Bismarck rams an Iceberg after sinking the HMS Hood

[usertron2020]

That game of Usertron's sounds like it took a very dim view of the turrets of the British ships. I'm fairly sure PoW didn't have a complete turret jam lasting for over half an hour! (Extreme range about 25,000 metres, pointblank range 8,000 metres, PoW at a retreating angle to keep the range inside the immune zone is nearly as fast as Bismarck)

The only ships in the game with turret issues were Rodney and PoW.

The Rodney for her unique treaty compelled gun design, the PoW for not completing her sea trials. And this was part-and-parcel of the "dicing". The game master himself couldn't believe all the high dice rolls I was getting from those D20s. This was not the case however in terms of what the British player was dealing out to the Germans using Rodney and especially KGV.

While the Rodney absorbed a tremendous amount of firepower, she didn't go down without a battle. Her sacrifice allowed KGV to blow the Prinz Eugen out of the water and scour away the surface of the Bismarck by the time she was able to turn her own guns on KGV. By then all the bridge officers were dead and the Bismarck's main fire control was gone. By the time she sank all her fire control and all her main guns were out of action.

This was not "superior" German ship construction or gunnery, it was sheer Dumb Luck and two wargamers in the place of Admirals Holland and Tovey. And instead of Lutjens, Custer (me).

 

[Saphroneth]

The only ships in the game with turret issues were Rodney and PoW.

The Rodney for her unique treaty compelled gun design, the PoW for not completing her sea trials. And this was part-and-parcel of the "dicing".

Right, but OTL the PoW kept up a fairly good rate of fire for most of the battle and didn't have a complete jam at any point. It sounds like the PoW must have suffered two independent system jams at minimum (fore turret feed system and aft turret feed system) at once for longer than any OTL issues she suffered.

Are you sure you weren't using Ovaron's dice?

 

[usertron2020]

...actually, I have a question.
If they were on both sides of you... why could you engage them both? WW2 battleships aren't ships-of-the-line, they use the same guns to engage port as they do starboard...

I was referring to the secondaries. The four ships were traveling head on and so fast that all of them got within secondary range-and even the Prinz Eugen's torpedo range, which turned out to be devastating against the British, more dumb luck-that the battle quickly took on the look of a melee' In fact by the time they reached one another the PE was sinking and the Rodney already listing.

The Bismarck had its speed dropped drastically and the KGV, while reduced to the speed of a Revenge (IIRC), was too busy blasting the port side of the Bismarck to concentrate on maneuver. At that point, with her 14" guns and that close, she was better off where she was.

 

[usertron2020]

Right, but OTL the PoW kept up a fairly good rate of fire for most of the battle and didn't have a complete jam at any point. It sounds like the PoW must have suffered two independent system jams at minimum (fore turret feed system and aft turret feed system) at once for longer than any OTL issues she suffered.

Are you sure you weren't using Ovaron's dice?

I can say that PoWs after guns DIDN'T fail, but the British players couldn't bring her around properly and quickly enough. Between PE blocking her line of sight and more lucky strikes she quickly lost her effectiveness. More dicing by me, bad dicing by the British players, and bad tactics. They kept trying to shoot OVER the PE to hit the Bismarck, and were losing their lock on her, not hitting anything, while the PE and Bismarck (more dice) were during their own moves able to keep up a lock on the PoW through most of the battle. AGAIN, those two JUST WOULDN'T RUN, expecting ME to do so instead.

If they'd been 6-sided dice instead of 20, I would have KNOWN that they were loaded.

This Ovaron must be a big German Navy fanboy.

EDIT: If the PoW HAD gotten heavy internal damage from a long sustained battle with Lutjens, and refused to retreat, the fact that she hadn't completed her sea trials was bound to come back to penalize her eventually. I mean, had she even had all her watertight doors tested yet?

EDIT2: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz