Battle of Dakar

[Kaiser Kirk]

Battle of Dakar,  January 13th, 1913


The Night of the 12th, the Wilno fleet had paused to the north and set sea anchors.
Overnight, the winds had picked up from a moderate breeze and by dawn was still worsening,  now a strong breeze, blowing at 21knots and large waves with extensive white caps, dragging the sea anchors and pushing the ships towards shore.   The Wilno commander considered the worsening conditions and ordered steam brought up, sea anchors raised. The Fleet headed south in the morning twilight. It was important to make the safe anchorage at Dakar so the fleet of transports could start unloading the men and supplies.

Dawn was at 0638, and the expeditionary fleet had time to arrange itself back in it's columns, the battle armored cruiser Luznick providing close escort while the patrol cruiser Bug ranged ahead.

The Iberians had landed a week before. The Dakar peninsula jutted out into the Atlantic, with a tip jutting South but on its south side was a fine harbor, and it had long been a free trading post. The Iberians were busily unloading transports and freighters as the limited wharf space became available. The sentries reports of numerous ships from the North was a concern.

Initial contacts between the two commanders did not go terribly well. As the Wilno fleet rounded the tip of the Dakar peninsula seeking safe anchorage, the Iberian Fleet commander ordered a sortie. The Bug's report on the Iberian battleship and pair of cruisers was the last bit of information the Wilno commander needed, and he ordered his fleet to depart, communicating this to the Iberians. The Iberian commander, fearing this a feint to land elsewhere, continues his pursuit.

The elderly battleship Blas de Lezo was refitted eight years ago, and so could make close to it full speed of 18knots.  The gunners in "A" barbette looked forward anxiously over their unshielded 280mm guns and the bow as the coal smoke from the slower Wilno transports and freighters.  The Wilno commander of the Luznick, seeing the range drop below 20,000m and realizing the Iberians were serious about running down the transports, places his ship, nominally an armored cruiser, but 60% larger than the ancient battleship, in "harm's way".

The fleets continue to move North, and the commanders radio transmissions fail to resolve matters.
At 830 hours, the range has fallen to 18000 yards between the freighters and the elderly battleship. The cruiser Azores is free to engage the Bug[/u] while the Vizcaya/i]  stays as close support for Blas de Lezo. The Iberians obviously intent on running down the expeditionary fleet , the Wilno commander directs his warships to alter course Easterly, and at 836 fires a warning shot at 12000m. With the simple rangefinders, the chance of hitting is tiny, and the shot is wide. The radio warning is pointed. The Iberian commander swears and orders return fire as a show of force. For the gunners in A barbarette, peering over their open sites, the muzzle flash of the enemy battle cruiser is the point of aim, for the target takes up less than one degree of the horizon. The shots fired, the black cloud of smoke obscures their vision briefly, but clears in time to see the shell splashes...except they can not make them out at this range without optics. The Iberians charge North, with Azores heading for Bug while the Wilno forces curve south, parallel to the projected Iberian course, allowing them to steam into range.

At 842, the cruiser Bug and Azores have dropped below 6000m and begin trading shots in earnest , while the Luznick engages the battleship from 7500m and fires it's secondaries at the cruiser Azores. The firing continues as the Wilno ships finish their curve and  'cross the T' between the freighters and the Iberians, much to their dismay, the ancient battleship emerges from the forest of splashes unscathed. The Azores , bow on to the Bug escapes it's victim's attention, but is lashed by 4 rounds from the really big cruiser....two of which are duds. The other two tear through the forecastle and penetrate the forward bulkhead before detonating. The first does so at the base of the bulkhead, tearing a hole in it and spraying the hull on both sides with splinters, opening dozens of holes and rapid flooding results. The last hit goes off at the base of the armored conning tower, but the armored con and deck shields the critical systems. The Azores scores a hit on Bug but it glances off the armor deck above the forward magazine, detonating in the upper hull. Above, the upper works are peppered with splinters from one of Vizcaya's 152mm rounds. 

