The First Balkan War (1912-13)
FG&DN Scenario

The Battle of Cape Helles

By Christoph Kluxen

Location:

The Dardanelles, Turkey, 16 December 1912, 0900 hours local time.

Georgios Averoff, the world ’s only surviving armored cruiser. After fighting in the Balkan Wars, she served in WW I, the Asia Minor Campaign 1919-1922) , and again in WW II. She is now a museum at Faliron Bay, in Greece.

Operational Situation:

An armistice with Bulgaria in the north allowed the Turks to shift their focus to Greece. As land warfare came to a standstill, Greece could only be attacked by using the Ottoman fleet. The Turks decided to probe the Greek blockade. Based on the outcome of this probe, several plans were made to attack Greek troops on the conquered islands, to risk a major engagement, or even to launch one of the Turkish cruisers to a raid against Greek shipping.

Tactical Situation:

At 0900 the Turkish fleet was ready to leave the mouth of the Dardanelles. Unfortunately, the Greeks were aware of the probe. It may be that smoke was sighted by some ground troops when the ships left their anchorage, or treason was involved, or the Greeks were just lucky. The Greek fleet is waiting out of range of the coastal batteries to push back the Turkish fleet into the Dardanelles.

Environment:

Visibility is 75% , with 75% cloud cover from 1000 m to 3000 m, wind from 285 ° at 9 knots. Sea state is 2. Sunset is at 1652, sunrise at 0731.

Greek Forces:

Georgios Averoff (Georgios Averoff class CR) ; Spetsai, Psara, Hydra (all three Spetsai class OBB)

Greek Orders:

Do not allow the Turkish forces to leave the Dardanelles. Do not risk your ships. Try to sink a Turkish OBB of the ex-German Brandenburg class.

Greek Victory Conditions:

Decisive: No OBB or CR damaged more than 50% and at least one Turkish OBB of ex-German Brandenburg class sunk.

Tactical: No OBB or CR damaged more than 25% and more damage points inflicted to the Turkish ships than received by them.

Turkish Forces:

Barbaros Hayr-ed Din, Torgud Reis (both ex- German Brandenburg class OBB) ; Messudieh (Messudieh class OBB) ; Asar-I-Tevfik (Asar-I-Tevfik class OBB)

Coast Defense Forces:

Fort Sedd el Bahr: Two 28cm/22 Krupp, two 26cm/22 Krupp, two 24cm/22 Krupp, four 8. 8cm QF.
Fort Cape Helles: Two 24cm/35 Krupp.
Fort Kum Kale: Two 28cm/22 Krupp, two 26cm/22 Krupp, two 24cm/22 Krupp, one 21cm/22 Krupp, one 15cm/22 Krupp, one 15cm/40.
Fort Orkanie: Two 24cm/35 Krupp.

Turkish Orders:

Patrol west of the mouth of the Dardanelles. Do not go further south than Orkanie and further north than Imroz. Do not leave the range of the Ottoman coastal batteries and do not risk the loss of any ship. If the opportunity arises, sink Georgios Averoff .

Battery Descriptions

    Names: Fort Sedd el Bahr, Fort Cape Helles, Fort Kum Kale, Fort Orkanie.
    Type: Fixed
    Camouflage: None
    Power Handling?No
    Ground Combat Strength: 4 Companies of troops (4. 0)
    Sensor: 2 3-meter Zeiss Stereo Range Finder
    Fire Control: Manual
    Structures Size DP AC
    Guns F/E 64 3/0 (see Turkish Forces, Coast defense Forces)
    Fort Structure C/B 400 12/4
    Command Post (100 ft) F/E 62 12
    Obs. Tower (100 ft) F/E 77 9
    Magazine F/E 82 12

Turkish Victory Conditions:

Decisive: No OBB damaged more than 25% and ACR Georgios Averoff sunk.

Tactical: No OBB damaged more than 25% and more damage points in . icted to the Greek ships than received by them.

Setup:

Turkish Forces:

Barbaros Hayr-ed Din, Torgud Reis, Asar-I-Tevfik, and Messudieh start at point (T) (See map on page 13) . Course is 280 ° at 8 knots. Formation is line ahead with Barbaros Hayr-ed Din leading and the other ships following in the order listed.

