Strategy In 'Crusier Warfare'
By Doug McNair
July 2006

As I’ve been assuring my wife for years, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t really out to get you. Such a world view is of no greater value anywhere than in Great War at Sea: Cruiser Warfare.

In this giant game of cat and mouse, the entire world (literally) is out to get Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee’s cruiser squadron and a few other German commerce raiders scattered around the globe. And as in Bismarck, our upcoming game of World War II commerce raiding, the Germans have little chance in battle against the combined naval might of the Allies. They must master the art of “hit him where he ain’t” to win the game.

But unlike Bismarck, Cruiser Warfare is played on a global scale, so factors like running out of fuel take on a much greater importance and give both players a completely different set of challenges from any other Great War at Sea or Second World War at Sea game.

German Strategy

The only way German ships can escape the Allies for good is by making it all the way back to Germany. This is nearly impossible since the Allies can blockade Germany and put powerful ships on station in the straits that the Germans must navigate to get home. Any time German and Allied fleets make contact, Allied numerical superiority will almost always give them the advantage in surface combat.

To win, the German player must have all his fleet counters disappear from the map right away through use of the Raid mission, then lose their pursuers by moving out to desolate, storm-prone ocean wastes with little commerce. Once the Allies have lost the German scent and moved away, the German raiding fleets can reappear, mounting hit-and-run missions in dense Allied shipping lanes.

In particular, the Germans should never stray too far from Tasman Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Bay of Biscay and the Labrador Sea. Allied Imperial Convoys form up in these areas on a random basis, and each transport in such a convoy is worth 10 victory points for the Germans if sunk (they’re worth from 3 to 5 VPs to the Allies if they make it to their destination). Since the Allies won’t know when such a convoy will form, the Germans should try to be in a position to pounce on the convoy formation areas and sink the transports before the Allies can bring in a strong escort to protect them.

With all this hit and run activity, the Germans will burn a lot of fuel, and the Allies will have little trouble putting ships on station outside the four German coaling ports on the board. The German player will have to carefully select the areas where his Etappen (Naval Supply) service places secret coal reserves.

But the small number of German raiders works to the German player’s advantage when it comes to re-coaling, because each merchant prize has from one to six coal boxes on board, and the raider can rob the prize of its coal before scuttling it. This is of particular use to lone raiders, which can net enough coal from a single raid to keep going for a long time, making a visit to port for coal unnecessary for them in most circumstances.

Finally, the Germans have to play a cold game of numbers to win. The Germans should do the most raiding with their least valuable ships, drawing Allied attention toward them while keeping valuable German capital ships concealed. In particular, the Germans should take advantage of the Armed Merchant Cruiser rule (12.7), which lets them convert merchant ships and gunboats into cheap but effective merchant raiders. AMCs are worth only 4 or 5 VPs on average, but they can sink merchant shipping just as effectively as more valuable ships like cruisers. The German player should roll to create AMCs every turn, and when he does create one it should go straight into the Allied shipping lanes and rack up VPs quickly so that when the Allies sink it, it will have already sunk enough merchant ships to give the Germans a net VP gain.

Allied Strategy

The longer the Germans are allowed to remain at sea, the more VPs they’ll accumulate through merchant raiding. The key to Allied victory is constant, aggressive pursuit of the Germans with every Allied ship that’s not on station.

Deciding how many ships to put on station and how many to put into intercept fleets is important, because a strong blockade at Cape Horn, Good Hope or the Narrows can keep the Germans bottled up in a particular ocean area or keep them out of another. But the more ships the Allies put on-station, the fewer they’ll have available to pursue the Germans into their hunting grounds or escort the valuable imperial convoys. Mastering this balancing act is key to bringing the Germans down quickly so they can’t run away with the game over the long term.

If the Germans do a good job of evading the Allies and start racking up substantial VPs, the imperial convoys give the Germans a good shot at retaking the lead from them. The Allies should keep powerful forces in the Labrador Sea, the Bay of Biscay, the Bay of Bengal and the Tasman Sea, waiting for the convoys to form. Once a convoy is formed the naval forces there should be assigned to escort it, so that if the Germans are so insolent as to attack an imperial convoy they’ll be sent to the bottom with dispatch. Such insolence is not to be dismissed out of hand — at 10 VPs per transport, the imperial convoys are mightily tempting to merchant raiders.

