Belated DANG 2 - Black Sea Battle

We played the second of the mini-DANG (Dave’s Annual Naval Game) games today. Those of you that follow the blog will remember the games were postponed due to snow. We were only missing one person for this session. Today’s game was World War 2 coastal forces action in the Black Sea. The Soviets have launched an amphibious attack across the Kerch Strait (Note: Historically would have been part of the Kerch–Eltigen operation in late 1943). Soviet naval forces are supporting the attack with supply runs, bombardment missions, and minelaying to prevent interference from the Germans. The Germans are trying to stop the Soviets, while providing their own naval support. We used David Manley’s Narrow Seas coastal forces fast-play rules to resolve today’s action and Warlord Games 1/300 scale Cruel Seas coastal forces with a few scratch-built merchants.

Soviet ships preparing for the operation

The Soviets had a Project 53-U (Fugas) class minesweeper, 2 Project 1124 Bronekater armored gunboats, a pair of MO-4 submarine chasers for escorts, and 3 merchant supply ships (Note: Historically the Soviets would have been using Project 165 landing craft, but I don’t have any of those right now and so the merchants are substituted in). The Soviets started on the east edge of the board and basically had to exit the merchants, Bronekater gunboats, and minesweeper off the west edge. They had the option of staggering their entry over the first 3 turns but chose to have everyone enter on turn 1.

Soviet forces

The Germans had a pair of S-boats (S-30 class) motor torpedo boats (MTBs), an AFP flaklighter, an R-boat motor minesweeper, and three Italian MAS MTBs (Note: Historically these boats were turned over to the Romanian when the Italians left the theater. In this game I gave them a random quality and 2 of the 3 crews were green). The Germans we tasked with stopping any Soviet support from getting through to the beachhead. The AFP flaklighter and R-boat started on the west portion of the board, the S-boats entered on the northwest edge on turn 1, and the MAS boats entered the southwest edge on turn 3.

S-boat on the prowl

We used hidden units and dummies for the game. I was trying to give the players a chance to hide their intentions and try to scout things out. But being normal gamers, they moved straight into action.

German hidden ship markers

The larger ships sighted each other pretty quickly. So, the Germans knew right where the Soviet supply ships were and also spotted the minesweeper, while the Soviets spotted the German AFP. Early shots by the big ships were fairly ineffective, with each side only doing light damage to the other.

Soviet supply ships

Soviet minesweeper

German AFP bristling with weapons

With the supply ships spotted, the S-boats made their way to intercept and fired their torpedoes. On the other side of the board, the MAS boats moved on and launched torpedoes at the minesweeper, while the other two too long-range torpedo shots at the supply ships.

S-boats launching torpedoes at the supply ships

MAS boat launches torpedoes at the minesweeper

The Soviets tried to evade the incoming torpedoes. One supply ship was able to turn bow-on to the torpedoes and both missed. The other supply ship and the minesweeper were not so lucky, with both taking hits and drifted to a halt (Wrecked in the game rules). Even with these losses, the Soviets still had the Bronekater gunboats and two supply ships that could complete the missions to win the game.

Torpedo hit!

Minesweeper sinking

With their torpedoes shot, the German S-boats and Romanian MTBs began a retreat. The S-boats looked at reloading their tubes. But it would take 5 turns at slow speeds to do it and the Soviets would be gone by then. The AFP continued to blast away at Soviet ships, but was not having much luck. The R-boat decided to try to drop some depth charges in the path of the supply ships, hoping to disable or sink them. But the R-boat had to fight its way through the MO-4 escorts. 

R-boat in close action with an MO4 escort

On the other side of the board, the Bronekaters caught site of the fleeing MAS boat that had torpedoed the minesweeper and hit it squarely with a 76mm round, sinking the little boat. 

Bronekaters blast the MAS boat

MAS sinking

The R-boat was able to get in front of the supply ships and started dropping depth charges. It narrowly avoided colliding with one of the supply ships (only the paint was scratched). However, the supply ships were able to make their way through the depth charge patterns with only wet decks. 

Near-miss on the collision

In the middle of the board a fight was developing between the AFP and the Bronekaters. The AFP’s bad rolls continued, and it couldn’t connect any good hits on the gunboats. While the gunboats were getting hits on the AFP. 

AFP faces of against the Bronekater gunboats

At this point we decided to call the game. There wasn’t much the Germans could do to stop the remaining supply ships from getting off the board and the AFP was having no luck against the gunboats. With this in mind we gave the Soviets a minor victory.

Overall, the scenario played out well. The Soviets could have delayed the entry of their supply ships to allow the other ships to deal with the Germans before they could get into torpedo range. But it is hard to argue with the plan that won the game.

It was a fun game and everyone had a good time and enjoyed the rules, which lived up to their billing of fast play rules. The Warlord ships look good on the table, I only wish they were coming out with some more useful ships.

2021 Review and 2022 Preview

With the start of 2022, I'll take an obligatory look back at 2021 and look forward to 2022. 

 

From the hobby standpoint, 2021 was a much better year than 2020. I finished more projects and had more chance to game. 

 

Starting out with the gaming side, in February, we wrapped up a Play by Email Spanish-American War naval campaign I ran using David Manley's Splendid Little War game and the Fire When Ready naval rules. I didn't do a write-up for this, but you can see Kevin's blog for the whole story.

 

In early June, we had our first lawn game. It was an Ironclads game and was a good kick-off to lawn-gaming season.

Collisions and calamity - Ironclad style

This  year's lawn games included: What a Tanker - Western Desert, Narrow Seas (World War II coastal forces), and pre-dreadnought action.

What a Tanker game

Narrow Seas

Fire When Ready

 

I also played in a few games over at Kevin's garage, but I don't have many photos of those. I also played my summer solo campaign and a few other miscellaneous games here and there. Overall, it was a good year for gaming.

 

On the painting side, I started the year by finishing up my 1/6000 scale Italian fleet.

Littorio class battleships

The whole Italian fleet

I joined in a semi-group project to do some Vietnam War figures. Others in the group got their figures from Gringo 40's, while I thought I would go with the figures from Crucible Crush's Black Sun line. Unfortunately for me, the Gringo 40 figures are just a little too big for my troops to fit in with. See the image below, the M-60 gunner in the center is from Gringo 40's, while the (substantially) smaller figures on either side are my Crucible Crush figures.

You can see the Gringo 40's figure is much bigger

The project left me with some good skirmish figures I can use, but not anything for the group gaming. 

 

I did a lot of work on 1/300 scale coastal forces. Almost all are from Warlord Games Cruel Seas line. Overall, I like the miniatures and the addition of crew figures really helps bring the little ships to life. I'm not always happy with choice of ships the company decides to make, but I'm hopeful they will add some more useful ships in the future. 

I also joined in on the full group project on the Mexican-American War. I picked up an Old Glory Army membership and ordered my troops. Once again, I was the oddball of the group since everyone else purchased figures from 1st Corps miniatures. Luckily, Old Glory and 1st Corps infantry (but not the mounted troops) are pretty close in size. So, everything should look fine on the table. I expect we'll get the first games in early in 2022.

That pretty much wraps up 2021. So, how did what I accomplished compare to my plans? Here is the list of things I wrote I wanted to do at the start of the year:

 

- Finish the 1/6000 scale Italian World War 2 fleet pack from Figurehead. DONE

 

- Work on Warlord Games Black Seas sailing ships. NOT DONE

 

- Work on Work on Warlord Games 1/300 coastal forces. MOSTLY DONE

 

- Put together some 15mm tanks for North Africa and play some What a Tanker games. DONE

 

- Work on the many unpainted aircraft I have. NOT DONE

 

Overall, a good year for plans vs. completed projects. 

 

Looking to 2022

So, what's on the list for 2022? In January I'll be running a couple of postponed DANG games. It has been a while since I've had more than a couple people over for an inside game, so this will be a step back to normalcy.

 

As far as projects go, right now I've got one new project that I committed to do. Painting up half the Italian ships from the Battle of Lissa for an Enfilade 2022 project. I was pulled into this project and ended up (semi) volunteering to do half the Italian ironclads. The ships are 1/600 scale from the old Bay Area Yards line. 

 

After and I will work on the following other projects, in no particular order.

 

- Mexican - American War stuff. I want to finish up all my Americans and still have some Dragoons left. I recently ordered a bunch of Mexicans to work on down the road.

 

- Airplanes! I really enjoy air games and I have a lot of unpainted planes. I also have a lot of painted stuff and should work on some scenario ideas to get som eplanes on the table.

 

- Black Seas sailing ships. I have several frigates and brigs that are mostly painted, but still need the final mast assembly and rigging. I also have some unassembled 74s.

 

- Finish up 1/300 coastal forces. I still have some Russians and Germans to finish up. These should be smallish projects, something to pick up between other projects or when I want to do a ship or two.

 

As always, I will remain flexible with my plans and expect there will be some new, bright/shiny game or object that will catch my attention. I always have lots of ideas floating around in my head.

 

I'm hoping to have a few more small indoor games over the next few months. Once the weather turns nice I expect we'll start some lawn gaming. So discussions about what games to play will probably help determine what projects I work on.

 

It looks like Enfilade 2022 will be back on Memorial Day weekend (at the end of May) and I'm hoping to be able to attend this year.

 

Personal Note

Thanks to all of you for reading my blog. I appreciate all the support I get from the gaming community. 

2021 was a tough year for me. In January I was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer (my cancer had spread from my prostate to my lungs and bones). I went through intravenous chemo treatment during the summer. The support from my gaming friends, the gaming community and being able to focus on painting projects really helped get me through the treatment. I'm not cancer-free yet (I'm still undergoing chemo treatment, this time in pill form), but I'm doing much better. Now that my immune system has recovered and I'm vaccinated/boosted, I'm looking forward to getting back out for some public gaming in 2022.

Black Sea Soviets

The next additions for my ongoing Black Sea/Baltic Sea project are some Soviet ships from the Warlord Games Soviet Navy Fleet box set. The box has one Fugas (Project 3, 53, 53-U, and 58) class minesweeper, a pair of Project 1124 Bronekater river gunboats, a pair of MO-4 patrol boats, and eight motor torpedoes boats. I started off with the larger vessels and will finish the MTBs later. 

Soviet Coastal Flotilla

Starting with the big ship in the group - the Fugas class minesweeper. The Fugas class served in the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, and Pacific. There were 15 in the Black Sea, 20 in the Baltic, and 8 in the Pacific. They were used as minesweepers, minelayers, escorts, and to support amphibious operations. So this will be a useful ship for my Black Sea/Baltic Sea games.

Fugas class, starboard side view

The Warlord model comes armed with 100mm gun forward, a 45mm gun aft, and a pair of heavy machine guns on the open bridge wings. This seems to be an early war fit, since more anti-aircraft guns were added later as the threat from enemy aircraft increased. The Warlord kit comes with a resin hull, along with separate metals parts for the bridge are, funnel, life boats, masts, and weapons. The hull was a little bent, but I was able to heat it in warm water and flatten it out. The rest of the pieces went together fairly easily, although it was hard to maintain the shape of the lifeboat davits. For painting I went with a darker gray for the hull and a brick color deck. I wanted the ship to look like it had seen a lot of work with little up-keep. So I did a lot of heavy weathering, but I may have gone a bit 'overboard.'

Fugas class, port side view

Next up the river gunboats, also know as armored gunboats. Warlord refers to these as Pr1125, but I think the gunboats with two turrets are really Project 1124 class. So I'm going with that. The river gunboats mostly provided gunfire support from the larger rivers, but they were also did those tasks in support of amphibious landings in the Black Sea and Baltic Sea.  

Project 1124, port side view

The Project 1124 gunboat was armed with two T-34 turrets (with 76mm guns) and a twin heavy machine gun turret. Warlord also makes a variation of this class with a Katyusha rocket launcher. The models are metal, with the hull and three turrets coming as separate pieces. There is also a mast, but I found it to be pretty flimsy, so I left it off. I don't think it detracts from the overall appearance.

Project 1124, starboard side

Finally, the MO-4 patrol boats. There were around 250 of these boats built during World War II and they served on all fronts. They were designed as submarine chasers, but were used as a jack of all trades. The class lacked armor, making it vulnerable to even small arms fire. In 1943 the class was modified to add armor to protect the engines and bridge, giving it the designation BMO class.

MO-4 patrol boat, starboard side view

The class was armed with two 45mm guns and two heavy machine guns. Later in the war one of the 45mm guns was replaced with a 37mm gun for better anti-aircraft protection. Additionally, there lots of local modifications to the weapons fits, such as adding rocket launchers to support ground attacks. The Warlord model has a resin hull, with the gun mounts and mast as separate pieces. The model goes together well. The only issue I had was fitting the three aft guns into the small space (you can see from the photos that I angled the HMGs instead of having them point out perpendicular from the hull). 

MO-4 from the port side

One thing I've noticed is that the more work on the 1/300 scale ships, the more I find that I like the crew figures. They really do make the ships seem more alive. I only wish the Warlord figures were a little better and had more options. I'm planning to look around at some Heroics and Ros and GHQ 1/300 figures to fill out the ships some in the future.

Back to the Narrow Seas

I'm still trying to take advantage of the good weather for some outdoor lawn gaming. On Saturday a small group of us had the chance to get together to play a coastal forces action. We used David Manley's Narrow Seas rules (available on Wargame Vault) with the 1/300 scale ships (from Warlord Games Cruel Seas line). This gave me a chance to get my Kriegsfischkutters (KFKs) and Räumbootes (R-boats) on the table. On the other side were Bill's six Vosper Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs).  

Bill's nicely painted 73' Vospers (with 4 torpedo tubes) and 72.5' Vospers

The scenario was a basic convoy attack by the six British MTBs. The convoy had three small merchants escorted by two KFKs and two R-boats.

British target for tonight

I was the only person that had played the rules before, so things started out a little slow as the players got their sea legs. We used the spotting rules, but didn't hide the ships at the start of the game (that will change your playing experience, but I like having the miniatures out at the start). Once the British spotted the merchants, they increased speed and began launching torpedoes.

The Vosper launches torpedoes (this is after the boat movement, but before torpedo movement)

The convoy began to take evasive action, while the escorts moved to engage the MTBs.

Merchants trying to comb the torpedo wake

Torpedo hit!

The Royal Navy had some success early on, getting a torpedo hit on a merchant (stopping it dead in the water, but not sinking it) and a bridge hit on an R-boot that would force it to head off the map. 

The MTBs enjoying their early success

But then things went a little cold for them. The German merchants continued to maneuver to dodge torpedoes and move around the damaged merchant. 

Merchants maneuvering

The little KFKs then got into action and started to make an impact with their 37mm guns and, in a lucky case, ramming and sinking an MTB.

a KFK blasting away at an MTB

Once their torpedoes were gone, the MTBs broke off the action. With the sides disengaged, we looked at the damage done. Most of the MTBs and escorts had taken some damage. The Germans had one merchant wrecked and dead in the water and the British lost three MTBs. So we gave the Germans the edge in the battle.

Everyone seemed to have a good time and liked how the rules played out. I expect we'll see more coastal force actions in the future.

German Räumboote and Italian MAS boats

The next additions for my Black Sea/Baltic Sea project are a pair of German Räumboote and four Italian MAS torpedo boats. First up, we'll look at the Räumboote.

Fresh from the yard, before I added some weathering

The German Räumboote, or R-boats, were motor minesweepers that were also used for convoy escort, coastal patrol, minelaying, and air-sea rescue.The Germans built over 300 of these vessels in several series during World War II. There weren't any major differences between the series,just some size and minor armament variations. Due to their general utility, they served in every theater including the Baltic, Mediterranean and the Black Sea. This makes them useful additions to a fleet for anyone wanting versatile ships that could be used in multiple areas. 

I picked up a pair of  Warlord Games Cruel Seas R-23 R-boats for my ships. These are early versions of the R-boat and later versions had a little more armament. The out-of-the-box model came with a forward firing 20mm gun and an aft 37mm. I considered adding another 20mm gun amidships, but there isn't really enough room on the model without some major work. 

Port side view with a little weathering

The hulls are one-piece resin and required some clean up. The weapons were straight out of box, as were the extra crew I added on one boat.

Starboard view

There are a number of camouflage patterns that can be used with these ships (just do a quick internet search to see what I mean). I decided to go with a splotch pattern camouflage, since it seemed easiest and seems pretty common. Overall, they turned out good and should be useful in games.

Next up are the Italian MAS, Motoscafo Armato Silurante (torpedo-armed motorboat), boats. These boats are similar to the British Vosper motor torpedo boats and smaller than the German S-boats. During World War II, the Italians sent a flotilla of these boats to the Black Sea and to fight on Lake Ladoga near Leningrad (today's St Petersburg). 

MAS lined up for inspection

These boats were fast (max speed 45 knots), but lightly armed with two 450mm torpedoes and an aft facing 20mm gun.

Arranged to show off all sides

These little boats only had modest success against the Russians. The boats in the Black Sea were eventually transferred to the Romanians. 

A close up view of the MAS

Like the R-boats, these are from Warlord Games. Unlike the R-boat, these boats are all metal and only have a few basic parts (hull, mast, and 20mm gun). So it is pretty easy to put together, but there was some clean up needed on all the parts. I think my paint job turned out as well as the ones on the Warlord website. Although I used a gray-blue color for the crew overalls, rather than the white used by Warlord. Thinking back on my old Navy days, I know that white is not a great color for a working uniform.

Overall, both sets of boats went together well and painted up nicely. They are good additions to the project. 

A before weathering photo on the ocean mat