Old School Naval Wargaming

    Allen insisted, so we got down on my living room floor for some old school WW II Naval wargaming

It was a little time warp as we played General Quarters with Allen's 1/2400 scale WW II ships. The rules are a bit dated, but in their day were a "beer and pretzels" set. Now, some of the mechanics seem a bit cumbersome -- especially firing torpedoes. It gets harder each year to get down on the floor and move those ships...and even harder to get back up!

Allen cooked up a convoy raid scenario with a British force (Joel and Mike S) trying to jump a lightly-escorted merchant ship convoy (Steve), before the Italian surface elements can steam to the rescue (Tom and Mike D).

Both Steve and Mike S had deadly shooting in the first half of the game. Steve sunk two of Mike's destroyers with torpedoes. When Tom and I steamed into combat, Joel also entered. We traded shots back and forth, with the British getting the worst of it. Eventually, they decided to break off contact, as their cruisers were getting pounded. So, we decided to call it a victory for the Italian navy.

Hopefully, next time we get out the tiny ships, we'll be playing a different rules system...ha, ha!