Murmansk Run:  Arctic Convoys to Russia - Rules Simplified - 11Feb18
A4 Landscape, minimum margins        Copyright © 2016 Louis R. Coatney
General class descriptions:  CVE=Escort Carrier, D=Destroyer, CL=Light Cruiser, CA=Heavy Cruiser, BC=Battle Cruiser, CVB=Battle Carrier, B=Battleship, SB=SuperBattleship.  For surface warships, its firing class rating is in the lower left and defending class in the lower right.

Victory Determination - whoever wins 5 seasons wins the game - 7 or more is a strategic victory - any other result is a draw:  
Whoever gets more strategic victory points in a season wins it.  For the Allies, a victory point can be delivering a total of 8 freighter loads in Murmansk and/or Arkangelsk in that season, but the Germans get that point, if the Allies can't.  A point can be sinking an enemy capital ship - battleship, battle carrier, battle cruiser - Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, or Renown - not pocket battleships Luetzow or Scheer.  (Thus, for example, if the Germans sank King George V, while the Allies both succeeded in their convoy delivery and sank Gneisenau, the Allies would win that season.  A draw is obviously possible too.)
Forces at the start of a season turn and the possibility of additional convoys in the same season turn:
Start of season transit(?) of German warships north to Norway and repair(?) or RAF bombing of German warships in repair facilities in Germany:
    At the very start of each season, Ready to Sail German warships make it to (Trondheim) Norway on a roll of 1-3, must return on 4-5, and are Damaged and must return into Under Repair on 6 - in 1942.  In 1943, subtract 1 from this die roll, and in 1944 subtract 2.  The German player may then attempt to repair his Damaged warships Under Repair in Germany.  A die roll of 1-3 repairs it and it becomes Ready to Sail, a 4 or 5 and repairs are unfinished and continue, and if a 6 it is destroyed in the dockyard by RAF heavy bombers and removed from the game (but does NOT count for victory determination). 
Replacements and Allied Reinforcements:  At the start of each season, all air units, the U-boat wolfpack, and 1 destroyer division for each side may be replaced and (re-appear) in the game - for the Germans, already in Norwegian air bases and ports - if they were lost or Damaged in the previous season.  (Single warships sunk are permanently removed from the game.)  The "Freighters ... left" marker is moved to 12 and "Loads Delievered" moved to 0.  Ship names on the season turn track indicate their turn of arrival into the game - withdrawals are labeled with "out."  All other Allied ships are available to be used with the following restriction:
  German forces starting a season:  At the start of the first season, Gneisenau (rearming with 15" guns) and Leipzig are Under Repair.  Scharnhorst, Prinz Eugen, Nuernberg, and Mob-5 are Ready to Sail from Germany and attempt to do so before the first season starts.  All others are in Trondheim, except for a destroyer unit which may be in Kirkenes.
  The U-boat Wolfpack starts a season anywhere within the U-boat area - although it may then leave that - east of Bear Island.)  Air units may start in any air base.  After the first season, German surface ships in Norway start in whichever port they returned to in the previous season.
  Allied forces starting a season:  ... depend on the size of the German forces after sailings north to Norway.  (Russian Type 7 destroyers start in Murmansk.)  From the Allied pool of (representative) ships, in addition to a carrier (Victorious or Formidable or an escort carrier, when one becomes available), there should one more Allied capital ship than German, in Norway, if possible.  All available American ships must be used.  Thus, if Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau were all in Norway and able to sail, there could/should be 4 Allied battleships and/or battle cruisers.  For cruisers (randomly chosen, face-down) the Allies also get 1 more than the Germans (which includes pocket battleships Luetzow and Scheer).  An escort carrier may be substituted for an Allied cruiser, when they become available.  Allied ships start a season entering the mapboard at A or B - battleships and Renown only at B -  with those positions counted against movement.
Additional convoys:  If the Allied player has not unloaded/delivered the required 8 freighter loads in Murmansk and/or Arkangelsk, he may mount more convoys.  Both the Allied and German player may only use ships (including freighters) and air units which have survived so far in that season, and Allies re-start in the west.
U.S. Navy warships:  If an American battleship or both heavy cruisers are lost, all American ships are withdrawn from the game (to the Pacific).  Washington is withdrawn from the game after Summer 1942 (to go win the Nov42 2nd Battle of Guadalcanal and save the U.S. Marines thereon, historically).  Alabama arrives in Spring 1943 and is withdrawn after Fall 1943, unless there would be an insufficient number of Allied capital ships to oppose the German ones.
Weather, for each time period:  Check the Weather table on the mapsheet for Storm incidence and in subsequent Time Periods the probability of a Storm continuing.  Storms prevent air operations, they increase U-boat/submarine combat against the Convoy by 1 on the die roll, and they reduce destroyer (but not larger warship) speed to 1 position per time period.  
ICE:  In Winter and Spring, all positions within the ICE area are unnavigable, and the port of Arkangelsk is closed.
Air operations - reconnaisance and attacks - at Dawn or during the Day:
Air reconnaisance:  During Fair weather Day time periods in any one pulse, the German player may turn up/reveal unknown Allied ship groups in any one position within air attack range.  The Allied player may similarly reveal one unknown German ship group (or the Wolfpack) 2 positions away from Victorious or Formidable.
Attack range:   German bomber air units have a range of 3 positions from their airbases during Fair weather Day time periods - uncovering an unknown ship group (or dummy, aborting the attack), if necessary.  The battle carrier air unit may attack and return from a position 1 position away.German air units can be transferred to a different base in a Fair weather Day period, but cannot also attack.  An air unit may not attack more than once in an entire time period.
Attacks:   See the combat results table for the air units' attack capabilities.  Allied ships may only be attacked in Murmansk once, in their time period of arrival, unless they arrived at Night.  After its Fleet Air Arm airstrike on a German warship in a German port/base, the offending British battle carrier is automatically and immediately specially air-attacked as if by KG 30 (even if KG 30 is to be used elsewhere in that time period).
   Air attacks get a shift of 1 on the die roll to their advantage, attacking Damaged ships or freighters.  The FAA squadron cannot attack the U-boat Wolfpack.
