Naval Thunder - Malta Convoy

After a long hiatus, we decided to kick start another WW2 naval campaign based on 1942 expedition - Malta Convoy - conducted under the Naval Thunder rules.

Some information on the real thing (copied from Wikipedia):

"The Malta Convoys were a series of Allied supply convoys that sustained the besieged island of Malta during the Mediterranean Theatre of the Second World War. Malta required military reinforcements, food for its military garrison and civilian population, and fuel for air and naval forces. The convoys bringing these men and supplies were strongly opposed by Italian and German naval and air forces during the Battle of the Mediterranean"

For this campaign, it is expected to be wrapped up in a couple of weeks time, and if not possible, couple of months time, with our very first briefing run coming this Saturday.

With the combatants confirming their factions and unlike the real campaign, the trash talk among the opposing forces already begun more than a week ago. 

The combatants as follows:

Kriegsmarine    - Hyiktsay

Regia Marina    - Dave

Royal Navy       - YS Oon and Eric Lew

Picture 1: Courtesy of YS Oon

Picture above: Part of the fleet of ships to be fielded in the upcoming Malta Convoy mini campaign. From top to bottom : Scharnhorst, Rodney, Zara, Bolzano, Duca D'Aosta, and Montecuccoli.

For this campaign purpose and keeping to the naval tradition of the respective factions, we will do our best to simulate the actual combat formation and tactics. The warships are divided to the according to their squadron and order of battles are in place.

Apart from warship formation and order of battle, each combatant must also take into account of their air assets available and submarine deployment as this campaign is designed to generate a series of interlocked engagements, representing the constant attack of the convoy by Axis air and sea power. Each engagement represents the action that takes place in a three hour slice of time, except for night turns, which represent eight hours.

Special thanks to YS Oon for once again drafting the campaign details and gathering us all for our next naval miniature adventure~~!! 

To add some spice into the campaign, and from YS Oon own words - 
"I have added some additional creative liberties to provide a ‘what-if’ scenario. Supposedly the Kriegsmarine decided that the Mediterranean Sea was worth to invest some effort in and to bring some of their heavier vessels into play, would it had turn out differently? 

The question remained though as the refusal of the Germans to cooperate in joint-operations with the Italians were infamous and it would be interesting to see how it would have panned out. This precipitated my decision to include in the most-feared ship in the German Navy, the Scharnhorst into this mini-campaign."