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Scenario Author:
RhinoBones
Author's E-mail Address:
RhinoBones@aol.com
Last Scenario Revision Date:
December 23, 1999
VERSION 1.1
Background
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During the last few months of 1914 the German High Seas Fleet carried out a small number of naval raids upon the Eastern British coast. The opposing fleets played cat and mouse and little of military value was accomplished. The British public though, was outraged and rightly grieved by the deaths of a number of their fellow Islanders.
The raid which Hipper planned for January 1915 was to be a quick hit and run affair, bombard a coastal installation and escape back to the safety of the High Seas Fleet anchorage at Wilhelmshaven. Unknown to the German command though was the fact that British admiralty had earlier captured both the German code books and the secret Enigma machine used to encode/decode naval message traffic. The admiralty was well informed and planned to trap Hipper's cruiser force. In the area of Dogger Bank, Dogger Bank is a shoaling area (shallow water generally less that six fathoms in depth) off the British coast near Scarborough, Admiral Beatty waited with a battle squadron of five new armored cruisers. A second force issued from Harwich and was intended to close the trap from the South.
Hipper and Beatty met along the North edge of the bank and after a quick assessment of the situation, Hipper ordered his battle cruiser about for a quick trip home. Good decision since the Beatty easily outgunned Hipper three to two in weight of broadside. The British fell upon the old cruiser SMS Blücher, sank her, received a mean lesson in German naval gunnery and allowed the remaining three cruisers to escape.
During this brief encounter two events occurred which would come back
to haunt the British at the Battle of Skagerrak (Jutland). The first
was an apparent design defect in the armored cruiser which permitted the
flash of a shell strike on the main turrets to enter the powder and shell
storage below decks. When hit, HMS Lion was nearly lost as a result
of the ensuing secondary explosions. The second event was the inability
to transmit and receive signal from Beatty to his subordinate commanders.
The misinterpretation of Beatty's flag signals caused the four remaining
British cruisers (Beatty's ship Lion was out of action) to concentrate
on the helpless Blücher while the remaining three of Hipper's cruisers
escaped. The British should have easily been able to bag Hipper's
entire squadron. With tragic results, both of these failures would
be repeated at Skagerrak.
Remarks
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For a German victory, Hipper's Battle Cruiser squadron must evade and/or fight it's way past Beatty's armored cruisers in order to return to Heligoland Bight and the safety of Wilhelmshaven. Entry of Hipper's crusiers is symbolized by the destruction of the Allied troops deployed on the Wilhelmshaven hexes and the landing of the two German garrison troop units located on the near by transports. The heavy guns of the crusiers will be needed in order to eliminate the Allied units. . . therefore, at least one (probably more) of Hippers crusiers must escape the British.
This scenario introduces mines and mine laying transports. Mines have a movement of 1 and can be used to block and/or attack enemy shipping. Several transports carrying mines are also available. The transports may be moved to the positions where enemy ships are expected to be transgressing and deployed. The mines will probably not sink a capital ship, however, the damage inflicted may make the capital ship unable to be effective in a fair fight with an undamaged enemy ship.
This scenario is designed to be played in the solitaire mode from the
German side. Solitaire play from the Allied side is possible but
will not provide a challenging game. German victory conditions for
Cheyenne PBM games is the return of a minimum of two of Hipper's armored
crusiers to Wilhelmshaven. In the Cheyenne mode the German player
does not need to recapture Wilhelmshaven, docking in an adjacent hex is
sufficient.
Last Update Changes
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