Future WWI expansion

[Carthaginian]

Hello everyone,
Having recently bought up all the Russian and U.S ships available for the WWI line I got to thinking about what could be next in the series. Presumably there will be some lighter ships to support the U.S. dreanoughts but I was thinking more about what navy or navies GHQ could focus on next. It seems to me that the Mediterranean theatre of operations offers some excellent candidates. The Austro-Hungarian, French and Italian navies would, I believe make for great collecting and playing. The fleets are not huge if you stick to the Dreadnought era and avoid a lot of the "turn of the century" ships, so the collecting would not be too expensive and the small fleet sizes make for manageable fleet engagements. Also, if you consider that Italy started off as a member of the Central Powers one could have a hypothetical matchup of Austro-Hungary and Italy versus France (possibly with help from the RN's Med Fleet) and of course if the Goeben and Breslau are running about the Med....
These are my thoughts on the matter and I am curious as to whether or not there is interest out there for these fleets. I don't post often,(I do read a lot of posts though) but I hope with this one to encourage some discussion on the idea that may get to the ears of the good folks at GHQ
Thanks for reading - Carthaginian

[Donald M. Scheef]

Re: lighter ships to support the US Dreadnaughts

It's true that there aren't any support ships for the US Dreadnoughts. There's a good reason for this.

The actual US Navy of the WWI era did not have any real support for the capital ships. Unlike the British and German navies, which built relatively large number of light cruisers in this era, the US concentrated almost completely on battleships. The light cruisers that did exist were too old and slow for effective use, having been built mostly for peacetime cruising. There were two classes of armored cruisers completed in the early 1900s, but these were totally outdated by 1917.

The destroyers that were available when the US entered the war were inferior to their European contemporaries as well. The massive number of war-built "flush deck four-stackers" helped, but again, did not match up well against the British V & W except in number of torpedo tubes. GHQ USN34 works fine for these ships - they weren't changed that much between 1918 and 1940.

The first really useful light cruisers were the Omaha class, not completed until after the war's end.

I agree that there are some good opportunities in the Mediterranean. I would not rule out the pre-Dreadnaughts, however. When the war got into the cannon fodder stage, the French, Italian and A-H all abandoned work on new warships. A lot of the French ships at Gallipoli, for example, were pre-Dreadnoughts. Unfortunately for gaming purposes, however, there weren't many actual battles in the Med. Mostly, the fleets tended to stay close to home for fear of loosing valuable ships. There are some interesting hypotheticals between the Italians and the AH.

To tell the truth, however, I would rather see some of the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese war ships. There were at least four good battles (Manila Bay, Santiago, Vladivostok, and Tsushima) that make for good exploration, not to mention the hypotheticals.

Having gotten in my $0.02 worth, please go to the "Consolidated Micronauts Wish List 2008-2009" thread and put in your votes. I will be updating the list over the Christmas/New Years vacation time to include any new suggestions.

Don Scheef

[Carthaginian]

Thanks Donald for your opinions and information. In response I guess I like setting up "what if" scenarios as much, if not more than, historical ones. I like that when I ref, the players don't know all the facts, including what's on the opposing side. I have played too many games where everyone knows the story beforehand. Misinformation and assumptions really reflect well the actual time period, so It doesn't bother me that in real life the K.U.K. spent most of the war in harbour. As for other theatres, while I agree that the Russo-Japanese war would be fun I am not sure that GHQ will go into a turn of the century series, this is after all called the "Great War At Sea" and having establised British, German, Russian and American fleets it would seem more likely that they would continue in the same vein. As to the Spanish-American war, as well as reiterating the point about the earlier time period, I would think that since it was a very one sided contest both in terms of quality and quantity of ships, that playing such scenarios out while trying to be competitively equal would be difficult. Of course one could change the lineups for the historical battles but that just brings me back to my first point.
Still when all is said and done, if there is little interest in the Med/Adratic theatre then I guess all my typing is for nought - but we can dream
Regards, Carthaginian

[Donald M. Scheef]

I agree that there are some good hypothetical battles in the Adriatic. Also, pairing the Italians and A-H against France would be interesting.

Although it's true that Manila Bay and Santiago turned out to be one-sided, there are a number of interesting hypotheticals that bear investigation:
Armored cruiser Cristobal Colon was the strongest Spanish ship at Santiago, but lacked her main armament. What if she had been completed?
The two most powerful ships in the Spanish fleet, battleship Pelayo and armored cruiser Emperador Carlos V, remained in European waters to protect the homeland from the never-to-be attack of the US navy. If either of these had been at Manila Bay, they would have outclassed the entire US Asian fleet. At Santiago, they would have matched up well against the US fleet.
The three armored cruisers of the Princessa de Austurias class were completed after the end of the war. What if they had been completed earlier (or the war delayed)?
The three Spanish torpedo boat destroyers at Santiago never employed their torpedos. As demonstrated in the Russo-Japanese War, a single torpedo hit on any warship of this era could have devistating effect.

