E9 Sea trials. Prelude to the Dardanelles

I built two 1914 E Class Submarines for the forthcoming attack on the Dardanelles.  E11 is currently having her control board rebuilt, but E9 is ready to go.  In my plan I set out the Sea Trials as a check on the rules mechanisms for the control panel.  

On passage from the UK Naismith's E11 developed a crack in her main shaft and was refitted in Malta undergoing Sea Trials before heading off to the first of her historic missions through the Dardanelles and into the Sea of Marmara.  Well it is my E9 that is ready first.  Strictly speaking it isn`t really known if E9 was fitted with a deck gun.  E11 certainly wasn`t, but my E9 is, and is therefore (technically) the better equipped of my two subs...

Sea Trials

Move from dock to mid channel.

Dive the boat.

Periscope depth

Use the periscope

Move underwater to firing position.

Target the Wreck with a torpedo from Tube 1

Surface the boat

Full speed to target range.

Use the deck gun to destroy the target.

 E9 and E11 moored alongside their depot ship Ganges.   

 The control panel.  Engines are rung off.  Hatch is open.  The Submarine is surfaced stationary.

 The engines are rung for slow ahead.  The rudder is starboard 20.

 E9 moves into mid channel.  A 4 inch move represents about a quarter of her surface speed. 

In action the deck rails would be removed, but I modelled them here to make E9 look more distinctive.   

 Rolling a 6 for this turn's movement I have to draw an event card.  Turns out that Able Seaman Harpo Marx has gone crazy again.  We are on the surface however so it has no effect.

The Dive begins.  Gauge is set to 25 feet.  The hatch is sealed.  The engines are switched from diesel so that the batteries will now begin draining.   

E9 at periscope depth.  The depth dice is turned from 1 to 2.   

The Periscope is raised.  Battery power begins to go down.

On the Periscope it's the target.  A Merchant ship moving at 10 knots.  The dice at movement also indicates another event card.  Its our long suffering Scottish Chief Engineer.  We must ring for a slower speed, but that would be necessary anyway to open the outer tube doors.  Not one of my better drawings.

With the speed at slow ahead the outer doors are opened.  The target is indicated, as is its speed and the offset. Strictly speaking the tubes are already loaded.    Our brave captain fires... at the unarmed merchantman.  One of the torpedoes can be removed from the control panel and transferred to the tabletop. 

Interestingly the Sea Trials required me to fire from Tube 1, and I have clearly fired tube 2 here...  Ooops. 

With thr torpedo fitting into a cradle to represent it skooshing through the water I dice to see if it is running straight.  Its a good one, on target.

A hit.  The damage will be catastrophic for the Merchant ship.  

The Submarine goes to 100 feet.  The depth dice is turned to 5.  That is its maximum operational depth.  Any deeper and interesting things will happen.

That gauge may well go to 165 feet but that is really optimistic.  Going deeper than 100 means you play the crush depth challenge with Edna, and she will kill you in the end...

Heading back to the surface.  Hatch still sealed until we surface.  Torpedo doors neglectfully left open, and I left the scope up! 

Surfaced.  Main hatch can now be opened.  Crewing the deck gun to finish off my target.    The engines are switched back to Diesel.   Electric batteries and Air begin to replenish.

E9 completes her Sea Trials and sets course for the Dardanelles.

The S-Boat and my rules design notes.

With its usual efficiency the Kriegsmarine designed the Schnell-boot or S-boat for their principal areas of operations, the North Sea.  As a class they were tough, seaworthy and very fast.  Much larger than the equivalent British MTB of 1940 they were designated "E-boats," the "e" meaning simply enemy.  They were better armed, and so superior that later Allied designs mimicked them.
My wargames MTBs are going to have their work cut out.

Beginning with the hull shape, cut from balsa and sanded into submission at 1mm to 1 ft,  I used the plans for a S-100 boat.  That meant that the bow had to be raised with a second piece of balsa, and the grooves for the torpedo launchers cut, almost to the waterline.

The rounded wheelhouse, in its aluminium cover was difficult to shape, and needed balsa, sanding and milliput to get the shape. 

The S-boat is a detailed model, requiring railings and canvas screens, as well as recessed weapons turrets and a mine laying rail. 

Once again I added a micro dice frame (even though it covers the mine laying rail over the stern.)

The S-boat is the only German WW2 Coastal forces model I have completed so far.  Even so this S 100 type (the hull is numbered S103) probably over matches my Vospers.  

This set me to considering my rules, and the design notes that will underpin them...

• The rules should be quick to play and easy, to learn, but give a simulation of Coastal Forces warfare.

• Personalities and leadership should be a factor in the game.

• Avoid book keeping and excessive detail. 

• Make the game mission driven. 

• I want my games to be playable as solo games, in a similar vein to Dan Mersey's Babbage rules.

•  My rules will have to work equally well on  a tiny table...  difficult one this.

• D6 is the only dice type I will allow.

Further notes...Instead of scenarios I will have Mission briefings, these are cards that include 1-3 encounter locations. A mission objective is located at the centre of the table, or else a nominated vessel at the centre.
Blinds
Aircraft strafes and bombing runs will cross the table in two turns.
Weather
Clock face vessel, aircraft appearance or event occurrence.
Combat should be swift and deadly, and e boats can take more damage than an MTB.
Damage inflicted on: engines, crew, command, hull, weapons, misc...rudder, props, raft, lifebelts, Jerry-can (fire) Aldis lamp.
Each hit causes some damage.

A pair of Vosper 73ft Motor Torpedo Boats

The 73 ft Vosper Motor Torpedo Boat was a pre-war design that was soon discovered to be woefully outclassed by the German S-boats.  With Torpedoes are the main armament they were not really intended to mix it with the heavier and faster diesel powered German craft, yet in reality they performed well.  This was mainly due to the different operational emphasis between the two forces.  The Royal Navy, as always, emphasised aggressive tactics, whilst for the Germans success was in the mission, and they were not in the business of fighting for fighting's sake.   

My Vosper 73ft MTBs with
the hull of an S-boat lurking
in the background.

My Vospers were built separately, and it shows.  I am very much still learning my craft in terms of scratch building these Coastal forces vessels.  For all that however they closely resemble each other and have the look I was going for.

I began with the hull in 1:300 (or more accurately at 1mm to 1 ft) cut from balsa strip, shaped and sanded.  The hull was scorched to give it a smoother look, and the cutaways for the torpedo recesses moulded.  I then began the bow section, with a second layer added.  The bow of the Vosper is higher than the stern, and the extra layer gives it the correct appearance.  Not that there are any weapons on the bow section.  The Vosper has an issue with forward firing!

The Superstructure was then added, in pieces, with a clear plastic window section that is painted silver behind it.  It just looks right.  The open bridge goes above this.   

Boat 27, with the tiny life raft on the fore-deck. 

The torpedo tubes are plastic cylinders cut with a sharp angle at the torpedoes business end.  I will fess up and admit that these are the plastic rod that holds an earbud together.  Thin slivers of these, cut crosswise form the lifebelts hung on the outside of the bridge superstructure.  In addition to this I used the same plastic rod to form the depth charge throwers, cut lengthwise, with a bamboo "barrel" shape painted in gunmetal to form the depth charge itself.

British Coastal Forces specialised in depth charge attacks.  Thrown accurately under the bows of the enemy they represented a devastating weapon.  Peter Scott's account of using this attack is one of the most exciting pieces of non fiction I`ve ever read.  It reads like a boys-own story of derring-do.#

The Vospers were given a pale cream deck colouring and a darker grey hull, representing an earlier war paint scheme.   The metallic fittings were finished in gun metal and the whole vessel varnished in satin.  

These models are for wargaming.  I added the dice frame to the transom intending that this should show the remaining flotation points for the vessel.  It does occur to me however that this may be better as a speed indicator.    

I have yet to add the Ensigns and some rigging, but essentially that's it.  The Vosper's are done.   
I`m quite proud of them.  

1:300 Coastal Forces Project

Since reading Robert Hitchins "We fought them in gunboats" as a library book back in the 1970s I have had a fascination for Coastal Forces wargaming.  When Skytrex first introduced their 1:600 range I collected quite a few different models, building up a force of 8 S - boat s,  8 MTBs, flak lighters, merchant ships, and even some larger destroyers.  They gave a great game.  My rules of choice were "Attack with Torpedoes" just the right mixture of playability and detail.

With the move to Cyprus I ruthlessly cut out any period which I had represented in two different scales.  I sold the 1:600 and the rules, as well as a few 1:1200, and retained the tiny 1:6000 models which I thought would allow me to game on a smaller table.

The 1:6000 are great at representing the larger ships, the Battle of the River Plate,  the Hunt for the Bismark, all look great... but the coastal forces in this scale are tiny and as such work well on one of my Admiralty charts, but pretty poorly on the tabletop.

