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Author Topic: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]  (Read 136503 times)

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Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
In order:

1.  :lol:  This is a balanced game. We're not talking Wargaming products here...

2. Yes. You 've pretty much described the most balls to the wall  jeune ecole tactic in the game. Quite viable, especially in the early game as France, Japan, Italy and Russia

3. In hindsight, yes. Everybody gets oil at 1920 anyway, and this game is long enough that investing in home territory gains (via reparations)  instead of picking up colonies paid off.

At the time,  no. Totally wrong move. I asked for the reparations before really thinking things through. And remembering why I was fighting the war in the first place. :nervous: :banghead:

Blame KFW,  amirite?  ;)
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline Enioch

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Bismarck / Denn wir Fahren...




"You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees."

-Kaiser Wilhelm II, addressing German soldiers departing for the front in May 1917.

"The British came in thinking of a very different kind of war. British wars were long, they were economic and they resulted in the bankruptcy of the enemy. German wars are short, brutal and end up with marching parades in foreign capitals."

"THE BATTLE OF LERWICK 03 - 04 OCT 1917" by Prof. Andrew Lambert 23 May 2016.



February, 1916. The first refurbished Piepers leave the slipways. If nothing else, Germany will be able to patrol her coastlines.



And she might need to do so, more quickly than she had expected. On the 17th of the month, Hamburg runs aground off the coast of Belgium. She had been transporting Intelligence operatives on a nighttime drop-off meant for Britain. Timing could not have been worse.

At this point, von Mecklenburg does not have the option of tiptoeing around the matter. The recent German ultimatum against Britain does not allow her to take a less hard-line stance against a lesser Power. Goeben and Moltke are dispatched to escort the German cruiser and make sure the Belgians release her promptly.



This, of course, pisses off a lot of people.

The Belgians release the ship, but under considerable protest; and they are backed by their allies. The British deploy a couple of Australia-class battlecruisers to ominously shadow the German task force; and their Foreign Secretary states that Britain will safeguard Belgian independence. France - it seems so long ago she was an ally - now condemns the German policy. And Russia parrots the British, decrying German bullying from the rooftops.



In this climate of uncertainty, the R & D department submits several experimental designs of new torpedo stabilisation systems, but nothing concrete yet...



And, in a move that sets the Admiralität on edge, Great Britain begins mobilising their Grand Fleet, de-mothballing their reserve ships and stepping up their training regimen. The Germans respond by similar escalation. Germany has no fleet in reserve (all her capitals are in permanent active duty), but she can step up her training.



Training pays off. During live-fire exercises, the German gunners pioneer a new range-refining technique: "ladder firing", in which a ship would rapidly fire a succession of ranging shots, 'walking' her fire onto the target through regular, incremental adjustments.

Somehow, the results of the exercises find their way to the British. There are some scrambling attempts to lower tensions and buy for time (possibly to allow the Grand Fleet to catch up)...



...until the news from Rhodes reaches the European markets.

Rhodes is a German naval base and fortress, granted to them by the Greek government, after their assistance in the Balkan Wars. German prospectors have been combing the island for years - and their work has finally paid off, with the discovery of the biggest known oil field in the Eastern Mediterranean. A deal is struck with the Greek government, that will see joint drilling and exploitation of the fields for the next ninety-nine years. The German stock market soars overnight - and, in response, British oil stocks drop by an estimated 5% within a week, as their monopolies are shaken to the core.

The party in the Admiralität lasts until the early hours of the morning. The German fleet now has a secure source of oil. It is tricky to transport it through friendly Greece and the Austro-Hungarian Balkans, but it is possible; and Germany can now start stockpiling black gold of her own production.



The Brits, on the other hand, do not appreciate this.

Perfect.



