Note on Battle (Fought as a Solo Game) Cardboard shapes of the ships were used (from Jane's Fighting Ships) as these make excellent targets for the salvoes of tiddlywinks. Forces British Good Hope* Devonshire* Falmouth German Gneisenau* Prince Heinrich* Streilsund Augsberg Nurnberg Those without a copy of Jane's fighting Ships at hand should note that those marked * are armoured cruisers - approximately equal to 2 Falmouth class or 3 German light cruisers as shown. Students of Naval Warfare will observe that the British stand next to no chance provided the Germans were handled properly. The main reason? Gneisenau. The action developed into a running fight summarised by this diagram: Each side was scoring hits until the wall of the wall of the room forced all the ships to turn to port. The British closed the range in Nelsonian fashion and were shattered by the accurate fire of the German vessels (notably the 8.2" guns of Gneisenau). Falmouth made a break but was pinned by Augsberg to port and Nurnberg to starboard. Stralsund fell back from the main action because a 9.4" shell from the Good Hope had caused a huge fire on her starboard side. The armoured cruisers fought it out alone. A virtually intact Prince Heinrich had converted Devonshire into half ship, half scrap iron. Good Hope had lost most of her guns when a complete broadside from Gneisenau rolled her over. A little later, under the sideboard, the Prince Heinrich finished off the Devonshire. There only remained the three light cruisers blasting each other (very poor shooting by Nurnberg who hit Augsberg twice). Away next to a copy of the rules and a book on Coronel which had been left out (perhaps the British should have seen this as a bad omen). Anyway enveloped in flame the Falmouth was turned over. The Germans were at about half strength. Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 119 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1971 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com