Well, I gathered our merry band of wargamers together to play out the campaign section of our scenario!
The Germans began by sortieing with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau from Brest and making a high speed dash in to the southern Atlantic - which caused a bit of consternation for the RN players who were not expecting this! A few convoys were rearranged but since the RN could not really spare many ships to chase them around, the German's distraction did not pull any home fleet units away.
When the Tirpitz and Bismark did sail (with Prinz Eugen tagging along), they were tracked all the way up the Norwegian coast through a variety of means. The Home Fleet set sail with King George V and Prince of Wales heading towards Iceland and Hood and Repulse going further in to the North Atlantic, the Royal Navy players deciding to try to take the initial engagement on the battleship's chins.
The Germans headed through the Iceland-UK gap at speed, hoping this break with historical deployments would through off the RN. Sadly for the Germans, as per history, they were spotted and shadowed by cruisers and were unable to shake them off.
The Germans decided to use Prinz Eugen as a sacrificial lamb, and ordered her to turn back to chase off the shadowing cruisers whilst the battleships changed course and speed.
Such a move would never have been approved in real life by the Germans but we decided that it would make for a reasonably interesting game so we played it. HMS Manchester and Birmingham are in line astern heading WSW with orders to shadow the battleships (which will be just off the table with Prinz Eugen heading the other way).
Thanks for reading!
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