The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

Today marks the one hundred and seventh anniversary of the Armistice that ended the fighting on the Western Front.

'They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.’

‘When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today.’

‘We will remember them.’

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This year we attended a special event at Shrewsbury House (our local community centre) on Friday 6th November. It was put on by the Shooters Hill Drama Collective and was entitled ECHOES OF THE GREAT WAR. It was an evening of dramatic readings, poetry and performance that brought to life the voices and stories of those who lived, worked and fought during the First World War. All profits from the sale of tickets were donated to the military charity Blesma.

On Sunday 8th December, we attended the Service of Remembrance at St George's Garrison Church, Woolwich. It was conducted by the Reverend Dr Adam Scott, a retired Army chaplain

There were over 150 people present, including representatives of the Army's Woolwich Station, the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales Royal Regiment, the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, the local MP (Matthew Pennycook), the local Royal Greenwich Council (including the Deputy Mayor, Raja Zeeshan), the local Gurkha and Nepali community, the Metropolitan Police, the London Fire Brigade, the local Army Cadets, and the local branch of the Royal British Legion.

It was a very moving service, made all the more so by the personal tributes paid to Major Pat Porteous VC (1918 to 2000), Fusilier Donal Meade (1985 to 2005), and Captain Phillip Muldowney (2001 to 2026), all of whom had a conection with Woolwich and Plumstead.

Another British ironclads in 1/1200th-scale

I managed to find another 1/1200th-scale ironclads on sale on eBay ... and could not resist buying it!

I am now the proud owner of models of HMS Dreadnought.

This brings the size of my collection of ironclads to nine models ... and I hope to add more as and when I can.

Nugget 385

The editor sent me the latest issue of THE NUGGET on Sunday, and I sent it to the printer (Macauley Scott Printing Company, Welling, Kent) this morning. I hope to collect it and post it out to members of Wargame Developments by next weekend.

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IMPORTANT: Please note that this is the THIRD issue of THE NUGGET to be published for the 2026-2027 subscription year.

If you have not yet subscribed for the 2026-2027 subscription year, please request a PayPal invoice from the Treasurer or follow the instructions on how to pay by bank transfer using the information on the relevant page of the website.

New YouTube video: Aggressor, Krasnovia, and OPFOR

I have just uploaded a new YouTube video to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

The video covers the use by the United States Army of a number of imaginary opponents for training purposes during the period from the Second World War to the present day.

It lasts approximately eighteen and a half minutes.

The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

'The Shop'

From the back of our house, we can clearly see the buildings that housed the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.

The Royal Military Academy in Woolwich was set up in 1741 by the Board of Ordnance inside the Woolwich Arsenal. Its remit was to provide specialist professional military training for aspiring Royal Artillery and Royal Engineer officers. It was initially housed in a converted workshop, and this is why it came to be known as 'The Shop'.

(Incidentally, this nickname is the origin of the expression 'not talking shop', as officers were actively dissuaded from talking about their profession in the regimental mess. Therefore, a Royal Artillery or Royal Engineer officer who mentioned something that referred to his professional work in a mess – rather than social events, sport, or hunting – would be told to 'stop taking 'Shop''.)

A special building was constructed to house the Academy ...

... and a set of Cadet Barracks followed in 1751 when the officer cadets were formed into the Company of Gentleman Cadets under the command of one – later - two – captain-lieutenants.

(Incidentally, one of my wife's ancestors served as the Fife Major to the Company of Gentleman Cadets whilst they were based inside the Arsenal and was responsible for providing the music for the weekly parade and the administration of any sentence of corporal punishment that was handed down to a cadet!)

The Napoleonic Wars saw an increase in the number of cadets passing through the Academy, and in 1806 it moved to new buildings on the southern side of Woolwich Common. These were designed by William Wyatt, and the Academy remained there until it closed on the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The Academy was merged with the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1947 to form the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

'With you, I will letter it ...'

It seems to me that for many, many years, people have talked and written in a wide variety of slang, shorthand, or jargon that is designed to exclude people who are not part of a particular circle, group, or clique.