Game Summary

Here’s what happened in a recent game:

German Setup

Admiral Graf Spee decides to start his cruiser squadron as far away as possible from the Allies. He leaves Capt. Müller and his squadron consisting of the Austrian ship Kaiserin Elisabeth, the cruiser Emden, and an escort of several gunboats to fend for themselves at Tsingtao. Spee starts the game way out east in the Solomon Islands, with nobody but the Australians anywhere nearby.

Farther to the east, the cruiser Leipzig also starts far away from Allied interference, in the Gulf of California. But across the isthmus, captains Köhler and Ludecke are all but trapped in the Gulf of Mexico, and their light cruisers (Karlsruhe and Dresden) will be sunk shortly unless they can break out into the Atlantic, past the quickly converging British and French forces there. Karlsruhe is a fast ship and stands a decent chance of outrunning a weak Allied patrol, but the slower Dresden may have no choice but to make for the stormy but well-trafficked Caribbean, and hope for bad weather to conceal her from the Allies while she makes a few quick kills.

In similar circumstances is the light cruiser Strassburg, which starts all but surrounded in the Bay of Biscay. She would have no trouble running for Germany, but that would just put her out of action and leave the Royal Navy free to abandon the North Atlantic and seek Germans elsewhere. Rather than running away, Strassburg would be better advised to run north, making some quick kills in the Western Approaches and then entering the stormy Denmark and Davis straits. Once there, the weather will hopefully keep the Allies away until an Imperial convoy from the Labrador Sea tempts Strassburg back south again.

The gunboat Eber starts on the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, outside the German port of Yaounde. The German player should sail Eber south to the stormy Antarctic to avoid detection, and then once he makes a successful Armed Merchant Cruiser roll he should convert her to an AMC and immediately head for the rich Allied commerce lanes at Rio de la Plata and Brazil.

Captain Looff on the light cruiser Königsberg starts directly across Africa from Eber, in the Mozambique Channel. There are plenty of British forces in the area, so he should also head toward Antarctica and lose himself until an Imperial convoy forms in the area, or until the Allies leave the rich merchant lanes around India, Indonesia and Australia unguarded. But he should avoid raiding in the Dutch East Indies, since that would just awaken the sleeping Dutch, whose slow but powerful fleet could blow him out of the water at long range with their Primaries before he could escape.

The German rolls a 4, just barely failing to convince Italy to abandon neutrality and join the Germans. So, the German player will not get the use of the armored crusier Marco Polo. But then he rolls a 9 and finds that the Etappen have done an excellent job stashing coal around the world. He decides to place his secret coal reserves in Coronel, Hawaii, the U.S. West Coast, the Gulf of Alaska, the Windward Isles, Rio de la Plata, the Philippine Sea, the Dutch East Indies, and the Arabian Sea.

Allied Setup

The Allies have forces everywhere, and they will be getting more as soon as Japan declares war. The vast majority of the Japanese ships have to stay in home waters, so they may as well be placed on-station. The Allied player reserves two fleet counters for the Japanese ships that can move as desired, and then decides which of his remaining forces to place in fleets and which to put on-station. He ends up starting ships on-station in the Caribbean, the Western Approaches, Madeira, the Narrows, the Cape of Good Hope, and the South China Sea.

August 1914, Turn 1

Weather, etc.

The German player rolls a 3 on the Storm roll, and storms hit areas that are normally tranquil. He then rolls a 5 and successfully converts gunboat Eber into the armed merchant cruiser Cormoran, before it even leaves port.

The Allied player rolls a 6 on the Imperial convoys table, getting a result of “We Stand on Guard for Thee.” Per the table, he rolls 3 dice for a result of 8, and eight fast Canadian transports will start in the Labrador Sea and head across the Atlantic to the Bay of Biscay. Each will be worth 5 VPs to the Allied player if it gets there. Allied Fleet 4 is already in the Labrador Sea, so they’re immediately assigned to escort the convoy, and the Allied player plots the convoy to move through the Davis Strait, Western Atlantic, Eastern Atlantic and Bay of Biscay sea zones.

Then the Allies roll a 5 for Japanese entry into the war, and they do, taking the last two Allied fleet counters and putting massive fleets on station in the Yellow Sea and the Bonin Islands (where the Germans will obviously never go). Three old Japanese cruisers start in the South China Sea, and the armored cruiser Idzumo starts on the U.S. West Coast. These latter ships can move freely. Finally, the Allies create the armed merchant cruiser Empress of Russia, and put her on station at Hawaii.

