Friday, September 25, 2009

Tough Soviets in Flank Speed

So I tried a little solitaire matchup today to see how my 98-point Soviet Fleet (all I got) might match up against an Axis 100-point fleet. To reduce any possible bias I grabbed a 100-point German build off the ForuMini site.

With small fleet builds I suspect that general purpose builds may be at a disadvantage against all-or-nothing fleets.

In this case the matchup was as follows:

Admiral Hipper (16) U66 x 2 (24) U510 x 2 (22) Graf Zeppelin (18) BF109 (7) Ju-87 (7) Fw 200 Kondor (6) (100) The actual ForuMini build had two Bf109s but I subbed a Ju-87 for a better balanced fleet.

Okt. R. (24) Kirov x 2 (20) Gromkiy x 9 (54) (98)

This seemed right off the bat to be a tough situation for the Germans to me. It seemed liked there was little prospect of challenging the Soviets over objectives and the sub-heavy German fleet was facing a lot of ASW.

And so it proved. A lucky shot from a DD took out the Stuka early, but the Bf 109 did OK strafing DDs, crippling two by game end. The Kondor's glide bomb attack missed the Soviet BB.

The Germans subs were simply overwhelmed by the Soviet DD swarm. The submarines' wolfpack and Kondor pinpointer benefits were no match for all the ASW penalties from the destroyers and most of their torpedo shots were reduced to one die. One DD ended up being sunk by a sub while three f the four U-Boats went down and the fourth was left crippled.

So the Soviets swept up all three objectives and closed in on the Graf Zeppelin and its escort, the Admiral Hipper. The rush by six DDs, the two Kirovs and the battleship was Zulu Dawn-like. The two German ships managed to take out three destroyers and cripple a fourth before going down in a blizzard of torpedoes and shells.

The final score was 223 for the Soviets and 24 for the Germans. One crippled U-boat and two German aircraft survived. Two of the three surviving Soviets DDs were crippled and one of the Kirovs had a hit.

Special abilities used in the battle:
German: Anti-Ship Missile (missed), Pinpointer, Land-based, Wolfpack, Extended Range 4
Soviet: High-speed Run, Slow 2.

I'm going to try one more FuruMini build against the Soviet fleet and see what happens.

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