In July 1916, while tensions with Russia are somewhat falling, Frau Zelle provides us with a further confirmation that the so-called "Triangle Ships" are the product of British meddling. Compare the Kuramas and Amalfis with the new, purely Japanese-built Hieis. The Japanese have upgraded to 21-inch torpedoes, but their main battery has regressed to a 12-inch caliber. They were clearly getting their 14-inch guns from somewhere, or they'd be building more Kuramas, which are objectively better ships. Whoever their supplier was, now they can't keep up with Japanese demand and the Japanese have to return to their 12-inch, homebuilt rifles. Interesting coincidence that, with tensions rising, British industry is now solely focused on providing their own Navy with ordnance and weapons...





Oh ho ho. Germans now have a knowledge of applied hydrodynamics. Can anyone say 'Atlantikbug'?

Time for a new generation of German ships, the Admiralität decides.



First, let's honour Unseren Bismarck, shall we?

The Fürst Bismarck, and her sister, Wettin, are experimental ships. They are the first 'big gun' German Dreadnoughts. They are a compromise design, and Tirpitz does not have high hopes that they will perform as good as the engineers claim they will; but they will help apply the new technologies that Germany has developed for the first time, reveal problems and serve as stepping-stones for something better.

The service record of these ships was nothing spectacular, especially compared to their younger siblings. But they are known to all naval enthusiasts world-wide, for being the first German 'unsinkables', as the concept came to be known later on.

The Bismarck and the Wettin were smaller than the Zähringens, with a relatively tame battery of twelve 14-inch rifles in triple turrets. These were the rather underpowered German 14-inchers of the mid-1910s, but their performance was satisfactory, especially in close range.

And these ships were built to close the range, in the cramped waters of the Baltic, the North Sea and the Mediterranean. They were All-or-Nothing, and the first German capitals to burn oil; this, in conjunction with the limited artillery, and the new hydrodynamic Atlantic-bow designs, released a staggering amount of tonnage for armor, while not compromising the standard 25-knot flank speed.

And now, we come to the main selling point of these behemoths. A 430mm thick belt (almost half a metre of German steel) protected the vitals of the ship, complemented by a 76mm deck (more than enough for the close-range brawling these ships were meant to engage in). The turrets, likewise, had a 430mm facing, with a 100mm roof.

Add to that a state-of-the art torpedo belt, comparable to that of the Zähringens, and a secondary battery of 14 100mm guns, and the Bismarcks would cast a very threatening shadow indeed. Their job, was to wade in and engage British Dreads at around 10k yards, where their massive belts would tip the balance, while putting accurate, Director-controlled fire into their enemies.



Construction begins on the Bismarck, with a massive downpayment of ten million Reichsmarken; the Wettin is laid down, but construction is frozen until the Graf Spee is completed, seven months from now.



And, as the work moves forward, R & D is already experimenting with new armor alloys, for the next generation of heavy Dreadnoughts.



Great Britain responds with a considerable increase to their naval budget - they also scrap several older ships, while focusing primarily on a new batch of coastal patrol vessels.



R & D proposes a new generatin of fifteen-hundred ton Zerstörer, to counter these vessels. And to accompany the Bismarcks once they leave the slipways. These ships are still a ways away; but they're an option.



The urgency, now, is palpable, throughout the Reich. It's December, and the German dockyards do not sleep. The works have reached the Graf Spee's superstructure, and the installation of her central Directors has now begun. She's less than four months away from commissioning.



And then, in February, Frau Zelle arrives from London, with the biggest scoop of her career yet. The blueprints for the new British reduction gear system.



Unfortunately, she is not as discreet as she would have liked to be. In April, the British find out about the leak - and this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Angry words of protest are exchanged; ultimatums are rendered; and, seemingly overnight, with the rest of Europe staring in horror, Great Britain and Germany are both in the midst of a full-scale mobilisation.

War is declared on the 13th of May; the Hochseeflotte is already at sea, with Galster in command.






Heute ist der Tag!


« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 10:08:15 am by Enioch »
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
...DENN WIR FAHREN / DENN WIR FAHREN / GEGEN ENGELAND / ENGELAND!

LONG LIVE KAISER ****ING WILHELM .
« Last Edit: September 05, 2017, 08:00:14 am by Enioch »
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]


"Raise high the black flags, my children!"
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 
Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
I'd like to point out that "Pieper" is, in the flemish accent, a spud.

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
So the class of German minesweepers are called "glorious spuds" ('August Pieper')?

Yup. That seems about right. Pass the Kartoffelsalat, Fritz! :lol:

Or perhaps you mean the other meaning of spud? As in preadolescent, balls-not-yet-dropped? Cause that would fit these tiny wonders too... :p
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 
Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
It's the former, although yes, the latter would fit too :P

 

Offline The E

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
[From: "Ganz oder garnicht: Capital ship design of the 1920s" by Ian McDonough, Kiel University Publications, 2014]

Chapter 2
The Pioneers -  Prinz Heinrich and Fürst Bismarck

As tensions between Germany and the UK rose, it became clear to Galster and Tirpitz that the german cruiser fleet, as feared as it was, could not be expected to be refitted ad infinitum. Ships like Hertha and Frauenlob, endowed with a fearsome reputation of tenacity and effectiveness, were certainly still capable of giving an enemy pause, but it became increasingly clear that these ships were starting to live on their reputation alone. The breakneck pace of development certainly didn't pass these ships, and so the Prinz Heinrich was born.

It is difficult to underestimate the impact this ship had. The sheer amount of new and revolutionary technologies involved in its construction was unprecedented, however, this was expected by everyone. What wasn't expected, and what didn't become known to Germany's many enemies until months later, was that its design process was also a departure from established german practices, in terms of impact about as profound as the Dreadnought scheme was almost 20 years earlier.
Traditionally, ship design was done in distinct stages: First, the basic hull form and armament was decided, then engines were planned, until at the very end of the process, the armor scheme was decided. This resulted in armor schemes that, more often than not, were studies in creative compromising; to simplify things, designers would often choose on a uniform type of armor for the entire belt and other sections of the ship.
On Prinz Heinrich, armor was one of the first considerations. As a result, she ended up with very thick plating over her vital areas, such as the engine, control spaces and magazines, but virtually no armor over spaces which were not critical to the ship's mission. This, in turn, enabled the designers to make her faster, more survivable, and more hard-hitting than any cruiser had any right to be.

It didn't take long, then, for reports from the builders to filter back to the Admiralität once construction had begun in earnest. In August of 1916, plans for the next generation of german Battleships were finalized, also utilizing the new methodologies Prinz Heinrich had pioneered. The Fürst Bismarck class was built to run up to the british battleline, take any punches she may have to, and then end the battle permanently and with overwhelming force courtesy of her 14 inch rifles firing a new round which itself incorporated all the lessons that german weapon designers had learned examining the remains of russian and japanese ships.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
[snip]
"Raise high the black flags, my children!"

Wrong enemy, there. :p

Other snip

Goddammit.

<3

By the end of this I'll be owing you an entire bloody novel, The_E. :p
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
[snip]
"Raise high the black flags, my children!"

Wrong enemy, there. :p


He was really looking to have a go at Wellington, Bonnie just happened to be in the way  :P
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline crizza

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
Why no zone of hell/secondaries for the Bismarck?




The E -- I fixed your youtube link. Remember that only the video ID goes between the yt tags, not the complete yt url

Actually, are you sure the video ID is correct?
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 04:36:44 am by crizza »

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]

[...]Add to that a state-of-the art torpedo belt, comparable to that of the Zähringens, and a secondary battery of 14 100mm guns[...]

I did mention her secondaries.... She has an Akizuki strapped to every side.

Problem is that the game doesn't render 4-inch guns and lower in capital ships, so that's why you can't see them in the deck plan.
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline crizza

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
The E -- I fixed your youtube link. Remember that only the video ID goes between the yt tags, not the complete yt url

Actually, are you sure the video ID is correct?

My bad, I think I fixed it.

Considering Bismarcks secondaries:

Excuse me, I was hyped and played Xcom2 - War of the Chosen while reading this.
Is there a limit to secondary guns for calibre and number of guns?
Or if you have enough tonnage, can you slap four dual big calibre turrets and a ****ton of secondaries on a ship?

