Greek G's and the H Class Destroyer

I mentioned in my previous post that I would be using the Axis and Allies: War at Sea model of the V.Olga - the Greek G class destroyer as the G class contingent for the Royal Navy. Whilst looking into this class of British destroyers I then discovered that the H class was a direct follow on and so the model could easily be used for that class as well. There was a sub group of Hs that were built for Brazil (and looked slightly different) but the main bulk of the class can be happily replicated by using the Greek G class model - along the same lines as the J/K/N class model already present in the range. This is good news for the Royal Navy gamer as it adds a further selection of pre war destroyers to the range available. For my own purposes I will need to add a further 6 of the models to be used as the H class.

The Greek model is painted in a dazzle scheme so I suspect I will repaint them to an overall light grey - as I did with the Canadian Tribal class destroyers (before the plan grey HMS Cossack was released!).

Axis & Allies: War at Sea - Condition Zebra Update

After the recent ‘horse trading’ surrounding the latest expansion set for Axis & Allies: War at Sea – Condition Zebra had been completed I was finally able to get my list together for the purchases I shall be making in order to finish off the collection thus far.

The list looks something like this:

3 x Z32 (Narvik Class Destroyers)
7 x Greek V.Olga (this is the same as the British G class Destroyer so I shall use 1 for the Greeks and 6 for the RN)
8 x Ascari (Soldati class Destroyers)
2 x Royal Oak (R class battleships)
2 x Caio Duilio (Battleships)
1 x Italian Seaplane/patrol bomber – Z506.B
1 x Trento (Heavy Cruiser)

There is now little point in me buying further booster packs so the singles route will be the way forward. Once this lot is in place all the fleets will look more ‘historical’ in make up and I am particularly pleased that the Mediterranean theatre has had some major reinforcements – not just in terms of capital ships but also some more of the essential smaller vessels.

It also means that my modelling activities for the next few weeks will focused on basing, basing, labels, flags and basing!

Paddy Griffith R.I.P.

It was with much regret that I heard of the passing of Paddy Griffith - the renowned military historian and wargamer. I never met him; nor did I engage in any correspondence with him but I suddenly realised with his passing just how much he had contributed to my own somewhat 'left field' take on military history. I own three of his titles and they have been constant sources of inspiration and have provoked much thought about the subjects in question - the ACW, Revolutionary France and Vikings.

I remember reading Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun and not fully appreciating it at the time but have now realised just what a revolutionary approach to the subject it was with its diverse range of gaming experiences - in many ways years ahead of its time.

Challenging the mainstream and encouraging the thought process are for me personally his two major legacies but I am sure others can add many more to that.

My thoughts are with his family at this time and to PG himself - many thanks and rest in peace.

The Write Stuff........................

It is no secret that I enjoy writing and that through the medium of this blog I have been able to indulge myself. I have also penned a couple of articles published in the SFSFW journal – Ragnarok and have also contributed to both a rules set and a scenario pack – Land Ironclads and Aeronef over the Aegean; both of which are available from Wessex Games. I have also posted a number of pieces on my old mate Tas’s outstanding blog: Yours in a White Wine Sauce under the heading of Arabian Campaign. Away from wargaming I have also been engaged in writing a novel which is probably around the two thirds complete stage. This has been ongoing for a couple of years now and will be finished at some point although it is a very personal work and I am under no pressure to complete it to a timetable.

A number of years ago I revealed an intention to write a VSF based novel, in part inspired by Aeronef, Space 1889 etc and my own liking for the works of Messrs. Verne, Wells and Conan Doyle. I have a number of ideas and several pads of notes for this project and have decided upon the form the story should take. Several clues have been dropped about some of the content over the last couple of years – mainly due to my ongoing interest in the life and exploits of Lawrence of Arabia – and I am now in the position of being able to start work in earnest, and therein lies the problem. I am not a full time author and so life, work and family has to be the priority before I am able to indulge in this particular flight of fancy.

My attention span can be short lived and I tend to work better with either deadlines or encouragement providing the spur. One of the biggest benefits I have thus far accrued from writing this blog is the support and encouragement from kindred spirits and this has been a massive help in my completing a number of projects over the last year.

With all this in mind I have taken the decision to set up another blog which will in fact be my VSF ‘novel’ with the posts being the chapters. I have opted to do this as I believe I will have more chance of completing the project with a degree of audience participation rather than as a solo endeavour. The blog will be moderated – if only so that I can respond to comments as and when they appear. The posts will follow a logical order and will be presented as they are ready to go to press. This will be on an irregular regular basis (i.e. they will arrive but I cannot say they will every week!).

I have the story bedded down and know how it will go from the start to the end. I have the characters designed and the all important hardware has also been addressed. The one thing I have not tackled is to turn any of this into a gaming scenario so stats for various rule systems will be missing.

I am planning on making the first entry over the weekend and so would appreciate any comments and observations etc in the usual fashion.

The blog will go under the title of: The Sword in the Sand.

