Fear God and Dread Nought: Jutland in 1/6000 with Naval Thunder

So last Sunday I had to go to the police station.  No, not for anything criminal, but to join the Historical Gaming Association of London in their monthly game ;-)

So for this month's game, it was decided that I would be hosting a re-fight of the battle of Jutland using my 1/6000 scale Figurehead ships and the Naval Thunder Clash of Dreadnought rules. This battle is one of those that gamers always want to play to a conclusion, but almost never do due to running out of time and space. I hoped that with the smaller figures and this set of rules would help make this dream a reality.  We'll see how this ends...

Victory Conditions:

• British Grand Fleet:  
• Tactical Victory: Sink more capital ships than lost
• Strategic Victory: End the battle with more capital ships than the Germans. 
• German High Seas Fleet
• Tactical Victory: Sink more capital ships than lost
• Operational Victory: Sink more than 2x the number of ships than lost
• Strategic Victory:  End the battle with a number of ships equal to or more than the number of British ships

Jim measuring the movement of the Iron Duke.
The Brits from Left to Right: Bob, Gavin, Jim, Greg and Stephen (off frame)

The Grand Fleet's OOB

•  C-in-C of the Grand Fleet, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe (Jim)
• Second Battle Squadron, Vice-Admiral Cromarty (Gavin)
• First Division
• HMS King George V
• HMS Ajax
• HMS Centurion
• HMS Erin
• Second Division
• HMS Orion
• HMS Monarch
• HMS Thunderer
• HMS Conqueror
• Fourth Battle Squadron, Vice-Admiral Sir Sturdee (Jim)
• Third Division
• HMS Iron Duke
• HMS Royal Oak
• HMS Superb
• HMS Canada
• Fourth Division
• Benbow
• Bellerophon
• Temeraire
• Vanguard
• First Battle Squadron, Vice-Admiral Burney, (Greg)
• Fifth Division
• HMS Colossus
• HMS Collingwood
• HMS St. Vincent
• HMS Neptune
• Sixth Division
• HMS Marlborough
• HMS Revenge
• HMS Hercules
• HMS Agincourt
• Third Battlecruiser Squadron, Rear-Admiral Hood (Stephen)
• HMS Invincible
• HMS Inflexible
• HMS Indomitable
• Battlecruiser Fleet, Vice-Admiral Beatty (Bob)
• First Battlecruiser Squadron
• HMS Lion
• HMS Princess Royal
• HMS Queen Mary
• HMS Tiger
• Second Battlecruiser Squadron
• HMS New Zealand
• HMS Indefatigable
• HMAS Australia*
• Fifth Battle Squadron
• HMS Barham
• HMS Valiant
• HMS Warspite
• HMS Malaya 

* HMAS Australia was not present at the battle, and I "blew her up" with a "torpedo" at the start of the battle in order to give the British periscopeitis.

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Stu gesticulating his strategy to the other German Admirals.  In short: "Come and save me!" 
The German side: (From Left to Right) Stu, Hayden, Rich and Glenn

So for the German OOB we have:

• C-in-C of the High Seas Fleet, Vizeadmiral Scheer (Rich)
• Third Squadron
•  5th Division
• SMS König
• SMS Grosser Kurfurst
• SMS Kronpriz
• SMS Markgraf
• 6th Division
• SMS Friedrich der Grosse
• SMS Kaiser
• SMS Prinzregent Luitpold
• SMS Kaiserin
• First Squadron, Konteradmiral Schmidt (Hayden)
• 1st Division
• SMS Ostfriesland
• SMS Thuringen
• SMS Helgoland
• SMS Oldenburg
• 2nd Division
• SMS Posen
• SMS Rheinland
• SMS Nassau
• SMS Westfalen
• Second Squadron, Konteradmiral Mauve, (Glenn)
• 3rd Division
• SMS Deutschland
• SMS Hessen
• SMS Pommern
• 4th Division
• SMS Hannover
• SMS Schlesien
• SMS Schleswig-Holstein
• First Reconnaissance Group, Vizeadmiral Hipper (Stu)
• SMS Lutzow
• SMS Derfflinger
• SMS Seydlitz
• SMS Moltke
• SMS Von der Tann