RAF Lancaster "Tall Boy" bombers:  At the start of the last/Spring 1944 turn but after the Germans have transited any ships to Norway, the Allied player gets to attack any one German warship in a Norwegian port with these.  A 50% die roll sinks the target ship, and if it is a capital ship it does count for victory determination.
Ship movement - in 4 impulses: German 1st, British 1st, G 2nd, B 2nd - see also Air reconnaissance and surface contacts:
   There may not be more than 5 ship units in a group (plus the freighters for the Convoy).  Ship group markers are moved upside down - concealed - on the board, until discovered by air, sub, or surface contact.  Any British ship groups are automatically detected if they are in the next position from/outside a German base.
  For surface ships including the Convoy, enemy surface ships in the same position are instantly and automatically contacted.  Contacted/exposed Dummies are taken off the mapboard.  Dummies may also be taken off the board and re-entered anywhere into the game by the owning player at the start of the ship movement phase.
  Germans move first, 1 position, and then the Allies do so.  The Convoy and groups with Damaged ships or an escort carrier may only move 1 position during the 1st impulse.  Then the German warship groups which can move 2 positions make their 2nd impulse move, and the U-boat Wolfpack moves its 1 position.  Finally, Allied warship groups able to do so move their 2nd position.  Don't forget that destroyer groups can only move 1 position in Storm weather.
  Unless angling south to enter Murmansk or Arkangelsk, the Convoy must always move in an easterly (NE,E, or SE) direction - or stop.  It does not have to stay in the dark convoy lane.  Damaged ships may be detached into other ship group markers.  If there are insufficient group markers for Damaged ships, the owning player must decide whether to reduce the group's speed to 1 position per time period or to scuttle the Damaged ship.
   Dummies:  In addition to real naval units, the Allied player gets to use 2 dummies to confuse the Germans.  The German player gets to use only 1 dummy marker, thanks to the Norwegian Resistance's intelligence service to the Allies.  Unused ship group markers cannot be used as dummies too.
U-boat/sub contacts and attacks - targets may be selected in daytime but are random against UnDamaged warships at night:
  Unterseebooten - U-Boats - threaten the indicated (west-facing icon) positions and all positions in between those in the west and those in the east.  Allied submarines - A for Western Allies and R for Russian - may attempt to contact and attack German surface warships only in their specific indicated positions.
  For each group of enemy ships which is in, enters, or passes through a U-boat/submarine-threatened position, roll a die for a possible individual U-boat/sub contact/ attack.  (There is an additional die roll when warships second-pulse-move into another U-boat/sub-threatened position.)   On a 5-6 - 4-6, if it is the Convoy - the enemy ship group is revealed, and a 0 attack is resolved against a single warship - of choice in daytime but random at night - or 1 freighter is automatically sunk if it is the Convoy and the attacker chooses.  Both the initial contact and the attack die rolls are reduced 1 if there are any destroyers present in the group and by another 1 if an UnDamaged aircraft carrier is present in the group and air operations are possible, but against freighters the attack die roll itself is increased by 1 during a Storm.  It is also increased by (a further) 1 for both contact and attack against any Allied ship group only one position away from a German port/base.
The Wolfpack:  Contact is automatic with any ship groups in the same position, and it must decide which group to attack if more than one is there - German choice in daytime, random at night.  The T results column is used (against freighters, possibly resulting in multiple sinkings or against a single warship unit) - but the attack is shifted down 1 column to the left each for defending destroyers or any carrier in air operations conditions, or shifted up for Storm, as for individual sub attacks above.  A Wolfpack (attack) may be called off without risk of AS loss.  It may attack again in following impulses, if enemy ship groups are (still) on its position. .
Note:   At the start of a Night or Storm time period, all contacts are lost and the ship group counters are turned upside down again.  At the very start of a Day time period, there is a 50% die roll for each ship group as to whether or not a previous contact is lost.
Naval surface battle occurs if opposing ships end up in the same position or would both pass through one at the same time..
  If there is more than one enemy group in a position, the owning player gets to choose which one to use - fight with - in the daytime.  At night, the group to be contacted and engaged is randomly chosen from enemy groups, even those already sub-contacted.  Choosing a dummy results in no night surface combat.
  Use the Battle Board.  There must be at least 1 battle round.  For each battle round, the players each roll a die for the highest number to see whose ship fires first - simultaneous firing if equal die rolls.  During each round, opposing ships pick their targets and alternate their firing.  Any torpedoes to be fired are fired first.  Destroyers and torpedoes may only fire at enemy ships in adjacent areas.  All light cruisers (including Scylla and Ulysses) and German Mob destroyers may fire up to 2 areas away.  All larger - heavy cruiser, BC pocket battleships and battle cruisers, and battleships - may fire up to 3 areas away.  Ships may be relocated after a battle round.  When friendly ships are eliminated from the friendly Screening area, the owning player may move other ships up into it for the next battle round.  If he does not, the opposing player may move his ships across into it, and if those include 3-area-range ships they may fire on the friendly Screened ships.
  .(There is a 33% die roll against each KGV/DoY/Ans firing in each round after the first, due to that class's defective turrets/loading.)  Torpedoes may be used twice for British S class 2T destroyers (which included HNoMS Stord and HMS Saumarez) marked 2T, but only once for all other ships.  (Keep an off-board record for this.)  Because of its weak construction, a combat results column against Koeln is raised 1 column.
Night surface combat:  Both gunfire and torpedo attacks are shifted 1 to destroyers' advantage, even if in a Storm, if the battle occurs at night.
Retreat/flight:  If one side decides to flee - German player decides first - freighters and Damaged warships must be left behind (presumably to be further attacked and sunk).  The fleeing player's ships must retreat to the position from which they came or to one adjacent to it, not occupied by enemy ships.  If the British are fleeing, after 1 more battle round, the Convoy can Scatter - see above.  Both sides can agree to break off the battle after the first round, in which case there are no further losses to either side, but the Germans must retreat.

