All in at Jutland - The Bloodbath

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North Sea, 31st May 1916. Game : Wargame Design Studio 'Jutland'
This one has taken me around 2 months to complete all in as gaming time has been rather limited and PC games will always have a huge advantage over a table - you can save them and pick them up later on much more readily. I edited the scenario to start in the morning to try and ensure I had a full days worth of daylight and played as the RN.
With the advantage of hindsight, my initial plan was for Beatty and my screening forces to engage their leading elements and lure them into a trap. What I did not know was how the AI would react after the first couple of hours and I knew it would take time for the Grand Fleet to get into any semblence of order to be able to bring their guns to bear. What actually happened was an absolute slaughterhouse for both sides.
Intitially, as expected, my light crusier forces bumped into their screening forces and try as could, I just could not get them to take the bait. Every time I turned back towards the battle line they would head back to theirs. During the initial exchanges smaller pockets of action began to appear and when the Battlecruisers commenced firing I noticed that the German vessels were becoming somewhat scattered and they could not offer each other mutual support. I also had something of 4 Ace cards in the way of Barham, Valiant, Warspite and Malaya who were fast approaching the battle area. The Grand Fleet were still some way off.
By mid morning, with all of the confusion and many smaller individuals taking place - I had to plan on the fly. Their Torpedo Boats were getting a little too close for comfort so my Light Cruisers were tasked with engaging their opposite numbers and the Torpedo Boats thus freeing up my Destroyers who were laying smoke. With only a handful of Battleships in the game and my Battlecruisers exchanging blows with the German ones it was a bit of a shock to discover the lead elements of the High Seas Fleet to the South but my Destroyers were the only vessels in a position to do anything. Safety in numbers says I......
My Light Cruisers were taking an absulte battering and were starting to sink at a higher and higher rate but they were doing their job and the British Destroyers sailed forward to make a name for themselves. Torpedo run after torpedo run saw a good number of hits on the ever increasing number of German Battleships slowing them down and more importantly causing them to break formation and become isolated and when my 4 lead Battleships joined the fight they were easy pickings but all of this came at a monumental cost to my Destroyer forces (a few of which also managed to get some effective long range attacks on some passing German Battlecruisers).
By mid afternoon, with our respective screening forces bloodied and battered and slow steaming across the North Sea I sent any ships that were healthy enough to engage any stragglers they could find. The Grand Fleet arrived and made short work of the remaining German Battleships they could find but as Jellicoes Cruisers and Destroyers had also jioned the fray in chasing down the enemy they had also suffered so the Battleline lost the remaining Germans. All in all a chaotic, jumbled and hectic day of battle that decimated the German Fleet at a huge cost in Destroyers and Cruisers. The only vessels that remained unharmed were a handful of my Battleships. This was 10/10 on the fun scale. The Destroyer Captains will long live in memory. Their bravery and the seperation of the German forces were the deciding factors There were so many smaller stories to tell but I would run out of space......
Casualty Report: Ships lost
RN
Battleships x 3 (Malaya, Valiant, Warspite)
Battle Cruisers x 3 (Tiger, Queen Mary, Indefatigable)
Cruisers (CA & LC) x 22
Destroyers : 55
KM
Battleships x 18
Battle Cruisers x 0
Cruisers (CA & LC) 10
TB's : 59

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Nice post Ross...