The Wilno ships have to continue turning North to open the range from Azores as they do not realize she has no torpedoes.  This masks the twin 250mm "Q"  mount on the armored cruiser  The Azores and Vizcaya start a shallow turn to bring their broadsides to bear while the ancient battleship plows North.  At 6500m, a common 250mm shell impacts the battleship at the midships starboard belt
just above the waterline and glances off.

The next several minutes each side misses wildly as the Wilno ships try to keep the range just at far enough the Iberian cruisers can not torpedo them, but this denies them a good firing solution on the battleships. The gunners for the twin 280mm guns in 'A' barbette, kept cool by the sea breeze, have a moment when they think they may have hit the tiny distant vessel, but the officer with the telescope says it was just the Wilno cruiser's Q turret returning to action. 

Over the next several minutes Azores, now reduced 20knots, takes a pair of 130mm hits in the upper hull, a dud 100mm, and looses her signal bridge to a 100mm, and takes an 100mm hit in the upper hull. Bug takes 5x 152mm hits to her upperworks, wrecking her own signaling and searchlight, and starting a fire. Two 152mm rounds penetrate her belt amidships, wrecking an engine room, and setting a fuel bunker on fire, and bringing her speed down to 18knots.

Azores continues to be pummeled by 130mm common rounds, with several being stopped by her armor, but a severe fire is started in the upper hull. A single 100mm AP strikes the con of Azores causing the armor to spall off and kill a helmsman.

Bug turns to launch her torpedoes at the battleships, while the Armored cruiser starts a turn. The Iberian cruisers also start turning. The prow of the battleship is a hard target and it combs the wakes easily, the Azores is less fortunate, taking two 100mm AP rounds in her main belt of only 50mm, penetrating and starting a fire below decks, and putting engine rooms out of commission. Her speed cut to half, she can not keep in line. Bug with two 100mm mounts destroyed, and three fires, is also faring poorly. The battleship is hit 4 times by 250mm shells, one harmlessly on the stern deck, another glancing off the conning tower, a third hitting the main belt, and one falling just short of the ship, diving a half meter, and sliding below the bow's belt line, detonating forward.

The Wilno ships continue to "S" behind the freighters, while the Iberians slowly gain on them. With fire shifting to Vizcaya, she starts taking hits and has a shaft damaged. Bug in return takes a severe underwater hit, continuing to loose speed, more rounds strike her from both cruisers and the battleship, starting a fourth fire in the ready use ammunition. The Captain sounds abandon ship.

The battleship has continued to gamely shoot at the distant target from "A" barbette, and the guncrew is overjoyed when a hit is reported.  The armored cruiser is not greatly bothered by the shell glancing off her deck and exploding in her upper hull. As the battleship turns to bring the aft guns to bear, she is struck by 3 more 250mm rounds, one sliding a meter under the waterline, where the main belt stops, and detonating inside. None does great damage. Three 130mm strike the superstructure, 1 of which is a dud. The armored cruiser is struck by a 140mm round as it makes another turn. 

As the armored cruiser completes it's turn, it clears it's broadside guns, and resumes firing, striking the battleship twice with common rounds, one in the superstructure, and one landing short of the ship, sliding through the water and striking a meter under the waterline, where there is no armor. The path takes it to the magazine beneath "A" barbette, and the Blas de Lezo breaks in two as a pillar of flame shoots from the forward barbette.

Command devolving to the Captain of the Vizcaya, he calls for the two remaining cruisers, both badly hurt, to retreat.

Damage :
1909 AC Luznick  - 3%
1909 PC Bug Sunk

1890 BB Blas de Lezo– Sunk
1904 PC Vizcaya - 5%, requires refurbishment (20%) to replace prop shaft.
1904 PC Azores – 75%, severe fires. Had the battle not ended, and Vizcaya able to assist, she would likely have burned out.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Commentary :
The Lucznik is basically SMS Von Der Taan with 250mm guns.
The Blas de Lezo is 9800 tons of basically the 1890 HMS Collosus with 280mm instead of 250mm guns.
The Iberian cruisers should have had the advantage, but they rolled badly, and their belt armor was inadequate.

This battle took a remarkable number of turns. 

