scenario: HMAS Sydney vs HSK Komoran

Mark Still

Mongoose
Having studied this encounter at great depth, having read Battle Summery no.13 official government documents on German Auxiliary Cruisers. Also Captain Detmers diary translated to English from German.

I am mot going to list all the details here it's point less for a game but if you do want further info on this engagement email markdavidstill@yahoo.co.uk or alternitively sydney@ausralias-titanic.com

Here's the scenario: This is going to be a very quick game.

1x Perth Class light Cruiser (Sydney)
1x German Commerce Raider (HSK Kormoran)

19th November 1941
The Sydney was investigating the Kormoran due to radio messages reporting Commerce raiders where operating in the area.
The Sydney was not ready for an engagement nor was it battle stations when it moved towards the Komoran to investigate.The Kormoran was disguised as Straat Maalaka a Japanese merchant ship.

The vessels are 12" apart when the engagement starts.
The Kormoran get initiative for the 1st turn only!
The Sydney's 1st shots are at -1 to hit (historically 1st salvo missed) as it's taken by surprise.

Historical out come:
The Kormoran had Major damage to the engines & a huge blaze in the Engine room. Immobilizing the ship. so Captain Detmers decides to scuttle & abandon the ship. The engines are too badly damaged to under go repairs in hostile waters, leaving them a sitting duck.

The Sydney: A turret is ripped from the ship & falls overboard,the command decks are badly hit with 20mm & 37mm gun fire.
Detmers reports the HMAS Sydney was limping away ablaze & badly damaged, but survived the engagement as he watched it sail over the horizon approximation 10,000 yards.
The engagement lasted just over half an hour.
 
Yeah it was. a majority of Kormorans crew survived. What happened to the Sydney is an enigma though we suspect a Japanese Sub may have been involved with the final Demise but to be confirmed. Please feel free to look at the data given on the Australia's titanic website. But I must stress it's an on going investigation, David Mearn's has allegedly been to & photographed the wrecks. But we have proven every photograph to be a faked, when compared to the sydneys Blueprints. The Claim that no HMAS Sydney crewmen survived is also false.
 
You are aware that the RAN has thoroughly surveyed the wreck and that DSTO conducted a very thorough investigation, reported in 2009, into the technical circumstances of the sinking?

http://www.defence.gov.au/sydneyii/DSTO/DSTO.003.0001_LR.pdf
 
The Australians are the ones (http://www.defence.gov.au/sydneyii/DSTO ... 001_LR.pdf) that helped David Mearn's with all the faking. Even the Sonar Image has been turned 180%. form the proper image. How do I know this merlindown had a BT cable laying vessel. Sonar-ed the wreck in 2006 2 years before Mearn's & the Australian sent a ship to sonar the same area.
As for that so called investigation that looks good paper. It too is a laughable piece of fiction!

I am putting a full exhibition on at Eden Camp, Pickering along with a few other members of merlindown in the next few months. I will put the date up, please feel free to come along & put your case forward to me or Brian personally.

I guarantee we can prove it's all faked & false. WE WOULD NOT BE FIGHTING FOR AN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT INQUIRY IF WE THOUGHT ALL THIS WAS RUBBISH YOU HAVE READ WAS TRUE!!
At first we all too were taken in until we delved deeper.
I don't blame anyone who is not a Maritime Reasercher for believing this.

Even asked Robert E Ballard to take a look at our findings.
Who is willing to do so when he's finished his latest project.
 
This is an area in which I have worked in the UK for many years, and on a number of collaborative projects with allied nations. The DSTO team who conducted this study are known personally and professionally to me, . I have had extensive experience of their work in their respective areas of expertise and their professionalism is impeccable. So I'd be interested to see the basis of this claim of "faking", and a substantiation of the "fiction" comment.
 
Im painting the Wizards 1:1800th version of HMAS Sydney as we speak and found this discussion very interesting.

Perhaps we will never know exactly what happened on that fateful day, to this day it remains one of those great maritime mysteries that unfortunately for the families of those that perished, poses more questions than answers.

Why did the skipper of the Sydney move so close to Kormoran before positively identifying the vessel in an area of the Indian Ocean that was known to have Commerce Raiders operating in it? Seems an unnecessary risk to take in war time with superior guns, that is the question that I find the most difficult to understand.

The Sydney was raked with gunfire at close range before she could get a chance to respond. If all accounts from German survivors are accurate of course, she will have invariably succumbed to her wounds, probably due to a fire that ignited her magazines to have sunk so rapidly. Perhaps that's not what happened at all, perhaps she had no way of sending out distress signals due to her damage and she simply sunk slowly with all her crew perishing in the Indian Ocean because nobody could find them. Whatever happened it was a black day for the Royal Australian Navy and a terrible terrible tragedy.

Interesting topic :D :D :D

Dan
 
DanaussieII said:
Why did the skipper of the Sydney move so close to Kormoran before positively identifying the vessel in an area of the Indian Ocean that was known to have Commerce Raiders operating in it? Seems an unnecessary risk to take in war time with superior guns, that is the question that I find the most difficult to understand.
Possibly because there were also genuine civilian ships in the area and the captain really didn't want to sink one of those by mistake. HMS Cornwall faced the same dilemma when she encountered the Norwegian freighter Tamerlane, which duly sent out an alarm signal claiming she was being attacked by a German raider. In fact this was no freighter at all, she was the German auxilliary cruiser Pinguin, and when Cornwall closed in and fired warning shots, the German ship dropped the pretense and started firing. This time, however, the British cruiser was able to get out of the German guns' range despite suffering various electrical failures, then fired back and destroyed Pinguin with a hit on her mine storage.
 
Mark, remind us again how this was faked :)


http://www.argunners.com/expedition-to-hsk-kormoran-hmas-sydney-and-its-battle/
 
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