[Battle of Rufiji Delta - Sinking of SMS Königsberg]

Unfortunately, we're not going to see Severn or Mersey in the game at any point I'd wager...

[Battle of Savo Island]

In my opinion, Savo Island was one of the most interesting naval battles of the war. It would be great to see an Operation based on a night raid against enemy patrols, supply ships and troop landings followed by a fighting withdrawal (perhaps harassed by aircraft and submarines as the dawn slowly rises)...

[Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau]

Absolutely, it was a pivotal moment of the war (although I'd suggest that it had more effect on history by closing Russia to re-supply by France and Britain, contributing pretty significantly to the revolutions and rise of the Bolsheviks, as well as leading to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, than it did militarily).

 

Unfortunately there were likely not many alternatives: the British government didn't really trust the Ottomans to remain neutral, as there was a rather large and influential German-supporting faction in the Ottoman government; the British also couldn't really release two frontline battleships to a foreign power (they also took over the Almirante Latorre-class which were ordered by Chile, which became HMS Canada and (eventually) the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle), as though it may seem quaint today the battleships really were the contemporary equivalent of a nuclear deterrent (and certainly noone would sell a nuke to a potentially hostile power on the eve of war!). The chances of the Ottomans coming down on the Alliance side sooner or later were fairly high, it could still have happened without Goeben's escape (although it would probably have taken somewhat longer if at all).

 

What might have changed was the Royal Navy's response: Admiral Milne (Troubridge's superior) had Indomitable and Indefatigable in the area, but completely fluffed his deployment (Goeben was in the Straits of Messina, Milne put his battlecruisers to cover the northern exit and a single light cruiser to the south, Goeben headed south). It's possible if the battlecruisers had been in the right place to intercept (again, using hindsight here) that Goeben could have been brought to battle by two battlecruisers and four armoured cruisers simultaneously, which should hopefully have been decisive.

 

It's worth noting that militarily at least, Goeben's adventures could have been worse for the Entente powers as it was feared she could have intercepted the convoys carrying French troops from the North African colonies to fight on the Western Front.

 

On a related note, I'd love to see an event based on the various (shall we say) 'loan'-ships from WWI: obviously there's Goeben and Breslau which became Yavuz (for far longer than she was ever Goeben actually) and Midilli; then there's the two battleships the Ottomans were expecting (HMS Agincourt had a 14-gun broadside!); and the Chilean battleships (HMS Eagle being converted into an aircraft carrier). There's even the Brazilian river gunboats and Norwegian coastal battleships that became RN monitors, and arguably Salamis. Would also be nice if they introduced a version of each ship to the faction it would have gone to in its original (Pan-American, Pan-Euro) as well as the faction/configuration that it served in, that's one kind of what-if design I could get behind.

[Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau]

There's a good description of the Goeben's escape in Castles of Steel by Robert Massie, including a much more sympathetic (and to my mind at least, plausible) explanation of Admiral Troubridge's actions than the usual superficial dismissal. Well worth a read, and puts the event in context very well with regard to the rest of the First World War at sea.

[Bombardment of Hitachi]

On 7/16/2019 at 6:54 PM, StringWitch said:

Has a naval bombardment ever lead to damage that wasn't less than expected?

If I recall correctly, when one of the RN Monitors (forget if it was Erebus or Roberts) was doing an op. in support of some of the WWII Sicilian landings (or possibly Italian ones), they hit the chimney that was their aiming mark on the first shot and demolished it completely; I don't think they were expecting to be quite that good! Not sure what they did after losing their aiming mark either, but apparently it was a successful shoot...