Wilno's ships crossed the Iberian T and then did slow "S' turns between the Iberians and the Expeditionary fleet, keeping the ranges favorable.

Both sides typically had 20-30% chances to hit, Even the BB with baseline fire control – firing at larger, mid-speed ships in daylight – sometimes had a decent 'to hit'chance, I think it was as high 14% once.

And yet both sides, blazing away, would miss completely for entire turns. Even when they hit, many hits were to superstructure or turned by armor.

Fun moment was when I  kinda for fun rolled for the battleship's broadside Torpedo tubes, and rolled well enough it might be actually a hit... but then I remeasured the range, and it wasn't an option. Shame, that would have been humorous and a real interesting conversation point.

Armor thicknesses
The effect of our WWII thinking of armor thicknesses was quite evident, as the 50mm armor on the Vizcayas proved inadequate even against 100mm guns.
Basically, the Iberian armor was proof against common shells down to 2000m, but vulnerable to AP under 6000m.

I'm going to have to modify one of my 'designs in progress'.

But overall, the current ranges in the game are very very short in order to hit.

Armor Penetration
I use Logi's ballistics tool with the ships guns to figure out penetration.
I've got a excel sheet I can plug numbers into to get the relationship of ME for a given shell weight/Diam/caliber and what that means for Muzzle Vel.
I cap MV at 915m/s because once you get much over that, you find mention of poor shooting, or barrel life being short, etc.

I make a little sketch of the ship, so I can figure out what the armor is where the shell hits. Then compare the two. Frequently the result is not in question, but sometimes it is.
The 280/35 penetration of decks at 5500m is basically nothing as the shell is still going fairly flat.
But at 5500m the 280/35 couldn't penetrate the 250mm armor of the Lucznik's belt either.

No fire control, ancient guns with a low ROF, low shell weight and middling MV, only 2 guns bearing forward vs. the 8 x 250mm on the Wilno broadside... the Blas de Lezo was overmatched.

Diving shells
Olekit's BB design is ancient, and the height of the upper belt and main belt is equal to the freeboard. In that era, there were some ships who's belt armor extended only to the waterline.

Shells can dive up to about 5x their diameter before lateral forces on the nose will cause them to tumble and continue base first.

I divide the hull into upper belt, main belt, and diving areas. I then roll to see how "high" up the hull the shell hit was at. Hits to the upper hull do damage, but I don't allow crits unless if the shell splinters can penetrate the deck armor. Hits to the main belt are normal.  Hits below the main belt....well you really should be extending your belts downward.

[The Rock Doctor]

Greatly interesting.  Thanks for gaming that out for us.

There are some other hijinks that Darman and I will be posting about, but those bits are scripted out. Two questions:

-How badly was Blas de Leon damaged before she blew?

-Do you think observers on the AC would be able to tell that the killer shell hit the water first?

Can't believe Darman squashed my Bug!

[Kaiser Kirk]

Greatly interesting.  Thanks for gaming that out for us.

There are some other hijinks that Darman and I will be posting about, but those bits are scripted out. Two questions:

-How badly was Blas de Leon damaged before she blew?

-Do you think observers on the AC would be able to tell that the killer shell hit the water first?

Can't believe Darman squashed my Bug!

Bug did quite well.
The damage from the four fires- including the fuel fire is what got her eventually, but I think 22 x 152mm hits, with 3 x 140mm from the BB.
More upperworks hits, her armament had been severely reduced, but her armor deck saved her from one magazine hit, but not many mainbelt hits.

Bug's 80mm belt stopped at least 1 round, I think more. The 40mm wasn't effective against 140 & 152mm at these ranges.  The fitting of the 30mm as a "armored deck-multiple decks" I decided was a mistake as it was the same thickness as the ends,  and treated as an "armor deck", and that stopped some rounds and splinters.

The Wilno return fire was far luckier as some of their first shots against Azores and Vizcaya scored belt crits and impaired their speed.  The 50mm belt + armor deck combo would have been effective if that was a protective deck behind a belt, or with thick slopes, but as it was, it really wasn't stopping rounds - common or AP - fired from this close in.

