"A new(bie) project for the New Year..." Topic

Time to dip my toe … link

Congratulations on the great bargain! I think you will have great fun with this project. So are you going with Navwar?

Not too sure on which manufacturer I'll be going with yet TJ but Navwar does look favourable at the minute.

I am a big Navwar fan, but one thing I find a bit maddening is that in their fleet packs they tend to include ships that are ever so much out of the era they represent. For example, I just finished up the Japanese WWI fleet pack, and lo and behold it included Mutsu, a lovely model but unfortunately commissioned in 1921.
But aside from that, the ships are a great value and the fleet packs are an economical way to get started.

But regardless of your manufacturer, best of luck on the project!

TJ Navwar is the way to go, cheap and well sculpted. Fleet packs are good but as TJ said be vary of 'what if' or 'not quite WW1' ships that slip in.

Are you going to be painting your own ships or having someone else to do them?

Paint your own, paint your own!

Actually, I canīt believe how fast and easy the Dreadnoughts paint up. After years and years as a strictly Pre-Dread fellow, I took the plunge a while back and went to Dreadnoughts, and oh it is so easy. No technicolor paint schemes, and the battleships are so much bigger, Iīm in paradise.

I'll definitely be painting my own…. Any advice on colour schemes?

Unless you go in for that dazzle business (Iīm too conservative for that sort of thing myself), itīs pretty much gray for the metal, and brown for the decks, with a bit of black here and there. Here is a useful TMP link about the subject from Mal Wright:

TMP link

Personally, I use acrylics from Vajello, and am quite satisfied with them.

Thanks TJ.

Good that you are painting your own!

(I only ask on the off chance as my painting services pay my overdraft off)

My dreadnaughts I use Vajello Medium sea grey for hull, guns, superstructure etc, Desert yellow for deck and black for tops of funnels. (I add other colors where applicable.)

I wash the grey bits with black and the deck with brown and dry brush white, though I might try grey white soon.

For basing I use plasticard textures with the Vajello latex putty and smooth it on with an old knife, using a cocktail stick to make the waves/wake.

I then paint it royal blue, wash with a green and high light with white.

They are not always historically accurate but the colors work for me.

Oops! Sorry Uber, I didnīt know you offered painting. Wasnīt trying to sabotage your business!

Don't worry mate…..I weirdly prefer people to paint there own miniatures as I think they have more ownership over their models…..but those who don't I'm quite happy to sponge off!

The only thing I dislike about Navwar is that they don't do HMS Incomparable……only a small gripe mind!

Anyone know where I can find more general info on WWI naval actions? … I know absolutely nothing about naval warfare so any info would be appreciated.

@ Uber Well if you are really desperate for the Incomparable, here is a plan of her:

link

And here is a link to Virtual Scratch Builderīs fine tutorial on scratch building:

link

He builds in 1/2400, but I imagine it would work for 1/3000 too. When you finish you can build me one too

@ Steve You can try here: link

And here: naval-history.net/#WW1

Thanks for the links TJ… Those scratch builds are excellent. I definitely wouldn't have the patience to attempt that I'm afraid.

Itīs on my to do list, but I am afraid my result will be nothing like the excellent work you see there. Still, it would be really cool to be able to make whatever ship you were missing.

It sure would……mind you navwar's range is pretty extensive.

Stanley….which navies are you looking at?

Probably British and German Soldat … but not 100% decided yet.

Steve, check out these links:

gwpda.org/naval/n0000000.htm (my favorite)

link
(Jellicoe's "The Grand Fleet: 1914 – 1916, online google book)

link
(another Google book online, this time Corbett & Newbolt's "Naval Operations" – an official history, sorry my link plops you onto page 304, but I was looking for references to Jerram when I found this online book)

link (Jane's 1919 British ships online)

worldwar1.co.uk (this one may be linked above, sorry if it's a duplicate link)

(the old Avalon Hill game search map)

naval-history.net/index.htm (naval history net)

link (Stephen King-Hall's North Sea Diary)

richthofen.com/scheer (Scheer on the High Seas Fleet at War Times Journal)

link (the Dreadnought Project)

link (ships of the world's navies, probably the most fantastic and wonderful collection of old naval photos anywhere, my go-to place for figuring out what the ships really looked like)

Hope that will do you for a start. One of the best books to read as an introduction to WW1 naval warfare is "Castles of Steel" by Robert Massie. Perhaps "Jutland: an Analysis of the Battle" by John Campbell gives better detail, but it's dry reading compared to Massie's more sweeping narrative. Jellicoe and Scheer are interesting reading. Very cool to see what the admirals themselves had to say. And Corbett and Newbolt's "Naval Operations" is a great and epic narrative of the movements and operations. "The Kaiser's Pirates" is a great little book on surface warfare against merchant ships, including the battles of Coronel and the Falklands. There's a good set of articles on the late 1917 operations against Riga by the Germans, but I can't remember where it's linked. Hopefully it's somewhere in those links above.

