SpitfireIX
Posts: 264
Joined: 1/9/2003
From: Fort Wayne IN USA
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rogueusmc
I try to play the game in a manner as if there were real men on real decks.
I also try to play the game under realistic constraints, even if those constraints aren't modeled in the game. Once at a convention, I was playing naval minis with a friend of mine who tended at the time to go in for really cheesy, gamey tactics. We had the Phoenix (my flagship), an Omaha-class (forget which), the San Diego, two Fletchers, and three pre-war DDs. My orders were to bombard a small island, and I was to detach one cruiser and a couple of DDs as a scouting force. I gave my friend the San Diego and the two Fletchers as the scout fource, as those were our only three ships with SG radar. My orders also specified that I was to be very careful with the cruisers, as they had been "borrowed" from a CV task force, and had to be returned in working condition. In the middle of our mission, our orders changed completely (the guy running this is an ex-US Navy officer; his scenarios are usually really creative); I was to intercept and destroy a Japanese convoy of two merchantmen with an indeterminate escort. While my friend was racing to rejoin me, I engaged the escort and wiped out the Kitikami (don't ask me what she was doing there) and three Fubukis, due to the inexperienced Japanese players' falling into a simple trap I set, just as I had predicted (basically I tricked them into firing all their port-side and centerline tubes, then rushed in and massacred them at knife-fighting range before Kitikami could unmask her starboard-side tubes). Meanwhile, my friend had finally arrived, finished off the Kitikami, which was limping away behind a smokescreen after having stopped a torpedo, with a hail of radar-directed 5" shells, and then sank the two freighters. We had lost two DDs, had a third one crippled, and sustained one superficial shell hit on Phoenix.
The referee told me that one of the Seagulls I'd launched earlier was reporting a Japanese CL and four DDs in the vicinity; he asked me if I wanted to go after them. I said, "No. We've accomplished our mission; we have survivors to rescue, and a wounded ship to safeguard, plus our two 6-in cruisers are down to one-third ammunition. We're heading home."
At this point, my friend piped up, "If the Japanese find us, we'll run away and forget about the damaged ship."
I replied, "The hell we will! We'll try to avoid combat, but we'll fight if we have to." However, at this point, the Japanese players, being thoroughly demoralized, decided they'd had enough, and broke off the action. I imagine we would have won if we had fought, but we would almost certainly have taken significant additional damage. This is one of my all-time favorite minis games.
_____________________________
"I know Japanese. He is very bad. And tricky. But we Americans too smart. We catch him and give him hell."
--Benny Sablan, crewman, USS Enterprise 12/7/41
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Printable Version
Putting your relatives in harm's way - 
but if your grandparents are alive, i would suggest taping them on a cam corder or something. they both had lots of stories that were very interesting (if not exaggerated alittle) that are now lost except what we can remember of them. there is acually a organization that goes and video tapes veterens of wars to presurve their stories. I think the excellent show "band of brothers" has some clips, but it may have been for the show itself.
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