Channel Dash - Final Work and Walkthrough

With all the Germans finished up, I took some time to finish painting the British Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) and Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) for the MTB/MGB attack scenario and I put together a pair of Swordfish torpedo bombers to help out with the air attack scenario.

The venerable (but hard to assemble) Swordfish

The Swordfish are from MSD Miniatures Luftwaffe 46 range. Historically, six Swordfish made a sort of “Forlorn Hope” attack on the German ships during the Channel Dash. So they are fairly important for the air attack scenario, but there was some doubt as to whether they would make an appearance. Kevin had ordered and was working on some ROS-Heroics Swordfish, without much success. I saw the MSD also made a Swordfish, so I ordered a couple to see what they were like. I didn’t think they would be too hard to work with, so Kevin decided to order some MSD Swordfish too. It seemed like we were back on track with the planes, but It really took a lot of effort to get the planes together. Kevin put up a couple posts on his blog about this too (post 1 and post 2). In the end the Swordfish turned out okay, but they were really hard to work.

PT Dockyard 72' MTBs (left) and 70' MGBs (right)

The British MTBs and MGBs are all from The PT Dockyard and required minimal assembly (there was a little trimming of excess resin to clean up the models and the MGBs needed the 20mm gun glued aft). The paint schemes are straight out of Mal Wright’s British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII.

MTBs with a central blue panel

MGBs using light blue - dark blue patterns

I used a light blue and dark blue on a very light (almost white) gray. Having used various shades of gray for previous British coastal forces, this scheme looks a little odd. I think the colors turned out good, but I still need to base the boats.

With all the ships and planes done, Kevin and I schedule a walkthrough of the game. We set up the German capital ships close to one map edge and talked through the escort ship and fighter options. The choices for the German players shouldn’t be too tough, but they will have to figure out how to best use the flak from the escorts in conjunction with the fighters.

German capital ships all set up

The British will have a lot of aircraft (we are going with 6 Swordfish, 6 Beauforts, 4 Whirlwinds, and 6 Spitfires), but they won’t all be entering at the same time or location. So it might be hard to coordinate and organize the attacks.

A pair of Beauforts move in for a high-level bomb attack

We ran through several options for the attacking planes. The British will have a hard time with getting through and attacking the German ships, but it won’t be easy for the Germans either.

Swordfish dropping their torpedoes

Beauforts pursued by an FW-190 with Spitfire escorts

I think the game will look pretty good and we are hoping that it plays well too.

Channel Dash - The Battleships

With the completion of the German battleships (also referred to as battlecruisers), I’ve finished up the German ships for the Channel Dash project. Here are some views of the completed battleships and the rest of the ships.

The two battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were commissioned into the German fleet by early 1939. Early trials showed that both ships were heavy forward and were very wet (meaning they took a lot of water over the forward deck up to the bridge), so both got a new angled “Atlantic bow” that helped mitigate the problem. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated together for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping and the invasion of Norway. After Operation Cerberus, Scharnhorst was sent to Norway to interdict the convoys to Russia. In December 1943 Scharnhorst tried to engage Convoy JW 55B, but was caught by the Royal Navy escorts and sunk (see Battle of North Cape). Gneisenau was also slated to go to Norway, but was severely damaged in a bombing raid. She spent the rest of the war in repairs (there were plans to re-arm her with 15 in guns) and was eventually sunk as a blockship.

For model assembly, I built both kits straight out of the box. Because the ships underwent several modifications, the models don’t exactly reflect how each ship appeared during Operation Cerberus.

The Gneisenau model probably represents the ship around mid-1940, based on the fact that the floatplane catapult is still on the aft turret. By the time of the Channel Dash, Gneisenau had radar and two triple torpedo tubes installed, along with additional temporary light AA for the operation. I probably should have removed the aft turret catapult, but it does give another good way to differentiate the ships.

Port view of Gneisenau

From a different angle

For Operation Cerberus, Gneisenau did not have much in the way of camouflage. The superstructure had dark splotches to help break up the outline and the turret tops were painted blue for identification.

A closer view of the superstructure camouflage

The Scharnhorst model looks to represent the ship in late-1940, after the installation of radar and the torpedoes tubes. For Operation Cerberus, Scharnhorst had a dark gray line along most of the hull, dark splotches on the superstructure, and the turret tops were painted blue for identification.

Scharnhorst profile view

A view of the aft side

A closer view of the Scharnhorst's superstructure

While there are some minor differences between the two sister-ships, the main way to distinguish Scharnhorst from Gneisenau is by checking the after mast. Scharnhorst has a tall free-standing mast aft of the floatplane hanger, while Gneisenau had a smaller mast mounted on the funnel.

