Battle of the Denmark Straights, May 1941.

This will be the last game played in my garage till the weather starts to warm up again next year and as it was a one night stand as it were I thought the lads (Scotty and Neal) would like to have a go at something a little different. It has been at least a year since I gamed with my WW2 1,2400 GHQ ships so I went for that. The scenario was the battle of the Denmark Straights in May 1941, pitting the German battleship Bismarck and Heavy cruiser Prince Eugen against the British battlecruiser Hood and battleship Prince of Wales.
The tale is pretty well known with the two German ships looking to break out into the Atlantic to raid/disrupt British convoys while the British fleet attempted to intercept them:

The engagement took place with the Hood being sunk after a shell from the Bismarck igniting the Hood's magazine and the Prince of Wales withdrawing under heavy and accurate fire from the two German ships.
I umpired with Scotty taking the British and Neal taking the Germans. We used the Naval Thunder (Battleship Row) rules by Steel Dreadnought Games Here not overly complex but not ridiculously simple either.

The info tables for each ship:

All pretty straight forward when you get used to them and a good set of rules.

The object for the Germans was to sink one British ship then exit the end of the table with both their ships pretty much intact. The Brits had to sink the Bismark.
Naval games never really look that pretty so don't expect any flash photographs!

Set up, Germans at the right, British left:

Hood & Prince of Wales:

Bismarck & Prince Eugen:

The markers denote how many ships are firing at a particular target:

The action continued with the Hood taking a particular pounding while attempting to close the range, the Hoods weakness in gunnery and the Prince of Wales mechanical problems gave the German ships an advantage at this point.
As the fleets closed the range the Bismarck which up to this point had been firing well went two turns without hitting a thing while the Prince of Wales opened up and (Scotty) threw three 10's on a D10 in one go!
This knocked out the two forward turrets and damaged the engine of the Bismark, while it's secondary armament raked the Prince Eugen. A somewhat disgruntled German admiral (Neal) decided discretion was the better part of valor and limped off under cover of smoke.

The tail end of the battle, Hood (left) is on fire and the Bismarck (bottom right) takes heavy damage from the Prince of Wales:

A particular moment of, well if not hilarity, then at least childish giggles was when Scotty, looking at his Fire control chart stated that he did not have any STD (standard fire control) that turn. Both Neal and I thought that his wife would be very pleased to hear it! Goes to show how seriously we take it all.
Dave.