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21Jul/230

Cruel Seas – Royal Navy Flotilla

To counter the Kriegsmarine in Cruel Seas, we have a flotilla of the Royal Navy. This would be themed around the English Channel and North Sea, to cover the battles between the German and British vessels in those areas. Again, this is meant to be used as a stand-alone as well as combined with Blood Red Skies and Bolt Action, or other world war 2 systems for campaign games.

I am not even fixed on Cruel Seas for this one, I played Action Stations at CONflict and would be fine, using that as well.

Cruel Seas - Royal Navy

For the names of the vessels, it is a bit different as it depends on the size or class of the ship, if it has just a number or a name. Wikipedia is quite helpful here, as they provide a proper overview.

17Jul/230

Cruel Seas – Kriegsmarine Flotilla

So, here I am with my Kriegsmarine Flotilla for Cruel Seas. Next step would be painting the ships. Therefore I researched camouflage and denominations for those models.

Cruel Seas - Kriegsmarine

With the German Navy it was not custom to give boats names. Some crews gave their ships inofficial names, but those were never documented in the navy records. The policy to name ship classes after the first boat of that class, was first used after the war and introduced by the Bundesmarine (the navy of the Federal German Republic). Sweeping boats didn't originally carry the class names listed on pages like wikipedia and such. A bit like with Hetzer for the Jagdpz. 38t.

23Jun/200

Cruel Seas – Close Quarters Supplement

I have covered Cruel Seas starter set, Strike Fast, Strike Hard, in late september. Earlier this year Warlord Games a supplement for it, Close Quarters.

Cruel Seas - Close Quarters Supplement

6Jun/200

Cruel Seas – Royal Airforce and Luftwaffe

While I'm currently reading the Close Quarters supplement for Cruel Seas, I return to the aircrafts that I have around for air support on the channel.

Revell Type VII C + Trumpeter Wildcats Trumpeter - Cruel Seas Flyers Trumpeter - Cruel Seas Flyers

Quite a while back I bought a few of the larger Trumpeter packs, as I thought an air combat game in topgun style would be fun, maybe to defend an aircraft carrier. From that idea I still have the F4F-4 Wildcat here, the other kits (Douglas TBD and SBD) I traded with the Sweetwater travelling box, as only the Grumman were used by the British under the designation Martlet / Wildcat Mk. IV. As it would be unfair to just give the Royal Navy some support from above, I got something for the Kriegsmarine as well.

26Mar/200

Cruel Seas Kriegsmarine R-23 R-Boat

I've added the Fairmile D to my Royal Navy, so I needed a medium sized counter part for my Kriegsmarine. Something the R-Boat could take care of.

Cruel Seas - Kriegsmarine R-23 R-Boat Cruel Seas - Kriegsmarine R-23 R-Boat

Similar how E-Boat was an allied term for Enemy Boats, R-Boat is a term for Räumboote (meaning minesweeper). These R-Boats were build already before the second world war, and saw service post-war for clearing naval mines.

24Mar/200

Cruel Seas Royal Navy Fairmile D MTB 624

I had the Royal Navy flotilla from the starter set already increased with the Flower Class Corvette, but I was looking for a mid-sized ship, that could be used in smaller to medium battles and went for the Fairmile D MTB.

Cruel Seas - Royal Navy Fairmile D MTB 624 Cruel Seas - Royal Navy Fairmile D MTB 624

The Fairmile D Motor Torpedo Boat is a british MTB, that was built by Fairmile Marine. A Fairmile is bigger than the earlier MTB/MGB (Motor Gun Boats), for example the Vosper or PT Boat, but slower in speed. They were named Dog Boats, and were designed to combat the more advantaged E-boats by the German Kriegsmarine.

26Jan/200

Lord of the Rings, Cruel Seas and Light Upgrade

The Rohan reviews for next week are ready, I had the time to tinker on these kit and prepare some scale pictures. Very interesting kits, beyond the fantasy setting. But more on that later.

The Lord of the Rings - Rohan House The Lord of the Rings - Rohan Palisades and Watchtower

8Jan/200

Cruel Seas US PT boat

In the January 2019 issue of Wargames Illustrated (WI 375) they gave out a free sprue of the US PT Boats (or Torpedoes) for Cruel Seas, and cover an Elco and a Higgins PT boat each. The sprues are the same from the US Navy PT boat flotilla (included there 3 times). I have covered the other two plastic sprues for the game, the German S-Boats and British Vospers already here.

Wargames Illustrated - Issue 375 January 2019 Cruel Seas - US Pt Boat Sprue Cruel Seas - US Navy PT Boat Flotilla

In the mid of World War 2, the US Navy only had 3 squadrons of MTB (motor torpedo boats) or PT boats (patrol torpedo) as they were named in the US. The US Navy had access to the Vospers due to a licensing arrangement with Great Britain, and roughly 146 units were build for Lend Lease and were exported to Allied Powers like Canada, Britain and the Soviet Union. Yet only 50 were used by the Roval Navy and none were used by the US Navy.

8Dec/190

2nd Advent Weekender

St. Nicolas was busy this week, and no I am not talking about the holy Nick Cage, and put a couple of things into the stockings.

I managed to acquire some Hobgoblins from the Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team at the Games n' Dice demo day. And my first intention was to use that as a base to start from, but I saw a complete team, incl. those special positionals (even the blunderbuss) and went for it. It is a higher invest, but I saved a lot of time and postage on smaller batches and individual orders.

Long story short, I have 15 hobgoblins that I'd like to sell. So drop me a message if you're interested.

Blood Bowl - Chaos Dwarves Team Blood Bowl - Chaos Dwarf Hobgoblins

9Oct/190

Cruel Seas Battle Reports

Last week I had beginning with sunday the chance to play a couple of matches of Cruel Seas.

Cruel Seas - Battle Report Game 1 Cruel Seas - Battle Report Game 1 Cruel Seas - Battle Report Game 1