Sisters, but not twins

Gneisenau on the left and Scharnhorst on the right

Overall the models turned out well and went together fairly easily (although the aft mast on Scharnhorst was a little tough to get right and I should have left the aft turret catapult off of Gneisenau). When put with the rest of the German ships for the game, it looks pretty impressive.

All the German ships for the Channel Dash game (back to front: Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Prinz Eugen, Z-7,Type 24 torpedo boat and two S-boats)

A slightly different angle (back to front: Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Prinz Eugen, Z-7,Type 24 torpedo boat and two S-boats)

Channel Dash - Prinz Eugen

I'm finally getting around to posting the photos and information on the Prinz Eugen. I've actually been done with the ship, I just haven't had time to take some pictures and post them.

Prinz Eugen was the third, and last, of the Admiral Hipper class cruisers. In many ways she was a lucky ship, surviving a number of actions without suffering major damage. In 1941 Prinz Eugen was with the ill-fated Bismarck on the battleship's single combat voyage and returned to Brest, France after leaving the damaged battleship behind. In 1942 Prinz Eugen was part of Operation Cerberus, the part I'm most interested in, with the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Once again Eugen was able to avoid any major damage. After that it was off to Norway to take part in actions against the convoys to Russia and then on to the Baltic to cover the withdrawal of German troops. After World War II the cruiser was taken by the U.S., studied (especially her passive sonar), and eventually used as a target in the atomic bomb tests.

Starboard side of Prinz Eugen

My 1/700 scale Prinz Eugen comes from a Tamiya kit. One really nice thing about this kit is that is has parts for both the 1941 Bismarck sortie and the 1942 Channel Dash. The main difference is the addition of 5 quad 20mm AA guns. While I'm sure no one would have said anything if the guns were missing from my model, but it is a really nice touch to have them in place.

The Tamiya kit box art

 Overall the kit went together pretty easily. I had to drill out the points for mounting the extra 20mm guns, but the holes were well marked, so that wasn't really an issue. The final model seems quite sturdy and I probably will not mount it on a base.

The camouflage was pretty basic, an overall mid-gray hull with a darker gray pattern on the hull and irregular dark gray on the superstructure. All the books I have, and even the model kit painting guide, only show the starboard side of the ship with the pattern used for Operation Cerberus. My internet searching came up with one port side view that I based my paint scheme on, but I'm not really sure how accurate it is.

The hard-to-find port side view

Both sides are very similar, so I probably could have done up the port side in pretty much the same lines as starboard and no one would have been the wiser. I did paint the funnel cap black, even though no guides show it that way. I really just like the look of the black funnel cap, so it is a bit of artistic license.

I originally used a much lighter faded wood color for the decks. But I just wasn't happy with the way it looked, so it back to the paint cabinet. I came back with a light tan color that seemed to look better.

A port-forward view to show off the deck a little better.

And an aft-starboard view, you can see the deck mounted quad 20mm guns in these photos

The irregular pattern on the superstructure was a little hard to see in the full profile photos, so I took got a little closer view.

A closer view of the superstructure. You might need to click on this one to get a better view

I think the ship turned out well and should look pretty good with the aircraft and MTBs swarming around.

Here is the paint scheme image for the ship from an earlier post, just so you don't have to search too hard for the image.

Channel Dash - Escorts

My slow work on the Channel Dash project continues with the completion a couple of the main escorts for the Germans.

The Z-7 (foreground) a Type 24 torpedo boat in back

First up is the 1/700 scale destroyer Z-7 Hermann Schoemann from Trumpeter models. A Type 34A class German destroyer. Overall the kit is pretty nice, but probably too fiddley for most gamers. In addition to a lot of little pieces, it comes with several photo-etch parts (including the ‘starfish’ on the forward mast) that are probably too delicate for most game pieces, especially those that require gamers to handle them.

The model kit box cover

That said, I’m pretty happy with how the model turned out and I will probably put it on a base to help reduce some of the potential handling issues.

The books on German camouflage patterns showed several slightly different versions of the pattern that Z-7 wore during the Channel Dash. But most agree that it was basically a disruptive scheme with dark areas forward, center, and aft. The center portion was carried up to the torpedo deck and aft funnel. Just looking at the center of the ship could almost give the impression of that this was an escort trawler. One of the camouflage source I looked at showed a false bow wave on the aft dark area, which I decided to include because it was an unusual look.

