INWarD 2020 - Fire on the Lake

Today is the International Naval Wargames Day for 2020, and the subject of my game is a battle between German and Allied steamers on Lake Tanganyika  sometime in 1915. To the North the Belgian steamer Alexandre Delcommune, Commandant Goor in command, is escorting two civilian steamers loaded with supplies for the allied base at Lukuga. Accompanying the Delommune is the Belgian patrol boat Netta.


Smoke is spotted to the South and within minutes the German steamer Graf von Gotzen and her consort, the Kingani, hove into view, under the command of Gustav Zimmer Their mission, to stop the supplies from getting though.

For the first few turns both sides close the range, the Netta heading to the West to try and draw off the Kingani, which is initially successful. But soon, the Gotzen draws into range of the Commune and she opens fire. The German opening fire is surprisingly good, and a heavy shell slams into the Belgian (loses 1 hull point). Belgian fire in return falls short.

The range closes, and Gotzen's next broadside scores two good hits. Delommune loses her heavy gun, more hull damage, and a hit to the boiler room which halves her speed. But from the Wast is heard the sound of petrol engines, as two British motor boats, Mimi and Toutou, speed in to draw the German fire.

For the next few minutes everyone's gunnery goes to pot as no hits are scored. But that lull is broken as Delcommune suffers two more hits from Gotzen. Her engine room is hit and Commune drifts to a stop, whilst hits low in the hull cause more flooding (by now she has lost 75% of her hull points). Mimi and Toutou have the range and a light shell hits Gotzen's 105mm gun, disabling it.

The British boats can only fire forwards so they speed past the German raider, their machine guns blazing but no damage caused. Both boats turn tightly and form up on her stern. Gotzen administers the coup de grasse on poor Delcommune, as her last hull points are shot away and the Belgian is in a sinking condition. The civilians on the steamers expect the worst, but fire from the British boats disables Gotzen's 88mm gun. Meanwhile Kingani and Netta trade shots, causing minor damage.
Gotzen switches targets to the annoying British motor boats, but they are small targets head on and very difficult to hit. Gotzen is not, and the British score more hits, causing a minor flood but more importantly disabling Gotzen's 37mm guns (she can still use rifles and machine guns).

Zimmer realises that intercepting  this cargo requires too high a price. With all his main guns disabled or with their crews wounded and out of action, and with the British boats seemingly able to lob 3pdr  Hotchkiss shells into him with near impunity he decides of break off the action. As Gotzen raises steam to disengage a Short seaplane makes its appearance and executes an almost perfect bomb run - but its bombs land either side of Gotzen which is doused in spray but otherwise unaffected.

As the Gotzen and Kingani leave the field the civilian steamers pick up the survivors from the Delcommune, whilst the British muse on the fact that they disabled Gotzen's last operational gun with their final round of ammunition.......

Steamer Wars Goes To Russia

The second of three supplements for Steamer Wars has just gone live on Wargame Vault. "War on the Great Rivers" covers  naval engagements on the Dvina, Volga and Kama river and the lakes of Russia during the Civil War. The supplement includes a host of new rules covering mines and torpedoes, troops on shore, land based features and targets and the riverine environment.  Data tables are included for many new ship and vessel types from the navies and irregular forces of the Bolsheviks, the White Russians and the Royal Navy.

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/187346/Steamer-Wars--War-on-the-Great-Rivers

WotGR is available for a mere $2.50

The third and probably final supplement covering additional African lake scenarios will be some time coming now, so likely to appear in early 2017.

River Wars

Long Face Games is happy to announce the release of "River Wars", the first of a short series of supplements for the "Steamer Wars" rules of WW1 gunboat warfare.

"River Wars" covers naval engagements on the Danube and other European waters. The supplement includes a host of new rules covering mines and torpedoes, troops on shore, land based features and targets and the riverine environment.  Data tables are included for over thirty new ship and vessel types from the navies of the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Serbia, Romaniaand Turkey.

River Wars can be had for the princely sum of $2.50 from Wargame Vault

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/147483/River-Wars

Two further supplements are envisaged, one covering riverine actions in the Russian Civil War, the other expanding the campaign settings in Africa.

Another Weekend of Odds and Sods

Various plans for outings fell apart this weekend but that did mean I got a chance to catch up with some painting. A real mixed bag this time, details of which I'll post over the next week or so.

The main thrust was on finishing off the Tumbling Dice 1/600 Lake Tanganyika models I picked up at Devizes. These are nice models, resin and white metal for the Graf von Gotzen and the generic tramp steamer (which I thought would make a good Belgian lake steamer, perhaps a bit large), white metal for the Kingani, Hedwig von Wissmann, Mimi and Toutou (although interestingly you get three of the British motor boats - handy if you lose one I guess)

They are very nice models indeed. Not as nice (or accurate) as the Northhead models from Shapeways but well done, nicely detailed and quite rugged apart from the masts which are quite flimsy (some care needed here to avoid bending them, but they do at least straighten out easily if you do have a mishap.

TD also sell a variety of small craft, lifeboats, skiffs, liferafts and other useful bits and pieces that I also picked up. They should be quite handy for use as auxiliary vessels in my lake steamer collection.

All in all a very nice selection of craft, very reasonably priced and ideal for use with my Lake Steamer Wars rules (gratuitous plug, available from Wargame Vault)

Project X is.... Steamer Wars

This morning I finally got "Project X" off the ground (only took 2 years) and published my first set of wargame rules myself rather than through a publisher. The subject (as a few readers will know, and well done to them for keeping it a secret) is the "Steamer Wars", the naval campaign on Lake Tanganiyka in 1914, and if you'd like to take a look you can find them on Wargame Vault here.

Its only a smally set, but it does comprise tactical and campaign rules, and is a snip at only £5 from Wargames Vault :) They were written the rather nice range of 1/600 models available on Shapeways from Northhead Miniatures

I'm sure that I won't find myself retiring in the lap of luxury on the proceeds, but its something I've been meaning to do for some time so I'm quite pleased.

And I think I came out OK :)

Steamer Wars (1)

As is pretty normal for a wargamer, my attention has been drawn by an old project and a long-lost book in the book case. In this case the book is "The Phantom Flotilla" by Peter Shankland, and the project is the set of Lake Tanganyika steamers and gunboats available via Shapeways from North Head Miniatures. Over the last few weeks I've painted up the models and scratch built a few extra craft, including the Belgian gun barge "Dix Tonne", the Belgian motor gunboat "Netta" and a variety of small craft.

 Over the last few days I've been sketching out a set of fast play rules, the aim being to be able to run a small one day campaign for 2-3 players. Today I gave the rules their first outing. The scenario was based on the encounter between the German gunboat Hedwig von Wissman and the British motor boats Mimi and Toutou. I played this as a surprise encounter, and things went pretty much according to reality. In my refight the Wissman decided to open her arcs so as to bring her bow guns into play as well as a machine gun. range advantage meant she opened fore well before the British boats were able to respond, but the small size of the targets meant she was unable to secure any hits in the opening phase of the action. As the range closed both sides scored hits and near misses. Toutou suffered minor hull damage from a near miss, and both boats were showered with splinters on several occasions. But a shell from Mimi hit the German's engine room and slowed her considerably. Toutou scored a lucky machine gun hit on the hapless German's engine which left her dead in the water and at this point the nimble British gunboats got in behind the German's stern. The German engineer was not giving up the ship though, and managed to restart the engines, although only making a paltry 2 knots. The game was up shortly thereafter though as a shell from Toutou knocked out the Wissman's machine gun, whilst  a burst of MG fire from Mimi cut down the crew of the port bow gun. With the ship slowed, damaged and unable to keep the British boats away from her vulnerable stern the captain of the Wissman decided that discretion was the better part of valour and struck his colours (morale test failed).

The rules seemed to work well, with a few minor amendments made as I went along. Next plan - to knock up some of the larger Belgian vessels that were on the lake in 1914 and try out some "big ship" actions and actions against shore batteries!