"Starting forces for General Quarters III?" Topic

Hello friends!

After long years of WWII air and land wargaming, finally the sea has called. I've bought myself the General Quarters 3.3 rules and a few yards of blue denim, and am looking for minis now.

I've already decided on 1/2400 GHQ, as I llike the modeling and painting and I prefer the minis being beautiful above all. What I don't know yet is which ships to buy as good starting forces that would allow me to play a few games, with enough variation and good historical plausibility:

I'd like to get 1940-42 Germans and Brits (don't know about ships enough to tell if by 1944 the Germans were conteders still in surface warships; if so, late war also). Or Germans and Atlantic US. Other forces I'm open to are US and Japanese either 1941-43, or 44-45.

What would be a good mix of many destroyers (what classes), a few light & heavy cruisers, a battlecruiser or battleship or two? No CV's or subs yet (although those WILL come later!). Like good 6-12 ship forces that would be historical, or plausible, from which to mix and match for different games.

Thanks in advance!
—Rolando

3 suggestions for the British-German alternative:

1. Battle of the River Plate, 1939:
a) German OB: Graf Spee (pocket battleship)
b) British OB: Exeter (small CA), Ajax, Achilles (Leander-class CLs)

2. Battle of Denmark Strait, 1941:
a) German OB: Bismark (BB), Prinz Eugen (CA)
b) British OB: Hood (BB), Prince of Wales (new and un-worked-up BB). Options could include the 2 shadowing cruisers (Norfolk, Suffolk (CAs), and/or the left-behind destroyer screen.

3. My Norway 1940 mini-campaign, which was designed for General Quarters I and II, and which therefore would need some minor modification for General Quarters III. It uses a game system derived from the old SPI board game "Flight of the Goeben". If interested, I can email you the game map, the OB sheets, and the campaign rules (designed to interface with General Quarters I and II). Email to mark dot hinds at yahoo dot com, and make the subject "NARVIK 1940 CAMPAIGN".

Here's a reduced-size image of the campaign map, made 25 years ago on an Amiga PC. On the files I send out, the resolution is greater, so you can read the names of the ships under the OB sections at the bottom. You might barely be able to read them from this Google-reduced image if you open the image in a separate window and expand. Of course, the OB shows you which models you would need to obtain. Additionally, in a campaign like this, you can substitute other ships. On the first run of this campaign, I used the French "Force de Raide" (Dunkerque, Strasbourg, and the 6 Fantasques) instead of the Home Fleet. At the end, the German player exited Gneisenau off the north edge to fulfill his victory condition, and turned back with the Scharnhorst. Scharnhorst ran into the pursuing Renown and Dunkerque, and was sunk (…).

Mark H.

hinds suggestions are good. Another good one, unencumbered by those aircraft thingies is the 1942 Battle of the Java Sea.
The allies have a US heavy cruiser, 1 UK heavy cruiser, 2 Dutch and one Australian Light cruisers, 8 DDs ( a mixture of Dutch, UK, Aus, and US vs 2 Japanese heavies, 2 Lights and about a dozen DDs.

Rolando, IMHO a good scenario is key for naval wargaming, otherwise you just roll dices. A very good resource is the Naval Sitrep series which you can buy online for few dollars each. Download the index for free and you will be able to see all the scenarios in each issue, choose thd one you like and go (the scenarios are for another ruleset, but you'll have no problem in using it for GQ). Otherwise you can also sign up to the Naval wargame society, they'll send you their vey good publication with scenarios and otherstuff twice a year

I agree with Valerio that a good scenario is key to having an enjoyable/meaningful game. Check this site for some good scenarios. Starts about halfway down with Red Flag and White Ensign
link

Here's a site with tabular movements of the Brits and other navies they met up with.
link

personally, I prefer the Med with plenty of encounters and possible encounters between the Brits and Italian fleet units. Or the Pacific where early war saw elements of Brit, Dutch, and US encounters with the Japanese.
regiamarina.net
combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm

Thanks a lot for the helpful answers! I took Mark H's advice and went ahead and ordered the Graf Spee, Exeter, Ajax, Achilles, Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Hood, Prince of Wales, Norfolk, Suffolk, and some E- and H-class Brit destroyers and some Maass Germans to have a nice starting force.

