33LIMA

Some minds are evidently more easily blown than others.

The UK tried, rather hard, to steer the EU in what it considered to be a sensible direction; which would, arguably, have been to the benefit of all member states...and their peoples. What many consider to be Euro-lemmings were determined to pursue a different course. The parting of the ways has now come. Deal with it. What's rather remarkable is the torrent of anti-UK diatribes this has generated. Like the UK has crapped on somebody's Euro-carpet, or something. People acting like spoiled brats or haters who just can't wait to vent their spleen. Do grow up, chaps.

Well said, Craig, spot on. Gotta love these instant experts who have apparently got all kinds of insights into what's happening thousands of miles away, but not under their own noses (and no sense of history, to boot). And whose comments tell us a lot about their own isolated, prejudiced or ill-informed world view, but little else.

Who knows? Maybe nothing that would not happen anyway. UK no longer has a strategic need for Gib, so if the Gibraltarians would prefer shared or even Spanish sovereignty, HMG would likely not stand in their way. But the Spanish government should understand that it should stick to persuading the locals and not try to bully them, which is (a) not nice and (b) likely to be counterproductive.

That's BS. Utter BS and you should be ashamed of yourself. Stock markets and currencies will recover, find their level. Meanwhile the Euro and the EU will stumble on from crisis to crisis. I live in Northern Ireland and don't presume to tell me how my part of the world voted. Many of us voted to get out, and the result was skewed by the political divisions peculiar to NI. There will be no 'border poll' anytime sooner than there would otherwise have been. Yeah, the skies falling in. Any day now.