COMBAT RESULTS TABLE A - Attacker vs. Defender class ranks.  Note the anomaly for attacking destroyer units which have more than 1 ship.
Target ship:\  Firing ship:	D	CL	CA	BC	B, T*	SB
CVE, Convoy			+3	+2	+2	+2	+2	+2
D				0	+1	0	+1	+1	+1
CL				-1	0	+1	+2	+3	+4
CA				-2	-1	0	+1	+2	+3
BC, CVB			-3	-2	-1	0	+1	+2
B				-	-3	-2	-1	0	+1
SBB				-	-	-3	-2	-1	0	* t = T - 1
COMBAT RESULTS TABLE B - Attacker level minus Defender rank:
Die Roll	-3	-2	-1	 0 	+1	+2	+3	+4		+5	KG26	KG30	FAA
A     B
6      1		D	D	DS	DS	Sk	Sk	Sk	Sk		Sk	Sk	DS	DS
5      2		-	D	D	DS	DS	Sk	Sk	Sk		Sk	DS	D	D
4      3		-	-	-	-	D	DS	Sk	Sk		Sk	D	D	-
3      4		-	-	-	-	-	D	DS	Sk		Sk	D2AA	-	-
2      5		AS	AS	AS	AS	AS	AS	AS	DSAS		AA	2AA	-	-
1      6		AS	AS	AS	AS	AS	AS	AS	AS		AA	AA	AA	-

