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Post by aeson on Jul 22, 2018 20:10:16 GMT -6
For this AAR, I will be playing as Germany and using my map mod. Game settings are Very Large fleet size and game budget (I'd have done historical budget to make it harder to catch up with Britain, but I'm a bit tired of smaller fleets right now), with a manual build of the legacy fleet. The goal, of course, is to become the preeminent navy in Northern Europe and the world as soon as is feasible.
The legacy fleet: The fleet as it existed on 1 January 1900 consisted of twelve Wittelsbach-class monitors (Wittelsbach, Schwaben, Brandenburg, Braunschweig, Wörth, Mecklenburg, Zähringen, Elsass, Hessen, Wettin, Preussen, and Deutschland), four Hertha-class first class cruisers (Hertha, Victoria Louise, Freya, and Prinz Heinrich), eight Vineta-class second class cruisers (Vineta, Hansa, Fürst Bismarck, Friedrich Carl, Roon, Prinz Adalbert, Yorck, and Scharnhorst), ten Gefion-class third class cruisers (Gefion, Gazelle, Nymphe, Hela, Thetis, Medusa, Niobe, Ariadne, Frauenlob, and Arcona), and twelve V1-class torpedo boats. Four additional Wittelsbach-class monitors (Lothringen, Weissenburg, Hannover, and Pommern) and eight additional Vineta-class second class cruisers (Gneisenau, Blücher, Amazone, Bremen, Hamburg, Undine, Lübeck, and Berlin) were under construction, due to complete in late 1900 or early 1901.
The Kaiserliche Marine maintained three overseas squadrons - the East Africa squadron, based out of Tanganyika and composed of Gefion and Gazelle; the West Africa squadron, based out of Southwest Africa and composed of Nymphe and Hela; and the East Asia Squadron, based out of Tsingtao and composed of Thetis, Medusa, Niobe, Ariadne, Frauenlob, and Arcona - to cover the German overseas possessions, but the majority of the ships remained concentrated in the Baltic and the North Sea to guard the German coast against potential Russian, British, and French threats. Plans to form separate Southeast Asia and South Pacific Squadrons to cover the Pacific insular possessions of the German Empire have been discussed throughout the 1890s, but neither ships nor funding for such formations had been forthcoming and of the existing ships only the Gefion- and Hertha-class cruisers had sufficient steaming range to operate in those areas.
The Kaiserliche Marine passed the year 1900 and the first half of 1901 in relative peace, with the only particularly noteworthy events, so far as the Navy was concerned, being the commissioning of the remaining Vineta-class cruisers and Wittelsbach-class monitors. In the late summer of 1901, however, a war erupted in the Balkans between the Ottoman Empire and an alliance of the Kingdoms of Greece and Bulgaria. After three months of inconclusive fighting, the Great Powers mediated an armistice, but the agreement broke down within weeks due to Russian (according to the French Republic and German Empire) or Franco-Prussian (according to the Russian Empire) meddling and another two months of warfare followed before a peace agreement could be reached under joint Anglo-American mediation. Diplomatic fallout from this First Balkan War saw rising tensions between the Empires of Russia and Germany, culminating in the outbreak of war between the German and Russian Empires in early 1902.
In June 1901, the Kaiserliche Marine began preparing for a possible war with Russia, laying down an additional four Wittelsbach-class monitors (Schleissen, Schleswig-Holstein, Nassau, and Posen). In July, these were joined by the first four of an eventual twenty-eight ocean-going torpedo boats of an improved type, the S14 class, and in December by the first ten of an eventual twenty-four minesweepers. The German Navy's construction program rapidly proved itself unpopular and sparked widespread protests and petitions demanding a reduction in naval expenditures by December 1901, but the Reichstag wisely recognized that war with the Russian Empire was imminent and approved further increases in naval and military funding in January 1902 in addition to seeking an alliance with the French Republic. Still, when the Russo-Prussian War of 1902 broke out in April, only two of the first four S14-class torpedo boats - and none of the minesweepers - were ready.
The Russo-Prussian War, fought primarily by cruisers in Northern Europe and the naval infantry attached to the German East Asia Squadron in the Far East, lasted just six months. Two Russian cruisers - the 3,300-ton 21-knot Avrora, armed with two 6" and six 4" guns and recommissioned in 1899, and the 5,200-ton 21-knot Velikii Knyaz Konstantin, armed with eight 6" and twenty-four 3" guns in unprotected mountings - were sunk during the war while raiding French and German commerce in the North Atlantic, and the German East Asia Squadron launched an impromptu invasion of the Sakhalin Peninsula two months before the Franco-Prussian blockade forced Russia to accept a negotiated peace in which the Sakhalin Peninsula was surrendered to France and a sizable indemnity was paid to Germany. During the war, the Imperial German Navy laid down two improved first class cruisers - München and Leipzig - and converted four fast steamers into fleet minelayers, the war ended before the minelayers could be used operationally and the post-war reduction in the naval budget forced a temporary suspension of work on the new first class cruisers.
Emboldened by the successful conclusion of the Russo-Prussian War and the apparent strength of their navies despite the lack of any real test of their qualities, the French Republic and the German Empire began to put diplomatic pressure on Great Britain for colonial concessions, leading to nine months of continually-rising tensions. When the French Republic closed French North Africa to British business, Great Britain responded by closing the Suez Canal to French and German traffic and the President of France asked Kaiser Wilhelm II's support for an ultimatum demanding it be reopened. The Kaiser, naturally, guaranteed France the full support of the Imperial German Army and Navy, and France issued an ultimatum the next day. Within twelve hours of the issuance of the ultimatum, Europe was once again at war - but this time, instead of facing the world's sixth-most-powerful navy, the Kaiserliche Marine and the Marine Nationale confronted the British Royal Navy, the most powerful in the world.
The Royal Navy, confident in its supremacy and unwilling to give the initiative to its French and German opponents, launched the first major naval operation of the war, sending the sixteen battleships of the Home Fleet into the Heligoland Bight in an attempt to crush the Hochseeflotte. German monitors sortied from Wilhelmshaven to meet them, and the battle lines clashed inconclusively near Helgoland, with the Hochseeflotte losing a single S14-class torpedo boat in the hours-long engagement. The Royal Navy nevertheless claimed vicotry, as the Hochseeflotte withdrew into port in some disarray and did not contest British attacks on coastal shipping for the remainder of the day.
Shamed by the fleet's failure to protect the German coast, the admirals of the Kaiserliche Marine immediately began planning for the fleet to attack British shipping in the North Sea. Rapidly planned and approved with little consideration for alternatives, the Hochseeflotte was ready by 10 June and sailed into the North Sea on the 11th for what was to have been a raid on Scarborough and Hartlepool, had it not been intercepted that very night by the British Home Fleet in what would become known as the First Battle of Jutland. The First Battle of Jutland, as it would become known, began on the evening of the 11th of June, when the second class cruisers in the van of the Hochseeflotte sighted British cruisers. Both sides' cruisers accepted the engagement, and for the next hour conducted a long-range gunnery duel while the battle lines came up to the engagement. The cruiser engagement came to an end shortly after 1900 GMT, when lookouts aboard the German monitor Wörth sighted a new group of British ships to the west-southwest and the German battle line turns due south to close. Battleships and monitors begin exchanging fire within the hour, and the leading ships of each line remain almost continuously engaged with one another until about 2200 GMT, when the German monitor Weissenburg takes a torpedo and the German battle line begins maneuvering to break off the engagement. By about 2230 GMT, the German battle line is withdrawing to the east at ten knots and Weissenburg brings the flooding from the torpedo hits under control, though torpedo boats, torpedo boat destroyers, and second class cruisers continue to clash - and, occasionally, to spook the battle lines - for another two hours. The British battle line, meanwhile, was having its own problems - the Benbow-class battleship Collingwood and the Centurion-class battleship Howe were each hit by two torpedoes, and the Benbow-class battleship Resolution was hit by three, in the 30 minutes before and after the torpedoing of Weissenburg. Despite the efforts of the British seamen, all three battleships sank overnight, and when dawn breaks only debris, a handful of survivors, and the badly-damaged S14-class torpedo boat S31 remain to be seen at the site of the engagement. S31 recovered what survivors it could and left its boats and some food and water for the rest, and begins making its way towards the nearest friendly port, eventually transferring much of its crew and all the survivors it recovered to the cruiser Hertha, sent with a fleet tug from Helgoland to ensure S31's safe return to port.
