Scratch building my Modern Naval Game

Back in the 1990s I played the Video game SSN to a standstill.  I got pretty good at it and for once even managed to finish a computer game.

Based on Tom Clancy's novel of the same name, SSN covers a series of encounters by the Los Angeles Class submarine USS Cheyenne in a war with China in the South China Sea.  It`s an interestingly episodic book, no flim flam or plot worries, it just covers the Cheyenne's individual battles in detail.

 As the encounters escalate the Cheyenne rises to the challenge, winning the war and defeating a Military Coup in China itself.

Transit
Insertion
Cruise Attack
Patrol
Interdiction
Enforcement
Skimmer Bust
Airstrip Assault
Reinforcements
Liberation
Defense
Prosecution
Choke Point
Knife Fight
Special Delivery

Speed	Depth	Sonar	Firing	Command	Targeting
Flank 40kn	1  Surfaced	Active Pinging	Mk 60 Captor mines	Capt	FIRE One to Four
30kn	2  Periscope	Single Ping	VLS Tomahawk Land targets	1st Officer	Firing Solution
20kn	3  Shallow	TB-23 array	VLS Harpoon Anti-ship	OOD	Second Bearing
10kn	4  Inter	TB-16 array	21" Tube Mk 48 ADCAP	Weapons	First Bearing
All Stop	5  Deep	Internal Passive	Opened Outer  Doors	Ch.Engineer	Scope Up
Spin reverse	6  Very Deep	Closed	Closed Outer  Doors	Chief	Scope down

Turns
Intermediate Turn (10 minutes)	Tactical Turn (1 minute)
Plotting Phase	Plotting Phase	Log Movement, Firing, other orders
Movement Phase	Movement Phase	Move either 10 mins (Inter)or 1 min (Tct)
	Planned Firing Phase	Plotted fire exchanged Simultaneously
Detection check Phase	Detection check Phase	Visual, Radar, Sonar, ESM.
	Air movement Phase	Air Move and Fire
	Reaction Fire Phase	Shipboard at New Targets (half max)
	Resolution Phase	Resolve all weapons fire or movement

Obviously the computer game presents a series of scenarios that would translate well to a modern naval game like Harpoon.  Realising this as a game meant that I would have to do some scratch building.

One model I did have for this is a 1:3000 Skytrex Los Angeles submarine.  I bought it years back, and discovered it lurking at the bottom of my paints box last week.  I used this for my scale.

The Los Angeles and a Russian Akula

It's not controversial to say that the Island of Cyprus has a surfeit of barbecue sticks.  I started my modelling by finding the dimensions of the submarines in the various scenarios and working out the scale length I needed for the hull.  


Submerged or not all of my models will be waterline with a depth dice, so I split the bamboo sticks with a craft knife and sanded them to smooth.  A shaped coffee stick sail was mounted on the top.

Simple but effective. Painted up they look just the part.  

The Han is a much smaller submarine than the Los Angeles, and the tiny Romeo diesel sub smaller still.  Once I started though I was churning them out and before long I had a dozen.

My Russian Alfa subs were built using bamboo on a raised base to get the hull width, and the huge Typhoon class made larger still with the use of modelling clay.

The first vessels finished are the USS Galveston (a fictional Los Angeles instead of Cheyenne which is real) the two Han Class and the Akula.  The Aeroplanes being built and glued behind are four Gloster Gladiators for the Desert Air Force. (and wish me luck using those old ladies against the Luftwaffe!)

SSN has the Chinese use military hardware supplied from Russia (and France) so Akula,  Alfa and other sub classes will be present to provide the Galveston with more of a challenge than the aged Han class.

I used modelling clay to build the big Alfa II subs and a Chinese Jianghu Class Frigate.  

The subs are fine, but that frigate has an amazing childlike quality about it.  Give me a piece of balsa or bass wood and I can make a pretty accurate model of just about any ship.  

Modelling clay though... nah, not so much.  It's the toytown version so I named her the Wánjù Chéng.  (Literally the Toytown, I`ll have to do the Noddy and BigEars as sister ships) 

Still the helicopter, my version of a Harbin Z9 French built ASW Helo, and the water spout strikes work pretty well.

I`m going to have to put up with that odd looking Jianghu until I can source the materials to do a proper build.  It would be really annoying if it proved to be effective though!

An index card storage box holds the entire collection, including the table aids for Harpoon.  

Table Aids:
Markers for Active Pinging, towed array, Torpedoes in the water, Fire One and Two tracks (up to four), depth dice to mark each submarine model, from 1 (Surfaced) to 6 (Deep Depth) and plot markers for Master 1 to 6.  

Cost for the project... well I suppose I better do a barbecue and it will work out at precisely nil!