DBR (and possible DBA Naval?)

We had a pretty decisive DBR game last night, the Ottoman Turks vs. the Knights of St. John.  More on that later once I finish the battle report.  In the meantime, a teaser.  It was a good-looking game with some very nicely painted miniatures on both sides.

 Armour-plated "masters of the battlefield" (ahem...).

Gareth mentioned some interest in doing a WW1 naval game set in the Adriatic using a DBA rule variant.  Something I'm interested in doing, having played a few Russo-Japanese naval wargames using a set that appeared in an old issue of Miniature Wargames.  The rules worked well, and it would be fun to dust my WW1 ships off and give them an outing again.

I dug out what I have here in Japan of my WW1 models.  The balance of the collection- basically the really heavy stuff like dreadnoughts- are still tucked away in a box back in Vancouver somewhere.

Here are the Franco-Italian ships, including the French squadron consisting of the pre-dreadnought Voltaire, cruiser Dupleix and the destroyer Bory at the bottom right. The Italians have the fast battleship Regina Elena and a squadron of beefy armoured cruisers.

And these are my Austrians.

The only Austrian pre-dreadnought I have (at centre-right) is the Radetzky, but honestly I have always had lots of fun just gaming with armoured cruisers and lighter vessels, as well as with their larger brethren.  The Austrians have four modern light cruisers of the Admiral Spaun class that can play havoc with older, smaller ships.

I originally envisioned  a quick campaign, where the Austrians would usually have the advantage of initiative and would sail out under orders to commit GBH to some Italian naval base or other, so the idea is that they would sail pretty much as a unified fleet.  The Italians would be separated into squadrons at various places around the Adriatic, with some French back-up.

Models are 1/2400 Panzerschiffes, along with a few Italian Destroyers from C-in-C.  I also have the Panzershiffe rules, which are okay for smaller engagements,

The Panzerschiffe models are cast from resin and are fairly basic, but they are good, robust models for wargaming purposes.  I have a large fleets of Russo-Japanese War models for both sides as well, which are also from Panzerschiffes.