Atlantic Fleet Battles / War Summary of all Vessels

[RJBub1]

Hi.
This will be sort of like DEF in SH3, but my own thing in Atlantic Fleet. Without further ado I present the Battles of the Kreigsmarine Warships.
The Gneisensau and Scharnhorst along with the Z1 patrol the area around the English Channel.
A few days after their arrival, a small anti submarine task force is spotted.
Gneisensau opens up.

The destroyer HMS Ashanti is stopped dead in her tracks by six 11 inch shell hits.

Ashanti slides beneath the waves after 9 11" she'll hits.

Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Z1 now turn their attention to a solitary unidentified V.W. class destroyer. 11 seconds later, it's pummeled and smoking.

Entire A/S group sunk. Just less destroyers to hunt our U-Boats.

[RJBub1]

Three weeks after the Battle off the Channel Islands, the battleships Bismarck, Tirpitz, and the Heavy Cruiser Blucher set out from Kiel on Operation ZërstorenKonvoi, which literally translates to Destroy Convoys. A week later, this would come true when a convoy near the Shetland Islands was intercepted. However it is escorted by the battleship Queen Elizabeth and destroyer HMS Onslow. Yet Lutjens decides to take it on.
Bismarcks first salvo just misses the Queen Elizabeth.



Bismarck fires again.
Bismarck's gunners zero in with deadly efficiency. 3 lethal seventeen hundred pound 15" shells hit home. It seems the Royal Battleship may succumb to the German's withering firepower.



Now Tirpitz opens up. 2 lethal 15" shells hit the bridge, killing everybody but the captain himself.
Blucher's 8" 900lb shells now are just 14 miles away - striking distance for her 8 inch guns. Blucher fires a whole broadside, and all hit home. One 8" she'll hits her aft radar, knocking it out.
2 hit C turret, also knocking that out and killing most everybody in it. Another 2 disable D turret, but do not knock it out. The other 3 hit the armor belt and don't cause much damage.


Finally a huge explosion shakes the ship, possibly from a Blucher, hits ready use ammo, destroying most of her superstructure and deck platforms, and sending it to the bottom.
The only escort left is the battered HMS Onslow. Onslow did a good job at escorting by moderately damaging the Blucher with 4.7 and 3" shells. The shells hit weak deck areas, also killing a few sailors. But at 10:35 AM, 15 minutes after the fight began, Blucher strikes back. A broadside of 900lb shells hits the Onslow, killing almost everybody on board. It too, wipes out the bridge, and levels the entire deck. With the escorts gone, Bismarck, Tirpitz and Blucher turn their attention to the freighters. The freighters, doddling away at just 18 knots, frantically send distress signals and fire their weak 3/50" deck guns. Amazed at the "fight" they were putting up, Lutjens orders his 5.9" secondary weapons to open fire. Almost every gun on the 3 ships blasts away, and in 5 minutes, all 12 merchants are sunk. One of those, the SS Pan Pennslyvania, was carrying 116.000 barrels of aviation petrol, along with 2 LCI (L) landing craft of about 290 tons as deck cargo. All but one of the landing craft and other cargo survive, the LCI floating free before a U-Boat spotted and torpedoed it. Britain's lifelines are being strangled.

[RJBub1]

Less than five days after the successes of Operation ZërstorenKonvoi, the Second Battle off the Channel Islands takes place.
The Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, along with the Destroyer Z1 again patrol 30 miles off France. After numerous failed air strikes, a Hawker Sea Hurricane successfully attacks Z1, lightly damaging her. The Hawker's 20mm cannons damaged the bridge, and put gun #3 out of service. Finally, a anti submarine task force is sent to shadow and send information on the German capital ships.
But a day later, daylight comes quick, and, the British find themselves out of position. The German battleships, having spotted the force, blast away. They want to clear the possible distractions and intelligence.
The British act quick, laying smoke screens and firing their small 4.7" guns. One such hit straddles Z1, and another two hit the bridge but don't explode, they are dud shells.


The german battleships soon return fire. In just minutes, a number of shells explode and penetrate inside the E class destroyer HMS Eclipse. She immediately takes a 30* list to the left.

Soon Eclipse slides beneath the waves, just like so many other destroyers...


Another destroyer is again sunk. Only one survives the sinking. The only destroyer left is the retreating HMS Express. Lutjens decides to let it go, but it eventually sinks.

Again, the intelligence / A/S group sinks...

Lutjens decides to return to base, Z1 was slowly taking on water. Air strikes were also coming more frequent, and it seemed to Lutjens that HMS Rodney could appear on the horizon at any moment.

[RJBub1]

2 weeks after the Second Battle off the Channel Islands and 18 days after the first success of Operation ZërstorenKonvoi, the Panzerschifee Graf Spee, under the command of Hans Langsdorff, intercepts and destroys a convoy on Early 1940. The sole escort of the convoy, HMS
Vega, immediately sends distress signals and closes in to Graf Spee, going at nearly 35 knots.
While Vega fires star shells at Graf Spee, the 8 merchants disperse to the North.