First and foremost in my experience was Cockney rhyming slang, which my paternal family – who had lived in the East End of London for two generations – used regularly in everyday speech. I grew up knowing what 'apples', 'the frog', 'the rubber', 'the trouble', 'a ruby', and 'butchers'* meant ... and I was interested to note recently that the slang has continued to evolve. (I heard someone refer to their footwear as 'Angelas' ... which is the shortened version of 'Angela Rayners' or trainers!)

When I began working in a supermarket in the middle of the 1960s, I came across – and began using – shop back-slang. For example, 'feeb' was beef, 'tibbar' was rabbit, 'dlo' (pronounced de-low) was old, and 'krop' was pork. Even when I went to work in private banking and later education, I picked up and used the jargon that went with the job.

As I was working on the forthcoming PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM, I began thinking about the acronyms and jargon that we use in wargaming ... and here is a list of the acronyms that I have seen and/or used:

• 2HW: Two-Hour Wargames
• AAR: After Action Report
• ACW: American Civil War
• ADG: After Dinner Game
• AH: Avalon Hill
• ASL: Advanced Squad Leader
• BOGSAT: Bunch of Guys Sitting Around a Table
• CCG: Collectible Card Game
• COA: Course of Action
• CoW/COW: Conference of Wargamers
• CRT: Combat Results Table
• D (followed by a number): A die, with the number indicating the number of sides the die has (e.g. D6 is a die with six sides.
• DBA: De Bellis Antiquitatis
• DBx: Any rules based on the DBA system
• ECW: English Civil War
• GDW: Game Designer’s Workshop
• GW: Games Workshop
• HOTT: Hordes of the Things
• HYW: Hundred Years War
• LoS/LOS: Line-of-sight
• MG: Matrix Game
• MW: Miniature Wargames
• OHW: One-Hour Wargames
• PW: Portable Wargame
• RPG: Role-playing game
• SoA/SOA: Society of Ancients
• SPI: Simulations Publications, Inc
• SYW: Seven Years War
• THW: Two-Hour Wargames
• TTG: Tabletop Game/Table Top Games
• TYW: Thirty Years War
• WD: Wargame Developments
• WI: Wargames Illustrated
• WRG: Wargame Research Group
• WSS: Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy
• WWI/WW1: World War One
• WWII/WW2: World War Two
• ZOC: Zone of Control

This is by no means an exhaustive list and I am sure that there are loads more that I have missed.

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* For the benefit of those of my regular blog readers who are not au fait with Cockney rhyming slang. 'apples' = apples and pears = stairs, 'the frog' = frog and toad = road, 'the rubber' = rub-a-dub = pub, 'the trouble' = trouble and strife = wife, 'a ruby' = Ruby Murray = curry, and 'butchers' = butcher's hook = look.

The next Portable Wargame Compendium: A progress report

Thanks to a couple of previous contributors (Arthur Harman and Mark Cordone), I’ve been able to make quite a lot of work on the next PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM. So far, the contents includes:

• My Belle Époque Portable Wargame rules.
• A comparison between THE PORTABLE WARGAME rules and the recently published COFFEEBREAK wargame rules.
• HG Wells’ Hook’s Farm scenario adapted for use with the COFFEEBREAK wargame rules.
• Brigadier Peter Young's and Lieutenant-Colonel James Philip Lawford's Blasthof Heath scenario adapted for use with the COFFEEBREAK wargame rules.
• Napoleon at Bay: A complete wargame campaign in a box covering 1814 and 1815.
• The Peninsular War: A simple campaign system that can be used with several different fast-play wargame rules.
• Dominion of Generals: A variant of the DOMINION OF … rules that includes rules that enable generals to influence the course of a battle.

I have had several other contributors who have promised articles for the next issue… which I hope is going to be published in time for Christmas.

Is the Portable Wargame a portable wargame ... and why is it The Portable Wargame?

I had an interesting comment about my recent YouTube video that has since been deleted. The writer suggested that Collectible Card Games (CCGs) and dice games were true portable wargames, whereas mine wasn't really portable.

This set me thinking ... and it reminded me why I capitalised the first letters of the name of the concept The Portable Wargame – thus making it a proper noun – rather than leaving it just as the portable wargame. Originally, what I had wanted to develop was a tabletop figure wargame that could be played on a small dining table, a large coffee table, or card table, that used a gridded playing surface, and that had rules that should be as simple as they could be whilst producing reasonably realistic results. It took time to get it right ... but I think that the end result met my design criteria.

