OT- CV10's AARs

[director]

A 400 year AAR: what were you playing? EU IV ?!

cv10 - no, back-in-the-day we had EU2. I think 4 of my first AARs were for that venerable platform, with the first one going the full 400 just because I didn't know any better.

Germany in WW1 was short of good light cruisers, so knocking out two of them is a solid victory and no mistake. Well done that man!

[cv10]

Dec 31, 2017 23:22:54 GMT -6 director said:

A 400 year AAR: what were you playing? EU IV ?!

cv10 - no, back-in-the-day we had EU2. I think 4 of my first AARs were for that venerable platform, with the first one going the full 400 just because I didn't know any better.

Again: Yikes! Which nation did you pick? My personal favorite is England (though that's true for all paradox games).

I think that someone on the Paradox Forum is using a bunch of converters to play a nation from the 700s start all the way to Stellaris and is doing an AAR about it. It's be  interesting to see if they make it. 

[cv10]

[3:26 AM]

    After many months at Sea, Rowley had to admit that he was seasick. He was sleeping in Captain’s port cabin aboard HMS Tiger, and the turbulent water of the North Sea was making his stomach rise and fall with the ship. When the Battlecruiser Fleet put to sea the previous day, it had been raining. After nightfall, the rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up a bit and the seas were rough.

    I’m not as young as I thought I was, Rowley said to himself. God, I was eight when the Prince Consort died. Now why did I think it was a good idea for an old duffer like myself to leave my library, chair, fire, and brandy. After all, someone else could have been appointed to kick the daylights out of the Germans, and there had certainly been no need to agree to accompany the Battlecruiser Fleet on its seep of Texel. As he thought this, a particularly large wave almost sent him out of his cot.

    “Hellfire and bloody damnation!” He shouted.

    As if in answer to this oath, the Action Stations rattlers began their skull-splitting whine, and the ship was jolted awake. Even as Rowley sprang from the cot, he could already hear the pounding of feet in the rush to get to cleared for action. Having been away from sea far too long, Rowley had made the mistake of changing into bedclothes before turning in, and he had little time to dress before the watertight doors would trap him below-decks. He flung his bathrobe on and jammed his feet into his shoes and rushed out of the cabin to the nearest ladder. Bounding up the to the bridge took time: after all, Rowley was not a young man and the ladders gave his knees fits. After what seemed like an eternity of steep stairs, a jot sent him sliding into the flag bridge. He almost went headfirst into the floor when a burly junior officer on Beatty’s staff grabbed him and lifted him up.

    “I’m much obliged to you, young man,” Rowley said. “That could have been a very nasty fall. I would be even more obliged if you could set me down gently,”

    The young officer set him down on the deck, and Rowley latched on to a nearby stanchion. Then the cold air hit him. A March night in the North Sea was not quote as balmy as one in Jamaica, and Rowley felt his body begin to shiver. A polite cough got his attention, and he turned to see Admiral Beatty standing in front of him.

    “Sir, may I offer you the loan of a spare uniform?” Beatty said with an immense air of courtesy. “Or barring that, at least the loan of a bridge coat? After all sir, it’s a bit cold for a nightshirt.”

    Rowley was tempted to refuse the offer: he didn’t like the idea of borrowing anything from Beatty. However, it was a sensible offer, as it was far too cold for him to be out in his bedclothes. If Simon were aboard, he’d have pitched a fit at the sight of his admiral going out in nothing but a nightshirt. Besides, Beatty was about his size, neither of them being remarkably tall.

    “Yes Admiral,” Rowley said. “A Bridge Coat and trousers would be most welcome. Now, why was Action Stations sounded?”

    “We received a radio message from Cromer Battery that they are under attack by German ships,” Beatty said. “Follow up messages report that the battery has suffer grave damage by heavy-caliber guns,”

    By God,” Rowley said. “They couldn’t have managed to sortie the High Seas Fleet right under our noses!”

    “Well Sir,” Beatty began. “Cromer Battery reported only a limited number of muzzle flashes, so I don’t think that the Hun have their dreadnoughts out. Besides, if that were the case, I think that they would have raided Scarborough or Yarmouth. Attacking a single isolated Battery would be a waste of good coal.”

