Battle of the Dogger Bank – 24th January 1915

The Scenario

This scenario was played out over four club meetings.

The British force was led by Bob Collman (1st & 2nd Battle Cruiser Squadrons), Jon Roche (Commodore T in the Arethusa with M Destroyer Division) and John Legg (1st Destroyer Flotilla). The 3rd Destroyer Flotilla and 1st Light Cruiser Squadron moved between the British players.

The total British force consisted of 5 Battle Cruisers, 7 Light Cruisers and 34 Torpedo Boat Destroyers.

The German force was led my Mark Harris (1st Scouting Group, as well as umpiring the off table forces for both sides, none of which reached the table) and David Sime, assisted on the first day by Brandt (2nd Scouting Group, 1st Leader of Destroyers, 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla, 15th Torpedo Boat Half-Flotilla and 18th Torpedo Boat Half-Flotilla.

The total German force was 3 Battle Cruisers, 1 Armoured Cruiser, 4 Light Cruisers and 18 High Seas Torpedo Boats.

This scenario has a lot of possibilities to overturn history – as was borne out in practice!

The Action Report

All ships started in their actual positions as at 7.15 GMT on the morning of 24th January. The Germans had intended a commerce raid on the fishing fleet working the Dogger Bank, but were unaware that their plans had been intercepted and decoded by the British Admiralty, with the result that the British force had just arrived on the Dogger Bank ahead of them.

The action commenced as the left wing of the German screen, the cruiser Kolberg, sighted the main body of the Harwich force coming up from the south and opened fire on the nearest vessel, the Light Cruiser Aurora, leading the 1st Destroyer Flotilla.

A 30 minute skirmish between the closest light forces ensued as both sides sought to concentrate their force and scout the positions of the enemy. At one point it looked as though the German light cruiser Graudenz was going to be cut off from the main body and destroyed, but she was able to fight her way free at full speed, albeit with some extensive damage.

The German force, once the strength of the enemy was clear, turned for home, initially at 20 knots to allow the light forces to close up and take station, then increasing to their best formation speed of 25 knots. This allowed the German force to effectively neutralise the enemy light forces, which could only close very slowly whilst coming under fire from the powerful secondary batteries of the German Battle Cruisers, as well as the 21cm guns of the Blucher and supporting light cruisers. It also meant the Germans could close on potential reinforcements in the Heligoland Bight and make a stand there if the British were still in pursuit.

The British chose to pursue at the formation speed of the 1st Battle Cruiser Squadron, 27.5 knots. This meant that the 3 Battle Cruisers of 1st BCS steadily closed the range, whilst the slower ships of 2nd BCS closed only very slowly and gradually lost touch with 1st BCS. British light forces mainly moved to the port wing in an attempt to overhaul the German force, whilst the cruiser Arethusa and the 7 destroyers of M Division covered the starboard wing.

The 1st BCS opened fire at 8.26 at a range of 19,000 yards, and the German Battlecruisers began returning fire at 8.38 at a range of 18,500 yards.

The Battlecruisers gradually closed to 13,500 yards, with hits getting more frequent, until suddenly at 9.13 the British Battle Cruiser Lion, carrying the British commander Vice-Admiral Beatty, exploded after being hit by three 28cm shells from a salvo fired by the Moltke, one of the shells having pierced her hull underwater and sent red hot fragments directly into A turret magazine, whilst another shell penetrated the roof of Q turret and flash back also ignited this turret’s magazine.

Captain Pelly of the Tiger chose to press on and lead the Princess Royal still closer to the enemy past the debris of the Lion. KontreAdmiral Hipper sensed an opportunity and turned his Battlecruisers south (a relatively safe direction) across the course of the pursuing Battle Cruisers, whilst ordering a torpedo attack on 1st BCS by the 10th and 15th Torpedo Half-Flotillas which were ahead to starboard, as there were few enemy light forces in position on this flank to oppose the attack. Occasional torpedoes were also fired as opportunity arose, but whilst some close shaves resulted, no hits were made.

The torpedo attack was delivered from positions ahead of the 1st BCS to port and starboard, but the 1st BCS chose courses to minimise the risk of hits whilst still closing, while the Arethusa turned away, so as a result no hits were secured, although Arethusa was almost caught by a torpedo at the end of it’s run. However, 1st BCS was hit heavily as a result, whilst not being able to reply to full effect, as the range dropped to just 6,500 yards. Meanwhile 2nd BCS had finally been able to come up into range and had opened fire on the German Battlecruiser group at long range.

