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On December 28th and
29th 2003 the Naval Wargames Society ran what we thought was a very successful
series of public demonstration wargames on board HMS Belfast in the Pool of
London, timed to coincide (as closely as possible) with the 60th anniversary
of the battle of North Cape (an action in which Belfast played a key part).
This article is the story of those games.
The NWS side of the
story began at "Flagship 2003" in Gosport.
Keith Mcintosh, Deputy Director on board HMS Belfast, paid an impromptu
visit, having seen the display boards on the approaches to Fort Brockhurst.
Impressed with the naval wargaming content he approached Stuart Barnes Watson
and asked whether the NWS was willing and able to put on some form of display
game. The answer was an emphatic "yes". Stuart lived too far away
from London to effectively liase with the Belfast team, so he
asked me to take on the organisation. At first this seemed fairly
straightforward, as we had been told that the Imperial War
Museum modelmakers
would be able to build anything we needed. However, as the plot developed
this assumption became less and less valid!
After an active email
exchange with the Belfast
team I visited the ship in the height of Summer - temperatures in the 90s,
baking hot sunshine. Keith and I, along with Nick Hewitt, Keith's right hand
man, assessed the various options. A two day event, taking place as close to
the 60th anniversary as possible seemed the best thing to go for, with a day
beforehand to set up and a day afterwards to break everything down and travel
home. This meant travelling to London on the 27th , running the event on the
28th and 29th, then returning on the 30th (these were the closest dates to
the actual anniversary; the battle was fought on December 26th 1943, and the
ship was closed Christmas day and Boxing Day, not to mention the fact that no
wargamer with any sort of family commitments would be allowed out to play on
the 26th!) Two days would allow us to try 2 different styles of game. Day 1
would see us running a "guided" refight of the action, with players
keeping fairly close to the actual events of the day. This would result in 3
actions; Scharnhorst's initial contact with Belfast
and her cruiser consorts, the second encounter with Belfast and the cruisers, and the final
action with Scharnhorst facing Duke of York and a torpedo onslaught. Day 2
would be a "free form" campaign, with ships starting in the
positions they held at 0400 on the morning of the 26th, but then with the
players free to manoeuvre as they saw fit. There would have to be some
element of guiding to ensure that there were some actions for the visiting
public to witness (as it happened no element of guiding was necessary to
produce actions, but more of this later.
From the start the question
of models was a problem - the IWM department was too busy. After some thought
I offered to build the requisite ships in 1/600 scale using Airfix and
Skytrex models. At first sight this didn't look too difficult. Duke of York
was available from Airfix (based on KGV), as was Scharnhorst and Belfast. Jamaica and Sheffield could be converted
easily from Belfast, whilst Norfolk
was a minor "chop" from the old Suffolk kit. German destrtoyers (for the
second day's game) could be based on the Airfix "Narvik", whilst
British destroyers could be converted fom Airfix "Cossacks" or
Skytrex J/K/Ns. I returned to Bristol
on a mission to scour the country for the various models I needed. This
proved to be a bit of a problem in some cases. No probs with Belfast or the Narvik, as these are
currently available. The latter needed some rebuilding as Airfix chose to
model the lone Z28, a ship with significant differences to the rest of the
1936A class destroyers. However, some cutting, plating and pasting combined
with some new guns and turrets produced a quintet of models that would pass
muster. I decided to go with the Skytrex option for the M Class and "war
emergency" destroyers (and John Hammond kindly offered eight J/K/N
models gratis!). In this I was aided by Francis MacNaughton, a work colleague
who offered to cast the 4.7" and 4.5" gunhouses I needed for the
conversions. These were exceptional castings, using masters that I carved,
which made these conversions relatively easy. Mike at SDD also helped by providing
six suitable aft superstructure pieces from the SDD range to use on the
Skytrex hulls (the J/K/N aft superstructure was useable for the M class, but
not the later ships).
At this point the
supply of easily available models was exhausted. The Airfix Scharnhorst has
been unavailable for a long time and is consequently (a) very difficult to
find and (b) very expensive when you do manage to find one. Oh, it also has
the straight bow with which the ship was fitted att build, rather than the
later "Atlantic" bow. So all in all not a very promising start.
However, help was at hand in the form of Revell who make a model of
Scharnhorst in 1/570 - close enough for the purposes of the game.
Now all that remained
were the cruisers. Belfast
herself was easy - a straight build from the Airfix kit. Norfolk
was a relatively easy conversion from Suffolk,
replacing the hangar with a deckhouse and torpedo tubes, raising the quarterdeck
and modifying the 4" gun platforms. The two remaining 6" cruisers
looked easy (at first sight only really requiring the Belfast kit to be shortened) but a more
detailed examination revealed that more extensive surgery was required. In
the end the hull from the old "Tiger" kit was used for Jamaica, whilst Shelffield's hull was
virtually scratch-built (only the extreme bow and stern from the Belfast kit was
useable). In both cases the superstructures were a combination of scratch
building and modifications to Belfast
fittings, with the Belfast
kit also providing the turrets and other fittings.
