Castles in the Sky: Battle Report- Tropic Thunder

[Easy E]

Commodore Leftbridge could not believe what his spotters were calling in.  He had to see it for himself.  When he raised his own binoculars to his eyes, he could not deny it.  Seeing was believing. 

Commodore Leftbridge's small command had been cruising the Caribbean on routine patrol.  The usual stuff of rescuing would-be sailors, customs enforcement, and showing the flag with the local British citizens.  The close proximity to French colonies in the region had never really been much of an issue.   They kept to their sky ways, and the British tended to keep to theirs. 

Now however, the Frenchies looked like they were feeling a bit feisty.  The Foreign Office had cabled Leftbridge in Bermuda and let him know a new French officer was en route to station at Martinique.  The cable claimed he was hot-blooded and eager to prove himself.  They didn't say he was a looking for trouble. 

A French cruiser was now flying provocatively close to the Commodore Leftbridge's flotilla.  The question was, what to do about it.

Today's battle report is V4 Castles in the Sky play test.  I am intentionally using asymmetrical forces to see how they stack up against each other. 

Forces

Royal Navy

Arethusa Class Light Cruiser- Command 2 

Bull Finch Destroyer- Command 4

Shah Class Frigate- Command 4



L'Aire National

Gloire Class Armored Cruiser- Command 1



Mission

This is a Raiders mission with the French as the Attacker.  They are attempting to disable or destroy the Arethusa Light Cruiser.  The British are attempting to drive the French attacker away.  This game will last 6 turns. 

Set-up

We rolled for complications and terrain as normal.  Since this is in the Caribbean, it will mostly take place over ocean.  It is a 48MU x 48MU board.  1 MU = 1 inch.  We rolled up no complications. 

For terrain we rolled up an Alt 3 Mountain, two island (land based terrain with no impact), and a cloud bank at Alt 2.  We followed the terrain placement rules to place the terrain with the mountain and one island on the British side of the board, and an island and the cloud bank on the French side.



The British were in a group to the West with the Shah lagging slightly behind moving up the middle of the board at mid-altitude and speed. The French started on the Northeast side of the board, steaming towards the British at full speed and mid-altitude. 



You can rea the full recap on the Blood and Spectacles blog!  Find it here: 
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2021/01/battle-report-castles-in-sky-tropic.html

[Zac]

Glad to see that you wanted that to be a tough game because it sure seemed like a PITA to play :-)

How do you determine Command and what is a command failure meant to model? Poor crew?

[Easy E]

Depending on the Nation, you can get a different Command rating for your ship between 1 and 4.  This is randomly determined by ship, a bit like BFG.  The rating is the number of dice you roll looking for a success.   

A Command test represents a lot of intangible factors such as Crew skill, Officer skill, Morale, and even communications within a ship's design.  Crew and Officers can get basic stuff done pretty easily as it is routine.  Things like change speed, change altitude, turn, fire the guns, etc. 

However, a Command is trying to go above an beyond the routine or do something under time constraints/stress.  Things like crash dive, evasive maneuvers to avoid collisions, fire for effect, dedicated damage control, Reloading air torpedoes etc.  A failure means that the crew and officers somehow got their wires crossed and were not able to execute the Command.  This could be from poor execution, garbled orders, unclear orders, or the Command just never got there for some reason. 

It is somewhat of a game abstraction to add elements of Command and Control and their failures.  When you read a lot of Naval History, you find little mistakes like not sealing the magazine stores correctly, failure to repair some key damage, or not having a clear spotter, can be battle changers.  This was a way to try and capture some of that "uncertainty" and "friction" that occurs in Naval warfare.       

[Zac]

Sounds good

Thanks for the clarification