1st November 1914, off the Coronel

Last week we decided to go for a Naval Thunder scenario (it was a scenario from Station Manned and Ready, indeed... but we recycled it for NT). Usually when we play Naval Thunder, we like to put on table as many ship as we can, both for sake of painting glory and for letting more people to join us. Therefore, we often play Jutland-like battles, lasting 4 or 5 hours and usually with uncertain results (a part a lot of fun!).
With this small scenario, we gave a new deal to our naval warfare. Infact, it involves no more then 4 vassels per side, with the biggest ones being Armoured Cruisers.

Here come a brief description of the events introducing this scenario:
1st November 1914, The German Pacific Squadron under Admiral Von Spee was cruising carrying out commerce raids at the start of the First World War. The British, French and Japanese had squadrons searching for him at the start of the war, reminiscent of the search for the ship bearing his name at the start of the Second World War. The British squadron under Cradock intercepted him off the coast of Chile, and
after a one sided fight, the British Cruisers were annihilated.

as you can read, it was a one side action, with the British best achievement being surviving...
I suggested some victory conditions in order to equilibrate it a little bit. I've arranged a long table (2 mt long, 1,5 wide) with the Royal Navy starting on left side when the Hochseeflotte tries to intercept them from the middle of the table (so, it would roughly be as the RN was bearing westward and the germans came from north side of the table).
The brits would gain a victory point each ship they can bring out of the table from west end, 2 point if they do so with the slow armed merchantman (the Otranto), but they can get 2 victory point if the expose themselves to the more powerful german guns and get to sunk an enemy ship.
From other side, germans will get 1 victory point each british ship they'll sink and 2 points if they sink the Otranto.

With this in mind, let's review the forces on the water:
Royal Navy:
AC HMS Good Hope a decent AC, with 9" guns
AC HMS Monmouth (proxed with AC Warrior) a very light AC, with only 6" and 3" guns on it...
CL Glasgow (proxed with CL Bristol)
AMC Otranto (proxed with CL Aurora) slow and heavy ship, but with a good resistance to hits...

Hochseeflotte
AC Scharnhorst,
AC Gneisenau
CL Leipzig
CL Nürnberg
CL Dresden
CL Emden (as this last cruisers arrived only in the last part of the battle, we omitted it in this scenario)

The game was fun, with a lot of evasive manouvres, smoke curtains layered to cover slow ships, some big bangs from both sides, with the brits which nearly escaped the germans. Nearly. Germans lost 2 small CLs, and an AC, but have sunk almost everything on the table, apart of the merchantman, which was still afloat but, as it had lost almost every ship from his escort, she lowered her colours...

 

the British choose a convoy formation, bearing WSW

a close-up to the convoy, with CL performing an evasive manouver, trying to keep formation with the slow and encoumbered Otranto.

 Germans advance with a double line formation, full speed.

The german, after having succesfully intercept the british ships, but having suffered badly from 9" guns of Good Hope, performed a cleaver screening of the nearly sunk AC on the right. In the meanwhile, the Monmouth keep suffering from two fires on the bridge and a flooding...

 

 Hey, what a good paint job on the Good Hope's sea base here... I'm proud! and it is my favourite ship too!

here below the nasty germans from Werther collection

the Magdeburg is showing some secondary damages on the superstructures...

Yom Kippur (1) - Israeli armoured brigade

As you know (or, if you don't, you should!), I'm going on a quite new project involving the gorgeous 1/285 micro armor models from GHQ: a tabletop refight of 1973 Yom Kippur war on sinai.

I really can't spend enough words on the minis. They are perfect. much more detailed of several 15mm equivalent I've here around.

Crisp, well proportioned, a lot of stunning details. If I really have to point out some cons, I can only regret about the barrels of both guns and mgs. They easily bent and it's difficult to keep them in a straight shape.

But it's a minimal problem against a lot of pros.

Painting these model is a very fun experience. It's a quick and rewarding job. Only decals are extremely annoying. So tiny and fiddling you cannot even spot them against the blue paper they are presented on. And after few second in the water, you have to handle them with care or you'll lose them on your finger.

Anyway, soon after completing these, I've ordered many more models from Magister Militum. I'm definetly IN micro armor syndrome.

here come the models:

a couple of M60A1 (or Magach 6 for IDF) companies in 1:3 scale as per Fistuful of Tows3 rules.

And now some M113 for a mechanized battallion:

enjoy!

Ships of the line (1)

I'm sorry for such late in updating this blog, but I've got some issues with my camera. It refuses to take good picture of my minis. It was just keeping transforming a lovely painted piece of art in a kind of blurry-shiny-wrong lined piece of something… I nearly gave up.

Almost…

Actually, I'm more than happy with results of my new S4 integrated camera so I can keep this blog on his way…

New topic: 1:1200 ship of the line from the wonderful Langton miniatures production…

In a couple of years I managed to finish just a couple of them, more due to my own laziness than complexity.

Here comes some pics form a late stage of work on it. I've already painted every part of it with a suitable paint scheme for the period (a lot of research in it, even if there are just a fistful of different patterns and colours from which you can choose… but, alas, I'm a damn button counter…)

As you can see, as Langton ships come with photo-etched brass sails, I've painted them still on their sprue. It's easier than doing it on the model.

Soon you'll get the completed model pictures. Stay tuned.

By the way, at The Club, we are considering doing Trafalgar with these small beauties and we are, compulsively, buying GHQ, Langton and other manufactures' ships for this project. 

We think to give a try to the WH Historical's Trafalgar ruleset, as it is known for being a very enjoyable game, but I'd like to give a try to Kiss me Hardy from Too Fat Lardies as well.

WAR SHORES

Last friday night at The Club we enjoyed a very though naval engagement, between my British Home Fleet and W.'s Hochseeflotte...
We did it with Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts (http://navalthunder.com/), a ruleset we really like for WWI sea wargaming, and GHQ 1/2400 micronauts range (and I really do not have to tell you how beautiful are these models).
It is amazing to see how fluid and challenging could be a naval battle with miniatures.
we started on the short end of our sea table, 2 division each side, mine formed by a battleships division (BB Queen Elizabeth, Ajax and the old and slow King Edward VII) supported by 3 Light Cruisers (CL Waymounth, Bristol and Aurora) and a Battlecuisers division formed by 3 Battlecruisers (BC Lion, Tiger and Inflexible) flanked by a single Armoured Cruiser (Good Hope) and a Destroyers Flottilla. on the other side the Huns fielded 2 Battleship, 3 Battlecruisers, 3 Lightcruisers and 2 Flottillas of Destroyers.
Then we had 2 fast turns of manouvering in order to achive a good firing angle, and after another turn to close the ranges, we started to hammering targets with steel...
In a naval wargame you have to consider a lot of factor when moving your units: formation and division's coherence, firing ranges and target bearing. Not last you have to keep and eye opened every move to avoid torpedoes... and that was our game. Simultaneously planned moves, trying to keep targets under range with as many turrets was possible and trying to guess were those damned destroyers were heading to.
The outcome, after 3-4 hours of funny hits and miss on the Critical Hit table, was... well... unsatisfactory. but quite historical too: a Draw. a lot of minor unit losts (I've lost my destroyers and most of my light cruisers and, on the other side, both destroyer's flottillase were sunk and only a single cruiser could head home safely) but all the main units were sailing home safely (with some scratches...).
I do not count this result as a fault in the rules. they are clever and well written, fun, simple to manage and to play, with a lot (really a lot) of suspence on each "critical hit" roll and they are absoluting more on the simulation side, with a lot of details to consider when moving or firing... (the only minus, IMHO, is the 90° turning angle... I really cannot swallow it).
The problem is hidden in the period.
During WWI, sea battles were maily draws, ending with both sides performing "strategical withdrawals". So, with these rules simulating so neatly every (or almost every) factor of a WWI naval engagement, you have to consider as a major victory when you can blow up a capital ship or a new Battlecruiser, a draw when both fleets head home with all the big ships still afloat.
Maybe, WWI naval wargaming can be fully enjoyed only with a campaign setted, where you have to consider each loss on a prospective.