River Plate

Geordie Paul's home-brew naval rules played on the floor in the hall.

A replay of the Battle of the River Plate.

How the British (and New Zealanders) line up. The Graf Spee can be seen in the far distance.

From Furness Wargamers

The rules are of the guess the distance variety; Any pre-ploted rounds landing on the ships base is a hit, others are treat as splashes. There is also a limited amount of lateral drift in the shots. Not only do you have to range in but also work out how much the ships have moved relative to each other (Calculators\Abacuses are forbidden!)

The Spees first salvo luckily lands on target.


And does some serious damage to the Exeter.


The Exeter's and Achilles's ranging shots are well short so there is an urgent need to shorten the gap. The original plan was to split the Exeter off to try and box the Spee in.

The Achilles is next to take some damage.


The Spee concentrates fire on the Achilles and after another few hits the cruiser is the first to go down.

The Ajax, having initially held back its fire to prevent the Spree gauging distance, finally manages to get some shells on target.


The Ajax is next to go down, after getting too close after not been told that the Spee guns range band behaviour is different from the British. She was trying to avoid the devastating long range deck shots that had started to come in.

The Exeter, limping around since the first set of hits, also closes in to get some direct shots off before it also goes down.

It turns out one more good hit would have taken the Spee out. Its main armament was down to the one gun and a number of sections had heavy damages on them.

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Also going on in the Club, a two player talisman,

A DBA Battle(s) of Hastings...


Flames of War with paper tanks...


and the role-players doing whatever the role-players do since they finished the Great Pendragon Campaign.
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