Naval wargaming?

[Weirdo]

Recently got ahold of several modern Dutch minis, but since Naval Command doesn't have stats for the Dutch, I'm looking at close-enough equivalents. Does this look reasonable?

De Zeven Provinciën FFGs = German Sachsen FFGs
M-class (Karel Doorman) FFGs = German Brandenburg FFGs
Karel Doorman JLSS = French Mistral BCP

I don't have any Rotterdam LPDs or Walrus SSKs yet, but I suppose I should probably also look at equivalents for them, too.

[nerd]

De Zeven Provinciën FFGs = German Sachsen FFGs

Close enough, just remeber the Dutch has a 5", and Goalkeeper rather than RAM. Also, it's only got space for one helicopter.

M-class (Karel Doorman) FFGs = German Brandenburg FFGs

Again, Goalkeeper rather than RAM, and only one helicopter.

Karel Doorman JLSS = French Mistral BCP

That works, but the Doorman is just a very different ship. It's a combination of LPD and AOR; I'm surprised the RCN hasn't built one. The main in game limitation would be the helicopter launch rate.

I don't have any Rotterdam LPDs or Walrus SSKs yet, but I suppose I should probably also look at equivalents for them, too.

Rotterdams are pretty much the same as Spanish Galicia class or British Bay class LSD-A's. The Walrus class boats could be replaced by Upholder/Victoria, Barbel, and Collins class boats. To be honest, any post Albacore SSK design could be used to represent them. Just remember, they only have 4 tubes.

[Weirdo]

A lot of that is folded into the abstraction of the game. For one thing, it doesn't bother to name what close-in weapons or SAMs you have, you simply get an anti-air/anti-missile rating, and a range for them. For example, something with decent AA might have a 5+ anti-air rating and a range of 20, but no mention of the Phalanx/Goalkeeper/Sea Sparrow/SM-whatevers that provide that rating.

Helicopter counts can be important though....do you have any suggestions for things that might fit better?

[I am Belch II]

What game is this that you are talking about. I would like to know more about it.

[nerd]

A lot of that is folded into the abstraction of the game. For one thing, it doesn't bother to name what close-in weapons or SAMs you have, you simply get an anti-air/anti-missile rating, and a range for them. For example, something with decent AA might have a 5+ anti-air rating and a range of 20, but no mention of the Phalanx/Goalkeeper/Sea Sparrow/SM-whatevers that provide that rating.

Helicopter counts can be important though....do you have any suggestions for things that might fit better?

Could you house rule the helicopters? The ships are close enough that at the abstraction you're talking about, there's no real difference.

[Weirdo]

I really try to avoid that. I'll either accept the reduced VTOL count, or dig through the lists and find something largely identi-wait.

*checks Wikipedia real quick*

Oh, you were talking about the Dutch ships only having one helicopter, not the German ones. The Naval Command stats for the German ships already have only one VTOL each, so I guess I'm good on that front. :)

(Many ships in Naval Command have reduced aviation counts, presumably for playability reasons. It is meant to be more game than simulation, after all.)

[Weirdo]

So...I'm thinking i may finally take the plunge and start collecting WWII warships. The members of my local group that do any such gaming usually play U.S. vs Japan, so for a third option I'm thinking of starting with the Royal Navy. Would anybody know of a good historical order of battle I could work towards? I'll be getting HMS Warspite because HMS Warspite, and I'm also interested in HMS Victorious and any ships of the KGV class.

Can anyone point me at a deployment or operation that involved all three of those? Theater does not matter.

[JadeHellbringer]

So...I'm thinking i may finally take the plunge and start collecting WWII warships. The members of my local group that do any such gaming usually play U.S. vs Japan, so for a third option I'm thinking of starting with the Royal Navy. Would anybody know of a good historical order of battle I could work towards? I'll be getting HMS Warspite because HMS Warspite, and I'm also interested in HMS Victorious and any ships of the KGV class.

Can anyone point me at a deployment or operation that involved all three of those? Theater does not matter.

Not all three, sadly- by the time the KGVs were getting into full service the Warspite was spending most of her time in the Med, where the KGVs didn't really end up operating. Victorious and KGV-class Prince of Wales both hunted the Bismarck, but separately... Victorious' sisters sometimes operated in the Med with Warspite against the Italian fleet (which is where I'd suggest focusing- more on that shortly)... but situations where Warspite and a KGV operated together are, to my knowledge, unheard-of.

