world war 1

RETAILERS

Let’s start with retailers’ online shops.

GHQ Models 
 

The basic link.  You’ll find an incredible quantity of finely sculpted models to fit all your wargaming projects (or collecting obsessions !) Also, you will find a flourishing community forum where you can shamelessly plunder your forum mates’ good ideas, and post your minis pics.

Flight Deck Decals

The perfect solution to avoid the troublesome endeavor of painting, free hand style, all the lines and markings that cover the deck of any flat top. They also have a tutorial to help you avoid any pitfall in the application of their products.

Litko Bases  

Warbases UK 

I use clear bases. They are great in the sense they require very little work and will adapt to any tabletop color. A reward for laziness, I’m afraid but oh, I won’t complain ! If you live in the US, go with Litko, they have a wide range of options. Warbases UK has less options, but those living in good old Europe won’t be charged the insane posting fees.

RESSOURCES

Let's talk online resources. You may, as GHQ says, paint the models to your taste, and that is fine. However, if,  like me, you are also somewhat history-obsessed, these few links will help you get accurate color schemes for your models.

Shipbucket

What would I do without Shipbucket ? I owe them a lot. They are a bunch of artists dedicated to making terrific computer renditions of all the ships you can imagine. A lot of ships have different schemes, depending on the year they are represented, giving you tons of options. I love them.

USN Camouflage 1941-1945

Another great site, a must-go if you do US navy WW2 ships. All the various schemes are well documented and, I think, all the ships that served under the Stars & Stripes in World War 2 are referenced with the evolution of their paint scheme.

Sovereign Hobbies Royal Navy Paint Schemes

Interesting page on a retailer’s site, which will give you an idea of Royal Navy paint schemes & camouflages.

Matrix Games Imperial Japanese Navy

A thread on the Matrix Games boards, giving useful information on Imperial Japanese Navy  paint schemes.

Kriegsmarine Paint Schemes

A page on Kriegsmarine camouflage that can be helpful.

  World of Warships German camos

A useful page on both world wars German camouflages

La Royale Modelisme

Another forum, in French, with some beautiful models. Insane modelling skills there !

Admiral Beatty’s management of the Battlecruisers force at Jutland remains a subject of controversy, more than a century after the battle. The truth of the matter, however, seems to be less a lack of protection than defective ammunition procedures, compounded by a rash decision to rush at Hipper’s throat, cancelling the advantage awarded by his bigger guns’ longer range.

Under Beatty’s command, on that fateful 31st May 1916, were 6 battlecruisers and the 4 superdreadnoughts Admiral  Evan-Thomas’  5th Battle Squadron, the biggest, best armored, heaviest gunned ships (15’’ caliber guns !)  of the line at the time. Confused signals kept them too far away at the start of  the engagement, compounding Beatty’s tactical error. Under his command only the 6 ships of the 1st & 2^nd Battlecruiser Squadrons rushed at Hipper’s force.

British Battlecruisers design evolution, illustrated with this top-down picture : the apparition of superfiring turrets gave the Lion & Tiger class improved arcs of fire. The most notable improvement, though, can’t be made out on the picture : instead of 12’’ caliber guns like the Invincible & Indefatigable classes, they sported 13’’ guns

HMS New Zealand and Indefatigable

Barely improved versions of the original Invincible class battlecruisers, the class comported 3 ships in all, alongside HMAS Australia that was accidentally damaged days before the battle and so missed the engagement. Indefatigable was the 1st RN ship lost at Jutland. New Zealand survived the battle without even being hit.Tradition has it that her captain wore the traditional Maori garb & amulets he’d been offered by a Maori chieftain for the protection of the ship.

