Visit to the USS Midway Museum

I was recently in San Diego for my brother's wedding and had a chance to visit the USS Midway museum on the San Diego waterfront. 

Entrance to the Midway Museum

They have done a nice job keep the carrier in good shape for the public and there were a lot of people going aboard when I was there.

We entered through the hanger deck (none of the photos from the hanger deck turned out) and from there it was a short walk up to the flight deck. We decided to take a tour of the island before the line got too long.

A view of the island from the flight deck

From the island we got a good look at the flight deck with a preview of the aircraft we would see later.

The aft end of the flight deck

The central part of the flight deck

And the forward end

There was a guided tour of the island, but after that we were free to wander through some belowdeck areas where the Admiral and Captain would hang out. The museum has some nice displays in these areas.

One of the radar displays in the Admiral's area

Midway's communication center

Then it was back up to the flight deck to look at the aircraft. The museum has some interesting aircraft. Some are common and some are a little more rare.

An F4F-3 Wildcat (the 4-gun version)

An EKA-3 Skywarrior

An A-1 Skyraider

An A-7 Corsair II

An F-4N Phantom showing the Vietnam MiG kills by Midway fighters

An F-8 Crusader

My nephew wanted a little closer look at the plane

A C-1 Trader

An E-2 Hawkeye

An RF-5 Vigilante

Nose-on with an S-3 Viking

A CH-46

A Huey UH-1 gunship

An HUP vertical replenishment helicopter

An H-34 Seabat (powered by a radial engine, not a turbine)

An SH-3 with markings for picking up Apollo capsules

My nephew helping launch some planes

We could see USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) docked at the Naval Air Station across the channel

And PCF-816 a Vietnam era river patrol boat from the San Diego Maritime Museum

Always good advice to follow

We had to leave in the early afternoon and didn't get through the whole ship (I would have like to see the engineering spaces), but it was worth the time to visit.



Summer is usually a slow time for my hobby work, since I'm typically outside doing yardwork for my wife. But I'm going to try to get some projects going.

Kuang Hua VI Fast Attack Craft

The Kuang Hua VI Fast Attack Craft - Guided Missile (FACG) class ship is a (relatively) new missile boat for the Taiwanese Navy. The original prototype was delivered in late 2003, but various issue delayed the final production version until 2009 with the last ships being delivered in 2011. Currently the Taiwanese Navy operates 30 ships of this type, armed with a single 20mm gun and four Hsiung Feng II anti-ship missiles.

A few years ago I purchased four Kuang Hua VI FACG from PT Dockyard with plans to create a small Taiwanese missile boat force. However, these went into the ships box until I could come up with an opposing force from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). After building the PLAN force for my Enfilade 2014 game, I decided to pull out the Kuang Hua VI boats to include in the game. After starting some internet research, I figured out that a slight redesign had happened to the Kuang Hua VI FACG between the prototype and final production versions, as can be seen in the following photos.

Kuang Hua VI class prototype FACG 60

Kuang Hua VI class production version (FACG 64)

The PT Dockyard boats were based on the prototype version, FACg 60, which has a rounded superstructure and a civilian style bridge. The final version has a flat superstructure and bridge, presumably for better ‘stealth’ capabilities for the FACGs. The only other major visible change I could see is that the forward 20mm mount was removed (although it does look like the area to mount the gun was retained, but it is hard to tell from some of the photos).

Looking at the new pictures, I decided I wanted to modify the PT Dockyard ships to look like the current ships. But I also decided to keep one in the original FACG 60 layout. I originally thought I might need to pull out some sheet styrene to flatten out the ship. I studied the photos and model, then decided to try just cutting and sanding the superstructure of the ship. Once I started down this path, it turned out to be a pretty easy modification. I thought about removing the forward 20mm mounting ring, but decided to leave it in place.

My modified ships with the production version on the left and the original on the right

Initially the modification looked a little rough, but once the paint was applied everything looked pretty good.

Final versions with the prototype on the left and final version on right

Hopefully Dave G at PT Dockyard will look at redoing the Kuang Hua VI boats, but even if he doesn’t it should be easy for anyone to fix them up.

My Kuang Hua VI squadron

Enfilade 2014 Recap Part 2 – My Games

This year I ran two games for Enfilade, one on Friday evening and the other on Saturday afternoon. The Friday game was Slow Boat from China modern missile boats game using the Bulldogs Away rules. The Saturday game was Sandy One to the Rescue a Vietnam War air game using the AirWar C21 rules.

Slow Boat from China 

This was a five player game representing a Chinese Navy attempt to escort a resupply ship to one of their island bases in the Spratly Islands. The Chinese Navy (PLAN) started out with a corvette (Weihei) escorting the cargo ship and three Type 022 missile boats. The Littoral Alliance side was made up of force from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan. The Littoral Alliance started out with two Philippine gunboats (one an old South Korean Sea Dolphin and the other an ex-US Cyclone class patrol boat, with some Hellfire missiles) and the other two players selected a Vietnamese force with a Tarantul I and Osa II, and a Taiwanese force with two Kuang Hua VI missile boats. The game started out with the two Philippine boats sitting on either side of the PLAN cargo ship, while the Weihei and three missile boats trailed behind.

Philippine patrol boats on both sides of the cargo ship, while the Chinese corvette watches their every move

Vietnamese ships move slowly toward the cargo ship

Both sides were told to avoid shooting at the other side, although the PLAN players were told that there probably wouldn’t be any repercussions for firing if they felt in danger. However, both sides were also told they were free to use non-lethal methods to slow down the other side. In the beginning both sides tried to use fire hoses to slow down or force the other guys too turn away. This caused there to be a lot of wet sailors, but also slowed down the cargo ship by shooting water into the engine air intakes.

The cargo ship slows down to clear out some water, while the PLAN missile boats move up

Not long after, the Philippine player got the word he could open fire as needed to stop the cargo ship. He turned the ex-Cyclone away from the cargo ship to open range for his missiles. Suspecting something was up due to the radio chatter, the PLAN players fired missiles and guns at both Philippine ships.

Missiles fired at the Philippine ship

The Philippine Sea Dolphin was taken out right away by close range 76mm gun shots, but the ex-Cyclone was able to get off a Hellfire shot before the PLAN missiles hit. Due to the distances (and rules), the Hellfire hit and started a fire on the cargo ship before the PLAN missiles caught the ex-Cyclone. The ex-Cyclone did take heavy damage from the missile hits, but was able to stay afloat and continue to fire off its remaining Hellfire missiles.

Cargo ship on fire as missiles head for the Philippine ship

The rest of the Littoral Alliance ships had not gotten the weapons free order, but that didn’t matter to the PLAN and they started shooting at the Vietnamese.

Missile fired at the Vietnamese

Vietnamese Osa under attack

At this point the Vietnamese and Taiwanese decided that there was no reason to hold back and began shooting at the PLAN, causing a big missile scrum in the middle of the board.

Missiles flying everywhere

The three PLAN Type 022 missile boats and the cargo ship did not survive the exchange. But Weihei tried to salvage the situation by attacking the Taiwanese, who promptly return fire.

PLAN and Taiwanese Navy exchange shots while other ships burn in the background

A couple more missiles finish off the corvette

In the end, all of the PLAN ships were sunk and each of the Littoral Alliance players got away with at least one ship (although most were damaged). The scenario seemed to work out okay and the players seemed to have a good time. If I do this again, I will probably make some minor changes to the rules of engagement to try and lengthen the amount of time before the missiles start flying.

Sandy One to the Rescue
This was a seven player game covering the rescue attempt of a downed pilot after a bomb raid over North Vietnam. There we four US Air Force players flying two each flying a pair of F-4 Phantoms (with limited fuel), while the other two flew four A-1 Skyraiders (the Sandys of the scenario name) and a CH-53 helicopter. The North Vietnamese brought in four MiG-17s and a pair of MiG-19s. They also had some 57mm AAA sites and trucks on the ground. The trucks did have a chance to move, but not very fast (they were actually moving at about 50 MPH, I wanted to give them a chance to try to get close to the downed pilot).
After setting up the Phantoms, we waited for the MiGs to appear.

F-4 Phantoms passing over some trucks and flak

The MiGs held off coming in, trying to get the Phantoms to waste some fuel, but finally moved in as the Sandy moved on to the board.

MiGs enter the game

The first bit of bad luck for the US players was that an AAA site found the range on a Phantom and knocked it out of the sky, while the other Phantom of that pair found himself being followed by a bunch of MiGs.

A MiG-19 chasing a Phantom

The first of many missile misses as an F-4 goes down from a flak hit

The Phantoms tried to keep the MiGs away from the Sandys, but they were not having much luck with their missiles.

Another missile miss

And another (but at least the A-1 did some damage)

Although, to be fair, they were forcing the MiGs to make evasive maneuvers keeping them from taking a direct path to the slow moving A-1s. The A-1s had a chance to do a little damage of their own by taking out a couple AAA sites and some of the trucks.

Sandy takes down a AAA site

A-1s destroy some trucks and another Flak site as the downed pilot puts up some smoke

The rescue helicopter slowly made its way to the downed pilot, but was constantly harassed by MiGs.

The CH-53 survives a head-on attack

And dodges a few more MiGs

In the end the MiGs couldn’t do enough damage to down the chopper and with ammo running low (or completely gone) they decided to break off the action.

The US made it out with a heavily damaged helicopter, the downed pilot, three F-4s (although one ran out of gas on the way home) and the four A-1s. The North Vietnamese had some damaged planes, but only lost one MiG-17 to an A-1.

Overall, it seemed like things went pretty well and the players seemed to have fun. I think the speed differences between the A-1s/helicopter and all the other planes might have made it not as fun for the A-1 players, so I’ll have to watch that in the future.