More Ships

In the past week I have been spending odd moments doing some more vessels for Torpedoes & Tides. And here they are.

At the back are two British minesweepers. The designs are based on the Halcyon class, but the stats in the game cover a range of other vessels too, so I didn't get too wound up in trying to mimic one particular class of vessel. In front of them is another Siebelfahre. I started this with the first batch but wasn't quite sure how to finish it off. It's an up-gunned escort with 88mm guns.

In front of the all are two markers for rescue scenarios. I've been reading about air/sea rescue operations in WW2, and came across refuge buoys. These were developed early on by the Germans and then later used by the British. I made a German one and British one to use as markers when you find the downed airmen. 

Here's the British minesweepers in closeup. 

And a comparison with the German M 1935 class. I'm wondering how a game featuring minesweepers and destroyers would play out under these rules. 

The Siebelfahre. Not desperately exciting, but it adds a potentially nasty escort option - a shallow-draft vessel with a big gun. 

My Siebelfahre flotilla - three transports, one flak escort and one 88mm flak escort. 

The rescue buoys. The smaller one represents a German Rettungsboje. Around 50 of these were anchored in the English Channel in 1940. They contained bunks for four people, as well as supplies, a cooking stove and apparently even books and boardgames. Flags and lights were used to indicate that they were occupied and the German air/sea rescue services would check them every few days. Airmen and seafarers of both sides made use of them, although obviously any Allied servicemen found were made POWs. The striped one is a British Air-Sea Rescue float. Bigger than the German float it had bunks for six. Sixteen of them were made and moored along the routes bombers took too and from Europe. 

A British MTB checks out a German buoy, just to give you an idea of size.