Can the escorts win?

["Sink the Bismark"]

I have been reading the convoy scenario and need to ask- Are they kidding? The escorts ned to defend abseloutly crappy ships and have no idea what's comming. How can the escorts win? Is there something I'm missing?

[Poseidon]

Boggles my mind too.

[swarbs]

I played it a couple of times right after the game came out and I got some subs. After they completely slaughtered the destroyers three times in a row I gave it up. Maybe with new harrassed subs rule they stand a chance, but it still seems like they should get a points bonus at least.

["Sink the Bismark"]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

Boggles my mind too.

Yeah, I mean check out the difference between these 3 builds.

2 Graf Spee-42
1 Scharnhorst-38
1 U510-11
1 Karl Galster-8
99 points and has tremendous surface power. All you need to do is hit the merchant ships once.

1 Shokaku- 20
5 Val-50
2 I 19-26
1 Subchaser-4
This has great air power and could kill merchants with ease

5 Kondors-30
5 U 510-55
2 Stukas
This has the cheap shot Kondor galore, and a massive sub force. Stukas are something else to bomb them with.

Each one of these builds could trounce a convoy and each require a vastly different build to defeat. I seems to me the escorts are playing a guessing game.

[Poseidon]

Only way I can think to make it more evened out is a huge point bonus to the convoy boys, make the ships stronger, points reduction to attacker, or make it so more convoy ships are needed. (6 O'Briens instead of 3, and you gotta kill 5?)

Or some combination of the above.

After reading this scenario the first time I had no real interest in it. Seemed like a total wash.

[ericjohn]

This matches my experience the one time I played it -

I mixed up DDs, CLs, CAs and subs to get some capabilities for anti-sub, anti-surface and anti-air. Enemy just took subs and aircraft. Totally picked me apart, first their planes swamped my DDs to cripple my ASW capabilities, then their subs closed in started sinking cargo ships. My CAs spent the whole game waiting for the surface raider that never showed up. To add insult to injury the killed the last 2 (of 5) cargo ships with Kondor missiles, no defense for that.

I'd be interested if any experienced players have found the scenario interesting or figured out ways to make it so?

[aquarius]

We just made up our own convoy version at the FLGS, way more in depth and historical.

[Greyh Seer]

Originally Posted by aquarius

We just made up our own convoy version at the FLGS, way more in depth and historical.

What rules do you use for that version?

[Vornargith]

The harassment rules almost guarantee that subs will only have 1-2 torpedoes... even at range 0 and with wolf-pack bonuses. Destroyers own subs if they can close in in a group. Gotta use harassment though.

[RedSpike]

The problem is that if you go with a destroyer heavy fleet, you will be destroyed by Kondors, cruisers, Zekes with the Tone, etc. You odds of guessing the exact fleet the raiders field is pretty low.

The only real way to do the scenario effectively is to have a list of balanced fleets for each side to choose from.