A map for my Barbarossa Campaign: More progress has been made ... and more lessons learned!

I have been continuing to work on the map I want to use for my Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War campaign.

First of all, I allocated the areas of steppe covered by deciduous and coniferous trees different shades of green background colour, ...

... and then I added the roads.

I then decided to reduce the size of the tree symbols I had used (a somewhat tedious but mindless task) and to add both national boundaries and some more small cities.

Then did some basic tidying up, and besides removing a main road east from Moscow, I began to add the marshland just south of Leningrad.

The map is beginning to come together, but there are still some features about it that I'm not totally satisfied with. Once one or two other things are added (such as the heavily forested areas and the place names), I should be in a position to think about writing some simple campaign rules to use with the map.

No monthly book sales figures are available

Lulu.com updated its website a week ago ... and since then, they have been experiencing ‘difficulties’. For example, if you search for my books, some of them have no photograph of the book’s cover.

Of greater concern to me, however, is the fact that none of my book sales data has ‘migrated’ to the new website. As a result, I have no idea how many books I have sold since last month ... or since I published my first book some years ago. Lulu.com has put out a general online statement to the effect that they know that there is a problem, and that they are working to solve it.

I’ve now received the following message from Lulu.com:

‘Dear Lulu Author,

During our site updates, we unintentionally introduced a pricing change to some existing projects that participate in our Global Distribution service.

This change has been rolled back and the proper pricing should be reflected.

We apologize for any confusion this may have caused and appreciate your patience.

If you have any additional questions, please contact our support team for individual assistance.’

The last sentence is rather pointless, as any attempt to contact the support team only elicits a standard response. He is the one I received:

‘Dear Robert,

Thank you for contacting us. Though this is an automated response, your inquiry is of utmost importance, and we created case 02477819 for you. Please read the following important information carefully.

Since Lulu's upgrade on Saturday, we are experiencing higher than normal volumes of cases. This update was the largest we’ve ever done and like any technical endeavor of this size, there are often complications that can’t be anticipated. Despite our careful preparation, a couple of these issues have gotten the best of us right now. We have been working around the clock to fix any outstanding bugs and answer the inquiries submitted to our support team.

If you're reporting product availability issues, know that these are our highest priorities and our team is working to resolve as quickly as possible.

If you are not able to log in, please try again and reset your password.

Additionally, there is a current import of millions of products and images that will resolve product availability issues over the next few days. We assure you all data will be available.

We are aware that your projects may not display the cover image on the projects overview page. The missing cover images will not impact the files on your project as the cover file itself does exist. Your published project is still available for purchase if it has a Add to Cart button.

Author Spotlight links that were not working before should now be fixed.

Creator revenue and sales data is in the process of being migrated and will be available soon as well.

This case will now be marked as resolved. However, if your question or issue is not answered with this update, please reply to this email to reopen your case.

If you are inquiring about your order or other issues not listed above, your case will remain open and a support agent will respond to you.

Check out our page Get To Know The New Lulu to learn how our site has changed and what's coming soon!

Thank you so much for your patience.

Kind regards,

Customer Support
Lulu Press, Inc.’

I can never understand why companies that have websites that are perfectly satisfactory feel the need to change them quite so drastically, especially if the replacement is not properly ready to replace the existing one. I always used to tell my IT students to test, test, and test again before letting any program, application, or website go 'live' ... and I give the same advice to fledgling wargame designers. Despite this being a common refrain amongst those people I have known who are involved in the IT industry, companies still persist in moving over to 'new and improved' online products that just don't function properly.

VE Day .... Seventy-five years on!

Seventy-five years ago today, the war in Europe against Nazi Germany and her allies came to an end. There was joy and rejoicing in the streets of many cities, towns, villages, and in individual households in the Allied nations ... but from what I have gathered from the reminiscences of many who were serving overseas, there were few if any celebrations.

My father was in Wismar on the Baltic coast with other units of the UK’s 6th Airborne Division. After 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion had shot their way past a German roadblock on the outskirts of the city, the leading elements of the division had entered Wismar by 9.00am on 2nd May ... only seven hours ahead of the Russians, who arrived from the east at 4.00pm.

