Some of my naval wargaming readers may be interested in this professional Wargames news story which I picked up through Twitter and on BBC local radio in the Southwest UK.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 19 December 2019
A few Twitter pics of hexes and the tactical board game instructions:
Some more photos and videos can be seen here:
I first came across this story whilst researching Naval gaming ship bases on a TMP page, an intriguing late 19th century naval and military history story
https://warisboring.com/eating-too-much-rice-almost-sank-the-japanese-navy/
If an army marches on its stomach then this colourfully illustrated article explores how the nutrition expertise of British surgeon William Willis and Dr Kanehiro Takaki was used in curing the Japanese Navy’s medical problems.
The Japanese Army was much slower to accept this and were still affected by this Beriberi malnutrition problem decades later during the Russo Japanese War of 1905.
You might find this article interesting in case you are tempted invest in some fine 20mm Jacklex Russo Japanese War figures with your Christmas money. The Jacklex website helpfully has free uniform painting guides, ORBATs and Mukden to Megiddo rules from Andy Callan. There is a useful 2004 Osprey on the subject and a RJW section in Featherstone’s Wargames Through the Ages Vol 4 1861-1945.
This is a different sort of article for naval gamers and military history enthusiasts but hopefully an interesting one.
Further articles in English
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3725862
This article mentions: “In 1915, Kanehiro Takaki received the ‘Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure’, one of the highest decorations in Japan. He died in 1920, and received posthumously the ‘Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun’ in that year. In 1959, a peninsula in Antarctica – The Takaki Promontory (65° 33′ 0″ S, 64° 34′ 0″ W) – was named after him.”
Never underestimate logistics …
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN, 14 December 2019
As mentioned in my recent blog posts on my Flying Tiger Pound Store Navy of eraser ships, I have sent off for two books on Naval Wargames.
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/19/my-pound-store-naval-convoy/
One is old, one new, one much borrowed, both are hopefully blue, as blue as the cruel sea …
I await my Lulu order of Bob Cordery’s recent Gridded Naval Wargames, highly recommended by several people, no doubt being printed and despatched at this very moment.
However first to arrive, full speed ahead, at the end of its hopefully much borrowed forty year library career, was Donald F. Featherstone’s Naval War Games.
It has its fans, others condemned on my blog comments it as dry as dust. A reprint is available thanks to John Curry’s History of Wargaming Project:
http://www.wargaming.co/recreation/naval.htm
This used copy (in better condition than I expected) cost only a few pounds from Better World Books, an Abe Books Internet supplier of ex-library stock whose profits go to literacy and library projects worldwide. What’s not to like?
I never borrowed this Featherstone title from my local library, it was always out on loan.
Some supposedly simple ‘back of postcard rules’ by different gamers that Featherstone starts with.
First impressions?
No obvious simple (solo) convoy game rules but should be some interesting ideas. Add Bob Cordery’s book and ideas as well, it should promise to be an interesting few months puzzling out some rules for protecting my eraser ship convoy from the Wolf Pack.
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN, 23 August 2018.
It might be stretching it a bit to call Flying Tiger a pound store, although these two packs of eraser ships cost £4 in total.
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/09/hms-flying-tiger-eraser-battleship
It’s come quite a way since picking up these in Flying Tiger a few weeks ago.
I now look forward this autumn to working out some kind of (solo) convoy gaming simulation, once I have puzzled out what to do for escorts. I might have to raid the card ships from our old family copy of the Dover Patrol game for now.
Thanks to many of you for all the excellent suggestions regarding simple naval wargames rules. I have now ordered a paperback copy from Lulu of the Bob Cordery’s new Gridded Naval Wargames which received most recommendations, as well as a £2 bashed up, ex-library copy of Donald Featherstone’s Naval Wargames.
If these rules don’t suit an old infantry skirmish gamer, there were other helpful suggestions. Thank you all.
It will be interesting moving out into new territory or terrain, a whole new language of ships and naval warfare, a world or ocean apart from H. G. Wells type Little Wars or the small infantry skirmish game of Featherstone’s Close Wars.
What next for my Merchant Shipping Convoy?
Two tone grey camouflage makes it difficult to identify individual ships, which is the point of the dark grey lower and light grey upper sections. However it makes identifying individual cargo ships in any future naval game a problem, so a few pre-war coloured funnels might return as they did in WW2.