Shagnasty, the Battle of the Java Sea sounds great, but I don't know if I would use those Aussie and Dutch East Indies boats in many other games. Thanks, Valerio and BuckeyeBob (great name!) for the scenario suggestions. The Fire on the Waters page is especially cool, because of the many free scenarios. The only thing I don't like is that they don't show starting positions, but beggars can't be shoosers ;)

So any ideas on ship types that were common in the Pacific? Say ship types that were abundant, like common cruisers, destroyers for both American and Japs, like the Fletchers (I think).

—Rolando

I would suggest you take a look a Viking Forge
link

It has good quality ships at lower prices. Also they carry ships that you can't get at GHQ (how about the liner Queen Elizabeth or German H Class BB)

For early war lots of battles were fought in the Guadalcanal area. Most battles were night engagements--close range slashing knife fights that turned into confused short melees. lots of fun for the gamer)
US--DD's besides early Fletchers, were a few Benson,Gleaves, and Porter class, Bagley/Craven classes were pretty common. Some APD's (converted flush deckers)
CL- Brooklyn, Helena (subclass of the Brooklyn) and Atlanta classes
CA- New Orleans, Portland, Northampton classes
BB- Washington and South Dakota
for the IJN:
DD- Mutsuki, Fubuki/Akatsuki (subclass), Shigure and Hatsuharu, and a few Akizuki classes
CL-Nagara and Sendai classes
CA-Aoba class and flagship Chokai (atago class)
BC-3 of the Kongo class took part

A few Australian ships which can also be used in your Atlantic battles or in the Med were:
Kent class (HMS Australia, Canberra)
Leander class (Same as those for your Graf Spee battle)
Perth class (half sister class of Leander but different configuration)

The brands I know of: Superior (Alnavco) and Viking Forge are ok with sufficient details and not too expensive. GHQ of course is the most detailed and expensive manufacturer but their ships are a sight to behold. Not sure if CinC (also called PfCinC) still produces ships and the level of detail on them. A very cheap, with a large selection of classes but very sparse on detail and cast in resin with molded on turrets is Panzershiffe. But with some extra parts like boats, cranes, masts etc from the other brands you cam make acceptable looking war gaming models.

Thanks BuckeyeBob. A list like this is exactly what I was hoping for :) After I've painted all those Germans and Brits I bought, I'll get to buying a few of these boats.

Any views of the most common British and German Destroyer classes? Maybe 1940-41, and 1942-44 or 45?

—Rolando

For early war, German DD pretty much their entire DD fleet: Maas and Galster and Narviks along with the the TB wolf/mowe and T1-24. Tho they did build a few more heavily armed TB during the war years, and had plans for DD, they used pretty much the survivors of the above thru late war. You could supplement them with a number of minesweeper/minelayer craft (Panzershiffe makes these and they are pretty good models).
For the UK, A-I classes were common (and since they pretty much look alike, you could get away with one class being called another on the game table. Along with those would be the Tribals, and J-k class. As the war went on and with less threat from the remnants of the German fleet, many of them removed a bank of TT and replaced it with AA. Lastly for the UK, in the channel, Hunt Class type I and II, and trawlers/minesweepers escorted a number of channel convoys.

A number of channel actions would be German TB's escorting minelayers attempting to mine the convoy route along the English coast at night and a UK DD division with 1-2 CL supporting in an attempt to intercept. (Couple of battles involved CL Enterprise, (E class CL) Dido class and Southampton class CL's.

I think games in the context of a campaign are the most fun, as implied by my first post regarding my Norway 1940 campaign. In such cases, the campaign itself suggests what ships to buy.

For the Pacific war, you might be interested in the "Solomons Campaign" rules by ODGW: link . I own these, and while I haven't played them yet, they look interesting. They use a matrix-type of scheme to set up battles during the campaign time line, rather than a map. Also, they are specifically designed to be used with General Quarters III.

To test whether this time period interests you, you could start by buying the ships needed to re-create the initial Savo Island battle. Here's some historical background on that battle: link . This link appears to be a modern interpretation, taking into account recent research such as that of John Lundstrum ("Black Shoe Carrier Admiral", etc.).

MH