Movement and Search

Allied fleets fan out to search for Germans (the Allied player does not have to preplot movement of his Intercept fleets in Cruiser Warfare), and then the German player moves his fleets per his preplotted movement for Turn 1. Leipzig moves to Hawaii and disappears from the board, the newly-created AMC Empress of Russia on station there failing to contact her. Strassburg moves north to the Western Approaches, and is quickly spotted by the armored cruiser Sutlej and the three protected cruisers on station there, which roll successfully to attack at night. The AMC Cormoran disappears into the South Atlantic, Captain Looff on Königsberg does the same in the South Indian Ocean, and Admiral Graf Spee disappears eastward into the Phoenix Island zone.

Captain Köhler aboard Karlsruhe tries to break out of the Gulf of Mexico and into the Outer Banks, where he runs straight into the armored cruiser Suffolk and the light cruiser Bristol, which fail to attack him at night (he’ll fight them during the day, where he has a chance to get initiative and run away). Captain Ludecke aboard Dresden decided to stay in the Gulf of Mexico to draw fire away from Köhler, but the three British armored crusiers that go into the Gulf fail to spot him, and he disappears from the board. He may decide to sneak out quietly, letting Köhler get all the attention instead . . .

Finally, Kaiserin Elisabeth and Emden (in one fleet) and the German gunboats (in another) exit the rapidly-filling Yellow Sea and head for the Philippine Sea, where a squadron led by the pre-dreadnought battleship Triumph contacts the gunboat fleet but not Müller’s ships, which disappear from the board. Triumph’s captain rolls successfully for a night action, meaning the gunboats will have a shot at a torpedo run, but not much else . . .

Raiding

With Admiral Graf Spee’s fleet offboard but just one zone to the south, the captain of the Leipzig decides to draw attention to himself and away from Spee by raiding Allied merchant shipping around Hawaii. But he rolls a 1 and fails to locate any merchants. AMC Cormoran also fails to locate any merchant ships and stays offboard. Leipzig in the Western Approaches does better, rolling a 3 and sinking two VPs worth of merchants before she’s spotted by the British ships on station, but Karlsruhe rolls a 1 and fails to find any merchants before she’s spotted by Suffolk and Bristol. All other German fleets wish to remain offboard and do not raid.

Combat

Western Approaches: The speedy Strassburg runs into four slow British cruisers at night. Night combat starts at a range of two hexes, which puts Strassburg within range of the British cruisers’ Secondaries but puts them outside the range of Strassburg’s guns (which are all Tertiaries). The Brits score two hits on Strassburg before she can run away. Both are hull hits, and Strassburg is immediately slowed to Speed 1 because she took more than half her hull boxes in damage. The second salvo destroys all of Strassburg’s guns, and the third destroys her torpedo mount, leaving her a hulk. The British finish her off at their leisure, scoring 12 VPs and burning half a fuel box in the process.

Outer Banks: The British get the initiative on Captain Köhler, but since they’re attacking during the day they start at a range of four hexes, and since their largest guns are Secondaries (most of which are on the slow Suffolk), there’s no way they can catch Köhler.

Philippine Sea, Round 1: Triumph’s squadron makes a night attack on the German gunboat flotilla starting at a range of two hexes, outside the gunboats’ tertiary range. They concentrate fire on the boats with torpedoes, but the first British salvo misses. The light cruiser Newcastle then closes range on the sole German torpedo boat with the gunboats, hoping to destroy her before she can make a torpedo run on Triumph. Newcastle once again misses the small, fast boat, as do Triumph and the armored cruiser Hampshire. The German torpedo boat then runs straight at Triumph, daring her to stand fast rather than flee and lose range on the gunboats. Triumph stands fast, as does Newcastle, which can’t afford to close range on the gunboats, because then she’d be outgunned by a factor of 8 to 3, with no armor to protect her from the gunboats’ tertiaries. All three British ships fire on the TB, but she weaves and salvo-chases and escapes danger, and then puts a torpedo into Triumph, doing two Hull to the old battleship. The three River-class DDs escorting Triumph reply in kind, and one successfully torpedoes the German TB, doing one Hull and sinking her for oneVP.

The British hold position but their fire from a two-hex range on the gunboats is ineffective. Triumph has lost half her hull boxes, and the German gunboats have more torpedoes, so they vow to avenge their brave comrades and run straight at Triumph, getting range on Newcastle in the process.

Newcastle runs, but Triumph and Hampshire stand fast, being invulnerable to Tertiaries and keeping that Damn the Torpedoes attitude so they can get bonuses to hit for point-blank range. Hampshire scores two hits and sinks the gunboat Cormoran (4 VPs), but Triumph scores only one Hull hit on the gunboat Geier, which has two Hull and fires her torpedo at Triumph. She hits and does 2 more Hull, sending the astonished Triumph to the bottom for 26 GERMAN VICTORY POINTS! The gunboat crews go nuts, striking up Deutshland Über Alles and pouring fire into the River-class British destroyers (which have no guns of their own). One takes a Hull hit and goes down, for another 2 VPs for the Germans as the round ends.

Philippine Sea, Round 2: The Germans get initiative (not surprising, given the British state of shock . . .), and Hampshire’s first fire knocks out both of Geier’s guns, while the gunboats miss the DDs. In the second gunnery segment the gunboats sink another DD for 2 VPs, and rather than just watch the last DD go down, Newcastle moves into harm’s way to bring her Tertiaries into play against the gunboats. The 1-Slow gunboats can’t charge her yet, but they turn their guns on Newcastle, doing 1 Hull. Neither British cruiser scores a hit, and both fire their torpedoes and miss, so Newcastle flees, not wanting the ignominy of going down to a bunch of ancient German tubs. The tubs give chase, with Hampshire and the DDs paralleling their course, keeping at point-blank range. The gunboats score another Hull hit on Newcastle, slowing her to Speed 1, and knock out one of her tertiaries to boot. Hampshire knocks out the tertiary aboard gunboat Luchs, but Newcastle misses. The chase continues, and on the last gunnery segment the gunboats KO Newcastle’s only Secondary. Hampshire sinks gunboat Tiger for 1 VP, and the round ends.

Philippine Sea, Round 3: The last two gunboats with guns left, Jaguar and Iltis, sink Newcastle before she can move (9 VPs). TUBS WIN! Hampshire immediately sinks Jaguar for 1 VP, and after an unbelievable gunnery duel, Hampshire sinks Iltis for 1 VP before the gunboat can sink the last British DD. Hampshire dispatches the gunless Luchs and Geier for 5 VPs, but The Battle of the Philippine Sea will go down in German naval history as a ringing tribute to the German gunboat fleet.

The turn is over, and the British have scored 25 VPs. But the outnumbered, outgunned Germans have scored a lopsided victory and 41 VPs grand total!

August Turn 2

Weather, etc.

Storms hit the Gulf of California, the Azores, the Arabian Sea, the Dutch East Indies, the Bonin Islands and the Marshall Islands. Then the Allied player rolls a 4 on the Imperial convoy table, and rolls another 4, so that 4 slow transports gather in the Bay of Biscay. They will be escorted by Allied Fleet 10 (which is there waiting for them) to the Gulf of Guinea, where each will give the British player 3 VPs when they arrive safely. This will also shut down the German port of Yaounde, meaning German ships won’t be able to coal there anymore. The Allied player plots the convoy and escorts to move through the heavily-patrolled Madeira and Narrows sea zones to get there.

The Allies bring in the AMC Empress of Japan and put her on station in the dense merchant shipping lanes at Rio de la Plata, and the Germans roll a 5 and bring in the AMC Prinz Eitel Friedrich and place her off the German port of Rabaul in the Solomon Islands, from whence she can escape into the Marshall Islands storms.

Movement and Search

The British move to where they think onboard and offboard raiders will move. Suffolk and Bristol move up to the U.S. Eastern Seabord, which is exactly where Captain Köhler on Karlsruhe ends up moving, but the British fail to make contact, and Karlsruhe disappears from the board. Captain Looff on Königsberg moves into the Kerguelen Island zone, and the Royal Australian Navy fleet there fails to contact him. Müller’s ships enter the Western Pacific, where the Russian cruiser squadron fails to contact him.

Then Spee moves to Palmyra, on his way to the rich merchant lanes on the west coast of Central America, and the French armored cruiser Montcalm fails to contact him. Finally, Captain Ludecke on Dresden sneaks out of the Gulf of Mexico and into the Caribbean, evading the British armored cruisers which did not move out of there this turn, but runs into the on-station French armored cruiser Conde and the gunboat Descartes.