Both ships had their conning tower armor (75 & 80mm) work.  The dead helmsman was due to a near penetration 74mm vs. 75mm which would have been a helm crit had it got through.

Blas de Leon was in very good condition- no list, full speed, all weapons active, no fires.
That was why she was still in the fight, she really had come through lightly. For Wilno, keeping beyond torpedo range* from the Iberian cruisers had often forced them beyond 6000m repeatedly.
Combine that with remarkably high rolls throughout - tremendous number of misses and extra duds,
The chance of a penetrating hit being a critical is high, but the rolls were high  so the prior 250mm hits had no crits, and a couple deflected off armor.
The only one of note was the prior 1 underwater that must have detonated in a full coal bunker and put itself out with light flooding..as it wasn't a crit.


For the observers, it will be difficult to figure what happens exactly. Was there an internal fire from a prior hit they didn't see that reached a magazine? 

They know in the minute before the explosion that they fired a salvo, 4 rounds, that they had 1 round strike and detonate high in the superstructure to no apparent serious effect.
They think they saw 2 splashes beyond, and then one splash "just" short of the ship. 
They would know the angle and that it would intercept the ship if it continued. 
Due to the geyser of water created, they would not know exactly how far from the ship it was, just "close"
They probably would not know that the Blas de Lezo lacked underwater armor.   It is a design feature you can find in that era- I think there were some OTL Russian ships - but 0.5-1.0m 'deep' belts are far more common.

Now, if anyone thinks to rescue the crew...and there were some, (up to Darman if that includes his Captain), they felt the impact of a hit right before the explosion.


*only in the latter stages, when Azores was damaged did the Iberians turn and expose their side/rear guns, and only then did the Wilno have a chance to figure out they did not have on-deck torpedoes. The battle ended about the time they would have that confirmed.

[The Rock Doctor]

Interesting, thanks.  There's a few things I can weave into news and planning over the next year - maybe the duds are a scandalous quality control problem.

[Desertfox]

When can we expect news of this battle and the one in Suriname to reach the rest of the world?

[The Rock Doctor]

Probably just a few days to reach Europe, but I'm not sure what cables reach out from there.

[snip]

January 17th, 1913. Rome, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères

"So, its war then."

Aloisio Landi listened to the discussion around the table rather than intervene, the declaration from one of the other men in the room silently echoed as others gathered their thoughts. Reports of recent military engagements between Iberian and Wilno forces in various locations around western Africa sat neatly stacked on the table. Other members of the Foreign Ministry were discussing them and how the Imperial Republic would respond.

One of the younger men in the room spoke next. "Minor engagements around colonial ventures are more common than I think we realize. Look at how close we came to a similar scenario in Africa ourselves."

"The difference is," An older man clearly set on educating the youngster cut him off. "We didn't blow up a Villinusian warship. Would you allow that to stand? I do believe our Iberian counterparts would remove you from this room via the window if you suggested negotiation."

Landi interjected. "Then I suppose we are to be glad you are not in charge then mister Romagna, as I rather like mister Gosselin and would hate to see him do the best impression of an aerocraft that he possibly can. As skilled as he his, that capability may just prove beyond him."

A light chuckle escaped some of the seated men as Landi continued. "War between two of our neighbors who happen to be separated by us is something we want to avoid if reasonable. Let us continue drafting the request so it can be delivered today. I want to at least ensure we have tried at arresting a conflict which could escalate to a general European war unlike any we have seen."

Hours later, separate runners arrived at the Iberian and Wilno embassies. Each carried a letter addressed to the respective ambassadors offering neutral mediation to the conflict. Landi carried the worry of the responses with him to the Ministère de la Guerre to update the high command of the Roman military.

[Kaiser Kirk]

"War between two of our neighbors who happen to be separated by us is something we want to avoid if reasonable. Let us continue drafting the request so it can be delivered today. I want to at least ensure we have tried at arresting a conflict which could escalate to a general European war unlike any we have seen."

OOC : But think...you could sell arms to both sides, or use the threat of joining the foe to leverage some concessions ! The beaches of Barcelona could be a permanent vacation home for folks from foggy Londinium !