Encounter on the High Seas

HMS London and SMS Brandenburg closing range.

 The newspapers are unclear as to why this incident occurred, but word from the admiralty has it that German ambitions in East Africa were in need of a stout pounding!

An early critical hit slows the Brandenburg but she still packs a dangerous punch

 I managed to get my first two pre dreadnoughts at this larger scale  painted up in late Victorian livery, and decided to give them a go with a single ship to ship action set up the hex board I made a week ago out of the back of a Christmas tree mat. The hexes are M44 sized and I plan to get/make a larger hex mat with 5" hexes soon but until then, I just assumed the ships were located in the bow hex and it all worked out pretty well.

The London changes course to close range and sustains a hit in her forward turret.

The "iron dice" are rolling hot for Brandenburg's gun crews and the London begins to take significant damage as the range closes.

at 4.000 yards both ships run parallel courses and trade pounding broadsides.

Both ships are approaching their "break off" point with the London taking another hit on her guns.

Final turn of the game finds the London battling a fire and attempting to escape, but the Brandenburg gets in a final broadside that completely disables the London and she starts to list and the captain reluctantly orders "abandon ship!"

"Londoners were shocked at the news in the morning papers..."-

I'm really enjoying Bob Cordery's "Memoir of Battle at Sea"...and the great potential for adding "chrome" to the basic rules. The ships painted up pretty well and look the part so I started a couple of British cruisers to beef up a retaliatory strike on those overly ambitious Germans!

And finally to the stout fellows who graciously honored me with a Liebster Award for my blog please know that it was really appreciated and I'm working on posting my favorite 10 blogs that I think are tops...(I know, not the exact rules of the game...but I follow and enjoy 160 blogs on a regular basis and I thought that it would be good to honor the top ten...maybe I'll do a "Lead Gardens Top Way Beyond Cool Gaming Bogs Award" ...suffice to say I'm compiling that list right this minute and hopefully will be my holiday "shout-out" to all my favorites who give me so much pleasure and inspiration...Thanks Everyone!

Getting the Steam Up: Part 2 Predreadnoughts

Rescaled plan of the HMS London...the original scan from Janes Fighting Ships 1905-6 is on the upper left, the rescaled version is on the right.

 Much-inspired by some great links sent to me after my recent post on some homemade pre-dreadnoughts I have moved into a "Homemade pre-dreadnoughts Mark II" phase. In particular, I am enjoying the look of the really cool pre-dreadnoughts on the "Old Admirals" blog, and Bob Cordery's stylized wooden predreadnoughts. I decided my small scale pre-dreads were a bit too small and I was taken with the idea that the ships could be larger and carry a bit more detail while remaining entirely scratchbuilt from inexpensive materials and, most importantly, quickly built.

SMS Brandenburg

 My approach was to take original scans from a copy of Janes Fighting Ships 1905-6 that I recently got on ebay (for a really great price) and manipulate the scanned image to give me a new template on which to base the hull shape. I wanted a more abstract look to the models, and just a bit stylized so I settled on a 1.5 inch width by about a 5 inch length to make my battleships. This size would work with 4" or 5" hexes and give me the look and the size that would allow some more complex detailing on the models. Most importantly I could use round toothpicks and readily available wood shapes for turrets and gun barrels and everything would still look believable to the eye. So the scanned image was resized in Adobe "InDesign" to get the shape that I was looking for...so shorter length and wider beam was the watchword.

HMS London

 The result is pretty satisfying, even if they are not true scale models, they are fairly faithful to the general look of the historical ship (which is what my earlier efforts had missing). They have a nice heft and plenty of room for deck details.

HMS London in it's raw state...still working on the masts.

 I used balsa for the main hull and wood toothpicks for the gun barrels. Some plastic tube and metal pins make up the rest...all really cheap available materials.

SMS Brandenburg..the models are very raw at this point...sanding and priming will hopefully take care of the imperfections.

First coat of acrylic gesso to seal and give a good primer coat to cover imperfections in the balsa hull

the London and the Brandenburg...a first pass at a new fleet of pre-dreadnoughts

Finally a few pics from the internet to make the visual comparisons easier...

SMS Brandenburg during the late 1800s...she was refitted in WWI so some of the barbettes were no longer visible in later pics. She was part of the German fleet during the Boxer Rebellion

The "business end" of the Brandenburg

 
I'm finding the wealth of info on the web to be a scratchbuilders dream...that spherical turret on the Brandenburg is way-cool and not just a little "steampunk" as well!

Home Brewed Pre-Dreadnoughts

Pre-dreadnoughts painted British style.

 I've been following a few blogs where homemade wargaming minis feature particularly "Wooden Warriors", and I was also looking at the yahoo group, "wargaming on a budget" this morning and it reminded me of a little project I started a year ago that was my shot a wargaming on the cheap.

 These pre-dreadnoughts are made of precut wooden shapes that can be had by the bag at typical craft outlets here in the states such as Michael's or AC Moore. I make the turrets from discs cut out of craft foam sheet using a paper hole punch. guns are from the ends of round toothpicks or in some case the ends of decorative toothpicks. The hole punch also works for punching thin sheet styrene. Sections of toothpick, styrene tube rod, and a wee bit of brass wire and you're all set.

The hulls are built-up using a stack of two or three of the same size shape with each layer shifted just a bit to give the impression of a pre-dreadnought bow of the period.

The German-ish fleet

The ships are stylized and a bit cartoonish, but the overall effect is belligerent in a 19th century "big stick" sort of way and to my eye pretty convincing. I've been trying to work up some rules that would not involve record keeping (...to me the toxic part of naval gaming...as well as spaceship gaming for that matter...) Just a few hit markers or such. Perhaps a system a bit like the old SPI Dreadnought game. I was also thinking these might work on a gridded field using a more abstract movement system of some sort.

I just used British and German color schemes from the late 19th century to give everything the right feel visually.
One thing that makes this project go quickly is having a "Chopper" from Northwest Short Line. It's perfect when you need a bunch of wood cut to the same length (perfect for those toothpick gun barrels).

The "Chopper"