Wargaming Miscellany

Small Battleships

2012-02-02T07:30:00.000Z

A big thanks goes to Jim Duncan, who very kindly sent me some small metal battleships so that I can use David Crook's version of MEMOIR OF BATTLE AT SEA (MOBAS) on my Heroscape™ water-tile terrain.

This means that I can now have a portable version of the game that I can take with me when I go away on holiday or when I am visiting another wargamer. All I have to do now is paint the ships ... and I would hope to be able to do that in the very near future.

How to build a hollow hull for a larger model ship from scratch

2012-02-01T21:50:00.000Z

The method I use to build a larger model ship with a normal freeboard involves building the hull in the form of a Plasticard 'box' and the then fixing a suitable superstructure to the hull.

The first stage is to cut two strips of Plasticard that will form the battleship's bow section.

In this instance I wanted the hull to fit within two Hexon II hexes (i.e. approximately 8.0”/20.0cm long and 2.0”/5.0cm wide), so each of the pieces that will form the sides of the bow section is cut to be 4.5"/11.5cm x 0.75"/2.0cm from 0.060"/1.5mm thick Plasticard.

When the two sides are glued together, they are supported by a triangular fillet of 0.080"/2.0mm Plasticard. Therefore the next task is to determine the angle the fillet needs to be cut at; I have found that the best method of doing this is by drawing it on a piece of paper thus:

As the sides of the bow section are going to be curved, the fillet must be cut at an angle that will help them curve realistically. Trial and error have shown that if the sides of the bow section are 4.5"/11.5cm long and the beam of the model is 2.0"/5.0cm, the best angle to use is the apex angle of a triangle with a base length of 4.0"/10.0cm and sides of 4.5"/11.5cm. This is approximately 55 degrees. (The actual angle used was 60 degrees as this was easier to measure and cut.)

Note 1: If the sides were longer or the beam wider, the angle would change as the dimensions of the triangle would change.

Note 2: The actual beam of the model ended up being 2.5"/6.25cm ... but I did not know this when I began construction of the model.

I chamfer the edges of the strips of Plasticard that are going to be glued together to form the ship's bow as this makes the assembly process easier. I also glue short vertical lengths of Plasticard (just less than 0.75"/2.0cm long) 2.5"/6.25cm from the bow edge on each inner side of the strips that will form the bow section. These form location points for internal strengthening later in the build process. In order to support the bow fillet I glue short horizontal lengths of Plasticard strip (each 0.5"/1.25cm long) onto the inner side of each bow side 0.4”/1cm behind the chamfered edge.

N.B. I use liquid cement to glue the pieces of Plasticard together. This does produce fumes when it is being used and can irritate the nose and throat if the gluing is not done in a well ventilated room. It is absolutely vital that any safety instructions are followed and obeyed.

The bow section is then carefully glued together and set aside to allow the glue to 'cure' for as long as possible. Because I want the bond between the two pieces of Plasticard to be as strong as possible, I usually leave the glue to 'cure' for five to six hours at least (overnight is even better).

Whilst the glue on the bow section is 'curing', I begin work on the stern section. In this instance I want the stern to curve so it is made of a single piece of 0.060"/1.5mm thick Plasticard that is 9.0"/22.5cm x 0.75"/2.0cm.

I glue short vertical lengths of Plasticard (just less than 0.75"/2.0cm long) 2.5"/6.25cm in from the short edges on the inner side of the strip that will form the stern section. These form location points for internal strengthening later in the build process.

I then glue a horizontal strip of 0.080"/2.0mm Plasticard that is 2.0"/5.0cm x just less than 0.75"/2.0cm long onto each end of the stern section strip so that they overlap each end of the strip by 1.0"/2.5cm. These will reinforce the join between the bow and stern sections when they are glued together.

Plasticard is flexible, and the thinner it is, the easier it is to bend into a curve. The 0.060"/1.5mm Plasticard used to make the stern section will bend into a curve, but because it is a thermoplastic it is easier to shape it if is warmed in very hot water and allowed to cool whilst it is held against some type of former.

In this case a former was made from basswood. The former is 2.0"/5.0cm wide and the end is cut to form the shape of the required curve.

The Plasticard strip that will form the stern section is clamped in place against the former, making sure that the centre of the strip lines up with the centre line on the former.

The former and strip are then gently held upright in a saucepan of boiling water for about ten to fifteen seconds, making sure that they do not touch the sides or bottom of the pan.

When the former and strip are removed from the boiling water, they are left to cool. This usually takes a couple of minutes. The clamps are then undone and the stern strip is removed. It should now be shaped into the required curve.

Once the glue holding the bow section together has 'cured', I glue the bow and stern sections together. I glue one side of the stern section to one side of the bow section using glue applied to the reinforcing strips, and clamp them together whilst the glue 'cures'.

When the glue holding the two pieces together has 'cured', I glue and clamp the other sides together.

Once the glue in the second join has 'cured' I begin the process of adding internal cross-pieces that will hold the sides of the 'box' the correct distance apart as well as giving the 'box' an additional degree of strength and rigidity. The cross-pieces are cut from 0.080"/2.0mm Plasticard (the central cross-pieces) or 0.060"/1.5mm Plasticard (the front and rear cross-pieces). The central cross-pieces (which are 2.5"/6.25cm x 0.75"/2.0cm) are glued in place at each end of the reinforcing strips, and clamps are used to hold the assembly rigid whilst the glue 'cures'.

The front and rear cross-pieces can then be glued in place using the Plasticard location points previously fixed to each internal side of the bow and stern sections.

Once the glue has ‘cured’ I then add a bottom (usually made from 0.020”/0.05mm Plasticard) by placing the ‘box’ onto the sheet of Plasticard, gluing it in place with liquid cement, and – once the glue has ‘cured’ – cutting around the edge of the ‘box’ very carefully.

The top deck is added in the same way, but I use 0.040”/0.10mm Plasticard as it needs to be somewhat more substantial.

The hull of my ship is then ready to have a superstructure added to it.

Back on the road again

2012-02-01T15:30:00.000Z

I had to spend time in Herne Bay again today as I had appointments to meet an Estate Agent who hopes to sell my father-in-law's bungalow for us and a representative of one of the companies who are bidding to clear and clean the house before it goes on sale. I did not get back until middle of the afternoon, but I was able to do a bit more work on my ship models before my wife returned from work.

One thing that I did manage to do yesterday was to make a former around which I could mould Plasticard to create a hull for my 'Monopoly'-inspired ship model.

I even managed to test it ... and though I say it myself, the resultant hull turned out looking quite reasonable.

If I have enough time later today I hope to refine this moulding technique and to complete some more test mouldings.

A (not much) progress report

2012-01-31T13:23:00.000Z

Unfortunately, as I had expected, real life has rather put a break on the progress I was making with my 'How to ...' blog entry. It is the end of the month ... and this meant that I had to pay a visit to my wife's bank to pay a cheque in for her. After doing some shopping I joined the queue at the bank paying-in counter at 10.30am ... and got to the cashier position at 11.15am. In that time the cashier (there was only one on duty!) dealt with six customers, none of whom had something simple or straight forward that needed to be done.

For example, one women had had her wallet stolen, in which were all her debit and credit cards as well as her Driving Licence; she had been told to go to the bank to apply for replacements for the cancelled cards ... but the bank would not process her request as she did not have any form of identity to prove she was who she said she was. The cashier had to try to deal with this without any help from any other members of staff, all of whom seemed to be sitting at their desks behind the glass partition not seeing the increasing numbers of customers waiting impatiently to be dealt with.

Coming home I got stuck in a minor traffic jam caused by a set of temporary traffic lights that had stopped working properly. They were supposed to control the traffic contra flow around some extensive roadworks, but somehow they had ended up directing both streams of traffic through at the same time, which meant that no one ended up going anywhere. The crew doing the roadworks seemed totally unaware that there was a problem ... and the final straw was the arrival on the scene of an emergency ambulance trying to get through the chaos with its 'blues and twos' on!

I finally managed to get home just in time to have some lunch, and feeling like my morning had been totally wasted. I hope that this afternoon will be a bit more productive.

Going off at a tangent

2012-01-31T07:34:00.001Z

How often have I been happily working on a wargames project when suddenly I go off at a tangent?

The answer is very simple. Too many times ... and last night was one of them!

There I was, building the hull for my latest model ship, when the idea sprang into my head that I could build model ships that I could use to fight naval battles using David Crook's version of MEMOIR OF BATTLE AT SEA (MOBAS) and that would look 'right' alongside my 15mm-scale* wargames figures. This thought then seemed to preoccupy me for the rest of the evening ... and part of the night ... until, in that stage just before one drifts off into sleep, I realised what I wanted the models to look like ... the battleship playing-piece from MONOPOLY!

My family used to own a very old MONOPOLY set, and it had a small metal battleship as one of the playing-pieces. As I child I wondered whether, if one were rich enough, one could buy enough MONOPOLY sets to field a small fleet of ships to fight battles with. (Ah! The innocence of youth!) This morning I trawled through the Internet and found a picture of one of those old battleship playing-pieces ... and it is exactly the sort of design I am looking to recreate.

It is not a perfect scale model of a battleship. It is a cartoon ... but it has the 'look' I want to achieve. The problem is that I am a good way through making a model ship to illustrate a 'How to ...' blog entry ... so what should I do?

Again, the answer is simple. Do both ... and that is what I am going to try to do over the next couple of days ... real life permitting!

* I know that there is not such 'scale' as 15mm. It refers to the notional height of the figure, but it is my 'shorthand' for that scale of wargames figure (1:100th-scale), and it is an expression that most wargamers understand even if it is not correct.

Another progress report

2012-01-30T17:11:00.002Z

I have been quite busy again today working on my next 'How to ...' blog entry. This one explains how I build the larger model ships that I use with my figure games.

The process of making the models, taking photographs, and describing what I have done at each stage of the construction of the model takes a lot longer than I expected. I had hoped to have finished it today, but it looks more than likely that it will take until tomorrow or possibly even Wednesday.

In the meantime I have been working on one or two ideas for model ships that might work with both 15mm figures and David Crook's version of MEMOIR OF BATTLE AT SEA (MOBAS). I think that it is not an insuperable problem, but that it might require a bit of ingenuity on my part.

How to build a model Steam River/Coastal Gunboat and model Steam River/Coastal Passenger Ship from scratch

2012-01-29T10:17:00.003Z

The method I use to build a small model ship with a low freeboard involves building the hull from laminated layers of Plasticard and the then fixing a suitable superstructure to the hull.

1. Making the hull from laminated layers of Plasticard
The first stage is to cut a piece of Plasticard to the size required.

In this instance I wanted the hull to fit into a Hexon II hex, so it is cut to be 4.0"/10.0cm x 2.0"/5.0cm from 0.080"/2.0mm thick Plasticard.

The next stage is to trim the oblong of Plasticard into the shape of the ship's outline. This outline is marked on the oblong in pencil and then the sections of unwanted Plasticard are carefully cut off.

N.B. I use a Stanley knife/box cutter with a sharp blade to do the cutting, and it is done on a special non-slip rubber modelling mat. A ruler with a non-slip surface is used to cut any straight edges. I strongly recommend that anyone following this method use similar tools at all times when cutting the Plasticard as it will make the whole process much safer and more accurate.

The basic outline is then sanded so that any edges are rounded off.

A second oblong of Plasticard is then cut out. This should be slightly larger than the original oblong as this will make the laminating process easier.

The original ship outline is then glued to the second oblong, and the two are weighted down in order to ensure that the fit is airtight and any surplus glue is squashed out.

N.B. I use liquid cement to glue the two pieces of Plasticard together. This does produce fumes when it is being used and can irritate the nose and throat if the gluing is not done in a well ventilated room. It is absolutely vital that any safety instructions are followed and obeyed.

Because I want the bond between the two pieces of Plasticard to be as strong as possible, I usually leave them under the weights for five to six hours at least (overnight is even better). I then carefully cut around the existing hull shape with my modelling knife, using the edge of the shape to guide my knife. I do not try to cut through the Plasticard at one go (it is far too thick to do that with accuracy), but run the knife slowly around the shape anything up to twenty times, doing a short section at a time. This takes some time to do, but by allowing the weight of the knife to do the work rather than using too much pressure to get the job done quickly, it is possible to do the whole task accurately. This is one of the reasons why I use a Stanley knife/box cutter with a sharp blade to do the cutting and not a modelling scalpel, which has no weight to it and which requires additional hand pressure to make the cut.

Once this is completed I have a thin hull shape that is made from two laminated thicknesses of Plasticard. In this case it is 0.160"/4.0mm thick. Because I want the hull to be somewhat thicker, I repeat the process of cutting out another oblong of Plasticard, gluing the hull shape to it, leaving it under weights for the glue to take affect, and carefully cutting around the shape.

I then end up with a hull shape that is 0.240"/6.0mm thick.

I could continue adding additional layers of Plasticard to make the hull even thicker, but in this case I think that it is thick enough for the model I am making.

The hull shape is then sanded so that any edges are rounded off. I also use a method that is akin to planing to remove excess Plasticard. The blade of the knife is held so that it is almost vertical to the side of the hull shape, and then it is gently scraped along the edge. This takes off a very thin shaving of Plasticard. This method does require practise, and must be done carefully so that the user does not cut oneself, hence the advice to gently rather than vigorously scrape.

2. Making the superstructure
This is by far the easiest part of the modelling process, although care is still required. As the superstructure is made from a series of different-sized boxes, the most important thing (other than using the tools safely!) is to ensure that the corners of the boxes are square when they are assembled.

In this instance the superstructure is made from two 'boxes', one large (the main part of the superstructure) and one small (the ship's bridge. I try to make the boxes in the following manner.

Cut strips of Plasticard (in this instance it is cut from 0.060"/1.5mm Plasticard) that are long enough to form the 'walls' of the box. Drill or cut any openings that are required. In this case a number of portholes were drilled into the Plasticard using a simple hand drill from a very cheap set of screwdrivers.

Glue the corners of one long side and one short side of the box together carefully. I use liquid cement that is brushed on to the join (see safety warning above) and the joint is supported whist the glue dries to ensure that the joint is square. I then repeat the process for the other long and short side. The glue takes seconds to dry, but I let it cure for thirty minutes before gluing the two pieces together to form the 'walls' of the box.

The 'lid' of the box can then be cut and glued in place and gently weighed down whilst the glue cures.

In this instance the 'lid' (which will form the upper deck of the ship) has been cut so that it overlaps the sides of the box so that when it is glued to the deck it gives the appearance of a covered way around the deck.

The same method is used to build the ship's bridge.

The main part of the superstructure is then glued to the deck ...

... and once the glue is dry the bridge is glued to the main part of the superstructure.

All the model now requires is a funnel, and this is cut from a length of Plasticard tubing and glued in place.

The basic ship model is now complete, and it can be embellished with additional bits and pieces to taste before being painted.

3. Embellishments and additions
Because these models are to be used in wargames, any embellishments and additions to the models must be robust enough to stand the sort of handling they will get. Things that can be added without too much difficulty are doors and hatches. These are made from suitably-sized pieces of thin Plasticard (e.g. 0.040"/1.0mm thick Plasticard).

One of the most obvious embellishments that can be added are one or two cowl ventilators. These were often seen on steam ships, and allowed fresh air to be drawn below decks.

Whilst these are not an essential embellishment for a model, they add period 'feel'. I had several suitable cowl ventilators in my 'spares' box and decided to use some of them.

Winches (such as those used for hauling up anchors) can also be added to the foredeck of model ships. Again, whilst these are not essential, they can add a little aesthetic detail which should not impeded the use of the model in a wargame.

4. Building a River/Coastal Gunboat
The method outlined above can be used to build a River/Coastal Gunboat. These were sometimes converted from River/Coastal Steam Passenger Ships, in which case all that would be needed would be to add a gun or two to the model. Some were built from scratch, and these tended to have smaller superstructures that were optimised to give the ship's armament the best arcs-of-fire possible.

The model that I have built represents a specially built River/Coastal Gunboat. It was constructed using the same procedures as outlined above and a scratch-built gun was added to the open deck area. The bridge does not have conventional windows. It has a slit through which the ship would be conned. River/Coastal Gunboats often operated close to shore and their bridges had to be protected from small arms fire.

The breakwater fitted just in front of the gun was made from one of the mudguards from an Airfix German Armoured Car kit. I found it my 'spares' box and thought that it would improve the 'look' of the Gunboat, especially as many of them were fitted with an armoured redoubt or splinter protection around their armament to protect the gun crew.

Progress report

2012-01-28T20:55:00.000Z

Today I have been concentrating my efforts on writing a blog entry that explains how I build some of my ship models using Plasticard. I have been writing the blog entry in the gaps in the building process (i.e. whilst the glue has been drying) and I have taken quite a few photographs to illustrate it. I still have quite a bit more to do, but I hope that the blog entry will be ready to be published at some point tomorrow.

Back from paradise ... and sat at my modelling table!

2012-01-27T19:04:00.002Z

We finally finished emptying all the cupboards, draws, display cabinets and sundry other storage places in my father-in-law's bungalow this afternoon ... and what has not been kept as mementos has either gone to the recycling centre or to a local charity shop.

We finally got home just after dark, and after a bit of a rest (and a much needed Diet Coke) I began the process of building a couple of model ships using one of the two methods I usually use. I am photographing each stage of the process and intend to use them as the basis of a 'How to ...' blog entry.

The method I am using involves laminating Plasticard to create solid hulls, and I use this method when I want to make models where the freeboard (i.e. the distance above the waterline) is quite small. As the two models I am making are going to be a River/Coastal Gunboat and a River/Coastal Passenger Steamer, this method was the obvious choice.

The following photograph is a picture of a model River Gunboat I made using a laminated Plasticard hull. Whilst it is not the prettiest model in the world (and not one of my best efforts) it does show what can be achieved using bits and pieces from the spares box.

(Some time ago I needed a model River Gunboat for a game ... and did not have one ... so I made this one very quickly from what I had in my spares box. The laminated hull had been made for another project that came to nothing, the gun was left over from an Airfix StuG III conversion, the bridge was from a model tug whose hull had been converted into a 20mm-scale Flatiron Gunboat, and the funnel came from an Airfix 'Great Western'. It took me less than half an hour to put the pieces together, and it was painted an on the tabletop within an hour. Bearing in mind how quickly it was built, I think that we can forgive its somewhat odd and unique 'look'!)

The other method I use comes into its own when I want to build a model ship with a higher freeboard (e.g. like the models featured in my recent blog entry) and this second method is completely different from the first. In this case the hull of the model is basically a box with curved sides, and I use the inherent flexibility of the Plasticard to form the curves, although I sometimes resort to using simple formers and boiling water to help make them. This is possible because Plasticard is a thermoplastic that can be formed into a shape using heat, and if it is kept in that shape until the plastic cools, its does not revert to its original shape.

Another day in paradise ...

2012-01-27T09:26:00.000Z

Most of my day can be summed up in the following little ditty (which can be sung to the chorus of 'Off To Dublin In The Green').

And we’re off to Herne Bay in the car, in the car
Where the house clear just has to be done
Where no cars are flash and there’s not much cash
For the O-APs waiting for the sun.