Combat results:
D = Attacked warship or destroyer division is Damaged (or 1 freighter or 1 CVE escort carrier Sunk).  Damaged CVB battle carriers lose their Fleet Air Arm sqdn.  Damaged warship's speed becomes Slow - 1 position per time period.  A Damaged ship's gun and torpedo fire is reduced by 1 column - gun and torpedo fire against it increased by 1 column.
  After/if a Damaged German warship makes it back to a base, a die roll of 1-2 means it is repairable, can stay in Norway, and can be used in the very next season.  A die roll of 3-4 also means it stays in Norway, but can only return to the game 2 seasons later.  A die roll of 5-6 means it returns to Germany for Repairs.  Damaged Allied warships return to the Allied force pool 2 seasons/game-turns later, if they make it off the board to the west.  If they instead make it into Murmansk (and survive a possible air attack) or Arkangelsk, they have a 67%/1-4 chance of returning to Britain and returning to the game 3 season turns later.
DS = Damaged, but an already Damaged warship is Sunk (or 2 freighters Sunk).
Sk = Sunk (or 3 freighters Sunk)...

AA = Air attack and antiaircraft are separate die rolls, by the attacker and defender, respectively.  Air unit shot down and out of game for the rest of that season turn.  2AA shot down if there is any kind of aircraft carrier with the ship group.
AS = U-boat Wolfpack sunk - eliminated for the rest of that season turn - if Convoy or any warship group is accompanied by destroyers.  Shift 1 on die roll to AS advantage if as well any carrier in the attacked group and air operations are possible.  Separate die rolls as for AA.
  The die roll of an air attack against un-Slowed warships is shifted down 1.
  KG30 can bomb from low altitude and gets a(nother?) favorable shift on the die of 1, but the anti-aircraft die roll is also increased by 1.

