Matrix Games Forums

Most significant naval battle of the Spanish American war.

That was a good scenario.The armament of the "Cristobal Colon" was very well reproduced. However, the year listed in the scenario selection description is 1998, not the original 1898.

Thank you for the feedback.

Try the attached.

The year appears correct in the Scenario data but was wrong in the description.

I am looking at a few options for scenarios that should hopefully try out different ship technologies in the early period.

For the ships, I baselined them as constructed in 1898 and this gives them Krupp armour; I then converted non-Krupp (Harvey Nickel-Steel e.t.c.) to the equivalent thickness of Krupp. In this period, there are examples of ships using a mix of Harvey and Steel, so I have tried to model the actual armour of each individual ship.

Very well done scenario and ship design.

I can't get the historical result as the Americans. The Spanish fleet makes a break to the west at the start of the scenario and my battleships can't catch up. I can send one cruiser to slow them down, and sometimes I can damage one of their cruisers enough to slow it down enough to be finished off by the battle fleet. But most of their fleet always gets away. Any ideas?

I usually manage to sink 2-3 cruisers.

Colon is quite fast and if she escapes with one of the other cruisers, they give Brooklyn a hard time and the battleships can't catch up. This is similar to what happened historically but the Americans had intercepted a coal shipment and the Spanish had a limited supply of decent coal; once this ran out, the speed dropped. Colon would most likely have escaped otherwise and historically ran herself ashore and pulled down her ensign once her speed dropped.

Quality of coal is outside the scope of the game.

I will post another version were some of the ships speeds are limited by engine damage (as opposed to coal supply). I have just tried this and sank all Spanish ships bar Pluton which was still at large at nightfall.