At 9.33 disaster struck the British again as a salvo, once again from Moltke, sent three 28cm shells into the Princess Royal, to which she had shifted her fire after the Lion went down. One of these penetrated the ammunition supply to the after 4” battery and the Aft 4” Magazine exploded as a result.

The British now concentrated the three surviving Battle Cruisers, seeking to keep them directly astern of the Germans. However, at 10.24 the decision was taken to break off, as New Zealand, the flag of 2nd BCS took the lead and the German Battle Cruisers shifted their fire to her. Tiger by this stage had most of her fire control out of action, her A turret was disabled, she was out of AP shell and was down to her last 10 rounds per gun of CPC (a shell designed to attack medium and light armour) and both of the other surviving Battle Cruiser had weak armour and were no match for the German group.

The Germans resumed their course for home (ammunition was running low on the heavies, Seydlitz was making water, a total of three heavy turrets were out of action and a heavy ship counterattack was still not feasible because of the British light forces) as the attacking flotillas retook station ahead.

Whilst the chase was happening the left flank British light forces had made a couple of attempts to close, during which three of the British Destroyers from 3rd Flotilla had been hit with machinery damage and forced to break off, whilst the flagship of 1st LCS, the Southampton, had her engines temporarily disabled by the Blucher and was left dead in the water as the action swept by. The German turn to the south and torpedo attack had also once again widened the range to the main body of the British light forces.

The forces were out of sight by 10.42.

After the ships had gone out sight flooding forward on Seydlitz forced her to ease speed to 15 knots to reduce bulkhead stress at 10.57. She had been hit a number of times on the waterline forward and had progressive flooding of around 50 tons per hour in this section. The German force was still able to slip back into port at this reduced speed ahead of the arrival of British submarines heading for the Heligoland Bight from Harwich. The Tiger had some very minor progressive flooding aft, but most of her extensive damage was above the waterline and she was in no danger of sinking. All of the disabled British vessels were also able to repair some of their machinery damage and head back to port at fairly good speed and without further incident.

How does this compare to the real action?

The result of the action was greatly different to the real battle as a result of the British 1st BCS closing faster to a much shorter range and closer pursuit by the light forces. The actual result of the real battle was the result of a very lucky hit made by the Princess Royal at long range which greatly slowed the Armoured Cruiser Blucher, causing her to drop out, just as the British Flagship, the Lion, was also disabled and the British line thrown into confusion. The British then concentrated on sinking the Blucher whilst the rest of the German force withdrew. This result masked the fact that the British scored only 8 hits during the long range chase to the German 22 in reply. The dangers inherent in British ammunition supply arrangements were also not revealed and were in fact made worse by practices introduced to correct a perceived slow rate of fire in the battle (rather than the real issue of relatively poor gunnery control within the Battle Cruiser Squadrons, especially from the raw crew of the Tiger).

Battle of the Dogger Bank projection based on damage as at 10:42 January 24, 1915:
Lion has already sunk
Princess Royal has already sunk

Result of progressive flooding and machinery damage in next 48 hours as follows:
24 Jan 10:42:00 - Southampton maximum speed is now 17.4 knots
24 Jan 10:45:00 - Southampton maximum speed is now 18.2 knots
24 Jan 10:48:00 - Southampton maximum speed is now 19.1 knots
24 Jan 10:51:00 - Southampton maximum speed is now 20 knots
24 Jan 10:54:00 - Southampton maximum speed is now 20.7 knots
25 Jan 10:57:00 - Seydlitz speed restricted to 15 knots by immersion of ship forward
48 hours up, remaining ships are assumed to be able to make port, abandoned ships will burn out

Damage to surviving ships as at 26 Jan 10:42:00 is as follows:

Grand Fleet

Hochseeflotte

Grand Fleet has lost 52540 tons of ships
Hochseeflotte has lost 0 tons of ships

Campaign Score

Scores are based on tonnage sunk or lost by players (with ships sunk shared according to damage inflicted by the different players) with German losses counting double:
Mark H (Kontreadmiral Hipper): +52540
Dave S (Kontreadmiral Hebbinghaus): 0
Brandt (KzS Harder) 0
John Legg (Captain (D) W.S. Nicholson) 0
Jon R (Commodore (T) Reginald Y. Tyrwhitt) 0
Bob C (Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty) -52540

That leaves the result for the campaign to date after 6 scenarios is as follows:

Mark H           +93826
Andy K           +13060
Mike P           +11339
Alan O             +350
Mark W             +307
Alex M             +121
Colin C               0
Brian S               0
Dean L                0
David S               0
Ian F                 0
John Legg             0
Brandt                0
Jon R             -1663
Barry P           -3995
Trevor P          -9538
Craig D          -14481
Steve T          -36785
Bob C            -52540

Photos