Action off the Dardanelles

Yesterday I managed to fight a battle using the latest version of my PORTABLE NAVAL WARGAME: PRE-DREADNOUGHTS rules. I used Heroscape hexes for my terrain (lots of water hexes and a few painted ordinary hexes) and some of my old, homemade, Fred T Jane-inspired, 1:3000th-scale model ships.

The scenario
Growing tension between Greece and Turkey is about to boil over into open warfare. In order to ensure that the Turkish Navy is unable to interfere with Greek naval operations and to protect Greek merchant ships from attack, the Greek Navy has begun to maintain a discreet blockade of the Mediterranean exit from the Dardanelles.

Unbeknownst to the Greeks, the Turks have been planning to send one of the cruisers into the Mediterranean to do exactly what the Greeks feared that they might. Because of the Greek blockade, the Turkish Navy’s High Command plan to force a passage through the blockade using some of their larger ships. Once the cruiser is in open waters and free to begin operations, the larger ships with return to the Dardanelles.

The Greek blockade is being maintained by (left to right in the following photograph):

• The Coastal Defence Battleship Hydra
• The Modern Pre-dreadnought Lemnos
• The Armoured Cruiser Georgios Averof

The Turkish force includes (left to right in the following photograph):

• The Coastal Defence Battleship Messudieh
• The Older Pre-dreadnought Torgud Reis
• The Protected Cruiser Hamidieh

This was a very enjoyable battle to fight, with the advantage swinging in favour of one side and then back again. The battle report will form part of my forthcoming GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAMES book, but to whet your appetites, here are some photographs of the early stages of the battle.