From: Sean Barnett Subject: Shipbase Dogger Bank (long) Subject: Time: 9:51 AM OFFICE MEMO Shipbase Dogger Bank (long) Date: 9/4/96 A group of Northern Virginia consimmers got together on Monday to play some naval minis games. Brian McCue, Wade Hinkle, Chris Weuve, Arius Kaufman, Brian's friend Don, and I gathered at Brian's house. In the morning, we played a quick strategic game of Great War at Sea which ended in a draw, without a real tactical engagement. In the afternoon, we broke out Arius' 1/6000 scale ships for a refight of Dogger Bank, using the Shipbase 3 rules. [note to Nate: this turned out differently than the Dogger Bank scenario you ran at Historicon using Battlefleet: the Dreadnoughts. I thought you might be interested.] Wade and I played the Germans, and Chris, Arius, and Don played the British; Brian refereed. The two task forces began about 26,000 yards apart on intersecting courses, with the Germans steaming SW and the British SE. The Germans had 3 CLs and 2 DDs in the lead, followed by the BC line of Bluecher (not a BC), Derfflinger, Moltke, and Seydlitz, followed by 2 DDs and 2 CLs. The British had 3 CLs in the lead, followed by their BC line of Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand, and Indefatigable. They had one squadron of 8 DDs in line ahead to port of the BC line, and another squadron of 8 DDs astern of the BC line. The action began when the British DD squadron spotted the Germans and attacked. Unfortunately for them, the range and the firepower of the German squadron was too great and they were all sunk (in about 3 turns) before they could get into torpedo range. (Big ships, i.e. CLs and above, were quite effective against the small DDs) Meanwhile, the BCs and the two vanguard squadrons began to exchange fire. The Brits scored a couple of early hits on Bluecher at long range that reduced her speed. She fell out of line to port and continued to fight. The Brit CLs also sank the 2 lead German DDs fairly quickly, but the 3 lead German CLs proved a much more resilient foe. Derfflinger and Moltke focused their fire on Lion, beginning to score at around 15,000 yards, while Seydlitz and Bluecher fired on Tiger at longer range with less success. (A problem we had at the sea scale we were playing (1" = 1333 yards, which was the same as used in AH Jutland) was that the ship bases were long enough that even when the ships were literally butted up base to base a squadron of 5 ships was long enough that the head of the British BC line was in range of the Germans for a few turns before the tail, and vice versa for the German line) After the opening exchange, the German squadron turned S. Both sides continued to trade fire, the British launched a second DD attack with their rear squadron, and the lead German CLs turned toward the head of the British task force. The rear German squadron of 2 CLs and 2 DDs, and occasionally the Seydlitz, engaged the attacking British DDs, and sank approximately one DD per turn (eventually sinking 7 and crippling 1), although the Brits did get into extreme torpedo range (about 12,000 yards) and fired many torpedoes. Eventually (about 6 turns later) the torpedoes sank the two German CLs. At the head of the British task force, the German CLs bored in and received fire from the British CLs and Lion and Tiger. The fire sank 2 CLs but not before they moved into torpedo range and fired. The German CL fire, with some help from Bluecher, sank the British CLs in about 4 or 5 turns. Surprisingly, one German CL survived the exchange in reasonable shape and continued to fire on Lion. In response to the torpedo fire, the British turned toward the German BC line, crossing their own T. At that point, the two BC lines continued to trade fire, with the Germans scoring heavily on Lion, and apparently reducing Tiger's speed through a critical hit, and the British scoring evenly on all the Germans. The range was about 10,000 yards. Just before the end of the game (we ran out of time :-( ), the German rear DDs closed to within torpedo range of the slowed Lion and Tiger (about 5,000 yds for Germans) and fired, hitting Lion 3 times. The other British BCs had turned S to parallel the German course and fade away from the DD attack. The final tally had 2 DDs and 4 CLs sunk on the German side, with Bluecher 60% damaged and the other BCs between 15% and 25% damaged. The Brits lost 15 DDs and 3 CLs, with 1 DD crippled. Lion was 90% damaged, Tiger 18% and the other BCs 5% damaged or less. My inclination as German commander at that point would have been to break off and concentrate fire on Lion (and potentially ordering another torpedo attack from the surviving DDs) to sink her and get away with a victory. If Tiger was slowed as badly as she appeared to be, that would have left 3 intact British BCs pursuing 3 somewhat damaged German BCs plus the moderately damaged Bluecher. If the Germans don't get away, that might be a battle of annihilation; if a British BC blew up it would be a chance for a greater German victory. Note to consim: Interestingly, Nate Forney from NWR ran a Dogger Bank scenario at Historicon using Battlefleet: the Dreadnoughts. The main event in that game (I was an observer) appeared to be a melee in the center of the board between German and British destroyer squadrons. The results differed significantly from what we saw with Shipbase in that in BTD gunfire between DDs and CLs is quite ineffective. The melee in Nate's game just kind of drifted, with British DD squadrons occasionally forced to retire by failing morale checks (done by the computer). Also, I'm not sure how Shipbase treats the propensity of British BCs to explode, but BTD appears to make that likely (having personally exploded in the Tiger in a BTD game at Cold Wars). Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Too bad we didn't get to finish. Sean Barnett From: "Arius V. Kaufmann" Subject: FYI: Shipbase Dogger Bank (long) Sean Barnett Wrote... -------- Just before the end of the game (we ran out of time :-( ), the German rear DDs closed to within torpedo range of the slowed Lion and Tiger (about 5,000 yds for Germans) and fired, hitting Lion 3 times. The other British BCs had turned S to parallel the German course and fade away from the DD attack. The final tally had 2 DDs and 4 CLs sunk on the German side, with Bluecher 60% damaged and the other BCs between 15% and 25% damaged. The Brits lost 15 DDs and 3 CLs, with 1 DD crippled. Lion was 90% damaged, Tiger 18% and the other BCs 5% damaged or less. My inclination as German commander at that point would have been to break off and concentrate fire on Lion (and potentially ordering another torpedo attack from the surviving DDs) to sink her and get away with a victory. If Tiger was slowed as badly as she appeared to be, that would have left 3 intact British BCs pursuing 3 somewhat damaged German BCs plus the moderately damaged Bluecher. If the Germans don't get away, that might be a battle of annihilation; if a British BC blew up it would be a chance for a greater German victory. Sean ---------- Some range information may shed light on this: British DD's had a range of roughly 7.5" (10,000 yards) British DD Torps had a range of 10" (12,000 yards) The German DD's had a range of roughly 12" (14,500 yards) with a Torp range of roughly 3.5" (4,200 yards) The BC's had anywhere from 14"-16" range (17,000-20,000 yards) The CL's had roughly a 13.5" range (16,000 yards) As you can see, the British DD's were hopeless. They only moved 1.45-1.7 inches a turn. With the Germans moving 1.25-1.5 inches, this meant a closing speed of roughly half an inch (at best). So it took LOTS of turns of closing to get in torpedo range (most of which hit at 7-8.5" ie 10,000-12,000 yards) not to mention gunnery range. I "threw away" the DD's at the far superior German guns because this meant the Germans were NOT shooting at the BC's. Personally, I thought it a great victory when the DD's sank two CL's with the torps they fired, since it took several BC's and CL's to sink two German CL's and two DD's. (One spread was in the water still, but probably wasn't going to hit anything.) Arius