Ironclads, Dawn of Iron, 1/600 scale 

We seem to be playing a lot of naval games lately – probably inspired by Chris’ addition to our merry little band. In fact, we all share a passion for that side of wargaming, and Nick has an immense collection of ships – albeit in what I’d call ridiculously small scales, like 1:1250 or even 1:6000! For this game, though, we went with my favourite – 1:600 – and opted for an Ironclads era game – albeit one without any actual ironclads! We’ve fought the Battle of Helgoland  before, a naval scrap from the Prussi-Danish War of 1864, but not with Dawn of Iron. So, we gave it a go. My thanks go out to Mike Haught, the author, who kindly came up with the ship stats for me. The nice thing about this  – apart from it’s ironclad era without any actual ironclads – is that there aren’t many ships involved – and I have the models, all slightly converted American ones from Thoroughbred. By the way, my apologies for the lousy photos – I was having a bad camera day. For this game, Sean with two similarly-sized Austrian wooden frigates of his own, the flagship SMS Schwartzenberg (Commodore von Tegetthoff), pictured in the lead above, followed by the SMS Radetsky, another steam frigate. Astern of them was my own  Prussian gunboat squadron of three little ships, which I’ll come to later. Facing them were the Danes, who had three ships. First there was the Danish flagship KDS Nils Juel (Commodore Suenson), a steam-powered wooden-hulled frigate (in the foreground above, with the wonky mast), the KDS Jylland, a similar frigate, and finally the steam-powered corvette KDS Hejmdal. So, in terms of points, if anyone cares for a historic scenario, the German allies had a slight advantage. Following on behind the two Austrian steam frigates was a  Prussian squadron of three small vessels. the most impressive of them was the SMS Preussischer Adler, a paddlewheel dispatch boat (the one out on front above), and two small gunboats, SMS Blitz and SMS Basilisk. The last two were pretty weak, with only a single ‘Very Light’ gun apiece, but they could still help pepper a wooden-hulled ship if required. Another fun thing about these rules is the way that even a 24pdr. rifled gun is considered ‘Very Light’. The Prussian Eagle’s 36pdr smoothbore was a ‘Light’ gun, as were all the Danes’ guns, while the Austrians alone had more respectable weapons – the 60pdr. smoothbores carried aboard their frigates, which were classed as ‘Medium’. Still, wooden ships are vulnerable, and we were all closing fast, to fight this out at point-blank range! For some reason Chris split his forces, with Jylland and Hejmdal (above) heading parallel to the Austrian frigates, while Nils Juel charged forward, in an attempt to cut across the bow of the Schwartzenberg. At least by this time I’d noticed the wonky mast, and so the Danish flagship looked a little more respectable. Still, she was steaming into danger – and odds against her of two to one, unless the other Danish ships supported her.In fact it was the Austrians who suffered the first serious blow. Their flagship Schwartzenberg took a ‘critical damage’ hit, which messed with the ship’s rudder. So, the Austrian frigate kept sailing in a straight line, on a course that would take her out of the battle. As the damage control teams laboured to fix her rudder, the Austrain gunners kept pounding away, and the Nils Juel took a growing tally of ‘cumulative damage’ hits. While all this was going on the two other Danish ships began turning, trying to move up to support the flagship. However, my gunboat squadron altered course to head them off, and began popping their guns at Jylland. It was the Prussian Eagle (above) that did the most damage to the Danish frigate, reducing her ability to fire, and starting a flood. Even the Blitz score a telling hit with her baby gun. So, for the moment the Nils Juel was on her own.Amid the growing carnage that was the now well battle-scarred decks of the Danish flagship things were starting to look bad. the Radetsky had moved ahead of her and was pouring raking fire into the Danish frigate, while astern Schwartzenberg was still just in arc, and did the same. The firing was still mostly at close range, so just about every shot of the big 60pdr. Austrian smoothbores struck home. In Dawn of Iron, when a ship takes as many Damage Cards as it has hull points, it becomes ‘Derelict’. It’s not really a great term for what happens, but essentially the ship and crew stop fighting and instead try to save their ship. Still, while the Danes were trying to repair the damage, the Austrians kept pouring in their fire. Eventually, Commodore Suenson bowed to the inevitable and struck his colours. With that the remaining Danish ships bowed to the inevitable and broke off the action. Surprisingly, the Jylland had taken a lot of hits from the Prussian gunboat squadron, particularly the Prussian Eagle, and fighting the Austrian frigates risked the Danes losing a second ship. The Heimjal hadn’t suffered at all, but she couldn’t do it on her own. So, the battle upended the historical result of a draw, and this time the German allies won the day!

Tags: Dawn of Iron