Note: O-APs are Old Age Pensioners, who seem to make up a large proportion of the population of this Kent seaside town.

Perhaps I might get some modelling done when I get back. Who knows?

Nugget 250

2012-01-26T19:31:00.001Z

I posted the latest issue of THE NUGGET (N250) to members of Wargame Developments this afternoon, and with luck it should be delivered to them by the beginning of next week.

I have uploaded the PDF versions of THE NUGGET and THE NUGGET COLOUR SUPPLEMENT to the Wargame Developments website, and they are now available for members of Wargame Developments to read online or to download and print.

This is the fourth THE NUGGET of the subscription year and if you have not already resubscribed, you can do so by post (please make cheques payable to WARGAME DEVELOPMENTS) or via the PayPal button on the Wargame Developments website.

Income Tax ... it's a wonderful way to ruin your day!

2012-01-26T13:44:00.001Z

I had just finished doing all my household chores, and had got all the stuff out that I needed to begin building a couple of model ships to illustrate a 'How to ...' blog entry I was going to write ... when the post arrived ... and ruined my day.

One of the envelopes was a large A5 brown one, with the words 'H M Revenue & Customs' on the front. I opened it to find that it contained my PAYE (Pay As You Earn) Tax Code for the forthcoming year ... and that my personal tax allowance (i.e. how much I can earn before I begin to pay Income Tax) had been reduced from £8105 to £1399! This would have meant that I had to pay an extra £112 per month in Income Tax next year.

I immediately contacted the HM Revenue & Customs Helpline ... only to hear a recorded message that told me they were too busy to answer my phone call and requesting me to call back later. Undismayed I kept phoning until I finally got into the queue ... which I then stayed in for over 45 minutes. When I eventually spoke to a tax adviser he told me that the reason for the reduction of £6706 in my tax allowance was due to an estimation by HM Revenue & Customs that I would need to pay the higher tax rate for some of my income during the forthcoming year.

I went through the figures on my self-assessment tax form for 2010-11 (the year they have based the estimation on) and the tax adviser agreed that I had not needed to pay the higher rate tax during that year. We then went through my estimated earnings for 2011-12 (which was less than I earned in 2010-11), and he agreed that there was no danger of me needing to pay Income Tax at the higher rate during 2011-12. He went through my file, and after some thought agreed that the tax code I had been sent was wrong and that I new one would be sent to me during the next week of so.

All of the above took me nearly two and a half hours ... and by the time I had finished I was in no mood to do any modelling. As the title of this blog entry states, 'Income Tax ... it's a wonderful way to ruin your day!'

PS. The tax adviser did explain how HM Revenue & Customs made their estimations of future earnings. Apparently they estimate that people paying tax will have a 3% year-on-year rise in income, regardless of the current economic situation. They obviously know something that the rest of us don't know!

Ship models that will work with Hexon II terrain

2012-01-25T18:00:00.000Z

The response to my earlier blog entry about David Helber's ideas about making ship models that will 'work' with figure wargames was very positive, and so I decided to have a look at the models have I already made for that purpose.

The first eight were made from Fimo™, and several were featured in the photographs of my recent MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) play-test.

Flatiron Armoured Gunboat: 4.5" x 2" (11cm x 5cm)

Armoured Gunboat: 3.75" x 1.75" (9.5cm x 4.5cm)

Light Cruiser: 5.75" x 1.75" (14cm x 4.5cm)

Coastal/River Passenger Steamer (1): 4" x 2" (10cm x 5cm)

Coastal/River Passenger Steamer (2): 4" x 2" (10cm x 5cm)

Sailing Craft (1): 3.75" x 2" (9.5cm x 5cm)

Sailing Craft (2): 4" x 2" (10cm x 5cm)

Sailing Craft (3): 3.5" x 1.75" (9cm x 4.5cm)

The next four were made from Plasticard and are as yet unpainted.

Gunboat: 6" x 2" (15cm x 5cm)

Cruiser: 8" x 2.5" (21cm x 6cm)

Ironclad Battleship (1): 10.25" x 3" (26cm x 7.5cm)

Ironclad battleship (2): 10.25" x 3" (26cm x 7.5cm)

What this comparison shows is that although the Plasticard ships are much more accurate (if somewhat distorted) models, they are just too large to represent the sort of ship they are when used with the Hexon II terrain. I have therefore come to the conclusion that the maximum size a model ship that can be used with Hexon II can be is no more than 7.75" x 2.5" (20cm x 6cm). In other words, approximately the size of the Plasticard Cruiser.

Something to ponder on methinks!

Ship models for figure wargames

2012-01-25T11:32:00.000Z

The model ships that I used in my recent play-test seemed to generate quite a bit of interest. The inspiration for them came from 'Major General Tremorden Rederring's Colonial-era Wargames Page' which is currently unavailable, although there is a link to an archived version of the website here. This website was the brainchild (and product) of David Helber, who was – along with Eric Knowles – the main inspiration for my interest in Colonial wargaming.

Here is an example of the sort of ship model that David used in his wargames:

In the section about ship and boat models David wrote the following statement about ship size and scale:

Real ships and boats are much larger than most people think. The ironclad model above is roughly patterned on the 1873 turretship HMS Devastation; it would be nearly four feet long, if modeled in accurate scale for 25mm figures. Clearly we can't even approach literal realism within the confines of a 4x8 foot gaming table. The model is simply a symbolic placeholder for the ship, in a game with a tremendously compressed ground scale.

Since we cannot make it realistic, we have to settle for making it visually appealing and useful as a game element. We can do the first by exaggerating the vertical dimension and turning the model (toy, actually) into a cartoon representation of a generalized 19th century warship, and the second by keeping it as small as possible without seeming totally ridiculous. In fact, the model is only 9" long and 2.75" wide; each turret can barely contain three figures, let alone two naval guns and their crews. Yet it can happily steam back and forth on a 6" strip of blue paper along the edge of the gaming table, provide artillery support, land marines, look roughly proportional to the scale of the battle, and add to the Victorian visual effect. If it were much larger, say even 12 or 14 inches long, it would require nearly a quarter of the table for water, severely lack maneuverability, and visually dwarf the land action (which is, after all, the main subject of the game).

Moral: be ruthless with your ship sizes. The ironclad is 9", the dhows are a bit large at 8+", the gunboat is 7.5" and the launches are 6." We know a steam launch is not 2/3 the size of an ironclad, but we live with the discrepancy in order to get a reasonable number of figures in the launch, and also keep the ironclad playable.

This is an excellent guide for anyone attempting to build model ships and boats to go with their figure wargames.

Here are some further examples of the ships and boats David made and used:

Inspirational, aren't they?

N.B. The photographs featured above are © David Helber. They have been used without his express permission as I have not been able to contact him. I feel sure, however, that he would not object too strongly to my use of them for the purpose of spreading his excellent ideas.

Is bigger always better?

2012-01-24T10:54:00.001Z

I was once told by another wargamer that he thought that only battles fought with at least a thousand figures per side were 'proper' wargames. His basic premise was that unless there were loads of figures on a huge tabletop that was covered in 'realistic' scenery, your enjoyment of the experience was considerably reduced.

I am sure that there are a lot of wargamer out there who would agree with these sentiments ... but I am not one of them. In fact, over the years I seem to have found that I am gravitating towards fielding fewer figures on a tabletop that is limited by the size of my toy/wargames room. (My table can be extended to cover an area of 6' x 4' [180cm x 120cm] but is usually set up to be 4' x 3' [120cm x 90cm].)

Yesterday's battle is a case in point. A total of sixty three figures were fielded on the tabletop, alongside four cannon, a machine gun, two gunboats, two passenger steamers, and three sailing craft. The terrain fitted comfortably onto my 4' x 3' tabletop and was put together from Hexon II terrain hexed tiles, some Hexon II mountains, a Hexon II fortification, three wooden native huts (from a toy Safari set), a resin quay bought in a souvenir shop in Croatia, and a load of Sugarcraft palm trees that began life as cake decorations. The bases for the trees were made from Fimo™.

I thoroughly enjoyed fighting the battle and – judging from the comments I have received – quite a few people enjoyed reading the battle report I wrote about it.

I suppose that I could have fought the battle using more figures on a larger tabletop, and that I could have spent hours – if not days or weeks – preparing a far more detailed terrain over which to fight ... but would I have enjoyed it more? I doubt it ... just as I doubt that I would ever have got round to fighting that battle if it needed all that pre-battle preparation.

It is my personal opinion that what makes for an enjoyable wargame is the story that unfolds as the battle is fought. Donald Featherstone advocated what he called 'narrative battles' in a chapter in his book WAR GAME CAMPAIGNS, and this is what I try to achieve in my games. The scenario should make sense and should explain why the battle will take place. It should also lay down the constraints under which the protagonists are going to have to fight. Having set the scene, the battle then unfolds in an understandable context ... and it is here that I think a major part of the enjoyment comes for me. I feel as if I am creating history, even if it is a fictional version of history ... and that is not dependent upon huge model armies and super-realistic terrain; it is dependent upon my imagination.

Memoir of Battle play-test: 'Remove that nest of Sea Rats!'

2012-01-23T18:08:00.000Z

Scenario
A group of slave-traders (who were thought to be operating out of Marzibar) set up a temporary base inside an old abandoned coastal fort on the border between the Britannic Colony of New Surrey and Fezian Madasahatta. The area was disputed territory. According to the Fezians the fort was in Fezian Madasahatta, but maps produced by Britannic surveyors definitely showed it as being part of New Surrey.

The slaver-traders – who were led by the infamous Ali Yusuf – had arrived by dhow, and quickly restored the old fort. They stationed two Field Artillery Units (each armed with smooth-bore cannon) within the fort along with a Unit of Infantry armed with single-shot rifles. A similarly armed Infantry Unit occupied a nearby abandoned native village whilst a third Infantry Unit remained aboard the dhow.

In order to stop any possible slaving raids into Britannic territory the Governor of the Colony – Sir Reginald Goodman – had ordered military units to eject the slave-traders ('Remove that nest of Sea Rats!') and destroy the fort so that it could not be used for such a purpose in the future. The forces he had allocated to the task comprised:

The armoured gunboat HMS Indolent (commanded by Lieutenant Commander Barrington Muir)
A unit of Marines (which will be transported aboard HMS Indolent)
An Infantry Unit of the Scotia Highlanders (armed with magazine rifles)
An Infantry Unit of the Madasahatta Rangers (armed with magazine rifles)
A Machine Gun Unit
A Field Artillery Unit (armed with rifled field artillery)
Two steam-powered coastal passenger ship that will each carry an Infantry Unit and the Machine Gun Unit or Field Artillery Unit

The overall command of the force was given to Colonel Charles Wells, an officer of Marines who had a lot of experience of landing operations.

News of the impending movement of Britannic troops into the disputed territory caused consternation amongst the Fezian hierarchy in Madasahatta. The Governor – Abdullah Rahman – immediately ordered his military subordinate – Colonel Saleh Usman – to assemble a force with which to 'protect the sovereignty of Fezian territory'.

Colonel Usman mobilised two Infantry Units (armed with single-shot rifles) and a Field Artillery Unit (armed with rifled field artillery) as well as the armoured gunboat Osman III (commanded by Lieutenant Harun Mohamed). He also requisitioned two dhows to transport his force to the disputed area.

Turn 1
The Britannic force sailed down the coast towards the disputed area, led by HMS Indolent.

Turn 2
Whilst the two steam-powered passenger ships moored so that they could begin unloading their cargo of soldiers and military equipment, HMS Indolent sailed further along the coast to investigate the fort.

Turn 3
As soon as she came in sight of the fort, HMS Indolent was fired upon, but suffered no damage. She returned fire with her heavy armament ... and inflicted casualties upon the Unit of Field Artillery that had fired at her.

In the meantime the first Britannic Units had been unloaded from their transports.

Turn 4
HMS Indolent continued to trade fire with the fort with the result that HMS Indolent suffered some minor damage and the Unit of Field Artillery was destroyed!

By now the Britannic force was unloaded from its transports ...

... but the slave-traders had not been idle and two of the Infantry Units began to advance to meet the 'invaders' ...

... whilst the dhow manoeuvred so that she could sail out to engage HMS Indolent.

Turn 5
Before the advancing slaver-traders could get into single-shot rifle range they were engage with artillery fire from HMS Indolent and the Britannic Field Artillery Unit. This not only caused casualties amongst the slaver-traders but also forced one of the Infantry Units to retreat.

The Britannic Infantry Units used this opportunity to advance towards the fort.

The slave-traders countered by moving forward and firing at the leading Britannic Infantry Unit (The Madasahatta Rangers) ...

... whom they decimated!

In the meantime the slave-traders in the dhow were slowly making progress out of the small harbour they had been moored in and towards HMS Indolent.

Turn 6
The casualties cause to the Madasahatta Rangers showed that the slaver-traders were not going to be an easy enemy to defeat. As the main advantage enjoyed by the Britannic force was its firepower, Colonel Wells ordered HMS Indolent and the Field Artillery Unit to fire at the advancing slave-traders. The Field Artillery Unit's fire destroyed the leading slave-trader Infantry Unit and HMS Indolent's gunfire inflicted a casualty on the other slave-trader Infantry Unit, which seriously depleted its strength.

As this was happening the Kezian convoy came into sight, heading towards the fort.

The slaver-traders in the dhow immediately crammed on all available sail and made their escape seaward, leaving their compatriots to fend for themselves!

The remaining slave-traders (led by Ali Yusuf) fell back towards Kezian territory ...

... and the Britannic troops again began to advance on the fort.

Turn 7
As there were no suitable targets, neither side fired their artillery at their opponents. The slave-traders occupied the jetty near the fort ... and proceeded to surrender to the Fezians!

The Britannic troops continued to advance, led by the Madasahatta Rangers who were intent upon exacting their revenge on the slave-traders for the casualties they had suffered.

Turn 8
A Fezian Infantry Unit stormed ashore from the dhow that had been transporting it whilst the second dhow moored next to the fort prior to landing the troops it carried. The gunboat Osman III - carrying Colonel Usman – steamed towards HMS Indolent and signalled that the Colonel requested an urgent meeting with Colonel Wells, whom he rightly assumed was aboard the Britannic warship.

Realising that the situation had drastically changed and that there was a distinct possibility that fighting between the Britannic and Fezian troops could break out at any moment, Colonel Wells signalled the Britannic troops to stop advancing with immediate effect. This order was not well received by the Madasahatta Rangers, but they grudgingly obeyed it.

Turn 9
Whilst the Fezians rounded up and disarmed the slave-traders …

… the Britannic and Fezian commanders held a conference aboard HMS Indolent.

Colonel Wells knew that the fort was situated in disputed territory, and did not want to risk starting a war without approval from his government. His force had achieved its aim – the removal of the slave-traders – but he wished to make sure that they could not return at a later date. Colonel Usman realised that his force was out-gunned by the Britannic troops and gunboat, and he looked for some way in which he could ensure that he protected 'the sovereignty of Fezian territory' without risking an all-out fight with a potentially stronger adversary.

After some considerable discussion the two Colonels agreed that the fort should be destroyed by explosives. These would be provided by the Britannic Marines and the fuse would be lit by a Fezian officer. The slaver-traders (or 'traders' as the Fezian Colonel insisted on calling them) were taken into 'protective custody' by the Fezians, who returned them to Marzibar.

Turn 10
After the explosives had been set, the fort was destroyed in a huge explosion.

It is rumoured that an independent Boundary Commission is to be set up to adjudicate where the actual border between the Britannic Colony of New Surrey and Fezian Madasahatta lies ... but who knows how long that will take nor what could happen in the interim?

Conclusion
I was very pleased with the way this play-test went because:

The rules – including the latest additions that covered the use of ships – worked without a hitch.
The six-figure Infantry Units were far more aesthetically pleasing on the eye than the 4-figure ones.
The use of Hexon II enable me – in a very short amount of time – to set up an attractive-looking terrain over which to fight this battle.

Nugget 250

2012-01-23T08:26:00.001Z

The editor of THE NUGGET sent the latest issue to me yesterday, and I will be taking it to the printers this morning. I hope to collect it on Thursday and plan to post it out to members of Wargame Developments by the weekend.

I will make the PDF versions of THE NUGGET and THE NUGGET COLOUR SUPPLEMENT available for all members to download from the Wargame Developments website as soon as I can after THE NUGGET has been posted.

A 'must have' book!

2012-01-22T15:38:00.000Z

Whilst doing our weekly shopping at the local shopping centre I happened to have a few spare minutes and was able to pay a visit to Waterstone's bookshop. As I was glancing along the shelves I saw a copy of a newly published book that I just had to buy!

NAVAL WEAPONS OF WORLD WAR ONE: GUNS, TORPEDOES, MINES AND ASW WEAPONS OF ALL NATIONS: AN ILLUSTRATED DIRECTORY was written by Norman Friedman and published by Seaforth Publishing late last year (ISBN 978 1 84832 100 7). The text is divided into four parts:

Part 1: Guns
Part 2: Torpedoes
Part 3: Mines
Part 4: ASW Weapons

Each of the parts have sections that deal with the weapons produced the major arms-producing nations including Britain, Germany, United States, France, Italy, Russian, Japan, Austria, Spain, and Sweden. The book is very well illustrated with lots of contemporary photographs and plan drawings. It also contains the main technical details and a description of the service use of the majority of the weapons featured in the book.

I already own a copy of NAVAL WEAPONS OF WORLD WAR TWO by John Campbell (Published by Conway Maritime Press Ltd), and Norman Friedman's new book compliments it as well as enhancing my collection of warship-related books.

It was a 'must have' purchase ... and I am very glad that I bought it!

Memoir of Battle: Additional rules for ships

2012-01-22T10:03:00.000Z

As I intend to use some ships in the forthcoming play-test of my MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) rules I realised that I needed to draft some rules for ships and boats.

Sailing ships:

Basic strength value = 4
Combat Dice symbols that denote ‘hits’ on sailing ships = Machine Guns/Artillery or All Units/Generals
Sailing ships count as being a Unit in fieldworks for ‘Retreat’ and ‘loss of strength value’ results
Armament fires during appropriate Combat phase (i.e. Artillery during the Combat (Artillery Units) phase and other weapons during the Combat (Non-Artillery Units) phase)
Movement = 2 grid areas and conduct a Combat
Sailing ships reduce their movement by 1 grid area in order to turn 60-degrees
Sailing ships may transport two Units (N.B. In this instance Generals do not count as a Unit and may be carried in addition to the normal carrying capacity)
Sailing ships must remain stationary for a complete turn in order to load or unload a Unit
Sailing ships are not affected by the 'maximum movement on a water grid area' rule.

Steam ships:

Basic strength value (Unarmoured vessels) = 5
Basic strength value (Armoured vessels) = 6
Combat Dice symbols that denote ‘hits’ on steam ships = Machine Guns/Artillery or All Units/Generals
Steam ships count as being a Unit in fieldworks for ‘Retreat’ and ‘loss of strength value’ results
Armament fires during appropriate Combat phase (i.e. Artillery during the Combat (Artillery Units) phase and other weapons during the Combat (Non-Artillery Units) phase)
Movement = 3 grid areas and conduct a Combat
Steam ships reduce their movement by 1 grid area in order to turn 60-degrees
Steam ships may transport two Units (N.B. In this instance Generals do not count as a Unit and may be carried in addition to the normal carrying capacity)
Steam ships must remain stationary for a complete turn in order to load or unload a Unit
Steam ships are not affected by the 'maximum movement on a water grid area' rule.

If these rules work during the play-test I will add them to the next draft of my MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) rules.

Preparing for the next Memoir of Battle play-test

2012-01-21T17:13:00.001Z

As I had some spare time this afternoon, I decided to prepare the terrain for the next MEMOIR OF BATTLE play-test.

As you can see, the slave-traders have set up their base inside an old abandoned coastal fort which is right on the border between the Britannic Colony of New Surrey and Fezian Madasahatta. According to the Fezians the fort is in their territory, but Britannic maps show it as being part of New Surrey.

The close-up photograph of the slaver-traders fort shows that they have mounted two smooth-bore Field Gun Units in the fort, one pointing out to sea and the other towards New Surrey. The fortress is occupied by one-third of the slave-trader's army, another third occupies the nearby abandoned native village, and the remaining third have stayed aboard the dhow that the slaver-traders arrived in.

It is thought that the Governor of New Surrey has sent three Infantry Units, a Machine Gun Unit, a Field Gun Unit, and a Gunboat to 'remove' the slaver-traders as quickly as possible. News of this 'intervention' has reached the ears of the local Fezian commander, and it is believed that he is in the process of sending a similar-sized force to ensure that Fezian sovereignty (and territory) are not violated.

Some thoughts on the recent play-tests

2012-01-21T10:52:00.001Z

At the time the two recent play-tests of MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) and MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT) seemed to go quite well, but in retrospect something has been niggling away in my thoughts. It is nothing to do with the mechanisms or the turn sequence; it is to do with the aesthetics of the tabletop.

We know that the enjoyment of food is enhanced by how it looks. In other words, 'we eat with our eyes'. I think that there is an element of this that also applies to wargames, and that the aesthetic appeal of the tabletop enhances the enjoyment of the battle that is being fought.

I am not suggesting that the only 'good' wargames are those that are fought using beautifully painted figures moving across a diorama-standard terrain; far from it. I have seen such wargames at shows, and have often remarked on how good they looked and how miserable the players seemed to be! Too often they have seemed to be so intent on their 'moving diorama' that they never actually end up fighting a battle but merely acting as figure movers.

What I mean by the aesthetic of the tabletop is more to do with how the battle looks as it progresses ... and in my case this is reflected in how casualties are recorded in MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) and MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT). As the rules stand at the moment, figures are removed or counters are used to show the gradual degrading of a Units ability to fight. In the former case this leads to a Unit being reduced to a single figure before it is finally 'destroyed' and in the latter a Unit has to 'drag around with it' a load of counters. Neither of these is aesthetically pleasing to the eye and in my opinion they reduce the players' enjoyment of the battle.

I have mentioned this matter before on my blog, but the two play-tests brought the topic back to mind. For battles where figures are removed, I am going to adopt the concept that I understand Richard Borg has used with his figure version of BATTLE CRY! For example, this involves Infantry Units having six (and not four) figures. Three figures can be removed without detracting from the aesthetic 'look' of the Unit, and when the Unit has a fourth casualty it is removed altogether. For battles where Units are mounted on a common base the situation is even easier to solve; I will just 'borrow' the system of magnetic Strength Markers from MEGABLITZ.

By adopting these two simple solutions I hope to improve the aesthetics of the tabletop in future MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) and MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT) battles. The proof of the pudding will be if, when 'we eat with our eyes', the whole thing looks better than it previously did.

A visitor, some gifts, and two wargames!

2012-01-20T19:36:00.003Z

Tim Gow (a long-time wargaming friend, fellow blogger, fellow member of Wargame Developments, and the co-organiser of the annual Conference of Wargamers [COW]) was in London yesterday and was able to visit my wife and I last night. During the day he had met up with David Crook (another long-time wargaming friend, blogger, and a recently joined member of Wargame Developments) who had given Tim some bits and pieces for me which, when added to the stuff Tim had brought me as well, meant that my numerous wargame collections (especially my 54mm FUNNY LITTLE WARS and Colonial collections) have had some interesting additions and enhancements!

Before dinner Tim and I were able to play-test the latest published versions of MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) and MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT). These play-tests were extemporised with what I had available to hand:

The hexed board from my original copy of BATTLE CRY! was used as the playing surface for both play-tests.
The figures were from my 15mm Colonial (for the MOB play-test) and Inter-war collections (for the MOMBAT play-test).
The dice were from my copies of BATTLE CRY! (for the MOB play-test) and MEMOIR '44. (for the MOMBAT play-test)
The 15mm model tanks (for the MOMBAT play-test) were from my small collection of Hasbro's AXIS & ALLIES MINIATURES .
The fortifications and barbed wire (for the MOMBAT play-test) were from my copy of MEMOIR '44.

In both play-tests Tim defended and I attacked. For the MEMOIR OF BATTLE play-test I commanded a force of Arab infantry and artillery (six Units of Infantry armed with single-shot rifles and two Artillery Units armed with smooth-bore field guns) and Tim commanded a British force that had four Infantry Units armed with magazine rifles, a Machine Gun Unit, and an Artillery Unit armed with a rifled field gun. Needless-to-say firepower prevailed over numbers, and my force was shot to pieces before it could get close enough to overwhelm the British troops.

In the second MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE play-test Tim's troops consisted of four Infantry Units, a Machine Gun Unit, a Field Gun Unit, and a Tank Unit. I commanded a larger force that comprised eight Infantry Units, two Machine Gun Units, a Field Gun Unit, and a Tank Unit. Tim had placed all his Infantry and Machine Gun units behind fieldworks, and this more than compensated for his lack of numbers. That said, even though he lost his Tank and Artillery Units, he still managed to win convincingly as it proved impossible for me to inflict serious casualties on his dug-in troops.

These play-tests were very helpful as they proved that someone who had never used the rules before could pick up their essentials in a matter of minutes. Tim has had quite a lot of experience using Richard Borg's COMMAND & COLORS rules, but although they have a similar combat system to MEMOIR OF BATTLE and MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE, the turn sequence is very different. This was the only thing that Tim seemed to get hung up about at first, but he soon realised that having a separate Artillery Combat phase before both sides moved and/or fired non-artillery weapons forced players to use artillery correctly.

I think that Tim had an enjoyable evening. I certainly did; he has a very dry sense of humour as well as being a very willing and thoughtful wargame opponent, and I am looking forward to the next time that he is able to pay my wife and I a visit.

More insomnia ... but no good ideas!

2012-01-19T09:11:00.001Z

I had another rather sleepless night last night ... but this time I had no good wargaming ideas to fill my waking hours. I did do some thinking about my Imagi-world of 1891 and the possibility of using a small conflict between Britannia and Fezia on the island of Madasahatta as the background for a play-test of the latest draft of MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB).

The scenario I came up with involves Fezian support for a group of slaver-traders and pirates who have decided to try their luck on Madasahatta. They have chosen to set up camp on the coast just where the boundaries of the Britannic colony (New Surrey) and Fezian concession (Fezian Madasahatta) meet. When the Governor of New Surrey finds out about this, he sends a small force to 'deal' with the problem ... not knowing that the Fezians have also sent troops to the area to 'investigate'.

Mental mathematics is NOT a cure for insomnia!

2012-01-18T13:43:00.001Z

Last night I suffered from a bad case of insomnia. Try as I might, I just could not get to sleep. I tried reading ... but it did not work. I tried listening to an audio book ... and that proved ineffective as well. In the end I started thinking about the probability of throwing a particular dice symbol when using the MEMOIR '44 or BATTLE CRY! dice that I have utilised in both my MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) and MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOBAT) rules (Yes, I really was that desperate at 2.00am!) ... and began to realise that I did not actually need the special dice at all.

The following should make this clearer ... I hope. In the current draft of MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) the dice table looks like this:

This means that the probability of each result being achieved by a BATTLE CRY! die are as follows:

Hit on Infantry: 3 in 6
Hit on Artillery/Machine Guns and Cavalry: 2 in 6
Hit on Generals: 1 in 6
Forced to Retreat: 1 in 6

The same probability of results can be obtained using an ordinary D6 die as follows:

Infantry: 'Hit' on a score of 4, 5, or 6 (i.e. 3 in 6)
Artillery/Machine Guns and Cavalry: 'Hit' on a score of 5 or 6 (i.e. 2 in 6)
Generals: 'Hit' on a score of 6 (i.e. 1 in 6)
Retreat: 'Retreat' on a score of 1 (i.e. 1 in 6)

Note: The score required to force a ‘retreat’ is 1 because this makes it easy to delineate between a 'Hit' and a 'Retreat'

This is so blindingly obvious that I am surprised that I did not see it earlier ... but I suppose that I got so tied up in using the MEMOIR '44 and BATTLE CRY! dice in my design that I missed it completely!

Having made this 'discovery', I examined the probability of results being achieved by a MEMOIR '44 die ... and came to similar conclusions.

This means that the probability of each result being achieved by a MEMOIR '44 die are as follows:

Hit on Infantry, Machine Guns, Mortars, and Cavalry: 3 in 6
Hit on Tanks and Armoured Cars: 2 in 6
Forced to Retreat: 1 in 6

Note: The ‘Miss’ result has been ignored because it does not affect the probability of a decisive result being achieved.

The same probability of results can be obtained using an ordinary D6 die as follows:

Infantry, Machine Guns, Mortars, and Cavalry: ‘Hit’ on a score of 4, 5, or 6 (i.e. 3 in 6)
Tanks and Armoured Cars: ‘Hit’ on a score of 5 or 6 (i.e. 2 in 6)
Retreat: ‘Retreat’ on a score of 1 (i.e. 1 in 6)

Note: The score required to force a ‘retreat’ is 1 because this makes it easy to delineate between a 'Hit' and a 'Retreat'.

Working all this out whilst I could not get to sleep did not help me to ‘drift off’ … but at least I felt that the time I was awake and unable to sleep last night was not wasted.

I have been to ... Fort São Brás, Punta Delgada in the Azores

2012-01-17T09:53:00.000Z

Fort São Brás is located at one end of the seafront promenade in Punta Delgada in the Azores. It is the earliest example of a star fort built in Portugal, and its construction during the sixteenth century was supervised by Tommaso Benedetto. It became the Military Museum of the Azores in June 2006. It remains under military control and certain parts of the fort are off limits to visitors.

Entrance and Gate Guardian
The entrance is guarded by a rifled muzzle-loading cannon that dates from 1876.

It is also guarded by a sentry, in this case a member of the Portuguese Military Police.

Just inside the entrance is the Reception, where entrance tickets can be bought. They cost three Euros for an adult, which seemed good value. Almost opposite the Reception is a Temporary Exhibits Room, which at the time of my visit housed an exhibition about Portuguese military operations in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea. Unfortunately this room was too badly lit for me to take photographs, which was a great pity as it contained some very interesting exhibits.

Just outside the São Brás Fortification Interpretation Room (which tells the history of the fort) are located two examples of 47mm (3-pounder) Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns.

The Weapons Square (Praça de Armas)
This square houses example of artillery and vehicles used by the Portuguese Army, including a 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun, …

… two different sizes of Mercedes-Benz Unimog truck, …

… and a 57mm anti-tank gun (the American version of the British 6-pounder).

Passing through a tunnel from The Weapons Square (Praḉa de Armas) …

… you go under the ramparts to the next part of the Museum (The Prince Regent Battery). On your way you pass a Heavy Machine Gun Outpost that was built during World War II.

Prince Regent Battery
This houses an exhibit entitled ‘200 years of Weaponry’. The exhibits include an Italian-made 105mm pack howitzer, …

… a field kitchen trailer, …

… a military motorcycle, …

… a 120mm mortar, …

… and a 106mm recoilless gun.

In the hallway between the Prince Regent Battery and the numerous Nineteenth Century Bomb Bunkers there is another example of a 47mm (3-pounder) Hotchkiss rapid-fire gun.

Nineteenth Century Bomb Bunkers
One of the smaller bunkers houses a fine example of a French-made 75mm field gun.

The next bunker contains an exhibition of ‘Anti-vehicle Weaponry’ that includes another 106mm recoilless gun …

… and an anti-tank missile and launcher.

Once you leave the bunker tunnels, you climb steps up onto the fortress walls.

Fortress Walls
Once on top of the walls you have an excellent view of the inside of the fort.

Mounted on the seaward walls are examples of light coastal defence guns.

These appeared to be ex-naval guns.

You conclude your visit by walking around the walls and going back down the stairs (via the Nineteenth Century Bomb Bunkers) to the exit.

I spent about an hour looking around Fort São Brás and came away feeling that it was well worth the entrance cost. The museum is still being developed and I hope to go back for another visit at some time in the future.

I have been to ... Brimstone Hill Fortress, St Kitts

2012-01-16T15:42:00.001Z

Brimstone Hill Fortress is situated on the island of St Kitts (St Christopher) in the Leeward Islands in the West Indies. It now forms part of the Brimstone Hill National Park, which was created in 1987 and recognised as a World Heritage Site in 1999.

The first fortifications were built in on Brimstone Hill in 1690, when British troops mounted cannon on Brimstone Hill during operations to recapture Fort Charles from the French. The fortress was gradually extended and expanded over the following 100 years, by which time is was frequently referred to as 'The Gibraltar of the West Indies'.

The fortress was besieged in 1782 by French forces led by Admiral Comte François Joseph Paul de Grasse. The nearby island of Nevis had already surrendered to the French, and Admiral Hood’s force was unable to force the French to raise their siege, with the result that after holding out for a month, the British garrison of Brimstone Hill Fortress was forced to surrender.

Nevis and St Kitts were restored to British control as a result of the Treaty of Paris (1783), and Brimstone Hill Fortress fortifications were further expanded and strengthened to ensure that it would never again fall into enemy hands.

The Fortress was garrisoned until the outbreak of the Crimean War, after which it was abandoned. It has undergone considerable restoration since the 1960s, and this process continues today.

Areas that can be toured include the imposing Citadel, Western Place of Arms, Eastern Place of Arms, and Fort George Museum, all a steep walk up from the main parking area via a set of ramps and steps. Other areas include the Magazine Bastion, whose walls were breached by the French in 1782, ruins of the Royal Engineers' Quarters, ruins of the Artillery Officers' Quarters, Infantry Officers' Quarters, and the Orillon Bastion. The ruins of the barracks are a short walk from the car parking area.

Prince of Wales Bastion

Fort George (including the Citadel and outworks)

Note: The island of Nevis can be seen in the background.

Carronade Battery

Infantry Officers' Quarters

Orillon Bastion

Our water supply is back ...

2012-01-16T14:24:00.000Z

After four hours without water, it finally gurgled back through the supply pipes to our house.

I had left one of the bathroom taps switched 'on' so that when the supply returned I would be able to hear water flowing into the sink. Interestingly the Thames Water website announced that the supply had been restored some thirty minutes earlier than it actually began to flow ... but I suspect that it took time for the pressure to reach a sufficient level for the supply to be restored to our house. Living nearly 300 feet above sea level does impose some penalties on one's life it would appear!

Water? What water?

2012-01-16T08:52:00.000Z

I thought that there was something wrong when I first got up this morning. The water only dribbled out of the tap when I tried to have a wash, and by the time I filled the kettle to boil the water to make tea, the dribble had become a series of large drips. Now the water has ceased to flow altogether ... and after talking to my next door neighbour, it appears that everyone in the area is experiencing the same problem.

Our water supply is in the hands of Thames Water, and having realised that there was a problem, I checked their website. This told me that there is a 'Technical fault at one of our pumping stations ... Customers ... may have low water pressure or may be without water. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. We are working to fix the problem and will restore water supplies as quickly as possible.' This sounded encouraging ... until I read the caveat lower down the page that states 'Our average time for repairing leaks is currently 4 days. However, some repairs may take longer as there are numerous checks and tests we need to complete to reduce the impact of the repair on our customers.' This is less encouraging, especially as the area affected seems to include at least two schools, a small hospital, and the local shopping centre. If the water is off for more than a couple of hours, things are likely to get more than a little difficult around here.

I am waiting for the next update from Thames Water before I decide what to do. A trip to the local cash-and-carry might be a good idea, as I could buy enough bottled water to last us a couple of days ... but until Thames Water make some sort of announcement, such a visit might be premature.

The latest drafts of Memoir of Battle (MOB) and Memoir of Modern Battle (MOMBAT) now available.

2012-01-16T07:20:00.001Z

The latest drafts of Memoir of Battle (MOB) and Memoir of Modern Battle (MOMBAT) are now available in PDF format.

I hope to begin play-testing both sets of rules over the next few weeks.

Another What if ... ?

2012-01-15T10:05:00.000Z

One comment made about my previous 'What if ... ?' blog entry concerned the 'Nesonized' version of the USS South Dakota. The writer suggested that I had left too much room between the turrets, and that this had left the design looking somewhat unbalanced.

There were very good reasons why I chose to space the turrets they way that I had (mainly to do with shell dispersal being affected by salvo fire when adjoining gun turrets fired at the same time), but on reflection I wanted to see if the design did look better if the turrets were spaced closer together. The write was correct; the design did look better.

It now looks less like a modern tanker with gun turrets and more like a battleship.

I then decided to apply the design parameters I had used on USS South Dakota to the Scharnhorst ... and the results were quite interesting.

The 'Nelsonized' Scharnhorst is the least aesthetically pleasing of the resultant designs, but the two-turrets forward version bears some resemblance to the Strasbourg and Dunkerque. The one turret fore-and-aft version of the design is somewhat similar to the proposed design for the follow-up panzerschiffe that were to be built as part of Plan Z.

Costa Concordia

2012-01-14T11:42:00.000Z

I have just turned on the TV news and heard about the sinking of the MV Costa Concordia. Having just returned from a cruise aboard P&O's MV Arcadia, this was a shock, and my condolences and sympathy goes out to the families of those people who have lost their lives.

P&O insist that everyone on one of their cruises attends a safety briefing before the ship sets sail ... and although seasoned cruise passengers like me have been through it many times before, we always go. We assemble in our muster stations, where we are told what the emergency signal is (seven short blast followed by one long blast on the ship's alarm system) and that when we hear it we are to go to our cabins to collect our lifejackets or – if that is not possible – to go to our muster station where we will be issued with one. We should then remain there until the emergency is over or until the order to abandon ship is given. In the latter case we would be escorted by crew members to an appropriate lifeboat or life raft.

Assuming that the same procedure was followed by the crew of the Costa Concordia (and this would be in accordance with the international SOLAS [Safety Of Life At Sea] regulations) it would appear that this accident either happened too quickly for the proper procedure to take place or the procedure was not followed correctly. It is too early to speculate why this accident happened or why lives were lost ... but one hopes that whatever the reason, lessons will be learnt.

What if ... ?

2012-01-14T10:10:00.001Z

The recent arrival of the books about the French inter-war and the Italian Littorio class battleships started me thinking. What if the British and Americans had seen what battleship designs possible rival navies were producing ... and decided to follow suit? The results are (mildly) interesting.

First, the British ...

