Back to the Denmark Straits: Some GHQ WW2 Famous Adversaries

 The naval minded among you will know that today, 27 May, is the anniversary of the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck.  It seems like a fortuitous day to show off these recently completed 1/2400 naval models from GHQ.

Bismarck and Prinz Eugen:

Hard to tell which is which from this angle.   You can see how the British were confused at Denmark Strait and mistook Prinz Eugen for Bismarck, as the silhouettes are very similar.

Easier to tell them apart in this shot.  That's Bismarck on the left.

And of course their brave adversaries, including the poor doomed Hood and Prince of Wales beside her, though for some reason steaming in the opposite direction!

There's something rather sad about the fact that of these four ships, only one would survive the war.

Not much to say about the painting of these models, I start with a medium gray (Americana craft paint), then cover it with Army Painter Dark Tone wash, then a light drybrush with a light gray.    I paint the decks using Tamiya Deck Tan, and then give it a wash with Army Painter Light Tone.  The Light Tone has the added benefit of adding hints of rust to the hulls.   The bases are handcut polystyrene painted with Americana Navy Blue, drybrushed with Americana True Blue, and then stippled with light grey to give the wave effects.  The bow waves and wakes are a mixture of white craft glue and light grey paint.

Hopefully I'll find time to do a Denmark Strait matchup using the Naval Thunder WW2 rules, though in my heart I know who I want to win!   

Cheers and thanks for looking.  Blessings to your die rolls.

MP+

Some More Thoughts About a Great War Naval Campaign

Kapitän zur See Karl Von Muller, Emden's captain.

Grateful to Thomas Brandsetter, a reader of this blog, and with a cracking good blog of his own, for suggesting that I look at a YouTube video of a fantastic naval campaign, The Hunt for the Goeben,  which was great fun to watch and chock full of ideas worth stealing.  I especially liked how the GM focused it on the Goeben, but added friction between allied (French and English) forces, and also included the Austrian navy as a player.  I also admired how requiring that French troop convoys be escorted from N Africa to France added strategic constraints for the allies and possible targets for the German and Austrian players.

The 1914 campaign I'm contemplating is a little more abstract (area movement vs hex movement in the Goeben campaign) but there are allied navies (the French and Russians have several ships in the N Pacific and the Japanese may enter the war - think of the language problems), there are also allied troop convoys to be escorted, and adding Von Spee's squadron as a possible threat would keep the allies honest and give the star of the show, the Emden, some potential cover and helpful diversions of enemy hunters.

As an example of the area movement system I'm contemplating, here's a portion of the map from Avalanche Press' Cruiser Warfare, showing dispositions at the end of the Aug I turn (turns will be biweekly, two a month).  Ships can move one area a turn.

Here Emden has slipped out of Tsingtao at the start of hostilities, leaving ahead of a French and English fleet which are now blockading the German-held port; Emden's goal is to unite with Von Spee's squadron at a pre-arranged location and receive further orders.  Meanwhile, the rest of Admiral Jerram's China Squadron is keeping station in the South China Sea in case Emden tried to head south.  Unlike the Goeben game where ships move through specific hexes, the mechanic I am taking from Cruiser Warfare allows a ship or group of ships to search within an area each turn, with success after applied modifiers on a 5 or 6 on 1d6.  A "6" means that the searchers achieve surprise, rather like HMAS Sydney surprising Emden at the Cocos Islands.  I'm considering changing the mechanic slightly and using a d8 or even a d10, just to give the raiders more of a chance.

Once a ship is sighted, the next step is to determine time of day.   I think merchant ships will automatically be sighted during the day, but for encounters between hostile warships I'm thought of a d6 to determine AM or PM and a d12 to determine the hour of contact.   The next step would be a mechanism to determine the distance of the contact (close, medium, far) and that might be up to the player, eg "You see smoke of [# of ships] on the horizon, do you wish to investigate or to steer away from the smoke?".  After that it would be a matter of the relative speed of the ships, possibly limited by damage from a previous encounter or coal supplies, to see whether a fight happens.

