Convoy PQ-17

 This is a newish Osprey Campaign book by Angus Konstam covering the ill-fated Arctic convoy PQ-17 in 1942. I became interested in the Arctic convoys after reading Colin Turbett's book, The Anglo-Soviet Alliance: Comrades and Allies during WW2. He majors on the often forgotten story of the Merchant Marine in WW2, many of whom were volunteers from overseas, who were treated very badly by the British Government after the war. I did my own detailed research when writing my book on HMS Ambuscade. The WW2 version was an escort destroyer on the earlier PQ-14 convoy.

Convoy PQ-17 was an Arctic convoy that departed the UK via Iceland for the Soviet Union in July 1942. After reports that a powerful German surface fleet, including the battleship Tirpitz, might attack, the Admiralty ordered the convoy to scatter. Without their escorts, the merchant ships were left exposed to German submarines and aircraft. It was one of the worst Allied naval disasters of the war—of 36 merchant ships, only 11 reached Russia; the rest were sunk, and over 120,000 tons of vital war supplies were lost.

Angus follows the usual Osprey Campaign format with an introduction and chronology, followed by pen pictures of the opposing commanders. Convoys had a covering force and close escorts, none of which were strong enough to take on the Tirpitz, unless it had been damaged. Most of the Royal Navy commanders were unfairly criticised, except for Convoy Commodore Jack Dowding, due to his efforts to save the scattered remnants of the convoy. For the Germans, Admiral Otto Schniewind, the Kriegsmarine’s Flottenchef (Fleet Commander), masterminded and implemented Operation Rösselsprung. For the Luftwaffe, General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff commanded Luftflotte 5, based in Oslo.

Then we get a detailed breakdown of the opposing forces. The merchant ships sailed in columns and had some light armament. Three Royal Navy commands protected the convoy. The close escort of smaller vessels went all the way to Archangel. The Cruiser Covering Force supported the convoy in the event of a surface attack by German cruisers and destroyers, at least as far as the Barents Sea. The Distant Covering Force of two battleships and the aircraft carrier Victorious was there in case the Tirpitz did sortie. The main German threat came from the Luftwaffe's medium bombers based in Norwegian airfields. The Navy had a U-Boat flotilla and a surface fleet led by the Tirpitz and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, supported by cruisers and destroyers.

The Royal Navy expected to get advanced warning of any intervention by the Tirpitz through Enigma and a submarine screen. The Germans planned such an intervention, recognising that air attacks alone would not be sufficient to stop the convoy. Hitler was reluctant to risk the Tirpitz against the Distant Force aircraft carrier, but was persuaded. Several ships ran aground, but when the surface fleet hit the open sea, the weather closed in, and intelligence reports were patchy. The Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Dudley Pound, made the fateful decision to scatter the convoy. The merchant ships were then picked off by U-boats, and the Luftwaffe and the surface fleet were withdrawn. The risk was too great, and the brief sortie had achieved its objective. The individual actions are all covered with plenty of illustrations and the usual high-quality maps. 

Churchill described the disaster as ‘one of the most melancholy naval episodes in the whole of the war.' The Russians were furious, and the subsequent inquiry was something of a whitewash, with Pound being too important to lose. Lessons were learned, and the next convoy suffered fewer losses. A problem that took longer to deal with was the distrust between the British merchant marine and the Royal Navy. Many merchant seamen claimed the Navy had deserted them. 

For the wargamer, most WW2 naval rules will work, or you could use air combat rules for that element on its own. The weather was always an essential factor in Arctic convoys.

My Royal Navy fleet was painted for warmer climes!

Battleground 2025

I was at the Battleground show in Middlesbrough yesterday. One of my favourite shows with its mix of wargames, reenactors and history talks. It also has a few traders you don't see at other shows, and I don't just mean the excellent cupcakes! Tiger Miniatures is one, although I resisted the temptation to expand my Balkan Wars collection. I did give in to some new terrain, various paints, the new edition of Dragon Rampant, and some figures for the 2026 project.

The venue is a large sports hall. The car parking is probably adequate for a typical Saturday morning, but hopelessly inadequate when an event like this is on as well. The small cafe struggles as well. However, these are minor inconveniences compared to a show that always delivers a fine collection of games and is free to enter. For a change, I was not running a game, so I had time to watch and chat.

Operation Barbarossa in 10mm using Rapid Fire. 10mm was a popular scale for games here, no doubt influenced by Pendraken sponsorship of the show.

Tiger Miniatures do a Cuba range, represented on this fine table.

Another visually attractive game was this take on Gettysburg 

This game shows the strength of the Blucher rules. Waterloo on a modest table, using WoFun plastics.

Trebia isn't the most interesting of the Punic Wars battles, but it is presented on a grand scale here.

A beautifully modelled Sicilian village for this Bolt Action game.

Battle of Chairi 1701. Again in 10mm, which allows the all important fortress to appear on the table.

3 Para in Helmand, using Force on Force rules.

There were two Raphia games, with this one using a hex grid.

