Brouhaha in the Boutte

By Bob Hoernemann & Tyler Heland

Last year Wade fulfilled every captain’s fantasy by building a pond in his back yard. All of us have this fantasy but few of us get to do it. He hosted the first battle in this fantasy pond March 14-16, 2009. Captains started to show up Friday afternoon and get ships speed tested and tweaked out. Tyler & I decided to drive down from the freezing north for some warm weather battling. We pulled into Wade’s place around 11am after driving straight down from Minnesota. Tom Palmer and Rick Whitsell had been following us on the road and arrived about an hour after we did. After we were tested Tom & Tyler did a 1on1. Tom lost his guns at the start of the battle and Tyler chased him around for 5 min getting in a few good passes with his sidemounts. Tom did not count but the score would have been a lot of holes to zero. By Friday night most of the people were in town and had been to the pond. Battle would start Saturday morning, early.

Tyler & I got up and were out at the pond before the sun was all the way up, wondering where all the other guys where. Soon others started to arrive and set up. We had an opening ceremony with Jim Walton a WWII veteran Wade met at the WWII Museum in New Orleans. Jim was in the 2^nd Marine Division and landed at Guadalcanal, Tarawa & Tinian. He was wounded on Tinian and has the rifle that shot him. Today he is still rides bike 40 miles a day and has been married to his sweetheart for 53 years. While Jim was cutting the ribbon for the opening of the pond Peter Kunish fired off his cannon, it was like a shot gun blast. This must happen a lot around Wade’s neighborhood; the cops never came by to find out what exploded at 9am. With a couple captains changing to Allied ships and some of the swing countries going on the Allied side the numbers were even enough to have an Axis/Allied battle. The first battle would have the fleets set up like this:

Allies		Axis
Bob Hoernemann	USS Washington	Dallas Fluegel	IJN Kirishima
Brian Koehler	HMS Vanguard	Dirty Dave Hanes	IJN Kongo
David Ranier	Prince Eugen	DW Fluegel	SMS VDT
Frank Falango	USSR Profintern	Jeff Lide	IJN Mutsu
Jeff Lipp	The Bike	John Stangel	DKM Scharnhorst
Pete Demitri	HMS Invincible	Kevin Kaminski	DKM Graf Spee
Randy Stiponovich	FNS Marseilles	Leif Goodson	SMS VDT
Rick King	USS Maryland	Nathanial Goodson	DKM Amd Sheer
Rick Whitsell	USS Salt Lake City	Peter Kunisch	SMS Derfflinger
Tom Palmer	USS West Virginia	Tyler Helland	SMS Derfflinger
		Jonny Adams	DKM Bismarck

Wade’s pond is about a rectangle about 150’ by 60’ with a 30’ round island in the middle. There is a small 5’ channel on one side with a bridge out to the island. The other side of the island has a 30’ channel. The tents were set up of the left side by the easiest launching point; this is the side where most of the battling took place. The first battle started with the Allies on the left and the Axis on the right. Jeff took his new Mutsu right into the Allied fleet after Bob’s Washington. After the battle he said he wanted to test his ship out. He chased the Washington around the pond taking stern guns sidemounts rounds. Leif brought his VDT onto the starboard side of Vanguard and started to fire. Tyler pulled in between the two ships to let several haymaker shots fly. The exchange on shore was even better then on the water. Leif: “Tyler I’m shoot’n him.” Tyler: “Me too” Leif: “He’s got two sides!” Tyler: “So take the other one then.” The Axis continued to concentrate on the Washington. VDT(L) took several trip salvos and latter sank with a clogged pump. The Mutsu passed her test by finishing off the Washington just to the right of the large channel. The sinkers were allowed to patch and come back into the battle. The 2^nd sorties started off with two battles both on the left side of the pond on the near shore and the far shore. The two VDTs, I-boat and Washington were playing on the far side. Fluegel and Pete were trading sidemounts to see who would sink first. DW won this battle as the I-boat dove for the shallow bottom. Maryland followed shortly after as Rick’s pump was not putting out a very strong stream leading to a lightly damaged sink. Washington and Kirishima tangled near the slot (Sounds like a historical battle). Dallas took several good stern shots then traded sidemounts with the American ship. Dallas started to run, Marseilles helped corner the Jap ship and soon she was sunk in the far corner of the pond. Jonny’s Bismarck also found bottom with a broken pump. Nathaniel’s Adm. Sheer also lost her pump and was prop washed under by the Washington. Scores for the battle were:

Allies		Above	On	Below	Sink	Axis		Above	On	Below	Sink
Bob Hoernemann	USS Washington	78	15	61	1st	Dallas Fluegel	IJN Kirishima	79	5	15	2nd
Brian Koehler	HMS Vanguard	60	3	8	1st	Dirty Dave Hanes	IJN Kongo	9	1	1
David Ranier	Prince Eugen	19	6	7		DW Fluegel	SMS VDT	50	4	4
Frank Falango	USSR Profintern	4	0	0		Jeff Lide	IJN Mutsu	90	10	18
Jeff Lipp	The Bike	10	5	6		John Stangel	DKM Scharnhorst	5	0	0
Pete Demitri	HMS Invincible	43	12	18	2nd	Kevin Kaminski	DKM Graf Spee	37	6	2	2nd
Randy Stiponovich	FNS Marseilles	2	0	0		Leif Goodson	SMS VDT	46	3	5	1st
Rick King	USS Maryland	56	5	9	2nd	Nathanial Goodson	DKM Amd Sheer	30	3	3	2nd
Rick Whitsell	USS Salt Lake City	5	0	0		Peter Kunisch	SMS Derfflinger	6	1	0
Tom Palmer	USS West Virginia	49	10	10	2nd	Tyler Helland	SMS Derfflinger	22	4	11
						Jonny Adams	DKM Bismarck	8	0	2	2nd

Since the Axis won the morning battle, the Allies lost Rick King (He took out Adm. Sheer) and the Axis gained Wade’s Bismarck Jeff decided to flip fleets. He was not asked, no one begged him to do it. He went to the CD and asked to play with the Allies. This might mean that Jeff, like Lord Vader, still has some good in his heart…or it was part of his plan to sink every ship on the water during the weekend. Wade, John & Jeff all came out for this battle in pro wrestling masks. It was funny and a little scary at the same time. Not scary that they could hurt you but scary that you hang out with guys who would do something like that. Washington & Mutsu hit the water set to sink all the Axis heavy ships in the afternoon. Mutsu went right after VDT(L), Jeff’s theory being “I’ve got two pumps. Let’s play sidemounts, you’re going to sink first.” Pete’s I-boat was the first ship lost in this battle, again with a nonfunctioning pump, a problem Pete fought all weekend. The battle was most of the Axis fleet with Washington & Mutsu spinning around taking shots at everyone. Washington emptied A turret into the Scharny. Mutsu emptied sidemounts into VDT(L). Washington had sterns for VDT(D). Fluegel got target lock on the Washington and forgot to turn on his pump and sank as he was firing sterns. He gave a startled “Oh!” as the ship went down. In most battles I drive over the sunken ship to mark the spot for the captain. Since Wade’s pond is so shallow this is not necessary, but I did it anyhow and the pretty masts of the VDT(D) got caught in my props. Fluegel pulled them out and picked up his ship. Our cameraman Lou called for some razzle dazzle from Jeff. How about some more stern sidemounts into the VDT(L) and a VDT(L) sink. As soon as Leif sank Jeff was off to the next victim sidemounting the Scharny. John’s damage control has improved greatly since I last saw him at Ritter Springs. His stern guns were rocking this weekend too. More then once we saw John rip into a ship with his trips as we chased John around the pond we stopped at a small point by a tree at the far side. John and I were running after the ships on the water. He took off and stepped right off the shore into the water. Like a veteran he is becoming he held the transmitter high and kept it out of the water. I helped him out of the water, checked for broken limbs and found only a little blood so battle was back on. I caught him against the shore and put most of B turret into his starboard side, then turned to fire with the rest of my trips. Vanguard joined the chase but neither of us had bbs left to fire. The sortie ended with John still on top of the water. Sortie two saw some friendly fire at the start of the sortie. Jeff Lipp has recently got back into ships after being gone for some time. He had The Bike out and thought that any Jap ship was a good target. His sterns were on target, but his target was Jeff. DW Fluegel came back into this battle and Jeff wanted to make sure he would sink right way. They traded sidemounts and had each emptied a gun in seconds. The Bike made up for its first mistake by tossing most of her sterns into the VDT(D). It started to rain and I saw Jeff pull out of the furball. I looked over at the island and Jeff was getting his towel set up over his radio, when he was done he dove right back into the fight. He found Tyler’s Derflinger, but was on the haymaker side. Most of the time you don’t want to be there. But Jeff has two pumps so he does not care. He traded shot for shot and moved onto the other side. After they again traded shot for shot and Tyler sank. Jeff started out after Peter’s Derflinger but when he got into position to fire found his two port guns empty. No problem, just move to the other side, but those were empty too. So I pulled up to help out with my sidemounts. We had time and went out for a 3^rd sortie. Sinkers were allowed to patch and come back in. Frank’s little Russian CL sank; again I think it was a pump problem. He went into the water to get it as we were waiting for John’s Scharny to finally go down. But she pumped out, for now. Vanguard, who had been trying to sink Scharny went out of control, beached and sank. Washington & Mutsu found Scharny in the near left corner and started the chase again. John called 5 as we started and soon was in a sandwich. He backed up with Jeff and was soon on the bottom. We chased Peter’s Derfligner on the left side of the pond until he was off five. Dallas was the only Axis with guns left on the water. I had a few bbs left and talked him into coming over to play. I had run and pumped so much that I getting low on power and should have kept my mouth shut. Dallas came over and we traded sidemounts until I sank in the channel. Scores for the battle were:

Allies		Above	On	Below	Sink	Axis		Above	On	Below	Sink
Bob Hoernemann	USS Washington	58	10	48	2nd	Dallas Fluegel	IJN Kirishima	12	2	3
Brian Koehler	HMS Vanguard	47	6	11	2nd	DW Fluegel	SMS VDT	85	4	38	1st & 2nd
David Ranier	Prince Eugen	10	2	12		Rick King	DKM Amd Sheer	13	2	0
Frank Falango	USSR Profintern	17	0	6	2nd	John Stangel	DKM Scharnhorst	62	7	35	1st & 2nd
Pete Demitri	HMS Invincible	45	5	5	1st & 2nd	Kevin Kaminski	DKM Graf Spee	29	3	2	2nd
Randy Stiponovich	FNS Marseilles	6	5	4		Leif Goodson	SMS VDT	66	8	18	1st & 2nd
Jeff Lide	IJN Mutsu	64	16	27		Nathanial Goodson	DKM Amd Sheer	6	1	0
Rick Whitsell	USS Salt Lake City	25	4	2		Peter Kunisch	SMS Derfflinger	20	7	10
Tom Palmer	USS West Virginia	42	6	16		Wade Koehn	DKM Bismarck
						Tyler Helland	SMS Derfflinger	44	10	16	2nd

Wade had reserved a room at a restaurant for us at 6pm or we would have done another battle. We all meet and had a great meal. Tyler & I ordered Poo-Boy sandwiches and were amazed to find out that Poo-Boy translated into Minnesotan means giant 12” sandwich on thick French bread. I was looking for a small meal and maybe some ice cream, this was way more then I wanted. Wade was presented with a little cannon trophy for the pond, and then we all headed back to the hotel to work on ships. Brian Lamb helped Jonny Adams work on his guns and got them all firing. Jeff was having ESC issues and worked on them during the night and into the next day. He would miss the first battle but found the problem with Dave Renier’s help. Jeff had replaced the motors in the ship but did not put caps on them. The radio interference was cutting signal to the ESC and would take a moment to regain signal.

We had the fleets split up into Flag and No Flag but since Jeff didn’t make it, we decided to do one more battle with Axis vs Allies. Brian Lamb was added in Brian Koehler’s Chester. Wade put the Bismarck away and brought out the Lutzow. Nathaniel was not feeling good and stayed out of the battle. Dave flipped fleets to the Axis side. The battle started off slow until Fluegel rammed Tyler and he had to come out and patch. The Washington caught Adm Sheer napping in the channel and was able to get in six nice sidemounts in a perfect line before the cruiser pulled away. VDT(D) & Kirishima played with the Washington for a while then the Washington left to go play with the PE in the corner of the pond. PE got caught near shore while the Washington dumped the rest of B and some of A turret into her hull. VDT(D) & Kirishima followed and chased Washington off. But the damage had been done and the PE sank. VDT(L) and Derfligner(T) found the Vanguard and put him in a sandwich. It was a nice block and shot by Tyler to help his slower teammate keep on target and also put himself in a spot to get a shot in. After a trip around the pond Kirishima came in to help Derflinger(T). Tyler was in a perfect spot to use his haymaker but it had been dinged and a bb had jammed in it. He still blocked and pushed while Dallas lined up some shots. Tyler got lined up and dumped his sterns into the big ships middle. Brian made it off his 5 and the battle came to a close. He was lucky Tyler had a bad barrel or the damage would have been a lot worse.

In the second sortie Dave brought the PE back in and it was sunk again early on. Pete sank at almost the same time in the same place. The VDTs, Kongo & Karishima all came after Washington and We Vee. Kongo caught a few sidemounts from Washington then got into the ‘Circle of Death.’ 150 or so bbs and a full 360 degrees later found Bob bidding farewell to Dirty. The Axis fleet wasn’t far behind and soon came screaming in to avenge the loss of the Kongo. Later in the sortie the Derfflinger(T) and Karishima were looking for someone to play with. The Vanguard still had a few bbs and was up to the challenge, however the haymakers of the two Battlecruisers proved to be too much and the Vanguard. Unfortunately just the tail end is captured on video. Bob was just sitting off to the side on his five so he was able to see the whole thing develop. He knew it was going to be a good one so he screamed across the pond as if he was the one about to engage in intense fighting: “Nathanial, You’re missing the action! Right Here!” Brian is obviously an experienced Vanguard captain since he drove the 40 pound ship to the shore right before he sank. As Brian went in to the water to get his boat Tyler met up with Dallas for a much deserved high five.

Allies		Above	On	Below	Sink	Axis
Bob Hoernemann	USS Washington	47	10	16		Dirty Dave Hanes	IJN Kongo	85	8	23	2nd
Brian Koehler	HMS Vanguard	105	4	10	2nd	DW Fluegel	SMS VDT	39	2	1
Frank Falango	USSR Profintern	5	1	5		Dallas Fluegel	IJN Kirishima	15	0	4
Brain Lamb	USS Chester	28	1	0		Kevin Kaminski	DKM Graf Spee	2	0	0
Pete Demitri	HMS Invincible	60	7	21	2nd	Leif Goodson	SMS VDT	74	4	9
Randy Stiponovich	FNS Marseilles	1	0	1		Peter Kunisch	SMS Derfflinger	0	0	0
Rick Whitsell	USS Salt Lake City	1	0	0		Tyler Helland	SMS Derfflinger	42	3	2
Tom Palmer	USS West Virginia	51	6	8		Jonny Adams	DKM Bismarck	45	3	4
						David Ranier	Prince Eugen	19	3	14	2nd
						Wade Koehn	DKM Lutzow	?	?	?
						Rick King	Adm Sheer	6	1	2

After a break for lunch and patch we decided it would be fun to mix up the fleets a bit. Since we typically see guys from distant regions only at NATS some of us thought it would be fun to battle with the guys we usually battle against. Fleets were:

No Flag		Flag
Bob Hoernemann	USS Washington	Dallas Fluegel	IJN Kirishima
Tyler Helland	SMS Derfflinger	Tom Palmer	USS WV
DW Fluegel	SMS VDT	Jeff Lide	IJN Mutsu
John Stangel	DKM Scharnhorst	David Ranier	Prince Eugen
Jonny Adams	DKM Tirpitz	Brian Koehler	HMS Vanguard
Randy Stiponovich	FNS Marseilles	Rick Whitsell	USS Salt Lake City
Rick King	DKM Amd Sheer	Dirty Dave Hanes	IJN Kongo
Pete Demitri	HMS Invincible	Kevin Kaminski	DKM Graf Spee
Frank Falango	USSR Profintern	Wade Koehn	DKM Lutzow

