Micronaut Only Thread

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STS
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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by STS »

BurtWolf wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:48 am
So why didn’t GHQ ever do a combat command for its micronauts? You know, like both sides in a box to give you the ships for a specific battle? Or would that be too many ships and variants?

I want to jump in it at some point but seems like an expensive proposition to do a proper, high profile battle, esp. WW2
Cost-wise, ground combat command boxes weren't that much of a deal. In most cases they pretty much broke even with single purchases, if you broke it down to the cost of a single model. Sometimes, they were actually more expensive, even when taking into account the storage box.

The one thing they did, though: they broke down individual blisters. If you take UK150 (14 Cromwell, 6 Challenger) as an example: It's got 4 blisters worth of tanks, but you'd have to buy 5 single blisters with 5 leftover vehicles to get to the number you need, making the box a better deal, because you won't have to pay for tanks you don't need. In this case, broken down to the cost of an individual model, it was slightly more expensive when compared to blisters.

so my guess would be:
That as far as ships went, there was no need to break down blisters, as most of them were sold in singles anyways, and those that weren't (e.g. destroyers) usually operated in squadrons of 3-4 anyways.

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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by Brigade Commander »

BurtWolf wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:48 am
So why didn’t GHQ ever do a combat command for its micronauts? You know, like both sides in a box to give you the ships for a specific battle? Or would that be too many ships and variants?

I want to jump in it at some point but seems like an expensive proposition to do a proper, high profile battle, esp. WW2
I tried to respond to this on Thursday but got an Error 505(?) and my link crashed. I was not home so it would have been a more general resopnse but since I am home I can give a more useful response. Well, I think it is anyway. :)

In the interest of full disclosure: I am a modeler not really a gamer. I am closing in on every ship that fought from Pearl Harbor through Coral Sea & Midway through the end of the Guadalcan'l Campaign. I think I will cover the rest of the Solomon Islands Campaign next before possibly getting a couple of Omaha's and a few DD's / DE's and covering the South Atlantic on the lonely patrols there. Aside from the warships I am working on including the AO's that kept the ships going. Maybe even see if one of the two Hog Islanders gets close to an AE in appearance. I have not modeled any IJN vessels. Doubt I will but if I decide to game I will get the ones for one of the surface actions and replay that encounter several times and see how I do with either side.

It would be easy to model the ships needed for one of the several battles in the campaign.

With the purchase of one Northampton, three New Orleans, one Atlanta, three RN cruisers and four packs of DD's (Bagley x2, Benham x1 & Gleaves x1) you deploy the Allied Task Force 64 as at the First Battle of Savo Island. Price, with GHQ shipping, approximately $156.10. I am a bit vague with the "three RN cruisers" because when I started my Micronaut modeling was about twenty years ago and at the time I purchased the three models they were not correct for either Australia and Canberra or Perth but I forget which right now. Something I will have to address when I return to Micronaut building.

With the purchase of Washington, South Dakota and four packs of DD's (Mahan x1, Benham x1, Sims x1 & Gleaves x1) you can play another interesting encounter as at the Second Naval Battle at Guadalcan'l. Like the one above another one that is difficult to recreate a historical outcome because of the fog of war factor. While you purchase sixteen DD's you will use only four. One from each class. Why? Because It was these four DD's from four different squadrons that had the needed fuel already onboard to make the trip and remain in battle without running out. There was not even time for the six ships to refuel if they were to get to the scene in time to intercept the IJN forces. We were that scattered. And that depleted. Price, with GHQ shipping, approximately $90.95.

I model the carriers as well but am primarily interested in the Surface Action groups. But if you want carriers but something different from Coral Sea or Midway the Battle of the Eastern Solomons gives you a place to build your task forces. Task Force 11 and Task Force 16 fought the battle but Task Force 18 could be included in a "What if?" due to its being assigned to Task Force 61 but was off refueling, it being the lowest of the three, when it was believed, incorrectly, that no action was imminent.

A long way to go to say that there are small historical battles that you can model or play without a huge investment. The IJN regularly had more total ships at each but seemed to be fascinated with sending them off in multiple directions and expecting them to link up at just the right time at just the right place and do it seamlessly. Unfortunately for the USN, they did do it often enough. So modeling the historical forces for the IJN would be a bit larger investment.

