Little Great War - A Naval Prologue continues...

 

The main fleets join the action

Continuing on from my previous posting of just over a week ago, we rejoin the action between the Azuria and Hellenia navies, just as the two fleets arrive to put an end to the single-ship duel between the ironclad battleship Amiral Duperré and the armoured cruiser Georgios Averof. It was probably just as well for the cruiser that its friends had turned up, for it had got so much the worse of the action, that its speed was halved, and one of its rear turret main guns knocked out. Amiral Duperré hadn't escaped unscathed - a couple of waterline hits to deplore - but was able, after fetching a wide circle under the Snifnos shoreline, to join rear of the battle line. 

It so happened that the respective fleets joined the action at very much the same time. This was decided by a die roll each, the low score arriving first, and the differential determining when the opposing ships arrived at the table edge. As it turned out, both sides rolled a 4. The remainder of the narrative will continue to offer asides concerning the game mechanics.

We'll begin with a comment in the last posting that concerned the relative technologies of Amiral Duperré and Georgios Averof. Had I accounted for technological advances in the 30-odd years between  the laying down of the two warships? Good question. Had I?

A check seemed to indicate that, insofar as we can conjecture what the net effects would be, the more advanced armoured metallurgy equalised the protection against the ironclad battleship's thicker armour, and the more modern guns, despite the considerable difference in calibre (9.2-inch vs 13.5), also equalised their effects. The two vessels under my 'stats' (close to but not identical to Bob Cordery's original) come out as very nearly equal in power. Georgios Averof, however, had a speed advantage, at least at the beginning of the single-ship duel.

 

As the fleets approached each other in the strait between the islands of Serifos and Snifnos, the Azuria torpedo boats TB1 and TB2 veered off to port to hunt down the Georgios Averof, heavily damaged, and attempting to crawl its way out of trouble. Admiral Polyomyelitis ordered his torpedo boat destroyers Panthir and Leon to cover the wounded battlecruiser.

The remaining Azurian torpedo boats remained on the starboard side of the main battleline, which itself began to turn to starboard in line ahead in order to bring the main-gun broadsides to bear. The peculiarities of the gun arrangements aboard the Hellenic coastal battleships Psara and Hydra dictated their plan simply to charge bull-headed at the Azurian line. The powerful battleship Lemnos, turned due eastward, whence its main guns, outranging the Azurians', might be brought to bear.

Georgios Averof under heavy fire

Naturally, coming into range of the unlucky battlecruiser, all three battleships - Amiral Duperré not yet having rejoined the line - let fly. The three hits, two of them critical, were enough to induce the cruiser, reduced to just 2FPs (flotation points) to quit the battle if it could. It was lucky at that, for the Hoche put a 13.5-inch shell close under Georgios Averof's main gun turret, where the crew just barely averted an explosive catastrophe. Meanwhile, the first salvo from Lemnos failed to get the range of Charlemagne, leading the Azurian battle line.

As the Azurian battle line began their turn, two Hellenic destroyers, boldly handled, came charging in under Charlemagne's guns. Whilst the battleship's main guns engaged Lemnos, the secondaries tried to hold off the smaller vessels. Putting one aboard Lemnos, Charlemagne received two in return that started a couple of small fires. But the secondary gunfire proved woeful. Nor were the little torpedo boats able to offer much protection either. Completely unscathed, Hierax and Aetos fired off their torpedoes (the green dice in the pictures). Sixes required to hit - both scored!

Gun and torpedo fire. White dice = Azuria
Red dice = Hellenia
Big dice = primary weapons
Little dice = secondaries
Green Dice = torpedoes
Special dice = torpedo damage

Now here I added something to the game mechanics for torpedoes. I still rolled three dice to represent one torpedo, but only a six would represent a hit. Very chancy. But not only did it count as a critical, it also brought in another D6 to determine how many FPs were knocked off the target's flotation. Blow me down if both destroyers didn't roll a six! Twelve FPs Charlemagne lost at once, not to mention the two more at the hands of Lemnos. Reduced to just 2FP out of 16, Charlemagne had to option but to fall out of the battle line.

An alternative method has today occurred to me. Having scored a six to hit, rather than roll a fourth D6 to determine flotation damage, why not simply add up the other two green dice? In this case, Charlemagne would have lost 10FP, still disastrous, but there would have been a pretty decent chance the battleship would have become a feature of the Mesogesean Sea floor.

Disaster for Charlemagne - two damaging 
torpedo hits

Meanwhile, a gunnery duel between Hoche and Psara went in favour of the former. TB1 and TB2 tried torpedo attacks to finish off Georgios Averof. Unfortunately TB1 had its torpedo launcher knocked out before it could be fired. Instead it landed a pop-gun hit upon the cruiser. TB2's attack was intercepted by Panthir, but the torpedo missed. Perhaps the crew's practice was disturbed by the torpedo boat's receiving two heavy shells from Hydra.

I have adopted a convention that torpedo attacks come after all gunnery and gunnery results. If a TB is sunk before it can fire its torpedoes in the same turn, the vessel sinks, the torpedo unlaunched. I did toy with disabling torpedoes if the TB is reduced to 'get outta here' level flotation. But that seems too punitive. So, if it is already in range at that point, then it can launch. If 0FP means the vessel is reduced to an immobile hulk, rather than sunk, it is assumed the torpedo tubes have also been knocked out.

Charlemagne forced to pull out of the battle line

As Charlemagne staggered out of the battle line and the rest of the line completed their turn to the eastward, TB3 and TB4 went after Lemnos. The torpedo boats and destroyers seemed very keen to get up close and personal! For now at least, Georgios Averof's hurts had been amply avenged!

With the action in full swing, we will resume the narrative another time...

To be continued...