Supermarina I 1 Supermarina I The First Part of the Mediterranean War June 1940 - June 1941 by John D. Gresham and Mike Markowitz edited by Larry Bond published by The Admiralty Trilogy Group Copyright ©1995, 2014 by the Admiralty Trilogy Group, LLC and John D. Gresham and Mike Markowitz. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. Made in the USA. No part of this game may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the pub- lisher. Command at Sea is a registered Trademark by Larry Bond, Christoper Carlson, and Edward Kettler for their WW II tactical naval wargame. The designers of Command at Sea and Supermarina are prepared to answer questions about play of the game system. They can be reached in care of the Admiralty Trilogy Group at [email protected]. Visit their website at www.admiraltytril- ogy.com. This version of Supermarina I has been updated to include all corrections from errata through 5 April 2021, and adjust- Samplements made to be compatible with the Command at Sea 4th edition rules and the Fleet series of filedata annexes. Cover: Two Italian Cavour class battleships as seen from the quarterdeck of an Italian Spica class torpedo boat. (Luce Photo Agency from the collection of Larry Bond, colorized by Irootoko_jr). 2 Supermarina I Foreword The Romans called it Mare Nostrum, “Our Sea.” When the Kingdom of Italy emerged as a unified nation in 1870, it inherited this attitude, along with a great naval tradition forged by seafaring city states like Genoa and Venice. Two genera- tions of brilliant, imaginative naval architects and engineers gave Italy some of the world’s fastest and most handsome war- ships. When the Second World War began, a highly professional officer corps led a force of brave and resourceful sailors into battle against the Allies. The tragedy of the Royal Italian Navy was not only that it entered the war fighting for Benito Mussolini and the evil cause of Fascism, but that it was crippled by an inadequate industrial base, a desperate shortage of fuel and a chronic inability to coordinate its action with land-based air power. The popular perception of the Italian Navy (Regia Marina) and its central command (Supermarina) as a collection of incompetent and cowardly buffoons was largely a product of British wartime propaganda and Anglo-Saxon ethnic preju- dice. On more than one occasion, a lone Italian 600-ton torpedo boat, escorting a convoy, encountered a force of British cruisers and destroyers, and without hesitation, closed to attack. For 40 months the Regia Marina pushed convoys through to North Africa despite the best efforts of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force to stop them. An incredible 92% of the supplies and men got through. It should not be forgotten that after Italy left the Axis in September, 1943, most of the officers and men of the Regia Marina continued to fight on the Allied side, to liberate their own country from brutal German occu- pation. In the grand strategy of the war the Mediterranean was a side show, though for Winston Churchill and the British Em- pire it was an obsession. The lifeline of the Empire ran from Gibraltar through Suez and Churchill’s fixation on an indirect approach through the “soft underbelly” of Europe meant that the Royal Navy had to contest the control of the Mediterra- nean, even when the Battle of the Atlantic had stretched it to the breaking point. The naval war in these narrow waters was shaped by the overlap of crossed supply lines — the Axis line running north-south and the Allied line west-east. Fighting at close quarters, both sides were able to strike directly at enemy bases (Taranto, Malta, Alexandria). Geography also afforded great scope for mine warfare, torpedo boats and “special operations.” It was naval warfare of a grand sort, with every conceivable kind of action; classic fleet battles, antisubmarine warfare, air strikes against land and naval targets, shore bombardments, special operations by small craft and frogmen, and extensive minelaying (historically an important form of warfare in these constricted waters but one that we have not attempted to model at this tactical scale). The only exception is carrier versus carrier, since the Italian aircraft carriers Aquila and Spar- viero (rebuilt passenger liner hulls) were never completed. The naval war in the Mediterranean ultimately determined the outcome of the war in North Africa. When Francisco Franco refused to cooperate with Axis plans to seize Gibraltar and when Hitler refused to provide the resources needed for Operazione C.3 (the Italian airborne and amphibious assault on Malta) the fate of Rommel’s Panzer Armee was sealed. That meant