IJN Fleet ??

[Breten]

Really appreciate all the info guys. That's some really cool stuff. I'll definately be picking up one or two to add into my fleet.

Of course now I need to find the time to work on the models. I play/collect so many different games I hardly have time to build what I have, let alone paint.

I'll probably build up some Royal Navy for opponents. Considering I already have an Exeter and Achilles and Ajax (2 Leander class). I'll add the Hood, probably the Renown, and then one of the 3 Queen Elizabeth claseses. Then finally the Rodney as it's a really cool model. And in the meantime I'll do some research in advance to find out what ships actually met historically.

For my Japanese fleet, I'll likely be picking up one of each

 

[BuShips]

Well, mostly the Japanese clashed with the Americans, but there are some exceptions. Besides, Britain had colonies to protect and you could stage some interesting what-if battles. Historically, there was the Battle of the Java Sea, which is a great one to set up that includes ships from many nations. The Japanese have an advantage, but it's still an interesting fight. To shake up the IJN player a bit, add the US cruiser Boise, which would have been in the battle if not for running over an uncharted rock and retiring for repairs. Other what-if's might be if the HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales (yes, that's the ship that engaged the Bismarck) hadn't been sunk by land-based Japanese planes (hey, sometimes it's foggy and the airplanes can't see a thing!). You can even attach the carrier HMS Indomitable to the British heavy units as an air-escort for those ships. In history, it was supposed to do that but instead ran aground in Jamaica (what is it with the steering on these allied ships, anyway??? :lol: ). So, with just a teeny bit of history altering, you can have a fairly good Brit force to fight off the advancing Imperial Japanese juggernaut, see? You can call the collection of ships "Force Z, defenders of Singapore" :wink: You'll need some British destroyers as well, like the Electra and Express.

 

[Itkovian]

Well, mostly the Japanese clashed with the Americans, but there are some exceptions. Besides, Britain had colonies to protect and you could stage some interesting what-if battles. Historically, there was the Battle of the Java Sea, which is a great one to set up that includes ships from many nations. The Japanese have an advantage, but it's still an interesting fight. To shake up the IJN player a bit, add the US cruiser Boise, which would have been in the battle if not for running over an uncharted rock and retiring for repairs. Other what-if's might be if the HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales (yes, that's the ship that engaged the Bismarck) hadn't been sunk by land-based Japanese planes (hey, sometimes it's foggy and the airplanes can't see a thing!). You can even attach the carrier HMS Indomitable to the British heavy units as an air-escort for those ships. In history, it was supposed to do that but instead ran aground in Jamaica (what is it with the steering on these allied ships, anyway??? :lol: ). So, with just a teeny bit of history altering, you can have a fairly good Brit force to fight off the advancing Imperial Japanese juggernaut, see? You can call the collection of ships "Force Z, defenders of Singapore" :wink: You'll need some British destroyers as well, like the Electra and Express.

It hardly needs fog just for the RAF to be called to provide air support, even the flying air museum that was the RAF in Malaya could have dealt with twin engine level bombers.
Probably. Mind of you are going to fight that campaign you would need rules for a lot of weird aircract. Vicker Wildebeeste bombers, Wirraway fighters, the predecessor to the Swordfish! (I forget the name) and so on.
There is a downloadable campaign here for the old General Quarters rules, but it contains all the odd ships that might have played a part (British D class light crusisers, a more modern cuiser under repair and so on)

http://www.btinternet.com/~david.manley/naval/genquar/gq.html

 

[DM]

Hmm, that campaign looks familiar

 

[BuShips]

Itkovian, all I was saying was that if the Japanese forces hadn't spotted Prince of Wales and Repulse when they did, the ships might have been available for the defence of Singapore. The first sighting was by a Japanese submarine, but for at least part of their voyage, Adm. Philips was covered by monsoon weather squalls. A different twist of fate might have happened as well. A flare that was dropped by a Japanese plane was seen by the British, and they moved away from it thinking they had been spotted. Actually, the Japanese plane had mistakenly dropped the flare over the cruiser Chokai, identifying it as British. Had the Brits either not seen the flare or decided to ignore it, they would have instead ran into a cruiser force that was looking for them. If a surface battle had then been entered into, it would be unlikely that Japanese planes would have attacked them while mixed up with the IJN navy. Here is another opportunity to stage a battle that might have happened. From one web-page I've read that the Japanese force had six cruisers and several destroyers, so a scenario could be set up using this for battle. At the end, it's quite apparent to me that in reality the two capital ships didn't stand much of a chance if they had evaded the air attack that found them, as another would have done the same anyway. The British forces were not aware of the long range of the Betty bomber and the high attack speed they had, as well as the excellent torpedo weapons that were employed. But since VaS is mostly a surface battle game, we can always dream :wink: .

Hmm, that campaign looks familiar

DM, did you write that one up?

 

[BuShips]

OK, I found this evidently from another game system, but it had the OOB for the Japanese, with a few other options. Just food for thought to share here.

http://members.tripod.com/fireonthewaters/Surface Action -- ACTION OFF MALAYA.pdf

 

[DM]

DM, did you write that one up?

I did

 

[BuShips]

DM, did you write that one up?

I did

You mean as a past project for the NWC, or for VaS (S&P)?

 

[DM]

Originally as a Naval Wargames Society campaign, later published in "Battlefleet" and developed into an article in Miniature Wargames a few years back.

 

[BuShips]

Originally as a Naval Wargames Society campaign, later published in "Battlefleet" and developed into an article in Miniature Wargames a few years back.

It wouldn't be very hard to modify it to fit VaS, so why not submit that to S&P after the game comes out, eh?

 

[DM]

It wouldn't be very hard to modify it to fit VaS, so why not submit that to S&P after the game comes out, eh?

Because I'm already working on modifying my "Hunt the Tirpitz" campaign (another NWS one) for S&P

I may well do the Force Z campaign as well if the Tirpitz one is accepted and is well received.

 

[BuShips]

It wouldn't be very hard to modify it to fit VaS, so why not submit that to S&P after the game comes out, eh?

Because I'm already working on modifying my "Hunt the Tirpitz" campaign (another NWS one) for S&P

I may well do the Force Z campaign as well if the Tirpitz one is accepted and is well received.

My version of "Hunt the Tirpitz":

step 1- Wait for a break in the weather.
step 2- Play pinball with the Tirpitz using several Tallboys.
step 3- Watch the Tirpitz flip like a pancake.
step 4- Land and have a pint.
:wink:

Oh, you mean not to follow history but to rather do something different? :lol:

 

[DM]

Indeed - I've played out the air attacks against Trpitz, and also the X Craft attack. Interesting games, but not as much fun as a historically based campaign on the high seas (or ratehr two - I've also run one based on the Tirpitz's sortie to Spitzbergen, which has her running perilously close to heavy units of the USN)

 

[Soulmage]

Putting a list of "christmas hint" ships together.

Cruisers are Aoba, Nagara, Sendai, Mogami, Takao, Furutaka class

Anybody know whether I should order the Mogami's in the pre- or post-1942 configuration? Which way are they statted in the rules?

Gotta love Panzerschiffe's level of completeness! LOL!!

I'm guessing pre-1942, since I'm staying in the battleship era for now and not picking up any carriers for the moment. But you never know!

 

[BuShips]

Putting a list of "christmas hint" ships together.

Cruisers are Aoba, Nagara, Sendai, Mogami, Takao, Furutaka class

Anybody know whether I should order the Mogami's in the pre- or post-1942 configuration? Which way are they statted in the rules?

Gotta love Panzerschiffe's level of completeness! LOL!!

I'm guessing pre-1942, since I'm staying in the battleship era for now and not picking up any carriers for the moment. But you never know!

This info might help. There were four ships in the class, Mogami, Suzuya, Mikuma, and Kumano. The pre-1942 version you are referring to is probably item A-016. I would buy four of those, which is what you said you were likely to do. A-017 (if you wanted it) is the conversion of only one of the class (Mogami) into a hybrid cruiser-carrier w/11 seaplanes, by removing the aft main gun turrets. This drops the armament from 10-8" to 6-8", but adds a large airplane complement (well, at least for a cruiser it does, heh). In other words, you would only need one of those models to represent Mogami post-Battle-of-Midway. By getting five models, it would cover the WW2 period. I didn't see it offered by Panzerschiffe, but you can also buy four additional models of the pre-1942 models and convert the turrets from 2x8" layout to 3x6" to represent the ships as they were originally built. Those very sneaky Japanese designed the turret base rings to accept upgunned 8" turrets at a later date, thus changing them from light cruisers to heavy cruisers when they needed them. It's a bit like the German Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in that it was planned to eventually replace the triple 11" guns with dual 15". Very sneaky, those Axis folks :wink: .

 

[DM]

I had along debate with some of my naval historian chums over the S&G 15" refit. Apparently the ida that they were designed to eb upgraded is something of a myth, and the fact that the triple 11" barbette was almost the same diameter as the 15" twin was pure coincidence (apprently they were different). I was told the idea to covert them to 15" only came later in their lives.

They do make quite distinctive models though. I have converted 1/3000 and 1/1200 models to make the upgunned Gneisenau and had hoped to do the same in 1/600 for this year's North Cape refight, but alas ran out of time

IIRC the CA/CV conversion of Mogami carrries 11 aircraft, just enough to get one flight in VaS terms (although the aircraft types she embarked were observation aircraft rather than attack types)

 

[BuShips]

IIRC the CA/CV conversion of Mogami carrries 11 aircraft, just enough to get one flight in VaS terms (although the aircraft types she embarked were observation aircraft rather than attack types)

It would make a good scouting ship if used in a campaign, or perhaps a nasty kamikaze raider for a hypothetical scenario maybe? Historically, the hybrid carrier/cruiser or carrier/battleships were of very limited value, but if used in a game they might be fun. In my 1/1200 collection from years ago, I built a plastic add-on deck so that my Ise BB could become a hybrid. Maybe I'll post a photo of it sometime. On the Mogami, you have to forget the fact that it was assigned only about half of what it could carry due to aircraft/pilot shortages.

 

[DM]

On that last note I don't think Ise and Hyuga ever got their aircraft, at least not in any quantity. The flight decks did however make nice big open expanses on which to mount masses of light AAA!

 

[Soulmage]

There were four ships in the class, Mogami, Suzuya, Mikuma, and Kumano. The pre-1942 version you are referring to is probably item A-016. I would buy four of those, which is what you said you were likely to do.

Wow! Thanks!!

 

[BuShips]

There were four ships in the class, Mogami, Suzuya, Mikuma, and Kumano. The pre-1942 version you are referring to is probably item A-016. I would buy four of those, which is what you said you were likely to do.

Wow! Thanks!!

And after you get those, you can then get the rest of the excellent IJN heavy cruisers that plied the Pacific waters in WW2. The Tone class (Tone and Chikuma) had eight 8" guns and carried 5 seaplanes as well (great for scouting). Then there is the beautiful and efficient Takao class (Takao, Atago, Maya and Chokai). These were armed with ten 8" guns and a torpedo broadside of sixteen 24" Long Lance (yikes!). These were the best-looking heavy cruisers of all navies, imho. A very similar class was the Myoko, or Nachi class (I've heard both ships as lead ship over the years), consisting of Myoko, Nachi, Haguro and Ashigara. These had ten 8" guns and eight 24" Long Lance torpedoes. They were completed just a few years before the Takao class. The last of the heavy cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy in this list were the smallest, broken up into two short classes of two ships each. Some lists just group them together for simplicity, but they do have slightly different appearances between them. The Furutaka and Kako, and the Aoba and Kinugasa. Each were armed with six 8" guns and 8 Long Lance torps. Don't dismiss them when comparing them to their much bigger sisters that I listed, as they are good fighting ships. If you add some destroyers and battleships to this list of heavy cruisers (along with a few of the light cruisers as destroyer leaders) you will have a nasty bunch of ships to use upon your foes.