IJN & USN Reinforcements

I've been a bit slow on the painting front over the past few weeks, what with the WAB GT and all that. However I have managed to polish off a bunch of Navwar 1/3000th ships that have been lying around.

Amongst this lot I painted I now have all the ships that I need in order to do a re-fight of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Whether we actually get around to doing that is another thing, but at least the option is on the table.

The list of ship painted this session included:

• USN Carriers: Lexington and Enterprise
• USN Cruisers: Minneapolis, New Orleans, Salt Lake City & Pensacola
• USN Destroyers: 20 various destroyers
• USN Sea-plane Tender: Langley
• USN Oilers: Neosho and Tippecanoe
• IJN Carriers: Shokaku, Zuikaku and Shoho
• IJN Destroyers: 14 various destroyers
• IJN Mine-layers: Okinoshima and Tsugaru
• Cruise Ship: Orcades

Sad lad that I am, I now have 239 ships painted for the Imperial Japanese Navy, Koninklijke Marine (Dutch Navy), Kreigsmarine, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Navy, Royal New Zealand Navy and US Navy and can fight all of these actions with the stuff I have painted:

• Battle of the River Plate
• Battle of the Java Sea
• Battle of Sunda Strait
• Battle of the Coral Sea
• First Battle of Savo Island
• Battle of the Eastern Solomons
• Third Battle of Savo Island
• Fourth Battle of Savo Island
• Battle of Empress Augusta Bay

As I said, sad sad lad....

I took a lot of pictures but most of them came out pretty shoddy, here is the best of the bunch...

Shoho, Shokaku & Zuikaku

Neosho, Tippecanoe & Orcades

14 Japanese Destroyers

Japanese Air Armada

On Tuesday we are planning a game of Bag the Hun at Maelstrom Games using Japanese and Americans. John has already painted up all the Japanese we will ever need, but I have had a bag of Tumbling Dice Japanese aircraft in the lead mountain for a long time, so I took the opportunity to get these painted up.

The aircraft were painted using Vallejo Acrylics and Doms Decals transfers were used.

As well as playing Bag the Hun with them, I'll also be using them for air attacks in our 1/3000 WWII naval games using General Quarters or Naval Thunder.

Here are all 33 aircraft painted up this weekend.

12 Mitsubishi A6M3 Zero fighters

3 Mitsubishi G3M Nell bombers

4 Mitsubishi A5M Claude fighters

4 Aichi D3A Val dive bombers

6 Nakajima B5N Kate torpedo bombers

Mitsubishi F1M Pete float planes

All 33 aircraft

Pacific War Reinforcements

Back in my teens I used to own a massive collection of WWII ships and would play many a game of General Quarters with my mates. I let these ships go the way of eBay many years ago, and if I'm honest they looked like they were painted thirty years ago and were not getting any usage.

A couple of years ago we re-discovered General Quarters and I started building up a new collection of 1/3000 WWII naval ships again. Although this time I would find an historical battle and then purchase all the ships needed to play it rather than buying massive, disparate fleets on a whim. I've mainly concentrated on cruiser size battles and below as you can have a really good game on an 8ft square playing area.

A few days ago, I placed a small order on Navwar and with typical Navwar efficiency they were with me in just a few days. It was just a matter then of painting them. This is the method I use:

1. Clean up the ships
2. Stick to plywood bases, typically 75mm x 25mm for cruisers and 50mm x 20mm for destroyers
3. Create a 'sea' effect with Vallejo Gel Denso
4. Spray with Halfords grey primer
5. Paint the ships with Vallejo paints, I find this guide really useful for painting the USN vessels. This is also a really good comparison chart for the Vallejo colours.
6. Paint the bases with Vallejo Prussian Blue
7. Drybrush the entire ship and base with Vallejo Pale Grey
8. Wash the decks and super-structure with a glaze of Vallejo Black
9. Wash the 'sea' with a glaze of Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue
10. Hilight the sea, wake, etc. with Vallejo White
11. Varnish with matt varnish

In just a few hours this weekend I have painted 5 IJN cruisers, 18 IJN destroyers, 2 USN cruisers, 18 USN destroyers, 2 Royal Netherlands Navy destroyers.

