WW1 Naval – Churchill’s Idea

This weekend the local HMGS-South group played a World War One naval game based on this March 9th 1915 memo (item 121 Jellicoe Papers) from the 1st Lord of the Admiralty. The idea was to send a fast division into the Baltic Sea and, in cooperation with the Russian fleet, blockade German ports. The Germans send the ships that were in the Baltic for training exercises.

The confrontation occurs off Aarhus, Denmark: aarhus-10nm-grid

Status at the end of the game: io

Damage output file: chur-output

Plot of ship movements:
First 25 minutes: chur-plot-1-25
Last 25 minutes: chur-plot-25-50
Entire plot: chur-plot

Computer code (described here)

The light cruiser screens have engaged. A data entry error by the twit running the game (me) resulted in one British cruiser division driving through the German fleet.

The forces close, but frequent course changes, smoke and high speeds keep hits low.

The heavy ships passed by at close range, resulting in the loss of a British dreadnought, a British battlecruiser and a German battlecruiser.

8 thoughts on “WW1 Naval – Churchill’s Idea”

Andy Hall says:

January 29, 2017 at 7:27 pm

Will have to try this scenario with Steam and Iron: Great War at Sea.

Reply
1. ncc1717 says:
  
  January 30, 2017 at 6:45 am
  
  I’m not familiar with those rules. Please let me know how it turns out.
  
  Reply
  1. Andy Hall says:
    
    January 30, 2017 at 11:13 am
    
    It’s a PC game/sim that, like your game assist software, is full of crunchy data goodness.
  2. Andy Hall says:
    
    January 30, 2017 at 4:46 pm
    
    Here is a short summary of a re-fight of Jutland:
    
    http://nws-online.proboards.com/post/9928/thread
  3. ncc1717 says:
    
    January 30, 2017 at 7:34 pm
    
    Thanks for that link. It was a good discussion.
    
    It is a bit hard to tell, but from the plot it looks like the Grand Fleet battle divisions remained abreast in the cruising formation for the entire battle. Can they be deployed into a single line easily?
    
    Click to access sk-plot-windy.pdf
scienceandwar says:

January 31, 2017 at 3:24 pm

Hey i like your Blog, check out my Blog as well🙂, it is for a school project so please do leave criticism and comments,thanks ! i am also thinking about doing a post about Churchill, exploring events such as gallipoli and his role in tank development

Reply
1. ncc1717 says:
  
  January 31, 2017 at 3:50 pm
  
  If you need references for Churchill, these may be of use:
  
  Geoffrey Penn, “Fisher, Churchill and the Dardanelles,” ISBN 0-85052-646-9
  Graham T. Clews, “Churchill’s Dilemma,” ISBN 978-0-313-38474-5
  Stephen Roskill, “Churchill and the Admirals,” ISBN 0-688-03364-4
  Richard Hough, “Former Naval Person, Churchill and the Wars at Sea,” ISBN 0-297-78706-3
  
  Reply
  1. scienceandwar says:
    
    January 31, 2017 at 3:52 pm
    
    thanks 🙂 ill keep them in mind