The Italians Eat the Austrian's Lunch: The Real Battle of Lissa
To celebrate Fred Jane's birthday, which remarkably is the same day as International Naval Wargaming Day, my girlfriend and I played a rehash of the Battle of Lissa from 1866, using the 4P Press rules Ironclads!, of course.
We decided to bathtub it a bit and get rid of the gunboats. My girlfriend asked if she could keep her avisos, and of course I said yes but I had no idea what diabolical plan she had in mind.
The first two turns were spent maneuvering into place, and on turn three the shooting started. Schwarzenberg managed to hit Maria Pia with her secondaries but the shot bounced off Maria Pia’s armor.
On turn four the ramming began, which turned out to be a popular though questionable strategy throughout the game. The beginnings were not encouraging though, as Ancona sheered off on her attempt to ram Habsburg and then the goofiest of rams proved successful, at least in hitting the target.
My GF thought it would be a fun thing to use her aviso Esploratore to ram Habsburg, searching for a loophole in the rules. She was not to find it, and while Habsburg’s crew were asking each other if they had felt a bump, Esploratore sank beneath the waves, the victim of her own success.
By now the fleets were all mixed and gunnery was getting hot and heavy as shells big and small filled the air, many of them striking home.
It’s funny how this fight boiled down into a Lissa-eque fight, with ships in melee and close range gunnery the rule.
The next ship to go under was another aviso, as Novara dispatched Messaggiero on a mission to Davy Jones’ locker. Novara didn’t even break a sweat, using her secondaries for the job.
The Austrians took it on the chin with their first loss, Ancona scoring not one but two Rather Nasty Hits on Schwarzenberg. The first caused an explosion while the second cut her voice pipes, leading to confusion that was made all the more so by Ancona then pounding Schwarzenberg into submission with her secondaries.
Turn five had three successful rams, but none of them fatal. GF decided to abandon the aviso as a ram idea, as both of them had been sunk anyway.
Meanwhile damage was piling up on both sides and by the end of the turn Radetzky had become the next vessel to go under. She had taken many hits, especially from Ancona, but it was Varese that finished her off.
The damage control phase saw fires raging untouched on Erzherzog Friedrich but Ancona (she was probably the MVP for Italy) repairing a damaged ammo hoist that had slowed her rate of fire considerably was not able to finish her off.
The Italian gunnery was taking a massive toll however, as Ancona's secondaries were able to send the Erzherzog Freddie, already ablaze, to her demise.
The Austrians at this point were getting their asses handed to them on a silver platter.
Things continued in this vein for the remainder of the game. There were a couple of bright spots, as Maria Pia suffered two Rather Nasty Hits and appeared to be on the brink of sinking, only to get her fires out and continue the fight.
Although Don Juan d'Austria did manage to sink Carlo Alberto as the fight drew to a close.
What a great game, and it just goes to show that if my girlfriend had been in charge at Lissa things would have gone a different way.
This result is more in line with what you would expect by looking at the fleets on paper. There was no Persano to demoralize the officers and no chickening out on ramming.
All in all I enjoyed it and my girlfriend did as well (duh) and it was fun to see so many ram attempts and so many connecting though none were fatal, expect to the aviso trying to be a smart ass.
As I mentioned at the start, the game was played with our Ironclads! rules, which provided fast play and full flavor and brought the battle to life perfectly.
