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    Gridded Naval Wargames
    Gridded Naval Wargames
    Gridded Naval Wargames
    Ebook167 pages1 hour

    Gridded Naval Wargames

    By Bob Cordery

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This book follows on from ‘The Portable Wargame’ and ‘Developing The Portable Wargame’ to cover naval wargames that can be fought on a gridded tabletop. The book contains six sets of rules (three of which are from the ‘Portable Naval Wargame’ stable), four explanatory battle reports, and a chapter that explains ‘How to …’ build simple model American Civil War ironclads. Aimed mainly at the wargamer who wants to include aspects of naval warfare in their wargames, it is suitable for both novice and experienced wargamers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateMay 19, 2018
    ISBN9780244088569
    Gridded Naval Wargames

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      Book preview

      Gridded Naval Wargames - Bob Cordery

      Gridded Naval Wargames

      Gridded Naval Wargames

      Naval Wargaming in the Age of Steam, Iron, and Steel

      by

      Bob Cordery

      2018

      Eglinton Books

      Copyright © 2018 by Robert George Cordery.

      Robert George Cordery has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

      As far as can be ascertained by due diligent search, all the photographs used herein are no longer within copyright.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

      Typeset in Arial font

      This Edition published in 2018 by Eglinton Books

      Eglinton Books

      84 Eglinton Hill

      Shooters Hill

      Plumstead

      London

      SE18 3DY

      United Kingdom

      Hardback:ISBN 978-0-244-68854-7

      Paperback:ISBN 978-0-244-38854-6

      eBook:ISBN 978-0-244-08856-9

      This book is dedicated to Barry J Carter, Phil Dunn, Donald Featherstone, Paul Hague, Fred T Jane, and David Manley for their efforts to develop and popularise naval wargaming.

      Books by the same author

      FICTION

      The Elephant and the Cobra (2017)

      NON-FICTION

      When Empires Clash! (2014)

      Brothers in Arms and Brothers in the Lodge (2014)

      The Portable Wargame (2017)

      Developing The Portable Wargame (2017)

      La Ultima Cruzada: Spanish Civil War Military Source Book (2017)

      The Madasahatta Campaign (Compiler & Editor) (2018)

      Introduction

      Helmuth von Moltke once wrote something along the lines that ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy’; something similar can be true of books, except that it is first contact with the keyboard that tends to scupper plans!

      This book originally began life with the title MORE PORTABLE WARGAMES, but almost as soon as I began writing it, it became obvious that the book was evolving into one about gridded naval wargames. Rather than stop, junk what I had written, and begin again, I decided to finish what I had started.

      The book begins with an examination of the advantages, disadvantages, and usefulness of the two main types of grid used in naval wargames – the squared and the hexed grids – and the ways in which the choice of the type of grid impacts upon turning, movement, and weapon ranges in games designed to use them.

      The book then moves on to examine a gridded naval wargame that was designed by a Royal Navy officer – Lieutenant Chamberlain RN – during the latter part of the nineteenth century … THE GAME OF NAVAL BLOCKADE. This is followed by the Ironclad vs. Ironclad rules that I wrote based on his ideas, and two examples of my rules in action.

      These Ironclad vs. Ironclad rules – ‘PREPARE FOR RAMMING!’ – produced a fast and furious wargame, but the range of results was rather limited because of the emphasis on ramming. They did, however, indicate that it was possible to write simple, fast, grid-based naval wargame rules, and led directly to the creation of earliest version of THE PORTABLE NAVAL WARGAME.

      The first iteration of the latter took the form of a set of rules designed to be used with the very earliest form of Ironclads, and the most recent version of the rules is featured in the chapter entitled THE PORTABLE NAVAL WARGAME: AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. Having written these rules, it did not require a lot of additional work to extend them to cover the period from 1880 to 1906, and these rules are set out in the chapter entitled THE PORTABLE NAVAL WARGAME: PRE-DREADNOUGHTS. A further extension of the basic rules covering the period from 1906 to 1920 is included in the chapter THE PORTABLE NAVAL WARGAME: DREADNOUGHTS.

      The next set of rules included in this book are called MIMI AND TOUTOU GO FORTH[1], and were specifically written so that the famous First World War action on Lake Tanganyika between by the Royal Navy’s Motor Gunboats Mimi and Toutou and the German Navy’s Armed Tug/Gunboat Kingani could be re-fought.

      I have also included chapters that look at how some of the rules featured in this book might be adapted for other historical periods and how to wargame coastal operations such as attacking coastal defences and making opposed landings.

      Finally, some words of thanks must go to Arthur Harman and David Crook – who read the draft of this book and made very helpful suggestions as to how it could be improved – and to my long-suffering wife, Sue, who has to put up with me disappearing for hours on end into my toy/wargames room to fight my wargames and into our home office to write my books.

      Bob Cordery,

      London, June 2018

      [1]The title of the rules is taken from that of Giles Foden’s book MIMI AND TOUTOU GO FORTH: THE BIZARRE BATTLE FOR LAKE TANGANYIKA which is about the Royal Navy’s Spicer-Simpson expedition.

      Notes and explanations

      Dice

      In the main these rules use common six-sided dice marked 1 to 6. In wargamer’s parlance these are usually referred to as D6s[2], and this is the convention used in this book. If the D6 is preceded by a number – for example 3D6 – this defines the number of dice that must be thrown.

      Diagrams

      Several of the diagrams included in this book are repeated. This is not a mistake. It has been done so that the reader does not have to flick backwards and forwards from one chapter to another to look at a particular diagram.

      Model ships

      All the model ships featured in this book were home-made, mainly from basswood[3] and pine. The reasons for this are very simple.

      Firstly, I like building model ships. They may not be up to display model standard, but they are robust and have stood up well to the normal wear and tear of being used in wargames[4].

      Secondly, I found that there were few suitable, commercially-available models that would fit into the hexes or squares I was using.

      My model ships are all rather ‘cartoonish’ in style. They are designed to look like the vessels they are based on but are not intended to be accurate replicas. I have taken my lead from Fred T Jane, whose model ships were simple but recognisable as the ships that they represented[5]. The hull widths of his models were greater than they should have been so that the models were easy to pick up and move, and the main details by which an individual ship or class of ships could be recognised was exaggerated.

      Fred T Jane contemplating his Naval War Game. The exaggerated style of the model ships that he used on his gridded ‘sea cards’ can clearly be made out in this photograph.

      [2]The examples of dice commonly used by wargamers include twelve-sided dice (which are generally referred to as D12s), and twenty-sided dice (which are usually called D20s).

      [3]Also known as linden.

      [4]The methods used to construct many of my ship models are covered in a chapter in this book.

      [5]The models that Fred T Jane used in his Naval War Game were nominally 1:3000th-scale, but whereas this was true for the length of each

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