primary concern here. (I thought they looked great!)
The British started on the East end of the table headed West, and the Japanese entered from the West end and were sailing Northeast. Disclaimer: This is not linked to any real terrain found near Malaysia because by this point, having run into delays with substituting charts & ships, I was just trying to get the darned scenario started before my holiday ended. The way I pictured it, there was more "open water" to the south, so the ships turned accordingly and then I started "scolling" the playing surface "North" as needed to keep ships on the table -- which is why the Island w/palm trees fades off in the distance.
Visibility was limited a bit (Volcano ash drift) So the two task forces spotted each other at about 18 miles (30,0000 yards).
Rules:
Unmodified Clear For Action (CFA) pub. 1979 as adopted by me for Computer to speed things up. CFA uses Range Estimation. This version also does not do 'fractional' damage for non-penetrating his. That's on the "improvement list".
Tactical considerations:
I started the British off in "Box" formation with the DDs surrounding the three capital ships. At the time it made sense to me as I figured the British might be concerned about Japanese submarines. But I'll never do that again. It turned out to be a real PITA to figure out how to get the two DDs on the wrong side of the battle maneuvered around the capital ships and engaged with the enemy. On the other hand, maybe that's how it was really done and real ship commanders were better at controlling their ships than I am (shocking, I know :-). (Can anyone recommend a good book on Naval Tactics? I've asked around but come up relatively empty).
[Update: 9-11-2018] In response to a question in the comments, Japanese didn't fire torpedoes. Partially because they didn't quite get close enough until the end of the scenario and partially because I was too busy filling the roles of both players and referee. However the next scenario will be a Night scenario and the intention is to exercise the torpedo firing and management process.
Order of Battle:
British:
A: Prince of Wales
B: Repulse
C: Exeter
D: Exmouth
E: Electra
F: Encounter
G: Expresss
Japanese:
1: Kongo
2: Haruna
3: Noshiro
4: Kuma
5: Kagero
6: Arashi
CAVEATS regarding the models on the table:
The Prince of Wales is missing it's secondary turrets (Sorry, but my eyes aren't what they used to be and those little buggers are hard to handle. I promise to get to it eventually, but I just wanted to play)
The Exeter is represented by a Kent class model. (I have the Exeter, but it's still 'work in process' -- finally got it primed & painted a couple of week ago).
The four E class DDs are represented by 3 Tribals and a Craven. (Did I mention yet that I am way behind on my painting?). Also the four E class DDs should really have been S or T class DDs which were the actual escorts at the time, but I do not models or data chart (yet).
The Kuma is represented by a Panzerschiffes Sendai or Nagara -- this is one of the Kuma class ships that was NOT turned into a Torpedo Cruiser, I needed to test the new custom chart I'd created to represent it.
The Kagero wasn't the most likely DD class to be present based on my research, but it was one for which I had models and a data chart.
Initial Positons when "enemy" was spotted:
Highlights:
Turn 1:
The Noshiro gets a lucky hit (falling shot) and damages the #1 Boiler room of the Exeter. The British player looks nervous.
Situation after turn 1:
Turn 2:
Everyone misses or armor repels shots, except for Encounter who takes damage from Kuma and loses X Turret.
... But the Exeter's crack Damage control team fixed the Boiler ! The British player cheers up.
Turn 3:
Exeter and Noshiro continue to exchange gun fire.
Haruna hits Exeter and starts a fire. I think this was a under-shot by the Japanese, they were aiming for Prince of Wales but hit Exeter instead.
Turn 4:
The Kagero is hit by Exmouth with the following result: " Shell Bounced at: #2 Torpedo Bank by 1 inches of armor " -- Whaaaaaaat ??!! This is a Data Chart Error that was fixed later. There's a reason why this stuff needs to be tested. :-)
Both Kongo and Haruna fire at Repulse, and the Repulse fires back at the Kongo. Repulse's armor works really well. But so does the Kongo's.
Exeter is still on fire.
Exmouth is taking some abuse from BB secondaries, starting to slow down a bit.
Encounter gets pummeled by Kagero and Kuma.
Prince of Wales can't find the range. Still. The British commander is getting nervous again.
Turn 5:
Prince of Wales finally hits Haruna, but the shot bounces off of Haruna's armor.
The British DDs have Fire Control Radar but it's effective range is really short (approx. 4 miles), so they're not quite close enough.
Exmouth gets clobbered both by Kuma and Haruna's 6" secondaries, losing 2 boiler rooms A Turret and X Turret ... and slips beneath the waves. The first casualty.