that the Axis would never conquer the oil fields of the Middle East, and Germany would lose the war sooner, rather than later. If a few more Axis tankers and ammunition ships had reached North Africa and a few less Allied tankers and ammunition ships had reached Malta, the outcome of the first Battle of El Alamein (August, 1942) might have been different. Supermarina I covers the first year of the war in the Mediterranean. We have covered famous actions like Taranto, Matapan and the big convoy battles but we have also tried to include a representative selection of smaller fights that can be played to a conclusion in an hour or less. In Supermarina II, our planned sequel, we plan to continue the story through the dramatic Malta convoy battles of 1942. Except for a few merchant vessels and tankers, few American ships took part in this early phase of the war. As a re- sult, some of the most remarkable naval battles in history are almost unknown to historians and wargamers on this side of the Atlantic. If this volume of the Command at Sea game system honors the memory of brave sailors who served on both sides and helps to stimulate interest in a neglected period of naval history, our efforts will be well rewarded. JohnSample D. Gresham and Michael Markowitz file Supermarina I 3 Table of Contents Page Foreword 2 Table of Contents 3 Scenario Notes and Locator Map 4 Guide to Pronunciation 5 Map of the Eastern Mediterranean 6 Map of the Western Mediterranean 7 Opening Moves First Blood, Bagnolini vs. Calypso 12 Jun 40 Solo Italian SS vs. British cruiser and DD screen 9 Action off Calabria (Battle of Punta Stilo) 9 Jul 40 General fleet action 10 Cape Spada 19 Jul 40 Cruiser, destroyer surface action 14 Ajax and Convoy MB6 12 Oct 40 Cruiser, destroyer surface action 17 Rainbow's End 15 Oct 40 Solo British sub vs. solo Italian sub 18 Taranto and After The Taranto Raid 11 Nov 40 Air attack on the Italian fleet in harbor 19 Otranto Straits 11-12 Nov 40 British CLs and DDs vs. escorted Italian convoy 25 The Fight off Cape Teulada (Battle of Cape Spartivento) 27 Nov 40 General daylight fleet action 28 The Inshore Squadron 17 Dec 40 Raid on a small harbor 31 Operation Excess 6-14 Jan 41 Campaign-level convoy actions 32 The Vega Incident 10 Jan 41 Cruiser, destroyer surface action 34 Attack on Illustrious 10 Jan 41 Land-based air strike on carrier task force 35 The Raid on Genova 9 Feb 41 Attack by British on Italian forces in port 37 Convoy to Tripoli 24-26 Feb 41 Solo British SS vs. strongly escorted convoy 42 Battle of Cape Matapan 25-29 Mar 41 General fleet action (mini-campaign) 43 Italian Special Operations - The 10th Light Flotilla in Action Diaster in the Gulf of Bomba 21 Aug 40 British Swordfish attack a MAS and an Italian SS 47 Suda Bay 26 May 41 Italian special forces attack on harbor (solitaire) 49 The Convoy War The Sinking of Bonaventure 31 Mar 41 Italian SS attacks British CL and DD 51 Kerkennah Bank (The Battle of the Buoys) 16 Apr 41 Convoy battle 53 The Conte Rosso Convoy 24 May 41 Convoy battle 55 The Crete Campaign Black Thursday: The Battle for Crete 19 May 41 Luftwaffe airstrikes on British warships 57 Night Action in the Kasos Straits 21 May 41 Night surface attack by Italian MAS boats 60 The Lupo Convoy 21 May 41 British DDs vs. transports and a lone Italian TB 62 The Sagittario Convoy 22 May 41 British squadron vs. a convoy and a lone Italian TB 63 Sidebars What Was Supermarina? 8 The Admiralty 8 Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham 13 Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Louis Mountbatten 13 The British Edge: Aircraft Carriers, Radar, and ULTRA 27 Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Fownes Somerville 29 The Italian Admirals 63 SampleBibliography file65 4 Supermarina I Scenario Notes This supplement provides scenarios for the first part of the Mediterranean War, from the start of the fighting in June 1940 through the summer of 1941. This includes the initial sparring between the battle fleets, convoy battles, special oper- ations, airstrikes, and submarine operations. We have tried to cover not only surface engagements but air and submarine actions as well. Space prevents us from including every encounter, but all the major ones during the period are covered. The scenarios are grouped into campaigns each representing a distinct phase of the war. This can be vital in understand- ing why a particular battle occurred. The individual engagements are all historical. For those who wish to explore alterna- tive setups, variations are provided. Although there is a wealth of sources for WW II naval gaming, there is still a lot of information that we haven’t found.