Blog post about Bronekaters in Cruel Seas

[Renko]

Title says it all really – a bit more detail on Soviet Bronekaters and using them in Cruel Seas

https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2019/01/down-rabbit-hole-fixing-bronekaters-in.html?fbclid=IwAR2J7FjQBSaMglAuKlOhBd4LEeEJORQ1Kl5Q2Mcn-T2OWhXFcBCa7FTybeA

Hope you find it useful \ interesting

[invisible officer]

For those reading German it might help to know that Kriegsmarine named them Panzerkutter in reports.

Like in those about the fights in Azov sea November 1943.

German S-Boote encountered them there and in Black sea and in Northern coastal Waters.

In fights with ships they did not have much success. The gun optics are good enough for river warfare against slow or static targets but not for ships. Turret turning was also too slow. And inside it was cramped.

The armor of the hull was not able to stop HMG rounds. Not even German LMG SMK rounds. Not one sank a German S or R Boot.
The Katyusha rocket versions never used it against ships on sea. (Similar to the US ELCO rocket launchers that got used just two times in Med. and missed.)

[Renko]

Interesting points. Is inflicting a -1 to hit enough for the turrets against moving targets??

Armour is a bit of a non issue – they have what is en effect splinter protection to some areas but the rules only really factor armour in on critical hits which wont be that much of an issue

I’d agree about the rockets, but that’s a designers decision not mine

Cheers

[Stephen]

I entirely agree with you on your point that getting the stats right is important and I said so in a recent post on submarines.

[Walter Hard]

I note that the ship rosters list the bronekaters with “6-pdr” main armament. Not sure if the designers are saying they only had the effect of 6-pdr guns, but of course all bronekaters had tank turrets as main armament, as shown on the models, with 76.2mm guns.

One more minor item: The ship rosters show 1124 bronekaters with one turret and the 1125 with two turrets. It’s actually the other way around. I can understand the confusion here, since some otherwise solid sources, like Harald Fock’s Fast fighting Boats, make the same mistake.

[Walter Hard]

Fair points on the difficulty of hitting naval targets with a tank turret gun. But the T-34 turrets still retain their armor, so perhaps ignore gun hits against them from MGs and small cannon?

Edit: My bad. I see that the rules already exempt the turrets from small caliber hits (in the narrative history about Soviet boats)

[Author]

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