"Help with fleshing out new 1:6000 collection?" Topic

I'm a long-time land wargamer and have been thinking about getting into naval for several months now. My local game store has been trying to clear out product they had in the back and when a bunch of 1:6000 ships ended up in the clearance bin I snatched them up.

So now I have a lot of little metal ships that I know very little about, and even less what to do with (especially since it turns out many of the capital ships are "what-if" designs). I was hoping for some help figuring out good battles to (re)fight, other ships to add, and in a couple of cases what they even are…

France:
3x BB: Bretagne-class
1x CA: Algerie-class
2x CL: Jeanne D'arc and Emile Bertin-class
1x CM: Pluton-class
2x DD: Mogador-class

I know much of the French fleet was destroyed to prevent it falling into German hands. Did anything worth representing survive in either side's navies?

Italy:
3x BB: theoretical 1929 Versailles Treaty designs
18x DD: Freccia/Folgore, Leone, Sella/Sauro/Turbine-classes
6x PT: Spica-class

Nothing "real" above a DD. What would be the most useful cruisers and capital ships for scenarios?

Russia:
22x DD: Gnevny, Ognevoi, and Storozhevoi-classes

Any serious surface actions in the Baltic?

United States:
5x BB: Colorado and Pennsylvania-classes
24x DD & DE: Sumner, Buckley, Butler-classes
8x LCT variants

No flattops, obviously. I want to read some rules that can handle fleet air actions before I go out of my way to get any.

Germany:
12x DD: 1936A-class
18x PT: Elbing and Raubvogel-classes
Z-Plan: 2x BC, 3x CV , 8x CA, 8x CL, 10x PT

I'm most interested in the Norwegian campaign, so I'll probably end up with pretty much everything real.

Japan:
8x CV: 2 Shokaku-class and the rest escorts
10x BB: 6 real ones and two each of the theoretical "Hiraga" (Kii-class?) and "Fujimoto" (No.13-class?)
4x CA: Takao, Mogami, Tone-classes
5x CL: Katori, Kuma-classes
8x SS: I-400/Sentoku class
38 various coastal and support ships

Actually, this is pretty well rounded, except for the lack of destroyers and the 8 sub-carriers!

Great Britain:
11x CV: Unicorn and two theoretical Maltas, the rest are escorts
3x BB: King George V-class with theoretical 12 guns
4x CA: Hawkins-class
16x CL: Fiji, Minotaur, Bellona, Carlisle-classes
14x DD: Hunt and Tribal-classes
27 various coastal ships and some WWI Tribals that I didn't read the label closely enough on.

All I really need here is real early-war capital ships, I think.

For France, I'd add some destroyers and the two Dunkerque class battleships. At least one of the Dunkerques was in the South Atlantic, searching for the Graf Spee (a matchup they were designed specifically for, so of some interest), and they would have been available for Norway until France dropped out of the war.

The Americans need cruisers.

Transports/merchant ships could be useful. The Greeks had two British destroyers and several more built to Italian designs which they used for night time raids into the Straits of Otranto, hoping to intercept Italian convoys sailing from Brindisi to Albania back in Dec 1940-Feb 1941. These never seemed to connect, but are interesting small ship what-ifs.

Grelber

In my experience once you move to carrier actions, it stops being a naval game. It becomes, in essence, two air games. US planes attack Japanese ships on table A, while Japanese planes attack US ships on Table B.

They can still be a lot of fun. I played a Midway game at a con (no idea what rules – home brew or possibly an adaptation of the old Midway board game) and that's how they did it. It was a scramble to get planes back, reload and launch again.

P.S. I also sell the 1/6000 from Figurehead at ScaleCreep.com

Levi the Ox I have some ships that you could use.

First I have 3 French Hvy Cruisers Suffern,Dupliex and one other which I don't know right now.

For Japanese Ships I have 1- early Yamato BB and both late war Yamato and Musashi,2-13-Class,4-Amagi(but they could be Kii BB),Hiryu Carrier,Taiho Carrier and 3 Unryu Carriers.

I also have a good number of Transports,Tankers and other Merchant vessels that I also could let go of.

If you're interested please email me at yamamoto87@hotmail.com and we can work something out.

