Nimitz: Destroyers off Bear Island!

Type 34A Zerstorer Z-7 Hermann Shoemann

The advent of Sam Mustafa's most excellent WW2 Naval wargaming rules NIMITZ has utterly reinvigorated my naval wargaming. This taut, simple yet historically realistic set of rules means that my poor brain can now handle solo games easily, rapidly working out solutions for both fleets in an engagement.  

Sam makes the point that pretty any scale of model warship is completely out of whack with ground scale, so that all measurements and ranges in Nimitz are taken from the centre, or middle funnel, of whatever scale models you choose to use.  Whilst my primary scale for Nimitz games will be the reasonably  sensible scale of 1/1800, I occasionally want to trot out my larger 1/1200 models for small engagements, the Battle of the River Plate, or the Denmark Strait, say...

But my inner loon has been whispering in my ear '1/700th, 1/700th, you know you want too...' But what tipped me right over the edge was the embarking on this unfeasibly large scale by the eminently practical and hard headed Yarkshire Gamer. Lets face it, Yorkshiremen ain't daft! So if its good enough for him, well...

I keep telling myself that my foray into 1/700th scale wargaming lunacy will be confined to destroyer actions - although somehow models of the Light Cruiser Konigsberg and Pocket Battleship Graf Spee now appear in my plastic mountain!

Be that as it may, this game was set up to test the hypothesis that a destroyer level action is possible on a 6 x 4 table using 1/700th models, with the ranges and speeds from Nimitz increased by 50%. (See my aide memoire at bottom). I did initially toy with doubling them, but its obvious that within a couple of moves the ships disappear over the edge of the world! 

So overall I was pleased with the outcome. Obviously Nimitz is designed for much larger games than this, so it was a quick game, but I think a game of 4-5 DDs per side would work well...

And historically, there are plenty of destroyer actions to wargame. Just off the top of my head, as well as this bit of what-if around QP-11, we have: 1st Narvik, Vella Gulf, Vella Lavella and Sagami Nada - all exclusively destroyer actions. And many more where the 'tin cans' played the primary role so the scenario can be tweaked to focus on the light forces: Tassafaronga, Kula Gulf and Kolombangara spring to mind.

And if you lose all sense of restraint, what about actions where a few DDs ganged up on a singleton BB or CA? One of the most celebrated destroyer actions in Royal Navy lore was the last destroyer action of WW2, when four destroyers of the British Pacific Fleet sank the Japanese Heavy Cruiser Haguro in the Malacca Straits. Surely with a Japanese player suitably briefed not to sail off the edge of the world that could also be done in this scale? 

One obvious advantage of naval wargaming in this scale is the relative cheapness and availability of models - I think there are just about individual model kits for every Japanese DD and CL of WW2! The USN is not so well represented, but then again do you need anything other than Fletchers? The Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy are well represented too. The only real lack, unfortunately, is the Regia Marina...

As for downsides, apart from the elephant in the room around table size, these kits have to be constructed, not just painted. But to speed things up, as you can probably make out, for this scale rather than create the usual seascape on the base, I have gone for clear acrylic bases to save a little time, which actually looks well to my eye as it brings in the terrain mat much better.

So there we have it - I have well and truly embarked (cough, cough) on yet another scale!