Strategy in 'U.S. Navy Plan Gold'
Scenario #1: French Invasion
Day 4
By Doug McNair
November 2006

The brave but battered Americans get another crack at the French in today’s episode of U.S. Navy Plan Gold — Scenario 1: “French Invasion.” As Day 4 begins, French transports are unloading troops on St. Thomas, and the Americans have lost seven ships in whittling down the French escort force to the lone battleship Gascoigne. More American forces are rushing to the relief of St. Thomas, but others have been diverted by the threat of French raiders lurking near the dense American merchant shipping lanes off Guantanamo Bay. The French invasion fleet steaming toward the Panama Canal has split off its destroyers and sent them to reinforce the St. Thomas invasion.

But, the French b_te noire (low fuel capacity) has forced the DDs to abort their original mission (they couldn’t have made it back to port at full speed if they’d steamed even one zone farther west) and put in at Port St. Louis for refueling and mission reassignment. This inability of the French DDs to steam directly for St. Thomas will leave Gascoigne alone to face the second American battlecruiser squadron out of Key West, unless bad weather intervenes.

Day 4

Turn 19: The weather stays misty, and the French destroyers refuel while awaiting their new mission. The two French battleships that bombarded St. Thomas steam toward Port St. Louis. The French raiders steam for the Cuba-Hispaniola straits while the American patrols close in.

Turn 20: The weather clears, and one American patrol fleet takes up station off Guantanamo Bay while another searches for the raiders among the Bahamas to the north.

Turn 21: The French raiders enter zone Q27 off Guantanamo Bay — and the U.S. patrol there contacts them. The Americans get initiative. All five American ships (scout cruisers Syracuse and Knoxville plus three Clemson-class destroyers) are faster than the French, but the French light cruisers (Tancr_de, Triomphante and Victorieuse) outgun the Americans at a two-hex range, so this could go either way.

They eat cheese and fear the torpedo.

Tactical Combat

Round 1: The Americans close the range to two hexes before the French start running north to keep out of torpedo range. Fire from American primaries scores two hull hits on Tancrede, slowing her to a Speed 1, and the French fire numerous shots that all miss except one which destroys a Clemson’s torpedo mount. That cuts down the American torpedo threat substantially.

Round 2: The Americans win initiative again and close the range to one hex on the first movement impulse. Fire from Knoxville knocks out both of Triomphante’s guns, and fire from the three French ships knocks out all the guns on the destroyers. But that leaves two Clemsons with four torpedoes each, and they fire.

The first Clemson scores a critical hit with one torpedo and sinks Tancrede (U.S.: 8 VPs.), and the second hits Victorieuse with two torpedoes, doing 3 Hull and sinking her (U.S.: 8 VPs). That leaves nothing but the gunless Triomphante, which Syracuse and Knoxville sink at their leisure (U.S.: 8 VPs). The French raiding fleet goes down in a lightning-fast display of superior American naval technology.

Turn 22: With the raiders gone, the American western patrols head for Guantanamo to reorganize their fleets and repair the damaged Clemsons. But the French battleships that bombarded St. Thomas make it to Port Louis, so they and the French DDs there can form new fleets of their own, which may or may not include new raiders.

The American minelayer Tahoe lays another minefield on the boundary between AM17 and AL18, and then the American scout fleet makes a sweep through the mouth of the Maracaibo inlet — and contacts the Panama Canal invasion fleet just southwest of Aruba!

A multiple-ship counter.

Tactical Combat

The Americans get initiative, and the French set up in a rough double-column formation. In the lead are their light cruisers and destroyer leader in one hex, and three battleships and a slow gunboat in the other. The rest of the slow gunboats are in the hex behind, then comes a double column of transports, and finally the two battleships slated to bombard Col_n.

The Americans only have four fast scout cruisers (Cambria, Erie, Eureka and Ogden) plus three Clemsons, so they can’t hope to take on the battleships, but they’re fast enough that they just might be able to do an end run on them and hit the transports or the bombardment fleet before making a run for it.