Raiding

Köhler has no luck on the Eastern Seaboard and stays hidden. Neither does Ludecke, who finds no merchant ships before being attacked by the French. But AMC Cormoran at Rio de la Plata does better, scoring two prizes for 2 VP and revealing her location so the Allies can give chase and draw attention away from more valuable raiders. Those raiders aren’t in rich hunting grounds right now, so they choose not to raid.

Combat

Caribbean: The French make night contact with Dresden and attack her from a range of 2 hexes. Dresden is faster than the gunboat Descartes, but the armored cruiser Conde can keep up with her. Only Conde has secondaries, so for the first few gunnery segments Ludecke can do nothing but wait while Conde showers him with shot. On the second salvo, Conde knocks out one of Dresden’s tertiaries, and then Conde closes range while Dresden runs. Dresden fires back but her tertiaries can’t penetrate Conde’s light armor, and her hull-mounted torpedo just barely misses Conde on a roll of 5. Conde’s torpedo also misses, but on the fourth salvo she does two hull hits to Dresden, striking her dead in the water. She finishes Dresden off on the next salvo, scoring 10 VPs for the Allies.

At the end of the second week of the war, the British are closing the gap, having scored 35 VPs to the Germans’ 43.

August Turn 3

Weather etc.

The German player rolls another 4 and the storm pattern stays the same. Then the Allied player rolls Jungle Lust on the Imperial convoy table, meaning 3 slow transports gather in the Tasman Sea, waiting for a fleet to swing by and escort them north to the Solomons (there is no Allied fleet counter available at this time). The Allies then place the AMC Himalaya on station in the Tasman Sea, and the Germans roll a 2 and fail to bring in another AMC on their side.

Movement and Search

The AMC Cormoran disappears northward into the Brazil sea zone. Then Karlsruhe moves into the Western Atlantic . . . and runs once again into Suffolk and Bristol, which this time make night contact and will get a shot at Captain Köhler.

Raiding

Graf Spee ignores the sole Allied fleet in his zone and starts raiding down the west coast of the Americas, rolling a modified 4 in Tehauntepec and scoring one prize for 1 VP. Köhler scores another 2 VPs in the Western Atlantic before Suffolk and Bristol catch up to him. All other raiders either fail to find merchants or choose not to risk revealing themselves.

Combat

Western Atlantic: On the first salvo, Suffolk and Bristol hit Karlsruhe twice, knocking out two of her Tertiaries. Bristol closes the range and knocks out Karlsruhe’s last Tertiary. But Bristol has only one Secondary, and Karlsruhe has light hull armor, so if Karlsruhe gets initiative next round it’ll be just her and Bristol (Suffolk is Speed 1). But Karlsruhe doesn’t, and over the course of four combat rounds the British cruisers sink Karlsruhe for 12 VPs.

With that the British have caught the Germans, having scored 47 VPs to the Germans’ 46.

August Turn 4

Weather etc.

Storms hit Phoenix Island, Easter Island, Rio de la Plata, the Western Atlantic, the South Indian Ocean, and the Western Pacific. There are no new Imperial convoys, the Allied player places the AMC Empress of Asia on station in the Bay of Bengal, and the Germans once again fail to place a new AMC.

Movement and Search

The Allied player places three gunboats on-station at Cape Horn (hoping Spee won’t be intimidated by them . . .), so he can put the British ships on-station in the Narrows into the newly-freed-up fleet counter and have them go after Spee. With the North Atlantic free of German ships, all six British fleets there head south. The Cameroon Imperial convoy reaches the Gulf of Guinea, where it will stay for this and next turn and then be removed for lots of Allied VPs, as will the Canadian convoy, which reaches the Bay of Biscay this turn.

Leipzig moves south from the Central Pacific and runs into the unscathed but humiliated Hampshire and her one remaining River-class DD escort. The British fail to make a night contact, so they’ll be unable to catch Leipzig anyway.

Königsberg moves into the Bay of Bengal and runs into the AMC Empress Asia, but evades the British 13th Fleet. Then Spee heads for the Gulf of Panama, where the French cruiser Montcalm makes a surprise sighting, but fails to make a night attack.

Raiding

Spee takes three prizes before the French cruiser spots him (3 VPs), Looff takes two more prizes in the Bay of Bengal before encountering the AMC (2 VPs), and Leipzig takes two prizes as she dances out of Hampshire’s range (2 VPs).

