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#181 simanton

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Posted 16 April 2021 - 10:59 PM

"A good lawyer knows the law.  A great lawyer knows the judge...."



#182 healey36

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Posted 07 May 2021 - 02:31 PM

January 17, 1916

 

This fourth and final part of the three-day Möwe saga is a recast of the events of January 17, 1916, centering on the notion of HMS Essex and her captain acting upon the radio messages of SS Clan MacTavish, received on the evening of January 16, 1916. These garbled messages were, in fact, discarded/ignored by the wireless operators, with HMS Essex continuing her patrol some 150 miles south of the freighter’s last reported position. It was a long-shot opportunity to have ended Möwe’s career early on, tragically cast aside. Apologies given in advance for its long-winded nature.

 

 

Alone in HMS Essex’s cramped radio room, a young telegraph rating sat hunched at his station, head down, his headset held tightly over his ears. There it was again, he thought, a faint message, nearly obscured by crackling interference, a call for assistance, under attack, Clan MacTavish, along with a position. It repeated nearly a dozen times before it faded into an indiscernible stream, but he was able to jot down most, if not all of it. Looking at his watch, he noted the time and date in the wireless log as 1848, 16 January 1916.

 

He’d no sooner written into the log then the steel door behind him swung open, the CPO sticking his head in to check on him. Turning, the operator said nothing, just handed him the slip of paper.

 

“Are you sure?” his chief asked. He always harbored some doubts about these newly-minted wireless operators.

 

“It repeated a number of times; I wrote down what I could, but then I lost it.”

 

“Give it another twenty minutes. See if you can raise it again. I’ll be back ‘round in a bit.”

 

A half hour slipped by and the operator heard nothing, just a few faint wisps of inconsequential traffic. When the chief returned, the operator had nothing new to report. The surly CPO, mumbling something about having had his doubts, told the radioman he would need to stay on past the end of his watch as the lead telegraphist had taken ill and was laid up in sick bay.

 

He’d nearly given up on it when, at 2048, a new message from Clan MacTavish was heard, quite clear, reporting that the freighter had been attacked by an unidentified ship which they’d managed to elude. The message provided a revised time, position, and an approximate heading. The operator alerted the watch officer, who had the message taken to the bridge. At 2100, Essex’s captain, Hugh D. R. Watson, was sent for and told of the message. Looking at the charts, they determined that Essex could be on Clan MacTavish’s approximate position within eight or nine hours. At 2124, Watson messaged Cape Verde station, who ordered Essex off her patrol and sent north.

 

__________

 

At 2018, Dohna-Schlodien ordered Möwe around to resume the pursuit of Clan MacTavish, but after nearly two hours searching in the darkness, no trace of the big freighter was found. The German made the presumption that MacTavish’s captain would quickly resume his original due-north course and set Möwe’s search in that direction; Oliver, in fact, had turned onto an ENE heading, moving nearly 180 degrees opposite the last glimpse he’d had of his adversary. Shortly before 2100, Oliver took one hell of a chance and ordered a short message sent advising of their encounter, the time, and an approximate position. Receiving no response and presuming no assistance was coming, he resolved to put as much water as possible between him and the German cruiser before dawn.

 

Dohna Schlodien
Nikolaus Burggraf und Graf zu Dohna-Schlodien.

 

Dohna-Schlodien had decisions of his own to make, none of them particularly good. First, he radioed Berg on Appam, advising him that Möwe would not rendezvous with the liner again, instead ordering him to take the ship west to a neutral American port. He directed Berg to do this in a leisurely fashion, both to delay the release of the British prisoners she was carrying, as well as optimizing Möwe’s chances to disappear.

 

He next had to decide whether to remain in the area south of Funchal, move to another location somewhere along the West African coast, or simply push off for the hunting grounds of South America and a rendezvous with Corbridge for recoaling. While they had not detected any radio traffic overnight indicating the gig was up, he had to presume that the freighter, if able, would do so by morning. As the hours slipped by and no “alarm” traffic was overheard, Dohna-Schlodien made the decision to remain for a few days before heading west.

 

Hugh D. R. Watson had taken command of Essex on New Year’s Day, 1915. During the years leading up to the war, she’d had a reputation as a rather undisciplined ship, performing subpar on maneuvers while wreaking havoc in a number of ports of call. Watson, together with Hugh Tweedie, her previous commander, had gone a long ways toward getting the troublemakers and malcontents sorted. By January, 1916, she was performing as well as any of the cruisers assigned to foreign stations.

 

HMS Essex C2
Möwe's pursuer, HMS Essex, a Monmouth-class armored cruiser.

 

The Monmouth-class armored cruisers, of which Essex was one of ten, had been purpose-built for defending the sea lanes against marauding enemy cruisers and armed merchantmen. They were relatively lightly armed (14 six-inch in two twin turrets and six casemates) and armored (just 2-4 inches along the belt) as compared to the preceding Drake-class, but they had good speed, which was critical for the task at hand. Besides the lighter main armament, there were a number of design issues, the most glaring being eight of the six-inch were configured in two-tiered casemates, the lower of which were nearly awash in all but the calmest of conditions and lowest speeds. An anomaly in White’s string of cruiser designs, faults aside, they were lovely ships.

 

While Essex charged north at 18 knots, Watson was left to plan his search. With precious little information from MacTavish to build on, he started with the approximate position of her encounter which she’d radioed some eight hours earlier. Presuming the German was, at worst, a light cruiser, operating at a speed of 20 knots or less, he was left with a potential area of some 80,000 square nautical miles to deal with. That was, however, only if the raider had bolted in a straight line, which he thought unlikely. If the German had spent any significant time trying to track the freighter, the distance from the point of contact was probably far less, which would reduce the search area considerably, and a presumption that the German would stay close to the shipping lanes reduced it further. Drawing a circle around an area of some 6000 square nautical miles south and west of Madeira, he would focus his search there.

 

Sir_Hugh_Watson_in_1928.jpg

A postwar photo of Sir Hugh D. R. Watson from 1928.

 

Some ninety minutes before sunrise, a lookout reported a smudge of smoke on the horizon off Essex’s starboard bow. Sending the men to action stations, Watson had the cruiser move to investigate. What they discovered was nothing more than a 500-ton Portuguese trawler, belching a plume of oily smoke while dragging nets from its extended booms. Satisfied that this was no German raider, Watson pressed on at 15 knots, still more than two hours south of his targeted search area.

 

At 0740, another ship was encountered, this the Norwegian-flagged refrigerated motor vessel Sardinia, bound for Luanda with a cargo of fish, machine oil and parts. After a cursory inspection consuming the better part of forty minutes, both ships were back on their way, with Sardinia quickly disappearing over the southern horizon.

 

Nine hours after having dispatched Appam for her run west, Dohna-Schlodien was having second thoughts. The cargo liner might have proved useful as a decoy, screening Möwe in the event of a confrontation with a well-armed adversary. He made no effort to recall her, but it had him thinking. His failed overnight search for the freighter had taken him further north and east than he wanted. Presuming that any threat would likely come from the direction of Madeira, he ordered Möwe’s speed reduced to eight knots and a turn to the south-southwest. This would take them slowly across the established shipping lanes, as well as a line some forty miles west where traffic was reportedly moving in an attempt to avoid submarines that might be operating in the area. Once beyond that, sensing the risk of hanging around was too great, they’d head west for the Brazilian coast.

 

At 0920, Essex reached Clan MacTavish’s reported position at the time of her encounter with the German raider. As expected, there was nothing to be seen, the sea empty in all directions. MacTavish’s radio-location shortly before 2100 was nearly fifteen miles north-northeast, so Watson ordered Essex off on a line in that direction. He planned to continue on that heading for two or three hours, then begin a wide turn that would take the cruiser to the northwest.