Thinking about the time of day a fight might occur led me to investigate night-fighting according to Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts (NTCD), the rules I will be using for this campaign.  The German Navy put great stock in night fighting, and you may recall that at Jutland several British ships were mauled when they got caught in searchlights and gunfire.  In NTCD, the German player enjoys a first salvo at night, which means that a German raider might have a better chance to survive a combat if at night.

To test that proposition, I introduced two likely opponents, SMS Koenigsberg, sortieing from her starting position in East Africa, and the HMS Weymouth (below).

Both ships are light cruisers, but Weymouth has superior guns (6 inch vs 4 inch) and can take more damage (22 damage points to the German 14).  Both ships are lightly armoured, so any hit had a good chance of penetrating and causing critical damage.   Since I was pressed for time, I used the mapboard from the old Avalon Hill game Wooden Ships and Iron Men, and the counters from Avalanche's Cruiser Warfare.  I used the stats and rules from NTCD.

I played three encounters, starting at medium or close range and in all three fights the German first salvo was a definite advantage.  In the first fight, Weymouth obligingly exploded from a magazine hit before it could return fire.  In the second and third, Weymouth returned fire but also lost, though not before causing enough damage to Koenigsberg to make her future raiding career precarious.  The lesson is that while the German player should avoid battle whenever possible, a night fight offers the best chance of survival.

Next steps:  

1) keep play testing

2) write a simple set of rules and briefings for players (reach out if you're interested in a slow PBEM campaign)

3) recruit some players for a June start

4) build more model ships!

Thanks for reading and always grateful for your ideas and suggestions.

Cheers and blessings,

MP+

Swan of the East: Considering An Early WW1 Naval Campaign

 Some years back (2018 seems almost idyllic when viewed from the present) I had the good fortune to take some leave in Australia following a brief assignment at the Australian Forces Chaplain School in Canberra.  It was enough time to get to know Melbourne and Sydney and to generally fall in love with Oz.   Our hotel in the Sydney business district was beside Hyde Park, and strolling one day I came across both the Anzac Memorial and this trophy monument, a Great War naval gun.

At the time I knew enough about the Great War at Sea to recognize the name of SMS Emden, the famous German raider that gained a piratical but chivalrous reputation before being finally cornered and sunk by the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney.  This 4.1 inch (10.5cm) gun was one of several recovered from the wrecked German light cruiser and was presented to the City of Sydney in 1917.  

At the time I made a mental note to learn more about the Emden, but it had to wait for six years until I went down a hobby rabbit hole of naval gaming.   That lead me to start collecting 1/2400 scale naval models from both world wars from GHQ.  Of course at some point I was bound to order an Emden model, which is currently almost painted and nearly ready for basing.

While this and some other GHQ Great War models were on order, I picked up this book by Wes Olson when tempted by a Naval and Military Press book sale, and it did not disappoint.  

 Olson's account of Emden's brief career is gripping, and his blow by blow account of her duel with Sydney was very conflicting, as I was cheering for both sides.   Of course he tells the amazing story of how Emden's Number One, von Mucke, who was ashore on a raiding mission when the battle started, led his party across the Indian ocean in a leaky sailing boat, how they fought Bedouins in Yemen, and were finally feted when they reached friendly Constantinople.  I realized that Olson provided more than enough material and inspiration to think about a WW1 naval campaign based on the Emden's career.  But how to structure it?

I then recalled that my gaming library's shelf of shame had a small game published by Avalanche Press called Cruiser Warfare (CW).  I've played other Avalanche naval games and found the tactical system wanting, but I had a second look at CW and realized that it could give me the framework for a campaign game.  CW provides an area map for ALL THE SEVEN SEAS!, simple rules for searches, raiding, convoys, coal supplies (vital in this period and the Kriegsmarine's Achilles heal), and a complete OOB for the German raiders and for the RN and allied fleets that hunted them down.  Of course the game includes Emden:

And her nemesis:  

The objective of the campaign game for the Germans is to rack up points by commerce raiding and knock off weaker allied warships, while the Allies want to protect their convoys and run the Germans down, focusing of course on their most powerful foes, Von Spee's East Asia Squadron.  

While the whole campaign is tempting, I concluded that a simple proof of my concept would focus on the Emden, starting with the outbreak of hostilities when she was in the German colony port of Tsingtao.   Her task is to escape Tsingtao before the Royal Navy blockading force arrives, find Von Spee and receive his orders for solo raiding.   The Allied goal is to find Emden (SOS calls from merchant ships are clues to her location) and sink her before she can do too much damage.   Any encounters between Emden and allied warships will be played out on the tabletop using Naval Thunder Clash of Dreadnoughts rules, although the game will likely end with one battle, as Emden is a gallant but fragile light cruiser, and naval warfare in this period was a pretty bloody rock paper scissors affair where speed and gunnery advantages were all (as proven by the Coronel and Falklands battles where the Germans outclassed the RN and then were in turn outclassed).  

I think there's the potential for a good internet-PBEM game here, with one player playing the role of Emden's Captain Muller and other players commanding various allied squadrons in a cat and mouse game.  A more complicated game could add two more German players commanding the solo raiders Karlsruhe and Dresden, but that's too ambitious for now.

So that's the concept, and once my Holy Week obligations are over, I hope to tinker with it some more and report on Emden's progress in a test game.  Stay tuned, me hearties!

Blessings to your gaming,

MP+

Update from the Shipyards: Making Ship Bases

Lately I've been taking a break from Ancients gaming stuff to try and formulate a plan to base my growing collection of 1/2400 scale naval models, a side project that is rapidly becoming an addiction.

There's a running joke in our hobby about whether model tanks should be based (the correct answer is yes, they should) but basing ship models seems essential as they are delicate and are constantly being pushed forward, turned, etc.   I've learned this the hard way in my first two naval games.  So below is a glimpse of the shipyard and the materials I'm using.

I found these small, fairly thin clear plastic sheets from the local DIY store.  They're small, but surprisingly pricey.  Since my Olfa craft knife wasn't doing well scoring the plastic, I also purchased a cutting tool and a clamp to hold the ruler in place as a cutting guide.

Since the Naval Thunder rules I'm using don't have any basing requirements, I'm trying to establish some standard sizes that I can repeat for ship classes, so shown below are bases for a battleship (HMS Hood), for a light cruiser (RN Leander class) and a small escort (RN Flower class corvette).  Also shown on the cork and currently being painted is a WW1 RN Acasta or K class destroyer). The models are all from GHQ.  Given the current political and economic climate, I'm not happy that GHQ is a US company, but their products and service are first rate, even though the exchange rate on the poor Canadian dollar is painful.  

I am thinking of leaving the bases clear as I have a Geek Villain fleece mat with a very convincing wave pattern, but I'm leaning towards painting them, and maybe using something textured to create waves and wakes.   I also haven't yet figured out what sort of glue to use.  In past with American Civil War 1/600 scale models, I've tried glueing them on plastic bases but the glue doesn't hold for long.   Grateful for any suggestions you may have.

More photos once I get it all figured out.   And yes, since I'm painting HMS Hood, there will be a Denmark Straight game soon.  Blessings to your hobbying!  MP+

New Years River Plate Refight

Hi friends:

In January I was either sick, crazy busy, or on holiday, so catching up now. 

On New Years Day I hosted a few games, including another go at the Battle of the River Plate.   I split the three RN cruisers between my friends Conrad and David, and I ran Graf Spee and handled the game play, since I was the only one who knew the rules.

Sadly no photos of the game, as I was quite busy, but I can report that it was a decisive win for Captain Langsdorf.    As both sides closed the distance, a salvo from the Graf Spee's big guns hit Ajax.  The first shell hit the bridge, wiping out Commodore Harwood, Captain Woodhouse, and their staff, but the second shell hit a magazine and the unfortunate ship detonated and was gone.