Sea-fights above and below the waves, in the Battle of the Atlantic! This mission report tells the story of my last two missions - or more accurately, battles - in Atlantic Fleet's dynamic campaign. One is a U-Boat action, the other involves only surface ships, but otherwise they have not been chosen specially; they're just what came my way most recently. The campaign plays like a random battle generator, except that the encounters are those which result from the movements and dispositions you have made, of the ships available to you at that point in the war. Like the Second World War itself, the Battle of the Atlantic started on the same day as the war in September 1939 and ran until its end, in May 1945. I never forget that what is essentially entertainment for me is based on the risks and sacrifices run and made by naval and merchant seamen, airmen and everyone else who went to sea, in those dark days. If nothing else, probably like many other players, playing such games increases my respect for those who served, and stimulates a desire to understand their experiences. I've just finished reading Roger Hill's excellent Destroyer Captain and am about to start The Sinking of the Kenbane Head by local author Sam McAughtry, written around the loss of that steamer in 1940, when 'pocket battleship' Admiral Scheer savaged convoy HX-84, sinking five merchantmen, which would have been even worse but for the heroic defence mounted by armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay. Though the real campaign was effectively won by mid-1943, with serious defeats being inflicted on the U-Boats, the latter fought on and surrendered only when so ordered at the very end, many coming into Lough Foyle and tieing up at the pier at Lisahallly, near the port of Londonderry which played an important part in the battle. In my campaign, playing for the Kriegsmarine, I have got to February 1941 and have begun to take more interest in the planning and management of my ships. Your forces are pre-deployed and I had initially treated the campaign more like a random battle generator based on these initial deployments. But I have started to expand and actively manage my fleet, using 'renown' won in battle to add units from those available, sending fresh ships or subs out to the convoy routes and bringing back to base those needing repaired or 'bombed up'. My objective is to win the 'tonnage war' by sinking as much enemy merchant shipping as possible; getting it through would be my aim, were I playing for the Royal Navy. Sinking enemy warships helps to a degree, and while its tonnage doesn't count towards victory, it does earn 'renown', to obtain more ships, up to the limit allowed (30, I think). Here's the campaign map, set to display my dispositions (white ship or sub icons) and reports of enemy warhips (blue ship icon). A turn is 3.5 days and though bombing raids and convoy atatcks can happen anytime, and do, it's not every turn that will generate a battle for the player. In each turn, you can manage your ships in each zone, by leaving them there or moving to an adjacent one. If the zone has a friendly port, you can dock the ships there, for refitting and re-arming ( don't yet know to what extent fuel and ammo loads are dealt with, but torpedo loads are definitely modelled and damage is cumulative, carried forward from turn to turn, with limited repairs possible at sea). These zones are named for real sea areas. In the screenshot above, you can see that the active one contains my newly-commissioned Bismarck and Tirptz, accompanied by a destroyer, in the act of breaking out into the Atlantic (the U-Boats in the zone were already there but provide useful cover). The red and blue dashed bar along the top of the campaign map illustrates my progess in the tonnage war. To win, I need to turn it all red, and keep it there, for an unspecified period. I'm quite enjoying the 'strategic' element of Atlantic Fleet, which has more than enough interest to make it engrossing, without so much detail or micro-management that there's a real risk of tedium. France and Norway have fallen to Germany so I now have more, closer friendly ports to which I can return, when necessary. My forces already at sea include Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, operating successfully together against convoys as they did for a time in real life. But further south, I have recently lost a 'pocket battleship' which was hit by two unlucky 16-inch hits from HMS Rodney, before her superior speed could get her out of range. Incidentally, this and other encounters have demonstrated to me that the 'Longer start range' option in Atlantic Fleet badly needs an increase. This doesn't so much affect historical battles, but on campaign, it can mean no escape for faster ships, RN battleships being unable to evade U-Boats which start rather close by, and aircraft carriers likewise very vulnerable to gun attack, in good weather and visibility. Bismarck, Tirpitz and Beitzen have just previously had a night action while moving up the coast of Norway, with an RN cruiser and two destroyers, which they sunk with Beitzen getting a single 4-inch hit in return. I'm glad I decided to have a destroyer along, for Beitzen was able to keep the enemy illuminated by starshell, while the big battle wagons found the range and then pounded the enemy into oblivion. Having destroyed the RN patrol, they are now a move closer to the open waters of the Atlantic. The shot below was actually taken the move before the map pic above, after which I moved my force further west, to the next zone en route. The next battle - U-boat convoy attack Atlantic Fleet's dynamic campaign (it has a 50-mission static one, too) generates battles based on your dispositions and movements, and my next one came when the campaign engine determined that a convoy had run into a zone with three U-Boats present, in the middle of the North Atlantic between Canada and Ireland. You start after any pre-engagement moves have taken place, as seem here, with the U-Boats clustered around the target in some fashion. We can assume that one boat, or a Focke-Wulf Condor long-range recce aircraft, has spotted the convoy, and called in the nearby U-Boats. This isn't Silent Hunter, so you won't need patiently to hook around a convoy at extreme range, at full speed on the surface, then submerge ahead of its track and wait for them to come to you - that's already been set up for you. For this action, it's daylight, and here is the tactical situation at the very start of the fight: Ten ships a side per battle is the limit, which results in rather small convoys, here in two columns with three destroyers for escort. One of the latter really should be astern or on the other side. So far, we are undetected. The convoy is zig-zagging, but there are none of the asdic pings which would tell me the escorts have gone into active sub-hunting mode. I have rarely been detected before an attack, although periscopes can be spotted (and shelled!). This is the external view from the position of U-109, a big Type IX boat in a good position on the starboard bows of the convoy. Once you have left the map, the lack of compass bearings means you don't have much sense of location or direction, except in relation to the other vessels involved, which would be nice to have; but my hope and assumption is that this is a fully-loaded convoy, headed east to the UK with valuable supplies whose loss will help win the war for Germany! You can just about see my periscope wake, with the three escorts in view, to left, centre-left and right and the merchantment all behind. This may give me a good shot at a destroyer, but sinking freighters is what will win or lose the war, and unless sinking a lone escort enables a surface gun attack on the former, I will usually let escorts alone. From here, my usual tactic is to go to full speed ('flank speed' as the USN and Atlantic Feet call it) and as my submerged U-Boat is much slower, immediately make any turn I reckon I need, to take me into a good firing position. After which, I will pick my targets. Atlantic Fleet has a 'sweet spot' range of about 1,000-2,300 yards which a torpedo will cover in a single turn, pretty well guaranteeing a hit (you can enable 'dud weapons'); what I like less is that there is a very high 1,000 yard minimum engagement distance! And below is U-109 herself, running in at maximun revolutions, at periscope depth. As you can see, she is in mid-war configuration, still carying her deck gun but with an extended wintergarten mounting additional AA weapons (and what looks like a radar antenna or warning receiver on the conning tower, which methinks should be retracted, submerged). The sub astern I just sent along in the convoy's wake, slightly to port, ready to catch them if they turn or reverse course. She's U-252, a smaller Type VII boat, and in early-to-mid-war configuration. Slowly, we creep in, tightening the noose around our unsuspecting targets, but conscious that poor manouevres could easily put them beyond our slowly-developing clutches. One way or another, it won't be long, now! ...to be continued!