[Chris Salander]

Hi.  Although I have just started playing this week, there are two guys who hold BRS games frequently at the Game Kastle store on Coleman Road in Santa Clara  Contact me and I will let you know the next time a game is scheduled.

– Chris Salander

cheirisophus@gmail.com

 

[Chris Salander]

That does make sense. That is what we had been doing. But then there was a chance to get a shot if the order was reversed. It created an incentive to question the practice. Thanks.
– Chris Salander

[Chris Salander]

In The Battle of the Narrow Seas, Peter Scott covers his flotilla’s attack during the Channel Dash. He believes that even though the capital ships turned to avoid the torpedoes, one may have hit.
There was a swarm of fighters overhead that ignored the MTBs and an outer line of E-boats making a continuous line of smoke, who did not react to the MTBs. Then there was an inner layer of Torpedoboote and Minesweepers and Vorpostenboote that attacked the MTBs. I am thinking of making a scenario about this which is just one segment of this long parade. The capital ships would be off the far edge of the map and the British would get points for penetrating the defenses and shooting torpedoes off of that edge.

[Chris Salander]

Here is what I am doing for MO-4s. I have cut off some of the equipment on Japanese sub chasers and added guns and figures. I know there should be two depth charge rails and that the searchlight should be on top of the bridge, but this is close! Haven’t painted them yet. Some paintings I have seen on-line seem to suggest a light olive drab or greenish color.
– Chris Salander

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[Chris Salander]

And the color on the tip of the torpedo allows you to keep track of which vessel they came from!

[Chris Salander]

I don’t use bases for the ships, but I strongly recommend them for the torpedoes. The biggest struggle I see in the game is trying to set and maintain the correct angle of a torpedo. Having them on rectangular bases with straight edges makes it SO much easier to angle and move the torpedoes.
You can’t angle them against a ship base, though. It shifts the torpedo too much sideways, throwing off the torpedo’s path.

[Chris Salander]

Even when the shooters adjusted their torpedoes to run shallow, torpedoing a lighter was a rare event. But if you don’t allow it at all, up front, it changes the way the players behave. They need to believe that they have a chance to torpedo the lighters to attack. Otherwise they complain and dither. I prefer to allow a hit on a natural (unmodified) roll of 1 or 2. And a 1 in 5 chance seems about right, compared to my reading. I suppose you could include crew quality, but a 40% chance is just too much.
Another approach would be to not tell the Allied players that their torpedoes will not hit, until the moment the first torpedo passes under a lighter.

[Chris Salander]

The rules for Shore batteries on page 47 specify 75mm. And a 25mm gun for protection against close assault, I guess. Pick spots on land (or the map edge) to shoot from. Sometimes the guns had searchlights.

[Chris Salander]

I believe the red color is the life vest.

[Chris Salander]

Thank you for this great article.
The one problem I am running into (not with the 3D printing, the models look GREAT) in researching the lighters is that the reports usually do not make clear which type of flak lighter was involved in a battle. (the 3 gun type or the 6 gun type?) I look for clues, like references to 88mm fire. It seems to be a function of time. Heavily gunned lighters were added to convoys and increased in numbers as time went on (’43 to ’45).
– Chris

[Chris Salander]

Thank you for the information.
For historical scenarios I am writing, I have created two new Siebel ferry game types. One is an unarmed ferry. The other is a “lightly armed” ferry, with one twin 20mm on top of the bridge, and two 37mm guns, one on each side of the bridge. That version still leaves most of the deck open for cargo.

[Chris Salander]

There is a Night Visibility rule buried in Scenario 6; right column, page 42.

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