Here are some shots of the ships painted over the weekend:

Having painted these last few ships, I now have every ship in my collection to do the following historical engagements:

• Battle of the River Plate
• Battle of the Java Sea
• Battle of Sunda Strait
• First Battle of Savo Island
• Third Battle of Savo Island
• Fourth Battle of Savo Island
• Battle of Empress Augusta Bay

Plus I have a few extra ships so that I can do many 'what-if' engagements too. It's become rather an obsession and I now have the following painted ships in my collection:

• Imperial Japanese Navy : 2 battle-cruisers, 16 heavy cruisers, 10 light cruisers, 1 aircraft carrier, 44 destroyers, 1 sea plan tender & 3 submarines.
• Kreigsmarine: 1 battle-cruiser.
• Royal Netherlands Navy: 4 light cruisers & 6 destroyers.
• Royal Australian Navy: 2 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers & 3 destroyers.
• Royal Navy: 4 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser & 8 destroyers
• Royal New Zealand Navy: 1 light cruiser
• United States Navy: 2 battleships, 9 heavy cruisers, 13 light cruisers, 38 destroyers & 4 submarines.
• Merchants: 12 various ships

Here are some images of the ships painted this weekend:

IJN heavy cruisers: Takao, Atago, Maya, Aoba & Kinugasa

18 IJN destroyers of various classes

Koninklijke Marine destroyers Van Nes and Van Ghent

USN light cruisers Atlanta & San Diego

18 USN destroyers of various class

IJN heavy cruiser Aoba

IJN heavy cruiser Takao

USS San Diego

IJN destroyer Ayanami

IJN destroyer Harusame

RNN destroyer Van Ghent

USN destroyer Parrott

Action in the North Sea 1915

Steve has quite a collection of WWI ships and has had a game in mind for quite some time to represent a theoretical, but highly possible engagement in the North Sea towards the start of WWII. We would be using the General Quarters III rules

I would take the part of a German Admiral with a force of four Battle Cruisers including Derfflinger, Moltke and Seydlitz, four Light Cruisers and three half flotilla of Torpedo boats. Our mission was to bombard Yarmouth on the British coast with a view to drawing out the British Grand Fleet.

Visibility was 14,000 yards

Steaming westwards at 15 knots towards the British coast we sighted Royal Navy destroyers from the south and two half flotillas of torpedo boats were despatched to engage them and to screen the fleets continued eastern progress. The advancing torpedo boats then spotted British Light cruisers, so the entire fleet turned to engage. It soon became apparent that the Royal Navy were here in force as both Armoured Cruisers and Dreadnought battleships entered the fray. These represented the fleet based at Harwich.

The  Royal Navy destroyers did their job and the and quite badly shot up the  Imperial Navy torpedo boats, but not before those torpedo boats had sunk a Royal Navy Arethusa-class light cruiser. But the torpedo boats also managed to sink one of their own number who strayed into a torpedo track during a confused close-quarters melee with the Royal Navy Destroyers.

Although badly outnumbered, the  Imperial Navy battle-cruisers soon had the measure of the Royal Navy ships and soon had inflicted severe damage on the Royal Navy cruisers and battleships and taking little punishment in return, but a Royal Navy destroyer launched a torpedo at Derfflinger, causing light damage but severing the steam line limiting the vessel to 18knots.

With their major unit slowed and the possibility of being intercepted by the Grand Fleet on their, the Imperial Navy ships broke contact with the slower Royal Navy counterparts and headed back to their home ports.

The Royal Navy had lost a light cruiser and three destroyers sunk, another light cruiser, two armoured cruisers and two Battleships were severely damaged. The Imperial Navy had lost four torpedo boats and Derfflinger had been damaged. If the Grand Fleet had been on an intercept then Derfflinger may have been caught, but likewise the trap may have also been sprung.

A half flotilla of torpedo boats is despatched

Royal Navy light cruisers

Torpedo boats attempt to penetrate the destroyer screen

Melee between torpedo boats and destroyers, Imperial Navy battle-cruisers to the rear.

In the foreground are the RN light cruisers, then the armoured cruisers, then dreadnoughts.

Imperial Navy battle-cruisers in the foreground, light cruisers in the background.

All the ships are from Navwar and were painted by Steve as part of his collection.

Battle of Sav 'Oh No' Island

At Mansfield Wargames Club back in 2009 we started running a series of WWII+70 games where we would pick an action that happened about 70 years ago and re-fight it at the club. What with other commitments and projects it petered out a bit. However, at the recent AGM we decided that we would give it another go and I would set up a game.

