Trusty old warriors that have been in my collection for a long, long time. They were painted back in the days when the "sea was always blue" (and probably from a pot of Tamiya paint pot). The intention is to present the historical battle alongside the hypothetical counterfactual scenarios (HMS Suffolk and Norfolk engage, and if the six destroyers had managed to keep up and were not diverted to cover "if" the Bismarck and Prince Eugen had reversed their tracks).
Here is one somebody has prepared earlier, David Manly's link to his re-fight:
http://dtbsam.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/denmark-strait-75-years-on.html
6 comments:
Nice, looking forward to this! And those ships have stood the test of time very well. They look smashing.
Cheers,
Aaron
They look good, Geordie - blue sea or not 😉
Thanks Gents
They need an pre-show outing of the GQII rules so some action posts should come soon
It's a tricky one to relight with the benefit of hindsight. If Bismark and Prinz Eugen had turned on the shadowing cruisers and either sank or scared them off then chances are the Bismark would have got home unscathed. The chances of a lucky torpedo hit damaging the rudder are low indeed (although GQ does provide a chance of just this event occurring). In refights we've found that Bismark and Prinz Eugen usually come out on top. I have heard that every attempted replay of the Battle of Midway results in a Japanese victory - it was the unique circumstances of the day that determined a US victory. The same could apply to sinking the Bismark.
It's a tricky one to relight with the benefit of hindsight. If Bismark and Prinz Eugen had turned on the shadowing cruisers and either sank or scared them off then chances are the Bismark would have got home unscathed. The chances of a lucky torpedo hit damaging the rudder are low indeed (although GQ does provide a chance of just this event occurring). In refights we've found that Bismark and Prinz Eugen usually come out on top. I have heard that every attempted replay of the Battle of Midway results in a Japanese victory - it was the unique circumstances of the day that determined a US victory. The same could apply to sinking the Bismark.
Phil some very interesting points you raised:
In many cases using GQII it would be hard for the cruisers to "evade" in combat (even if possessing a speed advantage) without the chance of a massive ordnance hit from the Bismarck/Eugen. Given the bad weather experienced in the cruiser chase/shadow phase. It would depend on other factors coming into play in the scenario design. Bismarck and Eugen did experiment with a couple of surprise attempts but Wade Walker in Suffolk and Norfolk was up to the task. The cruisers did worry about being exposed on one of their legs of their search sweep. If Bismark chose to close they would have know "too late" ...
The Hood/Pow to Bismarck/Eugen just based on factors (with fully functioning PoW) usually results in Bismarck's destruction with a RN heavily damaged or sunk Hood/Pow. A lot of systems give the Hood the benefit of a large tonnage giving lots of HPs (Hit Points). It seems the Germans have to get lucky early but even a damaged Bismarck is "game over" for the Atlantic Convoy raiding!
At Midway element of over confidence and surprise to the IJN is hard to factor in unless you manage a disguised scenario.
Thanks for the interesting comments Phil
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