Currently at ninety-six warships and three AO's. Set up a task force on a blue base in formation and they do look cool! And since they often were approximately 1000 yards apart when in line they really do not use a huge amount of space.

Something to think about anyway.
"It is a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the road and, if you do not keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."

Bilbo Baggins to Frodo Baggins.

BurtWolf
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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by BurtWolf »

Thanks guys - good and thorough ** CENSORED **! I think a minimum initial investment is north of $300 but like the micro armor initial investment, it makes sense. One of these days, one of these days…

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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by BurtWolf »

Didn’t like me using a.n.a.l.y.s.i.s

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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by Brigade Commander »

BurtWolf wrote:
Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:54 pm
Didn’t like me using a.n.a.l.y.s.i.s
Yeah...

We have this discussion every four or five years. But wanting families to join the hobby the censoring needs to be stronger rather than weaker. Not that we actually have a vote on that.

I find just replacing one letter with an apostrophe leaves the word recognizable. Guadalcan'l or an'lysis. Does drive autocorrect crazy. That sort of makes it even more fun!

Remember as you model specific ships that most survived the battles and were in later ones so many of your models fill roles later on and reduce your needs for other historical battles. They may be in a different camouflage measure then but still around. That is where my OCD has me stuck when it comes to finishing them. What measure to paint them in.
"It is a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the road and, if you do not keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."

Bilbo Baggins to Frodo Baggins.

STS
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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by STS »

BurtWolf wrote:
Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:53 pm
Thanks guys - good and thorough ** CENSORED **! I think a minimum initial investment is north of $300 but like the micro armor initial investment, it makes sense. One of these days, one of these days…
or you could just start with smaller encounters. You can replay "Denmark Strait" by buying 4 ships (Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Hood, Prince of Wales), which will be ~65$, a bit less if you buy them during a sale. Same with "River Plate", where you'll just need 4 ships as well. If you get both, you can already come up with "what if scenarios" ("How would the RN have fared if it was Bismarck or Prinz Eugen, instead of Graf Spee in Uruguay?").

The mini-campaign, I've enjoyed the most, when I was still playing "Victory at Sea" (the old one by Mongoose) and not just collecting, was our recreation of the battles including ABDA.Just a few cruisers and destroyers duking it out.

regia-marina
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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by regia-marina »

For the Med., one could start with 2-3 Italian cruisers and 2-3 Italian destroyers of the same class, and the British cruisers and destroyers of Force K. You don't not even need the merchant ships. Just covering force against interdiction force. If the interdiction force breaks through the Italian merchants are screwed anyway.

cinctim
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Micronaut Only Thread / Late War IJN Kagero's

Post by cinctim »

With the release of the late war Kagero's, with the upgraded AA armament,
does anyone know how many of the 18 ships built actually survived to have
the weapons changed? With the work being done from '43~'44, could only
be 9 of them, but depends on when they were lost vs the actual work being
done. Thanks!

ww2navyguy
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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by ww2navyguy »

My guess is there was a maximum of nine Kagero DDs in this late war configuration. According to Destroyers of World War Two by MJ Whitley, this modification to land the after gun house for 2 x triple 25mm guns occurred in later 1943. Assuming this would be Nov-Dec 1943, leaves the nine surviving Kageros; Hatsukaze, Yukikaze, Maikaze, Isokaze, Shiranui, Amatsukaze, Urakaze, Hamakaze, and Nowaki. This list includes Hatsukaze, even though she was sunk on 2 November 1943. So, she might have been in this configuration, but can't confirm.

That would be my take. There may be other resources out there with better verification for this late war modification. I also checked Conways, but the referenced modification did not include a listing of the specific modified ships.

Hope this helps.

cinctim
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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by cinctim »

Thanks ww2navy guy! That's were I was leaning too, after reviewing the lost dates in my Ian Allen book.
Being a surface action gamer, I prefer the as built version, but still want to support GHQ and you never
know when you might run into a group of dive bombers. Hoping Don S., will chip in on anything he might know.
I thought I had read a 'reason why' message from him in an old post, but I sure can't locate it now.

