WWI Naval Tactics Info needed...

[Blood_Hawk23]

Hey All,

I need some info. I'm tring to finish my Tondern Raid Mission and I'm having trouble getting images of the Formations used by the RN. Basicly need the cruse formation and Battle formation. Distances from ship to ship and group from group.

If anyone one can track it down I'd be greatful.

Till Later,
John

[Fibber]

....in regards to this have you been to this site yet? http://www.gwpda.org/naval/nr191401.htm It is a subcategory of this site; http://www.gwpda.org/naval/n0000000.htm#swt
Try this also;

http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/sitemap.html (http://www.gwpda.org/naval/n0000000.htm#swt)

[Blood_Hawk23]

....in regards to this have you been to this site yet? http://www.gwpda.org/naval/nr191401.htm It is a subcategory of this site; http://www.gwpda.org/naval/n0000000.htm#swt
Try this also;

http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/sitemap.html (http://www.gwpda.org/naval/n0000000.htm#swt)


Hey Fibber,

You're just the Man that I was hoping would reply. No I haven't seen it yet but I'm going there next. I'll let you know what I find.

I had tried to look up Royal Navy Doctrine for 1917 without success. It seems the search parameters of google have been limited with all the happenings of late. You'd think WWI history would be at the forefront with the 100th anniversary. Oh well...

If anyone else has anything please chime in.

Till Later,
John

[Fibber]

:wavey: Take a look also at this site; http://www.naval-history.net/WW1Book-RN1a.htm

I will continue to look for you but actual order of battle formations may be hard to track down as it seems at that time the RN had several opposing views on fleet dispositions. A search for some Churchill records might help though.

Here is the host site for the gwpda.org : http://www.gwpda.org/ There you can connect to anything your heart may need but probably not all

Here is another site that may yield something; http://warletters.net/battles/waratsea/

[Blood_Hawk23]

Ok Ty,

I'm now attempting to track down the Destoyers that escorted the Furious on the Tondern Raid. only one name has come up so far, Valentine. Seemed to be the second lead for the Thirteenth Destroyer Flotilla. not sure if the whole Flotilla was involved or just those under her.

The Flotilla Cruiser Champion is not listed as a ship that was on the Raid. So I'm abit stuck.

Here is a list so far...

HMS Furious

'Force A'
1st Light Cruiser Squadron:
HMS Caledon --- CALEDON class Light Cruiser
HMS Galatea --- ARETHUSA class Light Cruiser
HMS Royalist --- ARETHUSA class Light Cruiser
HMS Phaeton --- ARETHUSA class Light Cruiser
HMS Inconstant --- ARETHUSA class Light Cruiser

'Force B'
1st Battle Squadron
HMS Revenge --- Revenge class battleship ---
HMS Royal Oak - Joined May, 1916 --- Revenge class battleship ---
HMS Royal Sovereign - Joined June, 1916 --- Revenge class battleship ---
HMS Resolution --- Revenge class battleship
HMS Ramillies --- Revenge class battleship

7th Light Cruiser Squadron's
HMS Carysfort --- CAROLINE class Light Cruiser
HMS Aurora --- ARETHUSA class Light Cruiser
HMS Penelope --- ARETHUSA class Light Cruiser
HMS Undaunted --- ARETHUSA class Light Cruiser

along with destroyer escorts.

Valentine, Violent and Viceroy and 5 others were Part of the Anti-Sub screen in one source I found. I'm still looking into the rest.

[Blood_Hawk23]

I think I'll Run with this...

Valentine F30 Flotilla Leader
Violent F31
Wakeful F37
Viceroy F38
Vesper F39
Winchelsea F40
Vimiera F28
Vendetta F29

The 'F' numbers are the Pendants as of August 1918. Its a best guess from the sources I've found.

[Fibber]

BH, in case you already haven't seen this site take a look. http://www.harwichanddovercourt.co.uk/warships/destroyers-2/ It is a listing of all RN WW1 destroyers assignments and disposition.

[Blood_Hawk23]

So after some research I've decided to only included Force 'A' as force 'B' was the covering force from surface attack.

Valentine was .6 NM to Starboard as part of the Anti-Sub screen. Violent may have been in front due to the fact that it was the First ship the returning Camel found. I'm guessing .6 NM as well. The rest I'll space out the same distance in a box type formation around the rest of the fleet. I could space them out farther but I think that anything more than 1.2 NM will be to much for a WWI Anti-sub screen this close to land.

Now for the 4 cruisers and the Furious. Standard formation would be an Inline formation.

The question is, would the Furious be inline with the rest or not? If she is, is she the lead ship?

Maybe they used 2 lines with furious in the middle of both? That would be a more modern carrier escort formation I think.

Or did the Furious break off for launch and retrieval?

This is information that is missing and quite possibly lost to time.

So thats where I'm at with regards to the Tondern Raid. If anyone has some suggestions or facts to help finalize the formation please jump right in.