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
I've never hit a limit to secondary guns on my ships so far, but admittedly, I've never pushed the limits.

The only rule that I know of is that secondary guns must be of a lower caliber than main guns (so a ship with 14 inch main batteries can have a 13-inch secondary battery, kek) and that they are aimed with iron sights (so they are really inaccurate) until you discover secondary directors.

And tertiaries need to be smaller than secondaries and they are always aimed with iron sights.
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline Enioch

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Berlin, May 16, 1917

During their return to Home Waters, the Schlachtkreuzer Derrflinger and Wittelsbach of our Hochseeflotte on May 15th, encountered a large English convoy, escorted by two Battlecruisers and a screen of light forces

During the afternoon, to the south of Ireland and west of Wales, a heavy engagement developed, which was successful to us.

In this engagement, so far as known up to the present [...]

-First Official German Statement on the Battle of Ireland, 16 May 1917



It is just before noon, on a cloudy, miserable 16th of May, 1917. We find ourselves on the Celtic Sea, nearly ninety miles south of Cork, where the dreaded British weather reigns supreme.

The two German Schlachtkreuzer Wittelsbach and Derfflinger are returning to home waters. They have been patroling the northern Atlantic; with the declaration of war they now seek to rejoin the main fleet.



In command of the task force is a young audacious commander, Konteradmiral Franz von Hipper. His flag is on the Wittelsbach and, despite Admiralität orders to the contrary, he's looking for a fight. He has taken advantage of the cloudy weather, the fog and the constant drizzle to sneak into British-controlled waters; and his lookouts are looking for targets of opportunity.

And he finds them, when, from out of the fog and rain, his lookouts make out the masts of a small British convoy, less than five thousand yards to the north-east.

Hipper's task force comes to action stations and charges.



Hipper hooks around from the north, using his superior speed to cut the merchantmen off from the safety of the mainland. He has three Zerstörer, which he immediately dispatches to hunt down the fat convoy ships; and he is also escorted by the old scout cruiser Frauenlob, a veteran of three wars, whom he orders to stay behind and watch his back. The Wittelsbach and Derfflinger follow the Zerstörer into the slaughter.



And it is a slaughter.



But then, less than an hour after first contact, and with the burning hulks of the convoy still drifting around them, castaways crying for help and being picked up by the Zerstörer crews, the fog lifts and the rain stops.

And Frauenlob signals High Alert, for less than ten thousand yards away to the north, there is a British battlecruiser squadron closing in.



The veteran lookouts on the scout cruiser do not take much time to identify the newcomers. Leading the squadron is a New Zealand-class battlecruiser, of the type that the British like to call 'pocket battlecruisers'. They are small, displacing only half what the Wittelsbachs do, and with a paper-thin belt; but they are armed with eight 14-inchers and they can do 26 knots. Underestimating her could be fatal - and Hipper needs to safeguard his ships, for the dangerous return trip through the North Sea.



The second ship is a de-mothballed Indomitable, the oldest class of battlecruisers operated by the British. This one is, essentially, a non-entity, although her 13-inchers can still hurt, if Hipper gives them the opportunity.



Hipper vaccilates; and then he frowns and orders the Schlachtkreuzer to close with the enemy. He has more guns, he has veteran crews and he's willing to gamble that the weather will permit him to conceal his approach through the Northern Sea, even if his ships are damaged.

"Schlachtkreuzer, ran an den Feind, voll einsetzen!"

He engages pursuit, taking advantage of the quickly roughening seas to close the range. His larger ships are more stable gun platforms in the high winds, as the Indomitable quickly finds out. Derfflinger weaves through a spread of torpedoes fired by the battlecruisers' destroyer screen; and scores a hit on her from a range of around seven thousand yards. Wittelsbach, having received no attention from the enemy destroyers yet, has the time for a more precise targeting solution. Three 12-inch shells slam into the Indomitable's belt.

