Sunday, 18 February 2018

Underway at last: Clearing the Harbour

It has been a busy weekend on the domestic front but I was able to get some quality hobby time in today. In line with many other noted members of the blogging fraternity I have been tidying up the man cave, organising ‘stuff’ for disposal and looking at my project list with renewed vim and vigour. To begin with I decided to get some WW2 ships from the Axis and Allies board game onto the paint tray. In truth that was as far as I got but every journey starts with a single step.


Axis and Allies British and German ships - the cutting mat gives a good idea of the size of each type with the destroyers being rather large!

At this stage the Royal Navy have four R class battleships, 3 Illustrious class carriers, 4 County class cruisers and 6 S class destroyers. They will be receiving half a dozen Tribal class destroyers, 4 Queen Elizabeth class battleships, HMS Hood and possibly 4 KGV class battleships. GHQ they are not but I am rather taken with the basic level of detail - they are gaming pieces after all and not scale models.

The Germans start off with 2 Bismarck class battleships, the carrier Graf Zeppelin, 3 Hipper class cruisers and 8 Type 34a class destroyers. The only thing I envisage adding to the fleet will be some Graf Spee class - the ‘pocket battleships’.

For both sides I will also be adding submarines and air elements in due course. I have plenty of merchantmen that can be used to furnish a convoy or two (no oil tankers though which is a shame) and can also be used as AMCs or commerce raiders. I could also see them be used as supply ships, in any event there are quite a few of them so I will not be struggling for choice!

In addition to the above I have also made some progress with the rules I am working on for the period. It is early days with these as yet but the signed are encouraging. The difficulty this far has been in keeping in simple as most naval wargames can become fiendishly complex if one is not careful.

The early steps will feature in a blog post shortly, once I have tidied my notes and more importantly, my thoughts.




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4 comments:

  1. Robert (Bob) Cordery18 February 2018 at 20:07

    David,

    The models certainly look good enough to wargame with, and the planned fleets sound as if they should give you some great battles.

    I look forward to seeing them when they are painted.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  2. David Crook18 February 2018 at 20:29

    Hi Bob,

    The fleets will certainly not be comprehensive in terms of all the ships available but when you consider how many ships routinely get used by the average naval wargamer it does not really matter IMHO. I will have the main types and that should suffice. I will have sufficient spares to be able to cobble up some conversions should the need arise - in fact I plan to do so once the basic models are ready.

    There will be pictures for the blog in due course.

    All the best,

    DC

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  3. Geordie an Exiled FoG18 February 2018 at 20:46

    Looking forwards to hearing more about the journey ;)
    Myself I am heading to Stalingrad
    Still painting the figures at the moment ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. David Crook18 February 2018 at 20:57

    Hi Geordie,

    I am rather looking forward to getting these done and into action. There is a Russian fleet to tackle as well so I will be with you on your Stalingrad journey in spirit!

    All the best,

    DC

    ReplyDelete