Into the Jaws of Death

It's the Easter holidays so time to catch up on some reading, with this optimistically titled book at the top of the reading list. I have Mike Snook's book Go Strong into the Desert, which is brilliant, so I'm looking forward to this one, especially as a source of inspiration for colonial skirmishy wargaming. Yet another use for my desert terrain or even that dusty box of plastic zulus?

Tumbling Dice British Pre-Dreadnoughts

You may be interested to know that Tumbling Dice have just added thirty two British warship packs to the 1/2400th scale Age of Battleships range. There are no pictures on the website yet but I'm sure they are just as nice as the Japanese pre-dreadnoughts I already own.

The Royal Navy packs include battleships, armoured and protected cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers. I may well get some of these instead of the Russians, to use in a fictitious Anglo-Japanese naval conflict, even if that would have been extremely unlikely to the point of being a bit daft:

http://www.tumblingdiceuk.com/product-category/12400-naval/age-of-battleships/british-abb

Schnell Rules for Schnellboote Solo Scenario

I played an enjoyable solo game of Schnell Rules for Schnellboote this morning, although I forgot to take any photos. The action involved a returning rotte of two S-38 E-Boats being intercepted by three Vosper 72'6 MTB's somewhere off the Hook of Holland c1942. I used dummy markers for both sides with an extra one thrown in to add some confusion. At the start of the game the Kriegsmarine were advancing at slow speed in line abreast from the West, while the Royal Navy were crossing the Germans T in line astern at the Eastern end of the table.

In Turn One and Two both sides approached to just outside spotting range, so nothing much happened. In Turn Three the Germans spotted the dummy MTB, which was removed from play, followed by a real MTB which was successfully 'de-cloaked'. The British then spotted all of the S Boats due to their larger size. Both sides then opened up but the range, speed and target sizes made hitting anything other than a barn door a waste of time.

In Turn Four the range closed to medium and the two forces ended up in a turning fight in the middle of  the table. At this point, with several multiple weapon mounts blazing away, I decided to reinterpret the firing rules to speed things up. I rolled one D20 to hit regardless of the number of barrels per mount firing, which seemed to make sense, but multiple D6 damage and fire risk dice, determined by the number of barrels in action. This made more sense to me than rolling individually per gun mount to hit.

In the firefight, the 20mm cannon of the S Boats were concentrated in a cross fire on MTB 76, which took a pounding to be 'Wrecked' with all gun mounts knocked out and speed plus manoeuvre reduced to medium. Luckily for the crew a fire was avoided but, nonetheless, the boat was a total write off and had to make best it's escape. The S Boat commander decided to let it go, choosing instead to hunt down the other MTB's, which had failed miserably to hit anything and were heading in the opposite direction by the end of Turn Five.

The Royal Navy had clearly decided to cut and run, realising that twin HMG's were no match for multiple 20mm cannon. As they raced for the Southern edge of the table at Very Fast speed they were persued by the S Boats, which attempted  cut them off at close range. Unfortunately, some bad dice rolling and the difficulty of hitting the very small MTB's with their foot down, meant that they were able to slip away into the darkness undamaged by the end of Turn Six.

This was a definite win for the Kriegsmarine and an embarrassing defeat for the Royal Navy, which lost one wrecked MTB without even scratching the paint work on the S Boats. In their defence, the British were outgunned and would probably have been better off avoiding contact in the first place. No wonder this was a job for the MGB's in 1942. It also highlighted the mutiple gun mount glitch, which I've resolved by reading the rules in a slightly different way. The game was good fun and gave a realistic result, despite having  to interpret the rules here and there, so I'll be setting up another one soon.

(Apologies for the lack of photos)

The Men Who Would Be Kings

With my change in jobs this year, to be an educational mercenary, I've been forced to cut back on my wargaming projects and significantly reduce my expenditure. This means that I have been looking for ways to double up or even triplicate the use of terrain, rules and figures in order to squeeze out the last drops of time, money and effort, rather than starting anything new.

The current focus has been on using my existing desert terrain as a platform for skirmish level games in both 28mm and 15mm, with an emphasis on the latter to keep the cost down. This is one reason why I've been planning the No End In Sight based project for post-war platoon level campaigning in Aden and other hot locations in the Cold War.

Today I had another idea. This would involve re-repurposing the 15mm Peter Pig colonial figures that I amassed (no exaggeration there!) for Patrols in the Sudan over a decade ago. I actually have a Madhist army for PITS and played a few games back in the day, but haven't used it for ages due to a lack of interested opponents at the club.

I do have plenty of spare figures for the British and Mahdist, however, including Hadendowah, Camel Corps, a Naval landing party, British and Egyptian infantry, artillery and some extras like heliograph teams, engineers and baggage. Quite a lot in fact. So, I thought to myself, why not use them for colonial skirmish games with Dan Mersey's The Men Who Would Be Kings rules?

It's just an idea at the moment but it would be virtually cost free and would help to reduce the lead mountain, without the need for loads of painting or vast numbers of bases. I'd like to have a crack at PITS again or possibly even Death in the Dark Continent with these figures but, as a realistic project, the skirmish option is far more likely to fit.

I'll have to dig out the figures and work it out!

More 15mm Blotz Middle Eastern mdf

I was really impressed with the Blotz 15mm middle eastern compound that I ordered a couple of weeks ago so, as it was pay day yesterday, I've ordered a wider selection from the range including some single storey buildings and a couple of the smaller walled features. I will now have enough for a proper built up area for modern skirmish games in North Africa or the Arabian Gulf, as well as other uses like near future sci-fi or AK47.

Radfan Firefight 1964

This very useful site has an excellent account of operations in the Radfan by the Parachute Regiment and Royal Marines in 1964:

https://paradata.org.uk/articles/radfan-firefight

TD Japanese Pre-Dreadnoughts: The Battleships

The Imperial Japanese Navy battleship ASAHI

As promised, here are some pre-assembly photos of a selection of the Tumbling Dice 1/2400th scale Japanese pre-dreadnoughts from the Age of Battleships range. These are the four battleships available in the ABJ range, which includes thirty packs covering most of the Japanese warships for both the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese and the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese conflict. These larger models are £3.60 each, which is expensive compared to 1/3000th scale but with the added value of greater detail. I will post some pictures of some of the Japanese armoured cruisers and light cruisers to follow the battleships, as soon as I've sorted them out of the packs.

ABJ1 Fuji

ABJ2 Shikishima

ABJ3 Asahi

ABJ4 Mikasa

Tumbling Dice Pre-Dreadnoughts

I've been slowly accumulating a small fleet of Tumbling Dice 1/2400th scale pre-dreadnoughts from the Japanese range, with a view to using them with Rory Crabb's Rise of the Battleships naval rules at some point later in the year. I promised to post a review of some of the models here on the blog but, due to real life diversions, just haven't had the time to get around to it.

The battleships and armoured cruisers are multipart models consisting of a hull with separate upper works and masts, which you need to assemble prior to painting but the light cruisers and destroyers are one piece castings. The smaller vessels including destroyers and torpedo boats are also cast with integral bases. The models themselves are well detailed, cleanly cast and require minimal clean up.

I only have a selection of the Japanese warships but they are all excellent models, if a bit on the pricey side compared to the 1/3000th scale alternative. I think they're worth it and will definitely be getting some additional ships and probably a matching Russian, French or British fleet. I have no pictures yet but will add a photo review of some of the different models over the next couple of days.

http://www.tumblingdiceuk.com/product-category/12400-naval/age-of-battleships

A Postcard from the Protectorate

I've been scouring the internet for inspirational images of Aden and the Radfan, with a focus on colour rather than black and white, of which there are plenty of photos to choose from. The range of colour images is a bit more limited but they are out there if you search around. I also discovered that the Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry were stationed in Aden in 1966, which connects very well with my existing interest in the 5th Battalion Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry of the Second World War, albeit it in a roundabout way.  It also looks like I can have at least one FV432 and a couple of Stalwarts, not to mention a Hawker Hunter FGA9 for air support...cool!

Post Colonial Platoon Plans

I've dug out my 15mm figures from the AK47 spares box and have been putting together a British platoon sized force for No End in Sight, this time with a focus on the Aden Insurgency of the early 1960's. I had done a similar thing a couple of years ago for the Indonesian Confrontation, using some stuff left over from an AK47 army that I had prepared, but then shelved the idea for a rainy day. I suppose I could do both? I like the idea of the Indonesian Confrontation with it's focus on jungle warfare bit also have plenty of existing desert terrain for Aden.

Anyway, having done some digging, I now have a selection of Peter Pig professional figures to use as the British infantry and a number of QRF vehicles including a couple of Saladin armoured cars, some Ferret scout cars, a couple of Saracen APC's and some Bedford 3 ton lorries. I think I may split these between the two campaigns so that half can go to the jungle and the other half to the desert. This means that I wouldn't have enough figures to do both, so I ordered a couple of packs of professionals in shorts for Aden (shorts being the leg wear of choice from all the photos I've seen)

I also discovered that my Wargame Vault library thingy has automatically updated my copy of No End In Sight to the second edition. Brilliant! I now have both the old versions and the new version on the hard drive, so will be reading them through to spot the difference over the weekend. The new edition does look very smooth and well-structured, so I'm sure will be really easy to use. In the meantime, I'm continuing with my coastal warfare project this month, so that I can eventually run a game at the club.