December 5th North American MP game AAR

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Scenario was Jutland 1630MP... it's a mod that put the forces closer together so fighting starts quicker

Total of 7 players, 3 German, 4 British

Commander Klank hosted.

That was a fun fight... we were connected for over 3 and a half hours and unfortunatly about 45 minutes to sunset hamachi had a hiccup and some Brit players dropped. anyways we were playing a battle for fun and I wanted to do something different. Plus I have no idea how the real battle of Jutland went...LOL I play allot of SPWAW online and I might have been too aggressive; I don’t know. I just hope I was different and my opponents and teammates enjoyed the game.

Anyways here’s the fight as I saw it (and remembered it)… Use the attached map to follow along... sort of...:laugh:

I was German commander and commanded the BB lines, Paladin commanded the DD and CL screens and Koto87 commanded the BC force with a destroyer division attached as support. After the German BC group engaged the Brits up north I decided to turn the BB line west and cut it into two lines abreast heading west with Paladins DDs and CLs covering the columns... When the main Brit force was spotted coming down heading SW I ordered the BC force to disengage the Brits up north and come down to form up with me... (This was while the BBs were forming two columns abreast). While this was all going on a lone CL was sent north to scout the east flank of the engagement area to spot any Brit formations up in that area that might charge down south to surprise us… it was engaged by a few CLs and DDs that chased it for a while then they broke off… that little CL did it’s job; metals and beer for that crew.

By the time the BB columns were online Koto had his BC force on the north flank of the fleet with us all heading west straight at the Brit main force who was heading southwest. The Brit “head” of the formation (the DD and CL escorts) was already past our heading. During this time we approached the Brit BB line and started taking fire. Once my BB lines were in range I ordered a columns right turn which made us run parallel to the Brit line in opposite directions… both lines exchanged fire and many ships dropped to light green with a few dropping to yellow due to fires. During this time a group of Brit DDs and some CLs ran an attack across the gap at the head of the BB line (or so it seemed to me) I ordered the AC force to counter attack and the attack was pretty much stopped. At that time I think one of our ACs took a torpedo hit and was lost.

During this time a line of Paladins ships cut into the front BB line and disrupted it. I was forced to turn the other line east to avoid the chaos that was now in front of them as well. I then spent a good 30 minutes reordering the front line while the second now bottom line moved east (disengaged from the Brit main force) while this was happening Paladin executed a DD attack right where the Brits were turning their columns east and it looked like he caused allot of disruption to their line and slowed them down. Also Koto’s AC forces were once more tearing into there remaining Brit ships that were left up in the northwest battle area…

Both these commanders bought me time to get the BBs back in order and now in a single line running southeast towards the head of the Brit line again. I wanted to do at least one more pass at the Brits and we started to do that with me turning the line west and engaging the enemy again…

It was magnificent sight; classic WW1 naval warfare, but unfortunately that is when the disconnects happened…

Both sides BB lines were still quit strong and it seems to me it would have been another good fight. I get a sense of frustration about the fragile AP setting. I suspect the Brits wanted to do more damage as our BBs approached into our range on them. I have no idea how any AP rounds hit and failed. It seemed to me an even fight… and I liked it. Salute to the brave Brit DDs that charged the line. Also I didn’t see any Brit BBs blow up or get knocked out of the line… but I could be wrong. BBs are built to be tough and take hits… it seemed both sides BBs lived up to that reputation during the time we played this battle.

This was my second time ever commanding a naval fleet action… I have no idea about how sun and smoke angles effect combat as of yet. I imagine there’s allot to learn. Over all I enjoyed the challenges, the stress and it was an enjoyable night of gaming.

Feel free to join us. I'll be on hamachi Friday night for pickup fights and Saturday for our scheduled one; same time as always...see North American MP games thread for more details.



Commander Klank
 

gascan

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I wish I could have been there, but I was at an officer's meeting for my model battleship club and it ran way overtime. I got back shortly after the initial exchange of fire between the main battle lines, I think. I got a description of the battle from my brother Kotori. Since he has often commanded the British battle line while I have the Battle Cruiser Force, commanding the German Scouting Force was a nice change for him, and it sounded like he had a blast with it. As you were heading towards the final confrontation, I was asking him about the wind and sun and whether he could see any way to take advantage of it. He didn't think you could get the sun behind your backs to blind the British gunners and it was too soon for the glow of the sunset to silhouette the British force, so a neutral engagement like you set up was probably the best thing. If you couldn't break past the British for home in this pass, you could make another attempt at night, as the HSF did historically.

I like the plot you made, it really shows what happened in the battle. Did anyone take any screenshots? I usually take a bunch if I have a spare second from commanding my ships, including shots of the minimap (I'm too lazy to draw out a plot like you).

Since my brother and I have played the British a lot in the past, I have pretty much come to the conclusion that the British aren't able to do much with ACH (either fragile AP or unstable cordite) on in most MP scenarios. They can inflict damage, but nothing compared to what they take in return. We had to either play very cautiously (not much fun) or take heavy losses (not much fun knowing that you can't win). I'd like to see more MP games with both ACH options off to see how that works out.
 

Paladin851

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I think this is something that has to be considered on a scenario bye scenario basis. In my mind in the case of any of the large Jutland scenarios they should be played with at least one of the ACH's on. The British have the advantages in number of capital ships,gun ranges, Gun size and to a certain extent speed that the Brits historically had but you guys don't want to deal with one of the advantages the Germans historically had, that being quality of ammo. You guys who play as Brits want all the positives the British historically had and none of the negatives......LOL

In the smaller or non historical scenarios then sure, turn them off when there are balance concerns or if the scenario designer created the scenario with that in mind.
 
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