Wargaming Against the Weather: Outdoor Naval Wargaming

'Sorry Curt, I can't really hear you from the howling wind and my pulled-down touque. Did you say something about someone looking like a dork?'

Sylvain again here. (With unwarranted photos and editorial comments from Curt.)

Not long ago, I presented some newly painted 1:1200 ships on this blog, along with some crazy plans to play outside. I came up with an hypothetical scenario: 

7 December 1941 - Because their crews were involved in a bar fight the week before, the Admiral decided to send at sea the USS Colorado and the USS Arizona, for a gunnery practice involving lots of healthy drilling. However, after a day at sea, the two battleships stumbled upon two Japanese battleships, part of the Japanese Fleet sent to attack Pearl Harbour.

AMERICANS: USS Colorado, USS Arizona

With their slower units, the Americans know they are in trouble. The American player's objective is to inflict damage to both Japanese ships in order to slow them down and then try to escape in order to participate in the defense of Pearl Harbour.

JAPANESE: IJN Ise, IJN Kongo

Banzai! The goal of operation Tora Tora Tora is to eliminate as many American capital ships as possible. The Japanese player wins by sinking at least one American ship and then escaping.

All the models are from Superior Models.

After a week of being harassed, Curt and Peter kindly agreed to give the game a try. The weather was as to be expected for the season, but a little challenging for wargaming: cloudy, about +8C, very (VERY) windy.

Peter: 'Right, and who's idea was this again?'

Admiral Peter, of the US Navy, in command of the USS Colorado and the USS Arizona, about to spot the Japanese intruders.You can read his report of the game here.

Curt: 'F*ck, its cold! This is not the South Pacific, its the bloody Murmansk Run!'

Kaigun Taisho "Kaato" (Japanese pronunciation of Curt), maneuvering the IJN Kongo toward Pearl Harbour. He is holding a turning gage, formerly known as a paper plate.

This picture gives a sense of the firing distances. Ships were firing at 20', and they were about 40' apart. Hits happened at about 30', which is about 12,000 yards. "Real" naval engagement, according to what I have read, would take place at about 18,000 yards (45' at this scale).

Sylvain cutting quite the dash in his wargaming toolbelt - Ooh, TRES sexy!

Peter rangefinding with his... iPhone... obviously the Americans have a leg-up in gunnery technology.

Shells from the Colorado are getting dangerously close to the Kongo. Captain Peter proved to be very effective at guessing range. On the following turn, the Colorado scored a hit on the Kongo while the Ise hit the Colorado in return. Both ships lost a main turret.

Kongo's fire ranging in on one of the American battlewagons.

A hit! A palpable hit!

Peter running madly after a turn gauge being blown away in the wind. I'm sure there's a song somewhere in there...

Sylvain is having waaay too much fun with his monster tape measure.

Curt's Kongo getting 'bracketed' by American fire. Ouch!

Bullseye! Guessing the exact range, directly onto a a ship's base translates in 2 hits. The Kongo, at this point, had lost a main turret, half the secondary armament, AA guns and was crawling at a speed of 14 knots. The Japanese commander decided at this point that bombarding Pearl Harbour with battleships might not be worth that much trouble after all and decided to rendez-vous with the main fleet. Admiral Yamamoto, a little busy right now, might not find the time to read the battle report before a few days. The American ships, hearing bomb explosions in the distance, decided to head back home to see what was happening.

Because of the heavy wind, there was no way to keep the "splashes" upright. The wind even knocked down my tool box full of playing equipment!

Playing in this crazy weather felt like a combination of cross country skiing, paragliding and wargaming. Afterward, Curt and Sarah treated us with delicious hot tea and pie.

How to describe this kind of gaming experience? "Different" comes to mind. It really gives a feeling of how distant modern dreadnoughts were when exchanging shells. Using "distance evaluation" replaces the luck of the dice with the evaluating skill of the players. There might not be another game before next spring, so I will have plenty of time to make some adjustments.

Battleship Row: 1:1200 Scale WWII Naval

'Evening. This is Sylvain, using the blogging privileges Curt granted me a few months ago. Hope you enjoy my post.

Last year, I bought a bunch of ships on Kijiji, a kind of web based flea market. Until today, I haven't had a chance to do much with my little collection of unpainted metal. In the lot, there were a few 1/1200 ships made by superior model. Apparently, these castings date back to WW2 and were used by pilots to develop their ship recognition skills. I can believe it: some models had their name engraved on their side. I owe my tube of putty some thanks. Details are OK, if you want these ships to be no more than wargaming pieces, but if there is a modeler in you, you might be tempted by the beautiful masterpieces made by Neptun from Germany. Alas, at over $100 per masterpiece, I will have to be content with the cheaper option of Superior Models ($7 for a destroyer up to about $30 for a battleship) for a little while.

I usually don't base my tanks, because I like them to blend with the different table scenery I create, like winter, desert, etc. But I sure do like to base my ships. Strange enough, when I googled images of miniatures ships, I found that if many players do add a base to their 1/2400 or smaller ships, they neglect to do so for their 1/1200 models. I find that the waves at the bow and the propeller trail give the models a dynamic attitude. I added some stucco texture gel to raise the waves and covered the whole base with gloss gel to simulate water. It's nothing fancy and I'm quite happy with the final result, although I might tone down the amount of white in the future.

Now the charm and the problem of these ships is their size. Let's compare a 1/1200 British conjectural WW2 battleship with a 1/1200 French 74 guns (GHQ) and a base of 28mm Russian grenadiers (Victrix). The base of the battleship is 9.5" long.

With ships this big, gaming on a tabletop requires too much suspension of disbelief. Even my basement floor seems too cramped a space. I mean these ships could fire their guns over 30km away (over 90 feet at 1/1200 scale), although the furthest hit recorded was at 26 000 yards (65 feet at 1/1200 scale).

My plan is to take these ships outside and play with "real" scaled down distances. Since even my backyard will be too small, I will have to set a game in a public park (could be a nice way to make new friends :-)). I built some wooden bases to keep the boats above the grass. Lately, I came across a rules set by Fletcher Pratt, an adamant adept of "distance evaluation". I think that the ships, the rules and the great outdoors could be perfect ingredients for some fun. Hopefully, these big battleships can have a cruise before it gets too cold outside.