After 4 months of
frantic model building which didn't end until Boxing Day (one day before the
drive to London)
the two fleets were complete. Now the rules. After various false starts I
decided to use a variant of the old Skytrex WW2 rules. These are a bit long
in the tooth but are still a decent set (and were the first commercial set I
ever used). Like most wargamers I have tinkered with the basic set and so what
we used varied quite a bit from the original. Changes were made to the
torpedo rules (we had counters moving across the playing area representing
spreads), gunnery (widening the range of hit modifiers) and damage for both
above water and below water hits. There were also a host of "scenario
specific" rules covering visibility, sea state and radar to cover the
peculiar aspects of the North Cape battles.
The freeform campaign was sorted several weeks before the re-enactment (and
was described in the previous article in Miniature Wargames), but the
tactical rules and changes weren't finalised until the week before.
Fortunately the resulting rules were simple to pick up, so (I think) no-one
had any problems assimilating them on the day.
Saturday 27th December
2003 came upon us quicker than anyone realised. At 1600 (after some minor
hiccups on the travel front) I arrived on the ship to find a few stalwart
volunteers had got there before me. We set to arranging the Ships Company
Dining Hall to host the game, with the 14 metre playing area bounded by
display boards, tables for the models and campaign control, the umpires
"den" and a display screen on which we had a rolling presentation.
Other participants rolle din over the next few hours, and after a few beers at
a local pub we settled down to our first night in Belfast's surprisingly comfortable mess
decks.
The next day was the
first of the two re-enactment days. Player briefings and final setting up
were completed by 0945 and the first dice thrown at 1000, as the first
visitors arrived. In no time we were deep into the first cruiser vs.
battlecruiser action which lasted until 1300. The highspot of this game was a
visit by the former captain of Norfolk's
"A" turret, who was pleased to see his ship in the thick of the
action. We were also surprised to see a TV crew and interviewer from the
local ITV network who made what we were to learn later was a very effective
interview and piece for the local news (feedback form a few members living
locally was that the piece portrayed wargaming very positively and indeed the
next day we were told by a number of visitors that they had come along having
seen the item on the news!) Following a quick lunch we fought out the second
(brief) action before getting into the main event - Scharnhorst vs. Duke of
York. True to form (this was a "guided recreation after all) Duke of
York pounded the poor German battlecruiser into submission, following which
she was despatched to the bottom of the Barents Sea by torpedo. At 1900 the
crew departed the ship for a run ashore to another local hostelry where the
obligatory debrief and post mortem was conducted. Then it was back to Belfast
for a late night.
Day 2 proved that late
nights, alcohol and early starts do not mix well with wargamers, and that
organising wargamers to do anything under these circumstances is like trying
to herd cats! This coupled with the departure of several members for various
reasons meant the remaining team were a little overstretched for the free
play campaign, but nonetheless it seemed to work well. This time the Germans
were allowed free reign in their radar, ESM systems and their destroyers. I
also moderated the sea state slightly to reduce the impact on the 1936A types
(which were renowned for poor seakeeping in bad weather - or any weather come
to think of it!) The result was in some ways very similar to the day before,
but the changes made it a different animal.
The Alternate North Cape 26 December 1943
Early in the campaign
Force 1 rendezvoused with the destroyers detached from convoy JW55B, whilst
Scharnhorst and her destroyer escort (who were kept close by the
battlecruiser rather than ranging far and wide) headed North in search of the
convoy. These two forces ran into each other south of Bear Island and only 30
miles form the convoy. British Ships sailing in-line astern find themselves
on a converging course with the German destroyer force. At 1103 Z30, the German
ship closest the British found herself illuminated by star shells and under
heavy fire from the three cruisers. The Germans reversed course, but it was
too late for Z30. Within ten minutes she was left with one turret and one
torpedo mount working and all the rest of her armament wrecked. Four 6"
shells through her boiler room and another hitting the main switchboard
seriously limited her speed and manoeuvrability.
At 1109 HMS Matchless
(the leading destroyer) managed to get within range of the German forces and
opened fire. In an inspired display of shooting she riddled the
superstructure of Z33 with 4.7" shells. The most impressive of these
hits landed on the aft torpedo mount, causing the torpedoes to detonate. The
resulting shock wave tore the ship in half sending Z33 to the bottom of the
Barents Sea.
Hampered by poor
visibility, intermittent radar and the British use of flashless propellant
the Germans finally managed to return fire at 1112. Z34 scored a lucky hit on
Matchless that disabled A turret and Z38, firing at the target provided by
Norfolk's gun flashes (she was the only British cruiser using older
flash-generating propellant for her 8" guns) managed to land a lucky hit
in her hanger. The Walrus was wrecked, but prompt action by the damage
control teams prevented a fuel fire catching hold.
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