The Lion Class

The « Splendid Cats » as they were collectively known, were the joy and pride of Admiral Fisher. They  were better gunned, 13’’ caliber guns instead of their predecessors’ 12 ‘’, moreover sporting superfiring turrets forward, giving overall better arcs of fire. They were fast, and better armored (though not as  well as their German counterparts). Lion was Beatty’s flagship, and took part at the Dogger Bank battle where i ts propulsion was knocked out, ruining Beatty’s ability to pass orders efficiently, and hit again at Jutland, where she was saved from Indefatigable’s & Queen Mary’s fate by the quick thinking and sacrifice of Royal Marines Major Francis Harvey who managed to get the magazines flooded. Queen Mary was the 2^nd Battlecruiser exploding during the battle. From Lion’s bridge, a bitter Beatty commented « There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today ».

HMS Tiger

The last of the « Splendid Cats », Tiger was an improved version of the Lion class. Launched & commissioned in 1914, she took part in the Dogger Bank engagement. She was moderately damaged at Jutland, but her gunnery was deemed to be the poorest of the Battlecruiser Force, that was itself inferior to that of Jellicoe’s Battle Squadrons.

5th Battle Squadron

HMS Warspite

HMS Barham

HMS Valiant

HMS Malaya

Attached to Beatty’s Battlecruiser Force, they were left behind at the start of the battle due to bungled signals from HMS Lion, and the strict adherence to received orders, traditional among British admirals of the Victorian era ; Admiral Evan-Thomas, the 5th BS commander, was no exception. He nonetheless managed to get back in time to pull Beatty’s squadron from its predicament, inflicting Grievous damage on Hipper’s ships and the 1st Battle squadron of  the High Seas fleet, getting hammered in return. With the exception of Warpite that was badly damaged, the British Queen Elizabeth suffered no combat efficiency loss for the treatment, dishing out more than they got.

British Destroyers

A few L class Destroyers, as some of those that were with Beatty’s force at Jutland.

My second contact with the battle of Jutland came in the late eighties, with the little group of wargame enthusiasts that played around Bordeaux. At that time, we used The MicroFleet series to play naval battles, especially the WW1 pack that allowed you to recreate the whole of Jutland – we never tried ! – and more simply, battle cruisers battles.

That brought me to purchasing models from Navwar – much less expensive that GHQ’s, to accommodate my modest purchasing power then – and with a friend, we used these to play the Run to the South (the 5th Battle squadron was there, but for them I used the Microfleet counters). In that battle – sorry, no pics – I remember the German player decided to rapidly  close the distance as the Brits were  turning to bring all guns to bear and he feared their longer range. In that instance, he allowed his T to be crossed, with devastating effect – Beatty would have been happy ! – and broke the engagement after losing a battlecruiser to nothing for the Brits. The 5th Battle squadron never had a chance to close the distance.

Nearly forty years later, and with a bigger purse, I decided it was time to replace these long sold Navwar models with GHQ ships. They still have to see the tabletop, perhaps using the WW1 NIMITZ rules set spinoff you can find on Sam Mustafa’s Facebook group. Or, if I’m lucky to find an able & willing  opponent and have the wherewithal to hang on through the game, Harry Pratt’s excellent NAVAL THUNDER rules.

First, a  topdown view of the 4 German classes, highlighting the evolution of their design (bigger size, superfiring turrets)

SMS -Seine Majestäts Schiff - Von der Tann took but a mere 18th months from order to launching, and as much again to commission.  Bewildering times as we see know how long it takes to build a mere frigate… Anyways, Von der Tann sank HMS Indefatigable, but  took a beating at Jutland, losing all her primary battery guns, but gamely staying in formation to attract British fire.

SMS Moltke – sister ship of the infamous Goeben also took but 3 years from order to commission. She too was also heavily damaged at Jutland, coping 15’’ shells from the 5th Battle squadron.

SMS Seydlitz, a one-class ship, ordered March 1910, commissioned May 1913. She was nearly sunk in 1915 at the Dogger Bank, and at Jutland, was once more so heavily damaged that she barely made port again, miraculously escaping the clutches of a vengeful Grand Fleet.