After scratch building a 15/20mm scale Nile gunboat for Men Who Would be Kings, and reading "building waterline ship models" I decided to have a go at scratch building some WW2 Coastal forces, just to see if it could be done.   If the first model failed I would abandon the project... I told myself.

The first boat would be an RAF rescue launch, an early war 60 ft version, and since this would be my first model I wnated to make it unarmed.  The next issue was scale.  Turns out that 15mm to 1 ft is more or less 1:300 (or 1:285) scale.  Useful since this would allow me to crew the models with wargaming figures.

At 6cm long the rescue launch would be large enough to not be fiddly to maneuver,  but small enough to allow a reasonable size of table to be used.   Even at this stage I was thinking about writing my own rules to go with the project.

.

The plans for vessels like the launch are available online.  Very useful too, and I quickly aquired a thick 1 cm by 3cm by 100 ccm strip of balsa.  This would give me around ten vessels of varying size.  I reduced the plan view of the launch to 6cm on my laptop screen and traced the details I needed.  I could have simply printed this out of course!  The traced image gave me the shape of the deck.  I cut and sanded the resulting shape using the full plans as a guide.

Once I was happy with the shape of the hull I began on the superstructure.  Card and balsa formed and shaped gave me the look of the superstructure,  not perfect but passable.  I used filler to cover the joins, and ran a lighter over the result to get rid of any "hairy balsa" left behind.

The mast was fitted, using shaped bamboo, from a pack of kebab skewers.  The result is, if I dare say so, strong and stable.

The hull of boats like this seems to have been a dark blue.  I gave the upper works a slightly dark grey witj that yellow stripe around the top of the cabin. Edging the white painted numbers and letters in black fibre tip pen, I added more detail, and rigged the mast into place.

The life belts and milliput rescue raft were next, painted orange-red they give the model a colourful look.  Following that all I had to do was give the model a satin varnish coat, and fix on some hand drawn RAF pennants.

What's that?  Quiggles is down in the drink?  It's off to the rescue old boy!

Weissmueller's impressive Bulge

Back in Durham I am limited to a tiny 3 ft circular white table, and it was probably the colour that gave me the idea.  That or the fact that I had read McDonald's account of the fighting for the twin towns and the Elsenborn ridge.  The main requirement was that any game should be cheap.  The rules I wanted to use were Five men in Normandy, which have a strong solo element as well as a small footprint.  Small enough for that table?  Well maybe.

A couple of boxes of 1:72 figures came next.  Caesar Miniatures Germans in Winter kit, and Italeri US in Greatcoat.  Nice figures, and in harder plastic than the 20mm figures of old.
I made the mistake of buying some Italeri Fallshirmjager to add to these, but discovered that they were all standing upright in frankly camp poses.  They are now designated for casualty figures.

I scratch built a ruined house, giving it a snowed in texture, and realised that I would need another three at least.  I also aquired some felt sheets, in white for my snow drifts and dark brown for roads and the bases of my foxholes.

To be honest I need to put some green fence lines and trees into this terrain, as well as some telegraph poles, but I'm quite happy with the result.  It has some promise.

The road junction at Krinkat has been the scene of fighting between the US 2nd Division and attacking 990th Pz Grenadiers.  Sergeant Hudson and the remains of his squad, diced up as four riflemen and a Bar, were in foxholes at the western side of the table.  Gefrieter Weissmueller (aka Tarzan or big boy) and his men had been ordered to aggressively patrol the road junction.

The US won initiative and moved a scout team forward on their right among the snow drifts.
Tarzan diced a scurry move, pushing his Mg34 team into the ruined building, and the remaining troops into the snow drifts to the right and left of the road.

The Germans regained initiative.  Tarzan himself lobbed a grenade over the snow drift, catching both US Scouts.  One was knocked out, the other flinched back 6". 

The US responded by firing on the ruined building, causing the German loader to drop his ammo box and flinch back.

Weissmueller pressed forward shooting the fleeing US scout, knocking him down, and a round later he ran back to steady his fleeing man.

The Germans were closing in, and my Sergeant Rock Hudson decided to sit tight in his foxhole, keeping his men in cover.  Weissmueller however diced a firefight as his initiative and shot the BAR man, with his Mg34 knocking out another rifleman.

The Americans were struggling.  Hudson could not reach the Germans with his SMG, and had only one rifleman left.  His fire was ineffective.  The Germans targeted Hudson himself, and rolled a 1, causing him to flinch, leap from his foxhole and flee.  Typically however he was then shot in the back by Weissmueller's efficient squad. 

