Heligoland Scenario

Set up for the bombardment game. The Royal Navy intends to destroy all the gun positions located to the left of the line lighthouse-church.

This scenario requires a slightly different approach to registering hits. I'll dice as normal for the number of hits on the defences, but only Critical hits count. Due to the island's elevation the bombarding force is unable to get precise fixes on the artillery positions, so the type of Critical hit is then diced for, which will feature Turret, Emplacement, Magazine, Director/Gunnery Control, Fire, and Civilian.

Turret refers to one of the two 21cm/8.2 inch gun turrets. Dice to see 

which one is hit.

Emplacement refers to one of the eight 28 cm/11 inch howitzers. Dice 

to see which one is hit.

Magazine hits indicate a turret or emplacement is destroyed by the 

explosion. Dice to see which one is hit.

Director/Gunnery Control indicates the main fire director is hit and 

the artillery will then devolve to local control, resulting in a -1 on the hit 

dice.

Fire. Undergrowth and/or small buildings have caught light. Depending 

on the wind direction the smoke could interfere with gunnery direction, 

causing a -1 to hit.

Civilian, or Oops... Through some vagary of ballistics a stray shell has 

hit the town. 1d6 score of 1 = St. Nikolas' church. 2 = The kasern 

(barracks) 3 - 6 = Dwellings. 

 

All Duplicate scores have no effect. 

Gun sites and Splash markers

A little prep work is in order before I play out the Heligoland action.

I decided I didn't have anywhere near enough splash markers, so these are now under weigh. They're fabricated from off cuts of clear plastic stuck in place and made more water-like with copious blobs of hot glue. Markers for the Heligoland artillery emplacements are centre-right. Since this is likely to be a one-off game I'm not bothering with a lot of detail for these.

Along with this I had to buy a new blue sheet for use with naval gaming. I clean forgot to remove the last one before our cat decided to use it to sharpen his claws...

And now for a gamer's dilemma - nothing to do with naval gaming. I've sold a large batch of unwanted miniatures so now I'm contemplating what to buy with this windfall. I should get enough figures to more-or-less finish off my 10mm ECW collection (if a collection can ever be said to be finished...). 

But! As wargamers know, there's always a new period flaunting its gaudy temptations to draw our eye. Peter over at Grid Based Wargaming is running a neat episodic 1917 Middle East campaign. A tough modern Ottoman force, ANZAC troops, Imperial infantry in pith helmets, Lawrence of Arabia, tanks, aircraft, armoured cars. A set of brigade-size rules in the shape of If the Lord Spares Us from Too Fat Lardies. What's not to like? I'm sorely tempted to splash some cash on Pendraken's starter packs for this period and theatre.

Decisions, decisions...

Gibraltar, 1904

A panoramic view of the harbour and anchorage at Gibraltar in 1904 showing seventeen battleships, armoured cruisers and numerous other craft. This was only a small portion of the Royal Navy's strength at this time. Makes you think...

The Heligoland building work is about done, with two strips of houses, the kasern and St. Nikolas church all done. A little more work on the harbour mole and it'll be ready.

Island project ~ Beginning

I've noodled with the idea of creating a scaled version of Heligoland Island for a while, for use in my 1906 Moroccan Crisis-turned-hot naval campaign. The recent happy find of a couple of bit of polystyrene foam in almost the right shape spurred me to make a start on the project.

I sandwiched the foam between two pieces of pizza box cut to shape. Next step will be to lay down the groundwork, probably using paper and spackle/filler. 

The island itself has changed shape dramatically since the immediate aftermath of WW2. First the British Army stuffed all the surplus explosives left from the war into the extensive cave system the Germans built throughout the island - and touched it all off at once. 

There goes the neighbourhood...

The eastern side of the island slumped down several dozen feet. It remains the biggest non-nuclear explosion to date.

Since then the German government has greatly expanded the harbour, and extended the island northeastwards with the aim of eventually connecting it to the smaller island of Düne.

I'm aiming more for how the island appeared just before WW1...

I'm not sure if I want to make the town a permanent part of the model, as it would limit the usefulness. It might be possible to make the buildings removable, perhaps by constructing them on separate sections. We'll see.

Battle of the Humber ~ Part 2, conclusion

 A week later than intended, here's the final part of the naval engagement off England's East Coast.

Following the torpedo hit on SMS Kaiser Barbarossa, the battleship's commander reported severe damage and flooding, leading to reduced speed. The German admiral commanding saw little point continuing the mission. The strict injunction to preserve the fleet sat at the back of his mind, steering everything he did. He ordered the Barbarossa to turn out of line and make best speed back to the Jade Bay. His light cruiser screen moved astern of the battle squadron, ready to deploy to the west or south on the guerre du course mission should opportunity arise. Ahead, the armoured cruisers SMS Roon and Yorck engaged in their own private battle with their opposite numbers in the Royal Navy. 

Some twelve thousand yards to the northwest the admiral could see the oncoming British Majestic class battleships. Their four 12 inch guns outweighed his own fleet's 11 inch. Reluctantly he gave the order for the battleships and armoured cruisers to make the gefechtskertwendung maneuver in five minutes' time.

Moments later the two battleship squadrons opened fire on each other. The air filled with the rumble of huge shells passing overhead, followed by the shattering impact as a few found their mark. SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, leading the German squadron shuddered as a 12 inch shell penetrated her forward turret. The superior German ammunition handling process ensured the blast was confined to the turret and munitions trunk, but the damage was severe. Across the waters HMS Majestic suffered an identical blow as her forward turret shattered under the impact of an 11 inch shell.

Disaster struck minutes later. As the gefechtskertwendung order took effect the British battleships concentrated their fire upon the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. The battleship shuddered under multiple 12 inch impacts which destroyed her bridge and steering. What was left of the rudders jammed hard to starboard. Unable to respond to helm or orders the vessel lurched out of line and into the path of the oncoming British.

The end wasn't long coming. Although Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse managed to destroy the after turret of HMS Magnificent she soon succumbed to the concentrated fire of the British fleet. With her captain and first officer killed, a junior lieutenant attempted to strike the colours to save what few lives remained, but he was too late. Roon and Yorck sped by the shattered and sinking hulk a few hundred yards away, eager to make distance between themselves and the enemy before they shared their comrade's fate.

To the south the retreating battle squadron reformed with the damaged and listing Kaiser Barbarossa then shaped a course due east toward Jade Bay. The light cruiser squadron was given orders to harry British shipping along the East Coast as far as they dared before returning home.

The British admiral commanding was wrong-footed by the German's sudden retreat. He was also concerned by the apparent detachment of the enemy's light cruisers and was anxious to drive them off before they inflicted harm on British ports and shipping. The Apollo class light cruisers passing north of the British battle line should have been in position to respond to his orders to pursue either their enemy counterparts or the battleships. Instead they seemed keen to protect their badly damaged consort HMS Intrepid. It was all of a piece with the cruiser commander's performance during the battle, where his ships were badly exposed to superior enemy forces and kept getting in the way of his own maneuvers. A few well chosen and pithy words in the admiral's final report would see the man transferred to command a fishing protection squadron based on Newfoundland if he had any say in the matter.

So endeth the battle try-out of Paul Hague's rules. I've had a number of technical issues in getting this post done and on the blog, so I'll write some thoughts of the game and the rules another time.

Brandenburg-class battleships ~ record cards

And so on to the Brandenburg class, Germany's first sea-going battleships. Comprising SMS Brandenburg, Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, Weissenburg, and Wörth, the class came into service in 1893, and had an unusual arrangement of three main gun turrets that foreshadowed the armament layout of the Dreadnoughts. The centre pair of guns were of shorter calibre than the others in order to avoid fouling the deck houses. With a respectable broadside of six 11 inch guns, 15 inch average thickness of armour belt and 16.5 knots speed, they could about hold their own against a Royal Navy battleship of the same period. 

Against the wishes of Admiral Tirpitz in 1900 the class was sent in its entirety to reinforce the German East Asia Squadron during the Chinese Boxer Rebellion. Commanded by Konteradmiral Richard von Geißler, they arrived too late to do more than contribute to mopping up operations. They served with the fleet until the increasing numbers of Dreadnought class battleships made them obsolete. 

Ottoman Odyessey

When Kaiser Wilhelm II began to make diplomatic overtures to the Ottoman Empire, Weissenburg and Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm were sold to the Turks in September-October 1910. Renamed Torgud Reis and Barbaros Hayreddin, respectively, after famous Ottoman admirals, they saw service against the Italians (then nominal German allies) and again in the series of Balkan Wars, providing artillery support to Ottoman ground forces in Thrace and engaging Greek ships during the ineffective naval skirmishes at Battle of Elli and Lemnos. A lack of suitably trained crew led to a steady degrading of the ships' sailing and fighting capacity, and they suffered badly in two encounters with the Greek navy armored cruiser Georgios Averof, leaving them in poor shape just two years after delivery.

