Surface Encounter

For this Sunday's Solo game I used Nimitz rules to simulate a conjectural daylight encounter between a Kreigsmarine raiding force, loosely based on Operation BERLIN of January 1940, and the British Home Fleet. This time however, Admiral Lutjens has managed to extract from dockyard hand not only Gneisenau... 

but the Bismarck itself! Plus heavy cruisers Admiral Hipper and Prinz Eugen.

All these models are in 1/1800th scale, which was partly the motivation for setting up this game...

You see, I struggle with arriving at the perfect scale for my naval wargames. In my time I have had fleets in 1/3000, 1/2400, 1/1200 and 1/700 scale, often the same ships! 

Until very recently I have been favouring 1/1200, my rationale being that wargaming is a visual hobby therefore use the largest scale for which you can find space to play! 

Pacific action in glorious 1/1200 scale!

1/1200 also happens to be the traditional scale used in WW2 for identification training models, which appeals. But, wanting to have every WW2 and WW1 fleet, storage space becomes an issue. So very recently I divested myself of my 1/1200 fleets, so this game was to see just how photogenic a smaller scale action in 1/1800 could be...

So to set the scene: Heavy units of the Home Fleet, KGV, Hood and Renown, escorted by light cruisers Belfast and Perth and a flotilla of Tribals, 

Are RVing with the northern patrol heavy cruisers....

Australia and Canberra lead York and Exeter. Just as they close to visual challenge and reply range of the Home Fleet, look who else pops over the horizon:

Admiral Lutjens immediately orders his heavy units to evade, turning hard a port to head North to the perpetually fogbound wastes of the Greenland ice pack line (in game terms, moving off table at the point shown by the small ice floe) whilst sending in his destroyers to harass and break up the RN formations.

Admiral Tovey RN has other plans however!

His battle line will cross the German 'T': 

Whilst his cruisers and destroyers will break away to line up for torpedo attacks on the Bismarck:

However Lutjens refuses to be rattled and ignores the British battlewagons and instead focusses all his heavy guns onto the RN torpedo carriers - all his capital ships are tough enough to withstand a few rounds of 15" gunfire, but a single torpedo slowing down the Bismarck or Gneisenau would spell disaster!

Under the concentrated fire of all these heavy guns, Belfast succumbs before being able to loose torpedoes!

As the fleets close and intermix, it is the RN's turn to launch torpedoes. All platforms that have a solution on the German heavies target the Bismarck!

Two torpedo strikes are enough to cripple her to a maximum speed of 6 - changing the entire dynamic of the game - the British now have at least another two turns to wreak damage!

The succeeding bouts of gunfire go the British way, sinking the Admiral Hipper. But Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, completely untouched, speed off into the icy fogbanks and escape. But just as the Bismarck limps towards the murk and salvation, a torpedo salvo from Exeter: 

Sends the Bismarck to Davy Jones' locker too! 

As ever, Nimitz delivered a fast paced and exciting game, but, more importantly for me, I was able to take what I consider to be some decent photos of these diminutive models!