The battle started like many of the others with the sidemount ships all stern to stern towards the wide channel and the cruisers in the open water. Early in the battle, Derfflinger broke off from the battleship action to try to trap a cruiser not paying attention. Little did he know the cruisers were out to trap him. After taking several sterns he decided to make a break back to sidemount territory and rammed Lutzow on the way. Right as Lutzow turned to come in to check the ram, Salt Lake City was backing in at full speed for some more stern shots. There was a loud crack, an ooh from the crowd, and a very fast ram sink. That’s what Wade gets for building a pond and hosting a three day event. Battle resumed as Bob and Tyler continued our plan: to hang back and wait for Jeff to use all of his bbs on our teammates. Lucky for them, Jeff’s plan was to have target lock on Fluegel. Even luckier for them, Fleugel’s plan was to have target lock on Jeff. Just as Derfflinger and Mutsu were about to play sidemounts, VDT flew between the two ships to absorb some more damage. Vanguard joined the fun to form a VDT sandwich with Mutsu. Washington not wanting to be left out also joined in on the starboard side of Vanguard to form a double sandwich. As the those two ships backed up side by side to break up the quadruple sandwich Derfflinger came flying in with haymaker blazing to form another sandwich. It was a delicious three course lunch of a Whopper, Dagwood, and a Big Mac served with a side of bbs. It may have even rivaled the Poo-Boy. Meanwhile the rest of the fleet was serving up a nasty little lunch of their own and Dirty was left with the check. Kongo was the first combat sink of the battle. A few skirmishes later, Invincible found its way to the bottom. Except for those last few friendly fire salvos from Washington she earned it. Jeff soon called five and the chase began. Derfflinger, Washington, Scharnhorst, VDT, and Marseilles split up into two groups to chase Mutsu and Kirishima around the island and try to trap her in one of the channels. To everyone’s disappointment, the Mutsu was never pinned down. The master plan would have to be stretched into the second sortie.

Though they were encouraged to repair and come back in, Kongo and Invincible would sit the second sortie out due to ship systems failures. As the sortie started battle lines were again formed in the wide channel. A few exchanges later found VDT pumping hard and retreating for her last stand in the slot. And what a last stand it was. Once in position VDT went sidemount for sidemount with Mutsu. After much haymaking VDT went down and Washington came in just a little too late to sway that battle. Though Fleugel was a little disappointed to be ‘that guy’ he claimed to have done his part for this battle by sucking up most of Jeff’s bbs. The time had come for the final showdown. Of course it started with a bit of taunting. Then Mutsu ate several consecutive triple stern shots from Washington. Just as the two ships came together the Derfflinger swooped in with haymaker to this time make a Mutsu sandwich. Derfflinger emptied her full 75 round haymaker, Washington nearly emptied B-turret, and two Mutsu pump streams lit off. There was some more side mounts exchanged until Washington became hung up near shore and Mutsu limped away with significant damage. In retrospect, this was Tyler’s all time favorite 60 seconds of battling ever. Had it been anyone besides Jeff in the middle it might not have been so fun. The battle ended when Jeff went on five and everyone else was too shot up to chase him very hard. Some of the remaining ships ended up trying to join in the one on one that had been going on in a distant corner of the pond between Dallas and Johnny. Scores were:

Flag		Above	On	Below	Sink	No Flag		Above	On	Below	Sink
Jeff Lide	IJN Mutsu	100	18	37		Tyler Helland	SMS Derfflinger	23	4	9
Brian Koehler	HMS Vanguard	33	8	19	1st & 2nd	Bob Hoernemann	USS Washington	11	3	17
Dallas Fluegel	IJN Kirishima	23	8	18		Frank Falango	USSR Profintern	2	0	0
Kevin Kaminski	DKM Graf Spee	31	6	11		DW Fluegel	SMS VDT	48	10	27	2nd
Rick Whitsell	USS Salt Lake City	18	0	1		Jonny Adams	DKM Bismarck	56	4	7
Tom Palmer	USS West Virginia	19	2	1		John Stangel	DKM Scharnhorst	110	14	32
David Ranier	Prince Eugen	?	?	?		Pete Demitri	HMS Invincible	12	3	16	1st
Dirty Dave Hanes	IJN Kongo	?	?	?	1st	Randy Stiponovich	FNS Marseilles	1	1	1
Wade Koehn	DKM Lutzow	?	?	?		Rick King	Adm Sheer	11	0	0