When I set up the table, I tried simulate the historical battle by getting the scouting fleets to go at it first and then have the main fleets rush in for the general action (more on how this affected the battle later at then end).  And so whilst the main fleets of dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts are steaming at full speed towards the sound of the guns, the two scouting fleets start the action at medium/long range.  On the first turn, Stu turns his Battlecruisers broadside-on while Bob in a true Nelsonesque/Beattyesque fashion charges full steam ahead towards the enemy.  As the main guns open up Krupp armour, luck and bad British shell design seem to greatly favour the Kaiserliche Marine as only the Moltke takes takes one non-penetrating hit and all other non-penetrating hits are downgraded to non-hits.  On the other hand, the New Zealand's suffered simultaneous multiple floodings, fires and an engine hit.  The Tiger was also targeted and suffered only one fire and a flooding.  

Bob turns his splendid cats and the lessor battlecruisers to engage broadsides with Stu.

Realizing that a Nelsonian engagement at pistol range would be suicidal, Bob decides to turn his battlecruiser squadrons to engage broadside to broadside whilst his Queen Es continue ahead in order to force a crossing of Stu's T.  During the shooting phase, Bob is again hurt by the bad luck and bad British shells as his meagre number of hits rarely penetrates the thicker armour, and most of the ones that do penetrate are downgraded to non-penetrating status because of odd-numbered die rolls. Once again, the Germans are able to hit and consistently penetrate the less well armoured British battlecruisers.  The ability to consistently penetrate the enemy shows in the state of the ships, as the whilst the Brits are consistently trying to put out fires and plug the holes below their waterline, the German ships suffered mostly cosmetic damage and all were above 80% health. During the secondaries phase, things got ... messy ... for the British as an 15cm shell from the Lutzow pasted Vice-Admiral Beatty all over his command bridge on HMS Lion via a super-structure critical.  I guess that the British were will affected by the sudden loss of Vice-Admiral Beatty because only one of their 8 torpedoes hit the the Lutzow whereas 3 of the four German torpedoes his the battlecruisers, causing a jammed rudder on HMS Lion.

During the next turn, we do see that the Grand Fleet's manoeuvring woes continue, as the majority of the battlecuisers are badly hit and suffering from a mixture of bridge and rudder hits.  These woes are further exacerbated by Stu crossing the T on the Queen Elizabeths and being relatively immune from return fire due to the multitude of shell splashes from the lead ships of Jellico's force at extreme range. 

Hipper's squadron is targeted by many different British ships.  However, this had the side effect of destroying British accuracy.

At this point of the game, Bob (as Admiral Beatty) is getting frustrated by his inability to get critical hits on his opposite number.  In a dash of suicidal brilliance, he realities that there is no rule for bad British Torpedoes, and thus positions his ships accordingly.  Stu obliges Bob and to Bob's chagrin opens up his undamaged torpedo broadside on the Queen Elizabeth.  Things are getting more and more dire for the British Battlecruiser Command.  The Bridge hits on HMS Queen Mary forces it to move ahead by 5 inches, and normally this would be fine... except that HMS Tiger had an engine hit that slowed it down to 3 inches per turn...  Once again, Bob's dice betray him and the two battlecruisers collide and leaves the Tiger on fire with only one hull point left.  The two indefatigable class ships are also in dire straights with HMS New Zealand sporting a list, multiple fires and multiple flooding as well as HMS Indefatigable suffering from a low number of hull points, a fire and multiple instances of flooding. 

Hipper opening up on a his undamaged broadside on the Queen Elizabeths.  In the foreground, HMS Queen Mary rams HMS Lion and effectively hands out a death sentence for the Battlecruiser.   