Greek Forces:

Georgios Averoff, Spetsai, Psara , and Hydra start at point (G), according to Turkish sources or at point (g), according to Greek sources. It is up to the players to choose one starting point. Speed is 8 kts. Course is 045° if starting at point (G) or 200° if starting at point (g) . Formation is line ahead with Georgios Averoff leading and the other ships following in the order listed.

Special Rules:

All ship-based guns of both opponents fire with local control only. Due to lack of training and poor crew quality, the two sides’ fire control systems were inoperable.

Variations:

One, some, or all of the described variations can be chosen. If 1) and/or 4) is selected, do not tell the other player. For each ship mentioned in the variants that is sunk, the level of victory (Decisive or Tactical) of the party which lost the vessel is reduced one level.

1) The Greek submarine Delfin was still guarding the Dardanelles. Set it at any point in an arc from north to west to south within 4 nm of point (z) .

2) The Greek destroyers Thyella, Sphendoni, Naphkratousa , and Lonhi (all four Thyella class DD) , Aspis, Niki, Doxa , and Velos (all four Aspis class DD) were at Mudros harbor. They roamed the battle . eld in the afternoon and drove off three Turkish destroyers (the exact names of the DD are not known, only their number). Let them leave Mudros at 0900 hours, with speed and formation at the Greek player ’s discretion.

3) The Turkish cruiser Medjidije (Medjidije class CR) , the destroyers Muavenet-i-Millije, Jadighar-i-Millet, Numune-i-Hamaije , and Gairet-i-Watanije (all four ex-German S165 class DD) , Yarhisar, Tasoz, Samsun , and Basra (all four French Durandal class DD) , the torpedo boats Akhisar, Eliagod, Angora, Dracht, Mussul, Quatalia , and Urffa (all six Akhisar class TB) were ordered to Kum Kale to protect the mouth of the Dardanelles. Let them follow the battleship group at a distance of 2 nm. Formation and speed is at the Turkish player ’s discretion.

4) One of the tactics used to attack ships behind your formation was to drop mines, as executed in the Russo-Japanese war 1904/1905. The Turks had bought some German C/77 mines, mainly to protect the Dardanelles. If the Turkish player decides to take this option, place six German C/77 mines at the stern of the last battleship of the line. If they are hit, as an “Other Weapon ” critical hit, , the consequences will be disastrous.

Historical Outcome:

What is common to all reports is that the Turkish navy came out of the Dardanelles, moved north, exchanged some shots with the Greek navy and went back into the Dardanelles. The detailed reports of the Greek and Turkish military attachés give no clear picture of what happened.

The Greeks claimed several hits on the Turkish ships that severely damaged Barbaros Hayr-ed Din, caused more than 100 dead and damaged the boilers, so that speed was lost. In fact, the Turkish fleet lost 18 dead and 42 wounded. The hit in the boiler room was confirmed by the Turkish crew, but an Austro-Hungarian military attaché visited the OBB. He reported that the crew, including the captain, confirmed this hit to conceal a mishandling of the boilers by the crew.

Turkish ships and coastal batteries claimed several hits on Georgios Averoff. In fact, four hits were made. Two of them passed through the aft stack, one struck the boat deck, and one caused minor splinter damage on the superstructure. One sailor was killed and six were wounded. There was some splinter damage on Spetsai too, wounding one person, but no real damage.

The hit rate on both sides was 0.2% of fired shots -- abysmally bad by the standards of the first rate navies.

Georgios Averoff left the Greek battle line at about 0940 hours and tried to overtake the Turkish ships with the goal of crossing the T. It did not work, as the Ottomans turned parallel in the inner circle. Bad order execution by the Turks threw their battle line in disorder. Therefore, the Greeks claimed that the Turkish fleet fled in disorder, some OBB even driving in circles.

Contrary to this opinion, the Turkish side said that the strong OBBs of the ex-German Brandenburg class turned around to support the weaker OBBs, trying to regain order in the formation.

The First Balkan War (1912-13) FG&DN Scenario

BT

Back to The Naval Sitrep # 27 Table of Contents
Back to Naval Sitrep List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
& copy Copyright 2004 by Larry Bond and Clash of Arms.
This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history and related articles are available at http://www.magweb.com