The Med offers a better option overall though than the North Atlantic/Arctic theaters. The Italians had a pretty impressive-looking fleet that was hampered more by timid flag officers than anything else. Their lack of naval aviation was covered for by their usually operating within range of land-based options from southern Italy, and outside of Matapan they tended to give as good as they got in combat with Allied forces. Plus Italian ships, from a shelf-display standpoint, were both very handsome ships in-general and had a very unique and eye-grabbing paint scheme- striped decks, outline-breaking shapes on the hulls, etc.

The downside is that Italian ships might also be harder to find in teh scale you want to work with compared to the more 'mainstream' Japanese or American ships, so there's that.

[Weirdo]

Yeah, i was already looking at the Mediterranean. My attention was gripped by reading a nice article about one of the big Malta convoys some time ago, and there's also the fact that the OPFOR was mostly Italian - I like to bring minis to work to brighten up my desk during the day(and to keep my mind focused on painting), and the German habit of putting giant swastikas on their decks or turrets means having one of their ships on my desk in a public office...unwise.

Maybe I'll just build a Med fleet, and then buy a KGV because it's pretty.

Any idea where i can find some Med OOBs?

[JadeHellbringer]

The Swastika-on-deck thing really wasn't all that widespread- early in the war it was done to keep the Luftwaffe from bombing their own ships by mistake, but only in home waters- once out in the open they'd paint over them. Later on, they weren't done at all, as Allied planes took over the skies. (And really, if you're not comfortable painting that on the miniatures- I know I'm not- an Iron Cross is still very German-feeling without being creepy, and not too far off in shape to be 'inaccurate'.) I know Bismarck had them, and I'm pretty sure at least a couple of the Narvik destroyers did, but I haven't seen anything showing other German ships ever having had them.

OOBs... I mean, Wikipedia isn't the worst place to start, honestly, at least in terms of individual battles. An interesting 'what if' would be Matapan without the Italian cruisers being caught with their pants down. (It's an interesting engagement, if you ever wanted to know what it looks like when an otherwise-reasonable naval force gets absolutely curbstomped by an opponent!) The main problem was Italian commanders preferring to avoid combat, so you didn't end up with a major engagement between the British and Italian fleets outside of skirmishes for the most part. I suggest making your own scenarios in that regard- certainly when it comes to their heavy ships, there's not a lot of heavy action to explore historically.

[Weirdo]

Yeah, I'm mostly looking for lists of ships for guides to what i should collect. You know, X Bob-class battleships, Y Bubba-class heavy cruisers, don't get any Zs because they never served in that theater, and just get every Tilde in existence, you're gonna need them. That kinda stuff.

[JadeHellbringer]

Ahhhhhh, gotcha. So a list of what ships in the RN actually served in the Med during the war vs. a list of what the Italians actually had?

[Weirdo]

Along those lines, yeah.

[Van Gogh]

Naval-history.net can give some starting points :
https://www.naval-history.net/xGW-RNOrganisation1939-45.htm#32

at least down to the class. It should be feasible to find the exact ships at battleship and cruisers with this site:  https://www.world-war.co.uk/
while the class of the destroyers and escorts are enough to start buying minatures (Tribals, I, J, K, Hunts...).

For some reasons, I've always had a soft spot for Force H: HMS Ark Royal, HMS Renown, HMS Sheffield and F-class destroyers   :)

[Weirdo]

How many destroyers in a Flotilla?

[DoctorMonkey]

In WW1, 16 in 2 half flotillas each with a Destroyer Leader (not included in the 16) then subdivided into 4 divisions of 4


I happen to have been looking at the Battle of Jutland Order Of Battle the other day and made some notes

[DoctorMonkey]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Pacific_Fleet#Order_of_battle


there's also some details on the Mediterranean Fleet but the order of battle for that force changed an awful lot through WW2

[Weirdo]

So basically, buy every destroyer I can find, because I'll never have enough.

[DoctorMonkey]

So basically, buy every destroyer I can find, because I'll never have enough.

They were pretty disposable


By the time of WW2 in the Mediterranean it looks as though a flotilla was more like 4 destroyers and the RN mixed up different types - Tribals with J class etc

[glitterboy2098]

Yeah, I'm mostly looking for lists of ships for guides to what i should collect. You know, X Bob-class battleships, Y Bubba-class heavy cruisers, don't get any Zs because they never served in that theater, and just get every Tilde in existence, you're gonna need them. That kinda stuff.

my suggestion would be to talk to the other players and found out what standards they tend to follow themselves. are they going with hyper accurate orders of battle, indulging in what if's, or just collecting what they like? does the game system they are using have a point system or other balancing mechanism or is it a case of "just wing it"?

that'll give you a starting point to work from, and help determine how much you have to worry about research for the first purchases.

[Van Gogh]

So basically, buy every destroyer I can find, because I'll never have enough.

