All Guns Blazing — April 2010

1 All Guns Blazing! Newsletter of the Naval Wargames Society No. 192 –April 2010 EDITORIAL Gentlemen When I was at school, I could never work out the point of homework. That was a long time ago, of course, and I am at school no longer, but our girls are—and I still can‘t quite see the logic in it! This month, however, the domestic heart-ache brought about by the dreaded ‗H‘ word hasn‘t been too bad, as our elder daughter‘s class have been studying Ancient Greece. They have been preparing pieces of work on subjects such as ‗The Hoplite‘, ‗The Battle of Marathon‘—and the ‗Greek Trireme‘! So, Dad‘s had quite a bit of fun during recent evenings. The thing is, before my ‗conversion‘ to things naval I was passionate about classical history and by extension equally as passionate about ancient wargaming. I remember seeing that old film The Three Hundred Spartans when I was about six or seven: and I was hooked! Strangely, though, I‘ve never put the two interests together to do ancient galley wargaming; however, Hellenistic and Punic Wars could be next on my list. Any advice on the subject from our ‗collective experience‘ would be most welcome. I suppose Rod Langton is the obvious choice for models; have any of you tried his rules? You may remember me raving on about Andrew Lambert‘s Admirals a couple of months ago; well I‘m reading another good book at the moment: Geoffrey Miller‘s Superior Force. Miller‘s book is an excellent account of the pursuit of the German battlecruiser Goeben during the first days of the Great War. Aside from operational considerations and the infamous ‗superior force‘ telegram, there is an in-depth investigation of the roles of the Greek Premier, Venizelos, and the British officer in command of the Greek Navy, Admiral Mark Kerr, in letting Goeben escape. This isn‘t a new book by any means, coming out in 1998, and it is now quite rare; the only new copies available are those sold by the author himself. Superior Force was the first of Mr. Miller‘s ‗Straits Trilogy‘, which focus on the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, and it was followed by The Millstone and Straits, both of which are now sadly unavailable. However, each volume has its own dedicated website that includes an on-line version of the book, which will give you a good insight to Geoffrey Miller‘s writing. Not content with being a naval historian of note and a writer of skill, Mr. Miller is also an accomplished artist, and you can buy eight of his delicious post cards for a paltry £2.00. These cards feature beautiful line drawings of ships of the pre-dreadnought era, which if you don‘t want to post are good enough to frame. For more information, check-out www.dardanelles.co.uk . Geoffrey Miller‟s HMS Berwick When I was casting around for opinions on whether or not to send AGB along to be added to that American club‘s newsletter, member John Armatys suggested having information on how to join the Society as part of every issue. This seemed a splendid idea, so I have now added a link to our website just above the ‗Events and Regional Contacts‘, which will hopefully encourage those non-members that come across AGB to take the plunge and join. The Society is making another of its regular appearances at ‗Salute‘ this month with an ACW participation game, and Simon Stokes has sent me the details for me to include and to whet your appetites! I also know that Andrew Finch (A&A Games) is putting on a Narvik game, using the Seekrieg V rule-set. So, a show with lots for us naval types to get our teeth into. I‘m hoping to get to ‗Salute‘ myself, and although I can only make for the morning, I hope to see you all hanging around the naval tables!

