"Paul Hague's 'Naval Wargaming' " Topic

I know many of you beggars pull my leg about Victory at Sea – and I know you're right, but they're great for my lad.

Even so, I thought we'd try something different, especially as Young Henry has been asking about something 'more realistic'. He is seven, after all.

So I dusted off Paul Hague's 'Naval Wargaming' and drew up some ship cards. Keeping it simple we went for a refight of River Plate: when comparing rules I find it's quite a good idea to play a couple of 'standard' scenarios, these tending to be River Plate and Denmark Strait.

Paul's rules are based on ranging shots to achieve straddles, then firing for effect. Big changes in range or course result in loosing the accumulative modifiers for correction, meaning evasive action really works.

Hits are mapped out on plan views of the ships, taking into account penetration. I amended these slightly to use a standard deck of cards, rather than the 5 suit deck Paul uses in the originals (hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades and 'blobs'!).

ENEMY IN SIGHT!

So we set up using the historical starting positions (more or less), with the British squadron steaming in line ahead – Ajax, Achilles and Exeter – when the Graf Spee is sighted to port.

At 0615 Graf Spee (me, playing Langsdorf) began ranging fire on Ajax, to which the British Squadron were unable to reply. To counter this Young Henry (as Harwood) turned his force together towards me and increased speed to 24 knots in order to close the range.

AJAX UNDER FIRE

I turned to the South, wanting to maintain distance, but I couldn't turn too far as I still wanted to keep my A-arcs open. This, combined with the British working up to full speed, meant that by 0630 Ajax and Exeter were able to open fire, followed five minutes later by Achilles, which for some reason had swung round across Exeter's bows to take up position to the port of her.

GRAF SPEE

By this point no hits had been secured by anyone, and just as I found Ajax's range the British squadron turned abruptly to port at 0635 to open up their full broadsides, causing me to lose the range. By this time I had opened up with my 5.9s on Achilles.

THE BRITISH SQUADRON AT AROUND 0700

I was still waiting for a breakthrough, then at 0710 I was rewarded by the sight – in my imagination at least – of a sheet of orange flame as Ajax's 'A' turret was knocked out.

Young Henry's response was swift as one of my 5.9s was similarly knocked out 5 minutes later.

By this time I was really feeling the pressure; the range was down to 10,000 yards and all three British ships were straddling me. Then – disaster…

'Y' TURRET EXPLODES

At 0720 an 8" hit from Exeter knocked out 'Y' turret. Suddenly my main armament was halved.

Putting the helm hard over to starboard I reversed course. All ships lost the range and I had a brief – very brief – respite. I had wrong-footed Harwood and I tried to make an escape, but my luck was about to run out…

RUN AWAY!

At 0740 a hit from Achilles knocked out my starboard screw. That was it for me – with half my main armament out of action and a massive disadvantage in speed I was done for.

We didn't play on as dinner was nearly ready and we needed to clear the table, but the result was not in doubt.

Henry and I saluted and shook hands. Another defeat for yours truly, but a fun battle that gave a very nice flavour of the action.

Jonesey

Magnificent! Well done sir. Pardon my ignorance but what scale and what manufacturer? Regards, Rob.

Thanks for the kind words Rob.

The ships are Navwar in 1:3000. Nice castings, though not as detailed as 1:2400 (but a LOT cheaper!)

Mongoose has a "River plate" set, forget scale, maybe 1/1800.

Nice AAR. Congratulations and honors to to young Harwood!

Hague's "Sea Battles in Miniature" was a great inspiration. It obvious he and his friends were having a good time gaming and that is what it is all about.

That book is one of my prized posessions, alongside my funcken napoleonic uniform books. I have played many exciting battles in the Victorian ironclad section.

I like the splash markers. Are they cut down nails?

Hague's first book was one of my all-time favourites. In particular I thought his version of Jutland was a brilliant approach to the probably insoluble problems of space, time, detail and fun, even if I am now not sure that he got the ship/division lengths quite right. I was hugely inspired to paint up the fleets as suggested by him, although I never managed to do the campaign. As Shagnasty says, it really did look like they were enjoying themselves. I liked the second book too. I do wonder what became of him – he deserves more recognition, imho.

Cheers Bill – they're not cut down, just really short! 1/2 galvanised nails from a really cheap hardware shop, the sort you'd use to fasten boards to battens. Hague suggests cut down nails, so these work a treat until I can make something smarter.

Col – I completely agree. He really based his rules on how he saw battles fought; his WW2 rules concentrate on ranging to achieve straddles before firing for effect, whereas his 17th century rules concentrate on command and control, especially the limitations of signalling and station keeping.

One of the things I especially like is that the games were very much designed to be played for enjoyment.

For my money, and for what it's worth, I think he should have the same sort of kudos within naval circles as Charles Grant does for land gamers.