Combat

Bay of Bengal: Empress of Asia makes a night contact on Königsberg and attacks from 2-hex range. Neither ship has Secondaries, so it takes a while for the range to close. Königsberg hits first, doing 1 Hull to Empress of Asia, and with Königsberg’s superior fire control she finishes off the AMC in short order with no damage to herself. The Germans score 4 VPs.

Gulf of Panama: Montcalm wasn’t expecting to meet Scharnhorst and Gneisenau all by herself, and with the 3-hex range for the surprise sighting she doesn’t have much time to think about it, as the German primaries rip through her guns on the second salvo. Montcalm runs, having suffered two Secondary hits, and she wins initiative on the second round, running outside Spee’s sighting range and escaping.

The Germans take the lead again, with 57 VPs to the Brits’ 47.

August Turn 5

Weather, etc.

Storms hit areas far from the Germans. There are still no new imperial convoys, the Allied player places his last AMC in the Gulf of Guinea, and the Germans once again fail to create a new AMC.

Movement and Search

The German AMC Cormoran moves to the Gulf of Guinea, where she fails to contact the Cameroon convoy. Then the old Canadian protected cruiser Rainbow moves into the rich American West Coast sea zone, where she quickly contacts Admiral Müller’s ships, during the day. The weak search forces in Spee’s area back off, waiting for the powerful Atlantic forces to round the Horn and find him. Spee disappears into the Galapagos.

Raiding

Müller scores four prizes before Rainbow finds him (4 VPs), the German AMC Prinz Eitel Friedrich scores another in Samoa (1 VP), and Spee scores another in the Galapagos (1 VP). Looff scores two more in the Arabian Sea (2 VPs), and the other German raiders opt to remain concealed.

Combat

American West Coast: Müller gets initiative on Rainbow, but both fleets are so slow that neither can do much when starting at long range. It is only in the middle of the second round that Emden is able to close range on Rainbow, letting both hit each other with their tertiaries at point-blank range. Emden gets the worst of it, losing two of her tertiaries while knocking out only one of Rainbow’s. Rainbow’s torpedo misses, and then Kaiserin Elisabeth moves into range of her secondaries and fires. More fire misses except for fire on Emden, which takes a hull hit from Rainbow. On the third round, Emden knocks out another of Rainbow’s guns, but Rainbow knocks out Emden’s last gun. Then Kaiserin Elisabeth finally gets Rainbow’s range, knocking out her last gun and scoring a critical hit, doing two hull and sinking her for 4 VPs.

The Canadian and Cameroon convoys make port, and the British player scores 40 and 12 VPs for them, respectively. The British take a big lead, with 99 VPs to the Germans’ 69.

August Turn 6

Weather, etc.

Storms near German ships are in the Gulf of California and the Arabian Sea. Then the Allied player rolls a 2 on the Imperial convoy table, and rolls another 4 dice to see how many fast transports will be in the ANZAC Convoy heading from the Tasman Sea to the Arabian sea. He rolls very high – 19 transports, which will be worth 5 VPs each to the Allies if they get there. This is a very important IF, because the Germans have at least one raiding fleet nearby and only AMC Himalaya is in the Tasman Sea to form an escort. But rather than wait for more escorts to arrive, they head west fast, hoping to outrun any Germans following from the north and east, and hoping the Allied fleets south of India can sink Königsberg (and anyone else hidden out there) before she gets to them. The Germans once again fail to create any AMCs.

Movement and Search

The Japanese armored cruiser Idzumo moves north to the U.S. West Coast and makes a daylight sighting of Kaiserin Elisabeth and Emden, still raiding there. The Jungle Lust convoy reaches the Solomons, but Leipzig fails to contact it. The two Allied intercept fleets there also fail to contact Leipzig, and then three British protected cruisers on-station at Cape of Good Hope make a night contact with the German AMC Cormoran, attempting to sneak past them and toward the ANZAC convoy. Then a squadron led by armored cruiser Minotaur makes a surprise daylight sighting of Königsberg in the Mozambique channel, as she is trying to head south and pick up the ANZAC convoy as well.

Raiding

Kaiserin Elisabeth picks up three more prizes before Idzumo contacts her (3 VPs), Spee picks up another at Coronel (1 VP), and AMC Cormoran picks up one at Cape of Good hope before the cruisers pick her up (1 VP).

