Splendid Little War

My latest Wargame Vault production has finally hit the streets after a busy few weeks getting the finishing touches in place. "Splendid Little War" covers the Spanish American War of 1898, and features a short history of the war, a campaign system covering both the Caribbean and the Philippines, and my "Broadside and Salvo" pre-dreadnought rules. The set comprises a 60 page book, A3 copies of the campaign area maps, ship counters for US, Spanish and other nations vessels, and a set of patrol/blockade counters for use on the campaign maps. The approach is based on my earlier "White Bear Red Sun" campaign pack for the Russo Japanese War, but builds on that system in a  number of areas.

Astute readers will be aware that the war at sea ended up being something of a one sided affair due to the poor material state of much of the Spanish fleet, so the campaign allows players to work with the Spaniards as they should have been with well maintained ships and operational weapons, as well as the historical state of poorly maintained ships with inoperable weapons (and in some cases, main armament not even fitted). For added fun there are options to allow British, German and other European national interventions, so plenty of scope for some unusual actions in a historical setting.

I'm rather pleased at how this one has turned out. And it gave me the ideal excuse to spruce up my US pre-dreads and splurge on some of the lovely WTJ 3D printed models!

Splendid Little War can be found here:

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/226986/Splendid-Little-War

International Naval Wargaming Day 2017

So, today is the inaugural International Naval Wargaming Day (INWD), and throughout the day I've been seeing posts, emails and FB messages about games going on across the UK, Europe, North America and Australia (there is even an INWD game happening in Saudi Arabia!).  So we seem to have got this event off to a good start. To all naval wargamers observing Fred T Janes' birthday and this international virtual gathering, I salute you!

For my own part I'd hoped to be playing two games but fate intervened and I have only managed the one, but it was a jolly good bash. The battle was based loosely around the Battle of the Yellow Sea, August 10th 1904. In this action a Russian force of battleships under Admiral Vitgeft, with escorting protected cruisers and destroyers, is attempting to escape from Port Arthur and reach the more defensible haven of Vladivostok. In their way is a Japanese force of battleships and armoured cruisers under Admiral Togo, with a squadron of obsolete battleships, protected cruisers and destroyers. The Russians aim is to exit as many of the battleships off the right hand side of the table as they can.

Starting point - Russians to the left (west, Japanese to the right (East) 

Vitgeft's Russian squadron

Togo's opposing Japanese fleet

The Japanese battle line, Mikasa in the lead

Vitgeft's heavies - Tsesarevich leading

The fleets close, Japanese light forces to the South, the obsolete battleships closing with Encounter Rock

The fleets turn to the South, Vitgeft's light forces move to the unengaged side 

Initially the two battle lines headed on southerly courses to intersect South of Encounter Rock. An early mistake on the part of the commander of the obsolete battleships put them in range of the Russian battle line, the old ships suffering badly. Slowed and separated from Togo's main force, they struggled to escape to the North. The battle lines soon joined,the Japanese heading parallel and south of the Russians aiming to cross their T. Avoiding this, the Russians took a risk in executing a sharp turn to the East, which could have exposed them to concentrated close range Japanese fire, but luck was with them as Togo's battleship was hit hard, suffered an underwater critical hit and this threw the Japanese intended reaction out of kilter. With the Japanese trying to regain control the Russians swept to the East and opened up a lead in the rush to the eastern table edge. Wrong-footed, the Japanese turn came late which meant they spend the rest of the game playing catch-up. A destroyer attack on the head of the Russian line failed to appreciably slow the Russians; a similar attack on the Japanese line also failed, but accurate gunnery concentrated on Togo's flagship caused Mikasa to drop out of line for more repairs.

The "run to the South" continues -  the obsolete BBs find themselves the unwelcome recipients of a flurry of high calibre shells

Ouch! - red markers indicate a ship that has taken damage, black shows a ship that is Silenced (very heavy damage, unable to fire, slowed)

The battle lines come into range, the obsolete Japanese BBs run (crawl?) for safety

Vitgeft makes an unexpected turn to the East, his leading ships take concentrated fore from the Japanese battleships

The Mikasa also takes fire...

...and the next turn is Silenced

Togo's following battleships also take hits (green markers show a ship that is under fire which affects its own gunnery temporarily)

As Togo loses control the Russians sweep past

Togo recovers control, but the Russians are past

The Russian rush for safety brings them back in contact with the obsolete battleships. Meanwhile the Japanese destroyers move in to attack in an attempt to slow the Russian line

A shift of focus as your intrepid war photographer moves to the Eastern side of the table. Destroyer attacks have gone in on the heads of both lines, and both flagships suffer heavy damage

Both admirals concentrate on getting their flagships operational, whilst the training Russian ships trade shots with the Japanese battleships behind them

alas at this point the photographer ran out of film (or more accurately, battery) so this brought the photographic record to an end...

As the Russian battleships headed for safety the leading Japanese battleships now landed a heavy blow to the trailing Russian battleship Peresviet, which was crippled and stopped. To turn and try to help the crippled battleship would lead to inevitable disaster so the Peresviet was left to her fate. Vitgeft and his damaged but still seaworthy battleships and cruisers would eventually make the safety of Vladivostok.

So, a Russian victory with some lucky breaks - plus avoiding the death of their Admiral which doomed the Russians in the actual battle and caused them to return to Port Arthur.

Pre-Dread Plan Continues

The pre-dreadnought element of the 2016 plan continues apace. This week I've managed to get my German squadron sorted out (four battleships, four armoured cruisers, two protected cruisers) and the worktop currently has a mixed bag close to completion (two British armoured cruisers, three Italian ACs and a PC, two Chinese cruisers that I missed last week, a Greek cruiser and two French battleships). Next up will probably be my Turks and a host of generic torpedo boat destroyers.

On other fronts I've just about managed to get the next edition of Battlefleet completed for the NWS. This will also be my last as editor, a volunteer having come forward to take over. I wouldn't be surprised if I pick up the job again at some point in the future but not for a good number of years.

With Battlefleet done and dusted the only other big planning activity I have on now (apart from a "special project") is the Naval Wargames Show in Gsport, July 2nd and 3rd. There'll be more on this later, but we are shaping up to have another good selection of games there this year :)

Chinese Steam Navy in 1/3000

Part of "The Plan" for 2016 is to sort out my 1/3000 pre-dreadnought fleets and to get some games in (plans are developing for a Summer weekend campaign...). The first task here was to fix up my US ships, some of which needed finishing after being started three years ago. But the first "big" job was to sort out the Chinese. Navwar brought out three Chinese fleet packs, two of which covered the period up until the Sino Japanese War. I bought these when they were first released which must be at least a dozen years ago, maybe more. So a week or so back I started prepping and assembling them. Many of the models come with masts and sails so they are a bit tricky in 1/3000 - more than one has now been modelled with a "reduced rig" - and most of the ships needed that addition of masts and fighting tops to give them a pre authentic pre-1900 look. So a lot of time spent with a hand drill, pins and clippers sorting those out.

Painting was completed during the week and this afternoon I finished basing them up, so I now have a rather large (in terms of numbers) Chinese fleet ready to square off against my Japanese. Alas no photos as its really gloomy here at the moment, but to provide at least some pictorial input here's an illustration of one of the Chinese battleships.

With the Chinese done its back to the European powers for the next squadron, could that be the Kaiser's fleet hoving into view?.......

Russo Japanese

I decided to end my wargaming year with an inaugural "big" naval game in the log cabin with some of my old NWS chums. Tim,. Peter and Stuart came over yesterday to try out my Russo Japanese mini campaign and a modified set of the old "DBN" rules that were published in Wargames Illustrated many, many years ago. The first challenge was finding my 1/3000 pre-dreadnought collection - I recall having all the ships for the campaign down to protected cruisers, but some seem to have gone AWOL over the years so some French proxies were brought in to fight on each side and a few ships had to "double up" for sisters.

I never expected to get all that many turns in - we didn't start until nearly eleven and ENDEX was at 1600 (plus we had a very nice pub lunch at the George over the river which took up quite a bit of time). In the end we managed two (out of a maximum of 40!)

In turn 1 the Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur was detected before it went in and the Japanese decided to withdraw. The Russians decided from the outset to go for an aggressive strategy which saw the entire Port Arthur fleet sail to contest sea control in the Tsushima Straits (a few protected cruisers stayed behind to shell Japanese troops at some of the minor ports in Korea). The Russian move coincided with the first large Japanese troop convoy sailing from Sasabo, which was given a very heavy escort (the entire Japanese battleship and armoured cruiser force, plus a number of protected cruisers).  Ineviatbly the two forces clashed and Tsushima happened early, although in this case it was the Japanese who came of worse, losing four battleships to two Russian losses. The cruiser fleets of both sides were savaged and the Russians lost a number of destroyers. However the convoy escaped and returned to Sasebo.

Outset of the February 1904 Battle of Tsushima, as seen from the Japanese side. The armoured cruisers are deploying to the east, the battleships to the west. In the end the battle effectively split into two separate actions as each sides battleships and cruisers headed away from each other and squared up against their opposite numbers. 

Turn 2 saw another attempt by the Japanese to get their troops to Korea. This time they assembled just about any warship that could float and sent them along as escort. They encountered a patrolling force comprising their three undamaged battleships (ships hit in actions are required to remain in port for repairs on at least the following campaign turn) and a handful of cruisers and destroyers. The Russians, clearly intoxicated by their earlier victory, steamed in to the attack, but numbers tell and the battleships succumbed to a hail of gunfire from the Japanese armoured cruisers and a skillfully delivered series of torpedo attacks. All three Russian battleships were sunk, he surviving lighter ships making a swift escape to Port Arthur. The Russian commander later cursed his aggressive approach and agreed that letting the convoy through, given the size of he escort, would have been prudent

In little more than a month of "real time" both sides were fought practically to a standstill as far as major warships were concerned, the Russians reduced to three operational battleships, the Japanese to two. The rest of the war, had we played on, would have been much more subdued as the players realised the need to play the "long game", the benefits of basing out of multiple ports, covering their strategic objectives and gaining a better understanding as to how the area movement and sea control system would help them.

The rules themselves worked fine, as always the post-action discussion revealed a few areas where clarifications were needed and where rule tweaks would help, and so a revision was duly typed up in the small hours. But what we did establish was that the campaign and tactical rules did provide for a fun and relatively fast campaign system, easily adaptable to other pre-dreadnought theatres of operation, and well suited to a weekend or an occasional evening campaign.