Schnellboote - Book Review

Although perhaps not as well known outside coastal forces aficionados as the Kriegsmarine’s U Boat and battleship forces, the Schnellboot force fought a long, successful and distinguished war against the Allies throughout the Second World War, earning a well-deserved reputation for excellence and dedication. Books on coastal forces are rare and, when covering the German perspective, have tended to concentrate on the boats themselves rather than the operational side. This innovative new book from Seaforth that I have just finished reading redresses the balance, offering detailed operational histories of the various Schnellboot flotillas in the Channel, Norway, the Baltic, The Mediterranean and Adriatic, and in the Black Sea. 

Looking from an operational view the coverage is necessarily high level, but particular operations of interest are covered in detail and this makes for a number of gripping stories, many almost completely unknown in English. Notable amongst these are the gun engagement of a surfaced Russian submarine carrying evacuees from the Baltic States, the blockade of Tobruk and the interception of ships and craft escaping the capture of the port by the Afrika Korps, and a mission to torpedo the wreck of the battlecruiser Gneisenau in Gotenhafen whilst it was being used as an artillery observation post by the Russians. 

Detail on the boats themselves is brief, but easy to supplement with the many technical books that are available. An interesting aspect covered in this book however are the progress of developments, refits and tactics that were developed as the war progressed. 

Covering as it does an aspect of naval operations not previously covered in an accessible form this book is an important addition to the body of coastal forces literature, and should be essential reading for anyone interested in the wars of the “Narrow Seas”. It is also particularly well written for an operational history and is quite gripping – difficult to put down once you have started!

First Game of 2016

I headed over to the Iron Acton club yesterday evening for the latest instalment of Chris Haigh's Wings of Glory campaign, We are plying mid 1916 and our RFC squadron has some experimental Nieuport 17s to play with. this of course was an excellent opportunity to give a run out to one of my N17 repaints (I managed to pick up five a couple of years ago for a fiver each, promptly repainted two as Belgians and three in RFC makings).

It was an uncharacteristically successful evening. The first scenario saw the dreaded Hun having to pick up a spy from behind our lines, with three Haberstadt fighters escorting a two seater for the pickup. With some deft manoeuvring (and having cleared my jammed machine gun) I lined up on the two seater as it was taking off after making the pickup - drew the "bang" card and blew lane and spy to ashes. Alas my Nieuport was set on fire as I made my exit but I managed a crash landing and walked away from the wreck.

In the second scenario the tables were turned as the RFC had to pick up a heroic secret agent from behind the Boche lines. The Hun obviously didn't learn from our text-book hacking of their mission as they were all over the place. Mr Bond was extracted without drama (apart from his ride suffering a  minor fire on its way in to land) and we shot down two of the enemy's scouts for no loss (although my Nieuport did take a severe pasting and my pilot was wounded).

Alas I couldn't stay for the third mission, but my spies tell me it was another glorious victory for the Royal Flying Corps. So a good start to the year, the first of many games I hope.

The Plan, 2016

As 2016 gets under way I've put together my annual 6 point plan for the next 12 months. If previous years are anything to go by this will be a good indication as to what I won't get done :)

1) River Plate at the Naval Wargames Show

I'm going to run River Plate at the next Naval Wargames Show in Gosport using the freebie NWS rules that I wrote a few years back. It'll be fought on the lawn in front of the museum using 1/600 models and the same ground scale, so that visitors can get an impression of the actual distances that these battles were fought over. So his means I need to build the models and develop the visual aids (and get some looong tape measures!). As a stretch target I'll do the same for Denmark Strait.

2) Coastal Forces

My "Action Stations" collection needs sprucing up, a load of models need to be repaired and in some cases finished, and I'd like to get some games of this in - haven't really played it for ages. And the same for Bulldogs Away, a lot of work needed to renovate my collection here, plus a whole load of "new" (i.e. bought ages ago and not done anything with) models to sort out (plus a few genuinely new models coming soon)

3) Form Line of Battle

As above, I still have a need to sort out some galleys and Xebecs for the 1/450 collection, then get in some more games of this

4) Pre-Dreadnought

Inspired by my recent RJW mini campaign, I'll sort out the various fleets and squadrons that I have had unpainted for a long while. Starting with the Chinese, then the Americans, French, Germans and Italians.  Then I'll work on the development of the DBA style rules and the campaign system with a view to either running the RJW as a PBEM campaign, or some sort of one day campaign, possibly with a hypothetical setting.

5) Burma Skirmish

Yes, I will sort this out (honest!)

6) Iron and Fire

As with FLoB, track down the unpainted models, get them finished and get some more games in! And look to formalise the ship date for the 1854/55 Baltic campaign, now that I've bought Stuart Barnes Watson's collection of ships for this.