I took HMS Nelson as the basis of my 'What if?' and first of all decided to see what she might have looked like if she had be built with her turrets in the same layout as was used on the following King George V class battleships. I then produced a smaller, two-turret version of her design.

Then the United States ...

I used USS South Dakota as the basis of my American 'What if?'. First I 'Nelsonized' her (i.e. placed all three of her 16-inch gun turrets forward of her superstructure), and then I produced a reduced, two-turrets forward version of her design.

Aesthetically the two British 'What ifs?' seem to be better looking ships, and I could actually imaging the version with the King George V class layout being built. The American ships look unbalanced, and the 'Nelsonized' version of the USS South Dakota looks positively odd. Perhaps I chose the wrong ship as the basis of my design, but when I changed the layout to a one-turret fore-and-aft layout, it looked fine to me.

This was an interesting little exercise that kept me amused for an hour or so ... and gave me some ideas for ships designs for a possible 'Imagi-world of 1931' campaign at some time in the future.

Some new books about warships

2012-01-13T19:34:00.001Z

As will be obvious to regular readers of my blog, I like ships (well I couldn't spend so much time at sea on cruises if I didn't, could I?) ... and I like warships in particular.

Warships were (and to some extent still are) the pinnacle of military design. They are the product of a series of compromises between conflicting requirements (e.g. speed vs. protection vs. firepower) ... and I find it fascinating to read about how warship designers have tried to achieve the best balance between those requirements to produce warships that meet their country's particular needs. It is equally fascinating to see how designers have arrived at different solutions to similar problems ... and how designs that were sometimes decried as being less than satisfactory performed better than expected whilst warships that were regarded as being iconic examples of good design did not always fulfil their predicted potential.

It was therefore with great pleasure that I received the following three books via the post yesterday as they fill some empty niches in my collection.

The first book is YANGTZE RIVER GUNBOATS 1900-49 (written by Angus Konstam, illustrated by Tony Bryan, and published by Osprey as part of their 'New Vanguard' series No. 181 [2011] ISBN 978 1 84908 408 6).

The navies of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States maintained a presence on the Yangtze and other major rivers in China from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries. The gunboats they used to protect traders and missionaries from the ravages of various warlords and pirates were very active during this period, and this book describes those gunboats and gives examples of the sort of incidents in which they were involved.

The second book is FRENCH BATTLESHIPS 1922-1956. It was written by John Jordan and Robert Dumas, and published by Seaforth Publishing in 2009 (ISBN 978 1 84832 034 5).

The book has an introduction that covers the history of the French battleship building programme up to the signing of the Washington Treaty in 1922, nine chapters devoted to the design, characteristics, and service records of the various battleships that were built or projected (Dunkerque, Strasbourg, Richlieu, Jean Bart, Clemenceau, and Gascogne), and ends with a conclusion that summarises the strengths and weaknesses of each of the designs that saw service with the French Navy. It also has several very interesting colour plates that illustrate some of the colour schemes used by the French Navy.

The third book is THE LITTORIO CLASS: ITALY'S LAST AND LARGEST BATTLESHIPS 1937-1948. It was written by Erminio Bagnasco and Augusto de Toro and illustrated with drawings by Roberto Maggi, Maurizio Brescia, and Angelo Brioschi. This translation was published by Seaforth Publishing in 2011 (the book was originally published in Italian in 2008: ISBN 978 1 84832 105 2).

The book begins with a long chapter that explains Italian naval policy between the Wars. It also deals with the impact of the various naval treaties and the growing naval rivalry with France upon the development of the Italian Navy, as well as covering the re-building programmes that turned the existing obsolete Italian battleships into modern fighting units. The next four chapters cover:

The design and general characteristics of the Littorio class
A technical description of the Littorio class
The construction, sea trials, and commissioning of the Littorio class ships
The operational histories of each of the Littorio class ships

The last chapter compares the Littorio class with the contemporary battleships build by France, Britain, Germany, and the United States.

I have always had a soft-spot for the Littorio class and the Dunkerque and Strasbourg. In my opinion the Littorio class was the most attractive battleship design ever built – closely followed by Dunkerque and Strasbourg – and I am looking forward to spending many enjoyable hours reading these books.

A very good reason to be a 'retired' teacher!

2012-01-13T09:21:00.000Z

This morning's headline on the BBC News website gave me yet another good reason why I am more than pleased to be a 'retired' teacher.

I know that if I had remained in the teaching profession, I would have been one of the teachers who would have been under threat of being sacked as a result the proposed changes. I know because my last 'appraisal' judged me to be 'satisfactory' ... and 'satisfactory' is no longer good enough.

To be honest there are teachers working in UK schools that are just not up to the job, but the proposed changes will not solve the problem because the whole appraisal process is – in my opinion – flawed. Teachers are not 'appraised' in a consistent manner, nor are the standards of appraisal valid ones. For example I know of a teacher whose teaching was 'appraised' by an external consultant who observed a thirty minute section of a lesson ... and the judgement was that the teaching and learning were 'satisfactory' ... which in the current educational 'newspeak' means that it was not good enough. (The norm is now expected to be 'excellent')

That teacher was subject to a 'competency' procedure without any further 'appraisal' being made by a third party to ensure that the original 'appraisal' was valid or correct. Under the proposed changes that teacher could be removed from their post within a term if they do not 'improve' sufficiently to achieve an 'excellent' grading on their next 'appraisal'. Such a process does not seem to accord with the principles of natural justice ... especially when the external consultant's ability to make the initial judgement may in itself never have been subject to any form of appraisal!

In my case my lesson was observed for about thirty minutes and judged to be 'satisfactory'. I was told that had it been an Ofsted observation, I would have failed ... but that the observer knew that overall I was getting the best out of my students, and that what I had to do when Ofsted came in was 'to play the game' (i.e. not teach in my usual way – which I knew worked very effectively – but to teach so that I would pass the lesson appraisal). My problem was that I was just too honest, and refused to 'play the game' because I saw it as immoral, dishonest, and in the long run it would not help my students to achieve their best.

(If you are wondering how the observer who appraised me as 'satisfactory' knew I was getting the best out of my students, the answer is simple; over the course of a year the grades achieved by my students showed steady upward progress and all those who completed the course achieved better than their predicted grades.)

So when I read that headline this morning I was glad that I am now a 'retired' teacher and no longer 'active' ... and can spend time playing some real games!

I have been to ... the Caribbean

2012-01-12T11:27:00.000Z

Almost a year ago – in fact almost as soon as we returned from our last Christmas cruise – my wife and I booked our longest cruise yet ... twenty three days to the Caribbean and back over Christmas. During the past year our lives have been more than a little 'interesting', and although at one point we did contemplate cancelling this cruise, we decided – in the end – to go ahead and go ... so we did!

Saturday 17th December: Southampton
After several days of cold weather and the prospect of having to drive on icy roads, we decided to leave London as early as possible, but by the time we had got ready, had breakfast, and packed the car it was already 9.30am.

The drive around the M25 was uneventful, and by 10.30am we had just joined the M3 to Southampton. In fact we were making such good time that we were able to stop at Winchester Services for a café latte and sandwich before completing our journey to Southampton Docks. Surprisingly, although it was so close to Christmas, the journey through Southampton was no busier than normal, and just after midday we were unloading our luggage at the Mayflower Terminal. Check-in was reasonably swift, and by 12.30pm we were sat in MV Arcadia's Crow's Nest Bar drinking complimentary champagne and eating canapés.

After unpacking – and the obligatory safety briefing about what to do in event of an emergency at sea – we went on deck for the 'sail away'. This was somewhat later than planned, and by the time the ship cast off at 6.00pm it was too dark to see very much. A band and choir onshore marked our departure with a short concert of traditional carols, and despite the cold quite a few people remained on deck until the ship was well on her way out of Southampton.

Before dinner we had a refreshing drink in the Globe Bar, where we were able to listen to live music performed by a four-piece group. After dinner we retired to our cabin, where I began to read a book of short stories that I bought on Friday. It was entitled THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF NEW SHERLOCK HOLMES ADVENTURES (Constable & Robinson [2009] ISBN 978 1 84529 926 2) and it was edited by Mike Ashley. The stories were intended to fill in some of the gaps in the Holmes canon and were presented in chronological order.

The first two stories – which I read before going to sleep – were set in the late 1870s, which is when Holmes was still very young and had not yet become a consulting detective. THE BOTHERSOME BUSINESS OF THE DUTCH NATIVITY (by Derek Wilson) relates how Holmes met the famous Dr Spooner (of New College, Oxford) and solved the mystery of a missing work of art that had been stolen from the College Chapel. The second story – THE AFFRAY AT THE KILDARE STREET CLUB by Peter Tremayne – dealt with Holmes's first run-in with Colonel Sebastian Moran and his first sight of Professor Moriarty, although the latter was not involved in the matter that Holmes resolves.

Sunday 18th December: At sea
Although the weather was windy and the sea state was described as 'short swells', I slept very soundly, and when my wife and I awoke the ship had already reached Ushant. She turned onto a more southerly course just as we sat down to breakfast, and by 10.15am Arcadia was skirting the top of the Bay of Biscay.

This morning we attended a cookery demonstration by the ship's Executive Chef (Trevor Connolly). He showed how it was possible – with the right preparation and ingredients – to cook a traditional three-course Christmas Lunch in less than two hours. Now I am no gourmet (gourmand would be a far better description) but even I could recognise the quality of the food the Chef prepared ... and the enthusiasm he had for his craft. We sat and watched him at work for nearly two hours, and the time simply whizzed by.

We then had a snack lunch in the informal cafeteria-style Belvedere Restaurant, after which we went to an illustrated talk by Dr Peter Durrans. The talk was entitled 'The Age of Discovery (c1400-1600)' and it proved to be an excellent introduction to the topic. If time permits we hope to hear some more of Dr Durrans's talks during our cruise.

After the talk – and afternoon tea in the main restaurant – I began watching a video of the film DR STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB on my iPad2. This is one of the joys of owning an iPad. You can not only download and books but also videos, and before setting out on this cruise I made sure that I had downloaded a selection of some of my favourite films so that I could watch them as and when I want to.

It was soon time to prepare for dinner, although I did have some time to begin reading the next story in my book of Sherlock Holmes short stories. THE CASE OF THE INCUMBENT INVALID (by Claire Griffin) was the first of the stories set in the 1880s, and it told of the events referred to in THE SIX NAPOLEONS as 'the dreadful business of the Abernettys.'

I managed to finished this short story (and the next two in the collection, THE ADVENTURE OF VITTORIA, THE CIRCUS BELLE by Edward D Hoch and THE DARLINGTON SUBSTITUTION SCANDAL by David Stuart Davies) after we had been to dinner and the evening show in the Palladium Theatre. The latter was a tribute to the Beatles, and was an excellent performance.

Monday 19th December: At sea
Overnight the weather improved. The sea state became calmer and the air temperature rose, and by the time we had had breakfast it was not too cold sit out on the deck in shirtsleeves for five to ten minutes. I finished watching DR STRANGELOVE after breakfast and before we went to the second cookery demonstration of the voyage by the Executive Chef, Trevor Connolly.

His theme was again Christmas-related, but this time he concentrated on less well-known dishes that could be used at Christmas as alternatives or supplements to the more traditional Christmas fare. One of his assistants – who was from Goa – cooked at traditional Goan Christmas dish, a vegetarian curry containing cauliflower and potatoes. This session lasted two hours, and was so interesting that I lost all track of time and managed to miss Dr Durrans's talk about Sir Francis Drake and Captain Cook.

Before going to lunch we spent a couple of hours relaxing in the Crow's Nest Bar and in our cabin, and I read the next story in the collection of Holmesian short stories. This was THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUSPECT SERVANT, which told the story of how Holmes solved a domestic problem for Mrs Cecil Forrester. This problem was referred to by Miss Mary Morstan (who later became Mrs Mary Watson) when she first met Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson in THE SIGN OF FOUR.

After a snack lunch (we are both trying to avoid eating too much during the cruise!) we spent some time on deck, but the air temperature, when coupled with the effect of the wind-over-deck due to the prevailing wind and the movement of the ship, eventually forced us inside. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in our cabin reading and – in my case – watching the first half of the film GUNGA DIN on my iPad2. The stories I read were THE ADVENTURE OF THE AMATEUR MENDICANT SOCIETY (by John Gregory Betancourt) and THE ADVENTURE OF THE SILVER BUCKLE (by Denis O Smith, and which is also known as 'the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa)'. Both of these adventures are mentioned in passing in THE THREE ORANGE PIPS.

This evening's dinner was proceeded by the Captain's 'Welcome Aboard' cocktail party, and this was the first formal event of the voyage. The party was held around the Neptune Pool, which is the largest open space on the ship. The moveable roof was shut for the occasion, and because the air temperature was not too high the humidity was reasonably bearable ... for once!

After dinner we sat on deck for a while, and then went for a drink in the Globe Bar. Before finally going to sleep I read some more short stories from my Sherlock Holmes collection ... THE CASE OF THE SPORTING SQUIRE (by Guy N Smith) and THE VANISHING OF THE ATKINSONS (by Eric Brown). Neither story was particularly outstanding. The first seemed to be a pastiche of elements from other stories (most especially THE SPECKLED BAND) and the second dealt with the topic of inter-racial relationships that I don't think Conan Doyle would have felt appropriate for his readership.

Tuesday 20th December: At sea
The sea remained remarkably calm during the night and I slept very well. We awoke just before 9.00am, and after a leisurely breakfast in the Belvedere Restaurant we spent most of the morning walking around the ship or sitting in various venues relaxing and talking. I managed to watch the second half of GUNGA DIN as well as update my blog.

During the afternoon I attended two meetings. The first was held by members of the international fraternal organisation to which I belong. The main item on the agenda dealt with organising a charitable fund-raising event to take place later in the cruise. About forty people attended, and although I have experience of putting on such events, I was not chosen to be a member of the organising committee. Perhaps this is just as well as I had the feeling that I would not have found it easy to work with some of the members of the committee.

The second was a meeting of the unofficial 'Model Railway Club'. This was run by the Assistant Cruise Directors, and gave people with an interest in model railways (and modelling in general) an opportunity to meet and discuss their hobbies.

We also spent time looking at some of the cameras that were on sale in the ship's Photo Gallery ... and after due consideration we bought a Nikon Coolpix S5100 that was on sale at a considerably discounted price.

For a change we decided to dine in one of the speciality restaurants rather than in the main Meridian Restaurant, and we booked into the Ocean Grill. This restaurant is one of the Marco Pierre White restaurants that are a feature on several P&O ships, and having eaten in the one on MV Ventura some time ago, we expected a high quality dining experience. We were not disappointed!

We followed our meal with yet another visit to the Palladium Theatre to see the second Beatles tribute performance. It proved as good as the first, and we both enjoyed it tremendously. Although it was quite late by the time we went to bed I still had time to read THE ADVENTURE OF THE FALLEN STAR (by Simon Clark) and Michael Moorcroft's contribution to the collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories, THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORSET STREET LODGER. This is the first of the stories set in the 1890s, and proved to be one of the best written of those I had read so far.

Wednesday 21st December: Madeira
Overnight both my wife and I developed quite heavy colds. We had both been exhibiting the symptoms for some days, but had hoped that the sea air and warmer weather would help us to fight off the infection. Unfortunately, they did not.

The cold was the sort that some people like to refer to as 'man flu'. Besides the usual runny nose and impaired hearing, your head feels as if it is full of cotton wool and you seem to ache in every joint ... and you feel like you just want to lie down and sleep. As we were in Madeira, the latter was not an option, so after a large dose of Aspirin and the use of a decongestant nose spray, we set off for breakfast and then into the capital Funchal.

This proved to be an ideal solution. The warmth of the sun, coupled with the activity of walking, seemed to clear our heads fairly well, and although it did not cure our colds, it made them more bearable.

We started our visit by walking up to a small park that contained several Christmas-related tableau, including Father Christmas, ...

... a a small train, ...

... and sledge pulled by reindeer.

In the midst of all this was a monument to Simon Bolivar, at the base of which was a wreath that had been recently laid to commemorate his death on 17th December 1830.

We then made our way along the main street ...

... towards the Town Hall, passing on our way a small street market selling Christmas goods, ...

... a unique Madeiran nativity scene, ...

... and finally a full-size nativity scene that included some very life-like figures.

The Town Hall was a very imposing structure ...

... and it was situated in the main square.

We then made our way to the market, which contained a variety of different stalls selling fresh flowers, fruit, and vegetables as well a local wine, embroidery, and leather goods.

Abutting the main market was the fish market, and although it was coming up to lunchtime, it was still doing fairly good trade.

After a very nice lunch in a local restaurant, we made our way back to our ship. MV Arcadia was moored alongside the main breakwater and cruise ship/ferry terminal. Just behind her was the MV Aida Bella ...

... and across the harbour was the MV Black Watch.

The former had followed our ship in this morning, and the latter had preceded her.

One thing that I did note that I do not remember seeing on any of my previous trips to Madeira was a fortress that had been built above the town. Judging from its design it must date from the eighteenth century or earlier.

By the time that we had returned to the ship, the effects of our colds had began to reassert themselves, and we both took a short nap before our ship left Funchal for its next port-of-call in Antigua.

I did not manage to read much during the day, but by bedtime I was able to read the next story in my book of Holmesian short stories. It was entitled THE MYSTERY OF THE ADDLETON CURSE and was written by Barrie Roberts. The story is not so much about a criminal act as it is about a persistent medical problem that is affecting a 'cursed' village. A somewhat different type of story ... and none the worse for being so.

Thursday 22nd December: At sea
Yesterday's sunny, cloudless sky was replaced by a rather cloudy one by the time we awoke. The air temperature was not too low and the wind speed was only moderate, and these factors compensated somewhat for the lack of sunshine. Our bad colds of yesterday had improved slightly overnight, and a combination of Aspirin and activity seemed to help us feel better.

We had an earlier than expected start to the day as the clocks had gone back overnight ... but our alarm clock had not been reset! This was no bad thing as it gave us time to cope with getting dressed and into breakfast without having to rush ... and rushing was something that neither of us wanted to do.

We took breakfast in the Meridian restaurant, after which we went on deck for a short while before attending another cookery demonstration by the Executive Chef, Trevor Connolly. This lasted until just before midday and after the demonstration we had a drink in the Crow's Nest Bar.

Before lunch I wrote up my blog and watched the first episode of the BBC's adaptation of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY on my iPad2. I watched the second episode during the afternoon as well as reading another of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, THE ADVENTURE OF THE PARISIAN GENTLEMAN by Robert Weinberg and Lois H Gresh.

During the evening we attended the second formal dinner of the cruise, after which we had a drink in the Globe Bar and retired to bed. Before going to sleep I read another two Holmes short stories, THE ADVENTURE OF THE INERTIAL ADJUSTER by Stephen Baxter and THE ADVENTURE OF THE TOUCH OF GOD by Peter Crowther. The first of these two stories featured H G Wells as a 'guest' character, and leans towards the Science Fiction/Steam Punk genre, whilst the second had undertones of a Jack the Ripper-style murderer who collects specific body parts from his victims.

