Star Fleet Battles Campaign: Turn 9; Part 2 of the "Big Fight"

The battle report below is part of our Star Fleet Battles campaign that has been on hold since the rise of Covid-19.  Part one of the battle was posted in August, 2019, while part two was written up in the weeks following the conclusion of the battle.  Unfortunately, I misplaced the photos of the middle part of the battle, which I didn't re-discover until recently.  So nearly two years later, I am posting part 2 covering turns 2-8 of the battle.

Part one of the battle is included in the post linked below:

Star Fleet Battles Campaign: Turn 9 Movement, And Part 1 of the Big Fight

Part 2 of the Big Fight

From part 1:

The positions of the fleets at the beginning of the battle.  

Large areas of orange and white markers are mine fields 

laid by the Kzinti and Lyran southern fleet.

The Lyran southern fleet continued to move away from the Hydrans, generally moving toward the Lyran northern fleet, and continuing to spar with the Kzinti Battlecruisers.  During turns 2 and 3, the Lyrans light ships of the southern fleet managed to destroy 5 Kzinti Battlecruisers, for the loss of six more small ships, DD classed or lighter.

The combined Lyran fleets in the foreground (yellow markers)
headed toward the Hydrans (green) in the distance.  A lone kzinti
BC limps away upper left, with the remaining Kzinti BCs having
linked up with the Hydran fleet.

Over turns 4 and 5, the two Lyran fleets merged and slowly reformed, while heading toward the Hydran fleet, which now included 9 Kzinti Battlecruisers.  The Hydrans began launching fighters, which lead the attack against the Lyrans, with their ships dropping mines behind their fighters.

As the fleets closed the Lyrans engaged the Hydran fighters, losing 9 more small vessels, while destroying approximately 30 Hydran fighters and another Kzinti BC.  The fighters forced the Lyrans to expend a lot of ships heavier weapons, saving the Hydran ships from damage.

Again, the Lyrans in the foreground, probably during turn four, 

trading escorts for Hydran fighters.

Our session ended after about four hours of play, with approximately 105 ships still in play.  The Lryan light and heavy cruiser classed ships had just come into useful combat range of  some of the Hydran vessels, with Lyran losses of 20 small ships to the 6 Kzinti BCs.

We picked up the battle two weeks later, The Hydrans continued to unleash fighters, drawing much of the available Lyran phaser fire, and causing some damage to Lyran ships.  As the Hydran ships closed into battle, they also continued to lay mines adding further chaos to the Lyran advance.

The Lyrans carefully worked their way through the mines, losing a couple more smaller vessels to a combination of mines and fighters.  Through turn 7, the Lyrans lost another 6 light ships and 3 War Cruisers (a heavily armed light cruiser); while destroying 2 more Kzinti BCs, 3 Hydran heavy cruiser classed ships, and 3 Hydran FF classed vessels.  Also, a goodly number of Hydran fighters were caught in the explosions of the Kzinti and Hydran ships.

The Lyran fleet continues to advance, having separated into two 

waves, CWs and smaller focused on clearing out fighters and 

CA and heavier ships holding fire for the combined 

Hydran/Kzinti ships (green, upper right).

Lyran ships passing through the mine field (orange markers), 

and are veering off to the left.  The Hydrans (green, upper right) 

are disengaging to the right.

During the final turn, the Lyrans swept up a few remaining Hydran fighters and continued to exchange with the Hydran vessels, destroying three more CA classed ships and two Hydran Lancers (destroyers) for no losses of their own.  

The relative positions of the ships at this point put the Hydrans at a tactical disadvantage with their rear shields exposed to the Lyrans, who largely had their bigger front and right front shields facing the Hydrans.  Combined with the Lyran fire, was the collateral damage caused by Hydran ship explosions that furthered the success of the Lyrans.

End of turn 8, the Hydrans break off and disengage, while 

the Lyrans planned to take two turns recharging weapons 

at speed, and then re-engage, had the Hydrans stuck around.

Through these last two turns, the Hydrans lost in the area of 100 fighters, and by turn eight decided to break off the engagement.

Though neither side accomplished their objective, the Hydrans probably end the battle in a better strategic position.  Their huge loss of fighters is largely replaceable by next strategic turn (they brought a lot of spares, stored in freighters), and though they lost a fair number of heavy cruisers classed ships, they still have a huge fleet in Lyran space.

The Lyrans lost 29 ships, though the largest were 3 War Cruisers, a light cruiser classed ship.  The remainder were destroyers, frigates, and police corvettes.  The Kzinti/Hydran fleet lost 14 BC/CA class ships, and 5 smaller vessels.

The Lyrans have very few escort ships remaining, while the Hydrans are free to still cause chaos in Lyran space.  

The battle consisted of eight turns, lasting nearly 10 hours, and resulted in 48 ships being destroyed.