Since it was early enough in the day, we decided we could fit in a third battle, same Flag/No Flag fleets as before. When battle was called Tom Palmer’s WV was lined up right on the Washington. He gave him a few good ones before Bob realized he had called battle without looking at his ship and scooted out of range. Bob’s only comment was: “Just like a Royal’s fan.” Lines would form and quickly break down as one of the battleships came flying in. It was quickly becoming a melee. Scharny made a run in and ended up with two Jap boats looking to get some sidemounts on target. The Mutsu and Kirishima got some licks in but the Scharny got away. Next the two Japs came for Derfflinger and were able to briefly trap her next to shore. After a few holes the Derfflinger was able to wiggle out and head to open water. Washington, Derflinger and Scharny all tag teamed Mutsu for the rest of the battle. Jeff bounced between all of them taking shots from each. John & Bob poured many salvoes of trips into his hull to go with the sidemounts each was trading. After all this you would think the Mutsu would be pumping harder but he was not. After Jeff & Bob got done tossing sidemounts at each other Jeff called 5 and started another run around the island. Tyler & Bob decided to put the rest of their bbs into the We Vee, since it was slower. Too bad he only had 17 seconds left on his 5 and made it off without future damage. Back to the Japs in the far right corner. It’s not really possible to sneak up on someone in this pond but Jeff and Dallas stayed in the corner until we got there. The Washington and Derflinger converged on Kirishima, Bob got 2 B turret bbs off before Dallas backed away. Tyler got the last 10 haymakers into the other side. John was also on the scene tossing shots at Jeff. With the last of the bbs spent everyone pulled their ships to get ready for the next sortie.

The 6^th sortie of the day started with Mutsu jumping back on the Scharny for a good stern sidemount pass. Rick W. and Kevin worked over Jonny’s Bismarck with their cruisers in several early passes. Dallas and Jeff came by to help them out until John’s Scharny lost propulsion on a 5 out of control. The Washington and Derflinger where there to attack the attackers but Dallas did a nice job of keeping them off of Jeff while he worked over Scharny. Tom brought the We Vee in for some tasty eats too. In the mean time Jonny’s Bismarck also lost control. Dallas was making hay as fast as he could. He left a quarter sized hole right above the waterline making for a perfect camera shot. Jonny Adams you just got You-Tubed! Dallas needs to work on making that hole below the waterline, so the ships sink faster. The Bismarck floated down the shore with Derflinger and Washington as cover. Kirishima got in a bad spot and took most of Tyler’s A turret. If the video was a little better we could say Dallas you just got You-Tubed! The cameraman was too busy getting the sink to follow the shots. We need more cameras. After Jonny got his big ship out of the water Jeff chased Tyler along the shore and took a nice batch of stern sidemounts. Bob came along the other side and put some more holes into his hull. Tyler’s pour hull skin had him in no shape to chase Jeff. Bob pulled back to help out his northern brother when he picked up two cruisers and a We Vee trying to finish him off when it looked like he might also go down. Tyler pumped out and started to fight back. We Vee took a few more holes and Bob hit Rick W’s SLC from a distance to keep him off the big ships. The Washington started the chase across the pond and around in circles putting a few more holes into the We Vee at each turn. The French even came to help as a blocker/speed bump. Tyler limped over and stopped Tom in a perfect spot for some trips and sides from the Washington. The We Vee was pumping hard, Mutsu and Lutzow tried to keep the Washington away but the damage was too much and she slipped under the waves.

Flag		Above	On	Below	Sink	No Flag		Above	On	Below	Sink
Jeff Lide	IJN Mutsu	58	22	26		Tyler Helland	SMS Derfflinger	30	7	3
Brian Koehler	USS Chester	0	0	2		Bob Hoernemann	USS Washington	53	15	16
Dallas Fluegel	IJN Kirishima	21	8	14		Jonny Adams	DKM Bismarck	91	3	19	2nd
Kevin Kaminski	DKM Graf Spee	13	2	0		John Stangel	DKM Scharnhorst	60	7	23	2nd
Rick Whitsell	USS Salt Lake City	21	0	0		Randy Stiponovich	FNS Marseilles	2	2	2
Tom Palmer	USS West Virginia	77	8	18	2nd	Rick King	Adm Sheer	0	0	0

We had planed to meet at a Chinese Buffet down the street from the hotel. Tyler & I arrived to find that it was closed. So was the Mexican place next door. We called Tom and headed over to their hotel. The group was starting to gather, but there was no sign of Wade. He was up in the Fluegel room watching the last scene Saving Private Ryan. When I told him about the closed restaurants he said he knew of another one. We piled into 4 cars and headed out. The first place we went to was also closed, so was the 2^nd one. Does no one in this town eat out on Sunday night? Wade stumbled upon a place that was open and all 14 of us went inside. The food was very good. Wade got some local specialties for appetizers we were able to try. Only Dallas did not get his fill, but he found some left overs from a couple not so hungry captains to make him happy, “Hey you going to eat that?” Since we were a party larger then six they would only give us one bill. We tried to get several people to pay for it all, but had to spend 10 minuets adding it all up.

