Sounds like a really good game. The realistic results are a good advert for your rules. And what a brilliant advert / recruiting sergeant for naval gaming! Hope you get to take it to more shows.
Whitejamest, I think the Central London club might have managed the most decisive Jutland. There were many anniversary refights, but ours was the only one I have yet heard of which finished the battle, or at least the daylight part of it.
Main credit is due to the two umpires who, while painting up the fleets (in 3000 rather than lovely 2400 scale, but still a challenge), ran evening games taking club members through the earlier Brit v German engagements. We used the zippy GQ3, Fleet Action Imminent rules, so cd sometimes fit a couple of games into an evening. As a result, most players had a fair idea of the rules before the off.
Having two umpires to hurry things along was also a gt help. Think we had about five players aside, with people drifting in and out over the course of a Sunday.
We'd modified the rules to make Br battlecruisers even more likely than they are in the basic set to blow-up. As Jellicoe, I thought that was rather over-egging things but, by luck or judgement, Beatty & co managed to survive the runs to the south and the north largely intact.
The decisive difference was made by the 5th Battle Sq. Hindsight is a problem with a battle like Jutland. Knowing (unlike the real Germans) that they were likely to encounter Br battleships, the Germans had kept their fleet in squadron formations rather than in single line of battle, allowing for a more flexible deployment when the Grand Fleet emerged. Our Evan-Thomas hadn't much practice of WWI, but was a skilled ironclads player. Handling his ships with aplomb, he shot bits out of the German battlecruisers and compelled the High Seas Fleet to begin to deploy against him. As a result they were caught partially-deployed and nr surrounded when the Grand Fleet appeared.
A massacre ensued. The sq of most modern German dreadnoughts lined-up against the oldest RN dreadnoughts. That alone gained an advantage and escaped unscaved. By around 7 pm (2016 time) the players were exhausted and the Germans retreating where they could. With light failing, we judged that just over half of their dreadnoughts would have made it back.
Half way through the game, to speed play, the umpires removed all flotilla craft. That whizzed things along, but was unfair to the Germans, whose torpedo boats would have helped them to get more out, while the Brits had been able to faff around with destroyer attacks early on. The German players took all in good grace – the aim being to get a result.
Earlier this year we tried a what-if Jutland, set in 1915, when the forces were less unbalanced. We used some fast-play flotilla rules I'd written, which did sort of work, but the game was slower: maybe because the forces were more even. It ended in an unfinished draw, with the Germans marginally ahead.
Alan