 

By early afternoon, air temps had risen to a seasonal 61 degrees while sea conditions remained “gentle” (d12 roll of 3). At 1348, a faint wisp of smoke was reported off Essex’s port bow, some eight to twelve miles off. Checking the charts and their current position, Watson determined they were just outside the western edge of the standard north-south shipping lane, placing the ship fifteen to twenty nautical miles outside of where he’d expect one to be. Deciding to investigate, he ordered the helmsman to make a ten degree turn to port and speed increased back to 18 knots.

 

After nearly an hour of steaming, Essex had made little headway in reaching and identifying the vessel, although the smoke was a bit darker and better-defined. Watson realized two things: (1) Essex was slowly reeling in its quarry, and (2) the ship was travelling nearly perpendicular to the “normal” traffic lanes, highly suspicious behavior in Watson’s mind. He ordered speed increased to 20 knots.

 

Up ahead, Dohna-Schlodien had run through a similar analytical process, although his being laced with considerable caution. A topside lookout had spotted smoke off Möwe’s port quarter at 1406, and while Dohna-Schlodien would have dearly loved to turn back and harvest another merchantman, he did not, instead observing its position over time with the intention of determining its course. If it was observed to be moving north-south along the sea lane, then he would pursue it. It did not; in fact, after nearly an hour the ship’s position astern of Möwe had barely moved, indicating the ship was travelling on a similar heading, possibly in pursuit. Dohna-Schlodien decided it would be prudent to try and put as much water between them as possible. At 1436, he ordered a slight turn to port which, after a few minutes, the ship astern mimicked. This confirmed his suspicion that Möwe was being pursued, and he ordered his ship ahead at flank speed (14 knots).

 

__________

 

The inexorable march to some sort of endgame had begun, and Dohna-Schlodien was up against it. With more than three hours until sunset, he knew there was little chance of escaping into darkness, and the cloudless blue skies overhead gave little hope of a sudden squall or fog-bank to provide sanctuary. Short of a miracle, he knew he would have to face down his pursuer or strike his colors.

 

At 1512, Watson received word from the watch officer overhead that the ship had come into view, revealing itself to be a two-masted, single-funnel steamer, flag unknown. Still nearly twelve miles off, Watson ordered a signal sent, identifying himself as the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Essex and requesting the steamer’s identity. Receiving no response, he ordered the query sent again, to which a delayed response was returned that the ship is the Harrison Line’s Benefactor out of Liverpool. Watson finds that curious and decides he wants a closer look. At Essex’s current speed, she is closing on the merchantman at a rate of one mile every ten minutes.

 

SS Benefactor
SS Benefactor of the Harrison Line.

 

Peering aft through his battered Zeiss binoculars, Dohna-Schlodien could clearly see the outline of the three-funnel cruiser bearing down on Möwe. He was playing it coy, the British Red Ensign still fluttering above his ship, but he wondered how long the charade could last. To bring his 5.9-inch to bear, he would need to turn out from his present course to present his broadside, and his gun crews, which had proved themselves largely ineffective against a hostile ship less than 24 hours ago, would require a range of 4000-6000 yards for any chance, a torpedo half that. He didn’t like the odds, but to simply give up without a shot was unacceptable.

 

By 1542, the range was down to nine miles, still nearly 16000 yards. Watson ordered a new signal sent by lamp, demanding the ship heave to. There was no response, nor any indication that she intended to stop. Perhaps at the outer limits of lamp range, it was possible the signal was missed or misunderstood, but Watson had his doubts. At 1612, having closed to within six miles, he ordered the signal sent again, and again received no reply, although the ship was now observed to slow somewhat.

 

Dohna-Schlodien realized Möwe was rapidly approaching her Götterdämmerung moment. She couldn’t run and she couldn’t hide, but perhaps she could act in an erratic manner, thereby confusing her pursuer. With the range down to 8800 yards, he ordered a pair of distress flares launched, hoping this might give Essex pause. He then ordered Möwe’s speed to be gradually reduced to ten knots. Presuming the cruiser would continue her rapid approach, he hoped to get the range down to three miles or less, whereupon he’d turn across the Englander’s bow and open fire.

 

Watson and the others on Essex’s bridge watched in wonder as the pair of flares arced into the afternoon sky. What sort of tomfoolery was this, Watson wondered. Whatever it was, he’d had about enough of it. By 1642, the range was just a shade more than two miles, with Essex overtaking the freighter by a mile every six minutes. Sensing that his ability to maneuver was tightening as the distance closed, he ordered the cruiser’s speed reduced to 15 knots with an 18-degree turn to port. He then turned to his XO, “Signal them again, full stop, or we open fire.”

 

Watson’s “final” signal proved too late as an increasingly edgy Dohna-Schlodien, just seconds before, ordered Möwe into action. The Red Duster flying over her stern was quickly hauled down, replaced by the German naval ensign, with the ship lurching into a sharp turn to starboard, her speed returned to flank. The partitions are dropped to reveal her 5.9-inch, the disguised 4.1-inch on her stern is cleared and swung around for action, and the torpedo crews rotate their mounts outboard. He had, however, made his first mistake, choosing a turn to starboard under the presumption the cruiser would continue its rapid direct approach. Watson had not, instead choosing to turn to port, outside the freighter’s line, which now presented him a stern-on shot.

 

If Watson harbored any doubts of the German’s intentions, those were quickly dispelled. At 1648, Möwe’s stern mount 4.1-inch fires at a range of 3200 yards, scoring a non-penetrating hit on the face of Essex’s A-turret, sending splinters in all directions but causing only superficial damage and no casualties.

 

Möwe’s turn brings her starboard 5.9-inch to bear, commencing their fire at 1654. Dohna-Schlodien curses as a pair of tall columns of water erupt 50 yards off Essex’s stern. He knows every shot must count if they are to survive this fight. Watson, standing along the rail on the flying bridge, orders his main battery to commence firing, with nine 6-inch firing nearly in unison. With the range at 3000 yards (just 1.7 miles), all miss.

 

HMS Essex C
SMS Möwe's first 5.9-inch volley lands astern of HMS Essex.

 

At 1700, Dohna-Schlodien makes a second blunder. Anticipating the cruiser to turn in on his ship attempting to further close the range, he orders Möwe to turn sharply to port, reversing back to something close to her original course. In so doing, her 5.9-inch again lose their fire angle. The 4.1-inch fires but misses. Essex unleashes another broadside, the range having widened to 3600 yards. While they score no direct hits, they are dreadfully close.

 

01171916 B
SMS Möwe bracketed by a 6-inch volley from Essex.

 

Möwe continues her turn back to port, now bringing her onto a line roughly parallel to Essex. With her 5.9-inch back on line, she fires a broadside, holing the cruiser at the waterline aft of Z-turret on her starboard side. At 4100, yards, however, Möwe has slipped outside the range of her torpedoes. Seconds later she is rocked by three hits from Essex, crushing two bulkheads below deck and starting a fire in her aft cargo hold (converted for coal storage). As seawater pours into the ship and smoke billows from her aft hold, Möwe’s speed drops to eight knots.

 

Within minutes, Möwe has gotten the bulkhead damage and related flooding contained, but the fire in her aft hold continues to burn (causing additional flooding). At 1712, the range widening, both ships fire and miss.

 

01171916 A
SMS Möwe on fire.

 

By 1718, Dohna-Schlodien’s XO reports the fire is under control, but the German’s speed has now fallen to just 5 knots. With scarcely enough momentum to maneuver, Möwe sends another volley in Essex’s direction, missing from 4500 yards; Essex returns fire, scoring a single hit which stoves in her forward port-side 5.9-inch position and making hash of the gun crew.

 

Minutes go by and the range continues to widen, now nearly 4800 yards. Looking at his watch, Watson realizes they’ve been at this for scarcely a half-hour. A-turret thunders and he looks up to see a 6-inch round plow into the German aft. As smoke again begins to pour out of her cargo hold, her remaining port-side 5.9-inch fires, the shell passing safely up and over the British cruiser’s funnels.