While Weissenburg survived being torpedoed, the battle was not without cost to the Kaiserliche Marine. Nine ocean-going torpedo boats - nearly a quarter of all those in the fleet - were sunk, and another fourteen had to be sent to the shipyards to repair battle damage, as did four monitors and three second class cruisers. Based on the Hochseeflotte's after-action report, the Admiralstab concluded that additional first class cruisers were required and immediately ordered two - Danzig and Nürnberg - to a slightly-modified München design and that the performance of the 11" guns carried by the Wittelsbach-class monitors was inadequate. Additionally, as all the torpedo boats which had struck the British battleships had been sunk and only a handful of survivors were recovered by S31 as it slowly made its way from the battle area, the success of the V1- and S14-class torpedo boats went unrecognized* and no immediate plans to replace those lost in the engagement were made.
In Britain, the losses sustained by the Home Fleet in the First Battle of Jutland lead directly to Admiral Lord Charles Beresford replacing Admiral Lord Walter Kerr as First Sea Lord and political fallout would eventually break the career of the Right Honourable William Palmer, then First Lord of the Admiralty. Nevertheless, the Navy and Government successfully concealed the loss of the three battleships and proclaimed the sinking of two German monitors, timekeeping errors on several British ships having lead to the torpedo strike on Weissenburg being reported as multiple torpedo hits on at least two monitors, with the result that the engagement was widely perceived to be a British victory outside of Germany and France.
The perceived failure of the June 11-12 Hochseeflotte operation lead to the Admiralstab scaling back on offensive operations in Northern Europe, sending a small cruiser raid into the Celtic Sea instead of the planned fleet sortie in July, losing three torpedo boats to a British cruiser raid in the Blatic in August, losing another torpedo boat but sinking several British merchant ships in a destroyer raid into the Celtic Sea in September, and sinking the British second class cruiser Calypso in the Heligoland Bight in October. The East Asia Squadron, however, was much more active, landing naval infantry to assault Weihaiwei on 30 June, with the squadron's six Gefion-class third class cruisers employed blockading the British concession port and providing naval gunfire support to the troops as they attempted to seize the city.
Illustrations for the other ship classes mentioned in the report:
*Out-of-'character' note: While these were reasonably successful in this engagement, sinking three battleships, they seem to be quite reluctant to launch their torpedoes, much like the more typical two- to four-tube destroyers, so I don't consider them to be particularly satisfactory. The six-tube destroyers I was experimenting with in my previous game seemed to make for much better torpedo boats, though the pitifully-weak gun armaments of the early versions - especially the legacy 500-tonners - made them next-to-useless against other destroyers. I was hoping that with five tubes I'd get a reasonably satisfactory torpedo boat without leaving it slow and woefully-undergunned, but so far it seems like five tubes is not enough for a satisfactory torpedo boat despite having torpedo training going.
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Post by klavohunter on Jul 23, 2018 18:34:28 GMT -6
Oceangoing monitors with only forward main turrets, what a nice way to afford both a numerous heavily armored battle line, and a first-class armored cruiser force!
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Post by aeson on Jul 25, 2018 19:38:47 GMT -6
The Hochseeflotte continued small-scale cruiser operations in the North Sea in October and November, with the Vineta-class second class cruiser Bremen attempting to intercept the British Calypso-class second class cruiser Calliope while on patrol in October and an unproductive German cruiser operation off the British coast in November; a repeat of this operation was cancelled by weather in December, but despite poor conditions a British cruiser force penetrated the Baltic and chased several German torpedo boats towards the Swedish coast.
Improving weather conditions lead to the Hochseeflotte resuming cruiser operations in the North Sea in January 1904, and on the 23rd the Vineta-class second class cruisers Vineta, Hansa, and Bremen attacked a British convoy near Lerwick defended by three small first class cruisers and two second class cruisers in what would become known as the First Battle of Lerwick. The convoy was destroyed before the escorting British warships could interfere, but soon after the engagement between warships commenced Vineta exploded with the loss of all hands. Hansa and Bremen attempted to withdraw to the east-southeast, but the British cruisers pursued until nightfall and Hansa succumbed to battle damage soon afterwards. The Second Battle of Lerwick took place less than a month later, when a second British convoy was destroyed by the Vineta-class second class cruisers Bremen, Friedrich Carl, and Undine and engaged the British second class cruisers Arethusa, Amphion, and Phaeton. Amphion and Arethusa were sunk, but Phaeton escaped destruction when the German cruisers were forced to withdraw by the arrival of a pair of British first class cruisers and escorting torpedo boat destroyers. Later in February, the Vineta-class second class cruisers Roon, Berlin, and Furst Bismarck were sent to Brest to operate against British convoys in the Celtic Sea and the Bay of Biscay. This force, sadly, would not be long-lived.
On the tenth of March, Roon, Berlin, and Furst Bismarck were on patrol in the Bay of Biscay when they encountered the British first class cruisers Kent and King Alfred of the eponymous classes. Both cruiser forces chose to accept the engagement, with Berlin and Furst Bismarck concentrating on Kent while Roon exchanged fire with King Alfred. Kent was soon reduced to a flaming wreck and King Alfred withdrew to the north-northwest, pursued by the German cruisers. Unfortunately, a third British first class cruiser, HMS Good Hope of the eponymous class, was soon encountered, and just minutes after Roon and Good Hope began exchanging fire the after third of Roon was destroyed by an explosion. Without power or propulsion and with Berlin and Furst Bismarck unable to render assistance due to the presence of the enemy, the surviving portion of Roon soon sank. With the destruction of Roon, Berlin and Furst Bismarck began to withdraw before the two surviving British first class cruisers, but Good Hope and King Alfred pursued long enough to cripple Berlin, and only Furst Bismarck managed to escape destruction. With the loss of Roon and Berlin, Furst Bismarck was withdrawn from Brest and plans for operations against British warships and convoys in the Celtic Sea and the Bay of Biscay were abandoned. Meanwhile, in the Far East, the naval infantry attached to the East Asia squadron officially declared the occupation of Weihaiwei, though fighting against British hold-outs would continue for several months.
On the ninth of April, the Vineta-class second class cruisers Furst Bismarck, Friedrich Carl, and Yorck encountered the British Phoenix-class scout cruisers Phoenix and Pallas accompanying the first class cruiser Good Hope near the Dogger Bank. The German second class cruisers engaged the British scout cruisers as they fell back upon Good Hope, inflicting light damage on Phoenix, but as the German cruisers shifted fire to Good Hope as the heavier British warship came into range Phoenix would not be destroyed. Good Hope initially targeted Friedrich Carl, which soon suffered a flash fire at No. 1 Gun that tore off the ship's bow; traveling at 23 knots without its bow and with the forward watertight bulkheads likely damaged or destroyed by the explosion of the magazine for No. 1 and No. 2 Guns, Friedrich Carl flooded rapidly and soon disappeared beneath the waves. Furst Bismarck and Yorck nevertheless manage to sink Good Hope and force the surviving British cruisers to withdraw.
In May, the Vineta-class second class cruisers Amazone, Bremen, and Undine attacked a British convoy and its escorts in what became known as the Third Battle of Lerwick. The British convoy consisted of eight merchant ships and was covered by the Good Hope-class first class cruiser Bedford and the scout cruisers Phoenix of the Phoenix class, Terpsichore of the Melampus class, and Phoebe of the Pelorus class, as well as by six torpedo boat destroyers. Phoenix and Phoebe were just to the west of the convoy and moved to the north-northwest as the German cruiser force came up from the south-southwest, apparently in an effort to draw the German cruisers away from the convoy, but in doing so left the merchant ships exposed, while Bedford and Terpsichore and four of the British torpedo boat destroyers were some distance to the north and began moving south once word of the German cruiser force was received. Unaware of the presence of Bedford and Terpsichore to the north but concerned lest his cruisers be drawn into heavier British warships by an unproductive pursuit of the British scout cruisers, the commander of the German cruiser force chose to take advantage of the British tactical error and attack the exposed ships of the convoy, sinking six before Bedford was sighted and sinking the remaining two before the Phoenix and Phoebe could enter gun range. After a brief exchange of gunfire, Phoenix exploded, temporarily leaving Phoebe alone under the guns of all three German second class cruisers, but Good Hope's 9" guns would soon begin to reach for the German cruisers and force the German ships to begin to withdraw. Nevertheless, as Phoebe's captain proved over-aggressive in pursuit of the German cruisers, Phoebe would be sunk before the end of the engagement; one British torpedo boat destroyer would also be sunk, and four more would suffer varying degrees of damage. Of the German force, only Amazone would suffer even light damage during the engagement. British records indicate that Bedford, Terpsichore, and the surviving torpedo boat destroyers recovered more than 700 survivors of the convoy and the scout cruisers after the German warships withdrew. On 16 June, the British Sutlej-class first class cruiser Euryalus and the small second class Canada of the eponymous class, accompanied by several torpedo boat destroyers, conducted a daring raid into the Ems Estuary and were nearly blocked in by the Vineta-class second class cruisers Amazone and Furst Bismarck with three S14-class torpedo boats. Unfortunately, the S14-class torpedo boats accompanying the German cruisers failed to launch torpedo attacks against the British cruisers in the confined waters of the estuary and the lighter German cruisers were unable to prevent Euryalus from forcing open a path for itself and Canada into the Wattenmeer and thence the North Sea. Nevertheless, the German cruisers pursued the British ships to the east along the coast for some distance, and during this pursuit Amazone was destroyed by a flash fire at F Gun. Several hours after the destruction of Amazone, Furst Bismarck breaks off the pursuit of the British cruisers and sets course back to Emden, encountering and sinking a badly-damaged British torpedo boat destroyer shortly before re-entering the Wattenmeer. Six days later and on the other side of the war, the naval infantry attached to the East Asia Squardon declares Weihaiwei completely pacified.
In July, the monitors of the Hochseeflotte begin to be sent to the shipyards to receive upgraded fire control systems, and the 16,100t battleship Rheinland, armed with six 12" guns, is laid down in response to rumors about the new battleships which Britain laid down in January. Despite several monitors being unavailable due to refits, operations in the North Sea continue unabated, with the Hertha-class first class cruiser Freya intercepting and sinking the small British second class cruiser Carysfort of the Champion class in late July, five German monitors conducting a reconnaissance in force off the British coast in August, and Freya intercepting and sinking the British first class cruiser Niobe of the eponymous class in October.
In November, with most of the monitors having been refitted with improved fire control systems, the Hochseeflotte sent five monitors - Zahringen, Deutschland, Schwaben, Brandenburg, and Braunschweig - to bombard coastal installations near the Thames Estuary. The monitors reached the target area during the night but could not see the coast well enough for accurate gunnery, and so the force commander aboard Zahringen elected to wait for daylight before commencing the bombardment. Unfortunately, shortly before dawn British torpedo boat destroyers found the German monitors, disrupting the German line and torpedoing Zahringen. Zahringen sunk rapidly, taking the force commander and most of his staff with it, and as day broke, the situation deteriorated further as five British battleships could be seen a short distance away in a line cutting across the German line of retreat. The torpedo boats accompanying the German monitors were then ordered to attack the British line to buy time for the German monitors, still disorganized from the predawn torpedo attack, to form up and break through, but the German torpedo boats were prevented from seriously threatening the British battleships by the British torpedo boat destroyers, and the monitor Deutschland was soon reduced to a sinking wreck. Schwaben, Brandenburg, and Braunschweig managed to push through the British line, but in the process Schwaben was severely damaged, and when its captain reported that his ship was unable to make more than ten knots the captains of Brandenburg and Braunschweig elected to abandon it, leaving it to delay the five British battleships as best it could while their own ships withdrew at 17 knots. Making the best of a bad situation, the Kaiserliche Marine used the funds freed by the completion of the final two and the loss of three Wittelsbach-class monitors to lay down the Rheinland-class battleships Zahringen and Westfalen as well as Von der Tann, a much larger but similarly-armed and -armored warship which some consider to be of the type now known as the battlecruiser and others consider to be the first fast battleship.
December 1904 passed uneventfully despite rumor of a British cruiser raid into the Baltic, and major naval operataions resumed in January 1905 with the Fourth Battle of Lerwick. Britain, weary of losing convoys to German cruiser attacks near Lerwick, provided an eight-ship convoy with a strong covering force of the first class cruisers Euryalus of the Sutlej class and Europa and Drake of the eponymous classes, the second class cruiser Phaeton of the eponymous class, the scout cruiser Melampus of the eponymous class, and the third class cruiser Constance of the Conquest class, as well as several torpedo boat destroyers. Despite the presence of this strong covering force, the Vineta-class second class cruisers Prinz Adalbert, Furst Bismarck, and Munchen, attacking the convoy shortly after midday, managed to sink six of the British merchant ships before being forced to withdraw. Prinz Adalbert and Europa sustained heavy damaged; Furst Bismarck, Drake, and Phaeton moderate damage; and Munchen, Euryalus, Melampus, Constance, and four British torpedo boats light damage during the engagement.
Poor weather in February precluded clashes between the Royal Navy and the Kaiserliche Marine, but on the 2nd of March the weather began improving, and by the 3rd both the German Hochseeflotte and the British Home Fleet were putting to sea. These two forces met around midday on the 4th of March and the Second Battle of Jutland was joined. Misfortune befell the German line when a signalling error threw the German battle line into confusion just before the leading German monitors and British battleships began exchanging fire, and twelve of the sixteen monitors of the German line were left milling about in confusion as the leading four monitors exchanged fire with the British battle line a short distance to the south. Effective control over the German line was not regained until late in the day despite the flagship maneuvering nearby with 'follow me' flying. Despite this, only the monitor Schleswig-Holstein and four torpedo boats were lost, with the monitors Schleissen, Pommern, Worth, Preussen, and Hannover, the Hertha-class first class cruiser Freya, and the Vineta-class second class cruisers Bremen and Yorck suffering light damage. On the British side, only the small first class cruiser Euryalus of the Sutlej class was sunk, but the second class cruiser Phaeton of the eponymous class, the Cressy-class first class cruiser Aboukir, and seven battleships - Rodney, Camperdown, and Renown of the eponymous classes, Anson and Royal Sovereign of the Benbow class, Hood of the Centurion class, and Royal Oak of the Revenge class - sustained light damage. As the British Home Fleet failed to inflict enough damage on the Hochseeflotte in this battle to break the Franco-Prussian blockade, it is generally considered to be a draw despite the greater severity of the German losses. A week after the battle, Moltke, the second ship of the Von der Tann class, was laid down.
Ship classes mentioned in this update which were not shown in the previous post:
Some out-of-'character' notes: One good thing about the monitors is that they're worth so little that after losing three at the Battle of the Thames Estuary and a fourth at the Second Battle of Jutland I was still winning the war by about 8,000 victory points (~24k vs ~16k). Overall, though, I'm ambivalent about their combat performance; their survivability is adequate despite their small size, but they have difficulty sinking battleships without a numerical advantage, and in the Austria-Hungary games where I first tried them I found that their small main battery meant that fire control upgrades didn't benefit them as much as might be hoped. Don't know if I'm going to keep them in service long enough for it to matter in this game; Germany's budget is usually high enough that I should be able to replace them with dreadnoughts relatively rapidly, especially if I continue building small.
I continue to be disappointed by the five-tube destroyers' performance as torpedo boats when I compare them to the six-tube destroyers I used in the two Austria-Hungary games which preceded this; I don't think a single one launched a torpedo during the Battle of the Thames Estuary when I lost three monitors or at the Second Battle of Jutland despite several decent opportunities and flotilla attack being ordered. It's only 1905, my torpedoes are still quite bad, and this is only the first game where I've used a decent number of such destroyers, so I'm not writing them off completely yet, but I can't say that I'm impressed with them either.
I'm beginning to think that building the Vineta-class second class cruisers as small CAs was a mistake. They seem much more prone to suffering flash fires than I'm used to with similar CLs, especially this early in the game, they have a tendency to run up against heavier CAs (though fortunately the British built quite a few CAs that aren't that much better), and there seems to be at least one cruiser battle in the Baltic for which they're ineligible as I've had a couple such engagements where I've had a few destroyers against one or two British CLs. A lesser complaint about the Vinetas is that it seems like the Vinetas might have been preventing the Herthas from being selected for CA-vs-CA battles, most likely because of the relative number of ships - I had 16 Vinetas and only four Herthas at the start of the war. Now that I've been reduced to 10 Vinetas and my four Herthas have been joined by the two Munchens I'm seeing my first class cruisers show up more often, but with the first battlecruisers due to complete within the next two years they've already missed much of the period in which big first class cruisers armed with heavy guns could be particularly useful. Plus, probably at least in part because of all the Vinetas I built, it seems like a relatively high proportion of the computer's CAs are of smaller types against which heavy guns are unlikely to be necessary, or even all that effective at this early stage of the game.
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Post by aeson on Jul 27, 2018 20:03:48 GMT -6
In April, the second class cruiser Hamburg fought an indecisive engagement with the small British Europa-class first class cruiser Argonaut, which put both ships into the yards and caused them to miss the Third Battle of Jutland, fought less than a month later in early May. Signalling errors proved to be the bane of both navies at Third Jutland, with the leading three British battleships and four German monitors becoming separated from their respective battle lines. Despite signalling errors preventing either side's admirals from effectively commanding their battle lines, the German line managed to cut the three leading British battleships off from the main part of the British fleet, and the four German monitors responding to the German admiral's command attempted to pounce on the British ships. Unfortunately, four monitors proved unable to match the three faster and more heavily armed British battleships, and Posen was sunk while the British battleships escaped with only light damage. The battle lines eventually disentangled themselves and disengaged as night fell, and damage reports in the war histories of both navies suggest that neither fleet sustained significantly worse damage than the other.
For the next two months, little more than relatively minor cruiser engagements occur, with three German first class cruisers (Munchen and Leipzig of the Munchen class, and Hertha of the eponymous class) bringing the Sutlej-class small first class cruiser Bacchante to battle on the seventh of June and sinking it in an hour-long exchange of gunfire and another German first class cruiser (Prinz Heinrich of the Hertha class) sinking the scout cruiser Curacoa of the eponymous class in a brief encounter on the 23rd of July. Little more than two weeks later, Munchen and Leipzig, accompanied by the Vineta-class second class cruisers Furst Bismarck, Yorck, and Prinz Adalbert, attacked a British convoy escorted by the small first class cruisers Leviathan of the eponymous class and Essex and Cumberland of the Kent class, as well as by the scout cruisers Pallas of the Phoenix class and Melampus and Canada of the eponymous classes. The resulting cruiser engagement would become known as the Fifth Battle of Lerwent. The engagement opened with the German cruisers charging into the midst of the merchant ships of the convoy and putting them all into a sinking state while exchanging long-range gunfire with the British escort force. Shortly thereafter, Furst Bismarck proved itself true to its class, exploding and sinking rapidly amidst the wreckage of the convoy, and the German cruisers shifted their attentions more fully to the British warships. For much of the afternoon, the British and German cruisers exchanged gunfire, but the heavier German warships proved superior to their British opponents, and first Cumberland and then Essex and at last Leviathan succumbed to the heavy guns of the German ships, and the German ships then pursued the British scout cruisers, eventually catching and sinking HMS Canada before retiring as darkness fell across the sea.
The remainder of 1905 passed relatively quietly, with little worthy of note occurring besides the Good Hope-class first class cruiser Bedford being sunk by the German first class cruiser Munchen in September, British landings in the Northern Marianas in October, and the transference of the Gefion-class third class cruisers Frauenlob and Arcona to Southeast Asia to support the defense of the Marianas in November ... and a quiet commissioning ceremony for a new British battleship, HMS Majestic, first of a new type soon to become known as 'dreadnoughts' after a politician's speech in which they were described as "ships so powerful that they dread nought which sails upon the sea" late in December. The year 1906 opened slowly, with the first class cruiser Hertha sinking HMS Comus, a unique second class cruiser commissioned in 1899, and the defeat of the British landing force in the Marianas in February. On March 5 came the Fourth Battle of Jutland, the Battle that Wasn't, when the British and German battle lines met near Jutland and the British fleet withdrew before a shot could be fired while the German fleet almost pursued but did not because more than half the battle line failed to follow the flagship's turn towards the enemy, reportedly due to a signalling error. British records indicate that Fourth Jutland was the first operational deployment of HMS Majestic, but German eyes did not note her presence in the brief period of contact between the fleets. While returning from the Battle that Wasn't, the monitor Worth was seriously damaged by a torpedo fired by the British coastal submarine E-11, though it was initially believed that it had struck a drifting mine.
Over a month passed after Fourth Jutland before the next major clash, the Sixth Battle of Lerwent, between British and German warships. On April 19th, the Hochseeflotte dispatched a powerful force of five monitors - Wittelsbach, Hannover, Nassau, Braunschweig, and Brandenburg - supported by the the Danzig-class first class cruiser Nurnberg into the North Sea to attack a British convoy said to be under heavy escort. Intelligence reports proved correct, and on the 20th the men of the Hochseeflotte for the first time set eyes upon the new British battleship Majestic, which would, with the older battleships Jupiter, Repulse, Anson, and Benbow, sink the monitors Wittelsbach and Hannover, and successfully repel the German attack before it could reach the ships of the convoy. With this disastrous engagement, coupled with the cumulative losses of the war, the Franco-Prussian blockade of Britain was broken, for the Hochseeflotte was no longer sufficiently powerful to hold closed the northerly approaches to Britain and the Royal Navy began the process of implementing an effective blockade of Germany.
Undeterred by the shifting balance of power in the North Sea, the Hochseeflotte dispatched the first class cruisers Hertha, Nurnberg, and Danzig and the second class cruisers Scharnhorst, Prinz Adalbert, and Undine to raid coastal shipping between Hartlepool and Scarborough, but the German cruiser force encountered a British patrol comprised of the Europa-class first class cruiser Argonaut, the scout cruisers Melampus, Terpsichore, and Latona of the Melampus class, Pelorus and Persian of the Pelorus class, and Philomel of the Phoenix class, as well as several torpedo boat destroyers. Just as dawn broke, the engagement was opened when Prinz Adalbert was torpedoed by a British destroyer concealed by the glare of the rising sun. Prinz Adalbert, her back having been broken by the torpedo hit, was soon deemed beyond saving and so was abandoned as the remaining German and British cruisers began exchanging gunfire. The heavier German cruisers soon put their lighter British opponents to flight, sinking Argonaut and Melampus in the first hour of the engagement and then pursuing Latona and Terpsichore towards Filey, where the British scout cruisers were brought to bay and sunk. Pelorus, Persian, and Philomel, having withdrawn in a more northeasterly direction, escaped destruction.
For the next three months, only minor cruiser engagements occurred, with the sinking of the small second class cruiser Champion by the second class cruiser Yorck while on patrol in the Celtic Sea in June, an indecisive engagement between the Gefion-class third class cruiser Frauenlob and the Conquest-class scout cruiser Leander near Truk in July, and a British cruiser raid in the Baltic in which the first class cruiser HMS King Alfred of the eponymous class and the second class cruiser Psyche of the Calypso class sank two German torpedo boats and a minesweeper north of Danzig. Political pressure demanding the assumption of a more aggressive posture on the part of the Hochseeflotte and intelligence reports indicating the scheduled arrival off Ireland of a British convoy bound for Liverpool in early September lead to the second class cruisers Lubeck and Yorck laying in wait off Cork, meeting the convoy on the 8th and engaging its escort, the first class cruiser King Alfred and the scout cruiser Pelorus of the eponymous classes, and the scout cruiser Philomel of the Phoenix class in the late morning hours. After a three-hour exchange of gunfire, Pelorus and Philomel were reduced to sinking wrecks and King Alfred was compelled by damage to withdraw, leaving Lubeck and Yorck free to destroy the convoy, which had failed to disperse and run for port. Meanwhile, in Portsmouth, a pair of quiet commissioning ceremonies were held for the new and powerful first class cruisers Illustrious and Indomitable, designed to end the supremacy of the German Hertha-, Munchen-, and Danzig-class cruisers.
For the remainder of September and much of October, the naval war was once again quiescent, but on the 29th of October the third class cruisers Frauenlob and Arcona sortied from Truk in response to a signal from an inbound and unescorted German convoy indicating that a suspicious vessel was shadowing them. Finding the convoy several hundred miles to the east of Truk at midday, the German cruisers soon sighted the King Alfred-class first class cruiser Monmouth and closed to engage. For the next several hours, the German cruisers exchanged gunfire with the significantly larger British warship, with both Arcona and Frauenlob sustaining serious damage. Nevertheless, Monmouth, her captain perhaps believing that the German third class cruisers were fighting a delaying action while some heavier warship approached, chose to withdraw from the engagement and did not go after the convoy despite having left both German cruisers dead in the water.
The last naval engagement of 1906 served notice that the Royal Navy would no longer permit the dominance of the Kaiserliche Marine's powerful first class cruisers to go unchallenged, with the recently-commissioned dreadnought cruisers Illustrious and Indomitable attacking the Danzig-class first class cruiser Nurnberg in foul weather just north of Danzig. While badly damaged in the engagement, Nurnberg survived. Nevertheless, the operational status of these ships came as an unpleasant surprise to the Admiralstab and the Hochseeflotte, for their own similar vessels - Von der Tann, Moltke, and Goeben - were anywhere from eight to sixteen months from completion, and even the three battleships of the Rheinland class would still be fitting out for the next three to six months. Foul weather prevented any major naval operations in the North Sea from December until the first of March, when the first class cruiser Victoria Louise of the Hertha class and the Vineta-class second class cruisers Blucher and Yorck encounter the British first class cruisers Aboukir of the Cressy class and King Alfred and Kent of the eponymous classes. In the ensuing engagement, Blucher sustained serious damage and all three British cruisers were sunk. Following up on that success, the Hochseeflotte began dispatching the Hertha-, Danzig-, and Muchen-class first class cruisers to hunt British cruiser patrols at the northern end of the English Channel, and after almost a month of fruitless operations the Danzig-class cruiser Leipzig was able to bring the scout cruisers Pandora of the Phaeton class and Sirius of the Andromache class to battle on the fourth of April, sinking Pandora and damaging Sirius. Nevertheless, the Admiralstab was frustrated by the seeming fruitlessness of the patrols, which wore upon men and equipment while providing little to show for the effort, and so would soon suspend the operations, leaving the Hochseeflotte almost entirely inactive for much of the next six months. The only operations of note in that period were an unsanctioned excursion by three German torpedo boats operating out of Brest for patrols in the Celtic Sea which saw three ships of a British convoy destroyed at the cost of two of the newest German torpedo boats late in May, and a midsummer patrol of the Danzig-class first class cruiser Nurnberg, also in the Celtic Sea, which saw the destruction of the Melampus-class scout cruiser Carysfort. The three dreadnought battleships of the Rheinland class and the dreadnought cruiser Von der Tann commission and work up in this period while the first of the new Hansa-class second class cruisers and S15-class torpedo boats are laid down, and in October the monitor Schlesien becomes the first capital ship sunk by a modern submarine in history when the British coastal submarine E-12 torpedoes it shortly after leaving Wilhelmshaven for a training exercise in the Heligoland Bight.
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Post by aeson on Jul 28, 2018 21:29:58 GMT -6
By November, the dreadnought cruiser SMS Von der Tann had finished working up and the Hochseeflotte was eager to resume offensive operations. It was therefore decided that Von der Tann, accompanied by the second class cruisers Undine and Scharnhorst, would break out of the North Sea and into the North Atlantic to threaten British convoys. In order to avoid detection by powerful British surface forces, Von der Tann was to run north along the Norwegian coast before cutting across the Norwegian Sea to the Denmark Strait. By the twentieth of November, all preparations for Von der Tann's incursion into the North Atlantic were complete, and the dreadnought cruiser, in company with Undine and Scharnhorst, set off in the gathering gloom that evening. Unfortunately, British naval intelligence had caught wind of the planned operation, and just over a day after departing Wilhelmshaven Von der Tann encountered the British dreadnought cruisers Illustrious and Indomitable near Bergen. In the darkness of the early hours of the 22nd of November, dreadnought cruisers exchanged fire for the first time in history. Von der Tann sustained sufficient damage to compel her to abandon her planned incursion into the North Atlantic while the British battlecruisers suffered only minor damage. Three weeks later, the first class cruisers Prinz Heinrich of the Hertha class and Danzig and Nurnberg of the Danzig class, accompanied by the Vineta-class second class cruiser Gneisenau, attempted the same run; once again, Indomitable and Illustrious were found to be awaiting the German cruisers near Bergen, leading to a bout of spy mania at Hochseeflotte headquarters and in the Admiralstab - being caught once is bad luck, but twice in two operations, treason, or so went the reasoning. No spies - British or otherwise - were found, and post-war writings of British servicemen and officers who claimed to have been associated suggested that the Hochseeflotte itself - or, rather, its poor wireless discipline and security - was to blame for the betrayal of the two breakout operations.
The final noteworthy event of 1907 was the laying down of the new dreadnought battleship Deutschland, lead ship of her class, on the 21st of December. A second ship of the class, Schwaben, would join Deutschland on the slipways in January, followed by a third, Hannover, in March. The Royal Navy opened the naval campaign of 1908 with their most daring raid into the Baltic yet - the dreadnought cruisers Indomitable and Illustrious, the dreadnought battleships Caesar, Collingwood, and Formidable of the Caesar class, the Majestic-class dreadnought battleships Majestic and Resolution, the Centurion-class battleships Jupiter and Barfleur, and the battleship Rodney of the eponymous class followed the new dreadnought battleship Howe, lead ship of its class, into the Baltic to attack German ships operating near Danzig. German patrol craft sighted these British warships passing into the Skaggerak on the 24th of January, and so the Hochseeflotte dispatched the Rheinland-class dreadnought battleships Rheinland, Zahringen, and Westphalen, the monitors Nassau, Brandenburg, and Braunschweig, and the Danzig-class first class cruiser Nurnberg from Wilhelmshaven to the Baltic, transiting the Kiel Canal early on the 25th of January and finding the British fleet outside the Danzig Bay after dark on the 26th. A confused engagement soon commenced in which the dreadnought battleship Howe, the battleship Rodney, and the monitor Nassau were sunk and the monitor Braunschweig was so badly damaged that it foundered after reaching port at Pillau. Rheinland and the British battleship Barfleur were heavily damaged during the engagement, and the dreadnought battleships Zahringen and Majestic inflicted moderate damage upon one another in a final exchange of gunfire as the confused and intermingled battle lines separated for the final time, but despite the efforts of each fleet's torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers no capital ship was struck by a torpedo during the engagement and all but the aforementioned four ships reached port safely. As soon as day broke, Kaiserliche Marine salvage teams were sent to inspect the partially-sunken monitor Braunschweig, and over the next several days it was determined that the ship could be refloated and in all likelihood returned to service.
February passed without any significant naval engagements, but on the tenth of March the dreadnought cruisers Von der Tann and Moltke attacked a British convoy in the Celtic Sea, sinking seven merchant ships. The British dreadnought cruisers Indomitable and Illustrious soon arrived on the scene to engage their German counterparts, however, and the German ships were worsted in a brief exchange of gunfire, with Moltke losing its after turret and Von der Tann its bridge. Nevertheless, both German dreadnought cruisers survived the engagement, for Indomitable was nearly as badly damaged as either of the German battlecruisers and unable to pursue. A month later, Von der Tann and Illustrious meet in the Bay of Biscay, but this time Von der Tann is not so fortunate - within thirty minutes of the engagement commencing, all three of the German battlecruiser's main battery turrets had been disabled by 13" shells and the ship's speed was seriously impaired by damage to the uptakes for the engines. Unable to disengage due to the damage sustained, Von der Tann nevertheless fought on, closing to bring its 6" secondary and 4" tertiary battery to bear, but without its main battery guns it was unable to seriously damage Illustrious and was soon reduced to a wreck.
In May, the Admiralstab commanded that the Hochseeflotte make another attempt to break out into the North Atlantic with a powerful cruiser force, this time centered on the Munchen-class first class cruisers Munchen and Leipzig. As per usual, the British battlecruisers Indomitable and Illustrious intercepted the German force at night near Bergen, and during the engagement Leipzig was sunk and Munchen so seriously damaged as to be forced to return to Wilhelmshaven at eight knots. Fortunately, lookouts aboard the British Andromache-class scout cruiser Sirius were convinced that they saw a second German cruiser sinking during the night and Illustrious suffered sufficient damage from the heavy guns of the German cruisers as to make her return to port advisable, so the British ships did not seek for the slowly-retiring Munchen after day broke, allowing the crippled German warship to reach port safely. Once again, the presence of British heavy ships awaiting the German force near Bergen sets off a bout of spy mania at fleet headquarters, and once again no spies were found.
Two weeks later, the crews of the Hertha-class first class cruisers Victoria Louise and Prinz Heinrich mutiny rather than set out for another attempt to break into the North Atlantic by the Bergen route. As the mutinies at Wilhelmshaven were being dealt with, the Vineta-class second class cruisers Bremen and Yorck, operating from Brest, set off for a patrol in the Celtic Sea. Midmorning the next day, as the ships neared a point about 80 nautical miles southeast of Cork, the German cruisers encountered the British scout cruiser Pelorus of the eponymous class, which, confronted by a pair of heavier warships, immediately turned to withdraw. The German cruisers pursued, and after several hours overtook and sunk the British ship.