The ever-popular air participation game format. This one represents an attack on Berlin during Big Week 1944.

A mightily impressive collection of mostly German flats for the Battle of Domstadtl 1758. 

The Scots reached Teeside as well, with this take of the Battle of Newburn 1640 using Pike and Shotte.

The reenactors add something to the show and provide a couple of talks. 

Spanish Civil War

Medieval

This is Brickskrieg, a LEGO-style WW2 game. The models are very good.

Let's not forget cake wars. Eating them, particularly the white chocolate and raspberry version, was more fun.

On the way down, I popped in to Raby Castle, a 14th-century Neville stronghold. 

Not impressed by the masking of the armoury by a Xmas tree. Bah Humbug I say!

And fitted in giving a book talk on the Friday evening, near the very impressive Tees Barrage. They have turned an industrial necessity into a fine recreational space, which I walked around on Saturday morning.

And as Fulham won on Saturday evening at Spurs, my weekend is complete! Just Brits and Germans to scrap it out in Greece to come, at the club this afternoon.

The Cretan War 1645-1671

 I have an article in the new edition of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy (138), on the Cretan War 1645-1671. It provides an overview of the lengthy conflict between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, which extended far beyond Crete, to the Balkans and the Dardanelles. It also includes some suggestions for refighting the war on the tabletop and a scenario using Pikeman's Lament. This post expands on the article.

In 1645, the Ottomans launched a large invasion of Crete, quickly capturing most of the island except for the heavily fortified capital, Candia. This began a long and brutal struggle marked by sieges, naval battles, and shifting alliances in Europe. The war ultimately ended with the Ottomans conquering Crete, marking one of Venice’s most significant territorial losses.

The most comprehensive book on the conflict is The Cretan War, 1645-1671, by Bruno Mugnai (Helion, 2018). This has all you need, including colour plates. His book on the Ottoman Empire (Helion, 2020) provides a deeper examination of the Ottoman armed forces, complemented by Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700 by Rhoads Murphey (UCL Press, 1999). For the Ottoman navy, there is The Sultan’s Fleet by Christine Isom-Verhaaren (I.B.Taurus, 2022). For a broader look at Venice, John Julius Norwich’s Venice, The Greatness and the Fall (Allen Lane, 1981), is a great read.

The best-known action of the war is the Siege of Candia, the second-longest siege in history. This is a period map I found in the British Library.

And the harbour on my last visit. There is a small museum inside. 

I suggest two ways of replicating this on the tabletop. Either using the board game, Fire and Stone, designed for the Siege of Vienna, but I have used it for most sieges of this period. Hat tip to the Istanbul wargames club for flagging this clever game.

The other is a sortie, of which there were many. There wasn't space in the magazine to do a second scenario, but we have played a couple of games using Pikeman's Lament. 

We also played the raid scenario in the magazine again.

The naval struggle was a key element of the war. The Venetians intercepted Ottoman supply lines and challenged the Ottoman fleet in the Dardanelles. I use Black Seas and the warlord models for this.

A wargamer with an interest in this period is likely to have an Ottoman army. The infantry core was provided by the Janissaries, supplemented by Azabs and other provincial infantry. Cavalry mainly came from the Sipahi, although many fought on foot during the sieges. For the siege of Candia, vast numbers of Topçu artillerymen and Laginçi miners were deployed, with around 60,000 of them becoming casualties during the last three years of the siege.

Venice treated its army and navy as a single military force, with the Capitano Generale da Mar (Sea Captain General) directing both naval and field operations. In times of peace, most of the army was deployed in garrisons. During the Cretan War, the army consisted of mainland Italians; the Oltramontani, German, Swiss, Dutch and later French units; and the Oltramarini, recruited from Venetian subjects along the Adriatic coast. Compared to the Ottomans, the numbers were not large, with the Candia garrison ranging between 3,000 and 5,000 men. In 1645, Venetian troops resembled other armies of the period, so figures from the Thirty Years' War and even the English Civil War would be suitable. More than 80% would be musketeers, and the balance would be pikemen. The cavalry consisted of cuirassiers and light cavalry, many of the latter recruited from Venetian territories in Albania. Later in the war, European regiments reflected the military dress of Louis XIV’s wars in Europe. This means that many wargamers will not have to paint entirely new units to refight the Cretan War.

The Cretan War really has it all—sieges, skirmishes, small battles and naval actions, right across the eastern Mediterranean. Venice did manage a modest comeback in the Morean War (1684-1699), briefly occupying Athens, although they wrecked the Parthenon in the process. However, the loss of its trade routes to the Levant and the opening of new routes via the Cape and the Americas undermined Venice's economic base. The Ottomans arguably reached their peak during the Siege of Vienna in 1683. However, they would remain a major power for more than two centuries.

The Battle of Quatre Bras 1815

 Last weekend, I was playing a multiplayer game of the Battle of Quatre Bras at the Veterans Hub in Glasgow. We essentially followed the scenario outlined in the Black Powder: Albion Triumphant supplement. The game was played on a 12' x 8' table, which enabled more approach moves, though it posed a few challenges in reaching the units around the centre of the table where the key actions were fought. The terrain base was a printout from a map drawn using Inkarnate.