We would be playing on the 2nd August, so looking on Wikipedia for a week either side of 2nd August 1942 I came up with the following possibilities:

27th July 1942: The First Battle of El Alemain
I have some 6mm troops for this, but they are a bit early. If Greg could bring his 15mm stuff I could add it to mine and do it. The rules options were BlitzKreig Commander, I Ain't Been Shot Mum or Flames of War.

28th July 1942: Order No.227 
I've got loads of 15mm Eastern Front, again the rules options were BlitzKreig Commander, I Ain't Been Shot Mum or Flames of War.

7th August 1942: Battle of Guadalcanal
I have some 1/600 Japanese and US planes so could do a Bag the Hun.

9th August 1942: Battle of Savo Island
This is probably favourite as I already have all the ships for it and could use either General Quarters or Naval Thunder.

In the end I decided to do the Battle of Savo Island using General Quarters.

I had created a set of rosters for both fleets and a set of scenario rules that would give the Japanese all the advantages with the Allied forces having a good chance of:

• Firing both guns and torpedoes at illuminated friendly ships.
• Ordering their own ships to cease fire as they may be engaging friendly ships.
• Failing to illuminate Japanese ships with star-shells as they had a high failure rate.
• Failing to pass on, or acknowledge the position of enemy ships.

Two 8ft x 4ft tables were set up alongside each other. On one table was half of Savo Island and the North Patrol Force (Vincennes, Astoria, Quincy, Helm Wilson) along with the destroyer picket Ralph Talbot. On the other table was the South Patrol Force (HMAS Canberra, Chicago, Patterson and Bagley) along with the destroyer picket Blue. It was assumed that the northern edge of the north table represented Florida Island and the southern edge of the south table represented Guadalcanal.

Northern Patrol Force

Southern Patrol Force

Mikawa's force consisted of Cruiser Division 6 (Chokai, Aoba, Kinugasa, Kako and Furutaka) and Cruiser Division 10 (Tenryu, Yubari and the destroyer Yunagi).

The Allied ships were issued a standard patrol plot at 10knots and could not deviate from that plot until they confirmed that they were under attack. Mikawa's force entered the southern table at 22knots.

I would play the Japanese, Greg and Ben the Allies.

Mikawa's cruisers enter the fray

The Japanese started well, they were picked up by the destroyer Blue who attempted to pass the news of the raid on but was ignored. Realising that they had been spotted Cruiser Division 10 were dispatched to deal with Blue.

Blue launched a spread of torpedoes at the cruisers but achieved only a single hit that proved to be a dud. Tenryu then engaged Blue in a gunfire duel, but was herself set on fire but Blue also suffered a damaged rudder.

Tenryu set on fire by Blue (in the background)

The rest of Mikawa's cruisers continued unmolested and undetected until they were within 1500 yards of the Southern Patrol force at which point they opened up with a tirade of gun fire and torpedoes. What a shambles! The gunfire either missed or was ineffective. Out of all the spreads of torpedoes launched, with a very high hit probability only a single torpedo hit Canberra and that only did very minor damage.

Cruiser Division 6 engage Southern Patrol Force

The Allied did not have it all their own way though, the Southern Patrol Force were in confusion and despite opening fire with the Cruisers the order was immediately countermanded after only a handful of shots. Patterson and Bagley did fare better and seriously damaged Aoba with gunfire and torpedoes.

The two cruiser forces continued to engage, but even with the confusion in the Allied ranks the Japanese could not get the upper hand. Chicago was eventually sunk, but so was Aoba. The fires continued to rage aboard Tenryu and she was eventually abandoned but not before finishing off Blue.

Mikawa decided to break off the attack and head back to Rabaul, but it was not over yet, with only two functioning turrets, Canberra caused a hit on Furutaka that penetrated the magazine and the ship exploded.

At the end of the game the allies had lost Chicago and Blue, Canberra, Paterson and Bagley were all badly damaged. The Japanese had lost Aoba, Furutaka and Tenryu and Chokai was slightly damaged. The Northern Patrol Force had remained oblivious to the whole event.

A terrible day for the Imperial Japanese Navy

Vincennes and Astoria

Chicago and Canberra