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.

Enfilade 2015 Preparations

I’ve been getting ready for my Enfilade 2015 games. This year I’m only running a couple games, one Coastal Forces scenario and the raid on St Nazaire game. I got some new ships for use with both games and I did a lot of work on the St Nazaire terrain.

Starting off with the new ships, earlier this year I made a big order to The PT Dockyard. It was mainly for some German ships for both my Enfilade scenarios, but there were also a few British ships in the order, which I will assemble later.

Here is a group photo of the ships.

My new German ships

First up, I got a pair of M40 Minesweepers. There were over 100 of these ships built and they were used in a lot of different functions during the war, so they will be a generally useful model.

M40 class minesweepers

I also got a pair of Vorpostenboote Trawlers and a Vorpostenboote Whaler, which will be good for convoy escorts.

German VP boats

I painted all the ships up in disruptive camouflage patterns that I tried to match from photos and descriptions. I still need to mount them on a base and do a little weathering, but overall I’m pretty happy with how they turned out.


The work the St Nazaire terrain is pretty much done. In my last post I showed the bare-bones of the layout. Now things are more filled in and finished, including additional warehouses, bridges, and more. Here are a few shots of the updated terrain.

Overview of the terrain

An overhead view of old town and the old mole, it is more filled in that my last photo shoot

The warehouse area

A view of my scratchbuilt lift bridge

The drydock area, I need to finish the cranes for this section

Kevin and I also did a walkthrough of the game. Hopefully the real game goes as well as our walkthrough.

Campbeltown rams the caisson 

The commandos move to land at the old mole

An MGB covers the landing at the old mole

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

Dressing Up My LCS-2

Last March I got one of the last LCS-2 models that PT Dockyard made. This year I'm finally putting it together and I'm hoping to use it in an Enfilade game.

I really like the way the hull looks, but it seemed a bit plain. I wanted to "dress up' the hull some and I really wanted to improve how the helicopter deck looked. I didn't think just painting some lines on the model would look that great. So, a couple months ago I started looking at the different brass photo-etch detail kits on the market. I found a set made specifically for the Dragon plastic LCS-2 kit from a company named Flyhawk, but I wanted to look around a little more to see if there were some other detail kits that would work. I looked around some more, but I was really interested in a kit for detailing the helicopter deck and nothing else looked like it would work. So, I decided to get the Flyhawk detail kit. I figured that it was the right scale (1/700) and even if things were a little off, they wouldn't be too far off.

The clean LCS-2 hull, ready for some detailing

I knew the Flyhawk helicopter deck brass piece was going to be a little off, since the plastic model had open hanger doors and the brass deck extended into those. But I thought I would easily be able to trim those off to fit my kit.

The photo-etch kit from Flyhawk

When the photo-etch detail kit arrived, I was happy and sad. The helicopter deck was longer and wider than expected. The length wasn't too much of an issue, since I could cut that back, but it was also about 2mm wider than the PT Dockyard deck. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if I should just put the deck piece on as is or try to trim it to fit. After a lot of debating with myself, I decided to trim 1mm off each side (to keep the deck centered). It took a lot of patience, but I think it turned out okay.

Here are a few photos of the assembled LCS-2 model with the photo-etch parts attached. I wanted to post the photos before I painted it so that you could see where the photo-etch parts were added.

Port side view with photo-etch in place

Here is the troublesome helicopter deck. I haven't added the netting around the deck yet, I'll do that after I paint the hull.

The helicopter deck (with a little glare)

And the starboard side, which has the part that got stuck before I could straighten it out.

Hopefully the final paint job will hide the crooked ventilation panel

I'm thinking about adding some railing after I paint the hull too. But it just depends on how the ship looks when painted. Right now I think things are looking pretty good.

Enfilade Recap Part 2: My Games

For Enfilade 2011, I ran my games on Saturday morning and afternoon. The morning game was Operation Morvarid, covering a missile boat action during the Iran – Iraq War, and the afternoon game was South Pacific Nights, covering a hypothetical World War II engagement between American and Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands.

