The Flower: In a Class of its Own

One of the most attractive models in the current expansion for War at Sea: Flank Speed is the small Flower Class Corvette. Obviously not as glamorous as the headline-stealing battleships and cruisers; nor having the dashing thrust of the destroyer, the Flower class corvette is in my opinion one of the most important warships to sail the seas during WW2. Not because of the number of submarines sunk by them but simply due to the number of merchant ships that crossed the Atlantic safely because of them.

There is a pretty good article about these vessels contained in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_class_corvette which has much of interest, not least of which is the fact that many navies made use of them including, to my surprise, the Kriegsmarine. There were four corvettes under construction in France that were taken over and finished by the Germans and used for coastal patrol and convoy escort duties. A further four vessels were handed over to the Greek navy in 1943 and given that the Greeks will feature in the next expansion to be released – Condition Zebra – it means that I can indulge in their navy for use on the table. The Greeks receive the Georgios Averoff – the armoured cruiser of Balkan Wars fame, a destroyer and a submarine. I am not sure about the war service of the Greek navy – I know the Averoff was used on convoy duty in the Indian Ocean – and so further research will be needed as and when I eventually tackle them.

My own Royal Navy has four Flower Class vessels although I will add a further two in due course. I will acquire the four needed for both the German and Greek navies to give them something a little different and in the case of the Germans I shall also be looking at adding some other vessels that were taken over by them and pressed into service.

Certainly for convoy based scenarios having this vessel available for escort duties is really useful and I look forward to using them to fend off the attentions of any marauding wolf packs.