 

While Möwe quickly gets her fires back under control, the entire back half of the ship is now little more than a blackened hulk. With her pumps struggling to contain the flooding, her speed down to just five knots, nearly a third of her crew dead or wounded, and a quarter of her main armament out of action, her career comes to a fictional end. At 1730, Dohna-Schlodien orders the colors struck, his crew and prisoners into the boats. Standing along the rail, he watches as the men pull away, then heads below to open the seacocks.


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#183 healey36

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Posted 21 May 2021 - 01:46 PM

A nice prewar shot of HMS Essex, date and location unknown:

 

4a16291v.jpg

 

Produced by the Detroit Publishing Company, it's almost certain to be a U. S. location, Newport News perhaps. A personal favorite, HMS Essex and the other Monmouth-class cruisers were lovely ships. The two-deck casemate configuration is clearly seen here, as is her "flying bridge".

 

Courtesy of the Library of Congress.


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#184 healey36

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Posted 26 June 2021 - 09:01 AM

Final Thoughts – SMS Möwe

 

After compilation and review of quite a few personal accounts and numerous conceptual drawings of Möwe's configuration, I am now convinced that both pairs of her 5.9-inch were located on the main deck forward of the superstructure, with the furthest forward pair mounted on either side of the main deck below the forecastle deck, hidden behind collapsible bulwarks. The second pair were located on the main deck immediately adjacent to the forecastle, also behind collapsible bulwarks but ahead of the forward torpedo single-mounts. I have revised the ship log to reflect this:

 

SMS Mowe ship Log
SMS Möwe revised ship's log.
 
The forward-most pair, positioned on either side of the forecastle on the main deck, were mounted/positioned such that they could nearly fire directly forward, outside the typical broadside arc. I'm not exactly sure how one presents this in the log, so suggestions are more than welcome. 
 

The fictional encounter between SMS Möwe and HMS Essex is now more than a month in the rear-view, yet my interest in Dohna-Schlodien and his fulgent career has only now begun to be sated. After four months pawing at it, reading every credible shred of documentation I can find regarding SMS Möwe (including translating sizable sections of Dohna-Schlodien's 1916 book), her captain, her crew, and her considerable war record, I can’t honestly say I understand much of it any better than when I started. Möwe’s career, much like that of her captain, appears to have been one of skill, discipline, temperament, and honor, all made possible by, as unlikely as it may seem, an extraordinary dose of good fortune (I'm a firm believer that good luck doesn't simply rain down on folks, but instead, their actions go a long way toward making it).

 

Certainly much of Möwe’s success is directly attributable to Dohna-Schlodien (as one would expect), whose considerable skills were demonstrated throughout the raider’s career. He’d had a hand in her conversion and reconstruction, her armament, her fitting out, and the selection and training of her crew. As best I can tell, he was a hard-nosed disciplinarian, yet one that was considered fair and consistent, the latter being one of the most important traits of a good commander. By all accounts, he demanded and seems to have received good measure from his subordinates.

 

If there was any one characteristic of the Prussian Dohna-Schlodien that impresses, it was his strict adherence to the rules of war at sea as set forth in the years leading up to and during WWI. I could not find a single case of a ship being sunk without warning, of a surrendered merchantman’s crew left uncared for, or the mistreatment of any prisoner taken aboard his ship. Adversaries that chose, after receiving a warning shot or signal, to make a run for it or offer resistance were dealt with harshly, but never outside the bounds of the law and often at considerable peril to Dohna-Schlodien and his ship. While so many of his peers found themselves venturing beyond the ethical bounds of an “unrestricted” war at sea, Dohna-Schlodien’s record of conduct remained unblemished.

 

During the waning days of her final voyage, Möwe encountered the adversary that would nearly provide her undoing. SS Otaki was a large refrigerated cargo liner owned and operated by the New Zealand Shipping Company of Napier, NZ, primarily engaged in the frozen meat trade between her home port and Great Britain. She was captained by a tough 38 year-old Scotsman named Archibald Bisset Smith and crewed by an entirely British complement of merchant seamen.

 

Archibald Bisset Smith

Archibald Bisset Smith, captain of SS Otaki.

 

On March 10, 1917, Möwe and Otaki would cross paths some 350 nautical miles east of the Azores. Möwe, running low on fuel and provisions and her holds filled with a few hundred prisoners, had just begun her long return home to Kiel, while Otaki was west-bound from London to New York on the first leg of her return to New Zealand. By all accounts, the weather that afternoon was poor, the seas running heavy with rolling bands of visibility-obscuring rain squalls. When the two ships sighted each other, they were separated by only a few thousand yards of open sea. Dohna-Schlodien, bringing Möwe around, signaled the cargo liner to stop. Smith, thinking his chances of escape good, scoffed at the notion and ordered Otaki’s speed increased sharply. The chase was on.

 

By this time, Möwe had sunk more than forty ships (including those which had fallen victim to the mines she had laid during her first voyage more than a year earlier). She was well-acquainted with the various circumstances of such encounters, and Otaki was certainly not the first ship to attempt an escape. However, given his ship’s depleted fuel situation, it must have irritated Dohna-Schlodien that he would have to turn west and pursue the freighter, burning through a portion of his dwindling coal supply.

 

Smith, for a number of reasons, liked his chances. First, the weather, with its line-of-sight blotting rain squalls, promised intermittent periods of cover in which he hoped to make his escape. Second, Otaki had a 4.7-inch gun mounted on her stern which, manned by an RN gun crew of some presumed competence, offered a chance of defending the ship. Those two things together might have been enough to give Smith a belief that escape was possible, but the real reason was more complicated and lay deep in the bowels of the ship.

 

During the last decades pf the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, steam engine technology had begun to see a rapid evolution, both in terms of the power that could be generated as well as the efficiency by which it was produced and used. One of the first innovations was the development of “compounding”, whereby the steam exhaust from one engine was recaptured and used to power a second. Otaki, launched in 1908, was one of the first commercial ships to use this technology. The steam exhaust from her twin-screwed triple-expansion steam engines was used to power a low-pressure turbine driving a third screw, giving her a top speed of 15 knots, some 1-2 knots greater than the single-screwed Möwe’s flank speed.

 

SS Otaki 1910
SS Otaki, as she appeared in 1910.

 

The combination of weather, defensive weapons, and a top speed that he presumed was at least the equal of his pursuer, gave Smith the possibly misplaced confidence that escape was possible. However, he had made one miscalculation in recognizing the effect of the head seas, these going far to mitigate his speed advantage. Möwe appeared to suffer the effect less, perhaps as she was following in Otaki’s wake, and she was able to slowly reel in the cargo liner. At a range of some 2000 yards, the two ships began a lively exchange of gunfire.

 

Otaki’s two-man RN gun crew, supplemented by a half-dozen of her merchant seamen, gave a good account of themselves. The old 4.7-inch landed a number of hull hits, one holing Möwe near the bow which caused considerable flooding difficulties in the rough seas, followed by a second that penetrated to one of her coal bunkers, starting a serious fire that threatened her magazine. The German gun crews soon gave as good as they got, scoring more than two dozen hits up and down Otaki, starting fires and killing a number of her crew. After 20 minutes, Smith was forced to order the ship abandoned. The boats were lowered, with some men jumping over the side to be picked up. When all were accounted, Smith was among the missing, presumably having decided to remain aboard the sinking ship.