Encounter takes a number of 5.5" hits from Kuma, loses both engines, #1 Boiler Room, search radar...and slips beneath the waves.
But things also start to go downhill for the Japanese: the Kongo takes 3 penetrating hits from Repulse, one of which is a Bridge hit - which requires the ship to keep the same course, speed and target for next 3 turns. The only good news for the Japanese is that Kongo was firing at the Repulse so that would continue. The Japanese commander looks 'uncomfortable'.
Repulse is hit by Both Kongo and Haruna (six hits total!), but escapes relatively unscathed. The only visible indicator of the onslaught is that a fire was started.
Turn 6:
Now it's the Express's turn as it takes hits from Kagero and Arashi.
Repulse is hit by Haruna, but nothing vital is damaged.
Exeter finally sticks it to Noshiro, damaging #1 Boiler room.
Prince of Wales continues to hit but not be effective, bouncing 2 more 14" hits off of Haruna.
Repulse hits Kongo, starting a fire.
Payback time. The British Fire Control radar comes into play. Express scores 5 hits on Kagero, knocking out: A Turret, #1 Torpedo bank and starting 2 fires. Kagero is starting to look a bit low in the water.
Turn 7:
Haruna switches targets and hits Prince of Wales, starting a fire. Prince of Wales shrugs off the other hits -- Prince of Wales is a Battleship. :-)
Repulse take 4 hits from Kongo...and bounces ALL of them. (This is really not a good day for the Japanese :-)
*Finally* The Prince of Wales inflicts some damage on the Haruna, nothing all that interesting, but the British will take whatever they can get.
Express hits Kagero and starts a 3rd fire. The captain of the Express mutters "Die Already!" as the Kagero finally slips beneath the waves.
And Repulse hits Kongo 4 times, all hits penetrate -- and one hit is on the Bridge *again*, which adds 3 more turns of unchanging orders for the Kongo and seals Kongo's fate.
Electra manages to takes out Noshiro's X turret. (or should that be Y turret?).
Turn 8:
Kongo hits Repulse again but most of the shots are bounced and those 14" shells just don't seem to do enough damage.
The Electra is immolated, taking hits from Noshiro main and secondary guns as well as Haruna's Secondaries, and sinks beneath the waves. But before Electra goes, she (and her Fire Control Radar) hammers Noshiro with 5 close range hits that take out Noshiro's Main Director, B turret and #2 Boiler.
Haruna hits Prince of Wales and inflicts some more damage, but nothing vital was hit.
And as expected, Repulse hits Kongo again damaging the #3 Boiler, Killing a damage control party, and gradually, grudgingly, Kongo slips beneath the waves.
Exeter and Prince of wales both put fires out.
---------------------------------
And that was that. The Japanese decided this was not their day and fled to the south, the British called it a day well spent and headed off to have tea.
Final situation before models were picked up:
Motivation for the scenario:
Perhaps like many of us, I found it "disappointing" that two such graceful ships as the Prince of Wales and Repulse met an unceremonious end by way of bombs & torpedoes from Japanese twin engined bombers. So, partially inspired by the recent volcanic eruptions in Hawaii -- I needed an excuse for why the Japanese planes could not find the British Task force -- I tried to put together an alternative scenario where, due to an unexpected volcanic eruption some where in the Indonesian archipelago, the British ships had a chance to go down fighting. The results of my research were interesting as I was hoping that either the Fuso and/or Yamashiro had been used in Malaysia. But no, it was the Kongo and Haruna. Battle-cruisers. Suddenly this was getting interesting; the Prince of Wales was certainly a match for either of them and the Repulse had fewer but *much* better guns. However the British didn't have nearly enough escorts and probably would have been torpedoed to death by Japanese light forces. So I added the Exeter because I knew it was "somewhere in the Vicinity" - plus or minus 1000 miles or so :-). And limited the Japanese light forces And Heavy Cruisers in the interests of keeping it somewhat a 'fair fight' -- which may need to be revisited based on the result of play. I also limited the number of ships overall because it was just me, so running 13 ships plus the rules was a lot to handle.
Historically the British Task Force was out searching for some part of the Japanese forces invading Malaysia, so in this scenario, they found them. This is sometime between Dec. 8th and Dec 11th, 1941. I will pin it down once I refine the scenario and look at a Map again to see what would be a most likely meeting place.
