The 2014 Brouhaha is in the books. What a weekend! We had a great turn out, with 22 battlers from 8 different states making the trip. After worrying about weather all week, Saturday and Sunday were actualy completely dry, though we did have to cancel the Monday morning battle due to torrential rain. We had a good mix of capital ships and cruisers (14 and 8 respectively), and were able to get in 5 sorties on Saturday and 6 on Sunday. gerald did a great job of cooking for everyone and that was a huge help getting back on the water and getting more battles in (Thanks Gerald!). Awards and Trophies Best of Class 1,2,3 - David Ranier - Kumano Best of Class 4 - Bob Hoerneman - Goeben Best of Class 5 - Mark Lide - Fuso Best of Class 6,7,8 - Tyler Helland - Nagato Winning Admitral - Heiko (Axis) 2nd Place Admiral - Steve Cox (Allied) Most Feared - Jeff Lide - Mutsu Best of Scale - Tom Palmer - Alaska Most Damaged - John Stangel - Warpspite (oops!) Special thanks to Bob for keeping score, gerald for cooking lunch, and Peter for patching my ship while I was doing CD stuff and buying hot-dogs for folks. A super special thanks to Wade for building us such a beautiful pond and inviting us over to play on it. THANKS WADE!!!!!! For battles this year I decided to mix things up as I hate picking teams and doing flag / no-flag all the time. Saturday Battle 1: Axis v. Allied-ish First battle of the weekend was Axis v. Allied. Bob and Peter were graciously strong-armed into joining the allied fleet to balance the teams out a bit. Unfortunately it did not help too much as it was an Axis romp. The allies did manage to sink a couple of Axis ships in the second sortie. My brand new warspite experienced it's first battle and first sink, succumbing to massive damage at the hands of Tyler, Jeff, and Mark. I forget the final score but I think there was 63 belows...on just one side. Battle 2: Whipper Snappers v. Fuddy Duddies Teams divided up by age of the captain. Everyone over 43 went on team fuddy duddy, everyone 43 and under went to team whipper snapper. The capital ships were evenly divided 7 to a side, but I did not do such a good job with the cruisers, as 7 of the 8 ended up on the Fuddy Duddy side, with Heidi Ranier the only cruiser captain for the whipper snappers. The whipper snapper admiral was Mark Lide (age 15-ish). The fuddy duddy admiral was Ted - (age - plenty). Not sure of the final score but I think the whipper snappers won with tons of sinks on both sides. This battle was remarkably even matched and we ended up doing 3 sorties. Team Whipper Snapper was Mark, Bob, Tyler, Stangel, Peter, Steve, Mathew, and Heidi. The Fuddy Duddies were Jeff, Dirty, Gerald, Johnny, Mike, Tom, Wade, Ted, Heiko, Doug, Lou, David, Rick, and Randy. Hey you square cats - you just don't get our Rock 'n Roll! Sunday Battle 3: Last Nation Standing For battle 3 we did a 5-way fleet battle, with each fleet being comprised of all ships from a single country. After the second sortie it was sudden death till only one nation was left standing. Team America was Tom, Steve, Mathew, Mike, Doug, and Lou. Team Jap was Jeff, Tyler, Mark, Gerald, and David. Team Kaiser was Bob, Peter, Wade, and Johnny. Team Surrender Monkey...err..France was Heidi and David, and Team Grand Brittania was, well, me and Whitsell. Needless to say the old world powers of France and Brittain were an appetiser to the main course of the Germans, Japs, and Americans. Hi-lite of the battle was the Americans, Germans, British, and French coming together in peace, and putting asside our differences, in order to shoot up gerald who was dead in the water hung up on the island. In the end the Japs were too strong and sunk pretty much everyone who stood in their way, with Bob going down in the third sortie effectively ending resistance to the Japanese horde. Battle 4: WW1 v. WW2 Battle 4 All ships commisioned before or during WW1 aganst those comissioned after. This was an interesting battle as it ended up pairing Wade and all the American boats with Jeff and Tyler, as the Nagato's, believe it or not, were not Comissioned until 1920/21. Again I did a terrible job with the cruisers and they all ended up on the post-WW1 side. We need more WW1 era cruiser! Anyway, by numbers it was pretty lopsided but it still ended up being a great battle that we fought for 3 sorties. Team Old Tin Cans was Bob (Goeben), Peter (Kaiser), Stangel (warspite), Mark (Fuso), Gerald (Kongo), and Johnny (Baden). Team Shiney New Cans was Jeff (Nagato), Tyler (nagato), Tom (Alaska), Mike Smith (NC), Mathew (SoDak), Steve (SoDak), Wade (Bismarck), Randy (some silly french cruiser), David (some silly Jap cruiser), Doug (an even sillier American cruiser), and Heidi (some silly French cruiser that wasn't quite as Silly as Randy's), and Rick (in a perfectly respectable Brittish cruiser). I think the Post WW1 ships won this battle but i missed the third sortie giving Mike a lift to the airport. Monday RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAINRAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAINRAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAINRAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN Anyway, it was a fantastic time and I had a blast. For those of you who made it thanks for coming. For those of you who couldn't make it - we missed you! We will see you all again next year!
It was a good time battling. It was not a good time when the three of us realized we did not fill up with gas before getting to the swamp where there are no gas stations. When the gage shows 33 miles to empty and the next place to get gas is 30 miles away the pucker factor goes up. Steve C gets the I did not work on my ship before the battle award. He pulled off his stern deck to find a mouse and had a little home in the rag he left in there. Wade gets the TMI award for telling me all about his past jobs.
BIG Thanks to Gerald ... he did more than cook lunch.. he provided it and it wasn't cheap! Those sausages were amazing but the tamales were my favorite. He went all out and I hope folks have thanked him proper. John also brought out some food for the gang and I thank him as well!.
Sounds like an awesome time. Are you guys planning to post Youtube video again? The last few years have made for some great video and I'd love to watch this years matchup.
Greetings: Sadly, a quick review of WWI cruisers show that the bulk of them were ACRs built before 1905. Under regional rules, they are not allowed with a handful of exceptions. Manuel Mejia, Jr.