 

After picking up the survivors, Dohna-Schlodien and his crew would spend the next three days desperately trying to extinguish the fire in her coal bunker which, if not extinguished, might see the ship torn apart by a catastrophic magazine explosion. They would go so far as to cut holes in her hull to flood the hold, dousing the fire and residual embers. With the fires at last out, the holes in her hull plated over, and her hold and forward compartments pumped, Möwe resumed her voyage home. Within twenty-four hours she would overtake and sink Chapman & Sons’ SS Demeterton bound for Britain with a cargo of timber, then a day later the Charente Line’s SS Governor which was headed home to Liverpool in ballast. Governor, a ship scarcely two years old, was the last to be sunk by the Möwe.

 

Möwe successfully ran the blockade a final time, returning to port amidst great celebration. Her career as a commerce raider was complete. She resumed the life of a cargo ship for various companies during the interwar years, only to be requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine some two decades later, pressed into service as a transport. She was sunk in a Norwegian fjord during an air raid in the closing days of the war.

 

Dohna-Schlodien’s naval career ended in 1919, ironically to take up a new one in merchant shipping with a Hamburg-based line. From this he retired in the years prior to the Second World War, moving to Bavaria with his wife and family where he died in 1956.

 

In his ghost-written book published during the First World War, Dohna-Schlodien attributed Möwe’s success to the quality of his crew, the sturdy construction of his ship, and the strategy of never staying too long in any one place. While he had considerable confidence in his skills of leadership and the ways of the sea, he never discounted the value of having Lady Luck on his side.

 

A friend of mine who enjoyed a 50-plus year career as a pilot, once told me that there’s a delicate balance of luck in most anything that bears a degree of risk.

 

“You begin flying with a full bag of luck and an empty bag for experience,” he would say. “The object is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.”

 

Perhaps such was the brief arc that was the career of SMS Möwe.

 

51272602334_a674b3523a_z.jpg


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#185 simanton

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Posted 26 June 2021 - 10:35 PM

Review engineering.  Double expansion compounding went back to the mid-nineteenth century, triple expansion to the 1890s.  At the turn of the century, torpedo boat destroyers were being built with quadruple expansion.  The largest triple expanders ever sent afloat were in the White Star liners of the Olympic class, the most powerful warship triple expanders were on SMS Bluecher.

 

Like zu Dohne Schlodier, I am a "Hague Convention" man, which marks me for hopelessly naive, or a hopeless idealist.  Or, like Hauptmann von Kellermann in the film of The Blue Max, my notions of honor are obsolete.



#186 healey36

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Posted 27 June 2021 - 07:19 AM

Yes, compounding as employed within a single multi-cylinder engine had been around for some time. Otaki employed a pair of triple-expansion steam engines and a secondary turbine, three screws in all. The innovation of compounding as employed on Otaki was steam exhaust being captured from the triple-expansion engines and sent to the turbine "engine" to power a third screw. This notion is similar to the great articulated Mallet locomotives that were developed in Europe in the late 1800s, where steam generated by a single boiler went to a first engine, then the steam exhaust from that engine's cylinders was captured and sent to a second, low-pressure engine. Splitting hairs perhaps, but quite different nonetheless. 

 

What I can't readily understand is why Otaki wasn't faster. Her speed with triple screws topped out at roughly 15 knots. Möwe, with her single triple-expansion engine and single screw, was just a knot or two slower. Otaki's gross registered tonnage, however, was fifty percent larger than Möwe. Architecture plays into it, as does boiler configuration/capacity (a steam locomotive issue resolved by Lima in the mid-1920s with the development of "Super Power"). 

 

Prussian "virtues" seems an outgrowth of the late 12th century's chivalric code, a sort of code of conduct established amongst noblemen regarding what was acceptable behavior in the conduct of war. As seen at places such as Agincourt, it did nothing to contain the brutality, just produced a set of "guidelines" that condoned it. Prussians like von Richthofen were described as "knights" of the air, but were, in fact, cold-blooded killers collecting victims as trophies. The conduct of war at sea had a framework of laws around it, and circumstances were certainly different, yet Dohna-Schlodien and his men, IMHO, seem an extraordinary exception to the excesses of conflict. 


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#187 simanton

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Posted 27 June 2021 - 10:55 PM

The OLYMPICs also employed the triple expansion/low pressure turbine combination, and were definitely more efficient than their speed demon rivals at Cunard MAURETANIA and LUSITANIA.  Yes, OTAKI's hull lines may have been a factor.  Yes, Will Woodard at LIma made single expansion high speed efficiency practical with the four wheel trailing truck and enlarged firebox with the revolutionary A-1 2-8-4.

 

I apply Robert Anton Wilson's "sumbunall" to the prussian code.  Back in 1995, I had the honor to give a tour of The Hampton Roads Naval Museum to Marquardt, Graf von Stauffenberg, nephew to Claus von Stauffenberg whom I am sure I need not identify to you.  Incidentally, Marquardt was a 1/1200 ship collector.


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#188 healey36

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Posted 28 June 2021 - 07:56 AM

Of the three Stauffenberg brothers, Claus' story is well known, Berthold somewhat less, Alexander not much at all. Decades ago, I recall reading a series of papers written by Alexander, a time when I was trying to make sense of the Greek-Persian war(s), Troy, Schliemann, and Asia Minor history of a few thousand years ago. My recollection is that, of the three, he was the sole wartime survivor, an historian of some considerable reputation in matters of ancient history. His wife, a test pilot in the German aircraft design/manufacturing industry, would have made for a great autobiography had she survived the war.  

 

The only triple-expansion steam engine I've ever seen first-hand is the one in the John W. Brown, a restored Liberty ship berthed in Baltimore. It's been a long time, but I recall her top speed being described as somewhere around 10-12 knots. The vertical configuration of the engine made it well-suited for a ship's propulsion, but were there other applications? Pre-pandemic, Brown was run on twice-per-year excursions down the bay, something that was/is on the bucket list. If access to the engine room is allowed while in operation, that would be something to see.

 

From what I've read, refrigerated cargo ships (both Möwe and Otaki were originally built as such) were, in light of their chilled hold's contents, designed/built to operate at a higher speed. Brown, built nearly three decades later, was oil fired, whereas Möwe and Otaki were coal burners (if that matters). 

 

Thanks for adding Wilson's "sumbunall" to my vocabulary; I was unfamiliar with both. :)



#189 simanton

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Posted 28 June 2021 - 11:11 PM

The triple expander was a very economical plant.  The turbine gave a better power/weight ration, but not being an engineer myself, I find it interesting that economy seems to be in inverse proportion to power/weight ration.  Nowadays, it seems to be that in order of economy it's Diesel, steam turbine, gas turbine whereas for power/weight it seems to be gas turbine, steam turbine, Diesel.  Certainly, triple expansion didn't rule out speed.  The Bleu Riband liners, prior to the Cunard speed demons, were triple expanders and BLUECHER certainly had a good turn of speed.

 

AIUI, the children of Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand were exemplary in courage in the Konzentrationslagern.



#190 healey36

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Posted 07 July 2021 - 07:33 AM

I find it interesting that economy seems to be in inverse proportion to power/weight ration.  

When you start probing the economics of the maritime shipping industry, you find that shipping speed is decidedly secondary in consideration to minimizing operating cost, i.e. fuel, maintenance, crew wages, etc. If your client is okay with receiving his shipment of machine parts in 20 days, there's little reason to invest in faster ships that can get them there in 16 days. Refrigerated cargo ships and cargo liners were built for a bit more speed, justified by the nature of what they were hauling. When you look at specs of typical freighters built between 1910 and 1950, speeds, on average, and the steam engine tech that propelled them, barely changed.

 

For the railroads, the experience was exactly the opposite. Speed became paramount in the years following the First World War, and steam tech as applied to locomotive design and construction evolved rapidly. This too was driven by the economic model, having to do with optimizing throughput over existing or shrinking networks, ultimately leading to the "dieselization" of equipment rosters following the Second World War (a process that began in the late 1930s).

