Angus Konstam's Edinburgh Wargames
Norway, 1940
Carry on up the Fjords
This is something a little different - an occasional naval game laid on in the Edinburgh Club by my wargaming buddy Kevan Gunn. His plan is to come up with something integrated - a naval campaign in 1/1200 scale, linked to a land campaign fought out using 15mm figures. While the land side of things isn't too appealing (I'm not really interested in the fighting, or in 15mm figures), the naval battles are a lot more attractive. This is especially so because Kevan is building up the forces, and all the rest of us have to do is to play with them!
HMS Bedouin and HMS Havock (1/1200 models, from different manufacturers)
So far we've only fought one battle - a raid up a fjord to sink the German light cruiser Emden. Still, theres' plenty of scope in Norwegian waters, from the battles fought around Narvik to convoy actions, those skirmishes against the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and lots of "what-if" games.
Ship Record Cards, designed for use with General Quarters (3rd edition)
Kevan is a dyed-in-the-wool 15mm gamer, while the rest of the world seems to play with 28mm figures. Therefore it seems a little out of keeping that he'd opt for 1/1200 scale. In fact he even uses the fact to tease me about my naval games being in such a small scale - 1/2400! The truth is, for the games we do 1/1200 wouldn't work, even though the models really look great. However, it's perfect for Norway. destroyers (and this was primarily a destroyer campaign) look really nice and chunky, and while I haven't yet seen a 1/1200 scale Warspite or Scharnhorst, I'm sure they'll look spectacular. I've quizzed him about expanding it to include other Anglo-Nazi naval engagements like The River Plate or North Cape. He promises me that some time in the future I'll be give n command of a 1/200 scale Duke of York, and allowed to pound a Nazi battlecruiser into scrap! Hurrah!
The Pacific or back to The Mediterranean
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American Civil War Pre-Dreadnought Coastal Forces Second World War