A WW1 Imagi-Naval Project

The African Queen, before she reached the lake (the Gin had already been dumped at this point....).

Now that the first phase of the Lake Tanganyika project has been completed, I have spent some time thinking about how best to take this idea further. I had previously mentioned about the Madasahatta expanded campaign idea that would include both East Africa and the Red Sea. The main thrust of this assumed that the German East Asia squadron headed west rather than east and based itself on the island of Madasahatta. The rest of the setting kind of designed itself with ships being added as required - making use of German East Africa and the Arabian peninsula up to the Red Sea.

I also wanted to factor in the operations in West Africa - mainly as it would provide as good excuse to add in the French as well as some more gunboats - which although challenging from a geographic point of view will make the overall situation more interesting.

I have been compiling a list of ships to run with this and despite the potential scale of the area of operations this is relatively modest. However, some of the models themselves will be quite challenging to build - especially as I will need a lot of bits and bobs custom cut by Warbases. What I will need to do is to ensure that there is a lot of commonality in terms of parts etc in order to make it a more cost effective exercise.

I have had a bit of a thought about the whole Scharnhorst/Gneisenau East Asia Squadron angle and have decided to change this a little. I am instead going to use a pair of fictional German Cruisers - SMS Blucher from 'Shout at the Devil' and the SMS Ziethen from C.S. Forestor's Brown on Resolution. They will be sisters and in my mind's eye will look like the love child of the actual Blucher of Dogger Bank fame and the Scharnhorst/Gneisenau. I will have to research both as far as I am able first of all before starting on the build - which is down the batting order in any event.

On the subject of fictional ships I could not resist making a model of the African Queen and as soon as I have worked out how to 'weaponise' her in game terms will pit her against the Louisa and the 6pdr. Incidentally, the Louisa in the film of the African Queen was played by the MV Liemba - formerly the Graf Von Goetzen and still, I believe, in service on Lake Tanganyika.