This left one American, huddled in his foxhole.  Weissmueller moved his squad to target him, and soon had liquidated the Americans. 

A good game, with some excellent solo mechanisms, that worked really well.  Dicing after the game I discovered that Weissmueller had captured one American, and a dozen cartons of US rations and cigarettes. He also holds road junction, for the time being.

1. 

The final game of my Frostgrave campaign

The Hall of Whispering Statues

For the past year the Unseen University has been sending out teams from various departments, from both the left and right wings of the College building, to investigate the ruins of the great city known as "Frostgrave."  Due to global warming, caused by the Unseen University's research in many peoples' opinion, the lost city has been slowly emerging from its thousand year icy tomb, and more importantly has begun to give up its secrets and its treasure.  

The exploring groups from the University are each lead by a Wizard with an apprentice and up to a dozen so so soldiers and hired thugs in support.  It is a game of looting and treasure hunting, but Frostgrave has not proved an easy or safe place to loot.

There have been some casualties.  The wizard Salmon and his apprentice the witch Sturgeon, two feisty and fishy characters, were killed early on in the Hall of Whispering Statues.*  Boris the Buffoon and his apprentice Backstabber Govius were done to death by a swarm of rats at the end of one particularly difficult scenario.  The Brown Wizard and his apprentice "Darling," did not survive an onslaught by the Lich of the Great Pitt, an ancient and un-dying Wizard. Finally Lord Blair retired from the game, having discovered a "Tablet of all Knowledge," and its demonic voice the Imp "Sirry."  He has returned to the University and become  Lord Chancellor.

* Legend has it that the statues whisper an endless round of chuckling "To me..." "To you..."  "To me..."

The remaining teams from the Unseen University are:

Cameronus and his apprentice Osbournius 
Cruella the witch, her apprentice Hammondius and her minions
Corbinus and his apprentice The MacDonell (the former apprentice Watsinius having been pushed over a cliff by the current apprentice)
Farrond and his apprentice Poor Cleggy!

Each of these four have won several magical artifacts and a great deal of gold (except for Farrond and Poor Cleggy who never seem to win anything but somehow seem to manage to cling on in there.)

The final scenario of my Frostgrave games was to be the Hall of Whispering Statues (revisited) and all four teams were in competition for the prize, the Great spellbook of Winstonius Churcillius, a wizard of legend.

I use 15mm figures for Frostgrave.  I`m rather pleased with them.  A fraction of the price of the 28mm "authorised" figures they store more easily and require less tabletop area.

The game began with the four teams approaching the Hall of Whispering Statues from the four corners of the tabletop.  First into action were Farrond and Poor Cleggy.  The way-point they passed generated an ambush by a huge troll.  

With quite a small team, mainly due to their lack of funds because of a poor showing in the campaign to date, the pair were in trouble. 

Farrond however proved up to the task.  

As his men at arms fought the Troll he cast a fireball, burning it down.  (magic under my amendments has to be real.  The Unseen University works on Science.  A fireball is essentially a hand grenade, but don`t tell the masses that!) So far so good, except that one of his own men was killed in the explosion.  This was a taster of things to come!  Seeing an empty building in front of them Farrond and Poor Cleggy charged inside, finding two treasure tokens and a lot of Skeletal undead. 

Corbinus and his apprentice The MacDonell used their fanatically loyal spearmen as a screen to advance onto the table.  The swarm of rats that rose up from the rocks was soon thumped into submission.  Corbinus once again produced his wand of power  named The Mandate!  (actually a taser) Seizing a Pearl of Wondrous Size as they passed a treasure point Corbinus group and advanced on the Hall of statues.

Cameronus and his apprentice Osbournius advanced on table, killing a single zombie that appeared at the way-point.  Across the table from them Cruella and her minions came on table.  Once part of the same department in the right wing of the Unseen University there was now a terrible hatred and rivalry between these two factions.  Ignoring the Hall of statues these two groups closed to fight.

Cruella cast a huge fireball, exploding it directly behind the front rank of Cameronius supporters. 
  
The apprentice Hammondius actually cast a spell properly (quite astonishing when you consider Cleggy's efforts in this area) and a cloak of darkness descended on Cameronius and his followers.  

A tremendous hand to hand melee began, which the Witch won with convincing ease.   

Cameronius was killed and Osbournius fled the battlefield.

