May 19th battle [Now with Recap & photos]

Next battle is may 19th. Due to parking concerns at Coal Creek, we will be at Swan Creek. Plan to battle at noon, so show up early enough to set up, fix things, bs, etc. I'll personally be aiming for 11-11:30ish arrival.

 

RE: May 19th battle
(if you dont like lots of text, theres a tl;dr; version at the bottom, and some pictures shortly before that)
We had a great little battle. Only 4 ships on the water, the Warspite, Phill in the Westfalen, Stephen in a 'new' (purchased lightly used but on the shelf for a dozen years and then partly rehabbed before the battle) North Carolina and myself with the Derfflinger.
We decided that fairly fair teams would be the Imperial Germans vs the American and British dogs.
We began the first sortie and were pleasantly mixing it up. I had elected to engage the North Carolina. It being the new ship on the pond, and Stephen having never sailed her previous to the battle, I figured there was good opportunity to be had. Meanwhile The Westfalen assumed the role of occupying the attentions and affections of the Warspite. A few minutes and Phill leans over to me and says 'I have no gas'... Oops? No problem, the Warspite hasn't figured this out yet, or has and still thinks the Westfalen is easy prey, but since Phil doesn't have to worry about lining up shots for himself, he becomes an incredibly hard target.
A few morem inutes in and The North Carolina and I have been chasing each other around the pond, mixing it up and breaking free again. For speed and turning we are fairly evenly matched, he can out turn me but not by enough to make a major difference if I hug tight to him. Stephen is pumping heavily and calls 5, my pursuit and his flight now begin in earnest. I have only a half unit pump in the Derfflinger and have taken some good hits during the engagement and am very clearly pumping steadily. Our dance continues up and down the pond as I slowly empty my magazines, sometimes more effectively than others. Meanwhile Phil also declares that he is on 5, seeing as he has no gas. Stephens 5 comes and he gets the NC off the water, though I slip in one last shot before he can touch it at the shore.
With myself and the Warspite being the only two ships remaining, I give him a half hearted chase, but am not interested in expending my batteries on a ship I cannot catch. The Warspite elects to sail on the far side of the pond, where he knows I am not comfortable sailing with a ship half sunk and pumping steady, we mutually declare that we are on 5, that neither of us will sink, and we pull the ships.
Post sortie inspection showed that the NC did sustain a minor inverted L shaped crack that appeared to be probable incidental ram damage, so we patched that. We conclude that based on the amount of damage to our two ships, my lack of reserve buoyancy and more restricted pump outlet, that we are both in about equal condition as far as being near to sinking. So we duly re-armed, and set forth.
Before the 2nd sortie could begin though, Phil's Westfalen sinks. While he recovers it, we pull the NC and Derf back off the water, not wanting to waste battery power. With her pump cleaned out, the Westfalen and others are relaunched. Right as we are about to declare a start to the battle, the Westfalen sinks again! Again we recover it, discover that an underwater patch had broken open probably during her previous recovery, quickly get that patched and the Westfalen back onto the water. Now, fully armed, on the surface, and not playing submarine, the Westfalen is finally ready and we begin our work.
Immediately I head straight for the North Carolina and Stephen and we both maneuver for ideal range. I know that given my pre-existing damage, if I let this fight drag out, I may not survive. One should be careful when playign battleship games as a battlecruiser. I am trying my best to get in under his guns and hug him, he is doing his best to keep me about a foot away. We hammer away at eachother, but it shortly clear that neither of us inflicted significant damage on the early passes.
Circling the pond we go, Stephen is trying to shake me off but I doggedly pursure him, cut him off when I can and try to force him towards the shore where I can trap him. Finally I get him towards the shoreline, the Warspite slips in to try to help the NC and draw me off, but I maneuver in and let fly with everything I can at anything I can. Make the Warspite feel the stern guns and he will back off. Open some more gashes in the NC. We back off the gravel, props grinding and protesting. The Warspite loses a prop but slips back to sea. The NC and the Derf both extract themselves from the shore, only to shortly rengage. The Derf opens the engagement with her twin sterns and then soon the haymaker. You can hear the BBs hammering home. The NC shifts in position and opens fire on the Derf's stern with her triple sterns, but the fire is high and rakes the sterndeck, ripping the turret cover from Dora. As we move around her sidemoutns come into play, but the Derf is too close, and the NC's rain of steel severs only to dimple my superstructure. Some of the fire bounces off the Derf, ripping the NC's gun directory, a gun tub and a secondary off. Parts and steel are flying in a glorious clash.
We break off from eachother, normally I would press the attack, but I wanted to recover my turret cover before it slid off the deck. It is soon obvious that the NC has taken the worst of the damage, she is sailing low, and lower still, pumping hard and moving slow. I circle around to finish my victim off, as I approach she settles lower, her bow obviously leading, for a span of time she is actually sailing with her bow seemingly under the water. As the Derf comes along side for a final salvo, the bottom drops out and the NC plunges under.
The remainder of the sortie is uneventfulm excepting a shoreline loss of the Westfalen. We recover the NC, and I cross my fingers when we go to inspect the damage - I want a good clean sink, I dont want to see any ram damage. Upon inspection, everything looks cleans, all gun damage this time around. My goal is complete, thanks to Phil and the Westfalen keeping the Warspite off my back and from opening me up like a tin can, I have managed to bring down the NC and stayed afloat myself. Post sortie inspection showed that the Derf took only minimal additional damage during the 2nd sortie.



By this time it is 4, so we try to get in a 2nd battle. the NC's radio box failed and her rx and several servos are out of commision, so we try to quickly get the I-boat operational, but no such luck. Derfflinger also suffers a sudden loss of most propulsion, we discover that shes slipped her set screws for her drive gears. Fix that quickly. We end up doing a 3 ship free-for-all with the Westfalen, Warspite and Derfflinger. Westfalen is having control issues and rudder problems and ends up as a shoreline sink. The Warspite and the Derf chase eachother around for a bit but inconclusively. We pull the ships off and decide that with only two operational ships left, Derf and Warspite, we should wrap the day up and head home.
tl;dr; version / recap: All in all, we had a great day of battling, maybe not as many battles or ships as we would have liked, but a good time was had. I got to pick on the new ship and with the help of my excellent teammate who persevered despite his ships troubles, we sent the NC to visit Davey Jones and lead in points for the day, 5 to 3.

 

thanks
been meaning to get back to doing full write-ups again