I also wanted to develop a set of rules that were portable in the sense that it could be applied to larger games with little or no modification, In other words, the mechanisms should be portable.

So why The Portable Wargame (or PW for short)?

Many years ago, I taught Information Technology, and this included a brief history of computing. One thing that I covered was the introduction of personal computers. The first was designed and introduced into service by IBM in February 1984 and was produced in response to the release of the Compaq Portable. The machine was the IBM Portable Personal Computer (IBM 5155) Model 68 ...

... and it weighed 30 pounds (13.6kg) and cost $4,225 when it was launched. ($4,225 is equivalent to $13,701.36/£10,229.44 in 2026.) It had a 9-inch internal monochrome amber composite monitor, one or two half-height 5¼-inch 360KB floppy disk drives, and a separate 83-key keyboard. In order to identify the machine as theirs, IBM capitalised the name Personal Computer.

I took my lead from IBM, hence the name The Portable Wargame rather than a portable wargame.

I hope that this makes sense.

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PS. Weighing in at 30 pounds/13.6kg, the IBM 5155 Model 68 was hardly portable ... and at the time it was often referred to a luggable!

Restless Natives: One of my earlier attempts to write a set of Colonial wargame rules

The recent interest shown in my RESTLESS NATIVES by a French wargamer led to me re-reading the rules ... and finding a few mistakes that needed correcting.

The rules were first written in 2003 ... which is twenty-three years ago! I even demonstrated them at SALUTE2003 with the assistance of my old friend, Tony Hawkins.

The rules were designed so that two or more players could fight an interesting battle to a conclusion in under two hours on a 4' x 3' (120cm x 90cm) tabletop battlefield using approximately two hundred 15mm scale figures in total.

They incorporated several novel mechanisms including:

• The use of a standard pack of playing cards to determine the order in which units can move, fire, and take part in close combat.
• The use of Special Event Cards that the players can use to gain extra movement, firepower, close combat effectiveness, or to rally troops that have failed a morale test and have fled from the battlefield.
• The use of the Jokers to determine:
• When players must hand back any unused Special Event Cards.
• When the battle will end.
• Movement distances that have an random element to them (e.g. British infantry in Line move at 1D6 + 3" whereas in Column they move at 2D6". Therefore the former might move anything between 4" and 9" whereas the latter might move anything between 2" and 12")

There were 51 Special Event Cards:

• 15 x DASHED HARD LUCK!: This Special Event Card gives you no additional tactical advantage. Better luck next time!
• 9 x ENHANCED FIREPOWER!: Throw an additional D6 for each troop stand that is firing.
• 3 x ENHANCED FIREPOWER!: Throw an additional 2D6s for each troop stand that is firing.
• 9 x FASTER MOVEMENT:! Add an extra D6 to the number of D6s thrown to determine a unit’s maximum movement rate.
• 3 x FASTER MOVEMENT!: Add an extra 2D6s to the number of D6s thrown to determine a unit’s maximum movement rate.
• 6 x HEROIC CLOSE COMBAT!: Throw an additional D6 for each troop stand that is involved in close combat.
• 3 x HEROIC CLOSE COMBAT!: Throw an additional 2D6s for each troop stand that is involved in close combat.
• 3 x RALLY ONCE AGAIN!: Any unit that has totally collapsed can be rallied and returns to the edge of the battlefield.

I noticed as I was re-reading the rules that there are several typos and errors that I had not previously noticed. I am therefore thinking about revising the rules completely and possibly adding some more scenarios. I may also take the opportunity to change the unit of measurement from inches to centimetres so that battles can be fought on a smaller tabletop using a small number of figures.

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Some photographs of the demonstration game at SALUTE2003

Tony Hawkins (on the right) and me (on the left) in Peachy Carnehan​ and Danny Dravot mode!

Setting up the tabletop for a game. The terrain boards were from Essex Miniatures (alas, no longer available!) and the hills were from Games Workshop (also no longer available).

Restless Natives: Mea culpa

I was recently contacted by a French wargamer who uses my RESTLESS NATIVES rules about a mistake/typo in the rules.

