"North Sea 1915 - Naval Thunder Report" Topic

Yesterday evening at Maelstrom Games we had our first WWI naval game using Naval Thunder.

I have done a write up of the battle and included a load more images on the Scrivsland blog: link

Great after action report, nicely illustrated with photographs – very inspiring, if not for the luckless Royal Navy!

Some nice painting on the ships too, thanks for sharing.

Itīs always a pleasure to visit your blog, scrivs, and this is no exception!

I do think it is a bit harsh giving the RN a penalty on gunnery. At Jutland they had the sun in their eyes for the first part, but afterwards they did well, regardless of what range finding technology they were using. Still, no cure for bad die rolls!

Thanks chaps. We should be having a rematch on Thursday, hopefully that will go better for the Royal Navy.

At Jutland they had the sun in their eyes for the first part,

Surely not. During the late afternoon Battlecruiser Action Beatty's forces were west of Hipper's.
Later when Jellicoe's Battlefleet fired on Sheer the Germans were to the west and sillouetted against the setting sun, while the British were partially hidden against the darkening eastern horizon. A reversal of the situation at Coronel where Craddock was so comprehensively beaten.
The effect of light and differential visibility is a factor often overlooked by gamers so well done to Skrivs for introducing it.

At Dogger Bank, British gunnery was pretty poor; Tiger had a new crew, and the explosive in the shells didn't go off properly. The rule for bad British shells in NT simulates this very nicely; it was after Dogger Bank that they sorted out the problem. So the penalty is nothing to do with the sun or with poor aiming.

Looks like a great game! Hope you guys enjoyed it!

Thank you very much for sharing. A large part of the fun for me in writing Naval Thunder derives from seeing people have fun with it.

Here's a link to the rules for others who are curious:

link

@Pontius- Right you are! My old brain just ainīt what it used to be

The problem was nothing to do with gunnery, as Dexter says it was a problem with the armour piercing shells, which was not sorted out until after Jutland.
The problem was only discovered by Beatty at a lunch party with a Swedish Naval officer in August 1916 (see 'Castles of Steel' page 668).

The British 1st & 2nd BC squadrons were quite bad in gunnery at Jutland compared to the Germans and compared to their own battleships, including the 5th battle squadron. The reason for the difference was that Jellicoe was having all the battleships train at gunnery inside Scapa Flow. The BCs stationed at Rosyth didn't get enough gunnery training. But the 3rd BC squadron (Hood) had been stationed at Scapa Flow for some gunnery training just before Jutland (replaced on a temporary basis by 5th BS), and the shooting of 3rd BC squadron was noticeably better at Jutland.

Also, in the British navy the BC were not regarded as an elite force, unlike the German scouting group. HMS Tiger in particular was manned by a lot of low grade crew, and the gunnery officer proved to be totally incompetent at Dogger Bank. I don't know how the Naval Thunder system works, but a gunnery penalty to the British 1st & 2nd BCS at Jutland is quite valid, and to all the British BCs before Jutland, and an extra penalty to Tiger at Dogger Bank. And note that at Dogger Bank none of the director fire control systems were yet operational on any of the British BCs (I think Tiger's was mostly installed but not yet working, and operators not yet trained).

Very nicely painted ships. What are the bases made from?