I managed to find my missing turn indicators for General Quarters WW1 so I will be putting on the historical scenario of Dogger Bank this Thursday at the club.
The background for the battle is as follows......
On January 23rd 1915, Rear Admiral Hipper was ordered to scout the Dogger Bank region of the North Sea and attack any British light forces in the region. He sailed with the 1st and 2nd scouting groups of three battlecruisers, the large armoured cruiser Blucher and four light cruisers. Unfortunately, the order to Hipper was intercepted and decoded by the British and Vice-Admiral Beatty and his battlecruiser, light cruiser and destroyer force was ordered to rendezvous at Dogger Bank.
The British units left port only minutes after the German fleet.
At day break of 24th January the German light cruiser Kolberg sighted and exchanged fire with the British light cruiser Aurora. Hipper turned his heavy units towards the firing thinking there were only light enemy units in the area. Almost immediately upon turning, the smoke from Beatty's battlecruisers was spotted but Hipper at first thought they were battleships, which he could easily outrun. By the time he realised they were battlecruisers, the range had already dropped to 25,000 yards and the battle was on!
Fleets: The Kaiserliche Marine players start with SMS Seydlitz, SMS Moltke and SMS Derflinger battlecruisers with SMS Blucher armoured cruiser.
The Royal Navy players start with two Lion class battlecruisers (HMS Lion & HMS Princess Royal)
One Invincible class battlecruiser (HMS Indomitable), HMS New Zealand battlecruiser and one Tiger class battlecruiser
Game Length: The game will last 10 turns
Victory & Defeat: If one fleet manages to destroy the other, that side may claim outright victory. If the Kaiserliche Marine players can survive for eight turns they may claim a partial victory only if they have sunk or damaged at least as many ships as they have lost.
3 comments:
Nice scenario Russ. I do want to try these rules again as I was wondering whether to give VaS another go just because we have air rules with that set and I want to get my Japanese fleet out again.
Plenty of good games to be had here Ian. General Quarters are a great set of Naval rules but I am inclined to agree that the VAS air rules just work fine so maybe mix the two together?
We have all the fleet lists for all WW2 nations already and I see no reason why we can't put more games on this year.
I will be happy to put more WW1 scenarios on if everyone is up for it
This was a close run thing and a tantalising foretaste of things to come at Jutland
I find it incredible that the RN (admittedly there were other things going on) were "so low" on battlecruisers
A paper strength of 10 and they fielded only 5
It was a 5:3 advantage and I don't know if Blucher was a disadvantage to the Germans because if a clash came then "she would be caught"
Post a Comment