 

NS Savannah is also moored in Baltimore, and, I believe is available for tours. She was built less than two decades after the Brown, albeit for entirely different reasons. Touring both would be interesting. Some might argue that Savannah is an example of tech in search of a problem, not the other way around. I tend to look at it more as prototyping for the purpose of determining feasibility. Sometimes it doesn't work out.


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#191 healey36

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Posted 16 July 2021 - 03:17 PM

I made a statement a few pages back that "the Americans, as best I can tell, never employed an AMC or Q-ship". In the context of WWI, that might be true (although I'm not sure), but certainly in the history of the USN, it is not true. The Spanish American War, for one, saw a number of ships used as auxiliary cruisers, the best known perhaps being USS St. Louis (the former SS St, Louis), USS St. Paul (former SS St. Paul), USS Harvard (former SS City of New York), and USS Yale (former SS City of Paris, a former Blue Riband holder). During the final months of WWI, a number of them would also see service as well-armed Navy transports.

 

The "Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships" has good, accurate entries on all of them for further reading. They had interesting careers, both as naval auxiliary cruisers as well in their civilian service. There were likely a few others, but I've not run those down. War Times Journal offers 3D-print versions of the four mentioned above.

 

Having spent quite a bit of time looking into the War on the Atlantic, I wanted something for the bookshelf to remind me of these men and their exploits. I tracked down a nice copy of the Mercantile Marine War Medal, a recast by a guy I met over in the UK many years ago:

 

WWI MMM

 

The medal, sponsored by the Board of Trade, was awarded after the war to men that had completed at least one voyage through a "danger" zone or six months at sea during the war (a statement in itself regarding how perilous it was). Considering the number of men serving aboard merchant ships, they must have issued these things by the bushel.

 

We'll leave the Atlantic for a bit, returning to the North Sea to deal with the ever-encroaching drifters and mine-sweepers.


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#192 healey36

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Posted 04 February 2022 - 07:07 AM

Well, we've lost a few months from the log book, but no worries. While I've much of the notes and images from the various dust-ups, we'll surrender that to the ether for now, rather than try to reconstruct the log. A fresh start going forward. That said, no smoke on the immediate horizon, but soon.

 

RotS II F
Destroyer leader HMS Swift and her charges.

 


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#193 Kenny Noe

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Posted 08 February 2022 - 10:32 AM

Healey,   Appreciate your understanding and sticking with us after the "catastrophe".   I'm truly sorry the thread upheaval and said as much to a Rep form the office of the CEO at Go Daddy when this all was discovered.  ODGW will endeavor to do better moving forward.

 

I've always enjoyed your posts!

 

Sincerely 


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#194 healey36

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Posted 08 February 2022 - 05:48 PM

Nothing to fret about, Ken; thanks to ODGW for providing the platform. It's all fun. Hoping to be able to catch up with you guys at Historicon or one of the other meets later this year.
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#195 healey36

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Posted 22 February 2022 - 12:52 PM

I found the notes for this, so I'll repost here:

 

Incident at Talla Talla

September 18, 1898

 

The table briefly returned to use during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, 2021, this a stretch of the imagination for the closing years of the 19th century. It’s difficult to devise an engagement between the Marine Nationale and the Royal Navy, especially at a time when they were being drawn together in opposition to the rising threat presented by Imperial Germany. Yet things were not necessarily peachy-keen between them, as illustrated by the events surrounding the Fashoda Crisis of 1898.

 

The light-hearted point of all this was to get a small number of 1/3000-scale pre-dreads on the table, a few recently painted and based to add to my son’s collection. Secondarily, it played into an ongoing exploration of the pre-dreadnought era, one relatively untouched by FAI. In line with my naïve inclinations, one quickly finds that it’s more than just a simple rolling back of the technology and architecture, or the production of hundreds of ship’s logs. We wanted a look at a rule-set designed specifically for the era, comparing it to the more familiar FAI. In the spirit of full disclosure, and at the risk of being tossed off the forum, this match uses the Perfidious Albion set first published in 1996 (with an eye toward learning a few things that might be applied to an FAI roll-back).

 

Posturing in the Sudan

 

Without going into all of the geopolitical machinations that lead to the Crisis of 1898 (not even sure I fully understand them), the situation saw the French firmly embedded in the eastern horn of Africa and the British well-entrenched in Egypt. What lay between, primarily the Sudan, was largely reconquered by the British led by Kitchener. The French, however, had pushed north from Djibouti in an effort to establish themselves in the area, and the two sides met at the old fort at Fashoda. What could have been an ugly, rather one-sided confrontation, quickly devolved into a nearly benevolent meeting of the opposing armies before the French withdrew. At home, however, sentiments ran considerably more heated, especially the French, who considered it yet another poke in the eye.

 

The Royal Navy raised its alert status, preparing for operations in support of Kitchener and the objectives in the Sudan. The French largely did nothing at sea, although they could have, and that is the underlying premise of the scenario presented here.

 

End Run

 

As his army found itself outclassed and outmaneuvered by the British, Marchand called for relief in the form of a feint toward the British supply lines and Kitchener’s line of communications back to Egypt. Marchand figured this would force the British to dispatch troops toward the threat, drawing down the size of the force facing him. In early September, Léonce Lagarde, the colonial governor headquartered at Djibouti, authorized the use of nearly 1000 marines and colonial troops to execute a landing and occupation of the Sudanese port of Trinkitat. Two old transports would carry the French troops north, screened by a force comprised of the recently rebuilt battleship Brennus and the three Friant-class cruisers (Friant, Bugeaud, and Chasseloup-Laubat). This force, commanded by Contre-Amiral (Rear Admiral) Eugène Louis Gadaud, sailed from Djibouti on September 12, proceeding north at a leisurely eight knots.

 

TT Gadaud
Contre-Amiral Eugène Louis Gadaud

 

The Royal Navy, having been alerted to possible operations by the French in the Red Sea, had dispatched a number of units through the canal with the purpose of encouraging them, the French, to do otherwise. A simple show of force was all that was expected to be required, nothing much more. They hadn’t long to wait; on the evening of September 12, operatives in Djibouti reported the northward departure of troopships, and the RN commander at Cairo ordered H. S. H. Prince Louis of Battenberg and a force comprised of the battleship HMS Majestic and cruisers Eclipse, Minerva, and Dido south to put the frighteners into the intruders.

 

TT Battenberg
H. S. H. Prince Louis of Battenberg

 

British naval intelligence considered it nearly certain that any show of force by the RN would send the French scurrying back without so much as firing a shot. To this end, they sent Battenberg south without much in the way of direction should the French do otherwise. Gadaud never got the message.

 

Day of Battle

 

At 0800 sharp, word came to Brennus’ bridge that a number of warships had been spotted approaching from the east-northeast. Visibility was good, although the seas were running rough with a stiff westerly wind. Temps were oppressive, tamped down somewhat by the breeze. Off the starboard quarter, the island of Talla Talla could be seen through a thin haze. Astern of Brennus, the three Friant-class cruisers followed closely in column. Turning his attention to the smudge of smoke ahead, Gadaud ordered their speed increased to twelve knots.

 

From high atop Majestic’s foremast came the similar report of warships ahead, their adversary’s heading being directly toward them. A glance at his watch, Battenberg saw the time being just a couple minutes past 0800. He would maintain his speed and due-south heading, confident that the French commander would turn away. Behind his battleship, the three Eclipse-class cruisers trailed in column, each ship some 500 yards apart.

 

A few minutes passed, then a more detailed report of the force ahead came to Brennus’ bridge: one battleship and three small cruisers, a near mirror-image of his own. Gadaud knew the two French transports were just eighteen miles south of his position, heading north. If the British force slipped past him unimpeded, they’d be on the transports in less than an hour. He ordered a lamp-signal sent to the closing British column, receiving no response. At 0810, he ordered a warning shot fired across the bow of the British battleship.

