waiting for alpha 5 Forum game (ship design) - while we are waiting for Alpha 5.

[Dirlinger]

Since we cannot create own scenarios we have to improvise a bit. Hope people find this little design challenge interesting to participate in. Might be interesting to see what kind of designs we come up when it needs to face multiple challenges.

Setting of the scenario (very hypothetical):

Russo-Japanese war, July 1904

As part of Weltpolitik policy and deep racial prejudices against Asians,  Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had encouraged Tsar Nicholas II towards the expansion in East, become worried whether Russian would succeed in their war with Japanese. War itself, according to Wilhelm II, was also an opportunity to drive further a wedge between Britain (ally, although a passive one, of Japan) and Russia, convincing the later to join the alliance with German Empire. As an attempt to give the Nicolas II a practical support in the ongoing war and also convince Russia that Germany is a reliable partner, Kaiser decides to send one his newest armored cruisers, lunched year ago in 1903, under captain Stresser to aid Russian naval force.

Japanese are well aware of the approaching German cruiser and plan an ambush, planning on using a destroyer to lure the heavy cruiser in waiting trap consisting of part of Admiral Togo's fleet in Yellow Sea.

However, the destroyer fails to find the german cruiser and instead the german cruiser chances upon a Japanese pre-drednought battleship and two armored cruisers, both part of Japanese 1894 purchase from Britain shipyards.

Convinced on the superiority of his crew, officers and ship instead of disengaging Captain Stresser orders fire.

Unbeknown to both sides the battle interacts the path of 4 Japanese torpedo boats.

 

The task:

Post your heavy cruiser design, with ship details section visible, according to the limitations outlined in this post.

Limitations:

1902 CA design (heavy cruiser, I am setting design year 1902 since the ship was launched in 1903)

Range must be set to very long

Max cost : 5,300,000 $

You will be fighting two battles

1:  vs 1 BB and 2x CL of 1894 (battle  distance 5000 meters)

2: vs 4 TB of 1903 design (battle distance 4000 meters).

In other words ship must be somewhat multi functional and able to face different kind of enemies.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Dirlinger

[Shaftoe]

Wow. Just wow. Now that's what I call desperation.

[Cptbarney]

12 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

Wow. Just wow. Now that's what I call desperation.

Dont be mean 😕 we can have funsies in this thread past alpha 5 as well. Could even post campaign reports and structure them out as actual events or just battles themselves in the campaign or custom battles etc.

[Dirlinger]

16 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

Wow. Just wow. Now that's what I call desperation.

We got plenty of time - trust me 😉

[Wurstsalat]

I present: Armored Cruiser "Kiel"

Designed for long range colonial duty and 1 ship operations.

[Dirlinger]

Well, I had actually to go back to drawing board once again. I used memory editor to modify my ammo levels downwords (reflecting the first battle) when setting up scenario and discovered I needed to downgrade secondaries if I would to hold my own against 4 TB, purely ammowise (if victory is strictly defined by sinking enemy ships).

Scharnhorst colonial cruiser.

Operational history:

3. July 1904, 07:00

Misty morning in July 1904, Captain Stresser spotted and engaged Imperial Japanese battleship NIsshin and the protected cruisers Kitaro and Kinu.

Although older design, battleship Nisshin was only slightly slower with 18 knots speed but much better armored with 13 inch armor belt. The battleship had four of 11 inch cannons organized in pairs in two turrets aft and fore and a powerful secondary battery of twenty 5 inch guns.

Kitaro and Kinu both had pair of 8 inch cannons and underwater torpedoes but their captains did not aggressively try to get into torpedo range, perhaps being aware that Scharnhorst class had torpedo tubes of its own. This would be fight between Nisshin and Scharnhorst.

Despite captain Stresser drawing first blood with small damage on the forecastle, the Nisshin took the first serious fight with damage to the only funnel on the Scharnhorst. The speed of the german cruiser dropped to 14 knots and soon captain Stresser released that he had underestimated the enemy. Despite unprecise fire from the main battery of the Nisshin, the Japanese battleship had closing ever closer for every minute and secondary battery of 5 inch cannons were chipping on the germans cruisers infrastructure, with small fires started every minute. On the other hand german 4 inch  and 2 inch batteries were having no effect so the order to silence secondary and tertiary battery was given.

With slow speed of 14 knots and risk of further engine damage, if the two japanese protected cruisers decided to launch their torpedoes, Stresser was not sure he would be able to outturn or outrun the incoming torpedos. Another 11 inch shell from Nisshan disabled the sole port side 5 inch cannon on the german cruiser.

German captain decided to oblige the Japanese battleship and turned the ship towards the enemy, closing in within 3 km of the Japanese battleship. Launch of the 16 inch torpedo was detected by Japanese captain immediately but he did not manage to turn the NIsshin in time. The torpedo hit the enemy battleship midships and the enemy battleship listed heavily. Another hit from a 10 inch shell fired from front turret of Scharnhorst caused another flooding in the front and Nisshan was finaly doomed to watery grave, sinking slowly.

Captain Stressers latest maneuvering had also put his ship inside the range of enemy torpedo batteries on Kitaro and Kinu and knowing what was coming the germans desperatly turned their ship to get out of the range. At same time, the order was given to switch to HE shells and secondary and tertiary battery opened fire again.

Soon enough, enemy torpedoes, two of them were spotted making their way to Scharnhorst. Kanu's torpedo was fired at maximum range and was way off, but Kitaro's torpedo was aimed true. Slowing down and trying to make as tight turn as possible, captain Stresser tried to avoid the incoming torpedo but it hit Scharnhorst at front, flooding the first section of the ship. TDS and damage control proved their worth now and the damage was contained, although the speed drooped to 8 knots. However Scharnhorst was heavily damaged.

Soon Scharnhort got his vengance with secondaries chipping appart Kinu, taking out the engines and Kitaro being torn appart quickly by 10 inch cannons. An ammo explosion sunk Kitaro while Kinu was finished off with another torpedo launch from Scharnhorst.

19:00

Scharnhorst war diary does register encounter with 4 additional enemy torpedo boats of yet unkown model. Ammo levels were extremly low from previous encounter with only 54 shells remaining for 10 inch front turret, however captain Stresser appears to have relied on secondaries for damaging and slowing down enemy TB with 10 inch cannons being used only when enemy torpedo boats were slowed down. However once again Stresser got to agressive and suffered another 15 inch torpedo hit on starboard side.

We can assume that german cruiser, while sinking several enemy ships were in no shape to complete his assignment except indirectly helping the oncoming Russian reinforcements to their First Pacific Squadron by sinking battleship Nisshan.

 

 

[flaviohc16]

nice topic, it would be really nice to make this some sort of story, like if it was a diary, very well done

[GUTB]

I beat this challenge on the first try. The CL was dropped pretty fast. The first hull torp put the BB dead in the water and the second hull torp sunk her. The guns easily overwhelmed the CL and were essentially useless against the 11 inch armor BB. As I suspected this scenario comes down to luck and the old BB not being able to hit the broadside of a barn while torps did the heavy lifting.

Edited March 16, 2020 by GUTB

[Loudmax]

Thanks for this interesting post, user-made scenarios and challenges like this can be fun bits of content. 

 

A good go-between until we have campaign