Pre-dreadnought naval warfare has always intrigued me. Anachronistic rams, armaments comprised of numerous gun sizes, poor fire control, rumble home hulls, etc.
One of my first blog posts back in 2009 was about my Spanish American War collection from War Times Journal. Six years later, I showed off my 1/3000 Navwar fleets for the Balkans War between Greece and Turkey.
My preferred ruleset for this period is When Dreadnoughts Rules the Seas by Brian Dewitt. Many years ago, Brian showed me the rules by gaming the Battle of Lemnos with my own fleets.
I have unopened 1/3000 fleets from Navwar for the Chinese, Russian and Japanese fleets, comprehensive enough to refight the various scenarios for the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars.
I still have yet to paint up those Chinese, Russian and Japanese fleets, however I recently picked up the Osprey Campaign on Manila Bay which rekindled my interest in gaming the naval aspects of the Spanish American War.
Reviewing the Navwar catalog I was disappointed to see that there were only a few ships from the SAW in their expansive listings. My original fleets for the SAW were from War Times Journal back when they cast their models in metal. I doubt I have very many of them around.
Pursuing the Spanish American fleets in 1/2400 provides more options: Panzerschiffe and Tumbling Dice offer fairly complete ranges and Viking Forge also offers some of the ship options. Ultimately, I decided to order Spanish and American fleets for Santiago and Manila Bay from Tumbling Dice. I don't mind going slightly larger from 1/3000 to 1/2400 for the Spanish American War, alot of the ships were smaller cruisers and gunboats and that would be very fiddly at 1/3000. I look forward to their arrival.
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