Who Let the Dogs Out? Game Report

I had a quick but very enjoyable game this afternoon using the scenario I wrote for the Indonesian Confrontation project, designed to try out the rules for air attack and defence in Naval Command. The three Royal Navy frigates set up in echelon formation and moved forward in Turn 1 at half ahead speed, with no air attack appearing due to a D10 roll of 2. I rolled the count down dice (1) and moved on to Turn 2, where a flight of three MiG-17's with rocket pods appeared from the North, aiming directly for the first ship on the port flank, HMS Llandaff. 

The frigates continued to move ahead at half speed, keeping together for mutual AA support. In the Air Defence phase HMS Llandaff managed to splash one of the MIG's but HMS Falmouth, which was also in AA range, failed dismally to hit anything. It was lucky that the two remaining MiG's fluffed their attack rolls, unleashing all four of their rocket pods but hitting nothing but empty water. They were obviously alarmed by their comrade in the first MiG being blown out of the sky, which spoiled their aim a bit, not to mention their laundry. The countdown roll was made (2) and the game moved onto Turn 3. 

In Turn 3, nothing turned up again, so the Royal Naval task force steamed ahead, getting ready for the inevitable second round of air attacks. After the countdown roll was made (8) I moved on to Turn 4 and this time rolled another flight of three fighter bombers, arriving head on from the East. I moved them around to attack from the North West, targeting HMS Falmouth from the starboard quarter, once again using their rocket pods to strafe the target. The Air Defence roll for HMS Falmouth was terrible, missing all three MiG's by a wide margin, but HMS Plymouth did manage to shoot one of them down.

The attack went in and the two MiG-17's scored three hits between them with their unguided rockets, blasting the frigate's topside and causing a fire, a heavy damage and two light damage results. In the Damage Control phase, HMS Falmouth's crew failed to put out the fire, which spread to add another fire counter and a second heavy damage counter. This was pretty serious but not enough to sink the ship, so the three frigates continued onward, with HMS Llandaff and HMS Plymouth moving up to escort the damaged HMS Falmouth on either side.

At this point I rolled the countdown dice (10), resulting in the scenario coming to an end, but decided to run one more turn to get another attack in using the Il-28 Beagles. I fudged the roll for this and ended up with a single Il-28 armed with two 500lb unguided bombs, screaming in from the North East and aiming straight for the crippled HMS Falmouth. However, the gunners were having none of that and, with a single barrage of 40mm AAA, knocked the flaming bomber into the sea. The end result of the scenario was a Royal Navy minor victory, with a heavily damaged frigate for two MiG-17's and an Il-28 shot down. I decided to leave the Damage Control phase and finished the game at this point.

I enjoyed this game and the scenario worked really well, giving me a good grip on the rules for air attack and defence. The next game in the sequence will be a slight change from the plan, as I want to have another go at the rules for submarines, hidden movement and sonar detection. I'll be deploying HMS Alliance on a 'stealth and dagger' mission, to drop off a 2 SBS naval gunfire support observer team on Sebatik Island, so that HMS Tiger can give the Indonesians a bloody nose on their own turf in the follow on scenario.