German Fuel Shortage:  Starting in Winter 1942, the Kriegsmarine suffers fuel constraints.  If the German Player wants to sortie his surface warships he rolls a die to see how many fuel factors he has.  Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau consume 2 factors each - all others including destroyer groups consume 1 - the U-boats consume none.  (Against a second convoy, he has half that, fractions rounded up.)  If he then decides not to sortie his surface ships that season, he automatically gets Full Fuel - 6 factors - for the next season, and that marker is placed accordingly.
Convoy to Scatter!:  This convoy is over.  Put your left finger on Freighter Box 1 (if you have any freighters left), and roll the die.  33% chance the freighter survives.  If not, move the Freighters marker 1 box left.  Go to the next freighter.  Allied warships are similarly withdrawn - roll the 33% against Damaged warships.
Return to Base:  German ships may return to any German naval base in Norway, although only 1 German ship (or destroyer group) may use Kirkenes as a base.  German ships in a Norwegian port/base can be attacked by the Fleet Air Arm squadron (or just once by the "Tall Boy" Lancaster heavy bombers in Spring 1944).  If German warships return to a port/base, they may not leave it for the rest of that convoy, but they may leave it later to try to attack another convoy in that same season.

Each 12-Hour Time Period's Sequence - within each time period phase, the British player decides/acts first:
Time of Day - Weather - Contacts Cancelled?
Convoy to Scatter?  Movement of ship( groups and dummie)s in 4 pulses: Germans move 1 position first, then Allies (including Convoy), then German Wolfpack and warships able to move 2, then Allied warships' 2nd move.  One air reconnaisance and one air attack per air unit per time period at any time.  In a pulse, U-boat/sub (including Wolfpack) attacks occur before surface naval combat.
Repeat for next time period.
At the conclusion of a Convoy's time period of arrival at its destination (and after any German air attacks on Murmansk at that time):  the surviving freighers are unloaded into the Murmansk/Arkangelsk depots, and the Allied player must decide whether or not to run another convoy. ??
If not, 8 freighter loads are subtracted from the Murmansk/Arkangelsk depots.  If  that leaves less than 0 loads in the depots, the Allies don't get convoy credit for that season turn, and the Germans would win it ... unless capital ship losses alter the result.

Playtesters in Oslo Norway's Ares Spillklubb:  Sebastian Marchesi, Hans Holm Torgersen, Tor Mæhlum
Research sources:.
	Breyer, Siegfried.  Battleships and Battle Cruisers, 1905-1970.  Doubleday, 1973.
	Irving, David.  The Destruction of Convoy PQ 17.  Cassell, 1968.
	Janiec, Chris. (Designer)  PQ-17:  Arctic Naval Operations, 1941-43. GMT Games, 2009.
	McLean, Alistair.  HMS Ulysses.  1st American ed.  Doubleday, 1956.  (McLean's first, highly successful novel.)
	Pope, Dudley.  73 North:  the Defeat of Hitler's Navy.  Lippincott, 1958.
	Rohwer, J., and G. Hummelchen.  Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939-1945.  2nd, revised edition.  U.S. Naval Institute, 1992.
	The Royal Navy and the Arctic Convoys:  A Naval Staff Study.  Routledge, 2007.
	Stephen, Martin.  Sea Battles in Close-up:  World War 2.  U.S. Naval Institute, 1991.
	Watts, A.J. The Loss of Scharnhorst.  Ian Allan, 1970.

The game's design, etc.:

  Only eastward convoys are included.  Empty freighters had a far less target priority for the Germans.

  If playing a beginning opponent, let him/her be the Germans and play with your units face up, while theirs are face down until detected/contacted.  You might also reduce your starting number of freighters, at least until the beginning player catches on to the game.

  Although seemingly simple in concept, the rules have turned out to be very involved because of all the variables.  I'm sure I will be re-editing these regularly.

  And I have absolutely NO idea if the game is balanced, although the victory conditions seem historically realistic.  So far, the Allies have been winning - the Germans may have been too eager to risk their ships.

  SO FEEDBACK IS REQUESTED.  :-)

Murmansk Run:  Arctic Convoys to Russia - Game-Turn Log

German Player(s): _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _	American Player(s): _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Seasonal Turn No.
					
1				6

2				7

3				8

4				9

5