Sturdee's Squadron

This idea for an early WW1 naval campaign based on the exploits of the German East Asia Squadron commanded by von Spee, using Navwar 1/3000 scale ships and the free and versatile Berthier Campaign Manager software, keeps going round in my head (inspired by Geoffrey Bennett's excellent Naval Battles of the First World War).  I've already painted up the first two forces required and have now finished off von Spee's nemesis at the Battle of the Falklands, Sturdee's Squadron.

After having destroyed Craddock's forces at the Battle of Coronel on the west coast of South America (bar the Otranto and HMS Glasgow), the British despatched a much stronger force under Sturdee to the South Atlantic to deal with von Spee once and for all.

HMS Defence

This included the armoured cruiser HMS Defence (1908), which Craddock had been expecting before he set off to fairly certain death against von Spee at Coronel.  However, HMS Defence had been diverted away from Craddock on orders from the Admiralty, though they didn't bother to tell him that.  If HMS Defence had been there it might have made a significant difference at Coronel, with its four 9.2" main guns and ten 7.5" secondary armament.

Sturdee's force also included HMS Cornwall (1904) and HMS Kent (1903), the sister ships of HMS Monmouth (1903) that had been lost at Coronel.  When refighting the Battle of the Falklands the ill-fated HMS Monmouth can stand in for HMS Kent.

HMS Cornwall / HMS Kent

Other ships in the squadron included the fast but unarmoured light cruiser HMS Glasgow (1911) and her sister ship HMS Bristol (1911), as well as HMS Carnarvon (1904), which appears a sturdy looking vessel, if you pardon the pun.

HMS Carnarvon

However, the main feature of Sturdee's squadron were the two fast, modern and heavily armed Dreadnought battlecruisers, HMS Inflexible (1908) and HMS Invincible (1909), each equipped with eight massive 16" guns.

HMS Inflexible and HMS Invincible

These had been released from the Grand Fleet and their unexpected presence in the South Atlantic resulted in the destruction of the East Asia Squadron, partly because von Spee could not believe the reports that two tripod masted warships were anchored in Port William until it was too late.

Anyway, all in all, I've now got plenty of ships for covering all of the actions in the Pacific and South Atlantic and I intend to use the random 'army plans' feature of Berthier to allow some different scenarios to be played out, for example allowing Craddock to actually have HMS Defence at Coronel (or even HMS Canopus, which missed out on the destruction because of engine trouble).

Other scenarios could involve von Spee taking his captains' advice and deciding not to try to attack the Falkland Islands, but rather to continue up the eastern South American coast picking off allied merhantmen, or perhaps cross to the eastern Atlantic to try to elude the Allies and eventually get back to Germany.  Hopefully more on that in subsequent posts.

Freighters and Drifters

A major issue for naval squadrons operating during wartime far from home base, and with the risk of internment if they lingered too long in port anywhere, was the continual problem of coaling and resupply.

As I've blogged earlier I'm thinking of some sort of WW1 early war campaign using the Berthier Campaign Manager based on the attempt of von Spee's East Asia Squadron to get out of the Pacific, into the Atlantic and possibly even make it back to Germany (or internment in Montevideo or similar).

SS Titania

One of the support ships that von Spee relied on was the Titania, completed in 1897 in Newcastle upon Tyne for the Finnish Merchant Navy.  It was subsequently converted to a supply ship in 1914 and was sunk at Mas a Fuera on 19 November 1914.

SS Titania - Navwar 1/3000

This is the Navwar version - not quite the same colour scheme as the one I found on the photoship website - so I may redo it in a more tropical guise.  One of the scenarios I was thinking about, particularly for an SMS Emden campaign, was the difficulties of warships and supply ships trying to meet up without being detected and this is where the Titania would come in.

SMS Emden

In addition, there are options for ships such as the Emden preying on merchant ships as it did successfully in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere.  Navwar do various cargo ships but I thought that something called the A/B Standard ship would fit the bill.  Here is the War Brahmin, listed as a freighter of this type.

A/B Standard Ship - War Brahmin

According to the Navwar website these ships date from 1917 and many operated into WW2 so, although a bit late for the Emden era, it will do and can also be used for WW2 actions, should I ever get around to them.  Here is the Navwar version of this class of ship.

I was a bit closer to the mark with the colour scheme with this one as you can see.

