Battle of the Laroc Sea: The Invasion Convoy

The Invasion Fleet turns to escape the Kiivar
warships...

 


Whilst the Ra'esharn Navy was winning some sort of victory off Petosi Point, the Kiivar Task Force 34 was concentrating its efforts against the Invasion Convoy in the Lindisfarne Strait. The lead vessels rashly having entered the narrow waters, the lack of sea room offered problematical chances of escape as Kiivar's two big warships closed to short range. 

At this point the problem of turning circles required a review. The distance across a hex represented a couple or so nautical miles, but I didn't want ships darting hither and thither at will. For this action, I enacted that the convoy's ships could face about, but, in so doing, could not in the same turn move from the hexes within which they stood. It was this delay that brought them under the guns of Task Force 34.



Since then I have provisionally formulated this rule:
If a vessel travels 2 or 3 hexes in a Turn, it may change direction up to 60 degrees during its move;
If a vessel travels 1 hex in a Turn, it may change direct up to 120 degrees during its move;
A vessel wishing the change direction more than 120 degrees, must do do in the same hex, with no lateral movement at all.

So it was with the Convoy. All the ships turned 120 degrees to escape the trap. But the situation was becoming dire.

Some relief was to be had as RNS Barbatos approached from its victory over SNS Hakawai. At first the main island of the Petosi Group masked the approach of KNS Harrier, so the first salvoes hit the cruiser, Heirax. But as the Harrier came into view, Barbatos found itself  'crossing the T' of the Kiivar battleship. The result can be imagined. Already having taken damage from earlier encounters, Harrier took a deal more than it was able to inflict in return. All the same, Harrier used its secondary armament, and Heirax its own guns, to pound the leading Ra'esharn transports. Soon the two leading - now rear - vessels, MSS Chubbi Maru and Barracuda were stopped, dead in the water, and aflame from end to end. 

And then the air attack came in.

After beating off a Ra'esharn air attack (see previous episode) SNS Bake-kujira had completed rearming its own bombers, and launched them in an air strike against the Invasion Convoy. The fighters  unavailable owing to their recent sorties, the bombers flew without escorts.

Under strict instructions that the transports were the priority targets, they overflew the escort carrier. The attack was somewhat reduced on account of earlier losses, a dozen aircraft aimed towards the MS Ramjam, alongside the carrier, and eight took on the lead vessel in each column, MSS Shagnasti and Mangla.

 

The fighters from Angra Mainyu naturally intercepted the strongest attack, and drove the bombers away from Ramjam, though losing some aircraft (1FP) in doing so. But the other attacks went in with nothing to concern them but the light flak. The bombers got through to Mangla without loss, but were unable themselves to score a hit. Only four (1FP) torpedo bombers survived the flak to attack Shagnasti. Their determination reaped its reward: a torpedo strike amidships (the single die threw a six) that stopped the transport vessel dead in the water. In a near sinking condition, the ship had to be abandoned. Casualties among the soldiery and the loss of equipment left the battalion being carried unfit for operations for a long time thereafter.

At that, the following ship, Ramjam, very nearly ran aboard the stricken Shagnasti.  

With the sinking by gunfire of Chubbi Maru and Barracuda, and the rout of the rest of the Invasion Force, the Kiivar squadron concluded it had done enough to save Port Fewersby. Harrier was under damaging close range gunfire from Barbatos and taking a deal more damage than it was handing out. The Saabian Task Forces had been scattered, and there was little more that the Allies could achieve. The Battle of the Laroc Sea was over.

For ever afterwards, historians would argue who 'won' the Battle of Laroc Sea. Undoubtedly the Ra'esharn Navy had borne off the tactical laurels, as indicated by the respective damage to the rival forces:

Ra'esharn losses:
1 cruiser sunk,
3 destroyers sunk
2 cruisers critically damaged 
1 light carrier moderately damaged
8 fighters (2FP) and 28 bombers (7FP) shot down 

Allied losses:
1 battleship sunk
1 fleet carrier sunk
3 destroyers sunk
2 cruisers critically damaged
1 battleship (KNS Harrier) badly damaged (-14FP out of 24)
4 fighters (1FP) and 36 bombers (9FP) shot down.

But against that slight disaster to the Allied Navies, the invasion fleet had been stopped dead. Of the five transports, two had been sunk and a third had to be abandoned and scuttled.  Could the still distant carrier group have still carried the invasion fleet through? Possibly, but for the fact that the 3000-strong brigade group had effectively been wrecked. There was no chance that what was left of it, no more than a couple of battalions, could have taken and held Port Fewersby...

On the whole I was rather pleased with the way this playtest went. I wanted a complex action, with plenty and various events happening. I was moderately surprised at the result, it didn't seem to me 'out of the way'. When I do something similar in future, it will be on a field larger by 50% - 6 hex sheets instead of 4. I'm also looking at giving a Midway a try, and part of the Leyte Gulf battle: Surigao Strait. 

* * *

My apologies to readers for the week-long gap that separated postings in this series. I really ought to have resisted the temptation to allow myself to be sidetracked into what will be the topic of my next posting...