A rather uneasy peace then ensued, with the Russians demanding that the city be handed over, and the British politely but firmly refusing. There was even an armed confrontation between several drunken Russian soldier who wanted to get into the city to ‘entertain’ some of the local women and the Paras manning the checkpoint between the areas occupied by the erstwhile allies. This resulted in an exchange of gunfire and the death of several Russians. On the day before VE Day, the troops in Wismar were visited by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, and this calmed the situation somewhat, and on 1st July the British troops withdrew, and the Russian occupied the city.

My father-in-law spent VE-Day in the Far East as part of the Allied armies fighting the Japanese. He was always very bitter about previous celebrations of VE-Day, and I’m sure that if he were still alive, he would have complained long and loudly about this year’s muted one. He always felt that VJ-Day was just as important ... but was always either played down or ignored.

So today, when we remember that joyous day, let us also remember those who were not at home with their loved ones, for example:

• The Allied troops who were fighting around Rangoon in Burma
• The Australian troops fighting the Japanese on New Guinea in order to capture Wewak and thus gain control of the last remaining port on the island
• The American Marines who were fighting against the Japanese on Okinawa

The end of their war was not in sight ... and they expected that things were going to get a lot tougher before it was over.

Some renovated 20mm-scale Russian World War Two tanks

The next batch of Russian vehicles that I decided to renovate were some Russian tanks.

The T-34/76s are ROCO models and the T-60 light tank was manufactured by Skytrex.

Other people’s Portable Wargames

I am having great difficulty keeping up with the deluge of PORTABLE WARGAME battles being fought and ideas that people are coming up with. It is almost as if the the current pandemic and resultant lockdown has given PW users the impetus (and time) to really get to grips with the rules ... and they are not afraid to push the envelope!

Archduke Piccolo has fought an Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War battle, which he has featured on his blog in four blog entries (here, here, here, and here).

Barry Carter has fought a battle from the War of 1812, ...

... created a wonderful terrain board, ...

... and fought a battle against slavers in a jungle set up on a vinyl chessboard.

Jeff Butler has also created a squared terrain board ...

... as well as a hexed terrain system.

Martin Smith has been fighting a battle set during the 1866 Austrian-Prussian War ...

... and Alan Saunders has continued his series of English Civil War battles.

Finally, Stephen Smith has been using the squared grid terrain boards from the TRAVEL BATTLE game and 6mm figures to develop a Napoleonic skirmish game.

(Mike Taber of Table Top Talk is also working on a skirmish variant of the rules.)

I understand that there have been some more PORTABLE WARGAME battle reports posted over the last 48 hours, but I have not yet managed to read them all. As I wrote at the beginning of this blog entry, at the moment I'm having trouble keeping up with everything that is happening on the PORTABLE WARGAME front!

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Please note that the photographs featured above are © Archduke Piccolo, Barry Carter, Jeff Butler, Martin Smith, Alan Saunders, and Stephen Smith.

Maigret et moi: Part 3

During the lockdown, I've been ploughing on with my reading, and Georges Simenon's Maigret books have continued to feature highly. To date, I have read the books shown in bold:

1. Pietr the Latvian
2. The Late Monsieur Gallet
3. The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien
4. The Carter of La Providence
5. The Yellow Dog
6. Night at the Crossroads
7. A Crime in Holland
8. The Grand Banks Cafe
9. A Man's Head
10. The Dancer at the Gai Moulin
11. The Two-Penny Bar
12. The Shadow Puppet
13. The Saint-Fiacre Affair
14. The Flemish Shop
15. The Madman of Bergerac
16. The Misty Harbour
17. Liberty Bar
18. Lock No. 1
19. Maigret
20. Cecile is Dead
21. The Cellars of the Majestic
22. The Judge's House
23. Signed, Picpus
24. Inspector Cadaver
25. Félicie
26. Maigret Gets Angry
27. Maigret in New York
28. Maigret's Holiday
29. Maigret's Dead Man
30. Maigret's First Case
31. My Friend Maigret
32. Maigret at the Coroner's
33. Maigret and the Old Lady
34. Madame Maigret's Friend
35. Maigret's Memoirs
36. Maigret at Picratt's
37. Maigret Takes a Room
38. Maigret and the Tall Woman
39. Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters
40. Maigret's Revolver
41. Maigret and the Man on the Bench
42. Maigret is Afraid
43. Maigret's Mistake
44. Maigret Goes to School
45. Maigret and the Dead Girl
46. Maigret and the Minister
47. Maigret and the Headless Corpse
48. Maigret Sets a Trap
49. Maigret's Failure
50. Maigret Enjoys Himself
51. Maigret Travels
52. Maigret's Doubts
53. Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses
54. Maigret's Secret
55. Maigret in Court
56. Maigret and the Old People
57. Maigret and the Lazy Burglar
58. Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse
59. Maigret and the Saturday Caller
60. Maigret and the Tramp
61. Maigret's Anger
62. Maigret and the Ghost
63. Maigret Defends Himself
64. Maigret's Patience
65. Maigret and the Nahour Case
66. Maigret's Pickpocket
67. Maigret Hesitates
68. Maigret in Vichy
69. Maigret's Childhood Friend
70. Maigret and the Killer
71. Maigret and the Wine Merchant
72. Maigret's Madwoman
73. Maigret and the Loner
74. Maigret and the Informer
75. Maigret and Monsieur Charles

I've also read some of the short stories including:

• Maigret's Pipe
• Maigret's Christmas
• Seven Little Crosses in a Notebook
• The Little Restaurant in Les Ternes

At this rate, the lockdown continues for some time to come, I will have read the majority of books in the catalogue.

Some renovated 20mm-scale Russian World War Two armoured cars

The next batch of Russian vehicles I decided to renovate were some Russian armoured cars.

These are FAI-N armoured cars, which were a modified version of the earlier FAI vehicle mounted on a longer chassis. The models are diecast ones that I bought some time ago in a branch of THE WORKS. They appear to have been made in Russia and originally sold with a magazine. When they first came on sale in the UK, they were £5.00 each, but later on they were reduced to £2.50.

A map for my Barbarossa Campaign: Some progress has been made ... and lesson learned!

The next stage in creating my map was to add the cities.

I used a large rectangle for Moscow, circles for the other major cities, and smaller circles for the less important cities.

I then began to delineate the various geographic zones, including the arid area in the south, the central marshland area, and the grass steppe.

The next step was to delineate the areas of steppe covered by deciduous and coniferous trees.

When I first completed this stage, I felt that it looked quite good, but after a good night's sleep I realised that the trees were just to regularly laid out and the map looked very crowded. I therefore reduced the number of trees and made their positions withing each grid square much more random. To me, the result looked much better.

The next stage will be to give the areas of steppe covered by deciduous and coniferous trees a green background colour, and then to add the roads.

Some renovated 20mm-scale Russian World War Two artillery

Having renovated some Russian artillery tractors, I decided to renovate some artillery for the larger tractors to tow.

The models were manufactured by Skytex and originally sold as French 155mm howitzers. In 1941 the Russians still retained in service a 152mm calibre version of this weapon (the M1910/37) that they had manufactured during the First World War.

Other people’s Portable Wargame battle reports ... and even more ideas!

Alan Saunders has fought yet another battle using his English Civil War variant of the PORTABLE WARGAME rules, and a detailed battle report has appeared on his blog.

On the PORTABLE WARGAME Facebook page, Barry Carter has uploaded photographs of his gingham cloth tabletop ...

... and his minute magnetic travel set!

He used a magnetic travel game as the basis of the tabletop and 2mm figure block for his troops! As a result, he has a game that will fit inside a coat pocket.

Meanwhile, Steven Smith has been using Heroscape hexes and 10mm figures to fight a battle between Bavarian and Prussian forces ...

... and Nick Nascati has created British and Zulu armies from chess pieces! (Is there no end to the ingenuity of wargamers! I don’t think so ... and long may it remain so!)

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Please note that the photographs featured above are © Alan Saunders, Barry Carter, Steven Smith, and Nick Nascati.