Craddock's Squadron

First post of the year here - it's been a bit of a slow start this year, wargaming-wise.  This is mainly because I've been away on business - twice - to Istanbul, and it's not even February yet.

However, having managed to get the German East Asia Squadron sorted out here are some pics of their heroic and ill-fated opponents - the ships of Admiral Kit Craddock's squadron.  As before these are Navwar 1/3000 scale vessels.

HMS Good Hope

Craddock's flagship, HMS Good Hope (1902) - so outdated that the broadside batteries could not be used in rough seas - which was naturally a significant factor in her loss at the Battle of Coronel (1 November 1914).

HMS Monmouth

HMS Monmouth - an obsolete armoured cruiser (1903) that was just as useless in bad weather as HMS Good Hope.  Also lost at Coronel.

HMS Glasgow

HMS Glasgow (1911) - by far the fastest of Craddock's ships (she looks it) but unarmoured and armed only wth two 6" and ten 4" guns.  However, she was fast enough (at 25 kts) to evade destruction at Coronel and later to take part in the Battle of the Falklands where revenge was exacted, lucky for Captain Luce.

Otranto

The Otranto, a relatively slow and unarmoured 12,000 liner fitted with eight 4.7" guns and not really fit to form part of a light-cruiser hunting squadron.  I thought I'd paint this in cruise liner colours, just for a change.

HMS Canopus

HMS Canpus is the big old battleship (1900) that got left behind at the Falkland Islands, that may, or may not, have made a difference at the Battle of Coronel.

Having finished these, I'm ordering a few more ships from Navwar to try to work though a planned mini campaign (using the Berthier Campaign Manager) recreating (sort of) the voyage of the German East Asia Squadon from the Pacific into the Atlantic.  It's all written down on paper - I just need time to put it into action....

German East Asia Squadron

I keep thinking about some sort of solo campaign using the Berthier Campaign Manager (now on version 8.0) and it seems to me that a fairly simple naval campaign would be ideal.  In fact I've long thought about the adventures of the Emden and/or von Spee's German East Asia Squadron early in WW1.

SMS Emden

These are some shots of my 1/3000 scale East Asia Squadron that (so far) have only seen action once.

SMS Gneisenau

The models are by Navwar and they are based on card with textured woodflex on them.  I painted the ships before mounting them

SMS Scharnhorst

Waves generally run parallel to each other (perpendicular to wind direction) so that was the first level of texturing.  This was followed by creating the bow wave and the 'residual bow waves' down each side of the ship and finally the wake.

SMS Dresden

I then painted the bases in "silk-matt" (i.e. slightly glossy) Revell acrylic "Lufthansa-Blau", which is actually quite a deep blue colour. When I painted them I had not long come back from a long sojourn in the South Atlantic and a week at sea certainly gives you an idea of what colour the open ocean can be.

SMS Nurnberg

The bases were then given quite a heavy dry brush using matt Revell acrylic Seegrün.

SMS Leipzig

Finally, the bases were finished off with some dry brushing with basic white to pick out the wave tops, the bow wave and the wake.

Now to come up with a campaign.  As I said I was thinking to start with the Emden's course to and through the Indian Ocean, with the merchantmen she hunted and forces hunting her programmed in to Berthier.  On the other hand, it could be run from the Allied side with the movements of the Emden programmed and everyone else looking for her.  Battles will be fought with General Quarters 2, when the time comes.  Needs a bit of preparation I think and I'll post about that when it looks like I'll be up and running.

DBM Armies and Their Uses

One of my long term projects (what am I saying?  All of my wargame projects are 'long term') has been my 15mm, 500 point Lydian DBM army (I/50), developed and finally all painted over the embarrassingly long period from 1995-2010.  The thing about choosing and developing a DBM army, at least for someone thrifty like me, is the opportunity to ensure that there was enough variety to generate an interesting selection of (much smaller) DBA armies without having to acquire additional figures.

As Classical armies go the Lydian army is quite useful because not only does it have mounted 'hoplites' - 'knights' Kn(F) (unusual for that period) but it also has light chariots (LCh), (foot) hoplites (Sp) and lots of auxiliaries (Ax), not to mention Psiloi (Ps) and, my personal favourite, wardogs (they count as Warband).