Round 1

Impulses 1 – 8: The Clemsons break left and the scout cruisers break right, staying outside the fire range of the leading French battleships.

Impulses 9 – 12: The French light cruiser escort charges the American scout cruisers, which outgun the French 12 Secondaries to 5. The American cruisers close range and open fire while the Clemsons to the north continue the long circuit around the French battleships. American fire does one hull hit to the light cruiser Strasbourg, but the French return fire and knock out two of Cambria’s secondaries.

Impulses 13 – 16: The French bombardment fleet and transports head southeast away from the Clemsons while the French cruisers move southwest to interpose themselves between the transports and the American cruisers. The Clemsons continue the circuit, but the American cruisers steam southeast and adjacent to the French cruisers, hoping to overwhelm them with superior gunnery and torpedo fire, then keep running southeast to catch the transports before they can escape. Cruiser gunnery does only light damage on both sides, but American torpedoes slow the French cruisers Metz and Strasbourg to Speed 1 and leave them with one hull box each. But then, three French torpedoes slam into the previously-undamaged scout cruiser Ogden and blow her out of the water (France: 14 VPs), so American gunnery is now significantly reduced.

Impulses 17 – 20: The French battleships move southeast, bringing 36 Primaries to bear on the three remaining American cruisers. The cruisers come about and run westward outside French battleship range, but the battleships’ southward tack gives the Clemsons to the north an opening, and they charge southeast toward the retreating transports and the bombardment fleet. The retreating American cruisers score a critical hit on Metz and sink her (U.S.: 8 VPs), and the French cruisers get no hits in return. The slow French gunboats will have a hard time catching the Clemsons before they reach the transports, so what happens next round depends on who gets initiative.

Round 2

Impulses 1 – 4: The French get initiative, so the American scout cruisers can’t move before the French cruisers open fire. Both sides lose one Secondary each, leaving the French with just 1 and the Americans with 5.

Impulses 5 – 8: Both American groups head southeast outside battleship range, and the French cruisers keep their distance, with the fast destroyer leader Amiral S_nes breaking from the slowed cruiser group to parallel the Americans at a two-hex range (not wanting to put the last French Secondary in point-blank peril). Unfortunately, American cruiser fire takes-out S_nes’ secondary with no damage in return, and now there’s nothing between the Americans and the French transports, except those three huge French battleships on the horizon.

Impulses 9 – 12: Both American groups keep steaming southeast and stay just outside French battleship fire range. The now-toothless French cruisers and destroyer leader (their remaining tertiaries won’t penetrate American cruiser armor) steam away, and the transports and bombardment fleet run southeast.

Impulses 13 – 16: Both American fleets hold course southeast, leaving the French with a tough choice. The slow French gunboats steam adjacent to the Clemsons and will be able to trade fire with them for the rest of the round, but it’s doubtful they’ll be able to sink them all. And one Clemson with four torpedoes can bring either of the battleships in the bombardment fleet to grief, meaning the entire Panama Canal invasion might have to be scrubbed in just a few Impulses.

But if the French escort battleships turn to chase the Clemsons, they’ll leave the American cruisers a wide-open path toward the fleeing transports. So the battleships head east toward the Clemsons, and the transports head northwest toward the battleships — putting themselves closer to the Americans but also under the umbrella of the French primaries.

The bombardment fleet steams southwest, not wanting to leave the sea zone but still fleeing from the Clemsons. The slow French gunboats open fire and knock out one tertiary on a Clemson, and then the three battleships open fire and knock out the rest of the Clemsons’ guns and one of their torpedo mounts (and there was much rejoicing).

Impulses 17 – 20: The Clemsons have no weapons left but their eight remaining torpedoes, but that’s good enough to threaten the transports. They hold course southeast and come up adjacent to the transports, while the scout cruisers steam east toward them. The transports move due west toward the battleships and the American cruisers; they could flee east but that would put them out on the edge of the zone and vulnerable if the Americans get initiative next round.