Z-7 from the starboard side

Z-7 from the port side

A three-quarter view

The 1/600 scale Type 24 torpedo boat is from the old Skytrex coastal forces line. It is metal and much sturdier than the plastic model, but doesn’t have as good of detail work.

The Type 24 in the foreground

The kit goes together pretty well, with only minor drilling and filling. But it did need some work to clean up the mold lines and odd bits of flashing. From a distance the Type 24 profile and gives a very similar look to the Type 34A class. But I think the Skytrex kit is missing some light AA guns that would be on the German torpedo boats at this time. But it should work fine without them.

I don’t have any good sources on German torpedo boat camouflage for this timeframe, so I went the general descriptions given in most books of the basic two-color disruptive scheme. I probably should have changed the positioning of the dark areas a little, since it really looks like the destroyer, but I think it still turned out okay. As with the destroyer, I will probably add a base, although this ship is sturdy enough to put up with some gamer rough-handling.

Type 24 starboard side view

A port three-quarter view

With the escorts done, I’m moving on to the cruiser and battleships.

But I also thought I would put up a few photos of the modern Chinese Type 92 ballistic missile submarine that I finished painting earlier in the year. This is a 3D printed model I got through Shapeways, so it did not require any assembly. It painted up okay, but the grainy surface made it a little hard to keep the lines straight. I used a scale black for the main upper hull color and a darker black to try to bring out some of the details of the missile hatches and free-flood holes. Overall it turned out okay, but in these just disappear in some lighting conditions.

Type 92 starboard side view

Type 92 port side view

A little better shot of the missile hatches

The sub will be part of the modern submarine rules I’ve been working on.

Channel Dash Project

I’m starting my work on the Channel Dash project for Enfilade 2016. For those of you that don’t know much about this, the Channel Dash is the nickname given to the German Operation Cerberus where the German battleships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen sailed from Brest to German ports through the English Channel in February 1942. As the ships passed through the Channel they were attacked by British aircraft (both the Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force) and the Royal Navy (MTBs/MGBs and destroyers). In the end, all the German ships were able to get through to the German ports, but all the capital ships took some damage. The operation was considered successful from the German point of view and a bit of an embarrassment for the British.

This is a joint project that my friend Kevin and I are working on with two planned scenarios. One scenario will cover the air attacks and the other will cover the MTB/MGB attack. I thought about doing the destroyer attack, but since we are using 1/600 or 1/700 scale ships, it seems like that would have needed a lot more table space.

Kevin is providing the British aircraft and a German torpedo boat, while I’m taking on the other German ships and the British MTBs/MGBs. Right now I’m getting all the German ships together for the game. I’ve got 1/700 models of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen from Tamiya, the 1/700 scale destroyer Z-7 Hermann Schoemann from Trumpeter models (this is the 1942 version of this destroyer, so it should be perfect for the game) and 1/600 scale Type 24 torpedo boat from the old Skytrex line (now available from Heroics and Ros). I’ll be working on putting these together and painting them up over the next few weeks. I also have some S-boats that I can add in to the game as options.

Speaking of painting, I have some good images for the paint schemes for the capital ships (see below) and destroyer. I just need to find one for the torpedo boat.

Prinz Eugen camo scheme for the Channel Dash

Gneisenau camo scheme for the Channel Dash

Scharnhorst camo scheme for the Channel Dash

From a modelling aspect, the none of the capital ship models seem to be exactly for the Channel Dash time-frame. All of those ships had additional light anti-aircraft guns added for the operation, but I’m guessing none of the gamers will notice the missing guns. I’ll have to check to see if there are any other modifications and might need to make some changes to the models.

It should be an interesting project.

2015 Gaming Year in Review

It is the end of another year and time to look back and forward to gaming projects. Looking back at my plans for 2015, I laid out four ideas.

1) Run the St Nazaire Raid (Operation Chariot) game at Enfilade 2015.

This was a successful project that won an award at Enfilade. A pretty good start to the year.

2) Paint up some Japanese opponents for my 28mm Bolt Action Aussies.

I picked up a box of Warlord Games Imperial Japanese infantry and some support weapons, but have not started work on these figures. So, this only gets a 25% completion. which is probably a little generous, but it is the time of year to be generous.

3) Work on rules and miniatures for modern submarine game.

I painted up the Chinese (PLAN) Type 092 Xia class ballistic missile submarine (photos coming soon) that I ordered from Shapeways earlier this year and I’ve written out some ideas for rules, but I haven’t actually played any games with them. Since I already have a good number of submarine models ready, I’m going to score this a 50% completion.