Friday 23rd December: At sea
The sea was somewhat rougher overnight, but both of us slept well despite our ongoing colds. For the second night running the clocks had been set back by one hour (i.e. we are currently operating at GMT -2) and our body clocks seem to be finding the adjustment a little difficult to cope with first thing in the morning.

Between breakfast and the middle of the afternoon we spent most of our time sitting by the Aquarius Pool at the stern of the ship. This area is sheltered from the wind and also catches the sun ... so it is an ideal place to be. It is also served by its own bar – the Aquarius Bar – and abuts the self-service restaurant.

Before lunch I watched the third episode of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY and attended the second meeting of the international fraternal organisation to which I belong. This was so that we could all be informed of the progress the organising committee had made with the arrangements for a charitable fund-raising event that will be held later during the cruise.

We both had sandwiches for lunch, as the weather was not really conducive for a cooked meal. It seemed very odd to be sitting out in the sunshine in a short-sleeved shirt in the middle of December ... but that is one of the joys of cruising towards the southern part of the northern hemisphere during the winter!

During the afternoon my wife and I signed up to take part in 'The Arcadia Regatta'. This was a boat building contest, and contestants had to build a model boat capable of meeting the competition's rules which were:

The model boat had to be made from almost anything found on the ship.
The model boat had to be able to float and carry six full cans of fizzy drink.
No item of the ship's safety equipment (i.e. lifejackets etc.) could be used to construct the model boat.
Contestants were allowed to beg or borrow equipment or materials from members of the ship's company but not to take anything without asking permission.
Pre-made models boats from toy shops were not acceptable.
The model boat had to have a name.

By the end of the afternoon we had acquired a large sheet of expanded polystyrene, two corrugated cardboard wine bottle carriers, and a toilet roll tube. We had not yet found a source of suitable glue or paint, but we had begun to formulate a design.

The design had a wide hull that was built from the wine bottle carriers (one for the centre section and the other to make the bow and stern sections) and these were to be filled with expanded polystyrene. Space was provided for the fizzy drinks to be carried close to the model boat's centre of gravity. Once the hull was completed we planned to add a bridge, deckhouses, a funnel, and masts.

By the end of the evening my wife had come up with a completely different design ... a catamaran. After considerable discussion, we decided to proceed with both designs, and then choose the better of the two to enter the competition.

Saturday 24th December: At sea
Overnight the ship passed through a storm, and we awoke to find the decks were very wet and water was dripping off the lifeboats and onto any unwary passengers sitting on the Promenade Deck.

We passed the morning doing very little, although I did manage to watch the fourth episode of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SAILOR before lunch.

During the morning there was considerable agitation amongst the smokers on board. Over recent days there had been what appeared to be a concerted campaign by some non-smokers to stop people from smoking in parts of the ship that were hitherto designated as smoking areas. Ashtrays had been removed so that smokers could not extinguish their cigarettes safely ... which raised a serious safety issue. Complaints had been made to several of the ship's officers by non-smokers because smokers were smoking in a designated smoking area that was in the sun ... where the non-smokers wished to sunbathe. Matters came to a head during the morning when that area was re-designated as a non-smoking area ... and notices to that effect were put up around the much reduced smoking area.

I am not a smoker ... but I could understand the resentment felt by the smokers at this change. The non-smokers had been perfectly happy with the situation until the ship reached latitudes where the weather had improved and sunbathing was possible; it was at that point that they began to demand a reduction in the designated smoking area ... and it said much for the attitude of the ship's Captain that he chose the course of action that he did. One wondered if he would also consider restricting sales of duty-free cigarettes on board his ship as well ... but I suspected that as this was a significant revenue earner he would not.

At about 4.30pm the ship had a visitation from Santa. As is traditional, he first made his appearance at the top of the ship's funnel to the accompaniment of well-known Christmas Carols and songs sung by the ship's choir. He then descended to the Sun Deck just above the Aquarius Bar and Swimming Pool ...

... before passing around the deck, handing out presents to selected passengers. (These were passengers with special medical and/or mobility needs.)

On our return to our cabin to prepare for dinner, we found that we had both been left presents from P&O. We opened them to discover that we had both been given a very expensive box of Belgian chocolate truffles.

We went to the Aquarius Bar for a pre-dinner drink ... and discovered that the ship was passing through a spectacular tropical storm! Although the deck around the bar is open, the bar itself is undercover, so we did not get wet whilst we watched the rain pour down, accompanied by sheet lightening that lit up the entire horizon.

Once dinner was over my wife and I had a celebratory drink before attending the midnight service in the Arcadia's Palladium Theatre, after which we went to bed.

Sunday 25th December: At sea
The bad weather of the previous evening was well behind us when we awoke. The blue sky was studded with small white clouds and the sea was a deep blue colour. In addition, our colds seemed to have finally disappeared.

We ate breakfast in the Meridian Restaurant, and it was a somewhat catastrophic affair. The waiter dropped both the starters after he collided with another waiter trying to get through the doors from the kitchen ... and then dropped my wife's main course only feet from our table when the plate slipped out of his hands!

After breakfast we opened our presents and Christmas cards, and then went on deck to sit in the shade. I watched the next episode of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY after trying to send a Christmas text message to various friends and members of my family.

The weather was so pleasant that we stayed on deck for most of the day, and actually did not bother with lunch as we did not feel hungry ... and we knew that we would have a large Christmas dinner to eat later. I spent part of the time just sitting dozing but I did spend about an hour working on the newest draft of my MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT). This came about as a result of an email I received from Ross Macfarlane, who was thinking about adding additional data so that infantry anti-tank weapons and armoured cars were covered by the rules.

The 'clash' between the smokers and non-smokers still rumbled on. Non-smokers were going into the smoking area to either sit at the tables – and then complain about the fact that people were smoking – or to remove the chairs so that they could sit in them in the sun. In the end it required the intervention of a ship's officer to defuse the situation. Non-smokers were asked not to remove seats from the smoking area and not to sit in the designated smoking area if they objected to people smoking nearby.

(As an aside, the exhaust from the ship's diesel engines could be seen drifting across the non-smoking area as this row was developing. I wondered if the non-smokers would ask the Captain to order the ship's engineer to start using smokeless, non-polluting fuel next. Somehow I doubted it!)

We returned to our cabin late in the afternoon, and before getting ready for dinner I read some more of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, THE ADVENTURE OF THE PERSECUTED PAINTER by Basil Copper and THE ADVENTURE OR THE SUFFERING RULER by H R F Keating. The latter of the two was interesting in that Watson came up with the correct solution to the problem, and Holmes had to admit that for once he was in error.

Dinner was an example of the sort of traditional event that P&O organise so well. We were greeted by a choir made up of members of the ship's crew singing a selection of Christmas carols and songs. For those of us who wanted it, dinner comprised a starter, soup course, sorbet, main course (which in my case was Norfolk turkey and all the trimmings), a dessert (my choice was the traditional flambéed plum pudding with brandy sauce), finished off with tea or coffee served with mince pies and Christmas cake! We were also given a small box of chocolates ... just in case we felt hungry later.

Monday 26th December: At sea
Overnight the weather became much more humid, and by lunchtime we had passed into the Tropic of Cancer.

My wife and I had a light breakfast (not much of a surprise considering how much we ate last night), after which we went to see the staff at the Future Cruise Desk to book cruise that will sail during the latter part in 2012. I then left my wife sitting on deck whilst I attended a talk by Dr Durran entitled 'Britain as a Great Power'. Yet again this was an interesting and though-provoking session, and I found that I was in agreement with a lot of what he said. I was able to have a long discussion with Dr Durran later in the day, and I found the experience mentally invigorating.

Just after midday my wife and I repaired to the air-conditioned Crow's Nest Bar for a very welcome cold drink. I then attended yet another meeting of the international fraternal organisation that I belong to. This was held to finalise the details of the fund-raising event ... and hopefully we will not require any further meetings! (There are some people organising this event who would find difficulty finding the brewery, let alone managing to arrange a drink there!)

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the shade next to the Aquarius Pool and Bar at the stern of the ship. The breeze over that part of the ship did much to reduce the effect of the humidity in the atmosphere, and we spent several pleasant hours there. We then returned to our cabin to get ready for dinner.

The entertainment staff had organised a 'Welcome to the Caribbean' disco on the decks next to the Aquarius Pool and Bar, and after dinner we joined the large number of the passengers who were already up there. We stayed for over an hour before going back to our cabin to prepare for the next day's visit to Antigua. I read three more of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, THE REPULSIVE STORY OF THE RED LEECH by David Langford, THE ADVENTURE OF THE GRACE CHALICE by Roger Johnson, and THE ADVENTURE OF THE FAITHFUL RETAINER by Amy Myers. The last of these was particularly interesting as part of the 'action' took place in the area of London where I live, and I actually know the pub and house that are mentioned

Tuesday 27th December: Antigua
I awoke just as the ship was beginning her final approach into the harbour of St Johns, the capital of Antigua, and I managed to photograph the sun rising over the town.

After breakfast we collected our stuff together and went ashore to join the excursion that we had booked, 'Antigua Cricketing Legends'. Along with twenty other people and our guide we drove to the 'Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground' which was built for the West Indies Cricketing Board ... by the Chinese(!) ... so that they could stage the ICC World Cup in 2007.

We were met and shown around the ground by the Head Groundsman, Freddo, who was very knowledgeable and admitted to having played for Antigua and the Leeward Islands in his younger days!

The ground was very impressive ... but lacked atmosphere ... and we got the impression that it was not as popular a venue for cricket as the old ground in St Johns.

We then went to see 'The Sticky Wicket', which is located next to Antigua's airport. The 'Wicket' forms part of the 'Stanford Cricket Ground' (which is currently closed) and its outer wall houses the West Indies Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame has only twelve members, and each has a bronze plaque on the wall. Each plaque has an image of the player and a description of their cricketing career.

The tour finished at the home of West Indies cricket, the 'Antigua Recreation Ground', which is better known as the ARG. Freddo was also the groundsman at the ARG, and he showed us around the ground.

In particular he pointed out the boards that record the names of each player who scored 100 runs or more or who took five wickets or more at a Test Match at the ARG.

We were then joined by a cricketing legend, Curtly Ambrose. He spoke to us for well over thirty minutes about his career and the players he played with and against as well as answering numerous questions. He then had his photograph taken with each of us ...

... and also signed a miniature cricket bat for us. (We also asked Freddo to sign the back of one of the bats for us as well.)

Our guide then took us back to our coach and we drove back to the harbour, although we did take her advice and tried the local beer in the Beehive Bar ... and very refreshing it was too!

Before going back aboard Arcadia we went for a stroll around the shops in the harbour area, and my wife bought me a new Caribbean shirt and a couple of loose cotton dresses for herself.

MV Arcadia was not the only cruise ship in harbour. Moored alongside were MV Aida Luna ...

... and MV Marina.

After a snack lunch and a cold drink in the Aquarius Bar, my wife and I went back to our cabin, where I began work on building the model ship we were entering into 'The Arcadia Regatta'. As this involved cutting up the large sheet of expanded polystyrene I had been given ... with a steak knife(!) ... I did it on the cabin balcony ... much to the amusement and stupefaction of some of the passengers on the nearby MV Marina.

Just behind Arcadia was a small fort that was situated on the northern side of the harbour entrance.

This was Fort James, which was begun in 1704 and completed in 1739. It was armed with thirty six cannons and was complimented by a fort built of the southern side of the entrance (Fort Barrington) as well as a battery on a small island in the middle of the bay (Rat Island Battery).

For a change we were booked into Marco Pierre White's Ocean Grill for dinner. We ate there a week before and enjoyed it so much that we had booked a second meal in the restaurant immediately afterwards. The menu was slightly different from our last visit, and yet again we were impressed by the quality of the food and the service.

We were both feeling so full after our wonderful meal that when we returned to our cabin neither of us felt like going to sleep right away. I managed to read another short story, THE CASE OF THE SUICIDAL LAWYER by Martin Edwards. This is the first of the stories set in the 1900s, and concerns the apparent decline into madness and subsequent apparent suicide a young lawyer. Needless to say, it was actually a murder that Holmes is not quite able to prevent, but whose perpetrator was quickly identified.

Wednesday 28th December: St Maarten
The ship docked in Philipsburg, St Maarten slightly ahead of schedule. The sun was already up when we awoke, and at first it appeared that we were docked next to a container port. This proved to be only partially correct, as the starboard side of the ship (which was where our cabin was located) faced the container area but the port side faced the other ships moored at the cruise ship terminal.

Sint Maarten is the Dutch part of the island, the French part being called Saint Martin. St Maarten is visited by many cruise ships, and moored alongside Arcadia when we were there were MV Seven Seas Navigator, MV Adventure of the Seas, ...

... MV Celebrity Eclipse, ...

... and MV Allure of the Seas.

The latter is the largest cruise ship in the World, and has a tonnage of 250,000 tons, a crew of 2,000, and carries over 5,000 passengers!

We went ashore, and after exploring the area around the cruise terminal we took the water taxi to the town. On our way to the water taxi we passed a very nice motor yacht called Cakewalk, which seemed to us to make an interesting comparison with the huge Allure of the Seas.

We visited quite a few shops (mainly those selling jewellery and duty free goods) but thanks to some advice from a shop assistant in a diving shop, we found a small department store where we bought the waterproof tape, masking tape, and scissors we needed to build our entry for 'The Arcadia Regatta'.

After a cold beer in a beachside bar we took the water taxi back to the cruise terminal area. We took our purchases aboard ... and then went back to find some lunch ashore and to do some more shopping!

Many of the shops in the area around the cruise terminal were traditional wooden stall known locally as Gingerbread Stalls, and they sold a wide variety of different things, including clothes, carvings, local drinks, and food.

We found a very nice outdoor cafe where we had a couple of cold beers and a snack lunch. We then returned to Arcadia, hot and tired, but feeling great! St Maarten was a very nice place to visit, with friendly, helpful people and lots of bargains to be had.

I spent about thirty minutes working on the model boat we are entering in 'The Arcadia Regatta', but a sudden downpour brought this to an end. The upside was the fact that the wind that accompanied the rain blew away many of the tiny bits of expanded polystyrene that had come loose whilst I was cutting out the 'hold' that will carry the six cans of fizzy drink and shaping the bows.

I used this enforced break to watch the penultimate episode of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY ... and then began getting ready for dinner. Dinner had a 'Tropical' theme, and after dinner there was a tropical dance party in the area around the Aquarius Bar and Pool. As we were feeling rather tired after our day in St Maarten we went to bed fairly early. I did, however, manage to read two more Sherlock Holmes short stories before going to sleep ... THE LEGACY OF RACHEL HOWELLS by Michael Doyle and THE ADVENTURE OF THE BULGARIAN DIPLOMAT by Zakaria Erzinclioglu. The first story built upon the events covered in THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL, and the second explained how Holmes helped to stop a Great European War from starting in the early 1900s.

Thursday 29th December: St Kitts
We awoke just as the ship was beginning the process of coming alongside the jetty in the harbour of Basseterre, the capital of St Kitts. Unfortunately were had to rush our breakfast as we were booked on a tour entitled 'Best of St Kitts', and we were ashore and queuing for our minibus by a little after 8.50pm.

Our guide and minibus driver was a local man called Winston(!), who turned out to be one of the best tour guides we have ever had. The first part of our tour was a potted guide to Basseterre, after which we drove out along the coast towards Romney Manor. On the way we stopped several times and looked at a flock of egrets that we're nesting in tree right next to the main road ...

... and the remains of a windmill that was used in the sugar industry.

Whilst we were stopped we noticed that another cruise ship was approaching Basseterre, and although it was unclear which ship it was, it appeared to be one of the fleet owned and run by Carnival Cruises.

Romney Manor was situated over 500 feet up Mount Misery, an inactive volcano. At one time it was one of the biggest sugar plantations and processing factories on St Kitts, and remnants of its past could still be seen, including its bell tower ...

... and the chimney of its fire house.

We then drove on to Brimstone Hill National Park. Situated at the peak of the hill is a fortress that covers over 40 acres.

I took a considerable number of photographs inside the restored parts of the fortress, and I hope to write a separate blog entry about the site in the near future.

The tour ended when we returned to Basseterre in time for lunch. My wife and I chose to stop for a cold drink (and some retail therapy) before returning to the ship. Over the past few days we had discovered that the local beer – Carib Beer – was both reasonably priced (two for three US Dollars) and very refreshing ... so we both had one!

On the way back to our ship we were able to identify the cruise ship that had moored alongside Arcadia as being the MV Carnival Valor.

Once back aboard Arcadia we had some lunch (and another cold drink) before I did some more work on the model boat we had entered in 'The Arcadia Regatta'. I used cocktail sticks to pin the sheets of expanded polystyrene together, and then sheathed the sides of the model in corrugated cardboard, which I fixed in place with lengths of masking tape. I then covered the bottom and sides of the hull with strips of waterproof tape and 'planked' the deck with strips of masking tape.

Once that was completed, I built a very simple bridge structure and funnel from spare cardboard and toilet roll tubes. This was also covered in waterproof tape, but was not to be fixed into position until the hull had been tested in the Aquarius Pool.

After a very good dinner, my wife and I tested the hull of the model ship in one of the jacuzzi pools next to the Aquarius Pool. This was done in front of as few witnesses as possible (people might have though that we were a little odd if we had done it when the area was crowded!), but much to the amusement and encouragement of the staff in the Aquarius Bar. The test proved to be very successful, although I had a few concerns about how high out of the water the hull floated.

Before going to sleep I read yet another Sherlock Holmes short story, THE ENIGMA OF THE WARWICKSHIRE VORTEX by F Gwynplaine MacIntyre. This was a positively odd story that featured early cinema, Ambrose Bierce, and Aleister Crowley.

Friday 30th December: St Lucia
Overnight the ship sailed through a tropical storm, and the wind noise and movement actually woke both of us up at least twice during the night. It was therefore not very surprising that when we got up to go to breakfast, the sky was somewhat overcast and the atmosphere very humid.

Arcadia moored just across the bay from Castries (the capital of St Lucia) near to the base used by St Lucia Police to house its patrol boats. These included two quite large vessels (one of which was named Defender) and a small launch named Protector.

These are the closest thing that St Lucia has to a navy, and they looked eminently suitable for the task they had to perform.

We went ashore at the Pointe Seraphine Cruise Ship Dock, which is a Duty Free Area. Whilst there I saw a member of the St Lucia Armed Forces talking to a local police officer. The uniform was almost exactly the same as the old US Army Woodland pattern uniforms worn until only a few years ago.

Having had a quick look around the Duty Free Area, my wife and I attempted to catch the ferry across the harbour to Castries, the capital of St Lucia. We waited for nearly forty five minutes in the sun for the ferry to arrive ... only to find that we could not get on it because a couple of passengers from an American cruise ship insisted that they had been waiting for the ferry longer than everyone else, even though they had not been in the queue in the sun! The ferry operator's representative gave us a full refund, and we walked to the nearby taxi rank and took a cab into town instead.

Castries was far more like what our expectations of a Caribbean town would be like than any of the other places we had visited to date. It had a proper market that catered for local people and not just the passing tourist trade, and we enjoyed our walk through it and the surrounding streets.

We decided that we needed to have a drink before returning to Arcadia, and we found a very pleasant bar close to the landing stage for the ferry.