I will be placing your listing of Italian & Austro-Hungarian Dreadnought-era ships into the compilation of the "Consolidated Micronauts Wish List 2008-2009."

Don Scheef

[hauptgrate]

WWI in the Med is my area of naval interest. If GHQ were to produce those fleets, I might be persuaded to scale up from my current 1/6000 scale minis. The needed fleets are obviously AH, Italy, and France, but also Turkey, Greece, and the Russian Black Sea fleet. A whole host of possibilities can be build around the first few days of the war concerning the Goeben and Breslau -- I have begun building a system of card draws and die rolls to produce tabletop scenarios with a multitude of possible force structures and objectives. For example, my group has played:
1. Goeben and Breslau vs. 4 Brit armored cruisers (actual historical possibility)
2. Goeben and Breslau vs. 4 Brit armored cruisers plus Indomidable and Indefatigable (also a historical possibility)
3. Goeben and Breslau plus Blucher and another German CL (reinforcements from home before start of war) vs. Brit combinations above.
4. G & B plus 2 Italian semi-dreadnought BBs acting as "escorts" (may or may not open fire on British)
5. G&B vs. French pre-dreds and armored cruisers
etc...

We have also had actions involving pre-dreds in the Adriatic - costal bombardments etc. as well as a large fleet action between a combined AH and Italian force versus the French.

Not to mention Black Sea battles...

anyway, the Med provides many possibilites for realistic hypothetical battles with a wide variety of forces.

[cbovill]

I would love to see the Austro-Hungarian, French and Italian fleets added as well. The Mediterranean theatre brings so many variants and options to the table, and what an awesome wildcard Italy represents! The Med also has a big impact on the balance of power in the North Atlantic, so having these fleets added builds an awesome new dimension into gaming this period.

However, before GHQ launches these new fleets, I really want them to flesh out the existing fleets further. There are so many ships I need them to build for Britain and Germany. Spend a couple of years building some of these and then let's see a few years devoted to these new fleets. That's my two cents.

Chris

[Mickel]

Gentlemen

I'm going to be a stick in the mud... I think it would be great if Troubridge's ships in the Med were available to have games trying to intercept Goeben and Breslau, and they'd be top of my WW-I naval wishlist.

Closely followed by all the ships for Coronel & the Falklands. But that's a close run thing against a few more light cruiser options, such as Goodenough's flotilla at Dogger Bank, and the remaining German cruisers for then.

After that, I'm not to worried about what's next.

Mike

[Mikee]

Gentlemen:

I agree with you; I'd like to see more WWi fleets - after they finish the U.S. I'd like to see the French, Italian and AH fleets; don't know which one I'd choose first - maybe one or two ships from each fleet each year.

If you wanna get a bit original w/ WWI, one possibility would be to put together a Turkish fleet. The Turks did have three ships building in the U.K.; the Brits "stole" two of them, the Agincourt and Erin, at the beginning of the war. Construction on the second Erin class was, as I remember, halted by a shortage of Turkish funds, and later became the HMS Eagle.

You could set-up a good Turkish fleet by assuming that the Turks got two - or even all three - ships building in the U.K., and later got the Goeben and Breslau from the Germans. The Breyer book also notes that the Turks were going to build a third BB at home (another Erin type), with help from the Brits. I don't know what else they had, or would have had; I assume that there were some DDs of some type, and maybe some cruisers. If the Turks then joined the AH, the Brits might have to move more of their ships into the Med, reducing the pressure on the Germans.

Add this fleet to the mix, and you would have a completely different strategic situation in the Med.

I've already put together a Turkish fleet of 5 BBs and a CL; haven't checked out the possibility that any existing DD models might fit into my Turkish Navy

On another subject, two ships I'd kinda like to see (Donald, please don't put these on the list) are the Victorian BBs HMS Victoria and HMS Camperdown (I think that's the right name). There's no "good" reason for this; just that the history of these two ships - and their unbelievably stupid commanders (one the Mediterranean CinC, I believe) - make for an interesting disaster story on the order of the more recent Titantic disaster.

[ACWBill]

How about we finish the Jutland Fleets:

Brit
Armoured Cruisers:
Black Prince/Duke of Edinburgh Class
Devonshire Class
Minotaur Class

Lt Cruisers
Cambrian Class
Boadicea Class
Caroline Class
Faulknor Class
Chester Class
Calliope Class

German

Lt Cruisers
Konigsberg Class
Graudenz Class
Weisbaden Class

[Scott Washburn]

US armored cruisers may have been outdated by 1917 but they sure were pretty ships

OTOH, everyone's armored cruisers were outdated by 1917....