As the Queen Elizabeths close to point blank range (3"), they open fire with their 15 inch naval guns anticipating massive damage on the upstart battlecruisers.  Once again, the dice betray Bob (notice a theme here) and he rolls an unlikely amount of uneven numbers, and thus turning a potentially devastating barrage into a work order for a new coat of paint.  During the secondaries round, both sides rolls a bucket of dice apiece hoping for super-structure criticals, and once again, Stu is lucky knocking out the bridges on HMS Barham and HMS Warspite whilst only suffering from a few fires in return.  (It should be noted that both Stu and Bob were using the same dice)

Closeup on the torpedo runs.  Short range damage from the Queen Elizabeths are a disapointment since many of the 15inch shells shatter on the outside of the Battlecruiser's hulls.

The torpedo runs were particularly vicious with all ships involved suffering at least a hit, but once again, the Germans got off less injured than the British.  Meanhile in the rest of the battle, the German pre-dreadnought engage HMS New Zeland, and promptly miss all their shots. 

At this point, we decided to call the game since we were running out of time (we only had from 10am to 3pm and took a half hour lunch at noon).  

It was decided that the Indifatigables, HMS Queen Mary and HMS Tiger were goners in the next turn ether though gunfire or a combination of fire-fighting/flooding.   It was also decided that since HMS Lion and HMS Princess Royal were slowed down, on fire and flooding, not to mention in range of the Koning class ships, they would have a limited life expectancy of just a few turns.  Furthermore, HMS Barham was down below quarter of it's original hull points and all other Queen Elizabeths were at least below half of their starting hull points, that if they could break contact they would need extensive dry-dock time to return to fighting shape. 

On the other side of the ledger, SMS Lutzow was the only German battlecruiser to be below half hull points, and SMS Derfflinger was the only German battlecruiser to be slowed down from their original top speed. Since Hipper would have to extricate his squadron from point blank engagement with the Queen Elizabths and still deal with the crippled British battlecruisers on his way out, it was felt that baring a golden BB hit, Hipper would most likely lose the Lutzow and the Derfflinger or at the very least force them into a very long stay in the dockyards. 

The final position from the German's point of view.

So how does this tally-up in light of the goals?  Without a doubt, this battle is a major tactical victory for the Germans.  At every turn, they outmanoeuvred the British and were able to inflict disproportionate damage on their adversaries.  As for the global strategic outcome, I am of two minds of this.  On the one hand, it could be argued that the British did not lose the status quo in controlling the sea for they still had more capital ships in the North Sea at the end of the battle than the Germans, and thus by maintaining a fleet in being, they could continue the blockade and continues to choke off imports crucial for the Imperial German warmachine. 

On the other hand, losses on this scale would have shaken the British people to their core. It we were to look at the political fallout of Jutland with the relatively small number of ships lost compared to this battle, it is very possible that Admiral Jellico is sacked outright and probably court-marshalled "pour encourager les autres".  Also it is quite possible that this could have lead to H.H. Asquith's government from falling in June rather than December.

Final Position from the British point of view.  Jellico orders all of his battleships to turn to Starboard and break contact in order to preserve his fleet. 

A few remarks about the set-up and the battle

• One mistake on my part was setting up the Battleships 3 feet from the battlecruiser action.  This was mostly due to me playing much more Naval Thunder Battle Ship Row lately in which the average speed for a battleship is 7 inches per turn and the extreme ranges for the guns are between 60 and 80 inches instead of 5 inches of movement and 36 inches in range during the WW1 time period.
• On the other hand, this allowed the battlecruisers to duke it out by themselves for a few turns before getting re-reinforcements from the main battle lines.
• I'll say it again, but in this game it's crucial to be able to consistently score critical hits in order to score serious damage on the enemy. 
• As a consequence of this, the Bad British Shell rule really hurt the British's ability to cripple the Germans in a timely fashion. 
• We also played with the Powder flash rules, and in this respect Bob's dice were excellent and saved three ships from turning into rapidly expanding balls of smoke.
• Despite all of the critical hits that were rolled on the critical hit table, no ships rolled a twenty and thus spontaneously blew up.  I was surprised and pleased.  I hope that this could be offered as proof that this game is not ruled by golden BBs.
• As to the participants of the battle, I'm sorry for taking this long, but the flue and real life got in the way.