Dazzle Camouflage Returns 2021

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-56904257

Pictured: Dazzle Camouflage recently applied at a west country / Southwest shipyard at Falmouth Docks 2021.

In the days of Radar, “Dazzle camouflage was phased out by the Royal Navy after 1945. Commander David Louis of the Overseas Patrol Squadron, said “Dazzle has much less military value in the 21st Century” but “it is very much more about supporting the unique identity of the squadron within the Royal Navy.” (BBC source above)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-58331695

More BBC coverage of Dazzle Paint and its history

2014 Mersey Pilot Boat Edmund Gardiner repainted as an art event to mark the 1914-18 WW1 centenary

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27818134

“A Venezuelan artist called Carlos Cruz-Diez designed its fancy new coat. He was commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial and 14-18 NOW – a pop-up arts outfit that is planning a series of commissions to mark the centenary of World War One … Carlos has turned the plain old Edmund Gardener into a “dazzle ship”: a piece of optical art intended to bemuse. The dazzle idea is not his, it was the brainchild of a rather conventional British marine artist called Norman Wilkinson (1878-1971).”

Quote from Dazzle Ships and the Art of Confusion, Will Gompertz BBC online 2014

BBC Teach piece on Norman Wilkinson and the WW1 origin of Dazzle Camouflage.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/how-did-an-artist-help-britain-fight-the-war-at-sea/zmkx8xs

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 31 August 2021

Royal Navy RNAS Culdrose Submarine Hunting Training Hex Grid Professional War Game

All aboard for ‘BattleShips’ to test submarine hunting skills. Trainees @RNASCuldrose 824 Squadron’s Merlin Training Facility are playing tactical games designed & made by the instructors. Wargames date back to WW2. The games featuring real @NATO scenarios are making a comeback. pic.twitter.com/12EvE3ERk7

— BBC Radio Cornwall (@BBCCornwall) December 18, 2019

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

On every naval aviator’s #Christmas list. NOW AVAILABLE at all good training establishments.

Instructors at Culdrose have designed a set of games to help trainee aircrew learn how to hunt for submarines.

This is not about playing games.
This is about learning tactics by doing. pic.twitter.com/OEOJC7ZOpP

— RNAS Culdrose (@RNASCuldrose) December 16, 2019

A few Twitter pics of hexes and the tactical board game instructions:

Some more photos and videos can be seen here:

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2019/december/13/191213-culdrose-boardgames

Man of TIN Advert Calendar 2019 Day 19: a few more photos of some handmade wooden modern warships

A few more photographs of these beautiful handmade vintage wooden battleships and accompanying maker’s Naval service ephemera: a gift from the family earlier in the year. Still some minor repair work required.

Missiles, helicopter pad – obviously post WW2.

Documents (and photo?) belonging to AB Thomas E Owen – the maker?

1957 date stamp?

 

HMS Pembroke mentioned on the discharge document was the name given to a Royal Navy shore barracks at Chatham. It was commissioned in 1878, moved ashore in 1903 and was paid off in 1983. The buildings, designed by Sir Henry Pilkington, now house the Universities at Medway.

Blog posted on 19 December by Mark Man of TIN.

Innovation in Combat – WW1 Wireless and Telegraph blog

Peter Laing 15mm British Colonial or WW1 infantry with comms team ancient and modern  – a bugler and a heliograph operator.

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

http://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/innovatingincombat/guest-post-by-len-barnett-learning-to-use-signals-intelligence-in-the-royal-navy-1914-1915/

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!

http://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/innovatingincombat/hippisley-hut-hunstanton-wireless-interception-world-war-one/

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

An improvised coastal setting for my wireless telegraph station with 54mm lead or hollowcast  Royal Navy crew. The old unclimbable ‘felt cloth over books’ cliffs may be a slight gaming problem …

Anyway an interesting WWI website to read and ponder.

https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/first-world-war-wireless-stations-england/first-world-war-wireless-stations-in-england.pdf/

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