Royal Navy

Ryan Schultz and I had three rounds of Jack Greene's The Royal Navy today. First was Scenario 3, Scheer vs Glasgow off Madagascar in 1941. This is a night action at close range. I took the German ship in the first run through. At game start, I immediately launched torpedoes and then maneuvered to keep the range open. The British gunners were better than mine-my main guns never managed to find the target--but my torp scored a good hit which crippled Glasgow, enabling Scheer to limp off, barely afloat.

In the second round we switched sides and played the same scenario. I closed aggressively and ran into a hail of German shells which shattered my hull; however, I did have time to get off one shot in reply, and by great good luck my gunner managed to hit the enemy magazine. Scheer exploded at the same time Glasgow was going under; that counted as a British win.

For the third round, Ryan's Vichy French force of three fast destroyers and three cruisers tackled my HMS Renown and three light destroyers. I took my destroyers in close to the enemy while Renown maneuvered to avoid torpedoes. All three cans were sunk, but they took two Vichy with them; my heavy ship then doubled back, narrowly escaping another spread of torps, and closed to close range with the French. Renown took a pounding, even through her heavy armor; she crippled, but didn't sink, all the French cruisers, so that ended up as a draw.

The Royal Navy's combat system can be a bit fiddly. You get a base Die Roll Modifier from the range, but then you add or subtract modifiers for Under Fire and Acquired Target and Spotlights and Lost Fire Control Room; then you roll percentage dice to figure out how many hits you got, percents again to see what the damage was for each hit, and if you have an armored ship (like Renown) you have to check whether the shells penetrate the armor (which they mostly didn't). But all the chrome is in the combat system; the movement is about as simple as it can be. It wouldn't work for a large multi player game, because you'd have two people resolving combat and everyone else drumming their fingers; but for small, two player scenarios, it's a lot of fun.