Shocked, the British players gamely closed, scoring some hits but taking the worst of it.  Spee turned to present her full broadside, and soon Achilles was in serious trouble, listing badly and struggling to control flooding.   The pressure was now on Exeter, and she gamely fought on as turret after turret was knocked out, while scoring some hits.   With her final salvo before succumbing, Exeter scored a hit on the Spee's rudder and leaving her victorious but steaming in circles.

Would Langsdorf be able to repair his rudder before HMS Cumberland arrived?  That was a faint consolation to the RN players, now gamely clinging to wreckage, so we called it as a German victory of sorts.  I've now fought the battle twice, and the score is Kriegsmarine 1, Royal Navy 1.   An excellent scenario to introduce players to naval gaming.    We used the Naval Thunder rules and they continue to impress me.

At present I am assembling a GHQ model of Bismarck, and hoping to do the Battle of the Denmark Strait soon.   I'm quite enjoying naval gaming as a diversion.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls.  MP+

Take That You Beast Part Two! River Plate Project Progress

 Back in September I said that I was going to experiment with WW2 naval gaming, using the Battle of the River Plate as a test project.  Working relatively quickly, I've been able to get my initial order of 1/2400 ships from GHQ painted.  Here is "the Beast", the Graf Spee, sailing serenely on a Geek Villain mat.

Leander-class light cruiser:

HMS Exeter:

Commodore Harwood's squadron in search of the Graf Spee:

"I say, sir, I do believe we've found her!"  Litko splash markers.

I had a very positive experience with the Naval Thunder: Battleship Row rules by Harry Pratt, which I found for purchase as a download from Wargames Vault.  I'm grateful to Keith who runs the excellent Across the Table blog for putting me on to these rules.    Since NTBR uses a written orders and simultaneous movement system (seems to be a hallmark of naval rules!), it is not ideal for solo play, but I suspect with some more thought I could write some general battle plans for both sides with some die rolls for the commander's likely reaction as the situation evolves.  An even better solution would be an opponent!

I was only using the basic NTBR rules and found them easy enough to learn.  The d10 system provides for some unpredictability, and shooting is not easy at the larger ranges.  When a shell does hit, there is a step to assess penetration vs armour (each ship has a data card which can be printed before the game and which provides this information readily).  Penetrating hits cause damage (different shells have different damage ratings, and each hit reduces a ship's hit points) but also cause critical hits, which can be quite dramatic.   There are advanced rules for crew quality, torpedoes, aircraft, etc, but I kept the first game simple.

The RN player has to put his head down and run at the Spee to get within effective range, and this means the Spee has several turns to inflict damage, as happened in the actual fight with the crippling of Exeter.   In my game, Achilles in the lead followed by Ajax attacked on one side, while Exeter tried to get on the other side of Spee.  This gave the Germans time to hammer Achilles with 11" shells, crippling her gunnery and causing a fire.   Here we see Achilles turning away from the fight and on fire, making smoke to hide her escape.   Her brave New Zealand crew never did get the fire under control and she soon sank (more Litko markers).

However, Ajax was relatively unharmed and struck a blow, causing a fire amidships.   Spee's crew could not extinguish the fire, and it spread, detonating a secondary magazine and causing significant damage.  Captain Langsdorf was now seeking to withdraw and fight another day.  By this time, Exeter was adding her fire, though reduced because her aft turret had been knocked out.  Her first salvo missed, but a second landed two fatal hits.  The first caused flooding damage, but the second hit the main magazine (two "O"s on 2d10) and the mighty pocket battleship blew up with few survivors.

At least in this encounter, German propaganda can say that she died fighting, rather than being ignominiously scuttled!

I'm  now debating whether to mount my ships on bases, which would minimize wear and tear on the models from handling, vs leaving them as they are.  The Geek Villain seascape map is quite nice and I like the look of the models sans bases.   This requires a good ponder.   In the meantime, another order from GHQ will soon allow me to fight the Battle of the Denmark Strait, although that order is currently in limbo due to a Canada Post strike.

Thanks for reading.  Cheers, and blessings to your die rolls!