He pointed out that in the scenarios section I had transposed the number of bases in a cavalry squadron and regiment. In the currently published version of the rules it read as follows:

The Sudan

British

Egyptian Lancer Regiment = 1

Egyptian Cavalry Squadron = 4

The Zulu War

British

British Lancer Regiment = 1

British Cavalry Squadron = 4

It should read like this:

The Sudan

British

Egyptian Lancer Regiment = 4

Egyptian Cavalry Squadron = 1

The Zulu War

British

British Lancer Regiment = 4

British Cavalry Squadron = 1

Whilst re-reading the rules, I spotted another error ... which is underlined below. In the Turn Sequence, the fifth item reads as follows:

5. If it is a Black King, Queen, or Jack, the umpire (or the player who is acting as umpire) also deals each of the British players a further Special Event Card (subject to the rule that no player may hold more than three Special Event Cards at any one time).

It should read:

5. If it is a Black King, Queen, or Jack, the umpire (or the player who is acting as umpire) also deals each of the Native players a further Special Event Card (subject to the rule that no player may hold more than three Special Event Cards at any one time).

Even more thinking about hexes

When I tried to create the very large hex I featured in my previous blog post, I discovered that I need to go to our storage unit to collect some more of my Hexon II hex terrain before I can. Feeling rather at a loose end, I decided to see if I could fit a large hex/smaller hexes combination onto my existing Portable Wargame warboard. Initially, the result looked like this:

I did not like this lopsided arrangement ... but realised that if I made a few minor adjustments to the number of hexes and half-hexes that I used on my warboard, it looked a lot better!

This new arrangement would require 3 x six-hex blocks (or the equivalent 18 single hexes), 19 x single hexes, and 22 x half-hexes as opposed to the 8 x six-hex blocks (or the equivalent 48 single hexes) and 6 x half-hexes used in my original layout.

For comparison purposes, I reproduced the terrain map for The evacuation of Abou Nasir that I had previously used as an example, and the end result looked like this:

Whilst it is by no means perfect (In the example, the village is spread over both of the large hexes whereas I would prefer it to only be in one of them), I does give me an alternative way forward that I had not previously thought might be possible.

It's not quite a 'back to square one' situation ... but it is certainly a new jumping-off point!

Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering: The programme

Last Saturday, I took part in the online Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering.

The sessions were:

• The history of French wargaming from 1871 to 2026
• Foreign volunteers fighting for the Papal States in the 1860s
• Seventy years of Spanish professional wargaming
• A forum on wargaming in space
• Cartoons and War
• The myth that has developed around the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU)
• Tony Bath and the invention of Dungeons & Dragons
• From Bench to Tabletop - A panel discussion on the latest wargaming research discoveries and their potential applications in our game designs
• The Last Ever Sing Along

This was the best of these day-long events to date … and I came away with lots of new knowledge and ideas.

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How ChatGPT imagined the Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering would look. It is not at all accurate! No berets were worn or pipes smoked ... but there were a few beards!

New YouTube video: The Portable Wargame in action: A Soviet combined arms assault

I have just uploaded a new YouTube video to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

The video contains a battle report that was included in the original PORTABLE WARGAME book and features the use of two rule options: the 'Going Solo' card-driven turn sequence and the 'Sudden Death' combat result.

It lasts approximately twenty-one minutes.

The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

The Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering takes place today!

Today I will be taking part in the online Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering. This annual online event has been taking place since October 2021, and is open to all members of Wargame Developments.

My contribution will be a talk entitled THE MYTH THAT HAS DEVELOPED AROUND THE WESTERN APPROACHES TACTICAL UNIT (WATU) and is a revised version of the one I delivered at the Conference of Wargamers 2026 (COW2026).

Some more thinking about hexes

Whilst playing around with the Wargame Map Tool program, I decided to see what would happen if I made an even bigger larger hex. I made one that was as tall as nine small hexes ... which would be 90cm tall. It would also mean that the large hex would be approximately 104cm wide and would contain seventy-three small hexes and twelve half-hexes.

This would just about fit on my wargame table and would be slightly larger than the 9 x 8 hex grid I have used in many of battle featured in my PORTABLE WARGAME books.

I think that I have pushed this concept about as far as I want to ... and I might try fighting a battle on the large hex/seventy-three small hexes combination to see whether or not it is a practical shape to wargame on.