Even so, both Torgud Reis and Barbaros Hayreddin managed to give a good account of themselves in the Dardanelles Campaign, shelling ANZAC troops along Gallipoli. Barbaros Hayreddin/Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm was dispatched by a single torpedo from Royal Navy HMS E11, which had penetrated the Sea of Marmara, in August 1915, sinking with half her crew.

After the war the two ships were in poor shape. Torgud Reis was repaired and remained on active duty until at least 1933 and endured as an accommodations hulk for another two decades, only being broken in the late 1950s. With that, I believe she was one of the final 19th Century pre-Dreadnoughts left. Two turrets were removed from her in 1925 and repurposed into coastal artillery to cover the Dardanelles, where they remain to this day

 

Apollo Second class Protected Cruisers

A little more progress with the record cards for pre-Dreadnought games. These are for the Royal Navy's Apollo-class. Under the rules the number of secondary armament guns and any torpedo tubes is halved to represent weapons bearing on each broadside being knocked out.

Technically the class was obsolete by 1903, most of them being laid-up. In 1908 Apollo and six others of her class were converted to mine-layers. I'm giving them a little longer lease of life.

Old School Naval Rules

Wonder of wonders I finally managed to lay hold of my copy of Paul Hague's Sea Battles in Miniature naval rules.

My interest here is the WW1 rules, which covers pre-Dreadnoughts quite handily. They are old school, which suits me fine since I'm not looking for complexity. The scale is for 1/4800, but can be adapted for the larger 1/2400 without trouble.

Hague divides warships into Capital and light ships. Each type has its own style of record card. I made out a set for the German Kaiser Frederich III class, shown below. 

Once I have a few sets of records made up for both sides I'll play a game to refamiliarise myself with the flow of play.

London calling

HMS London, that is, along with Bulwark, Venerable, Queen and Prince of Wales.

A powerful squadron of London class battleships and Cressy class armoured cruisers patrol off Cape Trafalgar of blessed memory.

Three London class ships were laid down in 1898. Comprising London, Bulwark, and Venerable they completed in 1902. HMS Queen and Prince of Wales followed, being laid down in 1901 and completed in 1904. The latter were more properly a sub-class of the London, being identical externally but with a different arrangement of armour plating. The class served in Home waters and the Mediterranean.

All but Bulwark survived the First World War. Bulwark became a casualty at 7.50am on November 26th, 1914 when an explosion ripped her apart as she lay at anchor in the River Medway. The explosion cost the lives of over seven hundred men and was heard as far away as London. At first sabotage was suspected, but as she had taken on ammunition the day before it was later thought that a defective lyddite shell was the culprit.

At the moment I'm trying to track down my copy of Sea Battles in Miniature by Paul Hague. The book was published in 1981, and has a number of rules sets for periods all the way from ancient galley warfare to the First World War. I remember the latter rules give a great, quick game and think they'd be preferable to the overly-complex sets I have now.

The Cressy class joins the fleet.

"Being in all respects ready for sea..."

A warm weekend saw the completion of the six armoured cruisers for the pre-Dreadnought Royal Naval force. The models are simple in design and execution, but I think they look the part.

Front division - Cressy, Sutlej, Aboukir. Rear division - Hogue, Euryalus, Bacchante.

In the First World War the class had the unhappy distinction of losing half its number in a single encounter with the enemy.

Early morning, September 22nd 1914: HMS Cressy, Aboukir and Hogue as part of 7th Cruiser squadron were patrolling between the German minefields in the southern North Sea and the edge of Dutch territorial waters. The ships steamed at around 10 knots and were not zig-zagging against submarine attack. Hours before, the squadron's destroyer screen had been forced to return to port due to bad weather. A few days earlier First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had ordered that such cruisers were not to operate without a destroyer screen, yet for some reason his order had not passed down the chain of command. The cruiser squadron's movements were repetitive, and the German naval staff were well aware of its position.

At 6.30am the squadron was about 30 miles west of Ymuiden when an explosion shattered the side of Aboukir, which began to sink. Orders had not then been given for vessels not to approach a sinking comrade. Assuming Aboukir had struck a mine, the Hogue immediately sailed to the rescue - only to be hit by two torpedoes, sinking ten minutes later. Aboukir went down after twenty five minutes. Cressy then approached and remained stopped to pick up survivors. As she began to move away two more torpedoes found their mark on her hull. She capsized and quickly sank.