At 11:40PM, Graf Spee's 28 cm guns fire. The first salvo passes over Vega at nearly 2000 miles per hour. At 11:42 Graf Spee fires again. Again her gunners miss their mark. This gives Vega time to adjust her fire, and, having got the range to the Graf Spee, fires her main and secondary batteries. 4.7" and 3" shells crash into the bridge of Graf Spee, starting fires and wounding many. Graf Spee fires her third salvo, which just misses. The shrapnel from her 11" shells damage the destroyer, and also kill some and wound many. Her C and D turrets are knocked out, the people manning them either unconscious, heavily wounded, or dead. Yet she charges on, firing every 4 seconds. At 11:45 PM a 4.7" she'll hit knocks out Port Secondary turret A and B. But Vega's courageous act comes at a cost: Soon, when the clock hits 11:50 AM Graf Spee focus fires Vega. 6 11" shells hit her two guns, possibly destroying both. Just as Vega turns to fire 8 Mk 21 torpedoes, another 6 11" shells hit those and destroy them. Graf Spee opens up with her remaining 2 secondaries. Those hit and penetrate deep into the decks of the ship, hitting the Diesel engines, and making Vega a sitting duck. Graf Spee now turns her attention to the merchants.


After sinking one small 4.000 ton tramp steamer, Graf Spee now goes after a small ocean liner. The only ship in position to stop her is the the battered HMS Vega. Amazingly, damage control aboard Vega gets Gun A and B working again. Again, Vega fires, starting flames onboard the aft part of the ship. Vega fires, specifically aiming for secondary weapons, successfully knocking out Port Secondary Turret D. But, finally Graf Spee delivers the Cóup Dé Gráce, and Vega slips under the ocean with 81 men.

Langsdorff immediately opens fire at a small merchant of about 500 tons in front. 2 11" hits sink the small thing, the rest of the convoy, scatters. A few days later, Graf Spee sinks 2,250 tons of former shipping of this convoy. Langsdorff is proud.

[RJBub1]

8 days after the success of Graf Spee, the German submarine U-33 has a chance to strike a devastating blow to the enemy.

On a regular dive sweep, U-33 picks up two high speed warship contacts. After several minutes,
U-33 surfaces to periscope depth. Onboard is a Naval Photographer who is to photograph ships and happenings throughout the patrol. Now, he puts his camera to the periscope, and captured this now famous photograph:

U-33 fires 3 torpedoes at the Warspite, and another torpedo at the destroyer HMS Vampire.
57 seconds later, a torpedo hits the Vampire.
All torpedoes that were aimed towards Warspite are either duds or misses.

This battle is widely claimed a success, for the simple reason of leaving Warspite unescorted.

[RJBub1]

2 Days after U-33's sinking of HMS Vampire, the Graf Spee patrols the area around Azore Islands. Nearly 10 days 2 hours after her first convoy victims, Graf Spee spots another convoy. But it's escorted by a Leander class torpedo cruiser/ light cruiser, bristling with torpedoes and 6in. guns. The new tribal class destroyer HMS Maori also escorts - these destroyers are also like gunships : Packed with 4 torpedoes and 8 4.7" guns, these ships are destroyer killers, and sometimes even cruiser killers. Hans knew the odds, but decides to engage.

At 11:22 AM, Graf Spee fires first. Her 11" shells hit the deck of Maori, causing large fires. Immediately HMS Ajax turns her broadside, and fires her lethal spread of 8 6" shells. They hit... Hard. Immediately Ajax's high explosive rounds start fires all through the control tower of the ship.

Maori fires, but her shells only bounce off the Panzerschifee.
The merchants turn away, one of them even firing its puny 75mm gun.
Graf Spee fires at Maori, which is in effective torpedo range, and scores a perfect shot on her:
Her magazines exploded. Graf Spee, now fires at Achilles.

Again Achilles hits Graf Spee with not only a full salvo of 6" guns, but two torpedos as well.
Langsdorffs decision on taking her on was quite bad. Graf Spee now had a 45* list to port.
After firing a final salvo from her 11" guns, Langsdorff orders scuttling charges places and opening the sea valves. 5 of her 11" shells hit Achilles, and badly damaging her to the point of being written off.

[RJBub1]

3 weeks go by without seeing a single US or British warship. 90,000 tons of merchant cargo have gone down the past 3 weeks with no escort. Then, on November 3rd, at 6:00 AM, New German radar picks up contacts 40 miles away.
The Germans, having believed a 3 ship one escort convoy was approaching, Order flank speed ahead. The truth couldn't be more different, however. One of the most powerful British battleships received intelligence stating "German capital warships near Faroe Islands. Submarine Undine reports 3 German Blucher-class heavy cruisers. Britain immediately sends out her top of the line battleship, HMS Duke of York, along with a new gunboat: a J class destroyer.
However the intelligence was not so much a coup as it was misleading: 2 brand new German Bismarck class battleships, both weighing an astonishing 50.000 tons, escorted by a 16.000 ton German Heavy Cruiser: the Blucher.
They wield the fire power to crush any ship in the British Fleet.