The game returned to Farrond and Cleggy, left with just a few supporters and now battling a building filled with skeletons. Cleggy cast a fireball into the middle of the undead horde, killing most of his own men. Ooops!  

Farrond meanwhile ended up on the sharp end of an undead spear, leaving poor Cleggy as the last survivor.  Digging around he discovered the Great Spellbook, turns out it wasn't near the statues at all!  Having effectively won the game by massacring his own side Cleggy exited the battlefield, and returned to the University, presumably to take up a Professorship in Incompetence Studies.

Corbinus still in the Hall of Whispering Statues, (To me... to you..." flourishing  his wand TheMandate advanced on the statues, prepared to overawe the electorate with the size of his magic wand.

  Now anyone who knows this game is aware that these statues are extremely dangerous things... Just ask Salmon and Sturgeon... Well they were dead but you get what I mean... Not so Corbinus... The statues animated to defend their treasure, and began rampaging among Corbinus supporters. When the wand failed to work (taser against stone?) the Wizard retreated but refused to resign himself to running away.  His Apprentice The McDonnell, who had been relegated to pulling the cart (an excellent use of an apprentice) was one of the few survivors as Corbinus was flattened by a stone sword.  The Party of the left wing (formed in the left wing of the Unseen University Building) was reduced to three members, and fled.

All of this left the Witch Cruella victorious.  She killed off the remaining statues with her stone to mud spells, and her minions packed up the remaining treasure on the tabletop.

Frostgrave is not really a roleplay game, certainly not in the traditional sense.  This was the last of five games I`ve run, and it only emphasises the fact that this is a skirmish wargame, or even boardgame since it has some elements of that too.  It is also really fun, and my use of waypoints has made it a great solo game.  Cruella will be back!

28mm Portuguese for Sharpe Practice 2

Some praise for Warlord Games, not only was the international postage free, but they also completed my order in double quick time, a turn around of 4 days.  The box that arrived in my Pathos Post Office box this morning contained my Portuguese contingent for my Sharpe Practice 2 Peninsular setup.    

My SP2 force composition is based on the 5th Division of Lieutenant-General Sir James Leith (a Scottish Officer who will give his orders in an indecipherable dialect in my games.  The 4th Foot are the British battalion whose adventures I am following, and 5th Division also had an attached Portuguese brigade.  Initially a rag-tag poorly trained rabble they slowly became Wellington`s "fighting cocks" with discipline rivaling that of the British themselves.  At the moment I can field four groups of 8 British Line, two groups of 6 British light Companies, as well as the Brunswick Oels company of two groups of six (or an eight and a six- flexible troops the Oels!).

The addition of the Portuguese will give me 3 groups of 8 Portuguese Line and a colour party, as the 3rd Infantry Regiment, as well as a group of 6 Caçadores. (actually Perry Riflemen I will paint in Caçadore brown.)  The Portuguese are to be commanded by the notoriously camp "Count of Pantalones," a man who has trouble staying inside his pantalones.  The box has 24 figures, 20 plastic musketeers an Officer drummer and two standard bearers (with the option to make one of these an additional Officer instead.)  To get the numbers right I ordered a spare sprue of British foot (5) that I will paint in Portuguese dark blue to fill out the ranks for fielding these as Militia etc...

I am a fan of the Perry plastic Napoleonics, however these Warlord figures are less fiddly to put together than the separate arms of those Perry figures. These also have heads to glue in, meaning that if I want to change headgear I don`t have to hack the figure to decapitate it.  I also like the metal command group.  I will of course be using stove pipe shako for my Portuguese.

I think that, on balance, I prefer these to the Perry figures... although I will reserve judgement perhaps until I`ve painted them.

Lieutenant-General Sir James Leith`s 5th Division, 
Peninsular War order of battle

1st Brigade
3/1st (Royal Scots) Regiment of Foot
1/9th (Norfolk) Regiment of Foot
1/38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot
2/38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot
2/47th (Lancashire) Regiment of Foot
1 Coy., Brunswick-Oels Jaegers

2nd Brigade
1/4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot
2/4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot
2/30th (Cambridgeshire) Regiment of Foot
2/44th (East Essex) Regiment of Foot
2/47th (Lancashire) Regiment of Foot

Portuguese Brigade
1/3rd Infantry Regiment, Portuguese Army
2/3rd Infantry Regiment, Portuguese Army
1/15th Infantry Regiment, Portuguese Army
2/15th Infantry Regiment, Portuguese Army
8th Caçadores Battalion, Portuguese Army