What I am currently working on

I seem to have several small projects on the go at the moment, several of which are about come to an end.

Firstly, I have a talk to finish preparing for the Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering that will be taking place on Saturday 24th October. It is entitled THE MYTH THAT HAS DEVELOPED AROUND THE WESTERN APPROACHES TACTICAL UNIT (WATU) and is a development of the talk I gave at the Conference of Wargamers 2026 (COW2026).

On Monday 28th October I am giving a talk about FREEMASONRY to a group of mainly retired people at our local community centre, Shrewsbury House. The talk and its associated PowerPoint presentation are ready ... but I'll need to do a final run-through and fine-tuning on Sunday.

I am also working on my next YouTube video, which I hope to have finished and uploaded within a week. It is a battle report of the World War 2 wargame from the original PORTABLE WARGAME book.

Once all of these are complete, my next priority will be to do some more work on the next PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM.

Who said one should slow down when one retired?

Achtung Schweinehund!

Yesterday, I had to go up to my toy/wargame room to look for a book ... and found a copy of Harry Pearson's ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND! I sat down in my chair to just skim through it ... and an hour later I was still there and I had forgotten why I went upstairs!

ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND!: A BOY'S OWN STORY OF IMAGINARY COMBAT is a hilarious account of one man's journey through the hobby of wargaming, I bought my copy when it was published in 2008, and remember laughing so much when I read it that I actually fell out of bed ... much to my wife's amusement.

If you haven't read this book, I thoroughly recommend that you do. It will make you laugh ... and give a bit of background to the growth of the hobby in the 1970s, 1980s., and 1990s.

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ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND!: A BOY'S OWN STORY OF IMAGINARY COMBAT was written by Harry Pearson and published by Abacus in 2008 (ISBN 978 0 3491 1568 9).

Eighteen million hits!

Earlier today my hit counter passed eighteen million hits.

I am not sure if the AI bots are still making regular visits to my blog and whether they are responsible for the vast majority of hits it has received ... but I suspect that they are! As I wrote recently, I just wish that I got paid for every time that they visited!

More thinking about hexes

My wife sometimes says things that go straight to the heart of a problem ... and when she saw the hex images I used on my recent blog post, she pointed out something that I'd missed ... that the orientation of the big hex and the smaller hexes was different and that this did not make sense!

I therefore looked at whether it was possible to orient the two so that they were the same, and the result looked like this:

The large hex contains thirty-one smaller hexes and six half-hexes.

For comparison with the map I used in my previous blog post, I then reproduced the terrain map for a battle (The evacuation of Abou Nasir) that I fought on my Portable Wargame warboard as part of my MORE TROUBLE IN ZUBIA mini-campaign. The terrain for the battle looked like this:

On the strategic map, the hex containing the village of Abou Nasir would look like this:

I think that this is a better solution than the one outlined in my previous blog post.

Looking at 009/H09 and N-gauge locomotives and rolling stock

As part of a job lot of 009/H09 models railway stuff I bought some time ago, I acquired a locomotive whose electric motor was irreparable and a couple of Wild West style carriages that had been slightly damaged (i.e. the bodies had small cracks in them). I decided to use them for wargaming, and after repairing the damage to the coaches with some polystyrene glue and short strips of Plasticard, I repainted the locomotive and carriages in a green-ish shade of feldgrau. the results looked like this:

I recently bought a KATO Pocket Line N-gauge locomotive and two carriages from an online stockist for about £65.00, which seemed a reasonable price to pay for a set that has a reputation for excellent reliability and build quality. Interestingly, the locomotive isn't powered ... but one of the carriages is! The set looks like this:

Looking at both sets of locomotives and carriages, I wondered whether there was a possibility that I could use the 009/H09 and N-gauge stuff together. Afterall, they both run on the same N-gauge KATO Unitrack even if they use different couplings.

First I compared the two locomotive ...

... and then I compared the carriages.

In the case of the locomotives, the 009/H09 one looked a lot bigger, but if I was to use it as a mainline locomotive and the small N-gauge one as a shunter, I think this would work. (I might have to modify the small loco's cab slightly, but that should not be too difficult.)

The same cannot be said of the carriages ... although I suspect that – with a little bit of work – the N-gauge ones could be modified.