Not the most war-like of dogs really - they were actually some animals I got in the railway model shop Harburn Hobbies (top end of Leith Walk) so they're really just collies (and a labrador).  Still, with a little training..... The dog walker is an Essex ballista crew member or similar.  And yes I know, the basing is a bit, well, basic, but they were done a long time ago and if I redo these then I'll have to do them all, which is 500pts worth of rebasing....

Anyway, this varied collection of troop types lends itself to a variety of DBA armies.  For the sake of argument here are four of them, which also happen to be historical opponents (according to the DBA 2.0 army lists anyway):

• I/41 Phrygian (800BC-676BC)
• I/48 Thracian (700BC-46AD)
• I/50 Lydian (687BC-546BC)
• I/52(g) Early Hoplite Greek (Asiatic Greek) (668BC-450BC)

And here are (from front to back) the Lydians, Thracians and Phrygians.  All figures are/were 15mm Chariot (now Magister Militum).  I couldn't be bothered setting out the Asiatic Greek Hoplites, although the figures I have are very good (check out HOG002 and HOG003 on the Hoplites page).

And the reason for all this?  Well, a good few years ago we did a very successful DBA campaign where Geoff and I both fielded 4 armies that blundered round a rather complicated hex map fighting each other (not using the DBA campaign rules, as such).

It was one of those campaigns using a massive matchbox chest of drawers in true Donald Featherstone style.  I've still got most of the matchboxes somewhere, but my inclination now is to use the Berthier Campaign Manager (currently on v7.6.4), now that I'm thinking about another DBA campaign, which is ultimately the whole point of this rather rambling post.  Yet another opportunity to 'watch this space'.

Berthier Campaign Manager

I noticed on the TMP forum that a new version of Tony De Lyall's Berthier Campaign Manager has been released, version 7.3.4 no less.  The manager was originally written for the DOS system but is now Windows based.  It is extremely simple to install and use and the attraction for me was and is its use in solo campaigns and games.

It works for solo games because of the order system where units on the map are given orders basically consisting of "move from A to B", which can be through a third waypoint, if you want a particular route taken, rather than just the line of least resistance.  Berthier then works out the most efficient route for that unit to take, based on the unit's movement rates across the various different types of terrain it can pass though (or not, as the case may be).

This creates a certain 'fog of war', because the units will keep going for each campaign move until they reach their destination (which can take quite a few moves if the map is big and/or the movement rates are slow), and so enemy units may not be exactly where you think they are, as their actual position at any one time is worked out by Berthier, not by you.

WW2 Operation Crusader

The above shows a screenshot from a campaign we did a while ago for Operation Crusader in the western desert.  Most of the map is sand but main roads (pink), tracks (khaki) towns (green), ports (purple) and the impassible escarpments (reddish-brown) are shown.  Each terrain type has a different movement value and for towns and ports a resupply value also.

WW1 South China Sea

This map depicts the South China Sea, Indonesia and down to Australia and the idea for this was do some sort of Emden style commerce raider naval campaign (TBC).

There is one thing though, and I've not been cheeky enough to suggest this to Tony De Lyall, and that is it would be very useful to be able to set more than one waypoint for units.  I was thinking this particularly for something like a commerce raiding campaign (or submarine hunting, etc.) where merchant ships or whatever it is you are looking for (or trying to avoid) effectively travel between two or more points (e.g. trading routes) that may take in a number of waypoints so that you really won't know where they are likely to be at any time.

A very good example of a waypoint setting system can be found in the (infinitely more complicated) Operation Flashpoint and ARMA series of computer games which come with an extremely powerful mission editor.

One of the great things you can do with that is set as many waypoints for units as you want (which can be effectively randomly placed if you set it up right) which means that units can appear and go just about anywhere without your intervention.  You can also set a cycle function so that when the last waypoint is reached the unit just goes back to the next (or nearest) one and starts all over again, which is very useful for setting up continuous patrols and other activities that will just keep going until you 'interrupt' them.  Now that really would create fog of war!

DBA Boards

Not the most exciting thing to post about but I finally got around to making a new 24" x 24" DBA board.  My main interest has been in armies from Asia Minor and the ancient Middle East and therefore one side of the board is supposed to be 'desert'.  It's actually a bit more orange than this photo indicates but it was a bit driech when I took the photos.

The obverse is for 'temperate' regions although I don't have any DBA armies for those parts of the world (yet).  It's amazing though what you can do with some old hardboard and emulsion tester pots lying around the house.  Not really happy with the green top coat however (though it's not as lurid as the photo indicates), so will probably improve it later (once I can get to B&Q).