Distractions

I'm sure there will be things that will distract me from this. I'm guessing Wings of Glory, Fire and Fury (I actually have some terrain for this that needs painting up and finishing, so being distracted by this is almost certain), the Berkeley Vale club's Roman chariot race campaign, DBA, thinking about a game for the Thornbury IPMS show and Blast Tastic etc....

2015 In Review

And so another year comes to an end. And with it the obligatory review of "the plan". I wonder how I did this time?

1) Project X - I will get phase 2 sorted out by the Summer.

"Phase 2" was to get my medieval naval rules done, dusted and published. This happened at the beginning of August so that's a "yes". I also managed to get a few scenarios written up and published as freebies, so I'm claiming 100% for this one. A good start :)

2) Engage! - I'll renovate my FASA Star Trek fleets, sort out the various unpainted ships that I have to hand and will put together stat sheets for all the models.

The BV crowd liked these rules so had a big push on this in January. Stat sheets for most of the ships in the FASA fleet books are done, but I naver managed to get started on the model renovation, nor the stat sheets for the non-FASA ships in my Star Trek collection. So this is a work in progress, but there has been considerable progress so far and I did manage to scratch build something "interesting" for a scenario (all a bit hush-hush, details when the game has been played next year). 75% on this.

3) FLoB - Yes, get those fleets renovated like I was supposed to do last year, and expand the 1/450 fleets for the Adriatic campaign (which means a few galleys needed)

Failed completely. I really do need to crack on with these flippin' galleys!

4) Burma Skirmish - I've been picking up odd bits and pieces for this for some time. 20mm "retro" gaming, going back to my wargaming roots in the 1970s and 80s. I'll put together at least a platoon's worth of troops for each side (and possibly some US as well, especially if I can track down a 20mm LVT(A) somewhere)and get some games in. "Operation Warboard" likely to be the rules in use to complete the whole retro thing :)

Slow progress - my Japanese troops were painted up early in the year and just need basing, my Aussies and Gurkhas stalled. I found some nice LVT(A)1s at a show in February for a very reasonable price, and some decent 1/72 Matildas that will support my Aussies, but still not able to get  a game in.

5) Mad Max - Inspired by the new film coming out later this year I've always had a hankering to do some sort of "road warrior" gaming. I have an idea about some rules, and there are so many handy Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars that I think will be ideal for kitbashing.

Lots of fun models made for this now. Still no rules.

6) BASF - Bolt Action Sci Fi. We've tried this a few times at BV. I have a pile of stuff to sort out for this. Fun to do.

Mostly done, although the small pile of androids and other bits & pieces I had to do in the Summer remain undone. Overall though, decent progress.

Part of the reason why things slowed down a lot in the second half of the year was that my wargaming room has relocated to my "log cabin". It is a far better setup than the "half a dining room" I had before, although its bl**dy freezing out there in the winter unless I stick the heater on. The main problem though is that I haven't managed to sort out my painting desk; a new table is required and some better lighting so that I can see what I'm doing. So "the table" will be a key element of the 2016 plan. 

Other than that there were the usual diversions, including:

Thunder Boats - Dave Schueler's hydroplane racing game which I now have set up and ready to run.

Stingray - went from a stalled project from 5 years ago to an award winning participation game in just  a few months. I was really, really pleased at how this turned out

Pre Dreadnought Naval - kicked off by thoughts of my end-of-year game, I managed to sort out some of my existing fleets and ID'd a pile of fleets to do. I expect these, especially the Chinese, will be part of the 2016 plan as well.

There were other reasons why 2015 went a bit off the rails. Some readers will know the reasons why, not for discussion here really, but for those that have helped us through the tough bits so far, many thanks. 

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.

Alpacas!

As some readers may know our place is a bit of a menagerie. Well, our six cats and seven horses have been joined by three new residents that Santa left for me last night. Introducing Nico, Pendragon and Alastair, the Alpaca trio :)

I hope all my readers had a lovely Christmas and have been blessed with wonderful and unusual presents as well.

Circus Maximus

As 2015 draws to a close the Berkeley Vale club has embarked upon another new project, Roman chariot racing. Steve brought along a decent set of card driven rules that he found on the internet and adapted them to his existing "Circus Maximus" table cloth. Add a selection of 28mm chariots and seven insane drivers and the stage was set for a fun evening. Three laps later and we had four crashes, Shaun killed as he was dragged behind his bolting team, Steve run over and killed by Andy as he swept to victory and three more crashes on the last lap.

In the end only three chariots made it intact to the finish line. Andy won a well deserved victory, I came in second and New Dave was third.

Great fun and we will be starting a league in the new year. I'd love to put together a chariot team of my own using Steve Barber's models (I'd like to include the dragged driver and "pedestrian" figures) but they seem to be unavailable. Anyone who could help in tracking down a set please get in touch!