Action in the Vella Gulf - General Quarters 3 AAR

Last weekend, Curt and I participated in another game of GQ3. This was a full-on game, with 7 players (4 Americans, including me, and 3 Japanese). The scenario was another night-fight set in 1942. This time, there were two objectives for both sides to complete, instead of just one.

Earlier in the day, the USS New Orleans had been crippled during a fight, her engines damaged and the ship left dead in the water. Two destroyers, the Laffey and the Meredith, had been assigned to protect her until the New Orleans' crew could get her back into working order. With the sun finally setting, the New Orleans had finally managed to get her engine back into working order, albeit with a reduced speed. Unfortunately, the Japanese were aware that a crippled US cruiser still floated out on the water, and so a number of ships were sent to sink her.

Even with the intense fighting between the two fleets, land troops fighting on the nearby island still needed supplies. The Japanese, with troops stationed on the nearby island of Kolombangara, decided to send a small convoy of supply ships to refit the infantry. The Americans, knowing that the Japanese often sent supplies under the cover of night, had sent out a small taskforce of destroyers to find these ships and sink them.

The marked off area represents the table we played on.

American Fleet:
USS New Orleans (New Orleans-class Heavy Cruiser, Flagship)
USS Laffey (Gleaves-class Destroyer)
USS Meredith (Gleaves-class Destroyer)
USS Chevalier (Fletcher-class Destroyer)
USS Mahan (Mahan-class Destroyer)
USS Fletcher (Fletcher-class Destroyer)
USS O'Bannon (Fletcher-class Destroyer)

My two ships - the Meredith and the Laffey.

Japanese Fleet: (An apology - I don't happen to know all the names of the Japanese ships, but I'll try to give a best representation of what was on the table)
IJN Isuzu (Nagara-class Light Cruiser)
Kagero-class Destroyer
Kagero-class Destroyer
IJN Nagara (Nagara-class Light Cruiser)
Destroyer
Destroyer

The Game:

I'll do an overview of the game with the pictures below as a complement. It started out well (i.e., terribly) enough. The New Orleans was spotted immediately by the two Japanese groups that were coming from behind her. While the Orleans moved away, the Laffey and Meredith (who had been tailing the Orleans) moved to intercept the Japanese ships, with one US ship going after each enemy squadron.

The Mahan, Chevalier, O'Bannon, and Fletcher made a wide maneuver around the edge of the table, apparently hoping to skirt the action and intercept the convoy ships as quickly as possible (but not before taking a shot at the Orleans, who hadn't been identified before the ships opened fire).

The Laffey and Meredith, meanwhile, managed to stall the Japanese ships for a little while, with the Laffey sinking a Japanese destroyer with her torpedoes. The Meredith, unfortunately, was sunk when the Japanese launched their own torpedo salvo, but not before causing a bit of trouble in her own right.

The Orleans, apparently emboldened by the arrival of more destroyers, joined the new group that began to swing to meet the delayed Japanese attack. A mistake, however, caused the Orleans to slam into the Mahan and the two ships were left behind as the Chevalier, O'Bannon and Fletcher surged forward to attack the arriving convoy ships.

In what seemed to be an amazing and disastrous turn of events, the Japanese managed to sink the Orleans (though not before the Laffey managed to slip right through them), and the gunnery skills of the convoy ships actually managed to cripple the Chevalier. The O'Bannon and Fletcher managed to meet up with the Laffey to launch another attack, but it was decided that the 3 battered ships wouldn't have made it, and they beat a hasty retreat.

It was a stunning victory for the Japanese!

The New Orleans is spotted!

The Laffey and the Meredith move in to protect the New Orleans.

A bad, bad position to be in.

The Laffey sinks a Japanese destroyer, then runs for it!

The New Orleans heads for the (assumed) safety of other American ships. 

And the Meredith goes down after a savage beating. 

Looks like the Laffey's in trouble!

But the Japanese cruiser has bigger problems to worry about.

The Laffey heads for the safety of a fog bank - just beyond the rest of the Japanese ships!

The Japanese move in for the kill...

As the convoy ships show the Americans who's boss!

As the Orleans takes a beating and sinks, the Americans ready for another go before calling the retreat.

And the convoy moves away with the MVP title in tow!

