Thursday 2 December 2010

1879, British attack on French Colonial Assets.

It is 1879. The ‘Great War’ in Europe has been raging for almost 6 months. Following the repulsion of the French invasion forces from British soil, an empire wide campaign is brought into operation to take the fight back to the French and every corner of the world in their possession.

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^ The Forces of the Crown launch a costal strike against French Ships in harbour. The French ships start unmoving in their harbour, whilst British forces march from the west (bottom of the photo), under the protective fire of the Royal Navy.

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^ The British Line Advances

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^ As does the French Line

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^ The French Battleship 'La Gloire' supported by the gunboats 'Tripoline' and 'Mafalde', attempt a flanking move on the British line, destined for failure, as within minutes the an anarchist bomb detonated in the magazine of ‘La Glorie’ before she could make any real impact on the battle. Despite this setback, the French pushed forward, easily holding the line with their considerable advantage in numbers.

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^ The costal monitor ‘HMS Dictator’, the battleship-of-the-line ‘HMS Dinosaur’ and the torpedo ram ‘HMS Thunder Child’.  A Rag-tag British squadron crept along the cost on a mission to destroy a squadron of French ironclads unawares whilst at port. However fate was not to have it, as news of their presence and intentions reached the French squadron in time for  the ships to raise steam and for several regiments to be rushed to their defence.

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^ The Thunder Child  torpedoes French frigates leaving port. 

 Actually found time to play a game of Land Ironclads. It was just something I did after work one day, so we sort of ‘winged’ making the scenario and orders of battle. It went rather well considering that, however it soon turned out that running a naval battle alongside a major land battle was a little less interconnectivity than intended. Aside from a few pot shots, the naval and land battles were entirely separate. When the battle-lines did come to meet it soon turned out that the forces were a little less than balanced, and the superiority in French numbers took their toll on the British. Still bloomin’ good fun though.

7 comments:

  1. lovely! Wonderful! Fantastic! Thanks for Sharing!

    Paul (co-author of Land Ironclads rules)

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  2. Who makes all the 1/1200 ships? I've decided to take the plunge and need to know who to send my money to!

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  3. Paul.....are you Tas?

    Hustion Ships in the USA make a nice range of ships that dont cost an awful lot and paint up really nice.
    Brigade Models do a nice model of the HMS Cerberus.
    Navwars range of American Civil War ironclads is wonderful and very, very cheap. They are great for frigates, sloops and monitors.
    Langdon models do a simular range to Navwar, but cost far more and are much better in terms of quality and detail.
    If you put "1/1200" into Ebay there is a guy who has an ebay shop that sells some very nice ww1 peices, particularly submarines that are nice for VSF.

    Hope that helps :)

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  4. One in the same!

    Thanks for that information, it does indeed help. I had seen some of those manufacturers, and in fact have already done my own CERBERUS using the Brigade model:
    http://pauljamesog.blogspot.com/2009/09/cerberus-in-11200.html

    So are your models of 'La Gloire', Dinosaur and Thunderchild by Houston?

    cheers
    Paul aka Tas

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  5. Hey Paul/Tas,
    Your Cerberus is wonderful. HMS Dinosaur is by Houston, HMS Thunderchild is a ww1 submarine cruiser from Mr Ebay Man. If you like I can pop up a post of all my 1/1200 ships, as I dont think there are any close up shots this blogity thing.

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  6. That would be great!

    Close-ups of your LI forces would also be grand - its wonderful to see people playing a game I helped design :-)

    cheers

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