A Better Rifle at Halloween

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A Boy is Dead
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    • diesal

    5th September 1914, St Petersburg.

    The line of Mourners snaked out of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, the body of the young Tsarevich clothed in white and belted as per Russian custom was guarded by 8 men, 4 of the Preobrazhensky Regiment and 4 Volga Cossacks. A small group of Orthodox priests and monks stood before the body, incense and prayers wafting upwards. The lines of mourners, princes, nobles, notables and commoners alike snaking forward. The Tsarina had come privately that morning, her sorrow unhidden, the failure of her adviser and the death of her beloved son unhinging her.
    The man who she had called for, to heal her boy was not present, he was stuck in a small room with men who didn’t like him very much who were asking him questions he didn’t know the answer to and what answers he gave would be wrong anyway, the Okhrana were like that. As they set to work first with fists but latter with things that were sharp or hot or hot and sharp, his recollection improved, he remembered that he had in fact been hired by the German Intelligence agency to murder the Tsar and his family and he was in league with the socialists to spread disorder and overthrow the Church. Soon the men had sufficient evidence to satisfy a court and they placed the man in a small and dark cell, alone with his terror.
     
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    • Geordie

    Well, Alexei is dead, and Rasputin gets the blame. I wonder how his "confession" that he is a German spy will play, both with the public and in the Palace.
     

    steamboy

    A very interesting AU Heogland Blight raid too, the loss of 2 battlecruisers and one large ACR is bad, as is the loss of 4 light cruisers, and that makes it go from bad to worse. The Germans have just lost a significant portion of the eyes of their fleet. For the RN the loss of a modern BC and an older one is bad, espeically due to them both blowing up, but they'll still have a major numerical advantage over the Germans. The Germans in WW1 completed 1 new battlecruiser and a bare handful of light cruisers, the loss of 4 (not sure what ones) is significant and limits the scouting options for the HSF. But without us knowing what light cruisers were sunk it could lessen the impact. If it was the cruisers attached to 1st Scouting Group, then its bad, if its the generally aged and obsolete cruisers that were OTL sunk at Heogland then its not so bad as they were not really much use as fleet units due to their slower speeds.
     
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    Peg Leg Pom

    I don't think they'd send old obsolescent cruisers to raid shipping in the English Channel, they'd have wanted to be able to run if intercepted by the 800lb monster that was the RN.
     

    Schlock

    Even if the cruisers were obsolescent, which I severely doubt, they've still lost a hell of a lot of trained crewmen. That is going to hurt in the long run.
     

    pjmidd

    OTL Heligoland was a British ambush on patrolling ships , hence the old cruisers being present. This was intercepting a German raid, no real sense the HSF sending battlecruisers with poor escorts. So OP's choice but logic says its likely its the modern ships that got sunk.
     
    AlanJWhite

    AlanJWhite

    pjmidd said:
    OTL Heligoland was a British ambush on patrolling ships , hence the old cruisers being present. This was intercepting a German raid, no real sense the HSF sending battlecruisers with poor escorts. So OP's choice but logic says its likely its the modern ships that got sunk.
    Click to expand...

    Fortunately, the German CLs escorting the BCs were also named in the original post on Thornton Bank

    diesal said:
    SMS Coln, Mainz, Kolberg and Augsburn,
    Click to expand...

    They are all the same class .. all laid down before 1910 .. however I'm not sure if that counts as modern.

    According to Wiki, there were at least 3 other designs for a CL planned in small batches before 1914 (Magdeburg, Kahlsruhr, Graudenz)
    though not all quite ready in Aug 1914 OTL (and hence presumably not iTTL either)

    All these classes were to a similar spec. high number 4.1" guns + torps/mines, 29 knots ( Caveat: some up-gunned in later refits.)

    Added later: some of these were the same ships caught in the OTL Heligoland fight
    which only adds fuel to the debate of "were they regarded as modern by the Germans?" (both iOTL and TTL).

    I would suggest that the Germans in both TL saw them as adequately capable and therefore used them as escorts iTTL
    but since OTL Heligoland is somewhat later than TTL Thorton bank some of the later designs were in commission
    meaning the Kolbergs could be used for more routine tasks.

    NINJAed by @diesal himself :happyblush
     
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    diesal

    diesal said:
    . They were accompanied by four light cruisers SMS Coln, Mainz, Kolberg and Augsburg, with eight modern z1 class destroyers provided a light escort.
    Click to expand...

    I chose them because they were at Heligoland Bight OTL or at least Coln was.
     

    ArtosStark

    diesal said:
    When it was suggest that Tyrwhit should have continued the pursuit of the fleeing German ships, Churchill pointed out that by avoiding Dutch waters, the British Government could demonstrate its respect for the Neutrals which was worth more than one Battlecruiser and 2 destroyers.
    Click to expand...
    This Churchill is more circumspect than his OTL counterpart. IOTL Churchill created and endorsed multiple plans to seize Dutch islands as advanced bases for destroyers to blockade German North Sea Ports. Though none got through they often were pushed ahead over the objections of multiple naval advisors that protested that their value as bases was marginal, and not nearly worth the Dutch entering the war on the side of Germany.
     

    diesal

    ArtosStark said:
    This Churchill is more circumspect than his OTL counterpart. IOTL Churchill created and endorsed multiple plans to seize Dutch islands as advanced bases for destroyers to blockade German North Sea Ports. Though none got through they often were pushed ahead over the objections of multiple naval advisors that protested that their value as bases was marginal, and not nearly worth the Dutch entering the war on the side of Germany.
    Click to expand...
    He is wearing two hats and so has better access to the reality of the military situation. Also he is to damn busy to be thinking up so many foolish schemes.
     

    ArtosStark

    diesal said:
    He is wearing two hats and so has better access to the reality of the military situation. Also he is to damn busy to be thinking up so many foolish schemes.
    Click to expand...
    I feel like this underestimates Churchill's ability to scheme. ;) In both wars, he preferred to act a bit like a warlord, controlling strategy rather than being the civilian overseer. And he did not lack for confidence in his own strategic judgement.
     
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