It just goes to show that you are never too old to learn something new! Way back in 2016, I spent a significant amount of time on planning a refight of the Battle of Jutland using 1:2400th scale models. The plan at the time was to use a version of the Avalon Hill game of the same name and it was there, along with the huge amount of destroyers and cruisers required, that I came to an ignominious grinding halt.
Try as I might, I was unable to unlock how the ship specs from the game were arrived at. I tried all manner of calculations in an attempt to reverse engineer the numbers involved - gunnery and flotation factors being the main offenders - but for some reason was never able to 'crack the code'.
Until now.
There is a substantial amount of fan made material for the game available from back issues of the Avalon Hill General and the Boardgamer magazine and it was whilst trawling through all this lot that several things just seemed to click into place.
This is going to sound a little strange but this news will mean that I will need to check over and amend where needed the ships specifications quoted in the original game. Some obvious production errors had already been identified - incorrect counter images, wrong flotation values and similar - but armed with the aforementioned additional fan made stuff I will be able to make the game into the version I really wanted it to be. It will also mean that expanding the system beyond the North Sea - there are already Baltic and Mediterranean variants available - to a common system will be a straightforward process.
And before anybody asks this ‘mini project of sorts’ does have a degree of relevance for the Great War portion of the new book so it is time well spent but you will have to wait to see why!
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