Michael

Welcome to Naval Gaming!!!!!
What is nice about the 1/6000 ships is that they are relatively inexpensive and you get most of what you need for that class in each package. Thus you can obtain what you are missing for each country relatively inexpensively.
For example, you can fill in all of the actual German fleet classes you are missing (Bismark, Graf Spee, Hipper, Koln, the Narvik DDs and TBs) for Norway and Channel missions easily and cheaply.
Basically I'd have you just buy all the various ship types for the Italians and Brits for the Med. Even the French had a few sorties to shell Italian basses when Italy first entered the war which could lead to some nice "what-ifs" scenarios between them and the Italian forces.
First, as you admit, you should do some reading to increase your knowledge about where fleets were stationed, battles that occurred, and why. On line you can find lots of info on various sea battles of WW2---even wikipedia gives a good basic understanding of them and ship types involved. From that it could help you decide further what fleets of your collection to fill in first.
Here's 3 sites to get you started.
regiamarina.net
link
combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm

The next step while you paint up your fleets is finding a good rule set that suits your purposes. For those recommendations, check the TMP WW2 Sea Forums and the Free rules on line. There are a lot of rule sets available that run from the very easy (beer and pretzel) to the very complex (rivet counters). This site has some easy to medium-high complexity rules.
link

For the French one of the best things I saw was a War at Sea variant (the old Avalon Hill game) that included the French fleet. Basically, one of the turns the Allied player rolls dice for all the French ships IIRC 1,2 the ship became an Allied ship, 3-5 the ship was eliminated, 6 the ship became an Axis ship.

One nice thing regarding 1/6000 scale is storage.

Right now I have the entire German,Japanese and Italian WWII Fleets plus some Never Built ships,in addition I have the most of the French Fleet plus some of the early war British and Americans plus add to that the Dutch Fleet.

So all of these ships are in one small type box with 3 trays and it doesn't take up that much space.

I also have some 1/2400th scale ships which is mostly Japanese with some German,Italian,French and American now storing them is more than that.

For me sometimes smaller is better.

Aha! That was awkward, it let me make the topic but wouldn't let me post in it…

Thanks for the advice and suggestions, everyone!

Grelber: those Greek patrols sound like just the thing I'm interested in starting out with, I'll look into that.

Extra Crispy: good points about carrier actions, I'll keep that in mind.

Captain Gideon: already e-mailed you.

BuckeyeBob: thanks for the links!

I'm most interested in the Norwegian campaign, so I'll probably end up with pretty much everything real.

If you are interested in the 1940 Norwegian campaign, I created a mini-campaign for that, which is designed to be used with the old (simple but still elegant) General Quarters I and II rules. If you are interested, PM me, and I will send you the files (map, campaign rules, and SDSs). BTW, General Quarters I and II are available here ( link link ), and are a bargain (even if you live in the UK and can't take advantage of the exchange ratio).

Here is a small version of the campaign map, giving you an idea as to the time and distance parameters of the mini-campaign. If your browser allows you to expand the image, you can also see the OB down at the bottom.

Mark H.

Levi – welcome to the forum, and to WW2 naval gaming!

Packs for the German BBs and CAs would be a good investment. Looking at the Brits the good news is that Renown and Hood come in the same pack from Hallmark, so together with your KGVs you'll be able to recreate:

Lofoton 1940 (Renown v. Scharnhorst & Gneisnau) – my AAR with 1:6000 ships is here: TMP link

Denmark Strait 1941 (Hood and Prince of Wales v. Bismarck & Prinz Eugen) – my AAR with 1:6000 ships here: TMP link

You'd even be able to have a go at the loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse in December 1941.

The British cruisers are a bit lacking though – you could do with a pack of 'town' class CLs – partner HMS Sheffield up with HMS Jamaica (one of the 'Fijis') and you have the basis for Battle of the Barents Sea 1942. The 'Towns' got everywhere – the Atlantic, the Arctic, Med and Far East; real workhorses of the RN!

Add in a pack of 'County' class and with HMS Duke of York (a KGV class) you'll have the makings of North Cape 1943.

But whatever you do you'll have fun I'm sure!

Best wishes,

Nick

p.s. Mark – your Norway campaign looks perfect but I have no idea how to PM on TMP to ask you to send me the files!

WRT my Norway Campaign, apparently PMs are restricted from-and-to TMP Supporting Members. I would suggest that you consider becoming one, in order to support TMP. If temporary poverty prevents this, you could send me an email at my junk email address of mark.hinds "at" yahoo "dot" com. Make the subject "NARVIK 1940 CAMPAIGN". Hopefully I will see it, as a lot of spam gets sent there.

Mark Hinds