SMS Lützow was the2nd  of the German Battlecruisers to be commissioned after the start of the Great War, beginning her career in may 1915, and becoming Admiral Hipper’s flagship. Unlike her predecessors, she sported 12’’ guns instead of their 11 », with superfiring turrets both fore and aft. Jutland was the only time she ever saw action, as she was too badly damaged to get back to port and had to be scuttled. She was the most advanced ship lost by any side during the battle.

SMS Derfflinger was Lützow’s sistership, being commissioned on September 1st 1914, less than a month after Great Britain’ s entry into the war. She took part in the battle of the Dogger Bank, and was heavily damaged at Jutland, suffering KIA losses of 1 man for every 7 crew member in the occurrence.

Lastly, some German S Class Torpedoboote, part of a modern and numerous class that saw combat at most of the naval engagements of World War 1

I started collecting WW1 Micronauts with the ships present at the battle of Coronel. At the time, you couldn't find a GHQ model for SMS Nürnberg, so I substituted SMS Bremen in its stead, and acquired both HMS Canopus and SS Otranto from another manufacturer. I added HMS Defense, which barely missed being present in the South East Pacific at that time.

Coronel… A forgotten battle today, but one from which the mind recedes with horror at te image of the savagery of the combat, of its  terrifying conditions, of the horrible butcher’s bill at the end of it, of the utter absurdity of it all : 2 commanders trapped in the rigid code of honor of 19th century European aristocracy fought a battle that could but doom them and their crews to destruction : Craddock, hopelessly outmatched by the superior German squadron, Von Spee trapped by geography and logistics, fully aware that after his victory, a merciless chase would be on. And yet they fought, in the cold water of Southern Chile, in a stormy November night…

The British

Good Hope, launched in 1901, and already an obsolete design, with half of her secondary 6’’ battery out of action in moderate weather conditions, without modern targeting equipment, barely good enough to show the White Ensign in far off backwaters. Sunk with all hands.

Monmouth, throwing a heavy, but desperately outranged punch, one of the 10 County class cruisers launched in 1901. Sunk with all hands.

Glasgow, a modern light cruiser, with the punch to outfight German light cruisers and the speed to outrun Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Heavily damaged, retreated and was present for retribution at the battle of the Falklands.

HMS Defense, somewhat of an unlucky ship. Flagship of Admiral Troubridge during the Goeben chase, its squadron retreated when admiral Troubridge, who was court-martialed for his decision, wisely renounced to intercept. It could have been present at Coronel as it was ordered to join Craddock’s forces but  the order was cancelled as the Germans were still in the Pacific at that time. It met a fiery death at Jutland, the 4th Royal Navy ship lost to a magazine explosion that day.

The Germans

SMS Scharnhorst & Gneisenau, possibly the best armored cruisers ever built. Heart of the East Asian Squadron, they were also reputed to be the best gunnery specialists of the whole German Navy. The reservists on board Good Hope & Monmouth never stood a chance against them. Likewise, they were utterly outgunned, out-sped, out-armored when they had to tackle HMS Invincible & Inflexible at the Falklands, 2 battlecruisers specifically designed to destroy marauding armored cruisers.

SMS Dresden, Leipzig & Bremen (to substitute for SMS Nürnberg). Unlike their heavier brothers, they were outdated ships, sporting a light armament compared to their British counterparts. Their crews, however, like in the rest of the squadron, were top notch.  Nürnberg also gave the derelict Monmouth the coup de grâce at Coronel.

The French

Lastly, and because I cannot think of another page to display it, the French semi-dreadnought Vergniaud of the Danton class. After taking part in the battle of Antivari at the beginning of the war, the Vergniaud spent the remainder of the war in lackluster - but risky, as illustrated by the torpedoing of its sister ship the Danton, -  blockading duties. Part of the allied task force at Sebastopol during teh Russian Civil War, its crew took part in the  mutiny that affected numerous French ships in that occurrence.