Rhetor
Member
On their first sortie, my Vladivostok cruisers, having jumped and quickly sunk a Japanese auxiliary cruiser, were steaming peacefuly through a dark night. The visibility was 3,6 kilometers.
Suddenly my battle line came straight on a long line of Japanese protected cruisers, led by the armored cruiser "Chiyoda". The surprise was complete. The Japanese opened a very accurate fire, hitting the leading "Rossia" several times while she was making a sharp left turn, knocking out two of her 203mm guns, and disabling the third. The Japanese commander, however, made a mistake of trying to close the distance, and my vessels pounded the "Chiyoda", leaving her burining in two places. Nevertheless, seeing other Japanese protected cruiser force steaming at right angles to cross my T again, I decided to make a simultainous left turn to avoid close range fight with more numerous enemy.
After some 10 minutes of steaming in line abreast, I decided to reform into battle line by turning right. The Japanese were somewhere behind. As I was turning, both Japanese squadrons emerged from the darkness in a position which would again give them a chance to cross my T. This time they also had a number of destroyers with them, which made an attack run at 26+ knots. In the resulting confusion I completely lost track of events, and my line got confused. The Japanese scored no hits, but disorganized my force, and had their ships been just a little bit faster, they would have gotten between my cruisers and take out one or two. Eventually however, I managed to reform the line on the "Riurik" (with "Gromboi", "Bogatyr" and "Rossia" behind), and punish an enterprising Japanese cruiser, I believe it was "Takachicho", leaving her heavilly damaged and burning.
Later on I embarked on making 45 degrees turns, to engage with most ships anything that emerged from the darkness behind. Some chasing destroyers were being hit, at least two of them were badly shot up, one of them was reported as sinking. Then some Japanese cruisers appeared from somewhat strange direction, and bravely charged on. The "Suma" closed within 1000 meters to my line, and was hit so badly, that her fate was sealed...
At this point I had to save the game. Anyway - extremely interesting two hours spend on a gripping night engagement, with the situation changing very rapidly. I am hoping to have knocked out at least one cruiser and one destroyer. We shall see when I have time to play.
Suddenly my battle line came straight on a long line of Japanese protected cruisers, led by the armored cruiser "Chiyoda". The surprise was complete. The Japanese opened a very accurate fire, hitting the leading "Rossia" several times while she was making a sharp left turn, knocking out two of her 203mm guns, and disabling the third. The Japanese commander, however, made a mistake of trying to close the distance, and my vessels pounded the "Chiyoda", leaving her burining in two places. Nevertheless, seeing other Japanese protected cruiser force steaming at right angles to cross my T again, I decided to make a simultainous left turn to avoid close range fight with more numerous enemy.
After some 10 minutes of steaming in line abreast, I decided to reform into battle line by turning right. The Japanese were somewhere behind. As I was turning, both Japanese squadrons emerged from the darkness in a position which would again give them a chance to cross my T. This time they also had a number of destroyers with them, which made an attack run at 26+ knots. In the resulting confusion I completely lost track of events, and my line got confused. The Japanese scored no hits, but disorganized my force, and had their ships been just a little bit faster, they would have gotten between my cruisers and take out one or two. Eventually however, I managed to reform the line on the "Riurik" (with "Gromboi", "Bogatyr" and "Rossia" behind), and punish an enterprising Japanese cruiser, I believe it was "Takachicho", leaving her heavilly damaged and burning.
Later on I embarked on making 45 degrees turns, to engage with most ships anything that emerged from the darkness behind. Some chasing destroyers were being hit, at least two of them were badly shot up, one of them was reported as sinking. Then some Japanese cruisers appeared from somewhat strange direction, and bravely charged on. The "Suma" closed within 1000 meters to my line, and was hit so badly, that her fate was sealed...
At this point I had to save the game. Anyway - extremely interesting two hours spend on a gripping night engagement, with the situation changing very rapidly. I am hoping to have knocked out at least one cruiser and one destroyer. We shall see when I have time to play.
