The Mediterranean - Early 1914 and Setting the Scene

HMS Erin - soon to be Reshadieh

Following on from my post of yesterday I have given some further thought to how best to utilise the models I have available from the Minifigs ships range to represent the combatants. I have made a number of historical assumptions concerning the political set up, the ships in use and the strategic situation. This probably seems a little on the extreme side but I find it helps to round out the back story and add the all important period 'flavour'.

The Turkish fleet as it stands will have the Sultan Selim and the Midilli (Goeben and Breslau) but will also add the Reshadieh - the ship that became HMS Erin. Three pre-dreadnoughts, a pair of protected cruisers and around 10 or so assorted destroyers will complete the force. Reshadieh will be a conversion of one of the Lion class I own and will look more like an Orion/KGV class when finished but will be close enough for my purposes. I will be sacrificing one of the Lions in order to do this and so will also make a further copy for use with the RN as one of the aforementioned Orion/KGV types.

As befits the world's leading naval power the RN will be considerably larger. She will have a battle cruiser squadron of a pair of Indefatigables and the Lion (as flagship), a battle squadron of  three Bellerorophons with an Orion/KGV as fleet flagship, both of the Weymouths and three each of the Drakes and Devonshires. Around 16 to 18 destroyers will complete the force.

The Greek navy serving as allies will furnish a couple of cruisers and half a dozen destroyers.

Observant readers will have noticed that the numbers do not quite tally up with the list of yesterday and that some models are unaccounted for. There are plans afoot for these but I would be less than truthful if I said that I know what they were!

I am short of pre-dreadnoughts though and so will be trawling the net for anybody having a supply of these models that is looking to offload any.

As ever, many of the models are very basic representations of their historical counterparts and a number of liberties have and will be taken over what is being used as what and by whom. Still, one should never allow historical accuracy to get in the way of a good game!

I have access to a really good map of the Mediterranean for WW1 contained the board game 'The Great War at Sea: The Mediterranean' which is marked in offset squares rather than hexes although I would like to try and find a copy of the map used in the SPI game 'The Flight of the Goeben'.

Meanwhile, back in the swampy bayous, something unexpected is lurking....