Sixth Fleet

On Saturday, Richard P, Phil, Mark, Jamie and I played a game of Sixth Fleet in the side room at the Royal Hotel in Dungworth.  The idea was to generate ideas for games at Crisis Point in the Spring of 2019.

We played scenario 13 - The Invasion of Western Europe.  The sides were as follows:

US Allies:
United Kingdom
Spain
Italy
Yugoslavia
Turkey
Israel

No French or Greeks! The terms “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” and “taramasalata-eating surrender monkeys” were heard.

Soviet Allies:
Algeria
Libya
Syria

As we were playing with “moderate” level preparedness there were two US carrier battlegroups. The Nimitz group was at Malta while the Kennedy group was cruising off Minorca.  The Soviets put their free-set-up group (which includes the aircraft carrier Minsk and the cruiser Kirov) off Cyprus whilst the majority of their submarine force was in the central Mediterranean.

The game began with Syrian and Israeli aircraft clashing in the skies over Lebanon. Soviet naval infantry from the amphibious assault ship Vilkov moved into Beirut.  At about the same time the Soviet submarine Bytosh landed Naval Spetsnaz at Homs in Libya.

Soviet aircraft attacked Istanbul and sank the Turkish destroyers Adatepe and Anitepe.  HMS Amazon was sunk in Limassol harbour and shortly afterwards the British nuclear submarine HMS Torbay was also lost.

American anti-submarine operations were successful in sinking the Soviet submarine Shuya in the Atlantic.

In the afternoon, Soviet aircraft transmitted the Balkans to sink the US task force at Maddalena as well as the US destroyer Comte de Grasse.

The Americans did get some revenge, though, damaging several Soviet subs.

Fierce fighting in the eastern Mediterranean saw both Israeli and Syrian naval assets significantly diminished.

Night on the first day saw further very effective attacks of US shipping by the massive Crimean air fleets.  In response the Nimitz air wing bombed Algiers damaging several aircraft on the ground.

Day Two saw American paratroopers land at Oran in Algeria.  In addition, American forces moved to garrison Malta to ward off Soviet threats to the island nation.

Israel launched an attack on Lebanon landing paratroopers in and around Beirut to oppose the Soviet invasion.

The Soviets now launched a massive attack of Istanbul with two regiments of airborne troops.

NATO submarine forces attacked their Soviet opposite numbers with little effect.  Soviet and Syrian naval forces attacked Haifa sinking several Israeli missile boats.

In the afternoon the US career groups began anti-submarine operations sinking the Tyumen and the Drabov in the central Med.

The night of day two continuing ASW operations.  The US and Turkish navies managed to sink the Perm, Ivdel, and Lipitsy.  In addition, aircraft from USS Kennedy sank almost the entire Libyan navy, although a single Libyan missile did manage to penetrate the American defences and sink the destroyer USS Cushing.

Soviet forces sank the Turkish sub Atilay and several missile boats.

On day three the Americans landed airborne troops at Homs and Tobruq in Libya whilst the Soviets reinforced their forces in Istanbul.

So what does all this mean for our games at Crisis Point in spring 2019?

Anyone wanting to do land combat can choose from:

US forces against Algerians around Oran
US troops against Libyans at Tobruq
US forces against Libyans and Soviet Spetsnaz at Homs
Israelis against Soviet Naval Infantry in Beirut with various local factions and the Lebanese army involved potentially on either side
Soviet and Turkish forces fighting for control of Istanbul.

Air warfare fans could have great fun with the clashes between the Israeli air force and its Syrian and Soviet counterparts.  There’s also plenty of scope for fighting between US Navy F-14s and just about anyone!

The question, then, is who’s inspired to put on a game based on this?