At 6:54 AM, King George opens fire at the suspected cruisers. British armor piercing 14 inch shells plunge into the sea. The British ships blast away, but Lutjens, wanting to hold fire to try and identify the or what looked like tankers about 20 miles off, holds his fire.
At 7:00 AM, Bismarck and Tirpitz gives the order to fire. Germany has unrelased the fury of the most powerful warship on earth, used to its most deadly way: BB vs. BB fights.
Bismarck first salvo stops Duke of York dead in her tracks, the first hit hit the compass platform, second hit the upper top part of the second funnel, third hit the bridge, 4th hit the radar, and the other 8 plunged into her waterline. Duke of York suddenly burst into flames as her wooden decks caught flame.




Second salvo had the same results. Nearly 300 men were killed bellow decks, as all these shells went right into the engine room. Tirpitz scores her first hit, when a 5.9" secondary shell struck her funnel, doing minor damage. Tirpitz then got several more main and secondary battery shots before switching targets to the J class. Blucher, only scored a hit on the lower part of funnel 2.
Bismarck fires again. Her rounds devastate the British warship, causing her to start trying to retreat to the north a 13.8 knots.

The ships now aim at the J class. The destroyer had been rapid firing Blucher. She (the destroyer) now suffers heavy damage, and is listing 20* to port. Tirpitz scores direct hits on her, and some men onboard the destroyer even think "Did we just take a torpedo!?"


Blucher is forced to port. So close from Britain, the entire home fleet could sortie out and sink all ships.

Blucher fires a final mighty salvo, before the destroyer goes down. 39 were killed.
With Blucher retreating, Lutjens hurriedly decides to sink what he correctly identified as a T3 Tanker, and a smaller 7.000 ton ship. The jobs done in a few minutes.

[IMG]http://i65.tinypic.com/2isghmw.jpg[/IMG]

[RJBub1]

A week later, the destroyer Z1, having been dispatched for anti/submarine duty, comes across a squadron of Sea Spitfire Fighter/Bombers. Thinking it was pure coincidental, KorvetteKapitan Fritz Bassenge decides to speed ahead. After being strafed by gunfire several times, a short 15 minutes storm comes in. Fritz curses the weather, but it eventually lifts and a in front of him was a sight he never thought he'd see: An ark royal class battleship,nescprted by two destroyers.
A few minutes later, a crew member correctly identifies it as HMS Courageous, escorted by two unknown destroyers. Fritz acts aggressively, returning fire to the destroyers. Eventually the Majesty's destroyers score hits on her front two guns, and disable her steering. Fritz gives he order to blow up the ship.





Z1 slips beneath the waves, with five men. Fritz commits suicide to prevent his capture, and the other 300 or so people are rescued.

[RJBub1]

One month after Z1 sank, Bismarck, Tirpitz, and Heavy Cruiser Blucher encounter 3 ships en route to escort convoy PQ-1.
The British ships first spotted the Germans 30 minutes earlier, and, under the cover of smoke screens, went in to investigate. Lutjens gives the order to fire.
Immediately the ASW Corvette Acanthus is hit by two 15inch shells that over penetrate and go right through the ship.
The escorts retreat to the west, at about 35 knots. Lutjens fires another salvo, which hit Acanthus, blew her up, and sank her in 30 seconds.
The Battleships Gneisenau, Scharnhorst and a heavy cruiser are about 20 miles away. The remaining escorts are not seen for 15 days.

[Onkel Neal]

Very cool.

[RJBub1]

Wow. Thanks, it means a lot to have a compliment from you!
I think I'll keep going on with this..
But I played a bit more, and soon after I lost even though I still had maybe 6/20 bars..
So a new Battle for the Atlantic maybe?


Edit: On second thought, I'll do this tommorow.
I've had a fairly long day.

[Killerfish Games]

Keep it up!
We've been watching this thread also and are thoroughly enjoying your write ups and how well you capture the action.

[em2nought]

Very cool thread, been following it for awhile. Thanks for posting it.

[trindade]

Great read, enjoying a lot your AARs. Keep them coming

[RJBub1]

Hey guys. My holiday break ended on Monday, and school sure did come back with a bang! Quite a lot of homework plus a non functional PC that still has not been sent to be fixed yet.
I will be beginning a new campaign, new everything.
My game ended in 1943. I played for maybe half an hour, got the H class(Es) and and maybe 10 minutes after that I took my Bismarks class of ships (yes two) against a fight with a number of battleships, I think like 2 KGVs. And I really damaged them, but I eventually decided to scuttle both, as most of my ships had lost a lot of systems and both had their superstructure a destroyed.
Then I lost the war..,
I'll have to win this time!