An angled 6-inch belt might have been barely capable of resisting such fire ten, or even five, years ago. But these are not the 12-inch shells fired by the German battleships in Bornholm. These are German high-velocity, capped AP shells, designed to pierce layered inclined armor. The old British battlecruiser shudders under the impacts, and her armor peels off like the top of a sardine can.



And then her engines fall silent, followed by her guns. It's less than thirty minutes since the Frauenlob spotted the enemy.

The Germans do not know what has happened on the ship. They do not know that this is the name ship of her class, HMS Indomitable herself. They do not know that one of the Wittelsbach's shells has punched clean through her conning tower, killing all command personnel therein. All they know is that the ship has not struck her colours; and that her secondaries are still firing sporadically at the closing Zerstörer.

And so, Derfflinger takes aim at the wreck and fires one finishing salvo at her.

One of her shells falls short, but close enough to strike the ship beneath the waterline. It penetrates its paper-thin underwater armor, buries itself deep into Turret A's cordite magazines; and explodes, taking the magazine with it.





The turret pops off like a cork, flying dozens of feet into the air. The ship's hull ballons out, rippling as the shockwave propagates; and then the entire bow of the ship turns into matchwood, a cloud of splinters dropping like rain onto the Schlachtkreuzer. What's left of the Indomitable rolls over, slowly, and sinks. Of her crew of 750, there are no survivors.



The thunderous explosion stuns all; but Hipper, now enjoying a considerable gunnery advantage over the British drives his ships ever onwards. The New Zealand runs towards the north. Less than ten thousand yards behind her, the German Schlachtkreuzer continue their pursuit.

British fire brackets the Wittelsbach and a single 14-inch shell strikes her belt. Spalling splinters cut down eight crewmen, but the belt holds. In return, the Wittelsbach punches two 12-inch shells into the Brit's aft, while the Derfflinger rakes her superstructure with 5-inch high-explosive from her secondaries.



The above statement may have given you the impression that the German ships have not been harmed. That could not be farther away from the truth. Derfflinger has only suffered superficial damage, true; but, during the entire exchange with the Indomitable, the Wittelsbach has been the sole focus of the New Zealand. And British gunnery, while not particularly accurate, is rapid (more rapid than it has any right to be, really, muses Hipper) and effective. Wittelsbach has been hit 12 times by the New Zealand's 14-inch guns, and 3 more times by her secondaries. Nine of these hits have penetrated her armor and superstructure and have caused considerable damage. Her X turret is jammed on her bearings; her forward compartments are flooded; her forward funnel has toppled and her portside superstructure is a mass of glowing metal. There is a small leak, somewhere in the fore and port compartments, that is still admitting water into the engineering spaces - Wittelsbach cannot make more than 20 knots - but the high seas limit her to 18 knots anyway.

But her superiority over her opponent, even now, cannot be denied. She has fired more than three hundred shells at her enemies; and scored just under thirty hits so far; her firing control stations are still operational and her crew are still eager and fighting; her magazines still have more than five hundred rounds available.



She bears down on the fleeing New Zealand like a bat out of Hell; and her angled armor is, now, more than enough to defeat the Brit's fire. Over the course of fifteen minutes, she bounces two British shells on her main belt and deck armor; and, in return, the two Schlachtkreuzer pump seven main battery hits into the Brit's 7-inch belt.



As the German ships turn to present their entire broadside, another accurate shot from the New Zealand penetrates the Wittelsbach's belt. She has lost half of her reserve buoyancy and is crawling along at a max speed of 19 knots...



But the Brit is, finally dead, her guns silenced by a broadside from the Derfflinger.



The G8 puts a torpedo in her for good measure.



And then, finally, with night falling, the battle is over. The damcon crews of Wittelsbach manage to stop the flooding and her pumps begin the arduous task of restoring some of her buoyancy. She will need it, for the perilous trip past the alert British garrisons at Scapa Flow.



