WIP – The Jutland Project – Part 1 – British Grand Fleet – The Battle Fleet

I mentioned somewhere before that one of the wargame projects I was planning for 2015 was to paint both the Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet from the Battle of Jutland (Skagerrakschlacht in the German). Rather than chasing up the history of the battle as there are quite a number of books concerning this battle, I thought, that as this was a fairly well-known and studied battle, I would start with getting the Order of Battle of both fleets worked out.

Now that turned out to be a challenge. So far, I think I have sorted the British Grand Fleet although I must admit that part of the order is a little confusing. There are four destroyers, namely HMS Shark, Acasta, Christopher, and Ophelia. These four vessels are sometimes listed in the 4th Destroyer Flotilla and at other times attached to the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron as its destroyer flotilla. I am assuming that the latter is the case. I started with the Battle Fleet and have therefore assumed the following Order of Battle for the Battle Fleet part of the Grand Fleet:

British Grand Fleet
The Battle Fleet

OK,  so that is the Battle Fleet sorted I think. The next major step will be to sort the Battle Cruisers and attending support vessels. Last will be the High Seas Fleet of Germany. The steps after that will be:

1. Preparing the name tags – both temporary names for under the bases and the permanent names for the sides of bases
2. Cutting the bases
3. Adding magnets to the bottom of the bases
4. Creating a sea surface on the base
5. painting the Ships and ocean base
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all vessels painted
7. Add name tags to the side of the bases
8. Varnish the vessels
9. Play a game and swear never to paint so many ships in a project again (of course, that will only last until I paint my World War 2 Pacific stuff – three fleets – US Navy, British and Commonwealth Forces and of course, the Japanese

Anchors aweigh!