Games and simulations concerning German WW1 Raiders

[HS]

From my point of view it's a pity that the historical challenges of WW1Raiders (SMS Emden, Königsberg etc.) appear in some older board games only (very good example: the far seas, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4270/far-seas), but as far as I can see in no modern sim with dynamic campaign system. I can only remember "Strategic Naval Gunnery", which is unfortunately no longer usable.

The WW1 Raider topic is not only about the supposedly monotonous hunt for merchant ships, which historically even the boss of the East Asia Squadron did not like much. Questions of coal supply, machine damage, crew morale, misleading news, attacks on radio stations or ports with shelling or landing, searching for special convoys, surprise attacks on naval forces of the enemy with roughly the same strength would in my opinion provide many other interesting and historical elements for exciting asymmetric simulations and multi-hemispheric dynamic campaigns. Furthermore, game developers would have the choice between a more strategic game covering all oceans and raiders (corresponding to the far seas which contained 98 historic ship counters) or a more tactical game with responsibility for one ship (corresponding to silent hunter or uboat). And modern AoS shows that it is possible to integrate landing parties with dinghy into a simulation.

There is obviously a strange contrast between the high interest in this topic in the naval war literature and the low interest in the field of simulation development. I wonder if there will ever be such a WW1raider simulation? Personally, I would find it more interesting than many other new simulations on topics that have already been covered in dozens of ways and until then, I take comfort in solitaire mode (house rules)with the far seas...

BTW, here is a good review on tfs board game which at the same time illustrates the appeal of the subject: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/274...h-hide-cruiser

Cheers.

[iambecomelife]

There will be German raiders in "Wolves of the Kaiser", my WWI submarine modification for Silent Hunter 4. Currently, the plan is just to have them as non player units. So the player may run into ships like "Mowe", "Leopard", & so on while carrying out missions commanding a submarine. In the future, that may change.

[feld]

World War 1 naval and surface ship commerce raiders are some of my favorite topics!

In no particular order please see below:
1. Steam and Iron
http://www.navalwarfare.net/steam&iron.html
The graphics are horrid but for my money this is the best simulation of the tactical problems of a WW1 era surface task force commander ever made. This is because, if you play on "Admiral" difficulty, the game attempts to restrict your control of your divisions to only those ships a period commander would be able to pass orders to by flag hoist or wireless. It's simple … but it really matters. You can and will lose control of your force if you do it wrong. It's great.

The basic game contains only single mission scenarios but those scenarios include:
Goeben - 1914
"7 Aug 1914
Small
(Hypothetical)
As the German battlecruiser Goeben fled east
across the Mediterranean, the last British force
that could stop her was a division of armoured
cruisers commanded by Admiral Troubridge.

Troubridge avoided action and was later court
martialled. This scenario explores what would
have happened if Troubridge had engaged. Can
four armoured cruisers stop a battlecruiser?
"
Goeben vs BC- 1914
"18 Aug 1914
Small

(Hypothetical)

On her flight east across the Mediterranean, the
Goeben is intercepted by two British
battlecruisers.
"
Emden - 1914
"18 Nov 1914
Small
After disrupting trade in the Indian Ocean for
months, the Emden was finally brought to battle
by a heavier and faster opponent, the Australian
light cruiser Sydney."

2. Steam and Iron Campaign Game.

Also on the link above is a campaign expansion to the Steam and Iron engine that gives you overall strategic control of one side and then uses the Steam and Iron tactical engine (#1 above) to resolve the necessary battles. Raiding happens in those campaigns frequently (merchant shipping gets you victory points) and you do have the entire world map to play in.

3. Fighting Steel (not free and old) with the Fighting Steel Project mod (free) and the Thunder at Sea campaign game (not free):

So I just paid money to get a new physical copy of Fighting Steel off of Amazon because Naval Warfare Simulations wrote years ago a Campaign Engine for that game called Thunder at Sea. The devs claim it's capable capable of simulating any naval operation between 1890 and 1945. The store page description linked above specifically mentions:
"Thunder at Sea comes with several operational scenarios including Operation Rheinubung, Guadalcanal, Malta convoys, Arctic convoys and German raiders in the Indian Ocean."

Now getting FS to run is a bear I hear and you need to download a separate mod (free) from Naval Warfare Simulations that fixes many of its inherent issues but this sounds like a match made in heaven from my perspective.

4. Storm Eagle Studios Distant Guns: Jutland
So I have a love-hate relationship with this game. It's a bit like a modern WW1 Fighting Steel. It's got pretty slipshod support but the company seems to be coming back a little now (they're at least on their own forum). It contains single missions of Cornel and the Falklands but note that the campaign does NOT include anything but the North Sea theater.

Hope this quickly dashed off thing contains some good leads for you.

[HS]

Thanks for your feedback.

@ iambecomelife: Interesting project, I will keep watching.

@ field: Thank you very much for the detailed presentation. Even though I know these programs and have created some of my own test campaigns for them, your detailed presentation will certainly be interesting for some readers in this thread. A few remarks:

SAI and Jutland both have their charm in their own way, but they both focus strongly on the historical situation in the North Sea and a good handling of large fleets and therefore neglect among other things coal supply and landing operations of single ships or squadrons - both aspects that would be essential for a good raider simulation. Possibly this is a reason why a raider campaign was never implemented in these simulations? Mechanical wear and tear also plays only a marginal role. - TAS is better in terms of coal or fuel, but it is very complicated and time consuming to create a campaign yourself and there is currently no program to resolve tactical WW1 battles and reintegrate the results into the TAS campaign.

So it seems a little more obvious to me to get inspired by corresponding board games, to use them as solitaire games with own rules via ppt on the laptop and to determine the results of tactical battles for example via naw (see http://www.navalwarfare.net/wcnaw.html). However, dicing in board games (for example to determine if and by whom a German Raider is detected in a certain zone) is time-consuming and disturbs the game flow. Although it is a board game, TFS, but of course also the numerous literature on the subject, could in my opinion be a very good script for a multi-hemispheric electronic simulation of the raider situation from August 1914 to early 1915.

[feld]

Doesn’t Fighting Steel with the Fighting Steel Project mod support those WW1 tactical engagements?

[HS]

I don't think so:
https://nws-online.proboards.com/thr...-steel-project

[feld]

Hmmm....looking at the scenario pack on there it's got a lot of WW1 engagements. Like Jutland.

Tell you what. My FS CD arrived yesterday. When I get it to work my plan was to install the Fighting Steel Project and Thunder at Sea regardless.
So, assuming I can actually GET to that this weekend, I can come back and tell you if it could act as Thunder At Sea's tactical layer in a WW1 raider campaign.

Deal?

v/r
feld