2 Well, it‘s quite a jam-packed issue this month! Aside from news of the ‗Salute‘ game, regular contributor Rob Morgan has added quite a medieval flavour, Clive Essary has an interesting piece on calculating a ship‘s combat worth, while my reading of Superior Force (mentioned above) has encouraged me to carry on a report of a Goeben campaign I ran a couple of years ago. Piping ‗Up Spirits‘ and have a Happy Easter Richard Wimpenny wimpenny@talktalk.net CRUSADER LAWS AT SEA Rob Morgan En route to the Holy Land during the Third Crusade, King Richard I of England laid down certain rules for his fellow Crusaders. I came upon them separately and identically described in no fewer than three historical volumes and medieval journals recently. These are Richard the Lion Heart‘s fairly draconian regulations for maintaining discipline during the voyage to Outremer…  Any man who kills another at sea shall be bound to the corpse and thrown overboard.  Any man who kills another on land shall be bound to the corpse and buried with it.  Drawing a knife to strike, or drawing blood, will lose a man his hand.  Any man who punches another without drawing blood shall ‗be plunged three times into the sea‘.  Taunting and blasphemy shall be punished by fines according to the number of offences.  A thief shall have boiling tar and feather poured on his head and be put ashore. Gambling, ashore or afloat, also suffered penalties such as whipping. The honest English matelots must have been overjoyed to see Richard disembark; leaving them able to get on with the traditionally good humoured swearing, gambling and so forth. Yet these laws, recorded by Roger of Howden, bear a good deal of similarity to much later penalties imposed during Henry VIII‘s reign. Little changed in almost four hundred years, it seems, at least as far as Kings were concerned! ATTACK ON FORT SUMTER 1863 (NWS PARTICIPATION GAME FOR ‗SALUTE‘) Simon Stokes Attack on Fort Sumter GD12 Participation The Naval Wargames Society ACW 1/600th Players take command of US Ironclads and have to overcome Confederate defences to attack the fort, at the same time as intercepting Confederate Blockade runners. After the devastating bombardment, both General Quincy A. Gillmore and Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, now commanding the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, determined to launch a boat assault on Fort Sumter for the night of September 8–9, 1863. Cooperation between the Army and Navy were poor, Dahlgren refusing to place his sailors and marines under the command of an army officer. So two flotillas set out towards Fort Sumter that night. The army flotilla was detained off Morris Island by the low tide. By the time they could proceed, the navy assault had already been defeated and the army flotilla returned to shore.

3 The Navy‟s assault involved 400 sailors and marines in 25 boats. The operation was a fiasco from beginning to end. Poor reconnaissance, planning and communication all characterized the operation. Commander Thomas H. Stevens, commanding the monitor Patapsco, was placed in charge of the assault. When Commander Stevens protested that he “knew nothing of [the assault‟s] organization, “ and “made some remonstrances on this grounds and others.” Dahlgren replied “There is nothing but a corporal‟s guard [about 6–10 men] in the fort, and all we have to do is go and take possession.” (Stevens 1902, p. 633). This underestimation of the Confederate forces on Dahlgren‟s part may explain why he was hostile to a joint operation wishing to reserve the credit for the victory to the Navy. Less than half of the boats landed. Most of the boats that did land landed on the right flank or right gorge angle, rather than on the gorge where there was a passable breach. The Union sailors and marines who did land could not scale the wall. The Confederates fired upon the landing party and as well as throwing hand grenades and masonry. The men in the boats that had not landed fired muskets and revolvers blindly at the fort, endangering the landing party more than the garrison. The landing party took shelter in shell holes in the wall of the fort. In response to a signal rocket fired by the garrison, Fort Johnson and the Confederate gunboat Chicora opened fire upon the boats and landing party. The boats that could withdraw withdrew, and the landing party surrendered. The Union casualties were 8 killed, 19 wounded, and 105 captured (including 15 of the wounded). The Confederates did not suffer any casualties in the assault. Players in our game have command of the marines in boats, say 5 a piece, supported by one of the Union monitors/ironclads (mainly ‗Passaic‘ class). NWS members will command Fort Sumter and shore batteries, and have a number of random events and hidden obstacles that the players have to negotiate including a small number of Confederate gunboats and spar torpedo boats that can appear from time to time. I'm sure it will be great fun. There's still one place left on the NWS team if anyone is interested in filling it. Cheers Simon A DATE FOR YOUR DIARIES! A date for your dairy! ‗Navy Days‘ will be held this summer at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard on 30th July and 1st August. The website is www.historicdockyard.co.uk or enquiries@historicdockyard.co.uk Tel: 023 9283 9766 10am to 5pm. (My thanks to member Norman Bell for bringing this to my attention. RW) A METHOD FOR CALCULATING THE ―WORTH‖ OF A SHIP. Clive Essery This method only works for capital ships as it is hard to gauge the effect of torpedoes using this system. A separate method would need to be calculated for the worth of these smaller vessels but it might be possible to calculate a similar value but based on different constants (i.e. speed, thickness of armour, etc). First of all calculate the total Broadside for the main and secondary weapons of 7.5‖ and above. Each is calculated from the Number of Guns of that type firing to the broadside multiplied by the points value of the gun in your rules. Add these two figures to get the total broadside. Note vessels with cross deck firing turrets only count half of guns in one turret, e.g. Invincible has 7 guns, Seydlitz and Kaiser have 9. Note also that in the rules that I used the shell weight per minute was the value of the gun, so 1920 for British 15‖ and 850 for the old British 12‖

4 Next produce the Armour Value: I only included Belt when I originally worked this out but you could add deck in too. The formula is Total Broadside multiplied by (Belt Armour – 12)/12, note this assumes an average 12‖ thick belt. If adding the Deck too then also then instead use Total Broadside multiplied by (Belt + Deck Armour – 15)/15, assuming an average 3‖ thick deck. This will produce a negative value for lightly armoured ships. Next produce the Speed Value: The formula is Total Broadside multiplied by (Speed – 21)/21, assuming an average speed of 21 knots Again this will produce a negative value for slow vessels. Add these three values together, divide by 100 and round to the nearest integer. Take as an example Seydlitz. She has 9 guns at 760 points a gun = 6840. Her secondary guns are too small to be included. Her armour is 12‖ so the Armour Value is 0 Her speed is 26.5 so her Speed Value is 1791 Giving her a total of 8631, divided by 100 gives a value of 86 As a further example Indiana has 4 guns of 700 and 4 guns of 410 giving a Broadside of 4440 Her armour is 13.5 giving an Armour Value of 555 Her practical speed is 15 giving a speed value of -1269 For a total of 2726 rounded to 37 I checked back on this method of valuing vessels during a discussion with Richard Wimpenny about the Battle of Zante that he described in the October 2007 AGB. Out of interest I checked the values of the ships involved: Goeben = 76 Defence = 31 Warrior = 14 Duke of Edinburgh = 9 Black Prince = 9 For a British total = 63 Which is not a lot less than the German score. Of course this doesn‘t take into account the fact that Goeben can smash the British cruisers one by one with virtually no chance of them penetrating her armour. Note also that these figures assume the designed (trial) speed of the vessels and don‘t take into account any slowing caused by lack of maintenance because they were all off station or the need to careen them, or for that matter the lack of stokers on the British Ships which were still on a peacetime complement. Note that Breslau, Gloucester, Dublin and the two destroyers are too small to score under this scheme.

5 BATTLE OF ZANTE PART TWO: CHASING ‗GOEBEN‘ By Richard Wimpenny Way back in March 2007, I introduced my oldest wargaming pal, Mike ‗Jellicoe‘ Dowd, to the American rules-set Seekrieg V, with a ‗what if?‘ scenario based on the controversial issue of whether Rear-Admiral Troubridge should have engaged the battlecruiser Goeben at first light on August 7 1914. In our ‗Battle of Zante‘, a report of which made its way into the October ‘07 issue of AGB N° 162 (2007-10), Goeben, commanded by Mike, severely battered Troubridge‘s flagship, Defence, and sent two of his other armoured cruisers, Black Prince and Duke of Edinburgh, to the bottom. However, the light cruiser Breslau also succumbed, after straying too close to Troubridge‘s line, and Goeben herself, despite being declared the obvious ‗winner‘, was far from unscathed. She had lost one of the 11-inch guns in turret ‗Dora‘, fought a couple of nasty fires and had suffered a fair amount of damage to her upper works that had knocked out some rapid fire batteries and searchlights. (Not something that you usually have to worry about too much, but this game ended up being different!). Furthermore, Goeben had expended 80 per cent or her 11-inch ammunition. In our inevitable, and no less enjoyable, post-game summing up Mike had to admit that his Goeben, lacking Breslau and appearing a trifle ‗punch drunk‘, wouldn‘t have cut as dashing and as threatening a figure in Constantinople as she did historically. My write up for AGB finished with, ―…to be continued, perhaps?‖ Well, a year later that‘s exactly what we did. However, as Mike lives in Manchester and I‘m in Warwickshire the game had to be continued via phone calls. Mike issued general orders for Goeben‘s course and speed, etc, while I resolved all the action on the tabletop. Not ideal, perhaps, but it worked surprisingly well. The surviving forces and those that could enter the fray were: GERMAN: Mittelmeerdivision: Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Souchon with the battlecruiser Goeben BRITISH: 1st Cruiser Squadron: Defence (Flag Rear-Admiral Ernest Troubridge) Warrior. Captain W A Howard Kelly in Gloucester. Captain John Kelly in Dublin, accompanied by the destroyers Bulldog and Beagle. 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron: Inflexible (Flag of Admiral Sir A. Berkeley Milne), Indefatigable, Indomitable. Light Cruiser Weymouth. As I have mentioned, the original game had been a face-to-face encounter over the tabletop for Mike to get to know SKV; however, being something of a mini-campaign nut who finds knowing just how everyone gets into combat and why as exciting as the actual tactical engagement, I had prepared three maps, each drawn on graph paper, to monitor our progress. Firstly, there was the Theatre Map (one inch to fifty miles) that took in Sicily to the west coast of Greece, then an Operational Map (one inch to ten miles) that stretched a hundred miles west of Zante and Cephalonia; finally, there was a fifty square mile map (one inch to five miles) for action on and just off table. (As the campaign developed, I drew more Operational Maps to correspond to positions on the Theatre Map; and pretty soon, I had to enlarge the Theatre Map, too, as the action spread around the Pelopennese and into the Aegean. As the Order of Battle has made clear, I provided for forces that could have made contact, however unlikely. So, everything was in place to pick up where we left off and see just how far Admiral Souchon and his slightly singed battlecruiser could get. At 0652 on August 7th, Goeben was just over forty miles WSW of Zante, on a course of 140°, speed 23 knots, with her one time attackers reeling in shock behind her. Mike, in his role as Admiral Souchon, gave orders that Goeben was to turn to 180° and make her best speed out of the area. However, if a suitable target presented itself, it was to be engaged; though fire was to be undertaken at a deliberate, measured rate to husband ammunition.

6 (For those few of you who use SKV, I have included details of the damage in its terms in square brackets.) As Warrior turned to port to comply with Troubridge‘s signal to disengage, she fired sixteen rounds of 9.2- inch AP at Goeben at 10,000 yards, which resulted in a single shell shattering on her main belt armour. [In SKV ‗speak‘, that‘s a ‗Class C‘ none penetrating hit that caused 50 Defence Points of damage.] The hounded German battlecruiser turned on her tormentor, however, and four minutes later struck Warrior on a thinly-armoured section of her hull, where the 11-inch APC round passed through without detonating properly. [A 70 DP ‗Class B‘ hit.] Far more important, however, was the 5.9-inch hit on the trailing Gloucester, which smashed into her bridge killing the valiant Captain Howard Kelly! [Damage Effect 145] This tragic loss aside, by 0700 Gloucester was quite badly knocked about. She had several fires burning, one of which [DE 603] had the potential of blowing her up, and severe damage to bridge/engine room communications [DE 124] that made changes of speed difficult. Despite these travails, Troubridge, who was starting to realize that Goeben‘s actions reflected a desire to slip away rather than destroying his battered squadron piecemeal, signalled that he was going to shift his flag to Gloucester to keep contact with ‗the chase‘. Goeben‘s desire to break contact was made all the more imperative when at 0712 the light cruiser Dublin, commanded by the Captain John Kelly (equally as capable as his recently deceased brother on Gloucester) was spotted at high speed to the north west. And Dublin was not alone: she had the destroyers Beagle and Bulldog at her heels. Fearing that the ‗hounds‘ were closing in, Goeben turned from south west to south at 24 knots. (I should mention here that in line with the basic scenario details as provided on the SKV website, Goeben‟s boiler problems are reflected in there being only a fifteen percent chance of her increasing speed by 1 knot in every two-minute game turn. „Winding‟ Goeben up to 24 knots from her 18 knot starting point hadn‟t been that easy, and she wouldn‟t be able to keep it up either.) The plucky Warrior had also returned to the chase, and as Goeben turned she fired three 9.2, this time HE, but as the range had increased to 17,000 yards, they all fell harmlessly in the German‘s wake. Nevertheless, Warrior and Dublin kept the German battlecruiser in sight, which was more than Troubridge himself could manage. When our intrepid admiral finally hauled himself onto what was left of Gloucester‘s shattered bridge and watched as his flag broke out from a somewhat buckled mast, Goeben (now 30,000 yards away) was just a smoke-smudge on the horizon. Not to be thwarted, the bullish admiral ordered the lame Defence to retire to north east to Vasilico Bay, Santa Maura Island, then turned Gloucester‘s bow to the south and ordered full speed ahead! Meanwhile, Captain John Kelly had kept contact with Goeben, and, at 0740, the battlecruiser turned and fire a solitary 11-inch SAP across Dublin‘s bows. At 16,000 yards it missed, but Kelly got the message and dropped back a further 2,000 yards. Goeben then turned to the south east and, realizing that he couldn‘t shake off the light cruiser, Mike ordered a reduction of speed to nineteen knots, to save coal (of which more below!) and spare the stokers. At 0745 Dublin signalled Goeben‘s turn, and at 0800 Gloucester, pushed on by an impatient Troubridge, managed to regain contact. By 0830 Warrior managed struggle back into range and fired off a final three rounds of 9.2 HE, which all missed. It was a valiant effort, but she soon began to fall astern again and finally lost sight of the German altogether. (In reality Warrior had great difficulty in steaming above 17 knots, and to reflect this, at game time 0740 I devised a simple set of dice rolls to determine her serviceability. A D10 was rolled; a „1‟ would mean ten minutes before reducing speed; a „2‟ twenty minutes, etc. With rotten luck, Warrior rolled a „1‟; thus at 0750 she would have to slow to 17 knots. A further D10 was rolled for how many hours she would be thus restricted, which resulted in a „7‟ meaning seven hours. This was a quick, off the cuff arrangement, but it had the desired effect) Admiral Souchon was now in the unenviable position of having a British light cruiser on either beam just keeping him in sight; and with his low levels of main armament ammunition, there was little he could do. Of course, darkness would bring a chance to slip away, but there were the destroyers Bulldog and Beagle to consider; both eager for night and straining at the leash! This was where all the generally inconsequential damage suffered earlier, rapid fire batteries and searchlights, etc, would really tell, to say nothing of the loss of the Breslau! (Ah, the subtle joys of a campaign!) I have already explained how the various campaign maps slotted everything into place, and I have played several games in the past that utilized this system; however, taking account of coal was a first for me. Even

7 a casual reading of the events of the pursuit of the Goeben will highlight the overriding concern that all officers faced regarding coal; and without at least some consideration for this naval staple, Mike and I decided that any simulation would prove impossible. Thus your humble scribe spent many an hour trolling through the Navy Records Society‘s superb The Navy in the Mediterranean 1912-14, edited by E. W. R. Lumby (If you can find one, buy it!) for information on coaling, and the maps from volume one of Julian Corbett‘s Naval Operations. These maps had details who had coaled when and for how long, and by using sailing times and a ruler, I was able to work out (albeit roughly) how much coal each ship had on August 7th. That was my starting point. Now, how to burn it? Luckily, SKV has a whole collection of ‗Fuel Consumption Tables‘, which list tons used per hour, from ‗In Port‘ to high speed. For example, Goeben is rated as Fuel Code BB2E, and while in port she would use 1.04 tons per hour ‗ticking over‘, at a reasonably economical 15 knots she would burn 10.4 tons; and at 26 knots, a whopping 54.1! I then drew up a ‗Coal Table‘ for each vessel and periodically amended how much had been used and how much was remaining. (Something I failed to take into account of was the fact that Goeben had been forced to ship inferior coal at Messina on August 5th/6th. While I did make the resulting great plums of black smoke easier to spot, I did not implement the 25 per cent extra fuel use advised in SKV. Hey ho, there‘s always another time!) For the first time in any game I‘ve been involved in, I started to think a little more before ordering ‗Full Speed Ahead‘! I have to admit that I found this a fascinating aspect of the game. Can I sink any lower I wonder, getting so excited about coal? I‘ll use my research over Dublin‘s coal as an example of my reasoning.  