Operation Morvarid was a little different for me in that the order of battle and mission was set for each side. I usually like to mix things up by having players select their forces and/or missions for a game, but this time I just went with some limitations for each side.

The scenario was that the Iranians had just completed a raid on some Iraqi oil terminals, the Iranians are trying to withdraw from the area while the Iraqis are trying to intercept them. The Iranians started out with the LST, a patrol boat, two Kaman class missile boats, and an AB-212 helicopter. The problem for the Iranians was the missile boats each only had two Harpoon missiles and they were pretty sure there would be more than four Iraqi boats. The Iraqis had four missile boats (two Osa Is and two Osa IIs) and two P-6 torpedo boats. While they had plenty of missiles (16 total), I added a special rule that said because of their poor training, any missile shot outside of visual range would be treated as a snapshot (this incurs a hefty negative modifier for shooting).

The Iranian LST and patrol boat had to start about in the middle of the board, while the missile boats could set up anywhere and all the ships were trying to exit off the south end of the board. The Iraqis entered on the north board edge, but could delay entry and come on the east side (moving one foot south for each turn of delay). Each side also had a fishing trawler that could act as dummies, adding to the ‘Fog of War’. The only terrain on the board was a small rain squall that blocked visual line of sight. The Iranians placed all of their ships near each other in the center of the board and the Iraqis had one pair of missile boats enter on turn one, while the other boats raced down the east side of the board.

As soon as they saw the blips on the north, the Iranians sent their helicopter (armed with a couple rocket pods and a machine gun) to investigate. The helicopter spotted the two Osa I missile boats and fired off a rocket pod at the nearest one damaging it. The Iraqis returned fire with some shoulder launched SAMs. Unfortunately for the Iraqis, both missiles missed.

SAMs fired at the helicopter.

The helicopter fired off its other rocket pod, sinking the damaged Osa and headed off to investigate some other radar blips. The Iranian missile boats turned north to engage the remaining Osa, each firing a Harpoon missile. The Osa captain saw the incoming missiles and decided it would be better to fire blind than to (probably) sink with missiles still onboard and launched his missiles at different targets. Two went toward the Iranian Kamans (whcih had revealed themselves) and the other two went at the blips he thought were most likely the LST and patrol boat.

A bad day for this Osa.

The Osa captain guessed correctly and his boat was plastered by the Harpoons, but he had hope to do some damage to the enemy. Two of his rolls were misses, but then his dice got hot and he hit one of the Kaman missile boats causing heavy damage and caused light damage to the patrol boat. The patrol boat also suffered a "confusion at the helm" critical hit, forcing it to make a starboard turn and almost collide with the LST.

The near collision between the Iranian patrol boat and LST.

Meanwhile, on the eastern board edge, the torpedo boats and remaining Osas were entering. The helicopter spotted the two P-6 torpedo boats and decided to strafe them. His shot did light damage to one torpedo boat, but the 23mm guns on the boats took out the helicopters engine, sending it into the drink.

At this point the game became a real chase with the Iraqi boats trying to chase down the LST and the remaining Iranian missile boat trying to stop them. The Kaman fired off its last missile at an Osa, which returned the favor by firing missiles back. The Harpoon missed its mark, but the Styx didn't, damaging the Kaman. The Osa captain then decided to finish off both damaged Kamans with its remaining missiles. With time running out (the LST was poised to exit the board), the remaining Osa launched all four missiles at the Large Slow Target.

LST under attack.

Unfortunately for the Iraqi player, all his missiles missed. The torpedo boat commander also attacked, but couldn't get any torpedo hits either. In the end, the Iranians escaped with their LST intact and a damaged patrol boat, giving them a minor victory.

Everybody seemed to have a good time and I distributed prize packs of missile markers from Fight's On to the players (thanks to Rob at Fight's On for sending me the prizes). I really like how the missile markers look with games (as you can see from the photos) and the players were happy to get their own.

