Sink the Bismarck! Or, Denmark Strait, straight

Bismarck fires 'those shells as big as trees' from a broadside of her 'guns as big as steers'.

On Sunday, Julian and I got together chez lui for a refight of the Battle of Denmark Strait (24th May 1941). He wanted to use the game as a first, direct test of "General Quarters", "Seekrieg" and "Stations Manned and Ready". A big aim for the day, especially since we'd not been able to do sufficient 'homework' beforehand; he had been diverted by real life and I only had "Stations Manned and Ready" and summary documents of the other two to look at beforehand. Nevertheless, we got through about half of it, sorta, had a marvellous time, learned a lot about the rules, with regards to our specifications, and the historic action.

We used the excellent, detailed map from The Battleship Bismarck by Ulrich Elfrath and Bodo Herzog on Don Hollway's Pursuit of Bismarck website. Other information came from José M. Rico's brilliant The Battleship Bismarck website and the HMS Hood Association.

General Quarters Third Edition

"General Quarters" were first. We used the more detailed version with each turn representing three minutes. We disposed of the nominal sea scale that is in the rules in favour of a natural scale of 1:6000 to match Julian's ships.

0535: Bismarck (right) following behind the cruiser Prinz Eugen.

0535: HMS Hood (right) leading HMS Prince of Wales. Those with good eyesight and even better knowledge will notice the stand-in for Prince of Wales.

Didn't Julian do a marvellous job of painting these tiny models?👍

0538: Hood and Prince of Wales have turned to starboard to steam towards the Germans ships. 

Prinz Eugen and Bismarck continued their course.

0541: The British ships, only able to fire with A & B turrets, missed (Hood shown here). The two distant German ships are at the top of photo, honestly, trust me, 😀; this is what 25-odd kilometres looks like.

0544: Hood (in photo) and Prince of Wales missed again.

0547: The British continued to try to reduce the range, blazing away as they went, all misses. In this photo the light blue of the bases of the German ships are just visible.

0553: Bismarck fired a broadside, damaging Hood's hull.

The British have closed to a little over 18 000 yards (~16.6 km). Now the German ships are visible at the top of the photo. No hits.

0556 Closer again, but no hits.

0559: THE Moment. The British ships have made their turn to port.... Bismarck fired and missed. The British ships were able to fire with all turrets, but missed again!

0602: Prince of Wales scored a hit! Damage to Bismarck's hull. Bismarck missed again.

0605: Final broadsides of the action; Hood hit Bismarck's hull (JF note: slowing Hood's speed did not impact this, despite my expectations). Bismarck scored two hits on Hood; to her hull and a critical hit on her rudder limiting her to moving straight ahead.

That was the end of turn 11 and we called it there, the Germans slipping off to the west. It had been a really enjoyable re-fight.

"General Quarters" are a good set of rules. They would be excellent for a club night, but lack the detail and nuance that we are seeking. The stylised ship's charts look good, are really clever and easy to use. The riskiness of the decision to 'charge' at the Bismarck, limiting the firepower of the British ships, was clearly evident. In this version, they were able to turn without the disastrous shot on Hood as she presented her broadside to the German battleship. Unfortunately though, the reason for this was all down to the roll of a D12.

Key to us in a wargame is not simply getting the 'right' result, but achieving it through a sensible, reasonable and, hopefully, edifying path. This aspect was lacking for us. There is no nuance. The barest of modifiers, which change the row of a table and the number of rolls and/or results leading to a hit. The several salvoes that would be fired over a three-minute period from a turret are reduced to the roll of a die. No impact of the number of shells, angle of guns, speed of ship, sea conditions, skill of the crew, fire control systems, location of the hit, duds, shells passing through without exploding... Simply how the die falls. If a hit is scored, damage is simply a roll on the D12. Most limited of all is the over-simplification of armour. Ordnance has a penetration 'level', expressed in terms of the highest class of ship that it will penetrate (e.g. BB, battleship) and this is compared with the target. If that of the ordnance is equal or higher, you are 'in'! This is not adjusted at all for the location of impact of the shot, so a ship is a ship, same armour all over.

Seekrieg 5

Next we turned to "Seekrieg". These seemed more up our street.

The modifiers are there, greater nuance and specificity. Much more detail, more involved, more cumbersome, slower. Reasons why they would not appeal to many had us really excited. This means that they are not something to use after a quick skim, especially going back and forth through the pdf version of the rules from Wargame Vault.

We went through a 'thought' exercise, to see how the first shots in the game we had just played would have gone. It seemed likely that there was a better chance of hitting—although in our 'jumping around', we could not determine how sea state, a key modifier, was converted into a factor. The sea state at Denmark Strait was 'challenging', since the battle occurred in rough seas. Our interest was piqued, excitement generated, but we need to read through them carefully and in their entirety before attempting an outing with them. Confident that such time invested will reward in spades, we put them aside.

Stations Manned and Ready 2nd Edition

We expected that attempting to play out an action with three sets of rules was an ocean too far. We underestimated this by about 50%. It was too late to try the action with "Stations Manned and Ready".

These rules are deliberately intended to enable people to play a large action in a reasonable amount of time. Alan Butler and Andrew Finch state that the rules place game over a simulation. Too much is simplified to this end, for my taste; six-minutes per turn, initiative for movement, command radius determined by command value, planes treated as air groups, firing by ‘battery’, saving throws, an impact power of hits that is applied to the ship’s structure and test for critical damage. All seem to be clever, well thought through and no doubt interesting mechanics, but not the level of detail that I am seeking. Second World War naval is one of the few periods for which I am after a skirmish style, each ship is a cherished individual, each turret accounted for, each shell, each plane launched from a carrier, each torpedo tracked as the enemy carrier (or perhaps other ship) tries desperately to manoeuvre to avoid being hit....

So, I have already ruled these out these. Julian is of the same bias, but still wants to put them to a test, for completion and to do them justice. He will re-fight the action solo, using "Stations Manned and Ready", at a later date.

Some details

Rules

General Quarters Third Edition (2006). Old Dominion GameWorks. https://www.odgw.com/products/generalquarters3/gq3.html

Seekrieg 5 (2004). Seekrieg https://www.seekrieg.com/Seekrieg5IntroPage.htm

Stations Manned and Ready 2nd Edition (2013). A and A Game Engineering. Out of Print. Summary on Board Game Geek 

Ships

1/6000 scale Figurehead Ships.

Meanwhile, in the shipyards...

My construction of 1/700 ships is going along steadily.

Four Japanese carriers constructed. L to R Shokaku, Junyo, Taiho and Shinano.

HMAS Australia, first base coat applied, in front of the carriers

I have now completed four carriers, two light cruisers and the heavy cruiser 'stralia. This week I plan/hope to complete the remaining three Japanese carriers that I have and the three US ones the week after. After that, painting (and paint some figures 😁).

I'm not a scale modeller (as you can tell) so don't want the same detail with the ships as I do with the rules (haha). These 1/700 scale models provide more than enough as far as I am concerned. Putting them together, along with checking information about each is a wonderful, edifying process in itself. Shinano is a classic case in point. The gorgeous lines of the hull showing her intended construction as a sister to Yamato. The 'tacked on' nature of the modifications to make her a carrier, particularly the mounts for the anti-aircraft guns. The resulting absolute beast of a vessel, yet only capable of carrying 47 aircraft!

Between us we have, built or to build, all of the early US carriers and a mix of some of the early, mid and late Japanese ones. I am targeting the rest of the early Japanese carriers (Kaga, Horyu, Soryu; Julian has Akagi), plus Zuiho (or Shoho), Ryuho, Unryu, Chitose and Clamidya, I mean, Chiyoda—a little joke that I keep having with myself. Cracks me up every time. Later we'll determine how many of the US Essex class and light carriers, plus escort/support vessels (for both sides) that we'll 'need'.

In the meantime, we'll be trying out sections of battles to continue testing rules, which will help guide us in what is needed when we try an entire, historic battle. To this end we have decided to make our next the attack on Shokaku at the Battle of the Coral Sea on 8th May 1942...

I may need to clear some space on my table before the game.