August 1914 - What if - the ottomans get their battle ship ...

 ... ordered in Britain. Fat chance, I know, but still funny blueprint for our FIRST real life Person-to-Person battle ... near the club, on the outside ... no covid rule was harmed in the process.

Bart and I seized the day and the sunny weather and decided to play on the pateo outside our club. It had to be a game with few minis and easy to set up in case the Scottish weather choose to change, like it does ... a lot. So we opted for my quick WW1 naval game "Big Guns" and I grabbed some of my 1/6000 ships, and Bart took a blue mat and a few dice - ready to rumble!

The plot: In the eastern med. sea some British battle cruiser bring dutifully the Ottoman's their ship, due to a lapse in judgement somewhere along the chain of command at that time - everybody was just thinking about Belgium, right? So the Ottoman (pre-dreadnaught (or better dreadful) are entering the opposite. Some of the German battle cruisers have slipped through before the blockade closed and appeared inside the medi (OK, its a big What if!) just to spice it up. Some Austrian-Hungarians coming along and some Greek flotsam blissfully unaware, to increase the fun.

Also some Maltesean British ships a racing to the "meeting point" in an attempt to hell-bent get the battleship back, even at the cost of Ottomans Empire entering the war on the central power side.

First somehow subconsciously we just let the take over happen, the Ottomans got their battleship. That happened just after the Malteseans appeared and opened fire to the Ottomans, thus spreading the flame of war ... and also forcing the happles Greek to join forces against the central powers. The first broadsides were exchanged and a ship of the Turks gun turret exploded, BUT survived ... barely limping off table from then on. The fire fights continued in an ever circling mess around each other. But in the end the Germans won the day as the British battle cruiser gun turrets exploded on two ships and they didn‘t had the extraordinary luck of the Ottomans, they exploded and sunk.

In these rules you get 6 plus d6 automatic hits if a gun turret "explodes", thus potentially setting off a chain reaction if another turret explodes ... it did happen... also not good if the Germans concentrate the fire on "burning" ships ...

At the end the Germans won the day (Congrats Bart!) AND the Ottoman battleship and "limped off to Istanbul. The RN were in no shape to follow up. The Greek just pissed off, and the Austrians were drifting badly hit back to Trieste.

All in all a funny, even if highly unlikely event that might never have happened - reason enough for us to get out and throw some dice!

Initial set up with time delayed entries of div. fleets

The unaware British coming with "the ship"from Gibraltar

The Ottomans to get their ship

The exchange happened, the Malteser fleet arrives and opens fire...

The moetley crews circling around each other ...

Fire exchange ...

Lots of shooting ... the fleets are getting too near for comfort

some Germans are hit and just about floating ...

The British concentrate their fire on the Turks

But the Germans concentrate their fire on the British battle cruisers

Boom! explosion after explosion ...

Well after destroying two RN battle cruisers the Germans hopped off