The bombardment fleet can’t let the oncoming American cruisers get a shot at them; American secondaries could penetrate the light armor on the French secondary guns, and a ship with a bombardment mission can’t bombard if it takes any damage in combat. So the bombardment fleet steams southeast outside the shaded ring of hexes, hoping to re-enter before the end of battle so as not to get separated from the rest of the invasion fleet. (They’re still within sighting range of the Clemsons, so they won’t exit the map this round.) The French gunboats pursue the Clemsons, while the battleships steer southeast so that they can fire on the Clemsons and also bring the scout cruisers’ avenue of advance within primary range.

A wall of shells splashes erupts around the Clemsons, and when the mist clears there is only one left . . . but she still has her torpedoes!

France has modern cruisers as well!

Round 3

The Americans get initiative, and the last Clemson steams east and southeast toward the fleeting bombardment fleet while the scout cruisers close the vice from the west.

The gunboats and battleships can’t keep up with the fast Americans, and by the last French movement impulse the bombardment fleet will steam outside sighting range of the French escort and transport fleets if it keeps heading southeast. That will put it all alone in the zone southeast of the battle with the Americans: a deathtrap.

So the bombardment fleet reverses course and heads northeast toward the escort battleships (just barely keeping them in visual range), and the last Clemson closes in for the kill. She fires her four torpedoes at the battleship B_arn . . . and three of them hit! Two do 1 Hull damage each, but the third scores a critical hit and touches off a forward magazine, and 3 Primaries on the B_arn go sky-high, along with enough bombardment ammunition to cancel the Panama Canal invasion.

At this point, things are looking pretty grim for the French. Their raiding fleet has been destroyed, leaving the Americans free to pursue the erstwhile Panama Canal invasion fleet all the way back to Fort de France. The invasion of St. Thomas is ongoing, but its escort of one battleship will be attacked by three American battlecruisers, three scout cruisers and six Clemsons — at night, meaning no long-range primary shots from Gascoigne — in just two turns. And even if Gascoigne gets in a few lucky shots and takes out the battlecruisers, she will likely have few transports left to guard once the scout cruisers and Clemsons are done.

That makes the capture of St. Thomas a longshot, leaving only the Panama Canal invasion fleet to carry the torch for French Caribbean expansionism. But it won’t be able to leave Fort de France with a new mission until Turn 50, and by then the place will be swarming with Americans, whose high fuel capacity will not oblige them to put into port for recoaling before converging on Martinique.

With the game half-over, Tahoe will have had all the time she needs to mine all the approaches to Colon long before a new invasion fleet could get there. Puerto Rico and St. Thomas will be heavily guarded by then, and while the French could launch a new raiding fleet by Turn 28, it would consist of slow battleships that would take forever to steer the long dogleg around Puerto Rico and outside American bomber range to reach the merchant lanes to the west. French CAP from Port Louis only has a range of 8, while the American bombers from San Juan have a range of 11, so to avoid being under constant surveillance and threat of air attack the raiders’ route would take them nearly 40 turns to get to the prime hunting grounds. Even if they avoided American patrols and made it to the merchant lanes, their chances of sinking 20 merchant ships in the 32 remaining turns would be small due to their slow speed on the Merchant Location table.

As for other French options, a bombardment fleet of at least four battleships sent to Florida couldn’t leave until Turn 50, and wouldn’t reach its target until turn 96. Four turns isn’t enough time to bombard four zones . . . so with the Florida, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and Colon objectives all longshots or worse, and merchant raiding a last-minute Hail Mary at best, the only realistic objective the French could achieve would be scoring more VPs than the Americans in combat. Skillful maneuvering by powerful French battlefleets could make that happen, but that leaves the French with just one of their objectives achieved. Zero or one French objectives achieved equals a U.S. victory, so:

THE AMERICANS WIN!

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