With the June mutinies having been dealt with by a promise of improved conditions of service in the fleet, the Hochseeflotte once again composed a squadron for a breakout operation into the North Atlantic by the Bergen route. Centered on the dreadnought cruiser Moltke - sole ship of the type in active service with the Kaiserliche Marine until her sistership Goeben commissioned on the 31st of the month - and comprised of five first class cruisers of the Hertha and Danzig classes, this force, the Admiralstab and the Hochseeflotte felt, could surely brush aside any British force which might await it near Bergen, and, believing that nocturnal meetings had inhibited the previous breakout attempt, timed the ships' departure on the 10th so that the ships would arrive off Bergen at midday. Once again, the German ships found the battlecruisers Indomitable and Illustrious awaiting their off Bergen, and an hour-long engagement ensued in which the old, slow first class cruisers proved almost useless, more of an impediment to Moltke's ability to maneuver than an aide to her firepower, and Moltke suffered moderate damage screening the withdrawal of the first class cruisers from the British battlecruisers. Nevertheless, the German force was powerful enough, at least in the British estimate, that Indomitable and Illustrious did not long pursue the damaged and withdrawing German warships, and with a parting salvo Moltke destroyed the bridge of Indomitable, killing the commanding officer of the British force. Out-of-'character' notes: Unfortunately, British dreadnought construction had by this time pulled well ahead of that of Germany, with eight British and three German dreadnought battleships active and four British and three German battlecruisers building. The battlecruiser situation was a little better, at least for the near future, as Moltke was active and Goeben was working up while the British had only two battlecruisers - Illustrious and Indomitable - active, but with five more British and no additional German battlecruisers under construction that situation wouldn't last. Of more immediate concern, unrest was becoming dangerously high, as may have been guessed from the comment about mutinies in the fleet, though intelligence reports suggested that Britain was not much better off in that respect.
Nevertheless, the victory point scores said that Germany was still winning, at least for the moment, despite the blockade and despite the loss of Von der Tann and Leipzig.
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Post by director on Jul 28, 2018 23:28:09 GMT -6
Very interesting - I am following this closely. Are you 'building small' from philosophy or lack of funds? I'd enjoy hearing what the Construction and Design Bureau believes the German Navy needs.
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Post by aeson on Jul 29, 2018 14:26:18 GMT -6
Are you 'building small' from philosophy or lack of funds? Bit of both. I've yet to match, let alone exceed, the British naval budget, and I think wartime pressures have been making things worse, not better - Germany had about 90% of the base+colonial resources but just under 60% of the naval budget of Great Britain in July 1908, and the assistance I rendered to the Royal Navy in providing an early retirement for many of their more obsolescent ships probably compounded that despite them doing the same for me, since they had generally lost more and costlier ships than I did. Probably a similar budgetary discrepancy existed since 1906ish when the British dreadnought program started growing beyond my ability to keep up, at least without cutting corners I didn't want to cut, and while the Royal Navy's budgetary advantage was probably smaller earlier in the war (and earlier in the game) it isn't like I ever had budgetary parity with Britain even during the war with Russia, at least not that I can recall.
With regards to the dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers specifically, there was also a bit of bad luck involved - even as late as the end of 1907, when I laid down Deutschland, I had neither 4+ centerline turrets nor superfiring turrets nor triple turrets nor even main battery wing turrets. As a result, there wasn't a whole lot of benefit to be had in making a bigger ship, even if I thought that a smaller number of more powerful ships had been the better option. Everything?
More seriously:
- A good force of second class cruisers. Hopefully, the four Hansa-class cruisers currently under construction will go a ways towards creating such a force, but right now all I have are my eight surviving flashfire-prone Vinetas (I think six of the eight Vinetas I've lost have been lost to flashfires). The Hansas, like the Vinetas, are technically CAs so I'm not sure how well they'll work out, but they at least have significantly better turret protection so they hopefully won't blow up as often. Even so, four won't really be enough, and at 26 knots they'll only just be able to keep up with my battlecruisers anyways so I'll still have a need for something a bit faster. Also, I've been wanting to experiment with CAs instead of CLs for the early- to mid-game cruiser force for a while, and as explosion-prone as the Vinetas have been so far they haven't disappointed enough for me to give up the experiment yet.
- A good torpedo boat or 'modern' destroyer force. The old five-tube 500t (V1) and 600t (S14) DDs have continued to disappoint and are mostly sunk by now anyways (exactly a quarter - 3 of 12 V1s and 7 of 28 S14s - remain afloat), and while the dozen 700t V2s and dozen 900t S15s would have made an adequate force nine of the V2s have been sunk in the year or so in which they've been in service and the S15s are only starting to complete. - Additional battlecruisers. Two is okay right now - Britain doesn't have any more than that - but once the five that Britain's building start commissioning having only two battlecruisers in service or under construction could become a problem. Fortunately the British ships are estimated to be six to eighteen months from completion, so the war might end before they become a real problem. - Additional dreadnought battleships. Three on eight isn't good, and six on twelve after current construction programs complete won't be much better, all the more so as the British ships are mostly expected to complete before my own.
I'll probably need something to replace the Gefion-class cruisers in the colonies eventually; my cramped, short-ranged Vinetas and Wittelsbachs aren't particularly suitable, and the first class cruisers would cost more than I'd really want to spend on station ships. That, however, is not an immediate concern; they may only be good for 22 knots and they may be overdue for refits, but they're adequate for the moment and there are more pressing needs.
I'm also debating whether or not to scrap the Herthas, Danzigs, and Munchen to free up about 4M immediately, because with battlecruisers in play they're becoming a bit of a liability. The only thing really staying my hand at this point is that I think the war will be over soon, one way or the other, and I'd rather put that 4M towards offsetting the post-war budget cuts than towards a construction program that I'd have to suspend or cancel when the war ends, though they're also nice to have as a counter for Britain's six remaining CAs, and when three or four of them are together they're at least not completely hopeless against Britain's two active battlecruisers.
Regardless, I can't currently afford to lay down much in the way of new construction without scrapping the first class cruisers and I have doubts that cruisers or larger vessels would complete in time for war service, so I'm probably just going to start on another batch of S15s or maybe a successor class as the current batch completes.
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Post by cuirasspolisher on Jul 30, 2018 15:25:51 GMT -6
Great AAR. I think your monitor concept has more merit than you think for an early-game war with Britain. They don't perform well against true battleships, but they're economical blockade ships, especially when aided by an allied fleet. By fighting cruiser battles and refusing battleship engagements, it should be possible to whittle down the enemy's cruisers and destroyers without risking the blockading monitors. In the meantime, you could prioritize ship design research in order to beat Britain to dreadnoughts and nullify their superiority in pre-dreadnoughts. Then you would stand a good chance of winning battleship engagements and decisively pulling ahead in VP.
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Post by aeson on Jul 31, 2018 20:06:10 GMT -6
August 1908 passed peacefully, with only a single sighting of British merchant cruisers in the Baltic to unsettle the fleet. September passed nearly as uneventfully, with the only notable occurrence from a naval perspective being an attack on a British convoy near Lerwent by three Hochseeflotte torpedo boats which had become separated from the fleet on a routine patrol, during which a British transport and an armed merchant cruiser were torpedoed and sunk.
October promised to be similarly uneventful until the battlecruisers Moltke and Goeben met their British counterparts Illustrious and Indomitable at the Dogger Bank on the 22nd shortly before sundown. For 30 minutes, from 1645 until 1715, the four ships exchanged fire before damage and the gathering darkness brought the engagement to an end. Moltke suffered severe damage, having been struck 19 times by the 13" guns of Indomitable, and Goeben was moderately damaged by seven 13" and 15 6" shells. On the British side, Illustrious suffered only light damage from the eight 12", six 6", and nine 4" shells which struck her, but Indomitable was sunk by a mere six 12" hits, of which survivors' reports indicate three struck the unarmored bow while a fourth penetrated the forward belt extension at the waterline.
In November, a British destroyer raid encountered several patrolling German torpedo boats, and in the ensuing engagement three British 600t torpedo boat destroyers and two German 900t torpedo boats were sunk. As November came to a close, Kaiser Wilhelm II presided over the keel-laying ceremony for a new second class cruiser, Roon, the first ship of the Kaiserliche Marine to mount three guns in a single turret and have four turrets on the centerline, and a few days later, in early December, the Hertha-class first class cruiser Victoria Louise engaged and sunk the old British first class cruiser Spartiate, a unique ship which carried eight 8" guns in two centerline and two midships wing turrets, with the midships wing turrets abreast of one another. With the coming of the new year, the Danzig-class first class cruiser Nurnberg, patrolling from Emden towards the mouth of the English Channel, encountered the first class cruiser Hogue, last survivor of the Sutlej class. After a long pursuit, Hogue was sunk, but as Nurnberg made its way back towards Emden a British torpedo boat emerged from a fog bank and launched torpedoes before dissolving back into the fog. Despite the surprise, Nurnberg was able to avoid all but one of the British torpedoes and managed to control the damage enough to allow the ship to reach Emden.
Towards the end of January, the Reichstag approved funding for a second Roon-class cruiser, Amazone, and the ship is laid down on the 31st. A week later on the far side of the world, the Gefion-class third class cruisers Arcona and Frauenlob defended a Truk-bound convoy against a lone British torpedo boat destroyer, but the remainder of February and all of March pass almost uneventfully, marred only by anti-war protests in both Britain and Germany.
April arrived, and both the Royal Navy and the Kaiserliche Marine decided to send cruiser patrols to the Dogger Bank, the British sending the modern second class cruiser Persian accompanied by the elderly second class cruiser Psyche with a small destroyer screen and, separately, the modern scout cruiser Andromache with a small destroyer screen, and the Hochseeflotte dispatching the old Hertha-class first class cruiser Freya and the old Vineta-class first calss cruiser Lubeck. The British and German cruisers meet at about noon and the lighter British ships turn to withdraw, but the old Psyche's engines fail her and she is overtaken and destroyed by Freya. Shortly after Psyche sank, Andromache is sighted by Lubeck's lookouts, but the signal is misread on Freya and the force commander was informed that Lubeck had sighted a British battlecruiser to the north-northwest, leading him to order Freya's captain to hoist 'follow me' and proceed towards Emden at 22 knots. Lubeck follows for a time, her captain confused by the withdrawal before realizing that a signalling error had occurred, and repeats her sighting report, which this time is interpreted correctly, leading the German cruisers to turn to pursue Andromache, but the faster British cruiser had by then moved beyond the range of even Freya's 11" guns and could not be caught.
May passed without incident, the Roon-class second class cruisers Berlin and Leipzig were laid down, and in June a successful Army offensive threatened British positions at the border between Tanganyika and South Africa, but with the homeland under blockade the colonial army had neither the resources nor the troops to sustain an invasion of the British colony when the Boer population refused to rise up to expel their British oppressors, having rightly judged that no real help could be had from Germany or France. Nevertheless, the Gefion-class third class cruisers Gefion and Gazelle made an attempt to blockade the South African port of Durban, intercepting and sinking the British third class cruiser Constance of the Conquest class on the 16th before the East Africa Squadron was forced to abandon the localized blockade for lack of adequate numbers of ships.
As operations in southern Africa wound down in early July, the newly-commissioned Hansa-class second class cruiser Prinz Adalbert was selected to accompany the first class cruiser Danzig to Brest for operations in the Celtic Sea. As the ships passed Calais on the seventh, Prinz Adalbert struck a mine and her inexperienced crew proved unable to save her. Danzig continued on to Brest despite the loss of Prinz Adalbert, and on the 25th it was announced that the fifth Roon-class cruiser would be named Prinz Adalbert.
On the fifth of August, Danzig struck a drifting mine as she departed Brest to intercept a British convoy expected near Ireland in the next several days and was forced to return to port. Upon inspection, the damage proved so severe that it was estimated that Danzig would be under repair for five months. Despite having no other cruisers available for the operation, the German squadron commander at Brest elected to continue with the operation using only his three 900t torpedo boats, and as dawn broke the next day the British convoy found the three German warships awaiting them off Rosscarbery. The convoy's escort was composed of two modern cruisers and four torpedo boat destroyers, which attempted to drive off the German torpedo boats and succeeded in damaging one, which withdrew to the southeast while the remaining two ran past the convoy escort and got in among the merchants. Within five minutes, one merchant had been torpedoed and three others had exploded, and the two German ships began racing away to the east, pursued by the British cruisers. Unfortunately, the commander of the third German torpedo boat chose this moment to turn to the northeast and so ran into the British cruisers as they pursued the two undamaged German vessels, leading the British ships to abandon the pursuit of ships which they could not catch in favor of finishing off the damaged torpedo boat which had so foolishly delivered itself to their guns.
Hochseeflotte operations in September had to be cancelled due to a string of disturbances and mutinies aboard various ships, but in October the battlecruisers Moltke and Goeben were dispatched to attempt to break into the North Atlantic by way of the Denmark Strait. For the last time in the war, British battlecruisers intercepted their German counterparts near Bergen. For a brief time after the engagement commenced, it appeared as though Moltke and Goeben might obtain the upper hand over the British Illustrious, Invincible, and Inflexible, but soon Moltke staggered under a series of 13" hits which crippled her machinery, forcing her to break off the engagement. Goeben continued the engagement, drawing the British ships away from her crippled sister, but even so Moltke could not be saved. Soon after Moltke was abandoned, Illustrious exploded and Goeben was lamed by British 13" shells which penetrated the engineering spaces, and soon after would be sunk by the surviving British battlecruisers. Another attempt to break into the North Atlantic with heavy warships, this time with all seven surviving first class cruisers, was planned for November, but the crews scuttled their own ships rather than risk encountering the five British battlecruisers rumored to be in service.
In December, the Hochseeflotte assembled in Emden, and on the twelth put to sea for the final time, intending to attack British ships and coastal installations in and around the Thames Estuary. British intelligence, however, had caught wind of the operation, and the battleships and battlecruisers of the Home Fleet were waiting for the Hochseeflotte near Borkum in the Netherlands. As soon as the British capital ships were sighted, the Hochseeflotte began its return to port, but the powerful British fleet overtook the withdrawing German battleships and monitors, sinking the dreadnought battleship Rheinland before the arrival of night ended the engagement. The dreadnought battleship Westfalen and the monitor Brandenburg were so badly damaged during the engagement that they foundered before reaching port, and the dreadnought battleship Zahringen and many of the surviving monitors were so badly damaged that they would be in the shipyards for much of the remainder of the war. A month later, on the 12th of January 1910, the Vineta-class second class cruiser Gneisenau set out on the final war patrol of the Kaiserliche Marine and encountered the British battlecruisers Inflexible and Indefatigable near the Dogger Bank at midnight, but managed to escape with heavy damage after a brief exchange of gunfire.
Three months later, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates and Bernhard von Bulow resigns the Chancellorship. A new government is formed under Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg and signs an armistice with Great Britain. The sole surviving German dreadnought battleship, Zahringen, and the Hansa-class second class cruisers Hansa and Vineta are surrendered to Great Britain, becoming Prince of Wales, Aboukir, and Hogue in British service, and the island of Samoa becomes a British protectorate. The three incomplete Deutschland-class dreadnought battleships are scrapped, and Germany is forbidden by the peace treaty from building ships larger than 12,000 tons for the next three years.
Out-of-'character' notes: That's the first time I've had a peace treaty impose limitations, and the second time that I can recall that I've lost a war in a government collapse. I could swear that the pop-up said I was limited to 10,000 tons, but the tool tip when I hover over the treaty limitation time says 12,000 tons, so I guess I was mistaken. Interestingly, it seems like I cannot cheat on the peace treaty's maximum displacement clause despite being a limited democracy.
Not sure what I'm going to do to start rebuilding the fleet yet; 12,000 tons is too small for a decent dreadnought battleship or battlecruiser even cutting all the corners I can cut and I don't want to stick myself with worthless ships, but on the other hand I don't really want to be reliant upon my monitors for the next war, either.
I was really hoping for a quick war back in 1903 when this one started, and then for a negotiated settlement when it kept dragging on and British dreadnought construction really started ramping up, but it didn't happen. Possibly I should've taken a risk and sent revolutionaries to Britain the couple times in 1908 and 1909 when that was offered, but in my experience that event backfires all too often and my unrest was already high enough that I didn't want to chance it while I was still ahead on victory points (pretty much until I lost my last two battlecruisers, six months before the end of the war).
That last fleet battle was mostly unavoidable, unfortunately, though it wouldn't have happened if I'd accepted a convoy attack that only might've involved some of my capital ships. That's certainly a possibility, if you can build enough ships to trigger a blockade, though every once in a while you get a fleet battle or battleship engagement which cannot be declined, and it tends to be harder to predict what kinds of ships will show up to a coastal raid or convoy attack. I have doubts that even Germany or the USA could get far enough ahead of Britain in Ship Design to obtain a significant early superiority in dreadnought battleships of reasonable quality, and especially if tensions are high or if it's at war Britain's naval budget is likely to climb pretty rapidly when its naval supremacy is threatened.
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Post by Noname117 on Jul 31, 2018 20:37:14 GMT -6
Ouch, that's rough. Not really sure what you should be doing in those next 3 years; it sounds like you really need battleships and now cannot build any. Maybe you try to build a couple monitor dreadnoughts to at least give your battlefleet something when the next war comes around and put your focus into fast armored cruisers and light forces for the time being?
