Here is the full slate of Knockout Stage tournament games - all game results will be recorded as they happen. (All results are listed in terms of the final POC total after the bid has been taken into account - this means the modified total may be greater than +10 POC if the player who lost the bid wins the game.)
Feel free to report your Knockout Stage game result and/or submit any comments or after-action reports about your game below. (As a reminder, the end-of-game reporting checklist is available on the homepage of this website.)
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John Pack (Thursday, 23 September 2021 22:13)
QF #3 has ended with Andy emerging victorious with the Allies.
Hood, 2 BC, 6 CA, and Ark Royal headed to the Barents. No speed roll failure. The Luftwaffe missed. The Ark Royal crippled Lutzow. Both sides got rid of four ships in the first round. Two Germans were sunk, Scharnhorst disabled, and Gneisenau wounded in round one. In return, Exeter is sunk while 2 CA and Repulse are disabled. But at least Andy told me I shot well. Another German is sunk in round two while two British CA are sunk and Hood is dinged. The Germans finally get a break on the next round as the Allies miss – and are able to sink Hood. The battle looks close until the two remaining Germans are sunk and disabled respectively on the fifth round. That was enough for the Axis to throw in the towel.
Mark Booth (Wednesday, 06 October 2021 16:17)
QF #3 ended with Mark emerging victorious with the Allies with a 1.5 POC bid.
Things went poorly for the Axis, commanded by Bob, from the very beginning, when 2 failed speed rolls to the NATL on turn 1 left the Axis with its four 7-speed ships unable to control the area against 4 Allied BB, and losing two Axis ships to none for the Allies. And lights out shooting by the Allied ASW commenced on turn 1 and never let up throughout the game. Although the Axis judiciously used its U-Boat fleet, I count 21 Allied ASW overall sinking 9 U-Boats through the game’s end after 6 turns. The Axis U-Boat fleet never exceeded 4. The resulting Axis frontal assaults on the blockade by surface ships didn’t fare much better, as eventually the Axis fleet was chewed up. There was not much the Axis could do.
Mark Booth (Tuesday, 09 November 2021 02:51)
The final was a real tight game with my (Mark’s) Axis side winning narrowly, being ahead of Ed’s Allies by 1.5 POC after the bid at the end of 7 turns, after which Ed graciously conceded. The Allies here were fighting attrition problems from the get-go. Their high point was at the very beginning, sinking 3 German ships in the South Atlantic in first round action on turn 1, but then the full fleet of Axis ships (minus one failed speed roll) responded by sinking 3 Allied ships in return and then a fourth in the next round to secure the sea zone. And then Allied carrier losses to LBA in the Barents of the Ark Royal on T1 and then the Vicky on T3 significantly reduced the ASW capability of the Allies.
The Axis got the better of 2 tight surface battles in the North Atlantic on turns 2 and 4, which could have gone either way. On T2, the Gneisenau, two 1-2-7’s, 4 Italian cruisers, and 3 U-Boats bested 4 UK BBs and the Formidable, sinking 2 BBs and disabling the others, while no Axis ships were sunk. The T4 battle consisted solely of 4 Italian cruisers from France and 6 U-Boats versus one UK BB (Malaya), the Formidable, and Convoy 2B, with the U.S. critically providing no ships for the turn when the Allies were strapped for ships to cover the other sea zones. After the Formidable took out one IT cruiser, the remaining 3 sunk the Malaya in round 1 action, and then the remaining 2 disabled the convoy in the next round, leaving just the previously-damaged Formidable, which was then disabled. That was the critical turning point, as having won 3 high-POC sea zones in the first four turns, and U-Boats having decontrolled sea zones on turns 1 and 3, the Axis then let the U-Boats carry the load against the depleted Allied ASW. The Allies expertly spread their depleted ASW around the board to deal with the ASW shortfall, but the U-Boats were nonetheless able to break control of a sea zone on turns 5-7, by just one U-Boat on turn 5 and then convincingly on turn 7, opening a hole in the blockade through the North Sea for the still 8-ship strong German fleet to sail through on turn 8 if necessary. The convoys all getting through helped keep the Allies in the game, but the U.S. was slow to enter the action, and the Russians did not do the job of attriting the German fleet at all on turns 3 and 4 and were sunk, ending the Russian threat. It is easy to see how any number of die rolls that went the Axis way going for the Allies instead would have changed things dramatically.