After Action Report for GWAS Jutland 2e - Dogger Bank 1915 - Off Helgoland Island.

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After Action Report for GWAS Jutland 2e - Dogger Bank 1915 - Off Helgoland Island.

This is a nifty little scenario. It's the first one I've done in Jutland second edition. As part of the Cuxhaven As part of the Cuxhaven Road in December 1914, the British had a number of plans to deter Germans during various phases of the operation. Tyrwhitt of the Harwich force Took his cruisers and destroyers to sea to block any German ships from leaving Helgoland to attack the British carrier force. The GWAS scenario pits four German light cruisers and 5 destroyers against three British light cruisers and four tribal class destroyers. 
It looks like an even match, but the British, have armored hulls and the Germans do not, so given that all the German guns are tertiary, they're not going to sink the British light cruisers with gunfire but the British CAN sink the German light cruisers with gunfire. All the British can do, is wipe all the guns off British ships as they have a 2:1 edge in guns It's a challenge but possible.
 
I played this out twice and the first time I did not notice that the British had light armor so I allowed the German guns to penetrate and it was a romp for the Germans.
 
But... I replayed with all the nasty rules and the Germans lost no ships, but had been beaten quite soundly while having sunk one British cruiser, the Aurora with torpedoes from the V Class DDs in a knife fight in the same hex with all the fish running and all the guns blazing.
 
So the Germans and the British came at one another full speed. Tyrwhitt charging in for the RN and the Germans intent on getting in contact or past the cruiser force.
 
In the third movement phase the forces came into contact becoming adjacent which removed the very slight advantage of the British for their secondary guns. Were using all the cool features in the module so we annotated and apportioned all our fire for both sides, so that we know who were shooting at.
 
The Germans decided since they had a preponderance of guns to target the Arethusa, with the leader Tyrwhitt, with all the guns, which means that the second, third and fourth ship had to roll for confirmation on hits. Graudenz fired first and hit one primary hit which devolved to a secondary and took out half the Arethusa's guns on the first shot. The remainder of the CLs fired and got 4 hits from the nine factors, but the confirmation rolls 2 failed. Bad luck for the Boche.
 
The Germans got one primary and one tertiary hit, wiping the last gun from Arethusa but not doing any hull damage because the third gunnery hit, which should have devolved into a hull hit could not penetrate. Still this phase saw the disarming of Arethusa, thus one third of the British cruiser power. Arethusa fired in return at Graudenz and knocked out two of the three tertiaries so it was an exchange which slightly favors the Germans. Aurora fired at Stralsund knocking out two guns, Undaunted fired at Rostock and knocked out the hull mount for the torpedoes... Oh no... lost a hull mount torpedo. Ouch... (not really)
 
The Tribals attacked Kolberg and and knocked out one tertiary for their trouble.
 
Both sides held their torpedo fire in Phase 13. Torpedoes are OK at 1 hex, but in the same hex they get a +1 and both sides wanted that for the next torpedo phase.
 
Because phases 14 and 15 are move for any OTHER speed than 2. The forces stayed in place and switched to the gunnery phase 16. The German cruisers all fire at Aurora since there is no possibility of damaging Arethusa more with their tertiary guns. All were misses. Stralsund loses one of three hulls. Kolberg, under fire still from the Tribals, loses one hull.
 
In phase 18-19 they move into the same hex.
 
Phase 20 gunnery, the forces pull out the bicycle chains and tire irons and lay into one another. Gunnery bad again for everyone as the volume of fire decreases, especially from the German cruisers which are taking a pounding above the waterline.
 
Phase 21 though, torpedo combat, starts the endgame. The German CLs fire torpedoes from their hull mounts and hit nothing! The British CLs fire their fish and hit nothing! Again hull torpedoes? Why?
Go figure... But the V boats fire their torps into Aurora and get two hull hits, all of the hull boxes of Aurora and she sinks after firing her torpedoes and gets nothing.
 
We marked all the torpedoes expended on all the counters and this is now a gun battle between 4 Tribal class DDs with 1 tertiary each, two tertiary guns on the British CLs and all of those can penetrate the armor of the German ships hulls so it is time to separate the forces and for the Germans to retreat although at the end only the Tribal DDs were armed.
 
Germans broke off action and let the British off having lost one light cruiser and moderate damage on Arethusa and Undaunted.
 
Great action and it played out like a dream. I think my takeaway was to ALWAYS check the armor of the opponent if you only have tertiary guns. In this case it really forced me to try and clear the decks of the perfidious English fleet of their guns and try for torpedo hits.

Jutland 2e Vassal module available soon