To help me visualise what might or might not be possible, I then compared the two locomotive alongside a 15mm Essex Miniature figure and a 20mm Britannia Miniature figure. Firstly, I put the figures alongside the respective model locomotive that was closest in scale to it ...

... and then swapped them around.

The 009/H09 locomotive is 1:87th-scale and the N-gauge KATO Pocket Line one is 1:160th-scale. The 15mm figure is 1:100th-scale and the 20mm figure is 76th-scale. Please note that these scales are all approximate!

The 15mm figure looks 'right' alongside both locomotives and the 20mm figure looks 'right' next to the 009/H09 locomotive. As it is more likely that I'll be using these locomotives with my 15mm figures, this means that the 009/H09 one can be used as a mainline locomotive and the N-gauge one can be used as a local shunter ... just as I hoped earlier in this blog post. The couplings might need to be modified to make them compatible with each other, but I understand that this should not be an insurmountable problem.

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I subsequently searched online for suggestions as to how I might be able to convert the N-gauge KATO Pocket Line set to 009/H09 ... and this is what I found:

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

Very interesting!

HMS Nile and HMS Collingwood

Towards the end of the 1880s, the Royal Navy had begun to design and build ironclad battleships which were the precursors of the pre-dreadnought. They had four main guns and a battery of medium and light quick-firing secondary guns mounted in a central superstructure. The only question that remained unanswered was whether the main guns should be mounted in turrets or barbettes. Two examples of these designs were the Trafalgar-class turret battleships and the Admiral-class barbette battleships.

HMS Nile

HMS Nile was one of two Trafalgar-class turret battleships. (The other was HMS Trafalgar.) They were an improved version of the earlier turret ironclad HMS Dreadnought which was - in turn - a development of the Devastation-class turret ironclads. She was also heavily armoured like the preceding Victoria-class turret battleship. She was laid down at Pembroke Dockyard on 8th April 1886, launched on 27th March 1888, and completed on 10th July 1891.

Her characteristics were as follows:

• Displacement: 12,590 tons
• Dimensions:
• Length: 345ft (105.2m)
• Beam: 73ft (22.3m)
• Draught: 28ft 6in (8.7m)
• Propulsion: 6 x coal-fired cylindrical boilers providing steam to 2 x three-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a propellor
• Speed: 16.5 knots
• Complement: 537
• Armament:
• 2 x twin 13.5-inch (343mm) rifled breech-loading guns
• 6 x single 4.7-inch (120mm) quick-firing guns
• 8 x single 6-pounder Hotchkiss quick-firing guns
• 9 x single 3-pounder Hotchkiss quick-firing guns
• 4 x 14-inch (356mm) torpedo tubes
• Armour:
• Belt: 14-inches to 20-inches (356mm to 508mm)
• Citadel: 16-inches to 18-inches (406mm to 457mm)
• Battery: 4-inches to 5-inches (102mm to 127mm)
• Bulkheads: 14-inches to 16-inches (356 mm to 406mm)
• Turrets: 18-inches (457mm)
• Conning tower: 14-inches (356mm)
• Deck: 3-inches (76mm)

HMS Nile was commissioned at Portsmouth on 30th June 1891 to take part in manoeuvres. She was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet, and remained there until January 1898. In August 1890, she had the number of torpedo tubes increased to six. Two years before she returned home, HMS Nile had her 4.7-inch (120mm) guns replaced by 6-inch (152mm) quick-firing guns.

HMS Nile then become the guardship at Devonport, and during her time there, she took part in the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 16th August 1902. She paid off at Devonport in February 1903 and joined the Reserve Fleet there, where she remained until she was sold for scrapping on 9th July 1912.

HMS Collingwood

HMS Collingwood was the first of the Admiral-class barbette battleships and served as the class prototype. She was designed by the Director of Naval Construction, Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, and was inspired by the French Terrible-class ironclads. The design was criticised by the former Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy, Sir Edward Reed, because the ship's belt armour was concentrate amidships rather than along the entire waterline. Like HMS Nile, HMS Collingwood was constructed at Pembroke Dockyard; she was laid down on 12th July 1880, launched on 22nd November 1882, and completed on 1st July 1887.