    Rowley nodded: it made sense. Beatty’s steward returned with the clothes, and Rowley slipped into Beatty’s day cabin to take off his shoes. He gratefully put on the trousers over his pajama bottoms and slipped into the bridge coat. When he returned to the flag bridge, he found Beatty and his staff talking. Rowley felt in something of a quandary. He was the senior officer, yet he was only observing: it was Beatty’s command after all, and as such, it was his job to command it. If the Harwich Force or Grand Fleet were involved, Rowley's remit did give him the right to assume tactical control. However, since all units were attached to the Battlecruiser Fleet, he was supposed to butt out. Having recognized this, he felt that his continued presence on the flag bridge was undesirable. There could be no confusion as to which admiral was in charge, and Beatty had a right to run a battle without his superior breathing down his neck.

    “Admiral Beatty,” Rowley started. Beatty and his staff turned to face him. “I think I’ll observe this operation from the spotting mast and leave you and your staff to do their work in peace,”

    Beatty nodded, and then said “Sir, you might find it better to return to your cabin and turn in for a little longer. I’ve ordered the Fleet to alter course on an estimated intercept, but I doubt we’ll run into anything before dawn. If I get any more messages, I’ll send a runner down. I’m also going to order the fleet into a stand down a bit and let the men get a bit more rest, and the cooks some time to get battle rations ready,”

    Rowley considered this: it was another sensible solution: He’d get nothing out of sitting in the spotting mast for hours except pneumonia. He thanked Beatty and returned to his cabin. He changed out of Beatty’s loaned clothes and into his working uniform. As he did so, he heard again the patter of feet, as some sailors stood down. He felt a twinge of regret that he got a cot while many of them would simply kip on the deck. A commander had a duty to be as well rested as possible to be ready for action, but an observer did not, and “rank has its privileges” did not seem like a good rationalization. He stretched out on the cot, and upon later reflection, would be amazed at how fast he fell asleep.

[To be continued]

[director]

My first 'real' game of EU2 was as England, beginning just before the death of Henry V. His brothers broke France, which was gradually incorporated into a cross-channel Angevin Empire. As powerful as that combination was, not much happened to challenge it for the rest of the game. The AAR was interesting only because I killed off the protagonist in the first entry.

I hope you continue to enjoy writing this - I'm enjoying reading it. Putting Rowley (and Beatty) aboard Tiger seems a little chancy since she isn't, as of the last update, fully worked up to standard. But I'm assuming that either the game picked her, or you had good reason for doing so. She was a beautiful ship, basically a follow-on to the Japanese Kongo, though her service history was not impressive. I've often wondered if rebuilding Renown and Repulse was much a better idea than keeping Tiger. R and R would have made better carriers than Courageous, Glorious, Furious and Eagle, and despite the smaller size of her main battery and weak deck armor, a rebuilt Tiger would have been as good or better a combat ship than either of the two R's.


Anyway, enough of that. I'm assuming the Germans haven't learned their lesson and have deployed another light cruiser force for bombardment. If they have light, armored or just a few battle cruisers then you should be in good shape. However my RtW experience tells me to beware of a 'mousetrap' operation. Just because you haven't read a piece of intelligence saying they are at sea doesn't mean it isn't so - there's many a possible way for that information to go astray, and nothing saying the Germans haven't figured out how to sneak out. Given Wilhelmshaven's problem with tides, and German propensity to broadcast everything over radio, that seems unlikely. But the absence of data is not the same as proof of absence and the consequences of finding a dreadnought line across Beatty's rear would be, um, what's the technical term?







Oh, yes. Here it is. "Bad".

[cv10]

    This is my first time trying to break up a post into smaller quote bits, so I'm hoping I used the "Quote feature right:

director:
My first 'real' game of EU2 was as England, beginning just before the death of Henry V. His brothers broke France, which was gradually incorporated into a cross-channel Angevin Empire. As powerful as that combination was, not much happened to challenge it for the rest of the game. The AAR was interesting only because I killed off the protagonist in the first entry.

    Killing off the protagonist is always a risky move, although George RR Martin has certainly made a great success of it. Killing off the protagonist in the first entry is even riskier, but arguably that person is still important. After all, where would Hamlet have been without the Ghost of his father egging him on (we've had a play about Rozencrantz and Guildenstern, why isn't there one about Old Hamlet?). Who/what killed your protagonist?

I hope you continue to enjoy writing this - I'm enjoying reading it.

     Yes I am, and I'm glad that you are enjoying it! It's more fun than just posting exactly what I do each turn. I will say that it's more time consuming: the write up has taken 3 days, and is still not done.