4) Get back to my 15mm Age of Sail project.

With the completion of the DANG 2015, I’m going to mark this as 100% successful. I do have a few other ships to complete, but I finished up the everything I wanted to get done.

Odds and Ends: I talked about putting together some armies for the Lion Rampant rules, but that never really got started. However, I did get through my Summer Solo Project, which was probably time better spent.

Overall, I’ll give 2015 a 2.5 - 3 out of 4 for gaming projects. Which means it was a pretty good year.

Book Reviews

Besides gaming projects, there were a couple new books that I read but didn’t review this year.

To Crown the Waves: The Great Navies of the First World War 

This is the World War I version of On Seas Contested (reviewed here). This book provides a comparison of the major navies of World War I, including the Royal Navy, the German Navy, the French Navy, the United States Navy, the Italian Navy, the Austro-Hungarian Navy, and the Imperial Russian Navy. It also has some short overviews of the Japanese and Ottoman navies. Like On Seas Contested, the book covers information about the organization and doctrine used by each navy, along with a section on wartime experience that gives an outline of a navy’s operations and development during the war. It is a good book to get deeper into how the navies operated, but it isn’t for everyone.

British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII: Volume II: Battleships & Aircraft Carriers 
Full Disclosure: I helped with the editing of this book, so my opinion might be somewhat biased. 

I enjoyed the first volume in this series, but in many ways I prefer this volume. This book covers camouflage for battleships and aircraft carriers. Since there were fewer of these ships than the destroyers and escorts of the first volume, the book provides a much better view of the evolution of camouflage schemes during World War II. Additionally, it provides information on the weapons and radar changes for the ships. This is a great book for anyone with an interest in ship camouflage and will be of particular interest to modelers and other hobbyist because of the wide variety of camouflage patterns.

Looking to 2016

I haven’t really thought too far ahead. DANG usually takes up the last quarter of the year and since I let the gamers vote on the project, it is hard to know what it will be. However, I do have a few items on my plate:

1) Channel Dash project for Enfilade 2016. My friend Kevin talked me into doing this project for Enfilade. We are planning on two games, one involving the air attacks (it will be similar to the Tirpitz game from 2013) and one involving the MTB attack. I’m tasked with providing the ships for the game. I’ve got most of the MTBs and German escorts for this project, but the big work will be completing models of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen in 1/700 scale. It should be a fun little project

2) Finish the modern submarine rules. I’ve been toying around with these and it is time to do some serious work.

3) Work on the Japanese opponents for my 28mm Bolt Action Aussies. Another holdover from 2015. But since I’ve got the troops, it should be easy enough to get this going.

Odds and Ends: I’d still like to do up some Crusades era armies for Lion Rampant and I have some Galactic Knights ships to finish up (and play with), but I expect that some other bright shiny game project will draw my attention. So I’m keeping my other options open for now.

DANG 2015 - The Shores of Tripoli

This year’s DANG (Dave’s Annual Naval Game) was The Shores of Tripoli: U.S. Navy vs. Barbary Pirates. The game will cover the attacks by the U.S. Navy on Tripoli harbor in early August 1804. Historically the U.S. Navy made a series of attacks using (borrowed) gunboats and mortar boats on Tripoli. The attacks were mostly indecisive, but these actions and the subsequent Battle of Derna set the stage for the signing of a treaty between Tripoli and the United States. This action also provided experience for the young American naval officers that would prove invaluable during the War of 1812.

Bombardment of Tripoli (oil painting by Michael Felice Corn)

With the short history lesson out of the way, on to the game. Everyone began arriving at my place around 9:00 AM and we spent the next hour catching up on things, looking at the 15mm ships, talking about the projects we are all working on and planning, and munching on some breakfast snacks. Then we split up for the battle with Kevin, Mark, and Arthur taking the Tripoli side and Dale, Scott, Dave, and George taking the Americans. We did a quick review of the campaign rules, had a brief overview of the tactical rules, and each side went off to plan the first action.

Pre-game Briefing

During planning each side had some initial options to select from to beef up their forces before starting the battles. Each side also had to deploy their forces for the first game day. The Tripolitans had a felucca, a sloop, fifteen gunboats, and a couple forts to defend the area. There were three possible approaches to the city the Americans could take and the Tripolitans had to plan how cover these. They could also keep some ships in reserve, but it would take time for these reinforcements to reach any of the areas. The Tripolitans decided to keep most of their forces in reserve, but to place the felucca and five gunboats in the Jerba and Western passages into Tripoli Harbor (Zone B on the map), where there was also a fort to help with defense.