No clues there then………………….;-)

Airships - The Aerial Leviathans

One of the books I have in my collection is a large format illustrated history of the German airship – the Hindenburg. I picked this up as a boot sale a couple of years ago for the princely sum of 20p and it is an absolute goldmine of information for the budding airship commander. The book is chock full of photographs and technical stuff about this massive airship and also features a very good history of the vessel type in general – from the first Zeppelin up to some of the modern airships in use today. There are lots of wonderful pictures of many of the early powered airships – even tracing their history back to the Montgolfier brothers hot air balloons. Within the world of Aeronef I have always preferred the use of dirigibles and so this book is a welcome reference to the nuts and bolts of how these flying leviathans ‘did their stuff’. Some of the earlier vessels depicted have a wonderful ‘Heath Robinson-ish’ quality and are crying out to be modelled and gamed with. I am thinking particularly of Henri Giffards airship of 1852 – this is a wonderful looking device and it would not take too much of an imaginative leap to expand it into a war machine of some kind.

The book also contains a number of photos of airships from other nations and so there is much inspiration contained in here for the modeller.

Revel produce a lovely plastic clip together ‘mini kit’ of the Hindenburg that comes up at about 3” long and so is ideal for use with Aeronef – indeed, I have used the model as the basis for a number of vessels in my first Ottoman Turkish and Greek air fleets (currently in the collection of Steve Blease). Currently this model is available for around the £1.99 level which is disappointing as only two years ago you could pick them up for 99p! The hull is split in two halves along the latitude of the model with the north and south tail fins separate from the hull and the east and west cast on the top half. The four engine pods are also separate; as are the nose and tail cones. Being a plastic kit it can easily be chopped about and even if you did not want to bother with this it is easy to bore a hole into the underside to mount it on a flying base and give it a paint job for use as a merchant ship.

In the past I have cut a section out of the upper half of the hull and then decked the resultant gap over. On to this newly decked area funnels, gun turrets, masts and even aircraft launching rails can all be added – very easily and very cheaply. I picked up one of these kits at a boot sale on Saturday just gone for 50p and it has certainly got the creative juices flowing again – especially as I had in mind some dirigible based scratch builds for the aforementioned Ottoman Turks.

Of course, this does not address the subject of lateen-rigged Barbary Corsair aerial Xebecs and how best I can make them……………………………..;-)

Barbary Corsairs in Aeronef - A Clarification

Further to my previous post concerning wind powered Barbary Corsairs (now there is an image to conjure with!) I should perhaps clarify my position in respect of how I see VSF. My rules of choice for VSF aerial games are, of course, Aeronef. These rules provide a degree of alternative history ‘background’ within which the gamer is able to set their action. The descriptions contained therein also provide details of how Aeronef and Aerostat are powered and what materials are used for providing the all important ‘lift’. This is perfectly acceptable within the game system and adds the all important ‘flavour’ to the game.

For the wooden hulled vessels of the Barbary Corsairs I suggested that perhaps ‘Martian Liftwood’ (as described in the universe of Frank Chadwick’s outstanding Space 1889 VSF arena) would be a ‘the obvious choice’ for a lifting agent. This has caused a little stir in that this idea is strictly speaking the invention of the said 20th century rules writer (and all round rules genius!) rather than being a VSF period concept. At the time of writing I had not thought this idea through logically as, if memory serves me correctly, within the ‘Space 1889’ universe Liftwood only grows very sparingly on Mars and so finding it for use as a source of lift on Earth would be nigh on impossible and so the Barbary Corsairs would need to use other means to get their vessels off the ground. If using a purely Aeronef driven background then naturally I would not import ideas from another rule set without due consideration.

However, I mentioned Liftwood as within in my own VSF world I happily borrow and tweak ideas and rules from the appropriate genre wherever they may come from in order to drop them into the background where I am able. This is a personal thing as I am a self confessed inveterate rule/background tweaker! I am not in any way challenging anybodies copyright, intellectual property or ideas – I am just a gamer with a fertile imagination that is extremely grateful for all those rule writing denizens and authors that have given me a wonderful universe to play with!

Barbary Corsairs in Aeronef

My recent reading about the Barbary Corsairs has reacquainted me with an idea I was toying with some time ago along the lines of having them as an auxiliary force for use with the Ottoman Turks - a position they occupied historically during the 16th century. They were raiders par excellence and often came together in sizable numbers for larger expeditions. My only reservation about using these is that I am unconvinced about them having access to much in the way of industrial capacity - even basic steam power.

With this in mind I am considering the use of wind power for propulsion. The vessels would be traditional wooden hulled types with much use made of some form of anti-gravity coating (Martian 'liftwood' would be the obvious choice although I am assuming that something 'earthly' would be used instead) to provide the flight aspect and traditional sails for movement.

I envisage that these vessels would be quite fast in the right wind conditions, relatively lightly armed and probably quite light in respect of build. As sailing ships were still in use during the early days of steam this seems to be a viable idea.

These vessels would be great at running down dirigibles but would struggle against pure Aeronef when on equal terms and so are ideal for use as raiders.

The models would need to be scratchbuilt although I seem to recall that the Barbary Corsairs featured in the Wizkids collectible pirate card game some years ago so I shall investigate this avenue further and see what I can find.