Gunboat Diplomacy

S.M.S. Iltis

I have always had a fondness for gunboats. This probably stemmed from the very first naval wargame command way back in the late 1970s during an action fought as part of the famous Madasahatta campaign run by Eric Knowles. My ‘command’ was a pair of German gunboats - Iltis class as I recall - tasked with harbour defence and coastal patrol duties. For this action they spent the entire games circling frantically in the inner basin of the main German naval base whilst under battleship calibre bombardment by the RN blockading force. They survived unscathed and I even managed to score a single hit with a 3.4” gun against one of the RN battleships - a fact of which I was ridiculously pleased with. However, my delight was short lived as Eric announced after the conclusion of the action that the two gunboats were subsequently scuttled by their crews so as to avoid capture….

Anyways, aside from starting my lifelong interest in naval wargames it also gave me the aforementioned fondness for gunboats.

Gunboats. Some very nice Ospreys, the magnificent River Gunboats, Send a Gunboat and Tigris Gunboats - a great account of the gunboat operations along the, you’ve guessed it, the Tigris! Not illustrated but also in the collection is The Phantom Flotilla and Mimi and Tou Tou go forth - both of which cover the Lake Tanganyika expedition in the Great War.

I have accrued a modest library of books on the subject of gunboats with the American Civil War collection alongside. Missing from the above and certainly something I would like to learn more about is the use of gunboats on the great rivers of China - shades of the Sand Pebbles - and there are a few titles around that cover this, albeit a touch on the expensive side.

Gaming gunboats operations is a lot of fun as they tend to be almost skirmish level actions, with skirmish level action levels of details (that is a lot of levels!).  Rules are a no-brainer.

David Manley’s rules Steamer Wars, along with his three expansions (four if you also include my Hexed adaptation of the core rules) covering the Russian Civil War, European operations during the Great War and, by way of something very different, Lake Garda during the war of 1866 - are all excellent and give an already great game extra variety. All of these, along with his other naval related works, are available on Wargames Vault. 

Aside from the gaming aspect of gunboats operations I also really enjoy making the models in my customary simple looking style. It will be no surprise then, when I say that I have a few ideas on the go….