"AAR: GQ1 Denmark Strait" Topic

The boy wonder and I decided on a rematch of our Battle of the Denmark Strait (see TMP link

This time we decided to use General Quarters 1, using 1/6k ships from Hallmark as before and using centimetres rather than inches as the unit of measurement.

In view of this topic:

TMP link

what do you reckon? Is this a 'satisfying' wargame – no ships sunk, a battleship, battle cruiser and heavy cruiser quite badly damaged?

The set up was the historical starting points; Norfolk and Suffolk would enter on move 5 and the British were obliged to fire on Prinz Eugen in the first turn.

At 05:54 Admiral Holland's division opened fire at around 20,000 yds, the Germans responding in kind. Prinz Eugen was severely mauled in this first exchange, following which the British turned to open their 'a' arcs. Fire now switched to Bismarck, which proved a tough nut to crack.

A prolonged gunnery duel followed with Lutjens trying to force his way round to the south. As the range closed the hits started taking their toll: a heart-stopping moment when, at 06:12, Hood had to roll for a critical hit – surely the result wasn't going to be THAT historic! In the event a bulkhead was breached, so just another hull box.

At 06:24 Norfolk and Suffolk appeared and commenced firing at 22,000 yds.

By this time Hood was really suffering so Holland pulled her out of line and started to withdraw, Prince of Wales continuing to duke it out with Bismarck to cover her retreat.

Prinz Eugen was by now being overhauled by Bismarck and the range of the British cruisers' 8" guns was down to 18,000 yds and she was taking hits. Bismarck continued to fire at the retreating Hood in the hope of getting a kill which would never come. By the time she switched her fire to PoW she had three turrets out of action.

And that, basically, was that. Hood made for Scapa Flow while PoW and the cruisers settled behind the Germans to shadow them and at 07:00 firing ceased.

So, what do you think? Satisfying? And who won? The British didn't stop the Germans but there's no way Lutjens would be able to raid the Atlantic. He would have to make for Brest, followed by a battleship with no damage (half a box, so repairs made good at sea).

Personally I found this very satisfying – the result 'felt right' and the context – what would happen next – really helps in the post action analysis.

Either way, good fun: Henry and saluted and shook hands as usual and off we went to Lincoln Christmas market with wife and sister.

Nick

It sounds like the the game gave a historically plausible result.

Seems like quite an enjoyable game, and dare I say historically accurate and plausible. Sometimes it seems to me that a lot of wargame naval rules are far too "bloody". (Mind you, that could be a reflection on my admiralship; most of the fleets under my command tend to end up at the bottom!)

By the way, visually the game looked really good too. The models look great!

That sounds so satisfying I'm thinking of dropping my other projects to try it myself.

The British won. Their primary goal was to stop the Bismarck and they accomplished that.

- Ix

I would be satisfied with that type of outcome, as it seems historically plausible. I am bored by the "fight to the death" type of games, where players keep closing until one side is annihilated.

MH

I've done that a time or two.

In one, the Hood was sunk, just like in the real battle.

Used special rules for the Prince of Wales' issues, which made life a bit more difficult for the British.

Have played this scenario multiple times with different rules and your outcome is about the norm. Most of the time one of the Brits gets badly pummeled or sunk (usually Hood) and Bismarck gets either turned into floating scrap or sunk (and that's with scenario specific rules for Prince of Wales' problems). The historical outcome is definitely rare.

Certainly satisfying to my way of thinking. I would be very happy with that outcome.

Strangely I think I have only fought this action once and the result was Hood sunk but Bismarck so damaged to mean she would have to head straight to port. To bring some more historical accuracy after the first turn PoW had to roll to determine the number of guns firing.

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Yes; I was satisfied, as the British. For actions involving fairly small numbers of ships GQ definitely has the edge on Battle Stations! Battle Stations!

The 6 minute turns allow the player to withdraw ships before damage is too great, whereas BSBS has half hour turns so by the time you realise you're in trouble it's too late. I'd still use BSBS for larger actions – e.g. the Med, or my not yet started project to wargame the Java Sea.

One thing I did do with GQ was have a less dramatic loss of speed as I find this more historical; i.e. speed boxes were 12-11-6-3-0 instead of 12-9-6-3-0. This still allowed a loosing player some tactical options instead of just waiting for the end.

Like many of you I find the 'death or glory' games unsatisfying as this is not usually the way battles were fought. The key for me here is the 'turn after the end' – where the players can argue the toss over what would happen next. Henry gets this, so he's happy to withdraw after giving me a bloody nose and claim the laurels – he doesn't need to annihilate his opponent to argue victory. At eight years old I find this really mature and it makes for fun games. I just look forward to when 'the turn after the end' is in the Black Bull over a pint of real ale ;-)

On this occasion he had a sound plan and stuck to it, but he recognised that he should have switched fire to PoW once Hood had had enough, but such decisions are what make the game worth playing. If there's something you would do differently next time then even the same scenario is worth revisiting.

On the subject of the PoW problems – yes: I should have had a rule for that, but in truth it just slipped my mind. Another reason for Henry to want a rematch!

Cheers all,

Nick

Still bothers me that Lutjens did not follow up the badly damaged PoW!

For one thing, PoW was not that badly damaged. Although all but 3 of her main battery guns were out of action, these were due to malfunctions and not enemy action. All but 2 were back in service within 4 hours. And her speed was a healthy 26 kts, with no other major impairments. The only hit she took of significance was to the bridge.

And it wasn't in Bismarck's orders to get bogged down in a surface battle with equal or superior forces.

Was it in Bismarck's orders to get in a fight with two battleships and two cruisers? I think once the battle was joined the mission changed. Especially after the Hood was sunk. It became a propaganda mission then. So the POW should have been pursued a little bit more and Bismarck could of returned home heroically.
Seeing how many ships mustered after her going out into the Atlantic to raid seems like a fool's errand.

Lutjens orders were for commerce raiding. After PoW turned away, Lindemann (Bismarck's capt) wanted to pursue but was overruled by Lutjens who felt the ship was still capable of carrying out the original mission. Additionally, Bismarck did not have a sufficient superiority in speed (due to her own damage) to close with PoW in a reasonable time. It was't until the magnitude of the hits forward were later fully appreciated that Lutjens aborted the mission (had no choice; the ship had lost too much fuel to do otherwise).