Little Great War - Azuria's latest battleship

Azurian pre-Dreadnought Chevalier Rouge...

Seeing Bob Cordery's Chris van Allsberg style picture of a generic French pre-Dreadnought battleship, I found it hard to resist the thought actually of making one. Not overfond of resisting temptation, I succumbed, with this result.

... or it might be Chevalier Blanc...

It looks vaguely similar to the slightly larger Carnot, also part of the Azurian fleet. It now has five capital ships, seen in line astern in the picture below: Charlemagne, Carnot, Chevalier Rouge, Hoche and Amiral Duperre.

Azurian capital ships in line ahead

Now, for the purposes of the Little Great War, I will be doubling up on the Azurian Fleet, there being, in fact, two: The Western Oceanic Fleet, and the Mesogesean Sea Fleet. It was the latter that got itself entangled with the Hellenic navy, for the loss of Amiral Duperre and two torpedo boats. The Oceanic Fleet's capital ships are to be named Gaulois, Charles Martel, Chevalier Blanc, Marceau and Amiral Ganteaume.

The Azurian fleet also features a couple of 'flatiron' gunboats of the Acheron class. Two are attached to each fleet: Acheron and Cocyte with the Mesogesean, and Phlegeton and Styx with the Oceanic. 

Two 'flatiron gunboats' Acheron and Cocyte...
They might be badly needed to repel a large scale amphibious landing...

This rather makes the Azurian navy larger in campaign terms than the Ruberian, although the latter does have the odd unit on detached service, e.g. RMS Blunderer in the Gulf of Parthia, and the gunboat Shoofly operating in Medifluvia. Separated by the while Iberian Peninsula, there will be little in the way of the one reinforcing the other. Probably. Furthermore, the Hellenic Navy will now be a handful for the Azurian to deal with - and the Turcowaz allies of the Azurians have the powerful units of the small Izumrud-Zelenian navy to worry about.

The gunboats, I admit, are overscale, but that was partly deliberate. Even so, with the fighting 'stats' according, they would be no match for, say, the Ruberian protected cruiser Endymion, the least powerful of Ruberian fighting ships. 

At the moment, with war about to break out between Ruberia and Azuria, a whole deal of planning is happening in Ruberian High Command at the Anditover Army HQ and the Admiralty. Probably the whole fleet will have to involve itself in protecting the amphibious landing upon the Norromandian Coast, with elaborate deception measures to persuade the Azurian High Command that the main effort would drop an army corps upon the Pas d'Artois, or a Division sized raid might be mounted in the Girondois region. Although Norromandia is closer to the Azurian Naval Base at Finisterre, it is thought that the imminence of invasion would bring out the Azurian fleet, where it could be intercepted and destroyed by the more powerful Ruberian Navy before getting close enough to the landing fleet to disrupt or stop the invasion. Admiral Jellibene is looking at a 'bait and clobber' scenario...

Well, that, in very broad terms, is the scheme. We'll have to see how this plays out...

Meanwhile - my apologies for the lengthy hiatus. Several reasons, for this, one being a week-long visit to see daughter and growing family in Queensland. Far from a vacation - little Eva was born the morning after our arrival (three days ahead of schedule, which was probably just as well!). Also problems with our house lighting that began before we left, and had to wait upon our return before they could be fully resolved. But I can't say the old umpty-poo has been up to much for several months, now. I've been 'finishing off' elements of my War of the Imperial Succession armies, some of which work in progress I posted two months back.

I've plenty of projects to engage my interest - it is a puzzle to me sometimes why it is so hard actually to set up a table, or to write something on this blog. I guess I'll never really know...