Naval Wargames General

Is Age of Sail era games for this thread? What are the options available on the market?

Sure are, as for what games though, don't have any experience myself but I've heard good things about Wooden Ships & Iron Men in the past.

Is there a game comparable to Rule the Seas?

Wood Ships and Iron Men is a classic. Fire as She Bears and Frigate both look good as well, and I'm currently trying to learn Heart of Oak. Sails of Glory by all accounts is a pretty good introductory sort of system even if the models are pretty expensive, because FFG level printed goodies that accompany the figs.

Ironclad/Pre-Dread are basically the same era. 1970~1900 or so.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_ironclad_Caio_Duilio

MOTHERFUCKING VANGUARD!

>improvised POS with the turrets off the Follies
yeah nah

>not liking the boat that pretty much perfectly sums up britain's state after ww2

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Why you hating on Vanguard?

>a hash battleship built from whatever old trash you had sitting around
>still probably would had been more than match to biscuitmeme

Vanguard was arguably better then Bismark. Essentially the same armament, better armour, superior Fire Control, modern hull, more efficient propulsion.

Rather then scrap the lion hulls, they made a battleship out of spare parts, which is pretty clever. She was delayed a lot throughout the war due to shortages, and really, the British building CVs was a better use of time/material. Still, if they needed a battleship, they could have had her afloat in 41.

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After painting the deck onto a 1:2400 carrier, I can safely say... fuck that. Next time I'm putting a fucking sticker on it.

It came out okay but damn was it ever a nightmare.

Art is suffering.

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Blood Wake campaign is starting it's first mission, hunting down Russian ships attacking the Japanese in the Kuriles.

Banshee's the St Vincent, Vermont's the Connecticut, William I's the Rurik, Horizon's the Omaha, Zenith and Nadir are Clemsons, Essex is the Kent, and Tsushima and Port Arthur are Kerches

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Jap CLs are pretty cute.

So /nwg/, CLs or CAs?

CLs for basically everthing outside long range open water engagments and trying to gunfight battlecruisers. 6' ROF advantage over 8' can get huge, especially for Americans and their lunatic obsession over CL ROF in the interwar. Also torpedoes are a hellova drug.

In general, CLs. But as cute as they were the IJN's light cruisers were kind of lousy at anything other than being big, angry destroyers. So if I had to choose based on utility, probably a CA there.

>Implying big angry destroyer isn't the best role for a CL.

For the 20's and 30's they were fine. By the 40's their "big angry destroyers" couldn't engage aircraft properly and became a liability rather than an asset.

By that point the Akizukis were essentially pushing light cruiser territory anyway, and the competing design was in fact a Tenryu conversion with 127mm DP guns.

But why use the shitty IJN CLs when you can have the hilarity that are the Brooklyns with their 150-180 6" shells per minute main battery. Torpedoes are for pussies.

Yeah, I think the Brits had the right idea, basically ditching the CA concept after the Counties and Yorks.

CLs were really better Escorts, being more reliable against small, fast ships and boats than the slower firing CAs; but when it came to generalized Surface Warfare, CAs were really the 'jack of all trades' of the ships, being the real medium ground between the fast firing speed of Destroyer Guns and the slow, deliberate fire of the Battleships and made excellent flag ships.
As it is, if you pit a CL against a CA, with the sole exception of the American (may as well be a CA in everything but guns) Brooklyn-class and later CLs, the CL was going to the bottom as basically their gunfire would have only limited effect verses the CA.
Torpedoes are really a non-factor in this comparison as both could easily have them.

And then you had the US' Des-Moines-class that the US was trying to build during the war (and finished 3 of post-war), with their 90 x 8in Super-Heavy shells per minute which basically just eliminated the difference in results entirely.

Blame the fact that 10k tons wasn't enough for designing a satisfactory heavy cruiser, there was a reason why Japanese and post-treaty American heavy cruisers tended to be around 13k-15k tons.

Progress report: Nagato next to Zuiho (unfinished). The plan is to put meatballs on the planes and red striping on the aft end of the flight deck, then see where we stand.

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The planes are a nice touch. I know they make decals for carrier decks at 1/2400, but you can also take and mask off your lines and drybrush them on, if you've got the patience. It's a hell of a lot easier than freehand. Did that with pic related.

That looks good, did the Surrenderbote come with teak texture on her flight deck? Zuiho didn't, they intended you to paint her flight deck in full suicide-mission regalia which looks hideous and (by IJN estimation) wouldn't even have worked.

Looks beautiful but what actual use is Bearn in a game?

At ~20 knots she's slow for even a 1920/30s scenario and the aircraft she carried made the Fleet Air Arm's kit look modern. Even after the refit in the US, she was only useful as an aircraft transport.

Her aircraft are shit and she's too slow to launch better ones, so in which rules set is she worth painting? Or are her flaws below the level of granularity for the rules?

>what actual use is Bearn in a game?

Make Kaga and HMS Eagle feel better about themselves, they might be crippled battleship conversions but at least they'ren't Bearn.

>Make Kaga and HMS Eagle feel better about themselves, they might be crippled battleship conversions but at least they'ren't Bearn.

That's not an answer. Which rules set is Bearn worth painting for? Is it one which handles 1920s and early 30s carriers? Or is it one so general in nature that Bearns fatal flaws aren't taken into account?

I'm asking because I'd love to find a 1920s/early 30s carrier game. Something that could handle Hector Bywater's "Great Pacific War".

Thanks, texture was part of the sculpt (1/1800 WaS repaint).

Grand Fleets is a game that covers the interwar period, and might be suitable for actual making her useful (ish).

I've got her more just because she and Commandant Teste are really all there is for French carriers, and I've got an unhealthy love for weird and non-optimized designs.

She's probably most useful in Victory at Sea (where her loadout is a couple flights of Dewoitine D. 520's rather than her historical complement before they were all landed). There had been plans for a D.520 derivative that would have been a carrier plane, but none that I know of were ever built.

She's of passable utility in Naval War. She's got her historical complement, and special rules and the like give her some utility. It's more a case of, if you want any kind of close air support as the French, that's pretty well what you're stuck with (or Teste, depends on if you're playing with OoB's or just straight up points).

Dunno if she's any actual use in GQ3, but I'm sure all the optional rules would make her interesting to play with, at least.

She's always gonna be a shitbote, but sometimes all you've got is shitbotes.

Ah, mine's 1/2400 GHQ. I didn't do a WONDERFUL job with the pinstripes but I hid that with rubber marks. So she's basically done unless I decide I want to hit some of her lines with a super-light layer of highlighting.

I'd take a picture, but I've lost the light and my shitty phone camera would just make it look like a green and brown blur.

>Grand Fleets is a game that covers the interwar period, and might be suitable for actual making her useful (ish).

Thank you very much for that title.

>>She's always gonna be a shitbote, but sometimes all you've got is shitbotes.

True, but if she can keep the other gun line's spotter aircraft away from your gun line, she may be all you need.

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Funky ass lattice masts. Didn't realize they were used that long.

Lattice masts stayed around for a quite while.

They were replaced in stages, just like anything else. The replacement mast designs had to be tested and tweaked, newer ships got tripods faster, etc.

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>newer ships got tripods faster

Which is exactly why Tennessee and Colorado-classes kept sporting them well into 40s while earlier battleship classes lost them during 20s&30s.

>tfw you make a quick game to check something out in "Rule the Waves" - and end up playing on 'cus kicking British ass is so much fun ...

Damn you, Fredrik, for making this awesome game!

I must have mis-remembered Friedman's book.

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There's something charming about those cage masts even if they ended up being inefficient.

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Probably one the worst warship designs of 20th century.

There is literally nothing wrong with Furious.

I'm furious you would say this.

Oh, it's the good 'ol Spurious.
Where have his brothers Uproarious and Outrageous gone off to?
Off drinking with Argus again, I bet.
Those guys are becoming too chummy for comfort.
Way too chummy *if you know what I mean*.

Can't fathom what you might be implying.

Bloodwake and all that is still happening? Wow...

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God, I love French pre-dreadnoughts.

American pre-dreadnoughts are cute! CUTE!

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Unf!

find me more info in english on these than what is available on wikipedia.

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Do you have more of Russian ships?

I know Russia doesn't have a great naval history, but I'd like to see more of its ships.

>Do you have more of Russian ships?
>I know Russia doesn't have a great naval history, but I'd like to see more of its ships.

I wish I did but I currently don't. I do have this drawing and a Russian helicopter painted up in US coastguard livery though

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You can find plenty here.

I'd love to see some pics of Japanese warships.

yeah but I'm looking for photos and lithographs of them from before the they were sunk or destroyed or scrapped.

hail britannia
also
see

Have an ex-pasta bote in Soviet service.

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More?

I can deliver a few.