I collected a few ancient armies back in the early days (DBA 1.0), but have found, going to the current edition I have (DBA 2.0, although I understand it's up to 2.2 now), that there was a rethink in the lists at some point which means quite a few of my armies don't fit now and I can't remedy the situation without buying more figures.

All this presages my vague thoughts of doing a DBA campaign again (we did a great one back in ...er.... 1994 using the old matchbox chest of drawers method for concealed movement); and whilst we wait for DBA 3.0, I thought to hell with it, I'll just use my old 1.0 lists and maybe employ the Berthier Campaign Manager this time (could be a solo project).

Of course nothing may come of this but at least I've got two sides of a board to play on now (not at the same time, obviously).

Russo-Japanese War - Berthier

In my previous post I showed you a copy of a very nice map I’d found of the Japanese Empire 1904/05 that could be used as a basis for a Russo-Japanese War naval campaign.

As I’m keen on the Berthier Campaign Manager I thought I could use the Grid Map function and prepare a campaign map from the original map.  In case you are unaware of this little programme that comes with Berthier, Grid Map allows you to use a bitmap image of a real map and to impose a grid over it. 

The squares can then be marked with different colours which represent various terrain types, that can be given different attributes in the campaign.  For example certain units cannot move over defined terrain types (such as land), which makes sense in a naval campaign. 

The file can then be saved and used as the basis for your Berthier campaign.  Anyway, after a short time I came up with this:

If you compare it to the original map you can see that it has turned out quite well (I think so, anyway).

Note that as it is will be a naval campaign I haven’t specified the different types of land terrain (which seemed a bit notional on the original map anyway); however, I have marked railways in green, towns/ports in purple (magenta?) as these may be strategically important and the Yangtze River in buff (it's muddy), as this could be navigable for some ship types.

Russo-Japanese War

The first time I came across the word 'Tsushima' was in Paul Hague’s Sea Battles in Miniature.

It had never occurred to me before (it was a long time ago, I was young, I was innocent, what can I say) that there would be wars out there in which the British weren’t involved (that is if you discount the little Dogger Bank Incident where the Russian Baltic Fleet opened fire on British trawlers, mistaking them for Japanese torpedo boats – in the North Sea? I ask you.... ).

Anyway, yet another long term project of mine is building up fleets and refighting the naval aspects of the Russo-Japanese War. To this end I recently found this excellent map of the Japanese Empire in 1904/05.

I’m going to work this up in the Berthier Campaign Manager to hopefully try to run it as a campaign (at some point) so I’ll let you know how I get on with that.

MappingBoard

I can’t remember who I got the link from (freewargamesrules, I think) but I recently discovered some free (donationware) wargame mapping software called MappingBoard.

As I’m currently based somewhere remote (more of that another time) I’ve had the time to teach myself the basics of making maps with it.  It took me about 30 minutes of mucking about until I came up with the effort shown here.  I have to say that I’m absurdly pleased with it and would highly recommend this nifty piece of software.  It's very useful because you can, for example, import textures to fill certain terrain types (standard ones are shown here) and once you have created a feature you can save it for use again on another map, which is very handy if you have terrain pieces of certain shapes you use regularly.

I'd been looking around for a quick computer based map making system since coming across the simple yet elegant Magna Graecia wargame campaign system a few years ago (and slowly fighting a DBM campaign to a standstill with it),   If you check the Magna Graeca link, you’ll see that movement on the campaign map is between ‘nodes’ and for each node, there is a link to a unique battle map.

Linking maps to locations works very well with the Berthier Campaign Manager (another brilliant and free programme) as it allows you to assign an image (of a map say) to any square on the campaign map.  If you can’t be bothered making a map for each square (and on big maps there are literally fahsands of ‘em) you can either place them at certain ‘nodes’ or perhaps assign values to them and look them up using the reference tables.

That said, I like the idea of the generalship of choosing exactly where to give battle rather than generating maps randomly as you turn up in the square, so associating maps with certain squares is a very useful feature.


Another good thing about the Berthier system is that when there is a contact it indicates from which direction each army entered the square, which can be very useful for making sure you start off on the correct side of the table (perhaps both on the same side if you’re being chased on).

So there you have it - a nice little programme for making up battlefield maps (and a big thumbs up for Berthier, as always).  Hopefully, you'll be seeing more of these on this blog.

Brian