The 'Goeben' Incident - Retests

You would have thought, wouldn't you, that a force whose combined Flotation Points at 36FP versus 48FP, and firepower not much in excess of the enemy, and in fact less at short range, would be on a hiding to nothing. Well, wouldn't you? I sure thought so, which was why I matched my battlecruiser and 'heavy' cruiser against four 'light' cruisers, and watched the lights get scrambled.

OK, then: next pass. The battlecruiser, representing Saabia this time, had a light cruiser - 12FP - by way of a consort. The game as before, was set up with the Ra'esharn's 4-vessel cruiser squadron in pursuit of the Saabian 'Middle Sea Division' of battlecruiser, let's call it SNS Charybdis and cruiser, SNS Cockatrice. The pursuers were just out of range of the battlecruiser's big guns, the chase heading due south.

The pursuit. The hex-grain, right to left is north-south.

Tiring of the pursuit, Rear-Admiral Karl Trummler ordered the two, in line astern, upon a West-Nor'west course, to close the range. Of course, Rear Admiral Trewford, nothing loth, eagerly entered the action. The single battle line comprised Trewford's flagship RNS Andronicus, and RNSS Bucephalus, Caractacus, and Demosthenes.

SNS Charbdis fires its first salvo at long range.

Bringing his squadron together in a single line of battle, Trewford set a course converging upon the enemy. His plan was to close the range. Now, I played this out twice. The first of these seems to have been inconclusive, and, as I took few pictures, I will omit its narrative. So what follows will be the second.


It might have been in the interests of the battlecruiser to keep the range long, but although immune at that range, it would take it a long time to inflict serious damage. Charybdis's long range gunfire scored two early hits, but Trummler needed to get closer to inflict sufficiently discouraging damage. All the same, it wouldn't do to permit the four enemy vessels to get into short range. Apart from the risk of torpedo attack, their combined firepower would exceed their own. Medium range seemed ideal.
 

The range closes, with Kiivar squadron within
medium range of the lead Ra'eshar ships. The two rear cruisers
are still not in range of their own main guns.

As the squadrons closed, Trewford found that only his two leading ships had the range. The twelve combined guns requiring sixes to hit, they score a par result: 2 hits. Cockatrice also scored a par with its six-gun salvo. The secondary batteries aboard Charybdis chimed in with two hits (out of 6) of their own. But he primary batteries, 9 guns requiring fives and sixes at medium range, were less impressive. Still and all, the lead Ra'esharn ship, Andronicus, had now taken 6 hits - not very far from its 'let's get outta here' point. The second ship, Bucephalus, had taken the hit from Cockatrice. Meanwhile both Saabian ships had taken a hit.

The range closes further. I've shown only the dice that 'hit'.

Reluctant to close the range too much, Trummler edged away slightly before bringing his squadron back onto the WNW course. Trewford doggedly maintained his own course. That only the lead ships were within short range of each other rather suited Trummler. At this range Charybdis would take more damage, but should hand out more in turn.

So it proved, receiving two hits, Charybdis threw five aboard the Andronicus (9 guns, 4to 6 to hit). I rather think I omitted a pic of an earlier exchange of salvoes, as the five hits were enough to put Andronicus under - along with Admiral Trewford.  Cockatrice and the Bucephalus also exchanged blows. Although the third and fourth cruisers were in range at least of their forward main guns (four apiece) neither managed to score any hits at all.

RNS Andronicus turns turtle and goes down.

The sinking of the lead cruiser rather threw the whole squadron into a turmoil, having to avoid the wreck. Although the range was precisely as Trewford desired, just two hits registered upon Charybdis. The battlecruiser handed out five upon the already battered second cruiser, whilst Cockatrice shoved three aboard the third. 

The Ra'esharn ships have fallen into a tangle on account of 
the sinking of Andronicus. I daresay we should look at how long 
the wreck remains on the surface filling with water.

Torpedoes, then. At this range, the probabilities weren't too good, 1 die only, requiring a six. None of the three launched scored hits.

'Torpedoes away!' No hits.

The damage to Bucephalus forced that ship out of the line, leaving just Caractacus and Demosthenes in the fight to cover its withdrawal. It was all very one sided. Although the cumulative damage was eventually sufficient to force Cockatrice out of the battle, Charybdis battered the two remaining, crippling one and sinking the other. 

A badly wounded Ra'esharn cruiser exits the action.

Two enemies sunk, and two in sore need of a major repair, the Charybdis resumed its former course towards the Omez Narrows, escorting its wounded consort, Cockatrice.

The Ra'esharn squadron is routed. But Cockatrice
has been badly mauled.

