Saturday, February 06, 2010

Dogger Bank 1915

British (Rich):
5 battlecruisers (3 fast new ones, 2 old), 3 DD flots, 3 light cruiser flots.

Germans (Jim):
3 battlecruisers, 1 Heavy Cruiser, 2 DD flots, 2 light cruiser flots.

The Germans turned for home on running into the British fleet.  The British used the extra speed of their better BCs to close in & the action started with Lion, Tiger & Princess Royal all picking on the Seydlitz, the rearmost German ship whle the Germans spread their fire, one on one (with the Blucher's 8" guns out of range).  The Brits got the range on the Seydlitz & blew the crap out of her.  The Germans dropped her out of the line behind a smoke screen by the LCs & sent their DDs in to disrupt the Brit's BCs.  (See pic - the ships with light blue bases are German).  The Brits turned into the torpedoes & escaped with just a bit of damage to Lion, but the evasive action threw off their fire & the German BCs continued to score hits.

The Germans continued to use smoke to protect the Seydlitz and to keep the Indominable & NZ out of the action while the Brits sent their DDs in.  The Germans chose to damn the torpedoes & kept on hammering at the big BCs.  It was big gamble & it didn't work real well - their secondary batteries shot badly & the CLs were busy laying smoke so a lot of DDs got to fire their torpedoes & all the BCs copped some significant damage, especial Moltke which was nearly sunk & then finished off by the BCs.  Nevertheles, the German's relentless fire did pay off when the Lion sunk & the Princess Royal blew up.

With only the Tiger left of the good Brit BCs, the Germans stopped the smoke & turned on the other two.  The Derflinger got in one tight salvo on the Indominable that nearly sunk her outright.  A second one put her down.  The Blucher hurt NZ, then when the Derflinger turned her guns onto her, she went down too.  But the Kiwis had a salvo in the air as they sank and the Derflinger suffered a flash from a turret & blew up (the Germans fixed this problem after Dogger Bank, the Brits didn't).  That was a critical incident.  Now both sides had just one capital ship left.  The Blucher was outclassed by the Tiger, but the Tiger was badly damaged & had half her turrets out of action, so the cruiser had a chance.  But she lucked out, the The Tiger got the range first & put her down.

This was as big a battle two guys can do in a  night with these rules - it was near midnight when we finished.  Both players were unrealistically gung ho of course - no real admirals would allow such MAD.  The Brits won with 1 BC & a few LCs & DDs left afloat.  The Germans lost all but a few DDs & LCs.  The scenario is in the Brits favour, but the German player was more experienced with the rules & tactics which made it a pretty fair fight.  It was rattling good fun & I can see ways to further refine the rules to make them work a bit better still.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

jim you are no german admiral,stop using those italian dice

Anonymous said...

Indeed! I, The Brits, also threw alot of maple leafs (long live the empire).