I've read Dreadnuaght which is the prequal to Castles of steel and well worth the read.

I started out with Brit's and Germans bout 3 years ago and have ended up with Italians, Austrian, Turkish, French, Jap, Brazilian and Argentina for WW1 and most of the above plus Russians and Thai for WW2. I find naval gaming very addictive.

Uber is right, it is addictive as hell! I find myself wanting every ship from every class from every navy! The Thai navy I donīt have yet, hmmmmmmm….

@Warren- Those are great links!

TJ Nawvar have em dirt cheap and means my Vichy French can shoot them up!!! They have Chinese too! Damn Navwar

Iīve got the Chinese Yalu fleet, and I love it. If they had the appropriate French ships I would get the Foo Chow set too.

But I am very intrigued with the post Yalu set, and now I have to make the wife look the other way while I get the Thai set too!

Oh, and then thereīs that Prussian fleet set I have no need for. It sounds really cool!

I'm fighting that "completist" tendency too. Have acquired or plan to acquire models in 1:2400 scale for most WW1 British and German ships from the 1914 through 1916 period down to destroyers. Am doing the same with the Russian Baltic Fleet (couldn't resist the GHQ models).

But I'm trying not to get sucked into collecting the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the French, and the Americans. Not sure if I'm going to collect the Austro-Hungarian and Italian WW1 navies or not, but I already have the dreadnoughts from Viking Forge and a lot of Italian destroyers from C-in-C.

But warren, it sounds to me that if you have the dreadnoughts and destroyers, you are already collecting the Austrian and Italian fleets.
And really, how can you sleep at night knowing you have the Russian Baltic Fleet but not the Black Sea Fleet???

On books – Dreadnought is great, Paul Halpern's Naval History of WW1 essential, Andre Gordon's "The Rules of the Game" an excellent in depth deconstruction of British tactical failings at Jutland, Yates "Flawed Victory" a more conventional Jutland history… Tarrant's "Jutland" gives the german persepctive, while Filson Young's 2Witrh the Balttle Cruisers is a classic. If you are interested in the cruiser war then Van Der Vat's "The Last Corsair" and Yates "Graf Spee's Raiders" are both good reads.

Fear God and Dread Nought is unplayable, but a contains a wealth of brilliant information. I use the Avalanche Press Great War at Sea series as campaign platforms. Take these games and add Halpern and you will have all you need to know for scenarios. I use mostly Navwar, and am also addicted to bizarre French cruisers and other oddities. Navwar Russo-Japanese and Jutland packs are the way to go.

by the bye for historical actions the Adriatic cruiser/destroyer actions, the Pacific, South Altantic and Indian Ocean in 1914-15 and the various North Sea battlecruiser clashes from 1914-6 are are great. I've built up a little monitor fleet for the Jade river, which has the first use of naval air and would make an excellent land/sea campaign… In the pacific one has the potential to bring in Japanese, Dutch and US fleets in what-ifs, in addition to the ANZAC/Royal Navy, French and German units…

The med and black sea also has lots of options, including the deployment of a British dreadnought squadron during the Russian civil war (just before most of those lovely not so old ladies were scrapped in an untimely fashion to comply with the Washington treaty). Dardanelles is also fun if you want to loose a lot of pre-dreadnoughts in a hurry. The persuit of the Goeben and Breslau, and thier subsequent actions in the Black Sea are also worthy small unit actions.

A 1918 what-if of a major action between joint RN-USN dreadnoughts and the High Seas Fleet has got to be done!

I mean Rufiji Delta (Jade Riover is in Germany).. Doh….

Also the 1919-21 aircraft carrier augemented battlecruiser squadron interests me… With Furious and Argus as a carrier group, supported by Hood, Renown, Repulse, Tiger and Lion + a flotilla of VW destroyers and a squadron of "D" or "E" class light cruisers plus the BCs Australia and New Zealand and the Aussie town class ligfht cruisers and destroyer half-flotilla..

Rerunning the 1914 cruiser campaigns with this force versus a much enlarged German-Japanese battlecruiser and light cruiser squadron would be fun!

My 'Victory at Se : Age of Dreadnoughts' rule book arrived today so I'll be reading up over Christmas and hopefully placing a small order with Navwar for some toys in the new year.