Second World War at Sea
North Cape
 Adolf Hitler launched his sneak attack on
the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Red Army
reeled back from the assault, losing thousands
of tanks, guns and planes. On 21 August 1941
the first convoy loaded with equipment and
weapons left Iceland for the Soviet Arctic
port of Archangel. For the next two years,
the Royal Navy would force through convoys
to the Soviet far North against enormous risks
and terrible odds.
North Cape covers
the Allied attempts to push convoys through
the Norwegian and Barents Seas while German
aircraft, submarines and surface ships try
to stop them. Famous convoy operations like
those of PQ12 and PQ17, British carrier raids,
German-Soviet destroyer skirmishes along the
Arctic coast — all of these and more
are included. Like all games in the series,
this one come stuffed with scenarios and variations
on them.
North Cape follows the same story-arc structure as other new Second World War at Sea games, with history and scenarios interwoven to tell the story. Operational scenarios take place on the huge operational map covering the Norwegian
and Barents Seas from Iceland in the southwest
to Novaya Zemlya in the northeast, from the
Norwegian coast to the Arctic pack ice.
 
When task forces make contact, play moves to the Tactical Map, where ships fight each other with guns and torpedoes. Battle scenarios start here, and let you get right into the action and shoot at the enemy (if you make explosion sounds, we won’t tell).
Most operational scenarios are very straightforward
— each side knows what the other must
do. The Allied player has large convoys of
vital merchant shipping that must reach their
destination. The Axis player has bases in
Norway well-placed to intercept them, with
submarines and aircraft that can hit them
almost continuously. Aircraft are drawn in a semi-random
fashion so neither player has perfect intelligence
about their numbers and location. German surface
ships are few in number, but there’s a lot
of open sea in which they can hide and strike
the convoys at vulnerable moments. And with
war raging simultaneously on many other fronts,
the convoy escort forces are stretched very,
very thin.
 
The Germans have the battleship Tirpitz and battle cruiser Scharnhorst, plus
cruisers like Admiral Scheer and Admiral
Hipper and a flock of destroyers in support. The Allies have powerful
British and American battleships like Washington,
Duke of York and Alabama, but it's
rare to see more than one of them enter the
combat zone by herself. They also have aircraft
carriers, but when the weather turns nasty,
these become little more than inviting targets
for U-boat skippers. And the weather's nasty
most of the time.
North Cape includes a huge 22x68-inch map, 550 pieces (210 double-sized ship pieces and 340 normal-sized square ones) and 42 scenarios.
Note: North Cape is a thoroughly re-imagined edition of our old Arctic Convoy game.
Links:
Stock Code APL0723
Retail Price: $119.99
Status: Coming Soon
You can order North Cape right here.
Please allow an extra four weeks for delivery.
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