After a couple of refreshing bottles of local Piton Beer, my wife and I decided to use the ferry to return across the harbour. Our attempts to buy our tickets were frustrated for some time by three American women who were demanding refunds from the ferry operator's representative. It appeared that they had used the tickets to go across the bay, but had then decided to come back by taxi. They were demanding that they should be entitled to have half their money back because they had only used the ferry in one direction. The representative tried to explain that if they had wanted to only use the ferry in one direction, they could have bought single rather than return tickets, but because they had bought return tickets and used them, they could not have a refund. They began to complain very loudly and in a somewhat threatening manner, but the arrival of a Port Authority security guard calmed matters somewhat and they finally left, complaining bitterly that they were going to complain to their cruise company when they went back aboard their ship.

(It is of interest to note that the cost of the return fare was five US Dollars, and the single fare cost three US Dollars. It seemed to me to be a lot of fuss for the sake of two US Dollars ... but I suppose that not everyone would agree with me.)

Whilst waiting for the ferry I was able to take photographs of the three cruise ships that were in port when we were in St Lucia.

Besides MV Arcadia ...

... there was the MV Astor, ...

... and the MV Crystal Serenity.

Once back at Pointe Seraphine, my wife and I enjoyed yet another Piton Beer each before going back on board Arcadia. We then had a late lunch before going to sit in the area around the Aquarius Bar and Pool, where we were entertained by a local steel drum band called Harmonize. We stayed there until the ship left St Lucia, and took part in the 'Great British Sail Away'. The latter was a programme of popular songs and tunes associated with the United Kingdom, and involved lots of singing and flag waving.

We had become aware that 'The Arcadia Regatta' was going to involve more than just a test of our model's ability to carry six cans of fizzy drink, and during the time before dinner my wife and I decided to replace the superstructure with masts and sails, thus turning the model from a steamship into a sailing craft. In order to keep things as simple as possible, we chose to rig the model with two masts, each with a triangular sail. We also looked at the possibility of adding leeboards so as to increase the models lateral stability.

After dinner we returned to the area around the Aquarius Bar and Pool, where we found some materials (plastic tubes to which the flags we had waved earlier in the day were attached) that were very suitable to use as masts and spars. On our return to our cabin I read the last of the Sherlock Holmes short stories. This was entitled THE CASE OF THE LAST BATTLE (by L B Greenwood), and it told the story of Holmes' involvement in helping to end the Great War.

Saturday 31st December: Barbados
After yet another stormy night's passage, we arrived inside the harbour of Bridgetown, Barbados just after 7.00am, although it took us until nearly an hour later before we were tied up alongside.

We had a leisurely breakfast, and then got ready to go ashore. Before we could, the skies darkened, the wind speed rose rapidly, and a brief but intense storm broke over the harbour. Almost at once there was an announcement of the ship's tannoy system calling crew to emergency mooring stations. The wind had been so strong that the ship had begun to move and there had been a danger of the gangways coming adrift.

It took about ten minutes for the ship to be re-secured alongside and the gangways to be reset in place. By this time we were in the queue waiting to go ashore, and the Head of Security told us that the winds had actually pushed the ship back over three feet from the dockside.

Arcadia was not the only cruise ship in port when we visited Barbados. Also moored alongside were MV Ventura ...

... MV Norwegian Dawn, ...

... MV Freewinds, ...

... and the Wind Spirit.

We used the shuttle bus to reach the cruise ship terminal, and from there we took a taxi to the centre of Bridgetown. Bridgetown was by far and away the most urbanised of the places we visited, and looked and felt much more like a small city than St Johns, Philipsburg, Basseterre, or even Castries.

Dominating Heroes Square in the centre of Bridgetown was a statue of Nelson, and we sat in the shade nearby before passing over a bridge across the Constitution River.

We did some shopping for souvenirs in the small market at one end of the bridge before stopping for a much needed drink in the Waterfront Cafe. As had become our custom, we drank the local lager, Banks Beer.

We then walked slowly back across the bridge, along the waterfront to the fishing harbour, and then back to the main taxi rank in the centre of the town. Within minutes we were back at the cruise ship terminal, and from there we went back by shuttle bus to Arcadia.

After we had a snack lunch in the Belvedere Restaurant, my wife and I went to the Aquarius Bar for an after-lunch drink. Whilst there I noticed that our ship was moored near to where the Barbadian Navy moored some of its patrol boats.

Like their counterparts in St Lucia, these craft looked workmanlike and capable of performing their tasks very efficiently.

Once we felt rested and refreshed, my wife and I returned to our cabin in order to finish work on the model boat we entered for 'The Arcadia Regatta'. It now had a set of sails that not only improved the look of the craft but which also helped to propel it through the water.

Because Barbados was the last Caribbean island we visited on this cruise, a special 'sail away' was held around the Aquarius Pool and Bar, and my wife and I were there when the special flag that marks the 175th anniversary of the founding of P&O was hoisted for the first time aboard Arcadia.

As it was also New Year's Eve (or Old Year's Night as they call it in Barbados), a special formal dinner was held in the Meridian Restaurant, followed by a variety of different parties to celebrate the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012. We attended the party held around the Aquarius Pool and Bar, and despite the wind and rough seas, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We finally got to bed just after 2.30am on Sunday 1st January, having had a great end to what has been a somewhat difficult and life-changing year.

Sunday 1st January: At sea
The weather during the night was quite windy, and we awoke to find moderately rough seas and relatively high winds.

As 'The Arcadia Regatta' was held during the afternoon, the morning was spent putting some final touches to the model boat ... including naming it.

My wife plaited some of the plastic streamers that we had acquired so that they were considerably stronger than single lengths of streamer, and these were used to re-rig the boat. We also named it 'Kin'ship ... which was a result of my wife constantly asking me 'Is that ***kin* ship not finished yet?'

The regatta began at 3.30pm in the Aquarius Pool. We were happy with our ship's final appearance ...

... but some of the competition looked very good indeed. They included one based on the design of a Mediterranean galley, ...

... another whose design was inspired by a Barbary pirate Xebec, ...

... Noah's Ark (including marzipan animals!), ...

... Kon Tiki, ...

... a bizarre looking raft built from plastic bottles, corks, and cocktail stirrers, ...

... and a sort of semi-submersible which was also built from plastic bottles.

Each ship was paraded around the Aquarius Pool by its builder ...

... and then placed into the Pool to see if it floated.

It is worth noting that the waves in the Pool that were caused by the wind and the ship's pitching and rolling were over a foot high at times, and that this was quite a testing environment for the model boats!

All of the entrants passed this test. They were then loaded with six cans of fizzy drinks ... and again they all passed this test as well, although at one point the semi-submersible did look as if it was about to sink.

In the end our model boat won the prize for 'Best Designed and Engineered Model Boat', and we were given a copy of the book that was printed and given to all passengers who travelled on MV Arcadia's maiden voyage.

The rest of the day passed quietly, and although the weather remained windy and the seas were moderately rough, we felt very relaxed ... and quite pleased with ourselves!

During the evening I watched the last episode of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY ... and the first episode of SMILEY'S PEOPLE. I had intended to begin reading one of the books I had saved onto my iPad, but as I had caught yet another cold (or my previous one had come back) I did not feel like doing much reading. As almost everyone we met on board the ship also seemed to have some sort of cold, we assumed that the germs were probably being spread around by the ship's very efficient air conditioning system.

Monday 2nd January: At sea
Overnight there was no real change in the weather, and it remained windy and the seas were moderately rough. My wife and I both awoke with sore throats and runny noses, and neither of us felt like doing much more than sitting and relaxing. During the morning I watched the next two episodes of SMILEY'S PEOPLE and tried to read whilst my wife dozed.

During the afternoon I attended the second meeting of the unofficial 'Model Railway Club', where the Assistant Cruise Director showed us what model railway stuff he had been given as present for Christmas.

It was then time to get ready for the fund-raising event that had been arranged by the international fraternal organisation of which I am a member. This went well and was attended by over eighty people, including the Captain and Tom O'Connor. It also raised almost £800 for various charities, including the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

After the meeting had ended my wife and I went for a drink in the Aquarius Bar before dinner. We then went to watch Tom O'Connor's show in the Palladium Theatre, after which we went to bed, hoping that we would both feel better in the morning.

Tuesday 3rd January: At sea
Although the weather had changed slightly for the better, my wife and I were still feeling unwell. It appeared that we were not alone in feeling under the weather, and from discussions with had with other passengers it seemed like everyone had exhibited some sort of cold symptoms.

During the morning we did our best to keep warm and try not to doze too much. I managed to watch two more episodes of SMILEY'S PEOPLE before my wife and I went to the Palladium Theatre to hear the Cruise Director interview the Captain.

We then had a snack lunch, followed by a rest (and a drink) in the Aquarius Bar. We spent the rest of the afternoon resting ... and dozing ... in our cabin before it was time to get ready for the evening's Portunus Club party and formal dinner. The Portunus Club was the current P&O reward scheme for regular cruise passengers, and as we were Gold Tier members (the highest level that could be achieved) we got invitations to both the Portunus Club party and the Gold Tier lunch that was held on 4th January.

The party was held in the area round the enclosed Neptune Pool ... which was very hot and humid. As a result it was quite uncomfortable for those people who attended the party as they were wearing their evening dress clothes ... and one could never describe dress clothes as being lightweight and ideal for a hot and humid environment!

The dinner was a special 'Black and White' dinner, where all those attending were supposed to be dressed only in those colours ... and most attendees actually managed to conform! We had a great meal with excellent company, and afterwards we went up to the Aquarius Bar for a post-dinner drink before going to bed.

Wednesday 4th January: At sea
Both my wife and I had a restless night's sleep due to our colds and the sometimes violent movement of the ship. We did, however, decide to get up at the usual time and to try to have a reasonably normal day ... and to a large extent we managed to achieve that aim.

After breakfast in the Meridian Restaurant we went to the Palladium Theatre to watch Tom O'Connor and the Cruise Director cook a Liverpool speciality, scouse! This turned out to be more of a chat with jokes and anecdotes than a cookery demonstration, although they did actually manage to prepare and cook a large bowl of scouse that members of the audience were able to try.

My wife and I then went to the Portunus Gold Tier lunch in the Meridian Restaurant. As usual, this was a very well attended function, and the food was excellently cooked and very well presented.

Having dined well we returned to our cabin, and whilst my wife dozed I finished watching the last episode of SMILEY'S PEOPLE. I then managed to complete the latest draft of my MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT) wargames rules, after which I watched the episode of CALLAN I had downloaded onto my iPad. It was the episode that featured two wargames (including one that takes place at an early wargames convention where one of the participants look remarkably like Donald Featherstone!) that Callan fought against Heathcote Land, and it is my all-time favourite episode.

After a hot shower that helped to clear my head somewhat, my wife and I got ourselves ready for the evening and had a pre-dinner drink before going to the Meridian Restaurant to eat.

Thursday 5th January: Azores
Neither my wife nor I slept well during the night because of our colds, which seemed to have got worse as the night went on. In the end we decided to sleep in, and when we eventually did get up, we both felt slightly better.

At one point during the latter part of the morning it looked as if MV Arcadia was not going to be able to dock at Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel in the Azores. There was a danger that the 35-knot wind would make docking too dangerous, but as the ship approached the harbour the wind speed dropped enough to enable Arcadia to get alongside and moored just after 12.30pm.

We decided that rather than stay aboard feeling ill and miserable we might as well go ashore as the exercise might do us some good. As it was, the sun was shining and the walk along the seafront did help to blow the cobwebs away. My wife had spotted that there was a small fort at one end of the seafront, and we set ourselves the goal of walking there.

As it turned out, the Sao Bras Fort turned out to be well worth walking to.

It was built in the late sixteenth century by Tommaso Benedetto, and was the first example of a star fort built in Portugal. Not only that, but since June 2006 it has been the Military Museum of the Azores! The entry cost was only 3.00 Euros each, which seemed very reasonable when compared with similar museums in the UK.

I took a number of pictures inside the fort, and I hope to write a separate blog entry about the fort in the very near future.

After our visit to the fort we walked back to the ship via the town's commercial and retail centres. We stopped on the way for a drink and a meal in one of the local cafes ... and not only were the quality and service we received excellent, the price we were charged was very reasonable as well.

On our return to the ship we were both feeling rather tired, and we spent the rest of the afternoon resting, reading, and dozing. We had booked a table at the Marco Pierre White restaurant – the Ocean Grill – for that evening, and we began showering and dressing ourselves for our special dinner just after the ship had begun the process of slipping its lines and proceeding to sea.

We had a pre-dinner drink in the Crow's Nest Bar before going to the Ocean Grill. The food and service were excellent – as usual – and we thoroughly enjoyed the evening. We did not finish our meal until nearly 11.00 pm, and we went back to our cabin almost straight afterwards to sit and rest for a while before going to bed.

Friday 6th January: At sea
The seas were a lot calmer during the night, and both of us slept better than we had done for some days. Our colds had not abated at all, and we took things easy for most of the day. We sat on deck for a short while after our breakfast, and then attended 'The Big A Factor'. This was put on in the ship's atrium, and each Department had a stand that explained what they contributed to the operation of Arcadia.

We then returned to our cabin to read and rest, and I updated my blog and re-read the current draft of MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT) to check for any typographical errors. After a light lunch and another spell sitting on deck we again returned to our cabin to read and rest. In fact I had enough time to read FUNNY LITTLE WARS by Paul Wright from cover to cover ... and it convinced me that I had to expand my collection of 54mm figures over the next few months so that I can participate in some FLW battles during the run-up to the 2013 centenary celebrations of the publication of H G Wells' LITTLE WARS.

I also managed to watch the first part of THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING – starring Michael Caine and Sean Connery and directed by John Huston – on my iPad. The original Kipling short story is one of my all-time favourites, and the film is not only an excellent dramatisation of that story but also features two of my favourite screen actors.

Dinner was followed by a drink in the Crow's Nest Bar as our usual haunt – the Aquarius Bar – was closed. As this bar is on an outside deck, it is only kept open when it is warm enough for passengers to sit outside in comfort, and as the ship is now off the coast of Portugal the bar was closed by the time we had finished dinner.

Saturday 7th January: At sea
After another reasonably calm night my wife and I awoke to find the sun shining through the cloud and the sea looking silvery-grey. We had a late breakfast in the Belvedere Restaurant, and then spent some time on deck before going to the Crow's Nest Bar. The latter was quite crowded as it is one of the warmer and quieter public spaces aboard Arcadia.

I managed to watch the second half of THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING before lunch, and after lunch my wife and I attended a concert by the ship's choir. We then returned to our cabin and I spent time re-drafting my MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) rules so that they incorporate some of the changes I made when I re-drafted the latest version of my MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT) rules. I then watched the first half of KIM on my iPad. I had not seen the film for many years, and had forgotten just how good it was.

Just after 6.00pm we began getting ready for the last formal dinner of the cruise. As was usual, this dinner was marked by a parade through the restaurant by the chefs and galley brigade, and by a special menu that included one of my favourite dishes ... Boeuf Wellington!

The after-dinner entertainment in the Palladium Theatre was provided by Tom O'Connor, and his constant stream of jokes and funny stories – all told without recourse to bad language – kept us amused for nearly an hour. We then went to the Crow's Nest Bar for a final drink before going to bed.

Sunday 8th January: At sea
Overnight the ship passed out of the northern part of the Bay of Biscay, and as we awoke Arcadia was approaching Ushant and the entrance to the western end of the English Channel. The sky was overcast and the sea was dark grey.

As it was our last full day at sea we did not rush to get ready for breakfast. Instead we began getting some of our stuff ready for packing later in the day. It was at this point that we decided that we needed to buy another hold all as the amount of clothes that we had seemed to have grown!

We then went up to the Crow's Nest Bar to have a drink and to relax. I watched the second half of KIM ... and afterwards decided that I really ought to re-read the original story again as soon as possible.

We had a snack lunch in the Belvedere Restaurant, and afterwards began the lengthy process of packing our bags so that most of them could be collected before dinner for off-loading in the morning. Packing took us about two hours, and yet again it amazed me to see how clothes always seem to take up more space going home than they do when going away!

Because it was the last night aboard ship, the evening show in the Palladium Theatre was held before dinner rather than after it. The show was a non-stop medley of wartime songs and tunes, and most of the audience joined in with the most well known ones.

Dinner was a somewhat subdued affair as we said our goodbyes to the people we shared a table with for the last twenty three days as well as the stewards who served us. After one last drink (or two!) with our table companions we then went back to our cabin to pack the last remaining bag for collection and off-loading.

Monday 9th January: Southampton
We awoke a 6.30am, and prepared ourselves for disembarkation. We packed our hand luggage, and after breakfast and a final farewell to our cabin steward we went on deck until it was time for use to finally leave MV Arcadia ... until our next cruise aboard her.

Whilst on deck I noticed what looked like two destroyers of the Daring class moored at a pier on the opposite side of Southampton Harbour at Marchwood Military Port. I managed to take a photograph of the two warships, and on closer examination the pennant number on the closer of the ships appeared to be D32 ... HMS Daring's number.

We collected our luggage from the luggage hall, and after passing through Customs we went to the car park to find our car. Once all the luggage was loaded aboard we set off for home just before 9.30am. Our journey home involved a major diversion as a result of a serious road accident on the M25. This caused a traffic jam on the road we were on (the M3), and we left the motorway and drove cross-country via Farnham, Guilford, and Leatherhead to join the M25 at Junction 9. Despite this diversion, the journey only took slightly longer than usual and we were home just after midday.

The latest draft of Memoir of Battle (MOB)

2012-01-11T19:29:00.001Z

Although most of my day has been taken up visiting my father in his care home in Hornchurch, going to the bank, and doing some necessary food shopping, I have managed to finish the latest draft of my MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) rules.

I actually finished writing and proof-reading the rules whilst on my recent cruise, but when I transferred the document from my iPad to my PC it 'lost' some of its formatting. I have therefore re-formatted the rules ... and took the opportunity to make one or two minor changes.

I hope to make the latest draft available as a download (in pdf format) by the weekend.

Soldiers of the Queen (No.147)

2012-01-10T15:25:00.000Z

Amongst the pile of post that awaited me when I got back was the latest issue of the Victorian Military Society's quarterly publication, SOLDIERS OF THE QUEEN.

I have been a member of the VMS for some years, and I recommend membership to anyone who has an interest in the military history of the mid and late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The latest issue contains articles entitled:

Tailors and commission-jobbing: the seamy side of the Victorian army
Burnaby the spy: Colonel Frederick Gustavus Burnaby: An unreported trip to Russia and unattached letters from Russia and Turkey
Ottoman Uniforms of the Crimean War
Vignettes of Victoria's Generals: Field Marshal Hugh H Rose, 1st Baron Strathnairn
The Siege and Storming of Delhi, 1857: Overview and Research Bibliography
Book Reviews

This looks like being an issue that will be of particular interest to me (I am a member of the unofficial 'Fred Burnaby Fan Club'!), and I look forward to spending time reading it later this week.

I'm back ... and thanks for all the comments!

2012-01-09T16:19:00.000Z

Some of the more regular readers of my blog may well have been wondering why I have not written much of late ... and why I have not replied to any of the comments that have been made about my more recent blog entries.

