Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame: The American Civil War

The latest addition to the PORTABLE WARGAME stable of rules - DEVELOPING THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME: THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR - has been published.

It was written by David Crook (the creator of the A WARGAMING ODYSSEY blog) and edited by me. The book builds upon the rules contained in THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME (published in December 2022) and contains several new ideas including a selection of optional rules covering key game mechanisms, the use of squares or single grid areas as well as a greatly expanded ship specification list and a full erratum. Although primarily aimed at the American Civil War, the rules may be successfully used for any naval conflict during the 1860s and 1870s.

The book contains the following chapters:

• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• The First Rules of Wargaming and the Spirit of the Wargame
• Thoughts on Initiative and Movement
• More thoughts on Movement
• Thoughts on Firing
• More thoughts on Firing
• The Use of a Square grid
• The Use of Single Hexes or Squares
• Further Notes on the Design and Thinking Out Loud
• Final Thoughts, Further Thoughts, Errors and Omissions … Part 2
• Battle report: Endgame Along the Missenhitti: The Battle of Static Bay: Part 1
• Battle report: Endgame Along the Missenhitti: The Battle of Static Bay: Part 2
• Calculating Ship Specifications
• Expanded Ship Specifications for the American Civil War
• An Illustrated guide to the warships of the American Civil War
• Bibliography and sources of information
• Revisiting the Rules
• Thoughts on Quick Reference Sheets and Ship Specification Charts
• Appendix 1: Quick Reference Sheets

It is worth noting that a copy of THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME is required to use the material contained in this publication.

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The book is on sale via Amazon in hardback (£25.00) and softback (£12.50) editions and in PDF format from Wargame Vault (£7.50). The latter is also available as part of a bundle with THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME for £12.64 (and may even be discounted to a lower price!)

Today I could have gone to Cavalier ... but I haven't

Tunbridge Wells Wargames Society's annual show – Cavalier – is taking place today, and as it marks the beginning of the wargaming year for many of us who live in this corner of England, I usually go ... but this year I haven't.

The reasons are varied, but essentially they are as follows:

• My ongoing problems with mobility. Although I can drive, once at the car park near the venue I will have to walk the rest of the way, and once inside there is nowhere on the ground floor to sit, something that I must do quite regularly. (I can walk about 100m before needing to rest.) Furthermore, walking around a crowded venue with a walking stick will not be easy and I do not want to risk tripping up and falling over.
• I have agreed to stage a World War II Portable Wargame at Dice on the Hill on Wednesday and need to get the necessary figures and terrain out of storage in Dartford. As I have several appointments on Monday and Tuesday, I will have to go to the store on today as I do not want to leave it until Wednesday ... just in case.
• My wargaming mojo is not what it should be at present (Although I should have got over the 'flu bug I caught earlier this year, I am still finding difficult to concentrate on anything for more than about ten minutes), and I lack the basic motivation to go to a wargame show.
• There are several things that I really need to do and that I cannot (or should not) put off any longer. For example, I have a detailed review of Steve Parker's DOMINION OF THE SPEAR wargame rules and DOMINION OF THE SPEAR BATTLES EXPANSION half finished, and I want to get it uploaded to my blog within the next day or two.
• I have the second play test of my simple late nineteenth century battleship vs. battleship naval wargame rules to stage and write about on my blog ... and possible make a video for my YouTube channel.

I might have made the effort to go to Cavalier if there had been anything in particular that I wanted to buy, but as my current project is currently on hold, there isn’t.

Hopefully I will make it to next year’s Cavalier … and will not regret not going today.

Battle of Cape Spatha YouTube video

Yesterday I uploaded an new YouTube video about the Battle of Cape Spatha to the Wargaming Miscellany channel.

The video can be seen here.

A Victor Meldrew moment

Yesterday I had what I can best describe as a Victor Meldrew moment.

I was reading the Naval Wargaming Facebook page when I saw that someone had bought my GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAMES book from Walmart Online! Now, this was news to me, so I investigated further … and discovered the Walmart Online actually has ALL my books on sale!

This is amazing! I cannot get my books stocked by any of the UK High Street booksellers but an American multinational retail corporation will sell them online.

As Victor Meldrew would have said, 'I don't believe it!'

A review of The Portable Ironclad Wargame

This month's issue of MINIATURE WARGAMES contains a full-page review of THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME.

The review was written by Arthur Harman. The book is still available in printed or Kindle format from Amazon or as a PDF from Wargames Vault.

New Gridded Naval Wargame Facebook group

A new group devoted to Gridded Naval Wargames has been created by David Crook. He and I will be the administrators.

If you are interested in all forms of naval wargames fought on a gridded tabletop, just search Facebook for The Gridded Naval Wargame.

Gridded Naval Wargames on special offer at Wargames Vault

Around 10am US Central time this morning the PDF edition of GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAMES will be the Deal of the Day on Wargames Vault. It will be 50% off its normal priced and only cost $2.44.

The latest Portable Wargame book is now on sale!

I am pleased to announce that the latest PORTABLE WARGAME book has been published! It is THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME and was written by David Crook and edited by me.

The book is 96 pages long and is available in four formats at prices to suit the pockets of all wargamers.

• Hardback (from Amazon ISBN 979 8 3673 7158 1 for £19.99)
• Softback (from Amazon ISBN 979 8 3673 6389 0 for £9.99)
• Kindle (from Amazon for £4.99)
• PDF (from Wargame Vault for £4.99)

The book is described as follows on its back cover:

This book builds on the earlier Portable Wargame rules for fighting battles during the so-called ‘ironclad’ era of naval warfare that were included in ‘The Gridded Naval Wargame’. In this book, the author has created a set of rules that are mainly aimed at the American Civil War, a war that saw both sides embrace the new concept of armouring warships to make them less vulnerable to the more powerful guns that were being manufactured. The fact that both sides were capable of building or extemporising such warships – sometimes in a very short time and in very difficult and trying circumstances – is testament to their ingenuity and skill, and to the pioneer spirit exhibited by so many Americans in those days.

The Americans were not – however – unique in having the capacity to both build and operate ironclad warships, and as the book shows, the French and British were more than capable of building sea-going ironclads – and the guns with which to arm them – in large numbers in a relatively short time. They soon became the suppliers of ironclad warships to the world, and many of the warships that took part in the other naval conflicts of this era were launched in British or French shipyards. The rules in this book can be used to recreate these other battles, and it is hoped to produce appropriate supplements at a later date.

The book's contents look like this:

• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• A short history of the development of the early ironclads
• Wars in which ironclads saw action
• American Civil War
• The Second Schleswig War
• The Chincha Islands War
• The Third Italian War of Independence/Seven Weeks War
• The War of the Triple Alliance/The Paraguayan War
• The Boshin War
• The Russo-Turkish War
• The Peruvian Civil War
• The War of the Pacific
• Designer’s Notes – How I got to Where I got to and Why!
• The Fundamental Rules of Wargaming
• The First Rule of Wargaming
• The Spirit of the Wargame
• If in doubt ...
• The Rules
• Sequence of Play
• Combat Resolution Overview
• The Rule of 1 and 6 – Gunnery or Ramming Attacks
• Firing
• Movement
• Ram Attacks
• Mines and Spar Torpedoes
• Damage and Sinking
• Forts, Shore Batteries, and Offshore Defences
• Ship Specifications
• Examples of Ship Specifications: The American Civil War
• Union Ships
• Confederate Ships
• Generic Vessels
• Examples of the rules in action
• Firing Arcs and Firing
• Ramming
• The Rules in Action – More Trouble along the Missenhitti
• Introduction
• Six months later …
• Setting the Scene
• Dramatis Naves
• Blueberry Bend, at the Confluence of the Missenhitti and Yahoo Rivers … November 1863
• In conclusion
• Modelling the warships of the American Civil War
• A Review of the Fleets
• The Union Fleet
• The Confederate Fleet
• Final Thoughts, Further Thoughts, Errors, and Omissions
• Bibliography and sources of information

This is a great addition to the PORTABLE WARGAME series of books and will hopefully not be David's only contribution.

It's a coming! More news!

Amongst all the other things that I have been trying to do over recent weeks, I have been putting the finishing touches (I hope!) to the latest book in the PORTABLE WARGAME series (THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME), and I hope to get it published in the week before Christmas. The time schedule is very dependent upon things like the Royal Mail delivering proof copies in time, and as they are currently staging a number of strikes, there might be a delay.

As a tantaliser, here is a draft copy of the book's cover design:

The book is biased towards the American Civil War (mainly because that is the most well-known conflict in which ironclads took part), but there is some coverage of the other wars that took place up to 1880 that involved ironclads. It is hoped that they will be covered in more detail in later supplements.

At present we do not know how much the selling price might be, but we (David Crook and I) hope to produce it in three editions – hardback, softback, and PDF – with prices to suit the pockets of most wargamers.

It’s a coming’!

Yesterday I finished the layout of the forthcoming THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME book that has been written by David Crook. I’ve written a couple of appendices for the book as well as editing it … and we hope to publish it in time for Christmas.

We intend it to be available in three formats:

• Coloured hardback
• Coloured softback
• Coloured PDF

We don’t yet know the price of each format, but we hope to keep them as low as possible.

Funny Little Wars/Portable Wargame Navies,

Whilst painting some gunners for my FUNNY LITTLE WARS/PORTABLE WARGAME ARMY KEPI ROUGE army, my mind turned to the prospect of creating some navies that would complement my existing FUNNY LITTLE WARS/PORTABLE WARGAME armies.

Looking along the shelves where my existing collection of suitable ship models are stored, I realised that I already have the basis of several possible navies …

… although I suspect (in reality, KNOW!) that I will want to build some additional models.

Mark Cordone’s naval gazing!

Some year ago I wrote GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAMES, which was the naval equivalent of my PORTABLE WARGAME. It was designed for actions involving a relatively small number of ships per side, although larger fleet actions were possible if you had enough space.

Recently, Mark Cordone has been developing his own fleet-level naval rules that use the core mechanisms from the PORTABLE WARGAME, and he has now fought his first play-test fleet action.

I have been following the development of his rules with interest, and I think that they have great potential.

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Please note that photographs featured above are © Mark Cordone.

My latest book sales figures

It is just over six months since I last looked at my book sales figures. What with the on/off COVID-19 lockdown, problems with Lulu.com, switching over to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), and my major surgery, I just did not get around to it. I have managed to do so now, and my book sales figures look like this:

It is interesting to note that sales of all the books in the PORTABLE WARGAME series seem to continue to sell well, and form the bulk of the total sales to date. WHEN EMPIRES CLASH! and HEXBLITZ attract regular sales, and THE MADASAHATTA CAMPAIGN has gone through the 150 sales barrier!

An example of one of my existing Portable Wargame armies ... plus a warship!

Before my order of MDF bases arrives from Warbases, I wanted to review one of my existing PORTABLE WARGAME armies. I chose the British Colonial one that I have been using for some years.

These figures were purchased ready-painted many years ago from Miliart, and were originally based to be used with SCWaRes (Simple Colonial Wargames Rules) and then WHEN EMPIRES CLASH! Since then, they’ve been used to develop my PORTABLE WARGAME rules, and are featured in my PORTABLE COLONIAL WARGAME books.

The are enough figures for two small PORTABLE WARGAME armies (or even one large one) ... although the addition of some cavalry would make the collection slightly more rounded. Luckily, during my recent review of my collections, I found some unbased cavalry figures which will fill that gap very nicely.

In the background is one of the ship models I built to provide fire support for my nineteenth century armies. She has had several names and featured in numerous wargames, including one one in GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAMES that was also featured on the book's cover.

Contemplating my naval

Archduke Piccolo's recent tabletop naval battle has set me thinking.

He adapted the rules in GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAMES using some elements from the naval rules in THE PORTABLE COLONIAL WARGAME, and fought an action between two American Civil War-era ironclads (a turretted monitor and a casemate ironclad) and a slightly more modern turret ship.

This happened just as I was coming to the stage in my current World War Two Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War project when I was beginning to think about the naval aspects of my campaign. As a result, I went to one of my display cabinets and got our my 'cartoon' versions of a generic destroyer, the German pre-dreadnought Schleswig-Holstein, and Russian Marat/Petropavlovsk. (The latter was a very cut-down version of the original design, and only had two triple 12-inch gun turrets.)

Generic destroyer

The model is 18.5cm long by 2.8cm wide, and using the formula set out in THE PORTABLE COLONIAL WARGAME, she would have 13 Flotation Points/Strength Points. Archduke Piccolo suggests halving this, which would give her 7 Flotation Points/Strength Points.

German pre-dreadnough battleship Schleswig-Holstein

The model is 20cm long by 7.7cm wide, and using the formula set out in THE PORTABLE COLONIAL WARGAME, she would have 77 Flotation Points/Strength Points. Archduke Piccolo suggests halving this, which would give her 39 Flotation Points/Strength Points.

Russian battleship Marat/Petropavlovsk

The model is 24.5cm long by 7.7cm wide, and using the formula set out in THE PORTABLE COLONIAL WARGAME, she would have 94 Flotation Points/Strength Points. Archduke Piccolo suggests halving this, which would give her 47 Flotation Points/Strength Points.

These revised Flotation Point/Strength Point values seem to be much more reasonable when used with larger models, and I will probably adopt this in future.

An idea worth pursuing ... has been pursued

Although I didn’t get as much positive feedback as I had hoped, I have decided to publish PDF editions of the following books at the prices shown:

• THE PORTABLE WARGAME (£2.49)
• DEVELOPING THE PORTABLE WARGAME (£2.49)
• GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAMES (£3.49)
• WHEN EMPIRES CLASHED! (£1.99)
• HEXBLITZ (£2.49)

They are now on sale via Lulu.com, and can be found on my author's page.

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I am considering publishing LA ULTIMA CRUZADA and THE MADASAHATTA CAMPAIGN in PDF format, but whether or not I do will depend upon how well the above sell.

It's in The Works

I am an habitue of 'The Works', a chain of discount book, craft, and toy shops, and visit any branch that I come across. Sue and I recently visited the Retail Outlet Centre in the Chatham Maritime area, and as there is a branch of 'The Works' there, I paid it a visit.

Coincidentally I recently had an email from Derek Clark about some model ships he had bought to modify and use with my GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAME rules. Amongst the models he bought was one for a small stern wheel paddle steamer ...

... and during my visit to 'The Works' I found a very similar (if not exactly the same!) model on sale for £1.50 ... and bought two.

The front and back of the box look like this ...

... and the instructions and components look like this:

I probably won't build the models straight from the box but will use the components to build vessels of my own design.

Addendum to 'A different way of measuring weapon ranges in Gridded Naval Wargames'

As an addition to a comment to a recent blog entry, Philip Dutré sent me the following note and diagram:

Dear Bob,

I've included a quick diagram below, showing a straight line on an offset grid. You can see that the distance between 2 squares is 6, but the straight line passes through 7 squares.

This happens in some particular situations, but I guess that in practice during the game, it doesn't matter.

Phil

I must admit that I had not considered this possibility, but I think that it is worth sharing as it is a very useful addition to the discussion.

A different way of measuring weapon ranges in Gridded Naval Wargames

Last Saturday I received a very interesting email from Eric Sprague which was accompanied by an explanation of how he thought that movement and weapon ranges should be measured on a grid of offset squares. I thought that what he proposed was well thought out and with his permission I have reproduced it below.

Movement and Range on an Offset Square Grid

To calculate movement and range on an off-set square grid should be no different than a hex grid. I have recreated the diagrams from your book. (Figures B and D are just rotated 90 degrees.) I have added a blue line to show how you proposed calculating these. The numbers in red are how I would have calculated the same distance.

The same in hexes. These are the same as the off-set squares above to show the similarities.

Notice how I numbered in black exactly as you had above. In Figures A, B and C, in both off-set squares and hexes, the red line follows from one square or hex to the next without going astray. In Figure D the red line does not follow a distinct path but is more closely approximated by the red numbers.

This makes a lot of sense, and I can see why he proposes these changes. In consequence, I thoroughly recommend anyone who wants to to use Eric's method in preference to that laid down in my book. From personal preference I will continue to use hexed and normal squared grids and avoid offset ones whenever I can ... but if I do use them at some time in the future, I will be using Eric's method of measuring weapon ranges.

I don't believe it!

Last night – quite by chance – I discovered that the eBook version my latest book – GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAMES – seems to have been converted into a PDF and is now being made available online as a 'free' download by someone called Yelich Mulac.

I have contacted Lulu, who assure me that this individual IS NOT part of their distribution network. They have also supplied me with a formal letter that I have sent to Yelich Mulac requesting that he remove the download.

As his profile features the Guy Fawkes mask from V FOR VENDETTA and his blog includes a long list of other 'free' book downloads, I suspect that Yelich Mulac regards himself as above the conventions of normal society, and that providing free downloads of other people's work is helping to 'destroy the tyranny of capitalist society'.