Unlike the morning game, the South Pacific scenario had lots of choices for both sides. The Japanese were on a resupply mission that had to exit off the southeast board edge and could choose their forces from a group of large ships or smaller ships and barges. The Japanese selected a destroyer (instead of two sub chasers), a minesweeper loaded with supplies (instead of a group of barges), and a group of four barges with air cover from a Pete floatplane (instead of an LST). The American mission was to pick up a Marine recon team that had been observing the Japanese forces on the island in preparation for an invasion and they could choose from groups of sub chasers (with working radar), PT boats, and LCM gunboats. They chose to go with the PT boats (foregoing the radar-equipped sub chasers) and the LCM gunboats (instead of lightly armed, but fast converted PT boats). Interestingly, the LCM gunboats had the heaviest guns on the American side, each with a 3-inch gun and a pair of 37mm cannon. In addition to the island at terrain, the small rain squall made an appearance in this game too.

The game started with the Americans entering on the east board edge and the Japanese on the west. Like the Operation Morvarid game, I used the blip markers to help hide which ships were going where and included a couple dummy markers for each side.

The Japanese destroyer and minesweeper initially stayed in the middle of the board to help cover the barges and so they didn’t have to worry about running aground. The barges hugged the shoreline, while the Pete scouted ahead. The American PT boats also stuck to the middle of the board, while the LCMs moved close to shore.

The PT boats sighted the destroyer at about the same time that the Pete picked out their wakes. The PT boats made a dash for the rain squall to hide and set up an attack on the destroyer, discovering the minesweeper as they moved into the squall. Searchlights turned on and gunfire erupted as the two sides closed with each other. One PT boat was hit pretty hard as the others lined up for torpedo shots on the Japanese ships. The LCM gunboats spotted the Japanese minesweeper and started attacking with their 3-inch guns, which surprised the Japanese players. The 3-inch guns started a fire on the minesweeper as it was trying to avoid a torpedo spread, but the torpedoes caught the stern of the ship, sending to to the bottom.

Minesweeper in trouble.

As the LCM gunboats continued on their mission to get the Marines, they spotted the Japanese barges. The gunboats, which had originally been heavily-armed to combat Japanese barges, opened fire on the Japanese. They showed how effective the up-gunning was by quickly sinking one barge and setting two more on fire. Eventually they would sink all the barges.

Japanese barges burning.

The LCM gunboats then turned to their primary mission, driving up to the shore and picking up the Marines.

LCM gunboats pick up the Marines.

Meanwhile the Japanese destroyer was blasting away at the PT boats. It even took a couple (ineffective) shots at the LCM gunboats, but it took a couple hits from the PT boats and gunboats that started fires on the destroyer. Unfortunately for the destroyer, it couldn’t quite turn fast enough to avoid checking for grounding and it found itself going from full speed to all stop as it hit a sand bar near the island. The destroyer captain was able to get the ship off the bar on the next turn, but this allowed the only PT boat with torpedoes remaining to line up and launch a torpedo spread.

Japanese destroyer trying to avoid torpedoes.

The destroyer was able to turn into the spread and the American player rolled poorly as the torpedoes sped by the destroyer. At this point we decided to call the game, but continued to roll to see what would happen to the fires on the destroyer. The fires were eventually extinguished, but between them and the grounding, the destroyer had lost half its hull points.

The Japanese lost their minesweeper and all the barges, while the destroyer escaped with heavy damage. The Americans lost two PT boats and had another heavily damaged, but they were able to pick up the Marines and stop the Japanese, so they were awarded the victory.

Completed LST and More

I've finally finished up the Iranian LST, which, with a couple borrowed Kaman class missile boats, completes the needed forces for the Operation Morvarid scenario.

As I've mentioned before, the LST is based on the Iranian Hengam class, which looks like this...

Iranian Hengam class LST

And here is my completed version from a similar angle...

My completed LST

It isn't a perfect match. As you can see, the bow on my version is a little pointier and overall my ship is blockier than the real thing, but it should work fine for gaming purposes. Here is an overhead view so you can see the helicopter deck. I'm not going to zoom in on the deck too much, since I hand-painted the lines on the deck and they aren't perfectly straight. 

Overhead view of the LST

Here is a group shot of the Iranian ships for Operation Morvarid.