The culprit was German submarine U9 commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Weddigen, a 500-ton boat armed with four torpedo tubes and six torpedoes. Weddigen reported that the cruisers were easy targets, and the highly-successful action stimulated German development of submarine warfare.

Sixty-two officers and one thousand three hundred and ninety-seven men were lost. The disaster was not reported in the British press as its effects on national morale would've been severe. It demonstrated that such elderly ships were vulnerable to torpedo attack, and led to other old ships being fitted with waterline bulges for protection against torpedo and mine attack.

A Clutch of Cressy-class Cruisers

Try saying that six times quickly.

I haven't posted for a while because my wife and I are dealing with the aftermath of a car accident. Nobody got hurt, but our car got a right ding which rendered it inoperable for the time being. Negotiating with the insurance agencies is a long, time-consuming bloody nightmare, even though we were totally blameless for the collision.

Anyway...

In the little downtime I had I got to work on the much-needed Royal Navy armoured cruisers. These are the six-hull Cressy-class, ordered in 1898 and at the time the first major cruiser class built for the Royal Navy in fifteen years. Progenitors of subsequent vessels of their type, the first of the class was completed in 1902.

Like the other models I've built they're fairly basic. Here's the six undercoated and ready for the final paintwork, which I hope to do sometime in the next few days.

After these are doing I'll probably build the five London-class battleships which were assigned to the Mediterranean fleet.

North Atlantic chart

The North Atlantic chart is now finished; the final touch was the list of key Royal Naval bases around the circumference of the ocean. It serves as a basic map on which to plot the movements of ship, squadrons and fleets. These I can add as differently coloured lines much like a WW2 British Admiralty plot. As each map is saved it'll add a record to the campaign diary.

I didn't bother to grid those areas of land away from the coast. No ship will sail there! Likewise since the North Sea is covered by the previous map i didn't bother to add grid lines to that area.

Should the German navy succeed in breaking out into the North Atlantic I'm going to borrow a page from the Traveller SF RPG rules and have an encounter table for shipping met during a guerre de course campaign. At the moment I'm going to assume the British Admiralty will follow their historical policy and not initiate a convoy system for merchant shipping unless or until the German navy has inflicted a certain amount of shipping tonnage loss.

Charts for the Pre-Dreadnought campaign

Now the Neolithic terrain pieces are out of the way, my gamer's butterfly brain has flown back to another subject - my pre-Dreadnought solo campaign based on a Moroccan Crisis-turned-hot premise. I found an excellent resource online in the shape of www.d-maps.com/ . They have a whole range of free downloadable blank maps of locations around the world which can be filled in with details as required. Availing myself of the North Sea and North Atlantic maps, I got to work customising them to my own needs.

And the North Atlantic - currently a work in progress.

I added a grid to both charts. The North Sea grid is (roughly) 96 miles square, that of the North Atlantic 600 miles square subdivided into nine squares of 200 miles. My reasoning behind these choices is that I'm taking the average cruising speed of a warship of this time as being around 12 knots, and the grid will give me a rough at-a-glance idea of transit speeds. In eight hours a vessel would cover 96 miles, in sixteen and a half hours it'd cover 200 miles, and fifty hours 600 miles.

The North Sea map shows the main British ports and bases which the German Navy can reasonably strike at, along with the German bases at Wilhelmshaven and Heligoland. I've yet to add the locations of various ports and naval bases to the North Atlantic chart. At the moment I'm trying to resist the 'mission creep' factor and not make this a global war. My intention - if I can stick to it - is to game German naval attempts to strike at targets in the British Isles and conduct a guerre de course campaign against British shipping in the North Atlantic.

My next modelling session in this project will be to make four Cressy-class armoured cruisers for the Royal Navy. The trouble is, due to the aforementioned mission creep, I'm now contemplating making four London-class battleships too. The class were part of the Mediterranean Fleet for most of their active careers, so it would be reasonable to have a squadron based in Gibraltar to guard the Med.

Kaiser-class: Battleship row

For one reason and another I haven't had much time to spare lately, but I did get some paint on the new 1/2400 Kaiser-class pre-Dreadnoughts and the trio of merchant ships.

Five little battleships, all in a row. The orange object in the background is part of an upcoming project.