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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by Brigade Commander »

Anyone know of a USN Navy Blue acrylic bottle paint? Everyone seems to carry a Sea Blue but Navy Blue was actually used longer for camouflage.
"It is a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the road and, if you do not keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."

Bilbo Baggins to Frodo Baggins.

Beagle
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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by Beagle »

Well, it depends on what measure your talking about, not all blues are created equal, lol. I use Vallejo. For decks, and all horizontal surfaces, I like French mirage blue, it seems the closest to 20B deck blue. If I’m painting measure 12, for 5S sea blue I use Luftwaffe uniform blue for all vertical surfaces. Hope that helps.

michaelw43
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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by michaelw43 »

@ww2navyguy: Combinedfleet.com shows TROMS (Tabular Records of Movements) for all types of Japanese ships. According to combined fleet.com there were 8 Kagero class destroyers that received the AA refit and removal of turret number 3. All the ships you mentioned except Hatsukaze (in a gun battle with USS Spence) "...returned fire from after turrets..." on the day it sank, and Amatsukaze which received a torpedo hit to the bow in Jan 1944 and ..."retained both aft turrets" during its final action. That left 7 ships. The 8th is Tanikaze.
Michael D Waters

P. S.: I'm also a WWII navy guy, but the name was already taken. I study all the ships of all the WWII combat nations, but I don't know much about those after 1950.

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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by ww2navyguy »

michaelw43 wrote:
Fri Nov 05, 2021 4:26 am
@ww2navyguy: Combinedfleet.com shows TROMS (Tabular Records of Movements) for all types of Japanese ships. According to combined fleet.com there were 8 Kagero class destroyers that received the AA refit and removal of turret number 3. All the ships you mentioned except Hatsukaze (in a gun battle with USS Spence) "...returned fire from after turrets..." on the day it sank, and Amatsukaze which received a torpedo hit to the bow in Jan 1944 and ..."retained both aft turrets" during its final action. That left 7 ships. The 8th is Tanikaze.
Michael D Waters

P. S.: I'm also a WWII navy guy, but the name was already taken. I study all the ships of all the WWII combat nations, but I don't know much about those after 1950.
Hi michaelw43,

I agree with your summary. I included Hatsukaze which was sunk in late 1943, so included in the total number, but your reference to combined fleet website sounds correct. I didn't scan their website data before posting yesterday, but that sounds right.

I forgot to include Tamikaze in my list as well, which was lost on 9 June 1944. So probably received this modification too. Amatsukaze confuses me since she was lost on 6 April 1945. I would have included her in the list for consideration as a late war modified Kagero.

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Re: Micronaut Only Thread

Post by Brigade Commander »

After one more large GHQ order and a small order from both L4H and Shapeways to complete some battalions I am thinking about shifting back to 1942-1943 Pacific and work on the PacFlt. I have all of the ships from Coral Sea through Rennell Island. Some complete. More assembled and awaiting a decision on the measure to be painted in. Some still in blister packs. But here.

So the thought is to now build the transports to bring the Marines and Army to the Solomon Islands. A Transport division was three APA's and one AKA in 1942. Given the size of a Marine division it would have taken three Transport divisions to lift one division. I have not yet learned when the organization changed to five APA's and two AKA's per Transport division but by the time of the Liberation of the Philippines there would have been more transports than troops to fill them. The Allies were running out of personnel to send overseas. Thinking about turning DD bases sideways and mounting some LCVP's to them as waves of landing craft for the assault.

I will also work on a squadron or two of PT boats. I doubt there will ever be a correct early AGP to be a tender for the PT boats. The most active, and first lost, AGP was a converted yacht. Still it would be nice to give the Imperial Japanese armed forces something else to worry about.

And I suppose I will need a tender and some PBY's to keep an eye on things. I will have to figure out if I need an APD or an AVP. This early in the war I am betting on an APD.

I will have to remember to also make a Litko order for more bases. They are cool!
"It is a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the road and, if you do not keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."

Bilbo Baggins to Frodo Baggins.

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