Putting Rowley (and Beatty) aboard Tiger seems a little chancy since she isn't, as of the last update, fully worked up to standard. But I'm assuming that either the game picked her, or you had good reason for doing so. She was a beautiful ship, basically a follow-on to the Japanese Kongo, though her service history was not impressive

    This was less of a good reason: Tiger is at the top of the roster for the Battlecruiser Fleet (1st ship in BCS 1) and the most modern of the battlecruisers, so I decided that Beatty might shift his flag, with Rowley naturally joining him. I also picked her because I think she was pretty lucky at Jutland (17-18 hits and back in the line within a month), though her shooting was absolutely terrible. It'll be nice to get those Kongo-Class BCs when they arrive.

If they have light, armored or just a few battle cruisers then you should be in good shape.

    That's what I'm banking on. From what I've observed, I think the Germans prefer to use their scouting forceI to raid coastal targets, while the High Seas Fleet tends to stay further out and sweep. That being said, I'm staying frosty, as I've also suffered from those "mousetraps": there's nothing like blasting the stuffing out of two enemy BCs, only to see another two sail into view right as your own force runs out of ammo and is a light breeze away from sinking.

Oh, yes. Here it is. "Bad".

    Correct! I really hope this won't happen

[garrisonchisholm]

Did this scenario start in '16, or did you just start chronicling in '16?... I'd enjoy a summary sometime of those first 2 years if its history you've sailed.

[fredsanford]

It's an alternate history mod to the SAI North Sea campaign that starts in 1916 and goes to November 1919.

[director]

cv10 - An American physicist takes on a paid side-job, looking into some devices plucked from a Soviet laboratory after the USSR collapsed. He switches one on and wakes up dead... haunting the body of Sir Hugh Luttrell, in medieval England. Poor Doctor Rivers gets passed on (instead of passing on) from one body to the next, subtly guiding some important folk from 1400 to 1800. It's all told from his viewpoint as he goes slowly quite utterly mad and out the other side. Not my best work, but my first.

I follow your rationale for choosing Tiger. As I recall, Jellicoe had a poor opinion of her captain; Massey doesn't give him a good grade either. Still, a beautiful and powerful ship... I've always had a sneaking preference for the Lutzows, but Tiger could make me change my mind.

[randomizer]

Captain Pelly certainly has had some bad press and yet at Jutland Tiger suffered over a dozen heavy hits but managed her fires and damage control to the extent that by the morning of June 1st, only one 6" gun remained out of action. This would suggest that her internal organisation was sound even if her gunnery department left much to be desired. Pelly had commanded HMS Venerable, King Edward VII, Devonshire and Invincible as well as Tiger so it seems unlikely that he was totally incompetent. Rather as a member of the Beresford clique, the officers of the Fishpond who rose to prominence in the Great War probably found him a convenient punching bag and that narrative is what we see today.

CV10 writes a compelling narrative and am really looking forward to following this AAR as it plays out.

[director]

randomizer - Ah! That is helpful. Beresford was probably incorrect in his views, and there were undoubtedly captains in the Royal Navy of 'less-than-stellar' quality, but being a Beresfordian is not an automatic indictment of incompetence. Fisher may have been right about that had to happen to bring the Royal Navy into the new century, but he certainly was not a consensus-builder. I had simply assumed that the rapid expansion of the Royal Navy was leading to the promotion of captains of lesser quality, but the Beresford-Fisher fight was certainly bitter and deep enough to explain it.

[randomizer]

He had earlier been Beresford,s flag captain, which presumably would lead to a certain loyalty as a junior towards a senior regardless of whether he agreed with the admiral's anti-reform agenda or not. I don't accept the canon that those in the Beresford "camp" were reactionary Luddites or the all in the Fishpond were far-seeing reformers and the fact that competent officers were sometimes thrown under the bus for professional associations points to a pretty toxic service culture.

Harry Pelly commanded four capital ships and a large cruiser under four First Sea Lords (including Fisher twice) so presumably he was an effective ship's captain.

[cv10]

[7:38 AM]

    The banging on the cabin door woke Rowley up with a start. After a few seconds to reorient himself, he remembered that he was on HMS Tiger and rushed to the door. Beatty’s steward was standing at the door with a tray. He was simply knocking to report the time and to ask if Rowley would care to have breakfast. Rowley thanked him, said that breakfast would be excellent, and the steward entered the cabin, putting the tray down on a table. It was a corned beef sandwich with the bread lightly toasted, and a pot of tea. Rowley wolfed the sandwich down, the unsweetened tea helping to wash away the excess salt that cured the meat.