The island with the palm trees was mainly included to convey the idea that the space was constrained plus I wanted to see how badly out of scale 1/285 palm trees would look. I am not primarily a modeler so it's not my primary concern here. (I thought they looked great!)
The British started on the East end of the table headed West, and the Japanese entered from the West end and were sailing Northeast. Disclaimer: This is not linked to any real terrain found near Malaysia because by this point, having run into delays with substituting charts & ships, I was just trying to get the darned scenario started before my holiday ended. The way I pictured it, there was more "open water" to the south, so the ships turned accordingly and then I started "scolling" the playing surface "North" as needed to keep ships on the table -- which is why the Island w/palm trees fades off in the distance.
Visibility was limited a bit (Volcano ash drift) So the two task forces spotted each other at about 18 miles (30,0000 yards).
Rules:
Unmodified Clear For Action (CFA) pub. 1979 as adopted by me for Computer to speed things up. CFA uses Range Estimation. This version also does not do 'fractional' damage for non-penetrating his. That's on the "improvement list".
Tactical considerations:
I started the British off in "Box" formation with the DDs surrounding the three capital ships. At the time it made sense to me as I figured the British might be concerned about Japanese submarines. But I'll never do that again. It turned out to be a real PITA to figure out how to get the two DDs on the wrong side of the battle maneuvered around the capital ships and engaged with the enemy. On the other hand, maybe that's how it was really done and real ship commanders were better at controlling their ships than I am (shocking, I know :-). (Can anyone recommend a good book on Naval Tactics? I've asked around but come up relatively empty).
[Update: 9-11-2018] In response to a question in the comments, Japanese didn't fire torpedoes. Partially because they didn't quite get close enough until the end of the scenario and partially because I was too busy filling the roles of both players and referee. However the next scenario will be a Night scenario and the intention is to exercise the torpedo firing and management process.
Order of Battle:
British:
A: Prince of Wales
B: Repulse
C: Exeter
D: Exmouth
E: Electra
F: Encounter
G: Expresss
Japanese:
1: Kongo
2: Haruna
3: Noshiro
4: Kuma
5: Kagero
6: Arashi
CAVEATS regarding the models on the table:
The Prince of Wales is missing it's secondary turrets (Sorry, but my eyes aren't what they used to be and those little buggers are hard to handle. I promise to get to it eventually, but I just wanted to play)
The Exeter is represented by a Kent class model. (I have the Exeter, but it's still 'work in process' -- finally got it primed & painted a couple of week ago).
The four E class DDs are represented by 3 Tribals and a Craven. (Did I mention yet that I am way behind on my painting?). Also the four E class DDs should really have been S or T class DDs which were the actual escorts at the time, but I do not models or data chart (yet).
The Kuma is represented by a Panzerschiffes Sendai or Nagara -- this is one of the Kuma class ships that was NOT turned into a Torpedo Cruiser, I needed to test the new custom chart I'd created to represent it.
The Kagero wasn't the most likely DD class to be present based on my research, but it was one for which I had models and a data chart.
Initial Positons when "enemy" was spotted:
 |
| British view |
 |
| Japanese view |
Highlights:
Turn 1:
The Noshiro gets a lucky hit (falling shot) and damages the #1 Boiler room of the Exeter. The British player looks nervous.
Situation after turn 1:
 |
| British view, end turn 1 (pardon the messy basement) |
 |
| Japanese view, end turn 1 |
Turn 2:
Everyone misses or armor repels shots, except for Encounter who takes damage from Kuma and loses X Turret.
... But the Exeter's crack Damage control team fixed the Boiler ! The British player cheers up.
 |
| British view end of turn 2 |
 |
| Japanese view end of turn 2 |
Turn 3:
Exeter and Noshiro continue to exchange gun fire.
Haruna hits Exeter and starts a fire. I think this was a under-shot by the Japanese, they were aiming for Prince of Wales but hit Exeter instead.
 | |
| British view end turn 3 |
 |
| Japanese view end turn 3 |
Turn 4:
The Kagero is hit by Exmouth with the following result: " Shell Bounced at: #2 Torpedo Bank by 1 inches of armor " -- Whaaaaaaat ??!! This is a Data Chart Error that was fixed later. There's a reason why this stuff needs to be tested. :-)
Both Kongo and Haruna fire at Repulse, and the Repulse fires back at the Kongo. Repulse's armor works really well. But so does the Kongo's.
Exeter is still on fire.
Exmouth is taking some abuse from BB secondaries, starting to slow down a bit.