I'm not sure when we will play our next game as the Delta variant surges, but I expect that our next meeting will simply consist of us just getting back up to speed on where everything stands midway through Strategic turn 9 of our SFB campaign.

Slow Hobby Weekend

Didn't get much done this past weekend, mostly organizing terrain and labeling terrain storage.  One nice discovery was finding about 6-7 squre feet of  20mm jungle foliage that I made several years ago, which fills most of my remaining void for 20mm Vietnam.  I knew that I had some, but remembered it as being about a third of the amount done.  I'm still awaiting the arrival of some miniature bamboo, and between that and a few deciduous trees,  one weekend of terrain making should knock out the last of the green stuff for Vietnam.

My Vietnam rice paddies are moving slowly, as I waffle on design and finish characteristics.  Hopefully, I can make some noteworthy progress on these through next weekend.

Tied into the terrain storage and labeling is the process of identifying and labelling as many of my figs as possible.  That will make finding what I need for games a  little easier, plus, it should help my wife get rid of stuff should I get run over by a cement mixer or something.  

As a result of that effort, I now know why I almost never seem to make much progress working on all of this stuff.  I currently have stuff to game 28 genres/periods/theatres with miniatures.  This includes three different basic sets of modular terrain in green, yellow, and "jungle" , with 21 subsets of period specific specialized terrain.  Over 700 square feet of modular foam terrain in all.  There are at least 151 armies and factions, ranging in size from 6 figs to around 1500, with the figure count total being back in the 17,000 range.  I know people with collections that dwarf that, but still, it's a lot of little dudes.

 I really envy guys who can just focus on one or two periods.

I finally opened and inventoried an order that arrived near the end of July from H&R, over 700 6mm infantry for WWII, plus a few vehicle samples for the 1940 French.  The figs will yield somewhere around 230 stands of infantry for the British, French, and German armies.    

I started to set up a big 1940 game earlier this year, and realized that I really didn't have enough infantry units, so put together a big order instead.  Guess what I'll be painting in the near future.

Signing off for now.  Stay well out there.

Round 2: Palm Trees and More Vietnam Foliage

My jungle is growing with the addition of more stands of foliage and some palm trees.  Constructing these went a little slower than I had hoped, so no progress on the rice paddies this past weekend.

Here are some pics of the latest progress:

I based three types of tree, most with jungle ground foliage around the trees, and a few stands without for cleared areas.  The trees need some paint/wash, particularly the trees with the grey trunks, so going to put them aside for now, and the paint work on everything at the same time.

The figs are 20mm Britannia NVA, don't know the maker of the PT-76, and the road is actually for 28mm sci-fi, as I haven't gotten to the 20mm Vietnam road and trail terrain yet.

Rice paddies are up next, and then a few bunkers.

Vietnam Terrain

Here are a few pics of some of the Vietnam terrain that I've been working on.  Just generic jungle filler thus far, with some Britannia figs for scale.

First are a few bamboo groves,  

Next up are more jungle foliage stands, I need to do maybe 5-6 more batches like this.

And an overall view of the latest batch of stuff:

I'll be working more on the rice paddies and palm tree stands this weekend.

Vietnam Reading: "The Greatest Beer Run Ever"

 As part of my recent immersion into Vietnam, I've Gone into a reading frenzy, and read several books about Vietnam over the last couple of weeks, including:

The Greatest Beer Run Ever by John "Chick"  Donohue and J.T. Molloy

This was recently recommended on the Fields of Fire Vietnam Gaming forum, and I'm glad that it was, as it is the most enjoyable thing that I've read lately.

It's about a civilian, a veteran Marine of the early 1960s, who after a meet with his buds at the local watering hole, takes on the challenge of chasing down the group's friends serving in Vietnam, taking them some choice beer, and letting them know that the people from the old neighborhood haven't forgotten them, and support them doing their duty.

The author shares his adventure,  a most ill-concieved beautiful thing,  as if he's sitting on the stool next to you telling his story.  He also shares his perspective from then and now, and maybe sums up the conflicted thoughts probably as well as anyone who's ever tried.

Whether you arrived here on purpose or just happened by, I'd definitely recommend you give this book a look.

My Off Again, On Again Romance With Gaming the Vietnam War

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on various bits for my long neglected 20mm Vietnam gaming.  I guess it's about time that I've finally come back around to Vietnam, as the war ultimately had a big part in influencing my involvement in wargaming.  I grew up while the war was going on, and saw the evening news every night at dinner time with updates on the war, body counts, etc.

Vietnam put the idea of playing war front and center, reinforced by WWII movies, such as Battlground, Battle of the Bulge, and Kelly's Heroes.  The presence of Vietnam in the news and magazines eclipsed the influence of WWII and Korea (my Dad served there) such that  when someone spoke of a US soldier, in my mind, I saw a Vietnam era US GI.  That is still the first thing that comes to mind.