Well, that was fairly interesting, but Trummler's little squadron had a huge measure of luck. Charybdis took a fair amount of damage enough, had it been given 18 Flotation Points instead of the 21 I assigned it probably would also have been badly injured.

It was around this point, checking up the rule set upon another matter, I realised that I had given the battlecruiser 21FP. Nothing wrong with that, but the standard (according to the rule set I wrote, after all) is 18FP.

Of course, I had to give that a try.  Here are some of the pictures...

Final action. Some phenomenally fine shooting 
by at least three of these ships...

The action already well under way with broadsides delivered at long and medium ranges. Once again the heads of the columns have converged, this time with the Chrarybdis slightly ahead of Andronicus. I've shown all the dice rolled here, including Andronicus's torpedo. In effect the Saabians have practically 'crossed the Ra'esharn 'T'. Charybdis's ten hits well and truly sank Andronicus, and the damage Cockatrice inflicted upon Bucephalus - four hits - is not slight, either. But Ra'esharn has dropped seven hits on the Saabian ships - especially Cockatrice, which has taken at least four itself.

Ra'esharn salvoes: 8 hits.
Four on each of the |Saabian ships

A subsequent exchange of blows, this time pictured separately. The Saabian ships take four hits apiece. That's enough to drive Cockatrice out of the battle, and the situation aboard Charybdis is looking grim as well. Unfortunately blurry, the subsequent picture marks the end of Bucephalus's role in the action, and the other two cruisers take further damage.

Saabia replies. Eight hits on Bucephalus alone 
would drive it out of the action.

Here the action was broken off. On the Ra'esharn side, one cruiser was sunk and another seriously damaged and barely afloat. The other two ships were knocked about but still 'fightable'. On the Saabian side, Cockatrice was also in a near sinking condition, and Charybdis itself was happy to break off the action. Although still fightable, another hit would have been enough to force its retreat.

Close of action. 

I don't know about you, but I found this very interesting, in view of the comments and conversations that followed on upon the previous posting on this topic.

I really did think that the battlecruiser, even paired with a heavy cruiser - as defined under my rule set - would have very slender chances of survival against 4 cruisers. We're not talking 'real world' here, by the way, but it would be nice if this rule set does at least in some measure reflect what might have been observed in real events. 

Here's the math. To begin with, I will be coining an expression 'dice equivalents', that is to say 1 'dice equivalent' equals one die rolled requiring a six. If a die is rolled requiring a five or six, that is the same as two dice requiring a six (i.e. 2 dice equivalents); and a die rolled requiring four, five or six, counts as three 'dice equivalents'. I want to compare the total Flotation Points and firepower measured in 'dice equivalents' of the forces used in these exercises.

- Ra'esharn Squadron: 4 cruisers

Total FP = 4x12FP = 48FP
Firepower:

• long (7-9hexes) - 0DE; 
• medium (4-6hexes) - 4x6 = 24DE; 
• short (1-3hexes) - 4x12+4x6 = 72DE

- Kiivar Squadron:  B/cruiser @ 21FP, H/cruiser @ 15FP 
Total FP = (21+15)FP = 36FP
Firepower: 

• long - 9DE; 
• medium - 18 + 6 + 9 = 33DE
• short - 27 + 12 + 18 + 6 = 63DE

- Saabia Squadron (a): B/cruiser @21FP, Cruiser @12FP

Total FP = 21+12 = 33FP

Firepower:

• long - 9DE
• medium - 18 + 6 + 6 = 30DE
• short - 27 + 12 + 12 + 6 = 57DE

- Saabia Squadron (b): B/cruiser @ 18FP, Cruiser @ 12FP
Total FP = 18+12 = 30FP

Firepower:

• long - 9DE
• medium - 18 + 6 + 6 = 30DE
• short - 27 + 12 + 12 + 6 = 57DE
  

On the whole, under this rule set one might imagine that, if the four cruisers survive reasonably undamaged running the gauntlet of the battlecruiser's heavy guns until they get to 3 or less hex range, they would stand a pretty good chance of winning the action. In one of these scenarios, I had the cruisers in line abreast rapidly closing the range, but they took a bit of stick doing so, and could fire of only their forward armament until they could adopt a course parallel to the battlecruiser. At the same time, it isn't always a simple matter to bring the whole firepower of the four ships into action - especially at long and short ranges, oddly enough.

It seems to me that this scenario - even with a rule set as simple and basic as that I've adopted here - presents an interesting challenge for both sides. The balance, apparently skewed by the 'math' in favour of the cruisers might not be quite as imbalanced as the numbers might suggest. Note, by the way, that all the ships had equal speed - 3 hexes the turn. A disparity in speed would probably be decisive in favour of the faster ships.