The Fairmile D Motor Gun Boat in Trouble

Having carted some of my Coastal Forces warships back to Cyprus I intend to playtest my rules.  The vessels I chose were a pair of Vosper MTBs, the RAF Rescue Launch, a Fairmile D Motor gun boat and two of my S-Boats. 

Deciding to start with the gunboat I drew its mission card.  "A Patrol to the Broad Fourteens."  It was a moonless night, and the sea was at state 3. 

The Captain of the Gunboat was "sound."  He had two crew points and a specialist, us the three crew points that came with the MGB itself.  The Speacialist turned out to be a gunner, and was set to crew the two pounder up front, whilst the remainder of the crew were spread around the boat.   

The first encounter en-route, turned out to be a friendly convoy heading north.   The mission card had a possibility of encountering "E-Boats" or a U-Boat, but neither of these appeared.  

At the second table I rolled the encounter dice and the enemy were definitely around me somewhere.  The MGB was moving at 30 knots, throwing up a plume behind her, making her easier to spot.  The dice generated an S-Boat lying in wait off the reef.  

 I added a disc of yellow plastic under the Gunboat to indicate that she was seen.

This allowed the Kriegsmarine the first shots, and a devastating fire it proved to be.  The 20mm rounds roared into the gunboat damaging the engines and disabling the two pounder, killing my gunner.  Two more crew were lost in just this one salvo.  

The tracer was shown by the use of lines of orange plastic.  It looks quite effective.

The gunboat returned fire but those opening rounds from the S-boat had done their work.  The German orders from the mission card were hit and run, and the S-boat opened the taps and fled.  Even without her engines damaged the MGB had nowhere near the knots to give chase.    

The third encounter was an air attack on the run back to HMS Beehive.  I used one of my ME110 Desert war planes, and conducted the attack.  With then MGB at half speed she couldn`t evade and another crewman was lost.

Not the most successful of missions!