But she succeeds. On the morning of the 18th of May, the two Schlachtkreuzer crawl into the harbour of Heligoland, having fended off two destroyer attacks and having snuck past a British Dreadnought squadron north of Scotland, in the twilight hours. Hipper is received as a hero.



The forthcoming statements by the British Admiralty help identify the New Zealand-class. She was the HMS Tiger, the second oldest of her class. The British also lost the destroyer HMS Larne to flooding, during the light forces' retreat towards Ireland.



As always, many thanks to the Admiralitätsarchiv for granting us permission to reproduce their archived maps and navigation charts. For reference, that's the coast of Ireland to the north; the land installation marked by a blue flag is Baltimore.



What a victory!



The Admiralität, of course, do not rest on their laurels. There are celebrations, of course; but the Piepers, now ready for action, leave their berths and begin their patrols. Germany now has eyes all over the Baltic and well into the North Sea.



The news of the Battle of Ireland are complemented by good news from the R & D departments as well. Having established that Director firing is the way forward, R & D presents the Admiralität with secondary director systems. Miniaturised enough to be fitted to light ships or take control of capital ships' secondaries, these gadgets will prove really useful. Of course, there's no way the Admiralität is pulling ships out of the line to be refitted at this point. Not with the Grand Fleet juggernaut rolling down on Germany.



This, on the other hand, is always welcome.



And then, at the end of the month, reports start coming in from the U-Bootflotte. First U-137, that sinks the HMS Robert Brown with an opportunistic torpedo.



Then U-109, that outright surfaces and engages the HMS Sabia in a gun duel, sending the British minesweeper to the bottom with her heavy 100mm deck gun.





And then the actual merchantmen sinking reports come in and the Admiralität cannot believe their eyes.

Thirty-three ships. More than Two hundred and fifty thousand tons of shipping. That's 250,000. A quarter million. In one month.

True, the British depended on merchant shipping more than any other nation in the world and their merchant marine was massive. True, the German submarines operated without restrictions in the 'War Zone' that the Germans had declared as valid hunting grounds around the British Isles. True, there was a lot of international outrage about the 'cowardly' use of the U-Boat to this extent (although, it had to be noted, nobody had complained when the Germans had employed similar tacticcs against the 'barbaric' Japanese).

But still. A quarter million tons of merchantmen.

Essentially overnight, the German Admiralität had demonstrated that the day of the surface raider was well and truly past. Cry about the unfairness of it as much as you like, Albion; you will find no sympathy here.


British propaganda poster, June 1917

As expected, the Grand Fleet immediately proceeds to blockade Germany, plugging the passes to the northern Atlantic and stopping all commerce to German harbours.



Germany is unimpressed. One month into this war, it is not the Germans who are hungry.


« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 10:07:50 am by Enioch »
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR BLOODY SHIPS TODAY, BRITS.

BETTER LOOK INTO THAT.
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
The war with the brits is on, at last, and what a way to kick the war off.

The Russians, amusingly, being all bark and no bite. They sure seemed to have backed off fast.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
The Russian Navy has been trashed, twice now. They have nothing that can stand against the Wittelsbachs, let alone the Zaehringens. And their budget is abysmal, after two lost wars and reparations being paid.

The only thing the Russian fleet can contribute at this point is a minuscule tonnage addition to the British blockade; and that comes with the risk of exposing what little force they have to the Hochseeflotte.

Plus, remember that this is not a land war for Germany, with the exception of the colonies. France has not yet declared, either way. If the Russians declare war, there is nothing to prevent the Germans from mobilising their entire army on the eastern front and kicking their asses all the way to Moscow.
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline The E

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR BLOODY SHIPS TODAY, BRITS.

BETTER LOOK INTO THAT.

Oh dear, did they once again abandon proper ammo handling to get a small increase in firerate?
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: Enioch's naval shenanigans - RTW as Germany - [Image Heavy!]
THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR BLOODY SHIPS TODAY, BRITS.

BETTER LOOK INTO THAT.

Oh dear, did they once again abandon proper ammo handling to get a small increase in firerate?

Surely not...  :drevil:  :lol:
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)