The answer is very simple ... my wife and I have been on a cruise. We left Southampton on 17th December and got back this morning, having sailed nearly 9,500 miles to the Caribbean and back.

The P&O ship we sailed on – MV Arcadia – is not well particularly well equipped when it comes to good Internet connections, and as a result I was only able to post blog entries whenever circumstances allowed. In addition, I was only able to read and approve comments that blog readers made ... and not to reply to them ... so a big 'Thanks!' goes to everyone who made a comment about a blog entry since the middle of December.

But now I am back ... and I have been drafting a very long blog entry about our cruise as it progressed. I hope to publish it by the end of the week, but before I can I will need to sort through the hundreds of photographs we took to find suitable ones to illustrate the blog entry. I did visit two locations which deserve blog entries of their own ... and these should also be published in the very near future.

It has been nice being away ... but it is good to be back!

Looking backward ... and forward

2012-01-03T22:06:00.000Z

The end of one year and the beginning of a new one is a good time to take stock ... and that is what I intend to do.

Last January I was employed as an educational consultant/teacher in a Sixth Form, my father had just been admitted into a care home after suffering a sudden decline into dementia, my father-in-law was in rude (if somewhat cantankerous) good health ... and I had just discovered the chessboard in our conservatory needed to be either repaired or thrown away.

It is amazing to see how things have changed in a year!

Firstly my contract was not renewed at the end of the academic year, and at the age of 61 I decided to retire from full-time work. I had hoped to pick up some part-time work during the autumn, but this came to nothing.

My father's health has continued to decline and his dementia has progressively got worse. My brother and I finally agreed that it was no longer likely that he would ever return to his home, and the family home was sold to ensure that there would be sufficient funds to pay for my father's ongoing care for the foreseeable future.

My father-in-law's long-term partner had been quite ill by the end of 2010, and she died during the Spring. On the day of her funeral he fell over and cracked his pelvis ... and my wife and I can trace his gradual physical decline from that date. This is not to say that he gave up on life ... far from it! In fact only five days before he died we all visited the flat my wife and I were about to buy for him, and he was talking very animatedly about how much he was looking forward to moving in.

My discovery of the broken chessboard led to the development of my PORTABLE WARGAME rules ... and much enjoyment they have given me (and others) over the past year. Writing these rules led me – indirectly – to create my Imagi-world of 1891, something that I immensely enjoyed doing.

So what does the future hold? To be honest, I don't know ... but I do have some vague plans as to what I do want to achieve over the next year!

My objectives are:

To fight at least one battle per fortnight during 2012.
To paint some toy soldiers ... probably beginning with my Spencer Smith Miniatures!
To continue to develop my Imagi-world of 1891 project ... probably by fighting a campaign or two set in it
To begin preparations to fight a bath-tub campaign set on the Eastern Front, possibly starting with Operation Barbarossa and just seeing where things go from there.
To do some serious writing for THE NUGGET ... and possibly to produce a book of grid-based wargames rules
To help to organise COW2012 so that attendees will remember it as being one of the best ever!

Not a bad set of ambitions. All I have to do now it to try to achieve them!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:30:00.000Z

I would like to wish all my regular blog readers a Happy New Year!

I hope that you and your loved ones can look forward to having a good 2012, and that you all enjoy good health throughout the year.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T09:30:00.000Z

I would like to wish all my regular blog readers a Merry Christmas!

I hope that you all enjoy the festivities and don't over-indulge too much!

What is it about me and Russia?

2011-12-20T10:30:00.000Z

One of the things that was very striking when I was sorting through all the books and wargaming stuff in my toy/wargames room was how much of it related to Russia. For example, my largest Megablitz army by far is my Soviet one (it comprises an entire Army – 66th – as well as a Tank Corps, an Artillery Division, and several Naval Infantry Brigades).

Tonight I looked along the bookshelves and realised that I own several collections of fiction stories set in pre and post-Revolutionary Russia, including the following:

All the English-language editions of Boris Akunin's Sister Pelagia (‘Pelagia and the White Bulldog’, ‘Pelagia and the Black Monk’, and ‘Pelagia and the Red Rooster’) and Erast Fandorin novels and stories (‘The Winter Queen’, ‘The Turkish Gambit’, ‘Murder on the Leviathan’, ‘The Death of Achilles’, ‘The Jack of Spades’, ‘The Decorator’, ‘The State Counsellor’, ‘The Coronation’, ‘She Lover of Death’, ‘He Lover of Death’, and ‘The Diamond Chariot’)
All of Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko novels ('Gorky Park', 'Polar Star', 'Red Square', 'Havana Bay', 'Wolves Eat Dogs', 'Stalin's Ghost', and 'Three Stations')
All of Tom Rob Smith's Leo Demidov novels ('Child 44', 'The Secret Speech', and 'Agent 6').

I also own as many non-fiction books about the Russian and Soviet Navies as I own about the United States Navy ... which was another surprise for me.

So what is it about me and Russia?

Frankly, I don't know. I am sure that there are people out there who could suggest reasons ... and those that know me well will know that it certainly isn't anything remotely political that I find attractive about Russian during the bulk of the twentieth century! My only contact with Russia has been two very fleeting visits during Baltic cruises ... and what I saw convinced me that it is a country unlike any other that I have every visited.

I just don’t know why Russia fascinates me so much, but it is something for me to ponder on as I paint my next batch of Russian troops.

Grumpy ... me?

2011-12-17T14:30:00.000Z

My wife has accused me of being a GOM (a Grumpy Old Man) just because of what I wrote yesterday.

Well, if abhorring the commercialisation of Christmas is something that only GOMs do ... then she is right and I am one!

I am now off to find something else to be grumpy about.

Christmas is coming ... and tempers are getting worse!

2011-12-16T17:37:00.000Z

My wife and I had to go to the local shopping centre this morning ... and really wish that we had not. By 10.30am it was already filling up, and motorists were having rows in the car park about who had the right to park in the decreasing number of vacant parking spaces.

I managed to avoid this by pre-booking my car into with the on-site car valeting service. They wash and wax the outside of the car and clean the inside as well ... and then leave it in one of their designated parking bays. It is worth the £40.00 to have a clean car that will cope with forthcoming bad winter weather and to avoid trying to find a parking space.

Inside the shopping centre things were hardly any better. I gave up counting the number of times my feet were run over by parents pushing baby buggies the size of a small family car. They all seemed to have the same look on their faces ... determined desperation! They looked at you ... and then straight through you. They were on a mission to do their Christmas shopping, and nothing and no one was going to get in their way!

We finally managed to survive an couple of hours before we felt unable to cope with the rising tide of humanity that was filling the place up. I understand that over last weekend over a quarter of a million people visited this particular shopping centre ... and it felt that they had all come back today to have another go!

I thought that Christmas was supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men and women ... but I saw little of that today.

If this is what the run up to Christmas 2011 is going to be like, I will be echoing the words of Ebenezer Scrooge and saying ... 'Bah! Humbug!'

U.S. Battleships

2011-12-15T11:28:00.000Z

I have written blog entries on previous occasions about my interest in warship design, and that quite a substantial part of my bookshelves are devoted to the storage of books on this subject. I recently had the opportunity to acquire a copy of Norman Friedman's 'U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History' ... and so I bought it!

As I already have copies of some of his other books about United States warship designs ('U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History', 'U.S. Cruisers: An Illustrated Design History', and 'U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History'), this new acquisition goes some way to completing my collection of his works.

Tank Park

2011-12-15T11:05:00.001Z

Now that my pre-Christmas spending spree on Corgi tanks is at an end, I decided to mount a 'review' of my tank park. First, the Russians ...

This is a very homogeneous collection of vehicles, and includes fourteen T34/76 and ten T34/85 tanks.

The same cannot be said of the Germans ...

This collection includes six short-barrelled and four long-barrelled Pzkpfw IV, four Pzkpfw VI Tiger 1, and three Pzkpfw V Panther tanks.

When added to my small collection of ROCO Minitank tanks and vehicles, I probably now have sufficient 1:87th-scale equipment to seriously think about fighting an Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War campaign at some time in the future. I also have quite a lot of as yet unpainted 20mm metal figures that are compatible with these vehicles, and one thing that I am thinking of doing after Christmas is beginning the process of turning some of this pile of lead into painted figures that I can use with my Corgi tanks.

A revised MOBAS icon ... already!

2011-12-14T19:26:00.002Z

In the light of Peter Douglas's comment to my very recent blog entry, I realised that by adding a fourth funnel to the Combat Dice icon I had designed for the Torpedo Boat/Destroyer, it was much easier to tell each type of ship apart!

Here is the new icon ...

Dice symbols for Memoir of Battle at Sea (MOBAS)

2011-12-14T18:48:00.001Z

Having just completed new versions of MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT) and MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) it seemed logical - in the light of developmental work that David Crook is undertaking on the naval 'sibling' of these wargames rules - to think about revising my MEMOIR OF BATTLE AT SEA (MOMBAS) wargames rules.

As these rules will also use Combat Dice, I needed to design some icons for the dice faces.

The Battleship, (to indicate a 'hit' on that type of ship) ...

... the Cruiser, (to indicate a 'hit' on that type of ship) ...

... the Torpedo Boat/Destroyer, (to indicate a 'hit' on that type of ship) ...

... the Explosion (for 'hits' on any type of ship), ...

... and the Shell Splash (to indicate a 'miss').

I hope to continue work on these rules over the next few days, but having designed these icons I feel that I am already well on the way with this project.

The final three and fourpence ... for a while!

2011-12-14T11:43:00.003Z

My final purchase of Corgi tanks via eBay arrived this morning from the United States, and comprised two long-barrelled Pzkpfw IV tanks and two T34/76 tanks.

I hope to stage a 'review' of my Corgi Russian and German tank forces later today ... but in the meantime I am working on another project ...

Yet another three and fourpence ...

2011-12-13T09:00:00.000Z

This morning's post brought some more of the Corgi tanks that I have been buying via eBay. This time the delivery contained two German tanks and one Russian tank.

The Pzkpfw IV and the T34 are perfect, but the Pzkpfw VI Tiger has a slightly bent barrel and has lost its muzzle brake. This is not a disaster as I don't think that it will take much of an effort to repair this damage, especially as it would appear to have been done at the factory and not during play.

I am still expecting a further delivery of German and Russian tanks from the United States, after which I think that my current spending spree will come to an end ... for the time being.

A neat bit of kit

2011-12-12T14:23:00.000Z

I am a bit of a gadget freak ... and I am always on the lookout for things that I think might prove useful. Over the weekend I paid a visit to a branch of Maplins (the electronics retailer not the holiday camp!) and bought myself a new gadget for my iPad2 ... a Bluetooth keypad.

As far as I am concerned, one of the main drawbacks of the iPad2 is its touch screen keypad; it just does not lend itself to prolonged use. It is great for surfing the 'net ... but not if you want to type up blog entries or do any word processing. The Bluetooth keyboard means that I can touch-type (well, two-finger type) my blog entries as if I were using my PC. Not only that, but I can also use the word processing application I bought for the iPad2. This means that I can work on new sets of wargames rules wherever and whenever I want to whilst I am away from home ... and not have to carry around a much heavier laptop.

The keyboard is laid out exactly like a normal keyboard and has proper keys (i.e. its does not have a 'dead fish' feel like some of the other iPad compatible keyboards that are on sale). Not only that, but it was relatively cheap (just under £20.00) and its internal battery can be recharged via a USB connector ... just like the iPad.

This is a neat bit of kit ... and I would recommend it to any other iPad user who has to do quite a lot of typing.

In the teeth of adversity

2011-12-12T08:30:00.001Z

I hate going to the dentist. Mind you, I don't know anyone who likes going, but in my case it is based on some very bad experiences when I was young. As a result, I only go when I absolutely have to ... and today is one of those occasions!

Some weeks ago I noticed a bit of pain in one of my back teeth ... but I ignored it. I put it down to being old, and bits of me starting to wear out. I assumed that in due course the matter would require my serious attention, but for the time being I could just learn to live with it.

This morning – overnight to be precise – things took a turn for the worse. The pain in the tooth had become quite intense ... and it was now obvious to me that the tooth was loose. It was time to take action ... so I did. I telephoned my dentist and they have kindly arranged to see me in about an hour's time. I suspect that when I leave I will have one fewer teeth than I had when I went in ... but with luck that will cure the problem ... and I can look forward to a pain-free Christmas.

Memoir of Battle (MOB): Latest draft now available

2011-12-11T23:07:00.001Z

I have just finished redrafting my MEMOIR OF BATTLE wargames rules into the same format as I used for the latest version of my MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT) wargames rules.

I have proof-read them ... but that does not mean that they are free from mistakes! The rules are available to download in PDF format from here.

Memoir of Battle (MOB) revised

2011-12-11T19:38:00.001Z

The positive feedback that I had to the recent redraft of my MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT) wargames rules has encouraged me to to revise my MEMOIR OF BATTLE (MOB) rules so that they have a similar format.

I hope to finish this revision later this evening, and if I manage to achieve this goal I will make them available in PDF format as a download via the Internet.

Having (another) cracking time ...

2011-12-11T17:00:00.000Z

I had the windscreen on my car replaced only a fortnight ago after it was hit by a stone that caused it to crack. You can therefore probably understand how annoyed I was yesterday when the new windscreen was hit by a stone, and a large chip appeared. Furthermore, the 'accident' occurred almost at exactly the same place as the last time ... the Kent-bound carriageway of the A2, just outside Gravesend.

Luckily this chip proved to be repairable, and this afternoon the technician filled the chip hole with resin, and then cured the repair using a UV lamp. I can just see where the chip occurred, but it is the size of a pinhead, and if I didn't know where it was I would not know it was there.

Hopefully the next time I drive down that bit of Britain's road system – which will probably be later this week – stones will avoid hitting my windscreen and I will not have to have a new windscreen installed or yet another repair made ... but you never know what will happen, do you?

Another three and fourpence ...

2011-12-10T18:19:00.001Z

My good friend Tim Gow has sent me a long-barrelled version of the Corgi Pzkpfw IV to add to my growing Corgi tank force.

This model will go some way to add some much-needed firepower to my German troops, who now have two examples of this version within their ranks.

Oops! Errors spotted in the draft of MOMBAT!

2011-12-10T09:28:00.001Z

I was in such a rush to make the first draft of my MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT) rules available to people who might wish to download and read them that I did not proof read them properly. Oops! Sorry!

Ross Mac spotted what appeared to be an error, and I quickly realised that I had left a sentence in the rules that should have been removed. I therefore re-read the whole draft and realised that I had not been consistent in part of the layout of the rules as well.

I have taken the opportunity to make a few minor alterations to improve the consistency of the layout and I have removed the sentence that should have already been removed. The new draft of the rules is now available here.

Read and enjoy!

The sinking of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales

2011-12-10T08:40:00.000Z

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, the Royal Navy's Force 'Z' was sent from its base in Singapore to intercept a Japanese invasion force on its way to Malaya. Instead of achieving its objective, Force 'Z' was attacked by Japanese aircraft and its two main units – HMS REPULSE ...

... and HMS PRINCE OF WALES ...

– were sunk.

Of personal interest to me is the captain of HMS REPULSE, Captain (later Admiral) William G. Tennant KCB, KBE. He survived the sinking of his ship and later took on an important role during the D-Day landings, namely the transport, assembly, and setting up of the Mulberry harbours and the laying of the PLUTO pipeline.

Before he became the captain of HMS REPULSE on 28th June 1940, he had been instrumental in organising the evacuation of Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo). On 26 May 1940 Captain Tennant was sent to Dunkirk to aid in the evacuation process and to get the waiting British and French troops onto the boats waiting to take them off. He stayed at his post until the last boats left on 2nd June.

Had Captain Tennant not done such a magnificent job, my maternal grandfather – Sergeant Major Arthur Jackson – would not have been one of the lucky members of the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) to be evacuated, and would probably have spent the rest of the war in a POW camp.

Memoir of Modern Battle (MOMBAT): Latest draft of the rules

2011-12-09T19:29:00.001Z

I have managed to complete the first revision of my MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLES (MOMBAT) wargames rules.

The changes were made in the light of the recent play-test of the first draft of the rules, and hopefully fill some of the gaps that the play-test threw up. I have also added some rules to cover minefields, barbed wire, and transport.

A PDF of the current draft of the MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLES (MOMBAT) wargames rules can be found here.

I have been to ... Harrods!

2011-12-09T18:00:00.000Z

It is the time of year when my wife and I make our annual visit to Harrods, Knightsbridge, to buy the Harrods Christmas Teddy Bear. My wife collects them and this year's bear is called Freddie.

Usually we go on a Sunday, but this year we decided to have a change and go on a Friday ... and in retrospect this was actually a good choice. Although we had to travel most of the way by Underground, it was not as crowded as we expected. The ground floor of the store was a heaving mass of humanity, but once we went up to the upper floors the crowds thinned out and it became quite pleasant to walk about.

In the past the Toy Department has been worth a good look around (it was where I bought the first of my Corgi tanks!) but this year there was nothing on sale that had even a vague wargaming application. The same was true of the Games Department on the Lower Ground Floor, which did not even seem to have RISK on sale.

The big plus for me this year was that it did not cost me anything to travel to and from Harrods ... although I did have to pay for my wife's Travelcard. Thanks to my Freedom Pass I can travel on any bus or Underground train within London for free at any time ... and also on mainline trains within the London area after 9.30am on weekdays and at any time at weekends. I have recently discovered that I can also travel on local buses all over England between 9.30am and 11.00pm on weekdays and at any time on weekends and public holidays. It was worth reaching the age of sixty last year just for this concession!

Take the heights!

2011-12-08T13:34:00.001Z

I have not fought a wargame in so long that when the opportunity arose today, I seized it with both hands! Only yesterday I finished drafting a set of ‘modern’ wargames rules with the working title MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE, and I decided to kill two birds with one stone by play-testing the draft rules.

Scenario
After a gap of some time (almost three years!), Eastland and Morschauserland are again at war. The Eastlanders have penetrated the border with Morschauserland and are pressing forward. The Morschauserlanders have established a line of defence along a series of low hills – the Lowbrow Heights – which they have garrisoned with a weak mixture of infantry, machine guns, and artillery. The attackers outnumber the defenders and have a large number of tanks and infantry (supported by machine guns and artillery) moving towards the Heights.

Turn 1
The first wave of the Eastland attackers approached the Lowbrow Heights. They were led by a line of tanks followed by infantry and machine guns.

Turn 2
The Morschauserland infantry gun opened fire on the tank in the centre of the Eastland attackers … and forced it to retreat, much to the discomfort of the infantry that were following it, who also had to fall back!

The Eastlanders immediately reacted by moving their tanks forward and engaging the Morschauserland defences (N.B. Casualties are indicated by short lengths of matchstick).

The Morschauserlanders replied … and caused damage to quite a few of the tanks.

Turn 3
The Morschauserland infantry gun fired again on the tank in the centre of the Eastland attackers … and this time they inflicted some damage to it.

The Morschauserland defenders then opened fire on the Eastlanders … and forced two of the tanks to retreat, which also disrupted the following infantry and machine guns!