If you look on wikipedia the order of battle for major (and minor) engagements, it looks like destroyers were used in groups of 3, 4 or 6 around divisions of battlewagons or cruisers. Flotillas are more administrative units and units are detached from them for a variety of simultaneous missions (escort of supplies, costal convoys, picket, ASM patrols...).

[Weirdo]

That doesn't help me figure out how many individual destroyers to represent a given flotilla.

Until I find info otherwise, I'm going to go with DoctorMonkey's 4-ship flotillas.

[DoctorMonkey]

That doesn't help me figure out how many individual destroyers to represent a given flotilla.

Until I find info otherwise, I'm going to go with DoctorMonkey's 4-ship flotillas.

I am at least trying to be honest about my ignorance - Wikipedia also tells me that the 12th Destroyer Flotilla in September 1939 comprised a Destroyer Leader and 5 "private" ships. These were the ships of the E-class of destroyers from the mid 1930s with two detached.


The blurb about the E- and F-classes of destroyers points out that each class comprised 8 private ships and a destroyer leader and each made up a flotilla but in day to day operations, the forces split up with some destroyers in maintenance, sunk or detached to escort carriers or other larger ships so often the operations would have 4 or so destroyers acting as an organised unit.


The 3rd Destroyer Flotilla is listed on Wikipedia to have had 5 or 6 destroyers (one a destroyer leader) in 1945 when acting as part of the British Mediterranean Fleet.

[mdauben]

One of the other locals got me into Axis & Allies: War at Sea.  It one of the three pre-painted A&A miniatures games from a few years ago.  It a nice beer & pretzels game, rather than a hard core simulation.  OOP now but not too hard to find the minis on the second hand market.  Shapeways is also a good source of new miniatures. There's still a fairly strong community for the game and they have published stats for many new ships and planes for the game.

My friend has a cool collection of American and Japanese ships in the Pacific, so I decided to go with the Mediterranean theater.  The fact that the American and Japanese carriers are the hardest to find, and most expensive of the original miniatures from the game, was added impetus!

Now, I've got a nice collection of British, Italian and French ships.  When I was looking for what to buy, I generally did some searching online for actual OOBs from historical battles. 

[Weirdo]

I'm pretty much in the exact same situation. War at Sea is the game in question, and like you, my buddies mostly go for U.S. or Japanese, so i want to go Med.

Smaller ships are still pretty cheap, so i think I'm most likely to get WaS minis for those, and go for Shapeways for capital ships.

[Weirdo]

Got Post Captain in the mail yesterday (Age of Sail, focused on single ship or squadron actions), and like many historical games, it peppers the rules with quotations from famous figures for flavor. My favorite thus far:


Englishman: "You French fight for money, while we fight for honour."
Capt. R. Surcouf: "A man fights for what he lacks most."



(Also, all the tactical advice and historical asides are in Americanized Scottish.)

[Daryk]

The French won that exchange, but I bet they lost the battle...

[Weirdo]

My group played a game of Naval Command yesterday, which turned out really fun. The scenario was an island assault, Marine Nationale vs PLAN. Each fleet was 2000 points, with no ships launched after 1980, and the objective was to land more ground troops on two islands in the center of the table than the other side. The French fleet was centered around an Ouragan LPD, escorted by a Colbert CG and two Tourville FFGs, with an Agosta SS to round things out. The Chinese group was centered around two Type-72 Yukan LHAs, escorted by a Sovremenny DDG, two Type-53H FFGs, and one Type-37 Hainan.






I thought I had the upper hand when I detected his Sovremenny fairly early, and crippled it with a spread of Exocets from my Colbert before it could get a single Sunburn off and also secured one of the objective islands with helicopter-deployed troops, but best laid plans, and all that. I still needed to kill those Yukans before they buried the other island in troops. So I clear out the blocking Hainan, dart my Super Frelons in to lock on the lead troopship...and can't make a damage roll to save my life. Seven freaking Exocets, it took to send that thing down! All of them locked on, only one got shot down, I just couldn't sink the damned thing! All the while, it and its sister ship are spewing out landing boats. In the end, it came out a draw, with each of us in possession of one island.

This was an awesome game, with tense moments one after the other the whole time. I swear, I spent the last three turns just a die roll or two away from victory.

[I am Belch II]

nice model set. What game system are you using??

On a seperate note....people are in work with the Harpoon 4.2 rules updated for more modern naval warfare coming out soon. I personally can't wait for that.

[Weirdo]

We play Naval Command. I love the system, it captures the unique feel of modern naval engagements, but unlike other systems, it remembers that it is a game, and doesn't try to be a simulation. Lots of fun, but you don't get bogged down in details.