Wow... that's embarrassing. A 15,000 ton ship slowly bleeds to death from a single 6" hit in BE. Probably near the bow to make the most sense of it, though I don't think the game cares. That was a well placed shot.
Yeah the very early 20th century designs had poor watertight integrity. But still. This had to be pretty early game where the French damage control tech was pretty low.
The rest of this post isn't about humor and it's not worth creating its own thread but it's an interesting enough story that I thought I would share. These aren't even my ships. They had a bad day but a pretty incredible ending.
This was a battleship engagement in the Celtic Sea between Ireland and England that would become known as the Battle of the Saltee Islands. HMS
Lion and HMS
Inflexible were operating independently and were the first to encounter my Scouting Force light cruisers. They did some moderate damage to my light cruisers as my battlecruisers steamed up to engage. For comparison USS
Antietam and USS
Gettysburg are 40,800 tons displacement with 16 inches of belt armor and seven 16 inch (Q1) guns in an all-forward arrangement. USS
Saratoga which was briefly involved was in the lead scouting element of the Main Force and is 38,200 tons with 16 inches of belt armor as well and six 16 inch (Q0) guns in three twin turrets in a 2-A-1 configuration. All three have Improved Director fire control.
So these two British battlecruisers were pretty heavily outgunned. I beat them up pretty good and both were effectively crawling when the British Main Fleet showed up so I turned my own forces against them hoping I had done enough damage to sink these two in the bad weather conditions. Unfortunately for me that turned out not to be the case and both made it back to Cork, Ireland. I made a small write-up of the engagement below.
I looked it up in the Autosave file.
Lion had 1040 out of 21,764 float points remaining and
Inflexible had only 445 out of 17,446 float points remaining when they entered port. Considering the weather conditions and the fact that they could have shipped more water on board at any time I think it was a close call for both although more so for
Inflexible.
Here is the partial write up.
Visibility was poor due to overcast skies and gale force winds so lookouts on the light cruiser USS
Montgomery first spotted the battlecruisers HMS
Lion and HMS
Inflexible to the north at a range of less than 18,000 yards. The American Scouting Force battlecruisers USS
Gettysburg and USS
Antietam and destroyers USS
Terry, USS
Preble, USS
Macdonough and USS
Hopkins raised speed to engage while
Montgomery launched a spread of torpedoes and then fell back with fellow light cruiser USS
Tallahassee to assume supporting positions. None of the torpedoes struck but they did force the two British battlecruisers to turn to the east and give time for
Gettysburg and
Antietam to close and engage.
Montgomery did suffer one hit from a 15 inch shell from
Lion that destroyed No. 3 gun mount and killed its crew. Two 6 inch shells, also from
Lion, struck the cruiser or scored a near miss but they did no significant damage.
Gettysburg closed to 15,000 yards and opened fire on
Inflexible. At 11:45
Inflexible was hit by multiple rounds. One 4 and one 6 inch shell from
Montgomery did superficial damage but a 16 inch armor piercing shell from
Gettysburg penetrated
Inflexible’s belt armor causing heavy flooding. Five minutes later P turret was destroyed by another
Gettysburg AP shell and then another penetrated into the engine room doing critical damage to the propulsion machinery and limiting
Inflexible’s speed to ten knots. While the crew fought to stem the flooding another shell from
Gettysburg destroyed Q turret.
Inflexible turned its remaining guns on the oncoming battlecruiser USS
Saratoga and managed one hit before another AP shell from
Gettysburg struck, this time taking out A turret. The remaining Y turret managed one final hit against
Antietam before the ship was forced to withdraw due to heavy flooding.
Meanwhile,
Lion received fire from
Tallahassee causing minor damage before it was engaged by
Antietam and
Saratoga. At just under 12,000 yards an AP shell from
Saratoga struck
Lion’s secondary battery destroying two guns and starting a fire. Then a shell from
Antietam passed through the hull causing heavy flooding. Two more 16 inch shells from
Antietam penetrated the extended belt armor and caused additional flooding.
Antietam continued to score hits including one that penetrated the belt armor and exploded in the engine room limiting the battlecruiser’s speed. The fire was extinguished but flooding continued to be a problem and
Lion was also forced to attempt to disengage. Fortunately for
Inflexible and
Lion, the British Main Fleet arrived on the scene at that time and the Americans turned their attention and guns towards the newly arriving British forces. Both ships were low in the water due to the flooding and the heavy seas caused by the gale force winds caused water to ship on board both vessels. Extraordinary heroism and not a little desperation on the part of the crew proved the difference and the two battlecruisers only just made it to the protected waters inside Roches Point and to the Royal Navy Dockyard at Haulbowline. The herculean effort of the crews to lighten and dewater the ships while steaming into the teeth of the gale is one of the great stories of courage and tenacity in the Royal Navy’s illustrious history.
Here are the final results in case you are curious.
I lost
Antietam because I lost situational awareness. The screen was a mess with destroyers everywhere in a general scrum.
Antietam had gotten separated from
Gettysburg and was under AI control trying to catch up when it steamed within 4,000 yards of an independent British battleship armed with
Fifteen 15 inch guns. A battleship I thought I had crippled earlier but I guess not. I was concentrating on the Main Force and
Antietam was sinking before I even knew what was happening.