Somewhere in the South Pacific, 1942 - General Quarters 3 AAR

Curt and I attended a demo game of General Quarters 3, a (relatively detailed) set of rules for naval actions in WWII. The game, hosted at the wonderful nearby 7th Dimension Games, was prompted with the following intro:

It’s 1942 in the South Pacific – almost a year after Pearl Harbor jumped the USA into World War II. The Imperial Japanese Navy is running supplies and troops to their army almost every night through the center of the Solomon Islands chain – The Slot – to try and retake Guadalcanal’s critical airfield. They have been ordered to “supply or die” and the US Navy is committed to stopping them. Every night a deadly game of cat-and-mouse occurs with the USN trying to intercept the Japanese ships and transports. The question is, who is the cat and who is the mouse?

The fleets were as follows, with all ships, except for one, being destroyers:
Japanese -
IJN Akatsuki (Me)
IJN Naganami (Curt)
IJN Kagero
IJN Isuzu, the light cruiser

American -
USS O'Bannon
USS Lamson
USS Fletcher

The Game
The game began with both sides getting an extra 'blip' to put on the table. Our GM informed us that, to the west (the far side of the table in the first picture), there was an island that would help confuse the American radar returns, so we decided to come in as a line from the North-west (little did we know the American would do the same!

Both sides attempt to acquire the other - while the Americans failed to acquire us, they did manage to detect our ships, so our positions were quickly revealed. Curt and I, however, showed our ability to roll low, and we both scored the necessary '1' on a d12 to acquire the American ships. This was quickly shared with the other two ships in our ad hoc squadron.

As the two forces drew nearer, the American manged to acquire all of the Japanese ships, apart from Curt's Naganami. The Japanese attempt to fire torpedoes, but a miscommunication has most of them turn out to be decoy launches. Whoops!

The Americans realized that their positions were off when the Lamson, the leading ship, made a complex movement that the rest of the ships in the squadron failed to follow. This being a demo game, the GM and table agreed to move the Americans into their proper positions. Torpedoes were (actually!) launched by the Japanese, and an amazing shot from the Isuzu flew straight and true... right into the Lamson, which was also the acting commander of the USS force.

The ships continued to approach, with the Americans getting their torpedoes in the water. The Lamson makes a daring move, opening up to full speed and attempting to move straight past the Japanese ships. It's during this action that the Akatsuki (i.e., me) made a bad call, using a spotlight to illuminate an American ship.

This unfortunately led to the Americans pounding the Akatsuki, and she lost both guns, two of her 3 torpedo-launching stations, and her spotlight. More worrying were the hits to her bridge and engineering, as well as a bulkhead breach. She wasn't crippled, however, and I began to move her out of the way of the battle once I got the situation under control (the Japanese needed a decisive victory to win, and I wasn't going to let the Americans take the Akatsuki as an easy kill).

The Lamson continues to speed towards the Japanese rear. The Japanese torpedoes, however, hit their mark, essentially crippling one of the American ships (the Fletcher, I believe). While the crew failed their morale roll, the ship herself was still capable of firing most of her guns, so the Japanese avoided finishing her off as she limped away at 5 knots.

Seeing the Lamson moving past, the Kagero and Naganami decided to break off and pursue, while the Isuzu began to turn.

In the end, the Lamson managed to get away, breaking into the Japanese rear. The O'Bannon took enough hits from the three remaining combat capable Japanese ships that the GM declared her effectively neutralized. A quick tally of victory points showed that the Japanese had won a morale victory, which would look good in the Japanese newspapers, but wouldn't help the war effort.

I have to say, I really enjoyed the game. If I had to nit-pick about something, it was the amount of charts that were necessary to play the game. However, my inability to pick up the charts was mostly likely due to the fact that the Akatsuki was knocked out and unable to do much in the middle of the game. Curt, on the other hand, not only picked up on the charts, but was soon showing the other players what to do when they were attempting to fire at one another.

In what may be the most telling show of our opinion of the game, Curt and I are now looking around for some 1:700 ships to put together (which would have been much easier had Herb's not closed, though in what seems to be some sort of heavenly-ordained coincidence, I did find and buy a copy of the Osprey Publishing 'USN Destroyer vs. IJN Destroyer, 1943' book. Weird).