Iranian forces for Operation Morvarid

In the front are two Kaman class missile boats (borrowed from Kevin) made by PT Dockyard. In the back is my semi-Hengam class LST and a stand-in for the Cape class patrol boat (in this case it is an American 110' Subchaser from PT Dockyard), with a UH-1 helicopter gunship overhead.

Here is a group shot of the Iraqis for the scenario.

Iraqi Forces for Operation Morvarid

The Iraqis have, from left to right, two Osa II missile boats, two Osa I missile boats (all from Skytrex) and two P-6 torpedo boats (from PT Dockyard).

With the set up and some other restrictions for both sides, it should be an interesting scenario.

My Other Enfilade Game

The past few weeks I've been concentrating on getting ships done for the Operation Morvarid game for Enfilade 2011. With the missile boats done and the LST in the paint shop, I started looking at what I need for the other game I'm planning on running.

My second game will be a WWII Pacific coastal forces game between the Americans and Japanese. The basic plan is for the Japanese to be on a resupply mission, while the Americans are trying to recover a Marine Recon team in the same area.

PT Dockyard Japanese (from L to R) Type C armored gunboat, 46' Dihatsu barge, Armored Dihatsu gunboat, and lugger 

The Japanese forces will mostly be armed and unarmed barges (landing craft), along with some luggers. Although I think I will let them trade up to some larger ships, but there will be fewer of them. So, the Japanese players will have to decide if they want to go with more smaller ships that can stay close to shore or fewer larger ships that have big guns (but can run aground). I'm probably going to put together the LST from the Tamiya Japanese Military Transport kit as one of the possible Japanese ships, even though those ships were around until 1944 and the South Pacific battles were pretty much wrapped up by then. I think it would be fun to have it on the table and sometimes you just need to twist history a little. 

Tamiya Japanese destroyer and subchaser

The American forces will primarily be 80' Elco PT boats. As with the Japanese, they will be able to trade the PT boats for other types of ships, such as a subchaser or LCM gunboat. I might even pull out some Fletcher class destroyers as options (although those won't be able to get too close to shore to help pick up the Marines). 

PT Dockyard American LCM gunboat, 110' subchaser, and 80' Elco PT boat

I'll be using the Action Stations rules for the game. These are one of my favorite set of naval rules; they are easy for players to pick-up, play fast, and are really flexible so I can use them for a lot of different situations.
Things are getting a little busy at my day job, but I'm hoping to have some pictures of the newly painted ships next week.

Missile Boats and LST updates

I finally finished painting the two Osa II and converted Matka missile boats. They still need to be mounted on bases. But since I'm trying to put up a new post each week, I thought I'd show off the painted ships.

Project 206MR Matka (top) and two Project 205 Osa II (bottom) missile boats

The deck color should probably be a little lighter and redish, but I think it will pass. It also give a little variation from some other ships I've done.

Overall, I think the Matka conversion turned out pretty well. When I base it I'll need to figure out a way to show the extra spray when it is foil-borne. I'm not exactly sure what I will do, since I would like to show when it is going slower too.

Project 206 MR Matka profile

A little higher view of the ship

I went for a pretty standard Soviet era paint scheme for the Osa II boats. The boats paint up well, although there really aren't too many details to pick out on the Skytrex models. That said, the boats are pretty sturdy and I expect they will see a lot of service in various games.

I finally finished up the basic work on the LST. I spent about a half-hour with an electric hand-sander getting the hull down to the right size and then began working on the superstructure. I used the styrene strips to create the superstructure, bridge (including the wings), exhaust stacks, and mast. I then added some light guns, a crane, and a ships boat to add some character to the LST.

Profile view of completed LST

3/4 view with a better look at the superstructure

The right side of the LST got scuffed when I was sanding, but a little putty will fill it right in. I think it will give the ship a used look.

Completed LST showing a little scuffing

Here is a low-level profile picture so you can see how big the LST is compared to an Osa II.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the scratch-building job I did. It would have been nice to make it a little bigger, but the size should work with most of the games I'll be playing.

I'll post more photos when I'm done painting the ship.