Campaign game map of Tripoli

The Americans had a carronade armed schooner, six gunboats (which were larger than the Tripoli gunboats), and two mortar boats. They also count on gunfire support from their larger (off-map) ships in the zones near open water (Zones A and B on the map). Their goal was to demoralize the Bashaw of Tripoli by sinking his ships and bombing his palace. They had the initiative and could choose where they were coming from, but there were no obvious good choices. After getting some information on the Tripoli deployment, the Americans decided to launch their whole force at Zone B (which was where the historical first battle occurred). So we set up the battle.

The Tripolitans set up just south of the entrances, with the felucca and most of the gunboats just drifting. The Americans entered from the north edge as one big group. I had told them they could enter in groups, since the close grouping would make maneuvering difficult, but they said they wanted to come on all at once.

Initial set up

View of the American ships from the fort

View of the Tripolitan ships from the fort

The Americans slowly closed and some long range cannon shots were traded. The Americans decided to use the long-range off-map support and some gunboats to attack the felucca, while the others fired on the smaller Tripoli gunboats. The Tripolitan ships all had smaller guns (18 or 12 pounders compared to the 24 pounders on the American gunboats) and had a little trouble getting hits, but the fort (with five 24 pounder guns) quickly found the range.

The American line moves forward

One Tripolitan gunboats decided to close range with the Americans, making him the target of many shots, but not a lot of hits (at least initially). The felucca was feeling some pain from the long-range guns and since it’s loss would hurt the Bashaw’s morale, the captain decided to head back to the docks. But a critical hit starting a fire on the ship as it was pulling away. All of the crew that wasn’t sailing the ship were tasked with firefighting and they were able to put out the fire without much damage. Then the felucca was able to make its way out of the fight.

A single Tripoli gunboat closes with the Americans

The Americans slowly move in

After taking a few hits and returning fire, the felucca decides it is time to head for the docks

But a critical hit starts a fire

The Bashaw won't be happy about this

But the crew douses the flames and the ship is able to retreat

USS Vixen makes a close pass on a Tripoli gunboat

Meanwhile, the fort guns were getting hits on the gunboats and a heated shot from the fort started a fire on one gunboat. As one of their options, the Tripolitans had chosen an expert gunner for the fort, which proved to be a good move as the fort would eventually sink three American gunboats (the last with a magazine critical hit as the gunboat disengaging).

The fort blasts away at the gunboats

Gunboat mast down and on fire

Lifeboats move to pick up the crew from a sinking gunboat

With the exit of the felucca, the Americans began concentrating on the remaining Tripolitan gunboats. The crews on two gunboats were wiped out from a mix of canister and musketry. The Americans captured one without a fight, but the other was holed at the waterline and sank before anyone could get to it. Two other gunboats sank after being hammered to splinters, while the final one had an explosion from a critical hit and burned to the waterline.

Good shooting knocks out the gunboat's crew

A hit causes an explosion on the Tripolitan gunboat

The Americans move in to finish off the remaining gunboats

Gunboats fighting it out

The last Tripoli gunboat sinks leaving the crew to swim

Tripoli sailors swim to shore

With all the Tripoli gunboats gone and reinforcements still off in the distance, the Americans withdrew.

Remaining American ships withdraw

Tripolitan heroes

For the Tripolitans the felucca was heavily damaged, the fort lost a gun and some crew, and all five gunboats were sunk. The Americans lost three gunboats and took light damage on the others. As night fell, the Americans rolled for changes in the Bashaw’s morale. The Bashaw was not happy about the damage to his favorite ship or the gunboat losses, but the American losses (and a poor die roll) were more than enough to offset the bad news. The Bashaw’s morale improved and he was demanding more in ransom and tribute from the Americans.

The loss of half the American force and the improving Bashaw’s morale meant that it would be tough for the Americans to win the game. With only a couple more hours of game time available, we decided to call the game for Tripoli. Each side talked about what they should have done during the set up and battle. Overall, I think everyone enjoyed the game and the 15mm miniatures were much more impressive to play with than the usual ships we have. Compared to history, both sides took more casualties (which is to be expected with gamers) and the result was fairly inconclusive.

2015 DANG crew

From the referee point of view, I was hoping to see some boarding actions (no one even tried to grapple) and I would have liked to get in another battle. If I do the mini-campaign again I’ll have to think about ways to make things move a little quicker (which it true for almost all my mini-campaigns). I’m going to think about running the historical gunboat battle for Enfilade, but it might not happen for the next one.