Combat

U.S. West Coast: Idzumo gets the initiative on Kaiserin Elisabeth and Emden, but there’s no damage the first round. Müller gets initiative on the second round, and on the first salvo he knocks out one of Idzumo’s secondaries. Idzumo then tries to run down the fleeing Emden, but Kaiserin Elisabeth hits Idzumo twice as she goes by, knocking out two more of her secondaries. Now outgunned by the unscathed Austrian, Idzumo retires from battle.

Cape of Good Hope: The protected cruiser Hyacinth opens fire on AMC Cormoran from a two-hex range, but all her shots go wide. She closes in and still fails to hit, but so does Cormoran. Cormoran flees and the Brits give chase, with the other two protected cruisers moving at 1-slow to Cormoran’s 1. Cormoran scores the first hit, knocking out one of Hyacinth’s secondaries. Cormoran then knocks out another of Hyacinth’s guns, Hyacinth’s torpedo misses, and the round ends with Cormoran unscathed and Hyacinth on her last gun.

The Germans get initiative, and that effectively brings the battle down to just Cormoran and Hyacinth. Hyacinth finally gets a hit as Cormoran is pulling away, doing one Hull. In the fourth round the Allies get initiative, but that works to their disadvantage as Hyacinth’s last gun is knocked out as she closes range on Cormoran. Cormoran outruns the slower PCs and escapes eastward.

Mozambique Channel: Minotaur and her escorts get initiative on Königsberg, and the light cruiser Yarmouth quickly closes range and knocks out one of Königsberg’s guns. Minotaur then closes range and scores a critical hit on Königsberg, doing two Hull and striking her dead in the water. The rest is a formality, and Captain Looff goes down with Königsberg, for another 10 VPs for the Allies.

The British lengthen their lead, with 109 VPs to the Germans’ 74.

September 1914, Turn 1

Weather etc.

Storms hit the South Indian Ocean, and this is good for Cormoran, who can use the cover to sneak past British patrols on her way to the ANZAC convoy. There are no new Imperial Convoys, and the Germans fail yet again to create a new AMC.

Movement and Search

Leipzig contacts the Jungle Lust convoy at night, but Hampshire and her DD contact Leipzig. The German player determines that Leipzig will hit the convoy first, and then deal with Hampshire.

A British fleet of three armored cruisers chases Cormoran into the South Indian Ocean, but she loses them in the storm. The ANZAC convoy is just east of them at Kerguelen Island.

Raiding

Müller scores two more prizes on the U.S. West Coast (2 VPs), but nobody else does any raiding.

Combat

Solomons: Leipzig charges in to attack the convoy, and finds herself face-to-face with a powerful escort consisting of the Australian protected cruiser Encounter, the light cruiser Sydney, and three Paramatta-class destroyers. The cruisers have the range on her, but they miss on the first salvo. Then Sydney and the DDs close range, interposing themselves between Leipzig and the convoy. One DD gets a hull hit on Leipzig, which responds by destroying the gun of one destroyer (she was hoping to sink it and prevent a torpedo run). The DDs hold off on the torpedoes, using them as a threat to prevent Leipzig from entering the DDs’ hex and exposing herself to a point-blank torpedo run. The Australians miss, and Leipzig fires, this time sinking the DD she de-gunned earlier (5 VPs). Leipzig then tries to circumvent Sydney and the DDs, but they charge in for the kill while Encounter and the convoy move off. The Australians score three gunnery hits on Leipzig, knocking out all her guns. Both sides’ torpedoes miss, and the helpless Leipzig is sunk by Sydney and the DDs for 8 VPs, and the convoy makes port and gives the Allies another 9 VPs.

The Allied lead is now 126 to 81. On the following turns, bad weather dogs the ANZAC convoy as it heads for the Arabian Sea. This makes it tough for the Allied fleets converging on her location to locate AMC Cormoran, but they do so in the Chagos Archipelagos. The battlecruiser Australia and the light cruiser Melbourne catch Cormoran, and on the first salvo Australia blows Cormoran out of the water. There’s nothing left to prevent ANZAC from keeping their appointment at Gallipoli, and the 19 transports net the Allied player 95 more VPs — a lead which the Germans cannot possibly match with only the three cruisers, a coastal defense ship, and a couple of AMCs that remain to them.

The Allies win!

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