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Old 08-16-20, 10:03 AM   #1
cheeky_kaleun
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: London, UK
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Default Mighty dreadnoughts and the convoy ambush - Irish Sea 1917

I know I've become a bit of a convert / fanatic for Jutland, I promise they aren't paying me for this. I've just found it very fun to play and also extremely educational, as playing missions and the campaign game, and also creating missions with the editor, has caused me to do reading on Wikipedia, to listen to podcasts on Jutland, and really immerse myself in World War 1 naval warfare.

The game was created long ago, in 2007, but it still supported (Storm Eagle Studios). Back in 2008 when I bought it my computer was not up to the graphical requirements. But having a mid-2010s gaming computer with powerful graphics card, I changed the graphical settings from windowed to full-screen 1920x1080 - 32 bits and pushed most settings up to medium or medium high. What a difference it makes; playing in full widescreen feels like how the game was meant to be played. It's just gorgeousl

Scenario below. I created a conboy scenario where a British convoy from America, sailing north of Ireland destination Liverpool, to deliver vital aircraft engines, gets ambushed. The convoy of ten cargo ships in single-file line (maximum speed 9 knots) is protected on its wings by two single-file divisions of five-destroyers. Ahead of the convoy line by about 4,000 yards are two somewhat obsolete "pre-dreadnoughts", HMS Ocean and HMS Canopus, that were built about a decade before the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought. This is not the glorious battle line of the Grand Fleet (per the picture just below this paragraph), but two ships on their last legs pulling convoy duty.



These two pre-dreadnoughts look quite strange to modern naval eyes, here is one of them in pic below, the HMS Ocean. It was only launched in 1898 and commissioned in 1900, just a handful of years before HMS Dreadnought, and yet the differences are starky. We think of a battleship as having a mainly "all big-gun" armament, perhaps four or five turrets of heavy calbre. These pre-dreads like Ocean carried two turrets of 2 x 12-inch, but also a large secondary battery of guns that were placed in amoured barbettes along the sides of the ships, in the expectation that there would still be short-range gunnery contests. The HMS Ocean carried, in addition to its 2 x 2-gun 12-inch turrets, twelve quick-firing 6-inch guns (152mm) and ten 12 pounder 76mm guns, as well as four 3-pounder guns (47mm) and torpedo launchers. Here is a picture of the HMS Ocean, note the single forward turret;



So the convoy which is sailing in 1917, in the age of super-dreadnoughts like the Kaiser-class, are sailing in the van of the convoy are these 20 year old ships considered obsolete. Abreast port and starboard, a few thousand yards, the HMS Ocean and HMS Canopus pre-dreadnought flagships have an escort of armoured cruisers (predecessors of the heavy cruiser) providing additional scouting and weight of gunfire. I personally love my armoured cruisers. They have a heavy battery of 9.2 inch guns that can blast anything light cruiser or below out of the water, and can join a dreadnought battleline to provide additional firepower.

In the fleet I have an additional three Minotaur-class armoured cruisers and two Duke of Edinburgh class armoured cruisers (ACs), here are some pictures to show you what they're made of. They had a crew complement similar to a battleship, and were considered a prestigious command. Here are pictures of HMS Minotaur, followed by a diagram from Brassey's;



Note that at the forecastle, it has a turrent with two 9.2 inch guns, which could hurl a 380 pound shell up to 14,000 yards. But even more so, notice the sides. On each side of the cruiser, it has 5(!) single-gun turrets of 7.5 inch guns, themselves no slouches. As you can see from this naval annual from Brassey's, these armoured cruisers were loaded for bear



Those primary 9.2 inch guns may not be the vaunted 12, 13.5 and 15 inch guns of the battleships and battlecruisers, but they are no slouch either. They can fire out to 14,000 yards quite accurately, and punch through over 10 inches of armour plate which gives them the ability to inflict genuine pain and damage on a capital ship. See below the 9.2s that formed the secondary battery on the pre-dreadnought Lord Nelson class firing off its rounds at Turkish positions during the Gallipoli campaign.



I had five of these protecting my convoy in addition to the two pre-dreadnoughts. I also had give light cruisers, separated into two divisions (3 + 2) scouting ahead. 70 kilometers north, four Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were conducting gunnery exercises, but at full possible speed while weighed down with full ammo and fuel load, at 21 nots it would take them 2 hours to make it south to defend the convoy.

I also have two battlecruisers, the HMS Repulse, the newest and most modern battlecruiser capable of 27 knots, and the HMS Princess Royal (of Vice-Admiral Beatty / Jutland fame) cruising in a line formation. At this point of the battle I have sighted the German scouts, a German light cruiser SMS Niobe managed to get close into my lines as visibility is low due to fog and rain, they came within 12 kilometers. In fact, they snuck around so that they were behind the light cruisers that were supposed to screen such intrusions.

The AC on the starboard flank of the two pre-dreads in the van starts firing off his 9.2 and 7.5s at maximum range, and he has a 1 knot advantage on SMS Niobe (she can do 19 knots, he can do 20 knots) so he can, slowly, close the range. At the same time, two ACs scouting ahead, HMS Black Prince and Shannon, have sighted the three destroyers that formed part of the Niobe's scouting group, they are within range and the two armoured cruisers open fire with their full broadside. Their shooting that day is superb and they manage to cripple one destroyer and moderately damage another, this at the maximum range of their gunnery.

The main problem remains, my Room 40 intelligence tells me that a German battleline of 8 battleships, three Nassau-class dreadnoughts and five Deutschland-class pre-dreadnoughts are in the area (the German scouts encountered can only mean one thing).

I order my QEs to turn south and steam at maximum speed to the convoy's aid. And I split up the two battlecruisers; HMS Lion is to peel off and steam northernwest at best speed to join the convoy, while HMS Repulse, with its 15-inch guns giving it a range advantage over German guns, its 27 knot speed advantage (compared to 18 knots of the German battleships) and the fact that it is oil-powered rather than coal powered and thus produces much less smoke and will be less visible to the Germans, is ordered to thunder along to the north at 27 knots and act as the scouting group, the eyes and ears of the convoy. If the Germans decide to attack, I hope to pincer them between the combined firepower of two pre-dreadnoughts and five armoured cruisers (with light cruiser and destroyers making nuisance torpedo runs at them), with the QEs box them in from the north and the battlecruisers come to aid from the south.

If they attempt to run, the QEs, Battlecruisers and Armoured Cruisers have a two-to-three knots speed advantage on the German battleline so that if they are sailing away from me at full speed, I can close the gap by 3.7km to 5.5kms per hour that I give chase, and within four to five hours they will have no choice but to turn and give battle to the combined force of four Queen Elizaneth class basttleships, two battlecruisers, two pre-dreadnoughts and five armoured cruisers.

Having fully fiddled with the settings and found a website that allows you to up load pics in full depth and majesty (i.e. file size). here is a pic of the HMS Princess Royal as it peels away to support the convoy while the Repulse moves north to act as scout for the convoy.

Anyway, that is all. If any of this has whetted your appetite for World War 1 naval warfare, and particularly the ability to use the scenario editor to create your on scenarios, please honestly consider giving Jutland a go. I have no business relationship with them, I don't get paid to say this, I just love the game and the more people who buy it, the more who share the experience, the more upgrades it will receive and possibly eventually a World War 2 version including aircraft carriers.

Thank you all for bearing with me with this long post.


Last edited by cheeky_kaleun; 08-16-20 at 10:42 AM. Reason: Ed for clarification
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