Her characteristics were as follows:

• Displacement: 9,500 tons
• Dimensions:
• Length: 325ft (99.1m)
• Beam: 68ft (20.7m)
• Draught: 26ft 11in (8.2m)
• Propulsion: 12 x cylindrical coal-fired boilers providing steam to 2 x Humphreys 2-cylinder inverted compound-expansion steam engines, each driving a propellor
• Speed: 16.8 knots
• Complement: 498
• Armament:
• 2 x twin 12-inch (305mm) rifled breech-loading guns
• 6 x single 6-inch (152mm) rifled breech-loading guns
• 12 x single 6-pounder Hotchkiss quick-firing guns
• 8 x single 3-pounder Hotchkiss quick-firing guns
• 4 x 14-inch (356mm) torpedo tubes
• Armour:
• Belt: 8-inches to 18-inches (203mm to 457mm)
• Bulkheads: 7-inches to 16-inches (178 mm to 406mm)
• Barbettes: 10-inches to 11.5-inches (254mm to 292mm)
• Conning tower: 2-inches to 12-inches (51mm to 305mm)
• Deck: 2-inches to 3-inches (51mm to 76mm)

HMS Collingwood took part in the 1888 and 1889 annual summer manoeuvres before serving with the Mediterranean Fleet from November 1889 until March 1897. During her time there, she underwent a refit in Malta in 1896. On her return to the UK she became the coastguard ship at Bantry, Ireland.

Like HMS Nile, she took part in the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 16th August 1902. She was paid off into the Fleet Reserve in June 1903 and moved to East Kyle in January 1905, where she remained there until she was sold for scrap on 11th May 1909.

Thinking about hexes

The following blog post is the result of some ideas I had whilst I was unwell a week or so ago. Rather like my recent blog posts about psychogeography, I haven't come to any firm conclusions ... but I think that my thoughts are worth sharing online.

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I own Hexon II hex terrain ... a LOAD of Hexon II hex terrain! I like using it in my wargames and my Portable Wargame rules were designed to use them.

There is – however – a problem. Ever since I broke my leg and ended up finding out that I have axonal polyneuropathy – and its related mobility problems – I've only had access to a small part of my collection of hexes. Most of them are in our storage unit, and I only have enough to fill my Portable Wargame warboard. I am missing most of the roads, rivers, hills, and mountains ... and I am not sure when I will be able to rectify this.

That said, I haven't stopped thinking about putting it to good use, especially in conjunction with my Belle Époque project. Regular blog readers will already know that I have been somewhat in the doldrums regarding the the maps I want to use for this project ... other than my decision to try to use the Wargame Map Tool program to create them.

My initial thoughts about the hex maps was to create maps that used one map hex = one Hexon II hex ... but that meant that the maps I created either had to have lots of detail on them – and would take me a long time to create – or would be 'empty' until I 'populated' them with terrain.

I then began thinking about creating a very simple strategic campaign hex map and only worrying about the specific terrain in each hex once opposing forces entered it. This then led to me thinking about whether I could break up each map hex into a number of terrain hexes.

Initially, I looked at the smallest number of hexes I can fit inside a map hex. This was seven:

I then expanded the 'ring' of hexes around the central one, and ended up with nineteen hexes inside the larger hex.

I then expanded it even further until I could get thirty-seven hexes inside the larger hex. This compares with the forty-eight hexes I can fit on my Portable Wargame warboard. In other words, this large hex/small hexes combination is 23% smaller. (I estimate that it will be approximately 70cm/27.5-inches tall and 60cm/24-inches wide ... which will just about fit on my 90cm/36-inches x 60cm/24-inches wargame table)

Hexon II hexes come in two sizes ... a six-hex piece and a single-hex piece. To create my large hex from thirty-seven smaller hexes I could use four of the former and thirteen of the latter.

This rather appeals to me, and I hope to be able to look into this in more detail when time permits.

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I subsequently looked at a battle (The evacuation of Abou Nasir) that I fought on my Portable Wargame warboard as part of my MORE TROUBLE IN ZUBIA mini-campaign. The terrain for the battle looked like this:

I then converted it to fit on my thirty-seven small hex/one large hex map. The result looked like this:

On the strategic map, the hex containing the village of Abou Nasir would look like this: