Preparing for COW2026

Over the past week I have been preparing the PowerPoint presentation that will form part of the session I will be running at this year's Conference of Wargame (COW).

The session is entitled THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC: SINKING U-BOATS and was originally written after attending John Curry's presentation at the WD AVG (Wargame Developments Annual Virtual Gathering) in October 2024. It was about the role of the WATU (Western Approaches Training Unit) ...

One of the WATU training wargames in progress. The officers under training could only see the game board through holes in the screen. The WRENs plotted the positions of the escort ships in accordance with the orders issued by the officers. They also controlled the U-boats using the current tactics employed by the Kriegsmarine's U-boat service.

... and led me to create a timeline of technical and tactical innovations that were introduced before and during the Battle of the Atlantic.

The title slide of my PowerPoint presentation.

It turned out to be a very interesting piece of research ... and I hope to share it with a wider audience in due course.

A graph that shows the ratio of ships to U-boats sunk during the Second World War. It makes it very clear that 1942 was the turning point of the battle against the U-boat menace.