Paints used are several coats of Revell Aquacolor Acrylics, Gunship Grey and Stone Grey for the ships and painting separate layers of Ultramarine Blue and Mossy Green onto the black card bases made from scrap art framing or mounting card. What colour the sea?
Big ships don’t leave such a wide angle wake as a small river craft. Getting some kind of bow wave and wake was more tricky, a blob of off-white paint on the bow brushed along the side of the ship and its aftermath seemed to do the trick in most cases.
I also have to name and label my convoy ships, probably with some Bronte inspired Angria, Gondal and Gaaldine names: Angrian Princess, Gondal Queen, that sort of thing that suits possible Imagi-Nation naval campaigns.
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, 19 August 2018
I am not by nature a naval gamer. Some of my school friends were but it didn’t immediately ring any bells for me as someone who likes Simple 1:1 figure gaming, none of this 1 figure equals so many men. You could argue even more so, that one ship represents even more men.
Buying HMS Flying Tiger eraser battleships as recruits for a Pound store navy?
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/09/hms-flying-tiger-eraser-battleships
The next question – What simple rules to use? Track down Featherstone’s Naval Wargaming?
What scale or range would a few cheap metal escorts be for a convoy game?
Hmmm …
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, August 2018.
My World Book Day choice is a book called Codebreakers, a highly readable book on Room 40 and WW1 Codebreaking by James Willie and Michael McKinley (published by Ebury, 2015).
Codebreakers is a very interesting book on WW1, picked up in my local branch library (childhood habits die hard!) but certainly worth buying in paperback.
The book covers WW1 code breaking, cryptography, Room 40 and Naval Intelligence.
It covers naval and submarine warfare, Zeppelin raids, the Western Front and Ireland. It also features German espionage and sabotage in America and the legacy of WW1 codebreaking, after the interwar lapse, with the transition to WW2 codebreaking and breaking the Enigma codes at Bletchley Park.
Some remarkable characters are involved like Blinker Hall and larger than life authors who wrote in fictional form about their wartime espionage exploits such as A.E.W. Mason, author of The Four Feathers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._E._W._Mason
I should imagine there are probably lots of gaming scenarios in this book for different people, although building spies and (lack of ) Signals Intelligence into games can be a challenge.
The book covers less familiar areas such as the Middle East and after the Russian Revolution. An interesting passage on Lawrence of Arabia, desert codes, telegraph wires and railways on page 249 in Codebreakers is featured here on my occasional railway and gaming related Sidetracked blog.
It looks like there are several other similar titles out there on WW1 code breaking too, well worth buying or ordering through the library.
So that is my World Book Day Choice for 2018 – what are other gamers and other people reading?
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN blog, World Book Day 1st March 2018.
Interesting WW1 signalling and comms innovation blogpost with archive photographs and many interesting articles.
In some game scenarios, failure of interception in comms and orders may have a big or random effect on the game scenario outcome.
Your carrier pigeon or messenger dog is killed, your telephone lines are broken by shellfire, your advance orders are read by the opposing player, no signal to reinforce or retire is received so your troops fight on in the same position through counter attack after counter attack. All these are interesting random events that might affect a scenario outcome. All these were likely or real problems in WW1 communications such as at Passchendaele.
At last a use for all those wiring party troops, carrier pigeon troops and flag signallers in Airfix WW1 OO/HO infantry boxes.
Passchendaele article on written by Dr Elizabeth Bruton http://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/innovatingincombat/category/wireless-telegraph/
Royal Navy naval comms and SigInt in early WW1
Brief mention of the formative experience for J R R Tolkien of being a WW1 signals officer on the Western Front https://percyswar.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/more-communication-fullerphone/
A subject explored more in John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle Earth, 2005. Historical events and historical figure gaming meets Fantasy!
Naval Raiding Party Gaming Scenario
An exciting WW1 naval raiding party scenario could be formed out of this interesting piece on Wireless Interception in WW1 based around coastal listening stations such as Hippisley Hut in Hunstanton Norfolk. Just what Marines are for!
A scenario with a chance to use my recently scrap built desert or coastal telegraph station or in fact any lighthouse model that you happen to have lying around:
https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/05/17/by-heliograph-and-semaphore
Anyway an interesting WWI website to read and ponder.
For the dedicated researcher of WW1 SigInt and Naval Signals you can now stay in Hippisley Hut http://www.norfolkcoastholidaycottages.co.uk/hippisley-hut-hunstanton
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, October 2017
Man of Tin blog 