July 29th Report w\ Pics

On the 29th we had a gloriously lazy battle! As Hovey;s NC was still out of commission, its waterchanneling still curing, the captains present were myself, Andrew, Phill and for a sortie, an interesting guest captain. Ships in attendance were the Derfflinger, I-boat, Westfalen and Suffren.
Look, the I-boat got painted!


Not a bad job on the waterline for a complete guess by Hovey..
First Sortie was set for Derfflinger and I-Boat vs Westfalen and Suffren. I'm still not entirely sure how that is an even matchup, I guess it was the closest to even balance of units..




Soon we notice a problem, Phill & the Westfalen are sailing backwards, and appears to be out of control. I gamely sail after him in the Derfflinger, never missing a chance to pound on stricken prey, but he sinks of his own accord before I fire a shot.

That leaves the poor Suffren, captained by a first time guest captain, against a pair of hungry battlecruisers with full ammo loads.


The suffren however, is quite maneuverable, and really is, of all the heavy cruisers out there, probably the most likely to survive this. The Derfflinger and I-boat push the pursuit though, attempting to bring the Suffren down but lining up quality shots is hard as the Suffren is quick and nimble.



The Suffren's pump seemed to be weakening, but we weren't sure if it was a sign of a failure of the pump or a failure of us to get enough holes in the hull. Soon we discovered that it was a failure of the pump, but that we had also put a good assortment of waterlines and a few belows in her..

Hey, you're sinking MY ship with yours!

Thus ended the first sortie. A very brave and admirable performance turned in by our guest captain at the helm of the Suffren following the untimely demise of the Westfalen.
Following the sortie, our examination fo the Suffren revealed that the pump body (it was one of the old style PVC pipe cap pumps) was actually coming apart, which had caused the pump to be unable to generate suction, dooming the Suffren.
With our guest captain needing to get going, we elected to not attempt repairs on the Suffren's pump for the second sortie and we re-arranged teams with our remaining three ships, to pit the I-boat and Westfalen vs the might of the Derfflinger.


Now, I'm not one to shy away from a brawl, and I appreciate the concept of a target-rich environment, but early on I suffered some problems of indecision, couldn't decide who I wanted to try to engage at any given moment and for the first few minutes, forgetting that I had only half unit pump and 200bbs, was trying to fight against two full unit pumps and 300ish bbs. During this time period I quite certainly accrued more damage than I gave out, an unfortunately way to begin a 2v1 battle.


Soon I got my head on straight and decided to play a little smarter. I proceeded to hound whoever was nearest, and often choose to harass the I-boat, who was strangely faster than me for whatever reason.


Here we see another error on my part, in my exuberance at a chance to pin the I-boat against some debris on the far shore, I accidentally sail past and into the sweet spot of the I-boat's stern guns. Forced to reverse out of the precarious position, my reversal gave the I-boat an opportunity to slip out as well.


The I-boat is sporting some damage on the port side, but nothing major.

By this point in the sortie I've got the Westfalen's pump working and have put a decent amount of waterline and some reds into her

Shortly after the above image, Phill tried to slip past my stern guns, an act for which he was rewarded by haing his bow torn apart - an event for which I was rewarded by his sudden exclamation - "I thought you were out on those!". Mhuahahahaha!
Not longer after, the Westfalen slips under



Now, just the I-boat opposes the Derfflinger. Freed from the need to pay attention to anything else, I begin to pursue the I-boat again.

Soon after, the I-boat calls 5 and proceeds to simply sail around merrily pumping, noting my inability to catch up and reach a firing position. With the Derf unable to prevent the I-boat from making it back to shore for the touch required by her captain to remove her from the water, the sortie ends.
I declare myself the victor as I am still afloat and one of the opposition is on the bottom and the other came off via 5.
It is getting late in the day at this point, but we opt to squeeze in one more sortie, so we prep the ships, Phill patches waterlines and belows since he sank, and we begin our mischief anew, this time a free-for-all.
Soon we see smoke rising from the Westfalen.

That is a bit unusual.

Interestingly, Phill decides to press onwards and continue the battle, despite the smoke rising from his ship (from what we concluded was a siezed motor).


The I-boat displaying some of my handiwork

After some period of time, sufficiently hounded, harrassed, and listing, the I-boat succumbs to her wounds, rolls to her side, and slips under.



The above is based on a reconstruction of events from memory and photographic record a week after the events. Someone forgot to make any sort of notes at the battle. Any errors or misrepresentations in the above recollection are probably my fault, but the above recollection is close enough to correct to be considered primarily fact. Also, I got the most important parts right: Everything sank except the Derfflinger and we all had fun.

 

Yes! Bigger 'friends' are needed!

I still have the pics and writeup from 3 battles ago to do... I have really got to start doing these the day-of...

 

Those poor battlecruisers were lucky their pumps worked that day! You really need at least four battlecruisers to have a chance vs a lone French Heavy - they're like ninjas you know, the fewer of them present, the more dangerous they become!

In seriousness - The Westfalen had our groups most veteran captain - that was supposed to help with the balance issue. His preemptive scuttling in the opening minutes of the battle rendered that plan moot. At that point the battle had already begun and we didn't want to halt it. We did have another veteran captain advising our guest captain throughout the sortie as well. The Suffren gave us a run for our money, pulling off some good damage on the Derfflinger and probably only sinking because of her pump failure, otherwise I think she would have survived her 5 and come off the water with empty guns.

 

I knew it was tongue in cheek, I just wanted to cover the bases in case someone wandered along and thought it wasn't and that we feed our newbies to the dogs of war.

I'm hoping he comes back, he made an excellent French captain. Having been one for 2 years, I know a good one when I see them.