 

A great geyser of water boiled up out of the sea some 1200 yards ahead of Majestic, a 13.4-inch shell burrowing into the whitecaps. There seemed no mistaking the message from the Frenchman, one that Battenberg was not only unprepared for, but was in fact the same he’d intended on delivering himself. Considering the French commander unlikely to start a shooting war, he ordered Majestic not to return fire, but maintain her speed and course, leaving the next move to his opponent.

 

He hadn’t long to wait. A bit more than two minutes later, Majestic was straddled by a pair of 13.4-inch rounds that missed just yards short on his port side, bathing the ship in seawater and splinters. Turning to his XO, Battenberg wasted no time, ordering Majestic to return fire while maintaining speed and heading. The cruisers were signaled to maintain their position astern of the battleship, in column, free to fire on targets as appropriate.

 

TT Brennus
Gadaud's flagship Brennus under fire.

 

While Gadaud maintained the initiative, French shooting was poor. Brennus’ guns had difficulty finding and maintaining the range. The same could not be said of the British gunnery, which delivered a steady stream of hits on the French battleship in the early going, most causing little or no damage, until a freakishly lucky hit was scored on Brennus’ stern below the waterline, disabling her steering gear which then jammed hard to starboard. As the battleship turned out of line, the cruisers moved northwest in an effort to head off the British column, doing little other than to quickly demonstrate the inferiority of the Friant-class cruisers as compared to their Eclipse-class adversaries.

 

TT overview
An overview of the action and relative positions.

 

Friant was first to go, peppered by a steady stream of 6-inch and 4.7-inch shells from Eclipse. A fire started in her laundry that was eventually extinguished, but the hits kept coming. At 0840, she suffered a hit amidships that threatened her central magazine. Her captain made the risky decision not to flood the compartment with the hope that the damage-control party could contain the havoc while she maintained fire on the enemy cruisers. Unfortunately the fire burned through to the magazine and Friant was torn to bits by a catastrophic explosion. There were few, if any, survivors.

 

Bugeaud, next in line, absorbed a number of 6-inch hits from Minerva, two of them damaging her engine room and cutting her maximum speed by nearly a third. Her return fire was entirely ineffective, and within minutes of Friant’s destruction, Bugeaud turned out of line, breaking off her participation in the engagement.

 

Chasseloup-Laubat suffered a hit in an exchange with Dido, starting a fire that would burn for the rest of the battle. Relentless efforts by her damage-control party contained the conflagration but failed to extinguish it. In the course of returning fire, she did manage to knock out a pair of Dido’s gun positions. Similar to Bugeaud, Chasseloup-Laubat, heavily damaged, would turn out of line and make her escape to the southeast.

 

TT cruisers

The French cruisers pass the critically damaged Brennus.

 

Brennus would eventually get her steering-gear back online, but by then Gadaud’s cruiser contingent had been driven off and the weather had made a turn for the worse. Alone against the British BB and her three cruisers, the increasingly heavy seas pitching the somewhat unstable Brennus, Gadaud made the decision to break off and head south. Signals were sent to the transports to turn back and return to Djibouti at flank speed. Battenberg, uninterested in pursuit, briefly searched for the French transports, thinking they were likely to his east between his position and the coast. Hours later, having found nothing, he ordered Majestic and the cruisers around for the return north.

 

Lessons Learned

 

The fight, as designed, proved a rout nearly from the start. Poor dice doomed the French early, and this, combined with the inferiority of their ships, led to a catastrophe. Gadaud maintained the initiative throughout, but Battenberg, head down, drove the length of the table while pounding his adversary mercilessly.

 

We noted many interesting philosophical differences between FAI and PA, but the primary one was in gunnery and how damage is assessed/assigned. PA’s system is similar to the old Angriff! armor rules where one rolls to hit, then one rolls again to determine where the hit was made. One uses a 6x10 grid laid atop a graphic representation of a ship’s silhouette, using a d6 and a d10 to determine the position of the hit. Notations for physical features, armor strength, magazines, engine rooms, etc. are included in the grid. It’s also possible that a “hit” might strike an empty space (a straddle perhaps), negated as a miss. There’s something appealing in this graphic view of the effect of incoming fire, but in the end, the results seemed little different from the slightly more abstract tables used by FAI. There were, however, a number of problems noted in PA that are mitigated by FAI with its top-down view in the ships’ logs. Of these, a few minor house rules could easily fix. There was also no penalty for multi-battery fire, something that FAI degrades for accuracy as a target takes fire from numerous sources.

 

Something we’ve talked about frequently on the forum, a burning fire is a more common occurrence in PA than FAI. The French cruisers suffered conflagrations throughout much of the engagement, although the effect seemed negligible. PA fire damage only increases with additional fire hit results, not with a turn-after-turn failure to extinguish that costs hull-boxes in FAI. Friant’s destruction was the result of a hit in a compartment one deck above her magazine, that damage descending into her ammo stores after the captain’s unfortunate decision not to flood and poor dice on behalf of her damage-control party.

 

TT afire
Bonfire of the Friants.

 

Another thing noted in PA was a seeming disconnect between flooding and speed. A ship’s speed was generally only degraded by damage to her propulsion compartments, i.e. her engineering spaces, or damage to her funnels (presumably meant as an indication of additional damage to her engineering). Flooding of spaces unrelated to her propulsion-machinery compartments seemed to have little or no effect on a ship’s ability to maintain speed.

 

The things that separate late 19th century combat from that of the dreadnought era were not readily apparent when comparing PA to FAI. Naval architecture was certainly different between the eras, but certainly one could replicate/incorporate those differences in FAI with a bit of work. Similarly, the more primitive fire-control methods of the earlier era could likely align with those described as “Local” in FAI. We can’t speak to the torpedo rules, as neither side approached a range where their use seemed practical.

 

It would be interesting to replay IaTT again using FAI, but the one-off battleship Brennus and the Friant-class cruisers do not appear in the delivered ships logs. It’s not a stretch to imagine a bit of research using credible sources could lead to their development.


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#196 Peter M. Skaar

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Posted 17 March 2022 - 10:57 PM

That is a very interesting battle report, Healey!  How many players did you have for this game or was it a solo experience?

I keep thinking I need to do a couple of games of Mein Panzer solo pretty soon to reacquaint myself with the rules and some of the nuances of the game before trying to get back to hosting.


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#197 healey36

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Posted 18 March 2022 - 09:02 AM

Just two players, Peter, with only a few ships on the table. We've been trying to sort through and understand naval tactics and capabilities for the period 1880-1905, and apply those to FAI via a few house-rules. I've recently gotten my hands on a few copies of Naval Review for the period, and those have proven handy; not so much for specifics, but certainly a window into the mindset(s) of the various navies. 

 

We have a third leg of the Sealion series we had put together for MP, but we've never gotten it on the table. MP and the related genre is definitely a red-headed stepchild in the group, and we lost a couple of die-hards to Covid this past year. Two others moved south, so the ranks are greatly diminished. The guys up in West Chester are planning another go at Abbeville and I'm planning to make it up there for that. I was hoping to convince them to go with micro-armor, but they are entrenched in 15mm. Whatever, it's all good.

 

I will admit that my ability to digest and retain rulesets seems to be growing more difficult as I age. Sitting atop a pile of 1000+ board wargames and 30-40 rulesets for miniatures, I'm seriously considering paring back the collection. I gotta start focusing on the ones I like best and mastering them. 


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#198 Peter M. Skaar

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Posted 28 March 2022 - 11:26 PM

I know the feeling.  Besides playing miniatures, I also have a large collection of board wargames that need to be played.  I also really enjoy the Total War series of games for the computer as well. 