Till later,
John

[Fibber]

....just a wild thought here. MAybe finding out who was the O.I.C. of the entire raid might help in determining the disposition of the ships. As I had posted earlier it seems that the RN was apparently in a state of flux about new tactics around the time of WW1.

Don't know if you saw this but I previously found a site that the deals with the raid. It is here; http://www.tondernraid.com/furious.htm

[Blood_Hawk23]

I'm not having much success in that either. I haven't found any official reports on the raid. Most comes from the Tondern raid Website and the Zeppelin and Garrison Museum in Tønder website.

http://www.tondernraid.com/credits.htm

http://www.zeppelin-museum.dk/main.php?lang=en

The Raid site lists Rear Admiral R.F. Phillimore as the OIC of the aircraft onboard the Furious. But not the OIC of the entire Fleet. Though if we looked at who was incharge of Force 'B' we may find out a little more.

The Tondern Raid site does have the operational orders listed. Not alot of detail. Though I can guess at some of it.

I'm trying to contact William Casey who runs the Tondern Raid site. Hopefully he can answer some of this or at least point me in a direction.

[AER_DaddyO]

John:

Found this on Google Books. First hand accounts of an RNAS/RAF pilot while on HMS Furious, including events surrounding the Tondern Raid. Appears to be good reading, with operational photos from 1917-18. Maybe you can pick up a few details.

http://books.google.com/books?id=lcKgAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA215&lpg=PA215&dq=raf+squadron+tondern&source=bl&ots=Vo1jbXur4P&sig=T4LdpWtgqxjdRt1piuyioIThIco&hl=en&sa=X&ei=arIQVIL2HcX3yQTnuYGwBQ&ved=0CFwQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=raf%20squadron%20tondern&f=false

Please keep up your excellent work... great to see some CFS2 based WWI air/sea interest.
AER_DaddyO

[Blood_Hawk23]

Awesome. I have recieved an email from William. Here is a copy of his reply. :biggrin-new:

"Hi John,
Many thanks for your e-mail and it's great to know that people find my site both interesting and useful!

I will have to do some digging to try and answer your questions. I do have copies of some of Furious' logs which will probably help but they do take some decyphering! I'm fairly sure that I don't have full Destroyer listing but I "think" I have the fleet's orders which includes some positioning detail.

You will have to leave it with me for a few days since I have 3 others chasing me for stuff at the mo. Mind you, as a Flight Sim nut myself I'll bump you up the priorities a bit ;)

Btw, I read your thread and Admiral Beattie was head-honcho for the operation, most likely aboard Furious if he was actually at sea at all (don't know off the top of my head).

If you havn't heard back from me by this time next week please give me a nudge, I'm a busy fella and may well forget!

Regards

William Casey
www.tondernraid.com"

[Blood_Hawk23]

Looking at your avatar pic DaddyO, have you ever wondered how they managed that. I mean the plane looks almost undamaged. I have a couple others of the same crash. they boggle the mind a bit.

[AER_DaddyO]

John,

Regarding my avatar pix, I have no idea what really happened, but the aircraft involved [RAF BE-2] would suggest a training foul up of some sort. As this aircraft has ailerons, it's a BE-2C , OR dual control a BE-2D, both of which were used extensively as trainers. I believe that most theatre operational BEs had an upper wing cut out and the front landing skids removed, which this one does not. The Roundel placement on the rear stabilizer, as opposed to the upper wing surface, would be very unusual for an aircraft used in combat. The BEs were all notoriously very slow, and would be lucky to get over 70 mph with a tail wind. So, I would theorize that we have a noob pilot on training exercise, gently stalling the slow BE nose down into the tree's relatively soft upper branches. This is pure conjecture on my part, but given the clues in the photo, that's the way I figure it. I chose it as an avatar due to my interest in WWI aircraft, and LOL, I can relate to the poor fellows plight, as I'm usually "up a tree" at least half the time!

Getting back to the Tondern raid, I did some nosing around at the naval-history site provided by Fibber. There are some period Ship's logs on there, one of which is from the HMS Galatea, which participated in the raid. It's all heavily copywrited so I can't copy and post it here. There are operational log entries as to some of the maneuver that the Galatea did before, during, and after the raid. You may want to check it out.


Regards, AER_DaddyO

"Don't just stand there... get one up!"

[Blood_Hawk23]

Sounds good. can you pass the link to the ships log.

[AER_DaddyO]

John.

There you go. Link below takes you to a page with the HMS Galatea logs, which run from 1917 through 1919. There is a short narrative for each date, as well as a link to view the actual log itself. For the Tondern raid, just scroll down to the dates around July 19th, 1918.

http://www.naval-history.net/OWShips-WW1-06-HMS_Galatea.htm


AER_DaddyO

"Don't just stand there...get one up!"

[Fibber]

Glad you went there and were able to spend the time to polk around. I started to but I seem to have very little time lately. Life has thrown a bunch of curve balls to me during the month of August and I am still reeling from it. Lets just say that alot of the people I am dealing with lately have some variation of MD after their names.