It doesn't show so much in the light, but the battleships have had a wash of black paint. Next step will be to put them on transparent bases and add name tags. After that they'll join the fleet.

The merchant ships will follow. Why do civilian trading vessels have such boring hull colours? It's probably due to costs, but they do look drab. I'll see what I can do with funnel colours, and maybe a cheeky band of bright colour around their scuppers.

Kaisers ~ getting there

Here's a photo showing a little more progress I've made on the five Kaiser-class German pre-Dreadnought battleships. I almost forgot the distinctive boat cranes these vessels had, but a few snipped-down staples and Superglue did the trick. A good coat of black on the battleships and the three generic merchantmen followed. Now they all await the next stage of painting.

Once these are off to join the fleet, I'll make four British armoured cruisers, and probably a few more British battleships - possibly the three Irresistable-class - to maintain the Royal Navy's numerical superiority.

Kaiser-class progress.

For some technical reason a photo I took of work-in-progress on these 1/2400 battleship models vanished into the ether, never to return. I uploaded another and it seems to have stayed around. Things have moved on a bit since this was taken. Apart from a bit of fiddly work to the foremasts construction is finished and it'll be on to the paintwork.

A Quintet of Kaisers

On to more 1/2400 ship models. A little research threw up the fact the five German Kaiser Friedrich III-class pre-Dreadnoughts were intended to be part of a strike force which, in the event of a war with England, would attack the East Coast of Britain, cover an invasion force and engage in general operations in the North Sea. They were lightly armed for their size - four 9.4" guns compared to four 12" guns on comparable British battleships. They did however carry eighteen 5.9" secondary guns compared to the twelve 6" guns carried aboard most RN vessels of their size.

The current batch. Lurking just astern of the topmost battleship hull is another coastal merchantman I put together.

Currently I have the five basic hulls cut and shaped using the traditional sandwich method. I'll build up the superstructure with card as I don't want them to be too tall for the scale. Once finished they should look something like this...

The class were named after Kaisers Friedrich III (name ship), Wilhelm II, Wilhelm der Grosse, Karl der Grosse, and Barbarossa. In the event they never fired a shot in anger, being relegated to coastal protection duties during the early years of the First World War before being laid up as barrack ships. Once I've completed these I'll move on to four British armoured cruisers then - fates be willing - I'll work out the campaign.

Of Tear Gas and Merchantmen

“My last waking thought, I remember, was that, while this was a hell of a thing to have happened to a respectable old gentleman in his declining years, it was all pretty darned interesting and that I could hardly wait to see what the morrow would bring forth.” ~ P G Wodehouse.

While I may not qualify for old, nor have I quite reached my declining years, I do hope I qualify as a respectable gentleman. Yesterday was, however, pretty darned interesting.

Normally I'll seldom touch on real life matters here on a hobby blog. This is an exception. I was asked to cover a protest rally outside the police HQ here in downtown Toledo. A lot of impassioned speeches were made in relation to the recent unpleasantness in Minneapolis and nationally in general. Three police drones buzzed above the crowd and a quartet of officers observed from the precinct house rooftop, but other than that the police presence was light. After two hours the crowd of around 1,500 moved off to march around the block. The marchers reached an intersection where they were to turn, only to be greeted by armed and armoured police - who promptly opened fire with tear gas and baton rounds.

I was talking to a marcher some way back, and even so we caught a whiff of the gas. It's not a nice experience. My eyes stung, and although I wore a mask against COVID-19, of course it's no protection against gas. I still have a sore throat this morning. Several people were overcome by the gas, which drifted downwind into an area of apartment blocks. One young woman marcher was shot in the back of the head by a 'knee knocker' round whilst giving first aid, her wound requiring ten stitches. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the arguments on both sides, it was a gross over-reaction by the police to a hitherto peaceful protest. Shame on you, Toledo PD!

* * * *

On to the merchant ships...

Whilst I plan to scratch-build four 1/2400 scale German battleships and four British armoured cruisers, I thought a few merchantmen of one kind or another would be useful. Here's what I have so far, and I'll build at least a couple more.

They represent a couple of bulk carriers, one a seagoing or coastal vessel, the other a larger ocean-going ship. I kept them generic so they can serve any side in naval conflict. There's another useful aspect to these. Although guerre de course warfare - privateering - was banned by the Declaration of Paris in 1856, a form of it was reinstated in the Hague Convention of 1907, where privately-owned ships manned by naval personnel could attack merchant shipping of a belligerent power. Since this agreement comes at the same period as my hypothetical war between Britain and Germany, it opens another aspect for a campaign.

