My First big Victory

[bill44]

January 1916, and my first big victory has occurred.
I sent a raiding group of BB's consisting of Kaiser, PRLKA, and Kaiserlin up past Scarpa Flow, I pounced on a AMC, sinking it quickly, but trouble was just around the corner, or rather over the horizon, Fishers greyhounds were after me, with the older units of the GF behind.

Outrunning them was not possible, they had rung up 27 knots, my maximum speed was 21, and worse still QM Tiger and Lion out gunned me and night was still over 5 hours away, but I had the edge in armour .

Battle opended at 18000, and we traded shots, though I was hampered by the fact that I was heading NNE, and could not bring a full broadside to bear, the British on the other hand were sailing west and were able to use all guns.
I scored hits on PR, and QM, but Kaiserlin at the rear of the line took the brunt of the beating.

The battle ended and respawned twice more, it was on the third battle that I got my lucky break.

Lion had streaked away,she was undamaged and could make 27 knots, whereas QM and PR were limited to 25, and Tiger was way back.
Beatty, obviously was out to grab the glory, it would cost him dearly.
Lion opened fire on Kaiserlin the range was around 18000, I ordered all ships to target the lion and hit her on my 4th of 5th salvo, I hit her 3 more times knocking out her midships turret, by now the range was down to 16000.

My next salvo tore her apart she was gone in half a minute, taking beatty and all but 22 of her crew with her.

The other BC's tried to catch me to avenge Lion, but I managed to escape.
Though 3 of my ships will be in the yards hands for a couple of months

 

[Bullethead]

Bravo! Beatty had it coming

 

[Zakalwe]

Wow,

you`ve sent up so few BBs nearly without escort so high up north?

You`re for sure a braver man than me.

 

[bill44]

Wow,

you`ve sent up so few BBs nearly without escort so high up north?

You`re for sure a braver man than me.

Thanks for the compliment.

I find the large battle groups of 70 or so too cumbersome to control, and the light forces are at times a liability rather than an asset.

I prefer a small group, with the same armament, armour, and speed to mount hit and run attacks, ewith a lone CL ahead to scout and act as bait. My strategy is to not take on the whole GF, but rather destroy one or two capital units at a time, as I managed to in this instance.

I also find that these groups are good for wiping out the smaller combatants, AC's CL's DD's and AMC's, and these are the ones that are capturing my merchants.

Currently, I'm being shadowed by by some AC's, adn CL's, I have opened fire and damaged a couple of the AC's, if this keeps up till night (still 6 hours away) I'll double back and destroy them, the force I have out at present is 8 capital ships.

 

[Daedalus]

Looks great. I like you like to put together a tight force of battle ships and BC's with very few DDs . I can move fast and hit hard. And to me the battle is easier to control. With the whole fleet you will lose control of the battle if you are not ready, and at night it is almost impossible to keep up with the DD's .