    After finishing, he got his shaving kit out, the habit of forty-years service not being easily broken, and shaved. He then departed for the Flag Bridge. As he walked through the passages, he had to step over the bodies of sleeping sailors as men kipped on the deck near their action stations. Rowley allowed himself a small mental chuckle: the Royal Navy might have some of the most technologically advanced warships in the world, yet its sailors still slept in hammocks as in Nelson’s day or, in a pinch, on the decks as they had in Drake’s day. That really reflected the institution that was the Royal Navy: capable of great innovation, yet persistently traditional. There was something oddly comforting about that.

    Before he could get to the Flag Bridge, the Action Stations alarms began to ring. Ignoring the flag bridge, he went straight for the mast. He let the reminder of the spotting detachment go up first, and then began his own assent. The climb up was something more of a trial than he had anticipated: he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone aloft in pitching seas. Yet he remembered that the key part was to let gravity do the work and wait till the mast rolled forward to move up. He finally reached the spotting station in a red-faced fit of exhaustion. His arrival was largely ignored by the spotting detail, which was busy with its own work. As standing orders declared: crews at action stations had more important things to do than snap to attention. He found an excellent perch where he could stay out of the way and settled in, grabbing a spare pair of binoculars from a storage locker.

    “Another ship four points off starboard bow! She looks big!” cried one of the lookouts. A mad rush of activity began as the sighting was reported. Rowley had already spotted the light cruiser that had been the cause for Action Stations to be sounded again, and now he felt a strange surge of gratitude to the German cruiser’s captain, as the spotting of his ship ensured that the Battlecruiser Fleet was cleared for action before spotting any capital ships. Now it was just a matter of identifying this new contact. It was as big as a dreadnought, yet was moving far too fast to be anything less than a battlecruiser.

[Enemy in Sight!]

    Rowley breathed a sigh of relief: they weren’t about to have the whole of the High Seas Fleet crossing the Battlecruiser Fleet’s T. As he gazed at the ship, the details becoming clearer as it approached, another gradually came into view. Before long, Rowley could discern a line of two other battlecruisers, and he felt HMS Tiger surge ever so slightly forward. This made the obvious clear: Beatty was preparing to engage. Tiger began to move about two points to port, and Rowley noticed a signal flag being raised. He bent over to read it and smiled as he recognized the statement: it was pure Beatty.

With poor Hartlepool, twice the victim of enemy terror raids, properly commemorated, the first salvoes erupted from the Battlecruiser Fleet to provide an ever better commemoration. The distance was long, the Battlecruiser Fleet’s gunnery was nothing to boast about in spite of extensive drill, and the first salvoes were more ranging shot than anything else. The first shells went wide, and the German battlecruiser squadron, it’s destroyer and light cruiser screen now in view as well, turned north and ran. Rowley checked his watch: the first shells had been fired a little after 8:00 AM.

    As an Observer, Rowley had nothing useful to do aside from serve as spectator and keep out from underfoot. He found himself cheering as every salvo exploded from HMS Tiger’s main battery, and every hit made by the BCF on the German force. However, he did not have the foggiest notion of what Beatty was trying to do, and before long, Rowley was wondering why Tiger and the rest of her squadron were running due west, until he looked across the stern and noticed the 2nd and 3rd Battlecruiser Squadrons heading north on a parallel course. Then he realized what was going on: Beatty was trying to catch the Germans between two fires to ensure that every last British battlecruiser was engaged with the enemy. More to the point, the present position of the Battlecruisers ensured that the rear of the German battlecruiser squadron was brought under heavy and sustained fire.

    Rowley was unsure of this approach: he might have opted to use the 1st BCS to keep parallel, as the Germans were marginally faster than the older battlecruisers. However, this approach could work After all, the older battlecruisers did not have the amount of “across the bow” firing that the rear-most squadron would need. Still, he shuddered about the idea of the 6-inch armored battlecruisers taking hits from German 12”s, and could not help but wish that the more heavily armored battlecruisers were in the lead. As the run to the north proceeded, the situation grew more confused. The two fleets zigzagged their way while blasting away at each other. While German gunnery was decent, the numbers advantage worked well to in the Battlecruiser Fleet’s favor: the Germans were taking hits that they could ill afford to. What was worse for them was these hits had decreased the top speed of the German fleet, and Battlecruiser Fleet began to close the distance. All of this left plenty of time for reflection.

    God, Rowley said to himself, I don’t think that I ever realized what a battle could sound. I’ve heard gunfire before, even been shot at. Yet all of those were either controlled training exercises or shelling the daylights out of enemies that could not fire back. I thought that there would be more noise, as all those old books from Nelson’s day talk about how loud fleet actions were: the noise of the gun-deck in action being indescribable. Then again, Tiger only has eight guns in action right now, while Victory had over a hundred, and in Nelson’s day you didn’t play long bowls at 10 miles with your enemy. So far in the action, HMS Tiger had been largely spared hits, though a number had gotten close. Rowley had thus far managed to avoid any outright show of fear: he had always been proud of his stiff upper lip even in the face of extreme tragedy or fear. He actually smiled at the thought: if feeling fear was rational, at least he knew he wasn’t insane. The near misses cast large spouts of water high up into the air, though the height of the mast offered some protection from the spray. A few shells had hit the ship’s belt, but she seemed none the worse for it, though Rowley had to force himself not to dwell on the poor fellows who were near the areas where the hits had occurred.

    There were a lot of things that Rowley was rapidly learning about capital ship engagements. He was also surprised by the amount of time that had elapsed. While it had passed fairly quickly: it already being about 11:30, he was still surprised by how long the battle had been going on for. He always thought that battles were short sharp actions that were decided in a few minutes, while the BCF had been trading shots with the Germans for the better part of three-and-a-half hours.

    For some inexplicable reason, the 2nd and the 3rd were falling out of position and moving too far to the northeast. This would have been the perfect position if the Germans were trying to slip northeast for home, but Rowley felt that was the last course the Germans would attempt to use to slip away: it was to obvious. Beatty must have agreed, as signal lamps began to flash. By this point only the rear of the 3rd BCS was visible, but even then, a dim “acknowledge” could be seen. Turning around would take precious time: the message would have to be sent all the way to the lead ship of the 2nd BCS, and by then they’d be even further away. Yet there was nothing for it: the time would be lost.

    The 1st BCS sped forward, and Rowley watched as the Germans did exactly what he would do in their position. However then something else went awry. HMS Leopard took a very nasty hit to her superstructure, and Rowley immediately shifted his gaze to the ship. Her bridge looked to be gone, and he could only hope that her bridge crew had been in the Conning Tower when it hit. If they had been there, some of them might still be alive. The stricken ship fell out of line towards the rear of the BCF. HMS Lion was equally unlucky, as a shell exploded on her bridge as well. Rowley had to stifle a groan: had he been in command of either ship, he would have been on the bridge and likely dead. It was worth a bit of self-reflection on the sayings of John Bradford.

    However, the BCF’s luck seemed to turn as the 2nd and 3rd BCS returned to action. Indeed, the 2nd BCS shot ahead of the 1st BCS. The chase continued and so did the firing.

2nd BCS returning to battle

     After another few hours, the range had closed considerably, and the numerical advantage of the BCF began to tell. Before long, one of the German battlecruisers, a Derfflinger-Class by her outline, feel out of the German line. Hipper seemed content to cut his losses and run, and abandoned her to destruction.
The 1st BCS closed with the wounded German while the other squadrons continued on in pursuit of the other two German battlecruisers. Rowley passed no judgment on him for it: it was a part of the cold calculation of war. That being said, Rowley observed that this ship still had teeth, as an explosion rocketed up at the side of HMS Lion: a torpedo fired by the German warship had hit her.

    Rowley held in a curse aimed at Beatty: there was no reason to have gotten so close to the stricken German battlecruiser. One of the destroyers could have gone in for the coup-de-grace and risking a torpedoing of a battlecruiser had been a damned foolish idea. He watched as HMS Lion and a destroyer steamed out of the line of battle, heading west for the coast. He hoped that she would make it to port, but seriously doubted that she would. The rest of the 1st BCS avenged her by pouring gunfire onto the German: a nice gesture perhaps but a dreadful waste of ammunition. A few destroyers ran in and fired torpedoes at the stationary wreck and to Rowley’s chagrin, only one torpedo hit.

    The 2nd and 3rd BCS were heavily engaged with the Germans by the time that the 1st BCS caught up with them, and had had the worst of German gunnery. However, Rowley noticed that the German screen had been dispersed and he looked down to see signals flash between HMS Tiger and the BCF’s destroyer commodore.

Pursuing the other Battlecruisers

    He watched as the swift M-Class destroyers sped off towards the Germans, and the shell splashes that soon erupted around them. One of the destroyers took a bad hit and began to disappear beneath the sea, and then another. The German secondaries were inflicting heavy damage, but not enough and Rowley and the rest of the spotting mast crew cheered as yet another Derfflinger-Class battlecruiser was torpedoed. The ship came to a dead halt and began to burn as even more shell hits set her on fire. Much like with the previous German battlecruiser to be stopped dead in the water, a mass waste of torpedoes ensued and Rowley felt a surge of frustration.

Finishing off the 2nd battlecruiser

    After the hail of shells and torpedoes ceased, the BCF began to head east, but night quickly came, and Beatty broke off his pursuit of the final German battlecruiser, unhappy that she had escaped but content that she had still suffered heavy damage from shell-fire. The remainder of the Fleet turned northwest and began the long voyage to Edinburgh.

Finishing off the second battlecruiser

    Rowley set down his binoculars and began the climb down to the deck. This time gravity was more on his side, and he was lucky that none of the hits HMS Tiger had taken had damaged the structural safety of the mast. He reached the deck and made his way to the Flag Bridge. He found Beatty and his staff there, all of them looking exhausted. Beatty was massaging his temples with his left hand, he right hand holding a mug of coffee. He looked up and noticed Rowley standing there. He remained silent, and Rowley decided to break the ice.

    “Well Admiral Beatty,” He started “Two German battlecruisers sunk and another one shot to pieces is good work for twelve hours work. I think that you’ll be the toast of Portsmouth, Plymouth and Edinburgh when we get home. I can see the headlines now ‘End of the Babykillers!’ or ‘Germania reminded who rules the waves’ or something like that,”

    “No,” Beatty said as he looked up and smirked “They’ll lambast me for letting the third one get away. There’ll be crowds baying for my blood because those idiotic newspapers don’t know a damn about naval tactics and will insist I’m another Byng or Calder. Vox Populi, Vox Humbug!”

    Rowley smirked as well: Beatty actually had a good point. The bloody-minded newspapermen were unpredictable, and they could very well condemn him for “letting” the third German battlecruiser escape. They might even tar Rowley by association just by his presence at the battle, but no one at the Admiralty would take notice. After the Dardanelles, the Admiralty would simply be happy that there was good news for a change.

    “How is our own fleet?” Rowley asked.

    “Lion is badly damaged, and I think that she’ll need a few months in the yard,” Beatty said. “The good news is that her wireless is back up, and she signaled that her bulkheads were holding and she is making for Edinburgh at a safe speed. Australia suffered got knocked about pretty well, but she’ll survive. It seems our only losses are two destroyers: Marmion and Mandate, but about a squadron’s worth have been badly shot up. I think that it’ll take a while before the Battlecruiser Fleet is ready for sea again,”

    Rowley nodded. He felt rather bad for Beatty: this was a good victory, yet Beatty was positively melancholy over the results. The Duke of Wellington had said something about the only thing half as sad as a battle lost being a battle won, but Rowley never thought about it in the context of naval engagements. Hopefully when the fleet returned to Edinburgh, the damaged ships put into the yard, the wounded transferred to hospitals, and the country suitably excited over the action, Beatty would perk up.

[randomizer]

You forced me to dig out my Edwardian era Manual of Seamanship to translate Beattie's flag hoist. Nice job and a neat tactical success.

[cv10]

Jan 7, 2018 12:03:39 GMT -6 randomizer said:

You forced me to dig out my Edwardian era Manual of Seamanship to translate Beattie's flag hoist. Nice job and a neat tactical success.

Thanks!

[director]

A good, solid victory - you not only got the heaviest elements of his scouting force but the newest and best, too. Of course, the odds were 11-to-3, but that's the Germans' lookout and not yours.

I understand your wanting to place the enemy between two fires and I'm not second-guessing that. But with the odds as they were there could be no expectation he would do anything but run. A pity you couldn't get at least a portion of your force across his line of escape... but that's the reality of command in this era. The ships move fast but the command arrangements are much more flexible than 'Follow me'.