North Sea clash (Quickfire test game) Part 2 - the end

So, the two weeks since I began this game have been crazy, but I finally managed to conclude this trial run of the pre-Dreadnought rules. I aimed to keep the scenario realistic rather than an all-out slugfest, since I think it'll give a better view of how they'll work in a campaign situation.

The premise is that a squadron of German armoured cruisers are heading from NW to SE, bound for a rendezvous with the fleet off Heligoland. They must escape anywhere off the southern edge of the table. The Royal Navy squadron must stop, hinder or at least damage them whilst avoiding any serious losses of its own.

Yorck takes a pounding from the combined fire of the Apollos. Fire breaks out...

...and spreads. The German squadron concentrates on the Naiad to no effect.

As the range opens all ships redirect their fire. Prinz Heinrich comes under a fresh salvo, but escapes serious damage. The same can't be said for Iphigenia. Battered to a hulk by the heavy German guns, she begins to sink.

The last of the Iphigenia.

The German squadron redirects its fire to the next ship in the British line - Andromache. Explosions rock her hull and fire breaks out. The ship's company of the flagship Apollo, running alongside, can only stare aghast as their sister ship is torn apart.

The end of Andromache.

As the hulk of Andromache wallows in the wake of the squadron, the light cruisers' combined fire smashes into the Prinz Heinrich.

The German squadron's return fire seeks out Apollo and a major fire breaks out.

Yorck's damage control parties manage to effect repairs and she regains some speed. As she heads off southward the so-far untouched Roon swings north-east to send a parting salvo to cover the retreat.

Having done her best, Roon maneuvers to rejoin her sister ship, leaving Prinz Heinrich to fight to the last in an attempt to cover the newer ships' escape.

The End. A coup de grace torpedo shot isn't necessary as the combined fire from Naiad and Intrepid send Prinz Heinrich to the bottom.

So, honours even? Could the sinking of an aging armoured cruiser in exchange for two aging light cruisers be considered a fair trade?

The Quickfire rules live up to their name. They are fast. When I was able to find some time to play I could do several turns in a matter of half an hour. I'll try them out again with battleships and destroyers to get a feel for how they handle. At the moment I think I could add some mechanics borrowed from the more complex Battlefleet 1900 rules without doing any harm to the speed of play.

I hope everyone's keeping well in these difficult times. Somehow I suspect more than one lead pile is being reduced!

Going down...

As a natural follow up from the torpedo and fire markers I made earlier, I created the probable consequences - these sinking ship markers, which I made more like vignettes. Top: Battleship. Middle: Light Cruiser. Bottom: Armoured Cruiser. I didn't bother making a Destroyer marker, since I assume they'll sink quickly, plus pre-Dreadnought destroyers are barely-there in 1/2400 scale anyway.

Blimey! What a carve-up! (© Sid James, Carry On Cleo).

The basis for these was a batch of resin miscasts from silicone molds taken from scratch-built ships, which I made to speed up production. The resin was old and reacted oddly with the catalyst, sometimes foaming up and making the castings honeycombed and brittle. Rather than throw them out with cries of disgust, I cut off those parts of the castings which were sound enough, like the bows and sterns, and filed them at an angle so they looked like they were rearing up before taking that final plunge to the sea bed. 

I opted to give the markers a generic look rather than paint them up as any one navy. A spray over with dark grey enamel paint undercoat was followed by a coat of battleship grey, red paint for the below waterline portion of the hull to represent the anti-barnacle coating, and lighter grey upper works. Masts were painted a basic white.

Cutting out discs of clear plastic, I glued the castings to them in a roughly off-centre position. Allowing the glue to dry, I smeared on a creamy mush made of tissue paper, spackle, and white craft paint to represent water foaming up as bubbles of air and steam escape the sinking hull. Once the mush dried, I gave the sea area a thin wash of blue acrylic ink and Future polish, before applying a thinner wash of blue over some of the white areas. A couple of streaks of cotton wool to represent escaping steam or sprays of water completed the vignettes. I decided not to add any debris or boats, since these would be virtually invisible at this scale.

Hopefully I'll get to try out the Quickfire rules over the weekend. In the meantime, since this blog has attracted the attention of a particularly annoying and prolific spammer, I'm afraid I'll have to moderate all comments from now on.