Nightmare at 1600 yards: New South Georgia, January 20, 1896

Started by MengJiao, June 26, 2019, 10:58:12 AM

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MengJiao

  I was looking into the latest Admiralty Trilogy (now a Pentalogy/CinqOlogy/Fivesome I guess: Harpoon, Command, Fear, Russo and Dawn) Dawn of the Battleship which covers 1890-1904 (pre-Russo-Japanese).
I made one ship up out of the specs in the Monroe Doctrine Epic set of mostly fictional, vaguely proto-Captain Nemo campaigns and scenarios -- Yes, the First Italian Armored Cruiser -- the Marco Polo.
  I had some confederate naval flags to mark one side (Clearly die-hard naval enthusiasts of the Old South now thriving in southern Oceans near Antarctica) and the other could be expensive mercenaries hired to protect the whaling trade -- (which historically around 1890 was not doing very well) sailing under no flag (hungry ex-whaling men with no country).  So the four Marco Polos went after each other (Milwaulkee playing the Robert. E. Lee and the Amalfi playing the Talcott Parsons and the Inconstant as herself and the Galatea similarly) just after a summer dawn on January 20, 1896 in the southern hemisphere.  After a good 15 or 20 minutes of neither side hitting anything while steaming at 16 knots, the range wound down to just 1600 yds -- where in the world of 1896 most guns have a 20% chance of hitting -- and the Inconstant got 10 hits and 2 criticals on the poor Talcott Parsons.  Magazines blow up and flooding and damage reduces speed to 4 knots.  So i guess things could be dangerous even for Armored Cruisers in 1896: