Next battle is this Sunday, June 3rd at Swan Creek in Tacoma, Same 11am ideal start-time. I plan to be there at 10:30 for setup and prep.
RE: June 3 - Battle @ Swan Creek We had a splendid little battle yesterday. The weather was nice, the pond was pleasant and we had fair sailing conditions for the three of us. Phill brought the Suffren and recently modified to try to stay on the surface Westfalen, Darrell had the Warspite and I brought the Derf! and Maru with to play. For the first sortie we elected to pit the British Navy (Warspite) vs the might of the Imperial German Battle Fleet (Derfflinger and Westfalen). We quickly saw that the modifications to the Westfalen did in fact allow it to go at top speed and not play submarine. This made us happy. About 5 minutes into the engagement, we were doing a good job of putting some holes in the Warspite when the Westfalen was incidentally rammed near the stern by the stern of the Derf and rapidly sank. Shortly thereafter as the Derf and Warspite were tangling a bit, the bow of the Derf caught the Warspite near the C turret and gashed the hull open. The Warspite barely made it back to reach of the shore before going under. After recovering the Westfalen we found that the Derf's stern had struck center-panel and had pushed the enitre panel in, thus leading to the extremely rapid influx of water and sinking. So after First Sortie: Me: -2, Phil: Already using the Drysuit, British Navy: Still afloat. Not my best moments.. but they get better, and worse.. Second sortie, my former teammate the Westfalen declared an intent to engage in some revenge and fill me with BBs, indicating that he intended to either switch teams or that the battle would be a free-for-all. All the same to me in either case, a target rich environment! I eagerly engaged this, shooting the Westfalen is a bit of a novelty for me as it formerly never wanted to stay afloat long enough. He gave me a fight but in the end he went to the bottom - without being rammed. Unfortunately her propulsion controls were acting up a little and he went to the bottom on the other side of the pond, so Phil and his drysuit had a little bit of a stroll to take. While I was zipping up the back of Phill's drysuit, I had apparently forgotten to turn my pump on and discovered myself sinking with no time to get back to shore as the water poured in through the grey-area damage the Westfalen had given to me. So I sunk due to my own stupidity, great, atleast I put the Westfalen down first. But again, the British rule the waves. Ugh. Third sortie out, free-for-all conditions. Phill has decided to stay close to shore, where I don't like to operate. The Derfflinger does better in the open water, along the shore the Westfalen's squirreliness makes it hard to pin down and easy to find myself stuck. So I split my attention between trying to get an advantageous shot on the Westfalen and shaking off the Warspite. In doing so I took a moderate amount of grey-area damage and a couple belows. At one point the Westfalen, flushed out from the shore line, crossed right around the sweet-spot for my sterns and I let loose a withering hail that tore her open right above the waterline for about 6 inches of hull. Admiring my handiwork I trolled along ,watching the Westfalen, anticipating that she should have enough damage to soon drop that grey area damage into the water and she'd hit the bottom fast. Much to my consternation, she refused to sink. Good Imperial German Damage Control. Returning my attention to my own ship, I noticed with incredible alarm that I had left the pump off, and in fact, I was the one who was sinking! And then I sunk, again, victim of my own foolishness. Phill again waded out and plucked my vessel from the depths, whereupon I promptly drained it and returned to action - not normally something that would be done in a battle, but since we're just having a good time with the three of us, it wasn't an issue. This time I was able to put the sidemounts into use and the Westfalen ended up scuttled along the shore. After recovery Phill discovered her pump had clogged up on filth, likely washed in from some less-than-friendly propwash from the Derfflinger. Our fill-tank was pretty much empty at this point, and rather than drag another out late in the day, we decided to halt proceedings at this point. Though I was game to see if I could manage sinking myself for a third time.. We had had a good day, with an assorted variety of sinks - and though I think I can take the lions share of the credit for all of them I can safely say I would have been happier if I wasn't responsible for the two in the first sortie. The important thing at the end of the day, we all had fun!