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#199 healey36

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Posted 05 April 2022 - 04:17 PM

We have been engaged in quite a bit of housekeeping here, desperately trying to get the office/library/game-room back into some sort of order after these hellish past couple of years. The amount of stuff that has piled up would be difficult to fathom if it wasn't the result of my own actions. Books, papers, old magazines, models, clocks, ugh, it's a vast mess that needs to be dealt with. That said, there have been a number of bright spots, one being this lovely watercolor (print) of HMS Inflexible as she would have appeared at Jutland:

 

HMS Inflexible P
 
By the noted naval artist Frank Wood, painted in 1921 shortly before she was sold and broken up. Inflexible remains a personal favorite, the second of Fisher's first class of battlecruisers, the Invincible-class (Invincible, Inflexible, and Indomitable). Inflexible was in line astern of Invincible at Jutland when her sister was destroyed, not the first or last of horrific losses for the British battlecruisers.
 
The project currently at hand is sorting through and determining what to do with my several hundred issues of Miniature Wargames magazine, stretching all the way back to 1983, I believe. I never had a subscription for it was too pricey for my budget back in the day, so most being purchased one-by-one at various shops in the area (back when there were shops). Three bucks an issue was a princely sum, but quite a bit less than the tenner spent at the local shop in Albany, New York a few years back. Iain Dickie assembled a nice rag, especially in the early days; I was disheartened when he gave it up a decade ago (although I can certainly understand).
 
But 300-350 issues take up a lot of space, so I've been looking at ways to collect the pieces of interest into something easily retrievable. Building an index seems a good first step, then possibly scanning (for my own use) the bits of interest and attaching them to the index in some form, the hard copies sent off to storage for my heirs to deal with.
 
Certainly a lot of good stuff here (picture 30 piles this size):
 
MinWar
 
I spent last night reading Andy Callan's brilliant December, 1985, article on naval wargaming the Spanish-American War. Has me looking for USS Olympia in the fleet cabinet.
 
This is going to take forever...
 
 
 

 


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#200 healey36

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Posted 07 June 2022 - 04:08 PM

Action off Lerwick

17 October 1917

 

The third leg of the planned Riddle of the Sands trilogy has been shelved, and for a number of reasons, not the least of which being a dearth of players. The research is done, the OB written, the scenario-specific tables developed, and the ships painted and based, but there’s a temporary (hopefully) lack of interest. It seems the pent up desire for the great out-of-doors, the siren song of the community pool and the barbeque grill is just too much, and I don’t disagree. I did a couple of solo run-throughs and it seemed to work, so someday soon we’ll get Fregattenkapitän Von Gaudecker and his old cruiser back on the table.

 

My take (and feel free to argue otherwise) is that, excluding the grind of the U-boat campaign, the Great War at Sea seems divided into three bits: the pre-Jutland parry-and-thrust, Jutland itself, then the following 29 months of blockade enforcement. When one reads contemporary recaps of the naval war, Jutland (or the Skagerrakschlacht as it was known to the Germans) tends to blot out everything before and after, but there was, in fact, a ton of stuff going on at both ends. Post-Jutland, the efforts and hopes of the High Seas Fleet to lure the Royal Navy out for a second, perhaps final grand encounter, even in the face of the growing strength of the Grand Fleet, would continue, albeit half-heartedly, until conditions on the home front and the mutinous sentiments of the enlisted men largely made such plans untenable.

 

Scheer did manage a couple of minor successes in October and November of 1916, the first being a destroyer action near Dover which sank an RN destroyer and a half-dozen trawlers, followed a month later by a shelling of the town of Margate. Recalling the HSF’s coastal bombardments during the first couple years of the war, a sense of outrage soon returned. This set off a series of events which would result in a number of changes at the Admiralty, not the least of which being Jellicoe getting the sack and Beatty ascending to C-in-C of the Grand Fleet in December, 1916.

 

I think it was Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes who once said, and I’m paraphrasing, “If you decide to get aggressive and throw the football, three things can happen, and two of them are bad.” Like Jellicoe before him, Beatty quickly came to that same realization. The true power of the Grand Fleet was in its ability to keep the HSF bottled-up simply by its presence. I think folks expected the hyper-aggressive Beatty to greatly change the tone and direction in the conduct of the naval war, but in fact, little changed. He would instead work to minimize risk while maintaining the pressure.

 

One thing that did change was the fleet’s active involvement in the Lerwick-to-Bergen trade route. The importance of this route developed out of the Norwegians suffering some dire fuel and comestible shortages that threatened the political stability of the country. Losses had been grievous, with many ships lost to the U-boats. Beatty changed strategy, implementing a convoy system whereby escorting destroyers and naval trawlers would be provided. It presented a bigger target, one worthy of a German surface response, but Beatty thought the risk acceptable. A scant 195 nautical miles point-to-point, ships would come primarily from the greatly-depleted Scandinavian merchant fleets.

 

At first, the German Navy was quite distracted. The country had recently emerged from the “Turnip Winter” of 1916-1917 and the level of angst among the enlisted was on the rise. A sailor will tolerate a lot, but boredom and short rations over an extended period of time isn’t among them. Scheer and the staff would spend much of the spring and summer tamping down the discontent (notably not by improving the quantity or quality of the rations). After completing an operation in the Baltic against a flagging Russian Navy, Scheer was at last able to return his planning priorities to the North Sea.

 

"No One Could Expect Us to Look On With Folded Hands"

 

Beatty’s organization of the 250000-ton/month coal shipments into convoys had served to sharply diminish the effectiveness of U-boat interdiction. Eastbound shipments were reaching Bergen largely intact, as were the returning empty westbound freighters, and it seemed all this was being done with minimal investment of resources by the Royal Navy.

 

Scheer observed this with some increasing interest, and with the Baltic situation temporarily resolved, decided it was time to challenge the British “in Northern waters supposed to be completely under English control.” He saw it as an opportunity not only to return a taste of starvation to Britain and the supposed neutral Norway, but more importantly, hoped to force the RN to dedicate more of its resources to defending the route, thereby stripping escorts from other sea lanes where the U-boats could operate a bit easier. My impression is that he did not see this as an opportunity, at least not at first, to smoke out the Grand Fleet. However, the decision would develop into a string of actions, the tit-for-tat nature of which would eventually culminate with the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight.

 

Scheer decided that the two new light cruisers SMS Brummer and SMS Bremse would be sent north in mid-October to locate and destroy any shipping encountered along the Lerwick-to-Bergen lanes. Originally constructed as fast mine-laying cruisers, each was also armed with four 5.9-inch single-mounts and a brace of 19.7-inch torpedo tubes. More important was their speed, reportedly between 28 and 34 knots depending upon sources. With the mine-laying gear cleared away, the cruisers departed upon U-boat reports on the 15th of a large number of ships moving out of Lerwick.

 

The actual number of ships and the convoy’s composition varies among sources, but generally falls into the 9-12 range. The escort force is pretty consistently reported as two DDs and a pair of naval trawlers. To this end, we used the OB presented in the Wik entry as follows:

 

AoL 4

 

The German cruisers would intercept the convoy at a position approximately 60 nautical miles west of Lerwick, a few minutes after 0600 (nearly two hours before sunrise), 17 October 1917. Seas are heavy (Force 7), visibility just 4000 yards in pre-dawn light. The convoy is proceeding east-southeast at 8 knots.

 

Day of Battle

 

The convoy is formed in two columns of six merchant ships, spaced 500 yards apart. Altered somewhat from historical deployment, HMS Strongbow is in a position some 2000 yards off the port quarter of the northernmost lead merchantman (SS City of Cork), with HMS Mary Rose similarly positioned off the starboard quarter of the southernmost lead merchantman (H. Wicander). HMT Elise follows 3000 yards astern of Strongbow, while HMT Fannon is in a position 1000 yards astern of the convoy.

 

AoL 1
HMT Elise.

 

The German cruisers are in column, with Max Leonhardi’s Brummer on the point and Siegfried Westerkamp’s Bremse following some 800 yards astern. Their speed is just 14 knots with a strong following wind.