Encounter gets pummeled by Kagero and Kuma.
Prince of Wales can't find the range. Still. The British commander is getting nervous again.
 |
| British view end turn 4 |
 |
| Japanese view end turn 4 (Pardon the clipboards) |
Turn 5:
Prince of Wales finally hits Haruna, but the shot bounces off of Haruna's armor.
The British DDs have Fire Control Radar but it's effective range is really short (approx. 4 miles), so they're not quite close enough.
Exmouth gets clobbered both by Kuma and Haruna's 6" secondaries, losing 2 boiler rooms A Turret and X Turret ... and slips beneath the waves. The first casualty.
Encounter takes a number of 5.5" hits from Kuma, loses both engines, #1 Boiler Room, search radar...and slips beneath the waves.
But things also start to go downhill for the Japanese: the Kongo takes 3 penetrating hits from Repulse, one of which is a Bridge hit - which requires the ship to keep the same course, speed and target for next 3 turns. The only good news for the Japanese is that Kongo was firing at the Repulse so that would continue. The Japanese commander looks 'uncomfortable'.
Repulse is hit by Both Kongo and Haruna (six hits total!), but escapes relatively unscathed. The only visible indicator of the onslaught is that a fire was started.
 | |
| British - end turn 5 |
 | |
| Japanese - end turn 5 |
Turn 6:
Now it's the Express's turn as it takes hits from Kagero and Arashi.
Repulse is hit by Haruna, but nothing vital is damaged.
Exeter finally sticks it to Noshiro, damaging #1 Boiler room.
Prince of Wales continues to hit but not be effective, bouncing 2 more 14" hits off of Haruna.
Repulse hits Kongo, starting a fire.
Payback time. The British Fire Control radar comes into play. Express scores 5 hits on Kagero, knocking out: A Turret, #1 Torpedo bank and starting 2 fires. Kagero is starting to look a bit low in the water.
 |
| British view |
 | |
| Japanese view |
Turn 7:
Haruna switches targets and hits Prince of Wales, starting a fire. Prince of Wales shrugs off the other hits -- Prince of Wales is a Battleship. :-)
Repulse take 4 hits from Kongo...and bounces ALL of them. (This is really not a good day for the Japanese :-)
*Finally* The Prince of Wales inflicts some damage on the Haruna, nothing all that interesting, but the British will take whatever they can get.
Express hits Kagero and starts a 3rd fire. The captain of the Express mutters "Die Already!" as the Kagero finally slips beneath the waves.
And Repulse hits Kongo 4 times, all hits penetrate -- and one hit is on the Bridge *again*, which adds 3 more turns of unchanging orders for the Kongo and seals Kongo's fate.
Electra manages to takes out Noshiro's X turret. (or should that be Y turret?).
 |
| British view |
 |
| Japanese view |
Turn 8:
Kongo hits Repulse again but most of the shots are bounced and those 14" shells just don't seem to do enough damage.
The Electra is immolated, taking hits from Noshiro main and secondary guns as well as Haruna's Secondaries, and sinks beneath the waves. But before Electra goes, she (and her Fire Control Radar) hammers Noshiro with 5 close range hits that take out Noshiro's Main Director, B turret and #2 Boiler.
Haruna hits Prince of Wales and inflicts some more damage, but nothing vital was hit.
And as expected, Repulse hits Kongo again damaging the #3 Boiler, Killing a damage control party, and gradually, grudgingly, Kongo slips beneath the waves.
Exeter and Prince of wales both put fires out.
---------------------------------
And that was that. The Japanese decided this was not their day and fled to the south, the British called it a day well spent and headed off to have tea.
Final situation before models were picked up:
 | |||
| Final British viewpoint |
 |
| Final - Japanese viewpoint |
No need to apologize for the clipboards. I wish I could find a way to keep paperwork off my gaming table.
ReplyDeleteNo need to apologize the table look fine. Your not alone in thinking this is a good sceanario. I have the Avalanche game covering this. I want to see how these two heavy weights would do against the escorting forces protecting the transports. The DDs and CLs with Long Lance do cause a beating. Did any of the Japanese fire torpedoes?
ReplyDeleteOh. So NOW the reply button shows up. Sorry, the Japanese did not fire torpedoes. Partially because running torpedo rule was out of scope for this test. But also because the Japanese forces didn't really get close enough for a practical shot ( 2 to 3 turns of running time) before the game ended. But the next scenario will feature torpedoes.
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