Following our alternative Coronel last year we did an alternative Falklands last night.
Rather than the one-sided historical battle in which the Germans are doomed, we assumed that the Goeben had headed west instead of east and broken out into the Atlantic.
Now von Spee's visit to the Falklands was a cunning ruse to draw the British toward the approaching battlecruiser.
So we have von Spee's squadron (Scharnhorst, Gneisnau, Dresden, Nurnberg, Lepizig) steaming north pursued by Sturdee's ships (Invincible, Inflexible, Glasgow, Carnarvon, Kent). Range has closed to about 18000 yards when the Goeben appears to the north, steaming south to join von Spee.
It was an entertaining game, although as Sturdee I have to say the battle-cruisers fired appallingly all evening. Also, having such stupidly thin armour they soon started to take damage both from the Goeben and the two armoured cruisers. Meanwhile, the lighter vessels had their own battle which went much more the British way; Kent in particular is a very effective ships; Carnarvon is old and under-gunned, but it was my grandfather's ship, and he fought in the battle, so I had his naval sword with me as moral support!
We had lots of bulkhead hits on both side all of which seemed to get fixed at once. Two ammo hits on the British (one on Inflexible, turret flooded and she survived, one on Kent late on - boom)
By the end of the evening, Inflexible and Kent were sunk on the British side. Invincible had no working main guns and was down to 8 knots, Carnarvon was down to 10 knots, and Glasgow had taken only minor damage. On the German side, Dresden and Leipzig were sunk, Nurnberg was badly damaged, Scharnhorst and Gniesnau were both down to 10 knots and Scharnhorst had lost most of her main guns. Goeben had taken hull damage but was otherwise pretty unscathed; her thick armour made her hard to damage after the british battle cruisers started losing turrets.
So a German win, but a fun game.