The Eastland response was to continue their advance, firing at the defenders as they did so. With the exception of one of the Morschauserland machine gun positions – which was wiped out – the rest of the fieldworks protected the defenders quite effectively, and only minor casualties were caused.

Turn 4
This time the Morschauserland infantry gun fired at one of the closest Eastland tank … and destroyed it!

The Eastlanders were not fazed by this, and continued their slow and deliberate advance, firing as they went. This proved to be a very effective tactic; the Morschauserland infantry gun was forced to fall back, the last remaining machine gun position was destroyed, and the foremost Morschauserland infantry were wiped out.

Nothing but the Morschauserland infantry gun and an infantry unit remained to stem the Eastland advance, and the Morschauserlanders withdrew to their next line of defence.

Conclusions
This was a short but sharp action in which the overwhelming strength of the attackers prevailed. The fact that it was not a complete walk over was due in no small part to the entrenchments that the Morschauserlanders had.

The play-test did point out that one or two rules that I had originally included in my development notes had not been included in the actual draft, and I will need to remedy that situation. The combat system uses the dice from Richard Borg’s MEMOIR ’44 and has a similar philosophy, and I felt that it worked very smoothly and was easy to understand. The game sequence is ‘borrowed’ from my PORTABLE WARGAME rules, which are themselves a development of Joseph Morschauser’s MODERN and FRONTIER rules. The fact that artillery gets to fire each turn before any other units gives that arm an additional feeling of importance – and possibly effect – and I felt that – to a certain extent – it countered the negative aspect of the ‘traditional’ UGO-IGO turn sequence (i.e. the lack of simultaneous fire and effect).

This play-test was a somewhat small affair, and was also rather one-sided. I would like to run another play-test at some point where the sides are rather more balanced as I suspect that the battle might last somewhat longer. In the meantime it was good to get some figures and vehicle out on the tabletop and to fight a battle. It was something that I have sorely missed in recent weeks!

Notes on unit strength values
Before I started the play-test I allocated each type of unit a strength value. This is the number of 'hits' it can sustain before it is destroyed. The strength values used in this play-test were as follows:

Infantry = 4
Machine Guns = 2
Artillery = 2
Tanks = 3

I made no allowance for unit quality when I did this, but it would be relatively easy to reflect the differences in unit quality by increasing the strength value of elite units by one or even two, and reducing the strength value of poor quality units by one.

The Battle for Hong Kong

2011-12-08T07:45:00.000Z

On 8th December 1941 Japanese forces attacked the British colony of Hong Kong.

Despite heroic resistance by the garrison – which included British, Canadian, Indian, and Chinese units – and people of the Colony, the Japanese finally forced them to surrender on Christmas Day, 1941.

Nugget 249

2011-12-08T07:00:00.001Z

I will be posting the latest issue of THE NUGGET (N249) out to members of Wargame Developments later this morning, and with luck it should be delivered to them by the beginning of next week.

I am about to upload the PDF versions of THE NUGGET and THE NUGGET COLOUR SUPPLEMENT to the Wargame Developments website, and they will soon be available for members of Wargame Developments to read online or to download and print.

This is the third THE NUGGET of the subscription year and if you have not already resubscribed, you can do so by post (please make cheques payable to WARGAME DEVELOPMENTS) or via the PayPal button on the Wargame Developments website.

Rise and shine ... but not much!

2011-12-07T16:51:00.001Z

After spending Monday visiting my father in Hornchurch, Essex, and attending a meeting in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, and Tuesday in Herne Bay, Kent, sorting out my father-in-law's house, I had hoped to spend today wargaming ... but instead I woke up with the early symptoms of a cold and have spent most of the day drinking lots of fluids and trying to keep warm.

I did manage to do some wargame-related activity, however. Some time ago I made some notes for a development of my MEMOIR OF BATTLE rules so that they could cover the 1930s and early 1940s, and during the course of the day I have turned those notes into a set of rules ... that currently have the working title MEMOIR OF MODERN BATTLE (MOMBAT).

The rules are an amalgam of various aspects of Joseph Morschauser's MODERN rules (the game sequence), Richard Borg's MEMOIR '44 game (the combat system), and my own PORTABLE WARGAME 2 rules (the layout). They are still very much a 'work in progress', but if the opportunity arises I hope to see how well they work as soon as I am feeling better.

A day of infamy

2011-12-07T07:37:00.001Z

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. This led to the declaration of war against Japan and the other Axis powers, and effectively guaranteed that eventually the Axis would lose.

This anniversary serves to remind us all – yet again – of the sacrifices made by previous generations to ensure that our future was a better one.

Send three and fourpence ...

2011-12-06T20:43:00.001Z

A few careful purchases on eBay has ensured that I have some more Corgi tanks to add to my existing fleet. This morning's post included two small parcels that contained an additional Pzkpfw IV and four T34/76 tanks.

Thanks to Tim Gow telling me about the existence of a long-barrelled version of the Corgi Pzkpfw IV, I specifically looked for examples of this model when I searched eBay ... and bought three, two of which have yet to be delivered.

The four T34 tanks – plus another two that are on their way to me – means that I should end up with thirteen T34/76 and ten T34/85 tanks with which to counter any German tank force.

Nugget 249

2011-12-05T07:02:00.001Z

The editor of THE NUGGET sent the latest issue to me yesterday, and I will be taking it to the printers this morning. I intend to collect it on Wednesday and plan to post it out to members of Wargame Developments by Friday.

I will make the PDF versions of THE NUGGET and THE NUGGET COLOUR SUPPLEMENT available for all members to download from the Wargame Developments website as soon as I can after THE NUGGET has been posted.

This will be the third THE NUGGET of the new subscription year. If you were a member of Wargame Developments and have not yet resubscribed, you can do so by post (please make cheques payable to WARGAME DEVELOPMENTS) or via the PayPal button on the Wargame Developments website.

The big 'sort out' is nearly over!

2011-12-04T23:00:00.001Z

The storage is in place, my Hexon II and Heroscape™ terrain is neatly boxed away, the books have been sorted and reorganised, and my collection of wargaming figures and vehicles are properly organised. All that now remains is for me to sort out is the modelling materials, including quite a lot of pots of paint and numerous bags and containers of flock/static grass.

I am now only a couple of hours away from being finished, and with luck I should be able to complete the task tomorrow ... but I do have quite a list of tasks already scheduled for Monday, so the 'sort out' might not be completed until Tuesday or Wednesday ... and then I might just manage a wargame ... at long last!

Warships after Washington

2011-12-04T22:30:00.000Z

The development of the modern (i.e. steam powered) warship has interested me for many years. In fact about a third of my bookshelf space is devoted to naval-related topics, and most of that space covers the design and development of different types of warship and their weapon systems.

The 1922 Washington Treaty (and the subsequent 1927 Geneva Conference and 1930 London Treaty) had a major impact on the development of the warships that were in service with the major World War II combatants, and when I read that John Jordan had written a book about the Treaty, I decided to buy it.

The book is entitled WARSHIPS AFTER WASHINGTON: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FIVE MAJOR FLEETS 1922-1930 (published by Seaforth Publishing [2011] ISBN 978 1 84832 117 5) and the writer – John Jordan – is the current editor of WARSHIP annual, a publication that occupies a prominent place on my bookshelves.

The book examines the political aspects of the Treaty and the way in which its Articles affected warship design between the wars. It also covers the various design projects that were undertaken by the five signatory nations – Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy – and the ships that were actually built.

Possible reinforcements?

2011-12-02T19:00:00.000Z

I also own a number of non-Soviet and non-German Corgi tanks. These are four Sherman and two Churchill tanks.

Both types of tank were supplied to the Soviets and it is therefore feasible that I could use them to reinforce my existing 'stock' of Soviet armour. On the other hand I could use them to create some British and/or American tank units, and I can foresee the possibility of pitting the Shermans against the T34s in a post-war conflict (e.g. Israel vs. Egypt).

Soft skin vehicles

2011-12-02T16:30:00.000Z

The collection of suitable soft skin vehicles that I can use with my Corgi tanks is quite limited at present, but I hope to add some more as time goes on. Currently my collection includes two American half-tracks, three 'deuce-and-a-half' trucks and five Mercedes-Benz LG3000 Trucks.

German opposition for my T34s

2011-12-02T10:30:00.000Z

My collection of German tanks that were manufactured by Corgi includes five Pzkpfw IV, three Pzkpfw V Panther, and three Pzkpfw VI Tiger 1 tanks.

It is a great pity that Corgi did not make any Pzkpfw III tanks ... but that is the way things pan out sometimes.

Anyone for T … 34s?

2011-12-01T18:12:00.001Z

Over the years I have hankered after refighting the war between Soviet Russia and the German-led Axis countries. To this end I have been accumulating figures and vehicles (including tanks) for both sides for some time. During the recent sort out of my toy/wargames room I came across some of these acquisitions, including quite a few Russian T34 tanks. The largest number is from the range produced by Corgi a few years back. They are the same size as my ROCO Minitank T34s, so I must assume that they are 1:87th-scale as well.

As you can see from these photographs, the majority of my Corgi T34s (ten out of seventeen) are armed with 85mm guns and will be suitable for both the latter part of World War II and the post-war era up until the 1960s … and possibly beyond.

Interestingly I also have a number of German tanks in the same scale from the same manufacturer, including five Pzkpfw IV, three Pzkpfw V Panther, and three Pzkpfw VI Tiger I tanks. Non-armoured vehicles for both sides are slightly more scarce, but I have found two 1:87th-scale American half-tracks and three 'deuce-and-a-half' trucks (all from die-cast sets of military 'toy' vehicles) that will probably do for the Soviets and five Mercedes-Benz LG3000 Trucks from the HASBRO Indiana Jones Titanium Series for the Germans. The Mercedes-Benz LG3000 Trucks are closer to 1:100th-scale but do not look out of place or undersized when placed next to the Corgi tanks.

Will I get a chance to wargame soon?

2011-11-30T20:22:00.001Z

Whilst I was driving back from Herne Bay this afternoon (Yes! You guessed right! My wife and I have yet again been doing some more house clearing today!) I began to think about the last time I actually managed to fight a wargame; not write blog entries about wargaming; not plan a wargame; not write a new draft of some wargames rules; not sort out my toy/wargames room; no ... actually fight a wargame.

The answer is ... longer ago that I thought. In actual fact it was Wednesday 7th September ... nearly three months ago! No wonder that I am feeling a bit jaded and in need of my wargaming 'fix'.

Mind you, my wife and I have had a lot of things to deal with since September, and it is little wonder that I have not been able to set aside enough time to actually get some terrain and figures together and fight a battle. That said, we seem to be coming to the end of that period of our lives, and the prospects are beginning to look a bit brighter. I hope to get my toy/wargames room sorted out by this time next week ... and then I hope to celebrate with a wargame!

Work on my toy/wargames room continues

2011-11-29T07:02:00.001Z

Now that I have just about got the storage system sorted out, I am now turning my attention to what I know will be a much more drawn out part of this big 'sort out' ... the books!

These are currently stored in IKEA bookcases that cover two walls of my toy/wargames room plus about a metre of a third wall. They were originally arranged by theme (e.g. all the naval books were kept together) but over time this has become somewhat confused. Over the past few years books have tended to be put on shelves that had space and not necessarily together with books covering similar or related topics. The big 'sort out' should go some way to remedying this.

I may well end up with some books that are surplus to requirements. If I do I will probably dispose of them via eBay or as gifts. Any revenue generated by the sale of books will be ‘recycled’ to pay for future wargames projects … I hope!

Memoir of Battle revisited

2011-11-28T17:33:00.001Z

The arrival of the COMMAND & COLORS: NAPOLEONIC dice in this morning's post spurred me on to actually redraft my MEMOIR OF BATTLE rules into a similar format to that I used for the latest version of the PORTABLE WARGAME 2 rules.

The new draft of MEMOIR OF BATTLE is downloadable in PDF format from here.

Recent purchases

2011-11-28T14:33:00.001Z

I recently mentioned that whilst I was in Norfolk I bought some model aircraft made in China and sold in the UK by Red Box Toy Factory Limited under the trade name 'Motor Max Sky Wings'. I bought a pack each (for £2.99 each) of two single-engined Yokosuka D4Y Suisei dive-bombers and twin-engined Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu fighters.

They look generic enough to me to be usable as single and twin-engined bombers in wargames set in the late 1930s and early 1940s ... and that is how I plan to use them.

This morning's post brought I further purchase, this time from overseas. Some time ago I decided that I would like to revisit my MEMOIR OF BATTLE rules, and that it might not be a bad idea to get some additional pre-marked dice. As I could not find a supply of any spare BATTLE CRY! or MEMOIR '44 dice I opted to buy five sets of COMMAND & COLORS: NAPOLEONICS dice from Valley Games.

Despite reading some pretty poor reviews about these dice I decided to take a risk and order some ... and I am quite satisfied with what was delivered. They will certainly be suitable for what I have in mind, and have saved me the bother of having to try to make my own sets of dice. (I have sufficient blank dice but not the patience to mark them up with suitable symbols.)

Inspiration drawn from other wargamers: Robbie Rodiss's Spencer Smith Cavalry

2011-11-28T14:22:00.001Z

I recently mentioned that I had been sent some very nicely painted Seven Years War Spencer Smith Miniatures (both plastic and metal). They had been sent to me by Robbie Rodiss (AKA rob3rod) of the Independent Wargames Group, and I promised that once I had enough space on my wargames table that I would photograph them.

Well here they are!

I have not played any wargames set in the eighteenth century for a very long time ... but these figures have certainly encouraged me to think about doing so ... but not in the near future!

Yet again, thank you Robbie for these wonderful figures.

Medals ... are now mounted

2011-11-28T14:10:00.001Z

Yesterday was very busy, but this morning I decided that come-what-may I was going to mount my father's and my maternal grandfather's medals in some small display frames that I had.

I labelled each display frame with the recipient's name and rank as well as listing the medals each had been awarded.

In addition I added some details of his service record to my father's display frame as well as his National Fire Service badge and the regimental badge worn by the officers of 53rd (Worcestershire Yeomanry) Airlanding Light Regiment, Royal Artillery.

Medals

2011-11-26T22:34:00.001Z

One of the things that my father gave me before his dementia reached the state that it is now in was his World War II medals (and unit patches). He also gave me my maternal grandfather's medals as well, and it was only this evening that I was actually able to sit down and look at both sets of medals in detail. The results were very interesting.

My father's medals are the War Medal 1939-1945 and the France and Germany Star. The NFS badge came from his time as a volunteer fireman in the National Fire Service (he served as a volunteer before being 'called up'), and the reproduction Airborne patches are reminders of his time as a member of 6th Airborne Division. The Chindit patch was given to him after his post-war service in Burma (he did not serve with the Chindits but did later serve with the Chin Hills Battalion) and the 'Charging Elephant' was the symbol of the 4th Army Corps, to which he was posted but which was disbanded before he joined it.

My maternal grandfather's medals illustrate both the length and variety of his services. He was a per-war Territorial Sergeant Major in the Royal Artillery, and served in France as part of the BEF (British Expeditionary Force). He was wounded during the retreat to Dunkirk, and was lucky enough to be amongst those who were evacuated.

Once he had recovered from his wounds he became a Ship's Regimental Sergeant Major. He joined a small group of senior Army Warrant Officers who served aboard troopships. Their role was to provide a permanent on-board Army presence on the troopships, and their job was both administrative and disciplinary. As a result of this service, my grandfather was awarded a fairly unusual set of medals. These include:

The War Medal 1939-1945
The 1939-1945 Star
The Italy Star
The Atlantic Star
The Burma Star
The Pacific Star (which I don't think that he should have been awarded as he already qualified for the Burma Star. What he should have been awarded was a clasp to the Burma Star.)

I hope to put these medals into a couple of small cases that I can have on display somewhere in my home. They will serve to remind me of both my father's and grandfather's military service during World War II.

Lofty ambitions?

2011-11-26T21:23:00.001Z

My wife and I spent most of today in Herne Bay, sorting out my father-in-law's bungalow. My main job was to begin the process of clearing the loft ... which turned out to be no easy task.

Luckily my father-in-law had had the loft space boarded over and fitted with a light ... although I did not realise the latter until I climbed up into the very dark loft and trod on the light's cable. Once I had found the cable I quickly found the plug that had to be plugged into the nearest power socket (which was in the kitchen) to provide the power for the light.

Once the light was on I saw the magnitude of my task. Besides the six large suitcases and two travel bags – some of which still seemed to be full – I found a door(!), a large toolbox full of ancient tools, more used tins of paint than I could be bothered to count, eight carrier bags full of empty jam jars, several dismantled flat-pack wardrobes and cupboards, several old curtains and window blinds, a boxful of old photographs and pictures, and a large amount of old curtain track and fittings.

With my wife's help I got almost everything except the door and the flat-pack furniture down from the loft. We then sorted through it all, and most of it was consigned to the garage for disposal. (I foresee several trips to the local refuse and recycling centre in the very near future.)

I hope to complete clearing the loft sometime next week ... but next time I will try to remember to take some sort of heating into the loft because is was very cold up there today ... and the weather was quite mild today for the time of year.

Lost ... and Found!

2011-11-25T23:30:00.000Z

As my wife and I did not make it to Herne Bay today, I decided to spend some more time sorting out my toy/wargames room. During the course of the afternoon I opened a large storage box that was at the bottom of a pile of boxes I had not yet begun to sort through ... and found that it was full of unpainted 15mm and 20mm-scale figures. I had not realised that I still owned these figures as I thought that I had got rid of them nearly ten years ago.

In amongst the figures were a large number of 20mm-scale Jacklex figures including 1904-era Russians, American Civil War figures in Kepis, rifle-armed Tribesmen, and Colonial gunners. There were also other 20mm-scale Colonial figures from Tumbling Dice Miniatures and an unidentified manufacturer (possibly B&B Miniatures?).

This discovery has placed me in somewhat of a quandary. I had planned to use Spencer Smith Miniatures for my imagi-world project, but the discovery of these 20mm-scale figures means that I already have a large number of highly suitable figures ... and it would be a great shame not to use them.

Having a cracking time ...

2011-11-25T17:03:00.001Z

My wife and I decided to spend today sorting out some of the cupboards in my father-in-law's bungalow in Herne Bay. After breakfast we set off by car to drive to north east Kent ... but we had only driven as far as Gravesend when a stone hit the bottom on the windscreen on the driver's side of the car and caused a crack.

The stone had been thrown up by a passing car, and normally these just chip the glass. Such damage in inconvenient but repairable. Unfortunately this was not a chip but a full-blown crack which started out about three inches long but which quickly grew. At that point we decided that the best course of action was to go home before the crack extended right across the windscreen.

On the way back we stopped off at the local Autoglass depot, who arranged for the damage to be repaired tomorrow morning. They could not do the repair today because they do not keep windscreens for Mazda Tributes in stock, but they were able to order one for first thing tomorrow morning. The repair should take about an hour to complete, but I will not be able to drive for another hour after that in order for the the fixative to harden. My insurance excess for windscreen damage is £100.00, and I will have to pay this when the repair has been completed. This sounds quite a lot to pay, but the actual cost of the repair would be considerably more if I was not covered by my car insurance.