The Battle of Quatre Bras was fought on 16 June 1815. It was an early clash in the Hundred Days Campaign in which Wellington’s Anglo-Allied forces held a crucial crossroads against repeated attacks by Marshal Ney’s French army. Though the Allies were initially outnumbered and pushed back, steady reinforcements allowed them to stabilise the line and prevent the French from seizing the position. The battle ended without a decisive tactical victory. Still, Wellington’s successful defence kept his army intact and able to retreat in coordination with the Prussians, making Quatre Bras a key prelude to the Battle of Waterloo two days later.

This was the initial setup, with Bylant's Dutch-Belgian Brigade holding the crossroads, including a small Dutch militia battalion at the Germioncourt farm in the foreground.

This peaceful scene was soon ended when Ney arrived with Bachelu, Foy, and Pire's Divisions. Picton's Division starts to come on the Allied base line.

I was playing Jerome Bonaparte, and my division arrived on the next turn (bottom right). We agreed, most unhistorically, that I would force my way through the woods and advance on the Allied right flank. Given the Allied reinforcements, a flank attack wasn't going to succeed, but it should drag Allied units from reinforcing the crossroads. The problem was that there was no cavalry, and you couldn't take the guns through the woods. 

The Dutch militia didn't run away from Germioncourt farm and held on for most of the game. They also held up two batteries of guns that were sorely needed elsewhere.

The French were in dire need of competent military police to clear the many roadblocks, as finding space to deploy the divisions became challenging. Too many troops ended up in the woods fighting an inconclusive skirmish. However, significant forces managed to fight through the first Allied line and engage in a grim battle of attrition over the crossroads and the Allied left flank.

The arrival of the French cavalry stretched the Allied line even further.

Jerome's Division got through the woods and made a bold advance, aggressively taking on the Allied line. Sadly, the dice gods abandoned me at this stage (or instead, they switched allegiance), and the attacks were repulsed. However, they kept Alten's Division busy and a chunk of the Brunswickers.

By the end of Day 2, both sides had reached the crossroads, and on the victory points, it was a narrow Allied victory. The French were running out of steam, so pretty much as the historical battle went. 

We used Black Powder with some house rules, which the Veterans Hub uses. In Glasgow, we don't use the disordered rule (hit on a D6), as it slows the game and, as happened to me several times, French columns end up disorganised without losing a casualty. Otherwise, it worked well, and a good time was had by all. 

Korean War - US forces

I got interested in the Korean War when researching the Turkish units that fought there for my books on the Cyprus conflict. Two new Ospreys focus on US forces, and while I probably won't expand by tabletop forces in this direction (famous last words), the Turks were largely equipped from US stocks.

The first is MAA 561, which examines the US Army and US Marine Corps in Korea.

This is really a book for modellers, as it goes into great detail about the uniforms worn by the army and marines. I am doing this in 10mm, so the differences between the army and the Marines are almost irrelevant. When they arrived in Korea, most were equipped in WW2 uniforms, the standard herringbone twill. Cold-weather attire soon became vital, particularly the iconic caps and pile liners, although, as before, these were mainly WW2 issue. Later, the heavy-lined parka was issued. Insignia and specialist equipment are also covered.

The Turks converted from British equipment. They welcomed the US helmet as an improvement on the Brodie rim that made grenade throwing a risky business. However, they were less impressed by the boots, which took too long to lace up in emergencies.

As you would expect, there are plenty of photos and excellent colour plates. Sadly, no Corporal Klinger or Radar lookalikes!

I haven't yet considered the naval aspects of the Korean war, but Corbin Williamson's US Seventh Fleet, Korea 1950-53, has it all. 

At the end of WW2, the Seventh Fleet in the Pacific had over 200 ships and was still involved in post-war operations, including the war in China. As North Korea didn't have much of a navy, the Seventh Fleet was mainly engaged in shore bombardment and air combat, primarily using its Essex-class carriers. The huge Iowa-class battleships were brought out of reserve to add naval firepower. 70,000 naval personnel (excluding marines) served in the fleet by 1951.

The author covers all the primary ship classes and the aircraft that flew off the carriers. This information is widely published, so I found the chapter on command and control more interesting. The task force organisation is covered in detail, as is liaison with other UN member nations that contributed naval forces, including the Royal Navy. A fleet of this size required extensive shore facilities in Japan and replenishment at sea.

North Korea did have MTBs and other small boats. The combat operations chapter covers their attempts to attack UN ships and the threat posed by shore batteries. The North Koreans also made extensive use of mines, which kept the US minesweepers busy. Other than that, operations were mainly bombardment and amphibious landings.

I can't see much in the way of tabletop operations here, although naval and air bombardment have to be factored into land battles. I also play Blood Red Skies for the Korean air war. It is still an interesting read, well illustrated and plenty of data for the naval buffs.

My Turkish brigade facing North Korean and Chinese troops. Yes it can be hilly in Korea!