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Post by aeson on Jul 31, 2018 23:27:51 GMT -6
Ouch, that's rough. Not really sure what you should be doing in those next 3 years; it sounds like you really need battleships and now cannot build any. Maybe you try to build a couple monitor dreadnoughts to at least give your battlefleet something when the next war comes around and put your focus into fast armored cruisers and light forces for the time being? Not entirely sure what you mean by monitor dreadnoughts, but I don't think that I can create a design which is both acceptable to me and classed by the game as a BB on 12,000 tons with current technology. I'm uncertain that I'd want anything that I can currently create in service long enough for it to be worth building, though there are some 2x3x11", 3&2x12", and 1x3x14" B designs that I've been playing around with that I don't consider completely unacceptable and I would like to at least supplement my ten surviving monitors with something better before the next war. Still, I'm currently inclined to let the treaty limitation run out before I lay down any new capital ships and live with the risk that I won't have anything better ready for the next war.
Building up a good cruiser force is definitely in the cards. There are six Roons currently under construction and I could afford to lay down about another two immediately plus several more over the next few months as current construction completes, so I could probably replace the eight surviving Vinetas and have a fair start on building up to pre-war cruiser strength within two years. Not sure that I want to build any CAs much heavier than the Roons right now, though; I've rarely had much luck with CAs after battlecruisers become reasonably prevalent, and it won't be long before the other powers start scrapping most existing CAs anyways.
As to light forces, perhaps. I don't think I can currently improve much, if at all, on my S15s and I'll have 28 of them when current construction completes, so with only ten surviving monitors and my existing cruiser forces being obsolete and depleted I'll probably not be building too many additional destroyers in the near future. I do however want to replace the Gefions currently serving in the colonies; they haven't been refitted all game long and are now quite slow at only 22 knots, so I might look into developing a new third or even second class cruiser with which to replace them. It's not really a high priority project at the moment, however.
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Post by Noname117 on Aug 1, 2018 10:43:45 GMT -6
I think the main problem you're going to have is that it will take you 6 years to get a new decent capital ship into service. For those 6 years you'll have to deal with your monitors and whatever you can build with the 12000 ton limit. So your options are basically limited to small coastal defense ships armed with 3-6 heavy guns, "large light cruisers" like the Courageous class, first class cruisers designed to be fast enough to outrun battlecruisers, and then anything smaller.
So either you try to get something small to supplement your current battlefleet, so you can at least have a bit of punch with it, even if you have a large glass jaw, or you could build up your fleet for a more Jeune École style of warfare for those 3 years, and rely on that as your battleplan for the next 6 years.
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Post by aeson on Aug 1, 2018 18:22:34 GMT -6
With the end of the war and the imposition of a 12,000-ton limit on new construction, the Reichsmarineampt turned its attention to the modernization of the cruiser force. Seven of the eight surviving Vineta-class cruisers, their turrets having proven dangerously vulnerable to enemy fire during the war, were sold to the breakers' yards while the last, Lubeck, was expended as a gunnery target for the monitors, sinking before it could be inspected to evaluate the effectiveness of its armor scheme. The funds thus released permitted the laying down of the Roon-class cruisers Hertha and Freya and the commencement of work on light defenses for Weihaiwei, seized during the war and retained in the peace treaty.
By July, political pressure from the Navy League had lead the Reichstag to approve a modest increase in naval funding for the construction of several new third class cruisers to replace the aging Gefion-class vessels. In compliance with the wishes of their political masters, the Reichsmarine began laying down sixteen new third class cruisers, beginning with Undine, Lubeck, Bremen, and Konigsberg in the latter half of July, with Danzig and Hamburg following in September, Stuttgart and Stettin in November, Nurnberg and Kolberg in December, Desden and Emden in January of 1911, Mainz and Coln in February, and finally Augsburg and Magdeburg in March. With the immediate demands of their political masters fulfilled, the Reichsmarineampt began to draw up plans for a new class of monitor, one which would be armored well enough to resist shells fired by the modern heavy guns in service with other navies while carrying a powerful armament of its own. This project, however, was soon interrupted by other events.
In the late spring of 1911, representatives of the Kingdom of Italy opened discussions with France and Germany about joining the alliance, and by the end of June the King of Italy, the President of France, and the Chancellor of Germany met in Strasbourg to announce the formation of a Tripartite Pact binding the German Republic, the French Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy to come to one another's aid should any become involved in a war with another major power. This news was met by indifference throughout much of the world, though Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire would both seek to assure themselves that this new alliance was not aimed at them. Within the Reichsmarine, the formation of this alliance was met with ambivalence, for while the navies of the Tripartite Pact were together strong enough to challenge any one of the great naval powers of the world, this seeming-security also lead the Reichstag to reduce naval funding, forcing the Reichsmarineampt to postpone the finalization of the designs for the new monitors, instead starting work on a new class of torpedo boats, the G11 class, larger and more heavily armed than the preceding S15 class.
As winter approached, the German economy, burdened by reparations payments, began to falter, and popular sentiment began to turn against the Chancellery. By January 1912, when the next elections came, the situation had become quite unstable, and when the monarchists and socialists, traditionally political opponents of one another, both obtained a significant number of seats in the Reichstag many worried that Germany was headed for another governmental collapse. However, the monarchists and the socialists came to an agreement which allowed them to form a coalition government, the socialists giving their support to the return of the Kaiser and the monarchists giving their support to most of the social reforms which the socialists had promised during the election campaigns. Thus the Reichsmarine became the Kaiserliche Marine once again and social revolution was averted, but the Reichsmarineampt was once more forced to postpone the commencement of work on its new monitors and instead added a few more G11-class torpedo boats to the construction program. With the economy revitalizing under the guidance of the monarchist-socialist coalition government and with Kaiser Wilhelm II restored to his throne - albeit with significantly reduced powers - to provide an element of stability to the domestic political situation, the Reichstag approved funds for the construction of new capital ships, and required that at least three battleships or monitors be under construction for the Navy by the end of July. The Reichsmarineampt protested, pointing out that the displacement limitation imposed by the treaty would be lifted only nine months after the deadline set by the Reichstag, but the politicians were unmoved. Therefore, as the end of June approached, the Reichsmarineampt placed orders for three new monitors - Brandenburg, Deutschland, and Schleswig-Holstein - for the Kaiserliche Marine, and all three were laid down early the next month. The remainder of the year passed without incident and with a steadily-improving economy, and when in April the limitation on new construction imposed by the treaty expired the Kaiserliche Marine was ready to lay down a further three new capital ships, this time of a significantly more powerful type. The battlecruisers Moltke, Goeben, and Mackensen would, it was believed, be the perfect foundation for a powerful battlecruiser force which would be capable of eroding the numerical superiority of the other powers' fleets, should war come before the Kaiserliche Marine had been restored to its former size. Unfortunately, the Navy and the Government were out of step with one another, and in October, at an international arms limitation conference in Geneva called by the Tsar of Russia and the King of England, the Chancellor signed away all six of Germany's new capital ships, agreeing to an international limit of 18,000 tons and 12" guns on new construction. The ship designers of the Reichsmarineampt went back to work, and after much discussion of what was known of foreign capital ships the Weissenburg-class monitors and Goeben-class battlecruisers, thought to be at least comparable to almost all existing foreign warships, were developed. Three of each were laid down to replace the three Brandenburg-class monitors and three Moltke-class battlecruisers cancelled in compliance with the arms limitation treaty.
1914 came and went, and when the Franco-Prussian Alliance expired in 1915 France renewed its membership in the Tripartite Pact. Tensions began creeping up with Russia, and in January 1916 four S57-class torpedo boats, the largest and most heavily armed yet conceived anywhere in the world, were laid down. The three Goeben-class battlecruisers all completed in March, as did the monitor Weissenburg, and with the armaments limitation treaty still in force for about seven years the Reichsmarineampt elected to order another two battlecruisers, Seydlitz and Hindenburg, to a slightly-modified Goeben design, sometimes regarded as a separate class and other times regarded merely as a subclass of the Goeben.
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 1, 2018 21:48:19 GMT -6
Unfortunately, the Navy and the Government were out of step with one another, and in October, at an international arms limitation conference in Geneva called by the Tsar of Russia and the King of England, the Chancellor signed away all six of Germany's new capital ships, agreeing to an international limit of 18,000 tons and 12" guns on new construction.
Do you ever ragequit?!
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Post by Noname117 on Aug 2, 2018 9:51:33 GMT -6
I mean, depending on what capital ships the other nations have, this could be a blessing in disguise. Although losing that 14 inch armed set of monitors is going to hurt him.
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