Jutland Campaign: Battle in the Skagerrak part 2

Last week the action commenced at 1700H & ran for 21 turns until 2030H.  We continued the battle tonight with 9 turns to go to night fall at 2200H.  
Jim is Admiral Scheer, Mark is Jellico, Chris is Beatty.  Mike is table umpire.  PeterW, PeterC, Dale & SteveD observed on Zoom.

The High Seas fleet is in a tight formation heading south (in the foreground of pic).  The Grand Fleet is in a great arc to their west also heading south with their van ahead of the Germans.

When the Brits start to get the range & start hurting the Germans, Scheer sends out his DDs to lay smoke to cover a reorganising of his line.

With his line straightened Scheer let the smoke clear in front of his van while still shielding his rear.

As both side get serious hits on each other in the big gun duel the British DDs launch a torpedo attack on the German van.

The German van turns away from the torpedoes as damage mounts on the leading squadrons of both sides.  In their rear the Germans launch torpedo attack on Beatty's squadrons.

The the Germans have inflicted more damage than they have received, but they cannot afford to take losses like the British can, so Scheer has ordered the whole High Seas Fleet to turn away behind their DDs laying smoke & the Grand Fleet is pursuing. 

With battle reaching the table edge, we moved the hex sheets one module back across the table & the Germans continued their retreat as night approached.

At night fell the Germans let their smoke clear to get a last shot at Beatty & Admiral Scheer needed a drink.  Night visibility is 4 hexes, so all contact is lost at 2200H.

The Butcher's bill is slightly in favour of the Germans:
                                                     British      Germans
Capital ships sunk                        1                0
Ships with serious damage:         5                3
Ships with significant damage:   6                5
Ships with minor damage:           8                7
DD flots shattered:                      0                3 
Both sides avoided losing ships by throwing good dice for special damage, or breaking off before damage got too severe.  But the the German's problem is that the Brits still have 17 undamaged capital ships left to the German's 4.

The rulers mark the campaign map hex sides (which are 24 battle hexes wide).  The procedure now is that a map will be prepared of the location of the squadrons at nightfall.  Each side will prepare a night plan showing the movement of their squadrons thru the night.  The Umpire will determine if there is any contact ( that is any ships get within 4 hexes of the enemy).  If not, normal campaign moves will resume at dawn.  If there is a contact, there may be a night action to fight next week.