"Imaginations and plausibility..." Topic

As a gamer who uses 'imaginations' as the protagonists of my wargames I have a question for my fellow imaginations gamers:
Do you concern yourself at all with the plausibility of your force's equipment? For instance the BTR-60 has been so widely distributed you would not be surprised to see one parked in front of the local grocery store, I therefore would freely incorporate them in my imaginations forces, Challenger MBT's well not so much. Naval gaming the same question applies. Certain destroyer classes were dished off to most every nation on the planet but not so with heavy cruisers and battleships. I was just wondering if anyone else concerned themselves with this.

I try to have in mind a background for the country. Currently I have a country that was a former French colony. As a result, they have older French equipment, readily available Soviet equipment, and a lesser degree of other things picked up here and there.

I let the character of the leader and the theme of the country dictate TO&E.

My ImagiNations are usually based on a historical protoype – so one of my AK47 armies bears a distinct resemblance to the Kenyan Army, and they may even have a Wessex helicopter and a Paddy Ashdown para figure doing his 'advising the civil power' bit.

Totally depends on my intent; I've done 'reasonable/plausible' TO&Es for my fictional nations based on their imagined location, size and history, but in some cases I just have a set of toys I want to use and I build the TO&E around that. Sometimes I hit a half-way point (mostly plausible equipment, one or two odd/exceptional bits).

I have an air-combat focused for example where most of the air forces are made up of historically exported types, but a few field planes that were never sold to another nation in real-life.

-Will

Carne68,

After both World Wars the larger nations sold off (or gave away) ships up to and including battleships. For example the UK sold HMS Canada back to Chile after using her during WW1 … and she had been designed along British lines for Chile. Another is the Argentinian cruiser Belgrano, which began like as a USN ship and the as actually at Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941. Nations such as Italy designed ships for the Soviet Union, Sweden, and Spain during the 1930s, and builders like Vospers designed and built variants on a basic design for numerous nations during the 1960s and 1970s.

So as far as naval wargaming is concerned pretty well anything goes when it comes to imaginations.

Bob, I am aware of the early 1900's South American Battleship arms race among Brazil, Argentina and Chile. I didn't know about HMS Canada. The US sold 2 BB's to Greece in the 1920's. The Belgrano (ex-Phoenix) was one of 6 Brooklyn and Helena class CL's the US transferred to Brazil, Argentina and Chile post WWII (2 each). I never found evidence that we transferred an 8" armed CA or a BB post WWII. Neither did we transfer any CV or CVL in the post war era with the exception of a couple of Independence class CVL's to France and one to Spain. I think a couple of Dutch CL's found their way to Peru and the RN passed some around to Commonwealth navies including India and Pakistan.

I know I am just playing a game with toys. This is just something I think about. It just seems a little weird to me when the navy of Costa Azul sallies forth with 3 Baltimore class CA's to smite the fleet of the Fandango Republic.

Viva Costa Azul!

Carne68,

Just after Pearl Harbour the USN considered buying the ex-HMS Canada from Chile to help replace the lost BBs. The ship was well maintained, but in the end the sale did not proceed.

After the SCW Spain proposed to build copies of the Spanish Littorio BBs. In the end they didn't, but the Allies did consider using the Littorios that were handed over when Italy surrendered as fast carrier escorts in the Pacific. Again this came to nothing. One of the older Italian BBs was handed over to the Soviets after WW2, but she later sank in mysterious circumstances. The Chinese Nationalists bought a British light cruiser after WW2, and she ended up in the PLAN … but was never used operationally by them.

Sometimes ships guns can have interesting histories. Vickers supplied the main armament of some Russian BBs that ended up moored at Bizerta after the RCW. The French scrapped the ships, but stored the main armament … which they tried to hand over to the Finns in 1940. The guns never got to Finland as they were captured by the Germans … who used them as coastal defence guns in Guernsey. The guns were eventually scrapped after WW2 … by the British!

Carne68,

Some years ago I played around with some 'what ifs …' that looked at how some of the South American capital ships might have looked if they had been rebuilt.

Here they are:

Just a bit of fun!

@Bob – and then there the many suitors of the Rio De Janeiro. Built for Brazil, sold to Turkey, used by the British. BUT there were other possible buyers with various levels of interest as well, such as the Greeks, the French, the Japanese, Romania….

-Will

Not in the least. It's Imagi-Nations.

The Republic of Freeland in my WWII Naval Game has as it's flagship HMS. Agincourt, rechristened the "Freiland." Oh yes, the other ships in the fleet are the Blintzmark, Tripewitz, Schnorrhorst, Gneisenuf.. you get the idea. Just imagine what I did with the Japanese ships that are their opponents in the Empire of Terramasu- The Kongoline, Hieyahawya, Harumba, Kiritekenawa.

Life is wonderful once you toss reality into the can.

An advantage to ImagiNation gaming in the late 20th/21st is that besides potential older ships available many navies have small missile boats and corvettes. Many of these modern ships are almost custom built to the buyer's needs. Your navies can be just about anything you want. I go by plausible economics of the country, though I had one nation buy the never-built Joffe and convert it to a helicopter carrier.

Bob,
Those pictures don't show up-maybe its my browser.

I was contemplating replacing the turrets of a Prinz Eugen model with those from a Baltimore class CA and working up some stats for an 18cm/62 cal gun.

Carne68,

The links to these images seem to be broken. I will try to fix them.

I have my little scenario world based upon John Baxter's "Tragerflotten" -the Germans have carriers and the Japanese won the Battle of Midway. From there it gets too weird for many naval gamers but I have fleets from Spain, Italy, Germany, UK, Vichy and Free France, Brasil and the U.S. all slugging it out in early 1942.

Dave, I have a couple of your Ashville class PG's serving in the 1980's iteration of Costa Azul's Navy.

I am planning a campaign with four navies based on the British, Dutch, Polish and Italian fleets. Pacifico is a continental power starting to flex its muscles with a blue water fleet and wanting to extend its sphere of influence. Two are the overseas possessions of colonial powers, think Dutch East Indies and British in the Far East; and the fourth is a fledgling independent country still struggling to find its place in the world.

The Pacifico fleet is all Italian except that I have given it two carriers (Japanese) equipped with carrier versions of Italian aircraft. The colonial forces are based around cruiser squadrons with a number of destroyers and other patrol craft. The independent is 1939 Polish with some other second-hand ships thrown in to beef it up a bit.

The idea is for Pacifico to try to overrun the other countries before heavy reinforcements can be deployed by the others. Really it's a version of the opening months of the Pacific Theatre played out on an imaginary map. Mixed fleets will suffer the same communication problems as the ABDA forces did in 1942, restricting manoeuvrability and tactical formations.

Try an Italian Bonfiglietti carrier for something different