After chasing Goeben while awaiting Britain‘s declaration of war, Dublin signalled Indomitable at 2225 August 4th, stating that she had 860 tons of coal and 257 tons of oil. (Document 160 in Lumby‘s book. See above.)  Admiral Berkeley Milne ordered Dublin back to Malta to take on coal. Arriving at 0600, August 6th, she departed to join Troubridge at 1400, which according to the coaling table [Table S4] in SKV would be sufficient to fill her bunkers. Therefore, Dublin departed Malta with 1,240 tons of coal and 260 tons of oil. (For game purposes I combined this into a single ‗fuel‘ figure.)  From 0600 to 1400 Dublin seems to have averaged around 15 knots, which according to SKV‘s Fuel Code CSC2 would mean she expended 23 tons. Then at 2020 Troubridge (the real one, not me!) ordered her: If you can arrive Zante Channel by 4 a.m. proceed with destroyers at full speed. (Lumby, Document 218)  I assumed Dublin then increased speed to 22 knots for nine and a half hours, until the original game began at 0530 on August 7th. This expended a further 79 tons, which left 1,398 tons remaining.  A further two and a half hours at 22 knots meant that at 0900, when the renewed tabletop action I have just related above was transferred to map movement, Dublin had 1,371 tons remaining. Now I am the first to admit that I have ‗assumed‘ a great deal at times, but I did try as hard as I could to get the figures correct—and the research was far more rewarding than it may appear! For now at least, the tabletop aspect of the game had terminated, and it was all down to maps and coal. From 0900 Goeben held her south east course shadowed, at around 18,000 yards, by Gloucester and Dublin. Warrior did her best, but by 1300 she had fallen some twenty miles astern. At 1500 a sudden turn due east by Goeben caused Dublin to lose contact, but it also enabled a seething Troubridge to close and throw caution to the wind to try all he could to delay Goeben before darkness gave Souchon a chance to escape. A foolish gesture, perhaps; but unlike our Admiral Souchon Troubridge knew help was on its way, and anything to buy a little time might just be enough. Unbeknownst to Souchon, at 1100 that morning the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir A. Berkeley Milne, had led the Second Battlecruiser Squadron into Malta to coal—but not before releasing Indomitable and the light cruiser Weymouth, his two vessels best off for coal, to proceed with all despatch to join Troubridge‘s flag. Since 0700 a new menace was taking shape over Goeben‘s, albeit distant, horizon.

8 And so once again, gentlemen…to be continued! Cogs and Followers at Sluys and a Few Other Places Rob Morgan The interesting ‗Sluys‘ article by David Manley, which appeared recently in one of the ‗glossy‘ wargames magazines I no longer buy, used the splendid range of cogs by ‗Outpost‘. These come in a number of alleged variants, though basically the hulls have either crenellated castles or castles with shields on the sides. They always remind me of the earliest ship seals, and they are rather stylised but nevertheless most attractive. Now one of the problems in any medieval encounter is of course the lack of variety in the ships available. There are a few cogs about, ranging from the big 1/300 made by ‗Navwar‘, down to the old ‗Lamming‘ 1/3000, now available from ‗B&B‘, but little else. Any Lottery winners reading this might be tempted by a fleet of the 1/72 ‗Zvezda‘ cogs imported from Russia. My own group of ‗Outpost‘ cogs looked rather drab when I first acquired them, despite the sail options, so I turned one into a sort of ‗floating fortress‘. By judicious use of a hefty panel pin to replace the mast (and I recommend that for all of the ‗Outpost‘ cogs, the masts supplied will not last), with the pinhead representing the fighting top and a length of wire for the bowsprit. For the immense 10mm by 7mm open space of the after castle, I added a tiny representation of a gun that came from, would you believe, an old ‗Pyro‘ (?) 1/1200 US aircraft carrier, there were several strips of light a/a guns, and I just trimmed one off. I completed the armament with a ‗Xyston‘ 1/600 scale ballista, the smaller of the two in the pack, on the forecastle; it looks right, don‘t worry about the scale! Along side the fortress I added a couple of ‗Skytrex‘ 1/1200 ships‘ boats to make it look more powerful. ‗Xyston‘ make a set of towers too, and I considered using one of these (8mm tall and crenellated) to replace the mast, which is another alternative. I filled off the anchor moulding on the starboard side too—well, this ship would be anchored, wouldn‘t it?

9 As for sailing cogs alternatives, you can add a couple of the masts and sails from the ‗Skytrex‘ boats set, with the lateen over the stern and the square sail over the forecastle. They do look right and give a slightly later variety, especially the lateen. The version with ‗shields‘ along the castles is greatly improved by this, it looks quite bare otherwise. If you buy a couple of the vast range of galleys from ‗Tumbling Dice‘, of which more in a moment, you‘ll find they provide a furled option for the lateen, which, again, adds variety, if you are going for a substantial fleet of cogs. I actually bought Paul Sulley‘s pack ASN 20b for the six furled lateens it offered. Unless you‘re going to add masses of pennon, banners and streamers over the cog‘s castle, try the gun or ballista option, again for tabletop variety. Incidentally, the ‗Outpost‘ mainsail is one of the best around, so do buy the full set sail version; it‘s 20mm by 15mm, with two long streamers at each end of the spar and it is quite pliable. That leaves the core of the fleet provided for, and in this case it‘s the overall look of the entire fleet that‘s the object. Scale, or should I say perceived scale, is a delightful variant in anything other than the realm of modern naval architecture. There were galleys at Sluys, and indeed the galley was always lurking bout somewhere, even in stormy northern waters, so I turned again to the excellent ‗Tumbling Dice‘ range and looked at a couple of options which fitted with the cogs‘ bulk and height. The ‗Outpost‘ cogs are 30mm long and stand over 35mm tall when masted. Pretty impressive. So, pack ASD 3 in the ‗Dice‘ range has two galleys, with two masts and an ‗oared‘ sea-base, and they are just over 20mm long and 17mm tall when masted. I trimmed off the foremast and left just one in place. With the lateen sail provided it looks right and fits in. I could have used the dismasted ASN 20b pack, which provides two 20mm long based galleys, leaving the mainmast and sail in place and trimming the immense bowsprit; there is something of an overhang at the stern, but it‘s not a problem if you add a great streamer there. The next requirement is for ‗followers‘, the small boats, rowed and sailed, which provided for the bigger ships‘ needs, and in battle were crammed with men and sent to damage whatever they could. From the illustrations of the time, they seem to have been active in boarding too. Again, I turned to the ‗Tumbling Dice‘ 1/2400 range. The ‗Outpost‘ cogs will of course need to be based, and all the smaller vessels suggested here already are. In pack ASN 5 there are a number of small, based ships‘ boats, rowed, naturally, though you could add a small mast and square sail from one of the other ‗Dice‘ ships. I generally use the bowsprit sails from the same company‘s larger carrack and great ship models for this purpose. The little boats fit in well and look appropriate alongside the big cogs. As another type of follower, try ASD 32, which is a Zealand sloop with a delightful lug-sail; less than 10mm overall and about the same in height. As a last thought there is a burning fireship in the ‗Tumbling Dice‘ range, which with very little effort could also enter the medieval fray. For a large barge or transport, take a look at the square sailed small boat in the ‗Dice‘ 1/600 ships‘ boats pack. Above all, remember the old saying: don‘t look at the scale on the packet, look at what‘s on the tabletop!

10 JOINING THE NAVAL WARGAMES SOCIETY If you have enjoyed reading All Guns Blazing, and have an interest in naval history and wargaming, please follow this link to join our Society: www.navalwargamessociety.org. NWS Events and Regional Contacts, 2009 NWS Northern Fleet – Falkirk East Central Scotland Kenny Thomson, 1 Excise Lane, Kincardine, Fife, FK10 4LW, Tel: 01259 731091 e-mail: kenny.thomson@homecall.co.uk - Website: http://falkirkwargamesclub.org.uk/ Falkirk Wargames Club meets each Monday night at 7pm with a variety of games running each evening. Naval games are popular with 2 or 3 run each month. Campaign games sometimes feature in our monthly weekend sessions. Games tend to be organised week to week making a 3- month forecast here a waste of time. Please get in touch if you‘d like to come along.  Popular periods – Modern (Shipwreck), WW1 and 2 (GQ), WW2 Coastal (Action Stations), and Pre-dreadnought (P Dunn‘s rules) NWS North Hants [Every 3rd Sunday] Jeff Crane 31 Park Gardens, Black Dam, Basingstoke, Hants, 01256 427906 e-mail: gf.crane@ntlworld.com NWS Wessex [Bi-Monthly Meetings] The Wessex Group has gone into (hopefully) temporary abeyance for the moment. If anyone living in the Bath / Bristol / Gloucester area (or further afield) would like to take on managing the group please contact myself or any of the other NWS officials.