In high school, I began playing Heritage's Panzertroops with 1/72 scale WWII Airfix infantry and various armor kits.  Towards the end of high school, I got a copy of Mark Baker's Nam (the book scrutinized over its integrity and authenticity) and was intrigued by the idea of gaming Vietnam in miniature.

A year or so later, I went to my first game convention, and encountered my first Vietnam game, being played mostly by veterans of the war.  It was a haunting experience, both from the tinges of my own childhood fears about Vietnam, and even more so by the way the vets at the table were experiencing the game.  Their sense of urgency and intensity during the game was amazing to witness, their manner of play was exhilarating and intoxicating.

From there it took another year and a half before I found Firefight 20 figures from Breastplate Hobbies in Boardman, Ohio, and brought my first Vietnam game to life.  

My gaming group of the time put together a game inspired by the movie, Uncommon Valor, with Craig of Gaming Models building a prison camp as the centerpiece of the game, it was run at some the of the conventions around Ohio in the mid-1980s using one home-brew rules.

Craig's prison camp.

The roofs are removable, the towers have blown up tops for when 

they are rocketed, and the fence sections can be removed, 

when they are breached.

After relocating for a new job, my old Vietnam figs spent several years on the shelf, and then would make it to the table top only two more times after almost a decade passing, introducing the period to a retired Navy SEAL that I gamed with at the time.  In those games, the rest of us marveled at his amazing vision and understanding of small unit tactics, and he re-experienced a bit of the exhilaration of the fire fights he had been in over the years.

As a result, he quickly researched information about newer, higher quality figs, and once again I found myself painting figs and refining rules for Vietnam.  This time it was 20mm FAA figs, a very nice quality line, but more limited in scope than I would have liked.  We played some games, and he even ran a few games at local conventions.  After a few years, he relocated out of the area, taking his US troops and Vietnam gaming with him.

My third adventure in Vietnam gaming started in 2004/2005, when I purchased most of the Britannia 20mm Vietnam line from the Emperor's Outpost (?) at Historicon.  I didn't really get them painted until 2009, adding some terrain and other bits over the next year, but they've only made the tabletop in limited numbers a couple of times.  I added some figs in 2017 for a scheduled event that got cancelled, and since then, they have been collecting dust.

Recently, I've been going through old posts on the Fields of Fire discussion forum, and got the fire burning again for Vietnam.  The current forum is the latest iteration of a long the running iconic discussion forum, loaded with amazing stuff for Vietnam gamers.

I don't know if this still counts as round three or maybe more properly round four of 'Nam Gaming, but I'm having a blast working on many of the things that I never got around to before.  Over the last couple of weeks, I've finished a bunch of infantry status markers that I've needed for years, made some bamboo groves, started making rice patties, and another round of jungle foliage.  

Jungle growing on the table.  Jungle foliage is being mounted 

on white styrene plastic bases.  Mounted palm tree trunks (no fronds at

 the time of the photo) are standing in the upper left of the photos, 

bamboo groves to the right of the palms.

I've also done a ton of research for a variety of other 'Nam projects, including more hooches, bunkers, more figs, hilly or mountain terrain modules, streams, bridges, and ordered some kits to add more helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.  It has been a lot of fun. 

I'll be sharing some pics of the new work in the coming weeks.

Bull Rushed by the Red Hoard

A couple of weekends back, I got to see an old friend for the first time in about 18 months and we played a game.  Just a one-off meeting engagement in Cold War West Germany, late 1970s.  We just threw some stuff on the table and went at it. 

As the Americans, I had a platoon of M60A2s, and a mech. infantry company.  The Soviets had a company each of T64s, infantry in BMP1s, a platoon of recce BRDMs, and another platoon of BRDMs carrying AT-3 missiles.

Towards my end of the table, there was a rise, and I intended to get my infantry deployed, supported by the M60A2s, figuring that I could deploy my Dragon ATGMs, and hope for the best.

A view from the NATO end of the table

That didn't quite work out.  The Soviets almost made it across the table, before I could get the infantry deployed, and despite getting the first couple of kills, I simply got run over.  Trees blocked almost any chance of long shots, so the M60s never got to fire a missile, and the Dragons were horrible as they were firing at close range, and never even cracked a 50 percent chance of hit.

After my first couple of kills, my few hits mostly resulted in bounces, tracks, or dirt as I couldn't score the turret of hull down BMPs.  Meanwhile I lost three of the M60A2s, with number four tracked, a few M113s, plus had infantry casualties due to high explosive.  Not surprisingly, my morale didn't hold up.

A few turns later.

A better view of the Soviets on their way to Paris

I was running away as we came to a close.  Likely that almost all of the survivors would have been POWs. Only maybe three of the M113s might have gotten away with their occupants.

I didn't take many pics, as there wasn't much to take pics of.  Craig does have an amazing table that measures something like 6.5 feet by 14 feet.  Ugly as the battle was, I had a blast getting blasted to bits.