 

The first contact is made at 0612, with lookouts on Mary Rose spotting a ship approaching from the southeast, approximately 4500 yards off the destroyer’s starboard bow. Turning toward the unidentified ship, LC Charles Fox sends his crew to action stations while ordering speed increased to 20 knots. A challenge lamp signal is sent, receiving no answer. Plunging ahead into eight-foot swells, a second signal is sent as the range rapidly decreases, again going unanswered.

 

Brummer doesn’t initially see the onrushing destroyer, as her topside position is sporadically obscured by funnel smoke driven by the following wind. However, the watch-officer on her starboard side sees the flash of the second challenge signal and alerts the bridge. His crew already in position, Leonhardi opens on the approaching ship with Brummer’s forward 5.9-inch, the range now just over 3000 yards.

 

Leonhardi’s first salvo brackets Mary Rose, heaving a mountain of seawater over the destroyer. Fox, quickly realizing he’s up against a German cruiser, orders Mary Rose over some 30 degrees to port, hoping to get his three 4-inch into action and possibly his fish in the water. It proves a terrible mistake, however, as Brummer now has a broadside position, while the following and unobserved Bremse looms up from behind. Fox’s 4-inch bark, missing badly at near pointblank range. Brummer lays into the DD, stoving in bulkhead A3 just beneath the bridge, an engineering hit taking down a pair of her boilers, and a third hit lands behind her second funnel, carrying away one of her two dual torpedo mounts. Bremse, firing her forward-most mounts, misses.

 

Strongbow, alerted to the fracas on the opposite side of the convoy, accelerates in an effort to get around the lead ships to a position where she can assist Mary Rose.  While his crew comes to action stations, LC Edward Brooke swings Strongbow wide of the convoy, assuring no possibility of collision, but carrying his ship quite a distance from the desperate battle now to his west.

 

Mary Rose continues on her present course, while trying to get her flooding under control. The crew manages to repair the BH hit and staunch the onrush of seawater, but half of her boilers remain out. She returns fire with her three 4-inch, but the heaving of the heavy seas sends her rounds sailing up and over Brummer into the darkness.

 

AoL3
HMS Mary Rose.

 

Brummer and Bremse now pound the destroyer, Brummer scoring three more hits and Bremse one. Mary Rose’s remaining torpedo mount is disabled, and two of her three 4-inch are silenced. Bremse puts a round into her aft boiler room, snuffing out her remaining boilers and scalding half the stokers to death. Mary Rose goes dead in the water, drifting off to the north. Fox orders a message sent, alerting the Admiralty to the attack, but the Germans are able to jam the signal within minutes of its first send.

 

The convoy, still in column, now looms up in front of the cruisers. At 0636, Brummer now opens on the freighter Silja, starting a raging fire in her forward hold. The crew wastes no time, immediately beginning to abandon the ship. Bremse, keeping a wary eye on the wallowing Mary Rose, sends a salvo toward Dagbjørg, bracketing the freighter in the dim light.

 

Within minutes, the slow-moving convoy begins to break up, each ship trying to turn away and escape from the German cruisers. HMT Fannon comes up from her position aft, trying to put herself between Brummer and the merchant ships. At a range of roughly 3200 yards, she opens on the cruiser with her 3-inch mount, the round falling short. Brummer returns fire with her forward 5.9-inch, missing as well, while turning inside the trawler to begin running down freighters.

 

AoL 2
Freighters.

 

By 0700, Strongbow has pushed around the head-end of the dissolving convoy, passing Mary Rose to pursue the cruisers ahead. Fox has gotten his DD back underway, with one pair of boilers relit and some of the damage cleared away. Other than presenting himself as some sort of decoy, he has little to contribute. His single aft 4-inch mount is all that remains of his armament.

 

Brummer spots Sørhaug ahead and opens on the small freighter with a pair of its 5.9-inch, barely missing. Leonhardi also fires his lone starboard torpedo into the scrum of merchantmen, figuring he’s bound to hit something (it doesn’t). Bremse rounds onto the Belgian Londonier, holing her just above the waterline and damaging her boiler. She slows noticeably, her crew taking to the boats.

 

At 0718, Brummer is forced to deal with the approaching Fannon. Leonhardi turns just a degree or two, enabling Brummer to bring all four of her 5.9-inch to bear. The range is close, just under 2100 yards. Amazingly, both crews miss their targets.

 

Strongbow has now closed the range on Bremse to just 3900 yards, pushing to get herself between the cruiser and the scattering freighters. She doesn’t quite have a firing solution for her torpedoes, but she opens with her 4-inch, disabling the mid-ship 5.9-inch mount between Bremse’s funnels. Return fire from Bremse misses badly. Westerkamp, fearing an oncoming shoal of torpedoes, orders the cruiser into a turn to the southeast.

 

Undamaged freighters are now scattering in all directions, but at an agonizingly slow speed. Leonhardi maintains his present ENE heading, running across what was the back of the convoy. Fannon has slipped away behind him. Two ships, Margrethe and Visbur, are dead ahead nearly side-by-side as they try to escape. Seeing Margrethe’s prop blades thrashing behind her, Leonhardi knows she’s running in ballast and concentrates on Visbur. His gun crews, struggling in the heavy seas, miss the freighter even as they close the range.

 

Strongbow puts another 4-inch round on Bremse, striking the shield on her aft mount, wrecking the gun and killing the crew. With half her main armament out of action, Westerkamp orders the cruiser to flank speed, breaking off to the south. Brooke continues westward, now pursuing the other cruiser some 5000 yards ahead.

 

At 0736, a director on Brummer spots Strongbow racing toward them at 25 knots. Leonhardi is forced to break off his pursuit of the merchantmen to deal with the DD. He orders flank speed with a gradual turn to the southeast, hoping to bring the cruiser around for a broadside. Brooke maintains his heading and speed, anticipating the German’s turn. They exchange salvos, both missing in the heavy seas, even as the range closes. At 0742, Brummer brings her entire battery to bear, as does Strongbow, including both of her torpedo mounts. At a range of 4200 yards, everything goes in.

 

Strongbow’s salvo finds Brummer’s aft 5.9-inch mount, disabling the gun and scattering splinters over the back half of the ship. Brummer misses in her half of the exchange, again. Time clicks on, and at 0754 torpedoes are spotted headed toward the cruiser. Leonhardi watches helplessly as the fish close, but today his luck holds. A pair of torpedoes pass beyond his bow, the second pair slip past his stern.

 

As the distance between the two ships lengthens, both exchange a final salvo. Brummer’s mid-ship 5.9-inch mount is disabled along with some damage to her forward funnel. However, two of Brummer’s rounds strike home, the first a hit amidships that destroys one of Strongbow’s expended torpedo mounts, the second piercing the hull below the forward mount, penetrating to the 4-inch magazine. An attempt to quickly flood the lockers fails, and Strongbow and her remaining crew are destroyed in a catastrophic explosion.

 

Brummer, like Bremse, down to half her main armament and looking at a long run home through hostile waters, breaks off.

 

Aftermath

 

The British commander loses one of his four escorts and only three freighters, for a resounding victory. Most of the ships reach Bergen by the 21st, with two of the damaged returning to Lerwick for repairs.

 

Both Brummer and Bremse eluded the Royal Navy’s patrols, slipping back through the mine-belts to the yard at Kiel for repairs. There, Leonhardi and Westerkamp are recalled by an irate Scheer.  

 

We expected great difficulty with gunnery and the weather conditions, but the upward chart shift seemed to have only an occasional impact. German gunnery, as usual, was atrocious.

 

As I've noticed in prior fights, convoys move at an agonizingly slow scale speed. Given a competent attacker, it would seem a tall order to defend successfully against a superior surface attack. This was a solo effort, so I can be critical  :lol: 


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