Big Guns and Toys for Boys

Anyone here used to play BATTLESHIP? Below the fold you will find a so-called “after action report” (AAR), which is a write-up or narrative of a simulation game I played earlier today. It depicts the naval battle of Coronel, fought between British and German cruiser squadrons off the coast of Chile in WWI. I suspect it will be of tangential interest to most readers here, but I include it as an example of how I spent a few hours this holiday weekend. While more generous than some in its presentation of historical context, this particular AAR is by no means atypical in its level of detail; and it’s occured to me that AARs might make for an interesting genre study someday.

Are there similar narratives that are spun from computer gaming?

The Battle of Coronel (1 November 1914, off the coast of Chile) was undoubtedly the low point of the First World War for the British navy. It came on the heels of the Goeben fiasco in the Mediterranean and the loss of a string of ships to mines and torpedoes in the North Sea. The Grand Fleet languished in self-imposed exile in the far northern waters around its base at Scapa Flow. To the German successes at commerce raiding during the early months of the war would soon be added the cold-blooded but incontrovertibly daring sorties against sea-side towns in England itself; the Royal Navy, by contrast, had only the messy action at Heligoland to show for its exploits, and that had come closer to being a botch than anyone liked to acknowledge. Coronel would see the loss of two armored cruisers—the backbone of the motley West Indies squadron—and 1600 men, including the squadron’s commanding officer Rear Admiral Kit Craddock. By contrast, the German East Asia squandron, under the expert command of Maximilian von Spee, escaped all but unscathed (only to meet their fate at the Falklands a month later).

The battle was a mis-match from the start: Craddock’s older cruisers were outgunned and manned largely by reservists, while von Spee’s ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau boasted the best gunnery in the German navy. Von Spee was also able to take perfect advantage of his superior position against the darkening coastline to ensure that his long-range guns would destroy the enemy with little to fear by way of reprisal.

Yet things might have been different. Craddock had repeatedly requested that the modern armored cruiser Defence join his squadron, a request summarily denied by the British Admiralty; the fast, well-armed Defence would be sent to the theater only after the disaster at Coronel, where her well-trained crew and four 9.2” guns could have trebled Craddock’s long-range capacity against von Spee. The fumbling fingers of the Admiralty, meanwhile (where none other than Winston Churchill held sway as First Lord) had sought to instead insert the aged battleship Canopus into the squadron. Canopus was plagued with engine difficulties, and Craddock eventually left her behind, fearing that she would slow the squadron past any hope of intercepting the Germans. (Craddock was aggresive by nature, and also haunted by the opprobrium heaped upon his colleague Troubridge in the Mediterranean after the latter declined to engage the Goeben whom he judged a “superior force.” For Craddock there was no queston that there must be a battle.) Yet at least some of Canopus’s mechanical troubles were exaggerated by her demented Chief Engineer, and while it’s questionable whether the lumbering pre-dreadnought could have kept pace, her massive 12” guns would have been a force to be reckoned with in any engagement—perhaps even be “the citadel” of the squadron, as Churchill was to put it.

So I plan to refight both potential alternative versions of the action at Coronel, first with Canopus added to the British squadron and then with Defence. I’m using Jack Greene’s The Royal Navy for my rules, the counters from FG&DN, and my splendid new Chessex vinyl megamat (tip of the hat to Karl Laskas for recommending it). Here’s what happened.

Canopus variant. First off, even though things were tough for the Brits already, I dropped in some additional gunfire mods: +5 when firing east (hurts the Brits) reflecting the difficulty of hitting ships against a darkening coastline, and -2 (helped the Germans) when firing west, reflecting the advantage of targets silhouetted against a setting sun. Both lines were heading south, 12,000 yards apeart, the British further out to sea to the west. Initially only Good Hope (Craddock’s flagship), Canopus, and Glasgow were in range for the Brits. German gunnery proved decisive from the outset. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau targeted Good Hope and Canopus; Good Hope was hit and immediately began to flood, while Canopus was sent reeling out of the line with her forward 12” turret destroyed. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were untouched by the British reply. These were very historical results: in the actual battle (remember, Canopus wasn’t present) Good Hope had had her big forward guns destroyed in the opening salvo, thereby hampering Craddock’s ability to conduct a long range fight even further. Craddock then tried to close the range, which von Spee refused; the range remained constant. Again, very historical. One thing that became immediately clear was the difficulties the British would have faced in maneuvering such disparate ships. Canopus, for example, wound up wallowing out of the line, her fire blocked by the faster moving Glasgow. The British squadron would remain a mess from there on out, and things began to go rapidly downhill: Scharnhorst and Gneisenau pounded Good Hope and Monmouth, which began to turn away to the southwest when it was clear even to Craddock that the situation was beyond hopeless. Von Spee then conducted his most aggresive maneuver of the battle, turning in to pursue the British ships. Good Hope and Monmouth, both subjected to relentless continuing salvos from Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, caught fire and sunk just minutes apart; but, von Spee’s action had also brought his light cruisers within range of Glasgow and Canopus, and a sharp, secondary action broke out along the rear of the German line. Leipzig, which suffered a flash fire from an ammo handling accident the first time it fired its guns, received multiple hits from Glasgow and Canopus, and began to go rapidly down at the bow; Dresden was also damaged in the exchange, though less severely so. Glasgow, meanwhile, suffered steering damage, and after a desperate but ineffectual attempt to torpedo one of the German armored cruisers went veering off to the west. Von Spee then moved quickly to extract Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, which had thus far remained untouched, from harm’s way; as they did so, the armored merchant cruiser Otranto, which had thus far played no role in the battle, drifted within range of their guns. Parting shots from Scharnhorst and Gneisenau quickly reduced her to a burning hulk. As night fell the German squadron then made good its escape to the south, the newly arrived Nurnburg nursing Leipzig (the only one of von Spee’s ships to suffer significant damage). In their wake they left three flaming hulks, a badly damaged cruiser (Glasgow), and an impotent Canopus.

Analysis: First off, Canopus was hardly the “citadel” Churchill imagined. Even had her guns stayed in action longer against the German armored cruisers, she was simply too lightly armored to remain effective in the face of the kind of firepower at von Spee’s disposal. Beyond that, though, the game merely confirmed the hopelessness of the overall tactial situation for the British: the twilight environmental variables were consequential, and the contrasts between the opposing crews even more so. Moreover, as noted above, the disparity between the speeds and capabilities of the British ships made maneuvering the squadron in the thick of battle a lost cause. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, by contrast, were able to remain together; their secondary and tertiary armaments are also generous, at least as represented by J. Greene, and so anything that came within 10,500 yards or so—the only range at which most of Craddock’s ships could be effective—was pretty much toast. Tactically this was not a battle the Royal Navy could have won, even with Canopus; it was a battle that should never have been fought under the operational circumstances.

Next up: Defence variant. I suspect Defence’s presence will finally give von Spee something to worry about.

Illustrations:

Von Spee’s squadron at steam. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, followed by Leipzig, followed by Dresden.

Von Spee turns in: Monmouth is on fire at the front of the confused British line, with Good Hope right behind her. Both ships would soon be gone. Canopus trails, Glasgow tries to screen.