Monday morning saw a few more captains leave to head home or drop out with ship problems. We made up some new fleets, kind of like the old ones but this time Jeff wanted to battle with Tyler since he did not get too this weekend; except in the first two Saturday battles. Makes you wonder if anyone really battles with Jeff or just battles around him. Fleets were:

No Flag		Flag
Bob Hoernemann	USS Washington	Tom Palmer	USS West Virginia
David Ranier	Prince Eugen	Jeff Lide	IJN Mutsu
Frank Falango	USSR Profintern	Rick Whitsell	USS Salt Lake City
Randy Stiponovich	FNS Marseilles	Kevin Kaminski	SMS Derfflinger
Dallas Fluegel	IJN Kirishima	Rick King	DKM Amd Sheer
DW Fluegel	SMS VDT	Tyler Helland	SMS Derfflinger
John Stangel	DKM Scharnhorst	Jonny Adams	DKM Bismarck

The first sortie started out with Dallas vs Tyler and Bob vs Jeff. After a little of this Bob broke off to play with Kevin’s new toy. On Saturday he bought Peter’s pretty Derflinger and was taking it out for his first battle with sidemounts, well one sidemount. Washington made two long sidemount passes and moved back into the Jeff zone. She swung her sterns around and made some shots then trade bow sidemounts with Derflinger, just like at home, but 19 hours farther south. After that Bob went on 5 and Tyler traded Haymakers with Dallas, but ran out of those too. Kevin’s new Derflinger was not pumping out a lot of water and he sank. Not too much latter Jeff tossed a few more shots into a hurting VDT and Fluegel soon found the bottom again.

Right before the last sortie Tyler was standing next to Jeff discussing who the target should be. Tyler: “I was thinking that since Dallas was coming for me before he probably will do it again. I think I will stay and fight it out with him.” Jeff: “Here’s how I look at it. You are going to have a long ride in the car with Bob all the way back to Minnesota. Why don’t you come and sink Bob with me? Wouldn’t it be nice to remind him the whole way home how we sank him?”

They had to go look for Bob. He was busy testing out the Bismarck’s pump. The two big ships spun around the left side of the pond trading shots. The Derflinger with it’s pour hull skin could hardly move without sinking herself. The Washington came in a put some prop wash into the turrets and it started to look bad. The Bismarck rolled over and sank just before the Derflinger. Jeff was still set on sinking the Washington again and chased Bob until he was out of trips. Jeff even asked as he was getting shot. “How many more of those have you got left?” Not too many it turned out. Since it was the last battle it was time to play sidemounts. Jeff got the Washington next to shore and poured a full mag into the bow. Leaving a large hole. Bob sank soon after. Scores were:

Flag		Above	On	Below	Sink	No Flag		Above	On	Below	Sink
Jeff Lide	IJN Mutsu	87	4	1		Bob Hoernemann	USS Washington	70	19	60	2nd
Rick King	Adm Sheer	6	0	0		DW Fluegel	SMS VDT	33	7	15	1st
Tyler Helland	SMS Derfflinger	47	8	10	2nd	John Stangel	DKM Scharnhorst	23	3	17
Kevin Kaminski	SMS Derfflinger	30	4	9	1st	Randy Stiponovich	FNS Marseilles	5	1	4
Rick Whitsell	USS Salt Lake City	0	0	0	1st	David Ranier	Prince Eugen	11	2	10	1st
Jonny Adams	DKM Bismarck	64	7	18	2nd	Frank Falango	USSR Profintern	8	0	3
Tom Palmer	USS West Virginia	51	4	3		Dallas Fluegel	IJN Kirishima	15	12	20

It was a great end to a fun filled weekend. Wade awarded the Kaiser Cup to the Axis Admiral DW Fluegel while his right hand made got the bubbly ready. We can’t wait until next year.