Coronel Plus

Last night Caesar put on a game of Broadsides in which we kind of refought the 1914 Battle of Coronel, one day earlier than it's 110th anniversary. I say 'kind of' because in order to even things up for the British, Caesar gave them the battleship Canopus as a late-arriving reinforcement.

Here's the setup, with the Germans in the foreground (Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Dresden, Leipzig and Nurnberg), the British in the far right corner (Glasgow, Monmouth, Good Hope and Otranto) and tucked against the coast the entry-point of Canopus.

The Germans. The two ships in the foreground are the armoured cruisers and the others are light cruisers.

I should point out at this stage that a lot of the ships were depicted by stand-ins, some of which are not even the right nationality. They all had a label and were roughly the right type of ship even if the model wasn't a representation of the actual vessel.

The British are a mixed bag, with a light cruiser, and armed merchantman, and a couple of armoured cruisers.

I played the Germans and Stuart the British. With only two big guns on their side, the British advanced rapidly to close the range for their other armament. I should have hugged the coast and used the advantage the big guns of my armoured cruisers had, but I have no idea what I'm doing in this era and also closed with the British, albeit more cautiously. To be fair the coast was where the battleship was going to appear.

It appeared on turn two. Scharnhorst actually managed to plonk a broadside on it when it did, that took it to half damage straight away.

The German light cruisers were getting close enough to try some gunnery now, and even consider torpedoes.

But the British had torpedoes as well, and Glasgow put a spread into Scharnhorst, sinking it!

The German light cruisers also cam off badly in the fight with the other British ships, and a couple were sunk before I knew what was happening.

Nurnberg survived, and took out Monmouth.

I was down to two ships, but in the last couple of turns managed to finish off Canopus and take out Glasgow as well. Unfortunately Good Hope dealt with Nurnberg, so the battle ended with Gneisenau skulking off into the night. The British only had Good Hope left undamaged along with a badly damaged Otranto.

So we'll call it a draw. Adding in the Canopus was a bit of a game-changer as it prevented  Gneisenau and Scharnhorst from dominating things by keeping them distracted. Up close the four British ships were equal to the German light cruisers. And, of course, letting the Glasgow launch torpedoes at Scharnhorst was a bit of a blunder on my part.

Thanks to Caesar for putting on an entertaining game even if my handling of the Germans was somewhat inept.