In fact it’s not entirely different from the last project, being a naval wargaming thing, but it is a long way removed from the shores of Chile, or for that matter Peru, in 1879. Fast forward eighty five years and transport yourself half way round the globe to the sweltering shores of Indonesia and the tropical islands of the Borneo coast. The next thing that I’m going to tackle is my ‚What If?‘ Indonesian Confrontation modern naval project, which I originally thought up a few months or so ago, with the Soviet equipped naval forces of the Sukarno regime against the Royal Navy c1962-1966.

In some ways, this is a test run for the Cold War naval project that I’m planning to do next year, with some experimentation in basing and painting 1/3000th scale models as the key focus. I’m going to kick off with the Indonesian navy, which had been largely re-equipped with Soviet supplied warships by the time of the conflict. There were no actual naval engagements at the time, if you ignore a few minor skirmishes with the Dutch slightly earlier, but it’s a ‚What If?‘ project, so anything goes within the bounds of realism and historical accuracy.

As you can see, the Indonesian force consists of a Sverdlov class cruiser, five Skoryy class destroyers, six Riga class frigates and four Whisky class submarines. I also have some Kronstadt class subchasers which I might add in and, if I can find a model, I’d like to add some Komar class FAC’s. To back this lot up and provide a scenario option, I have included four ex-WW2 LST’s for amphibious operations, together with an air wing of 1/600th scale MiG-17’s, MiG19’s and Il-28’s. As a game changer, there’s also three Tu-16’s with AS-1 anti-ship missiles.

I’m looking forward to basing and painting this lot, as from previous experience with 1/3000th scale models, they’re a lot less fiddly than 1/2400th scale ironclads!