This new video contains a battle report of a wargame that I fought over ten years ago.
The scenario for the wargame is based on a section of Alexander Korda and H G Wells' film THINGS TO COME and depicts the attack by the Army of Everytown on the Army of the Hill People.
An earlier background video to this scenario can be found here.
The video can be seen here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.
Some time ago I gave some of my surplus Heroscape hexed terrain to fellow wargamer and Peter Laing enthusiast Ian Dury. He has recently sent me some photographs of the Heroscape hexed terrain that he has repainted so that he can fight action on the North-West Frontier. It looks very impressive, as the following photographs show.
Please note that photographs featured above are © Ian Dury.
This new video (which I uploaded yesterday) provides the background to a scenario that I fought over ten years ago.
The scenario is based on a section of Alexander Korda and H G Wells' film THINGS TO COME and depicts the attack by the Army of Everytown on the Army of the Hill People.
The video can be seen here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.
When I started out making videos for my Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel, I received a comment that my videos might be improved by the addition of a musical sound track.
At the time, I was still trying to learn how to use my video editing software, but over the past few days I have been experimenting with adding a musical soundtrack to a couple of videos I have made. These give the background to a wargame that I fought over ten years ago as well as a battle report about that tabletop battle.
These two videos will be uploaded by the end of the week and I would appreciate helpful feedback.
I had hoped to use the soundtrack from THINGS TO COME on these two videos, but as I could not find a suitable electronic copy of the music, I ended up using MARS from Gustav Holst's Planet Suite instead. The details of the recording that I used are:
The Planets, Op. 32: I. Mars, the Bringer of War played by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Sir Colin Davis.
It is a very long time since I made a model kit, but recently I bought a Faller kit from an eBay seller.
The model is one that was first introduced by Faller in 1965(!) and it has the code number B-924 and is named 'Old-town block'. The box looks like this:
I found photographs of the complete kit on the Faller website and I think that this will make a great basis for the capital of one of my Belle Époque imagi-nations.
I hope to put this kit together over the next week or so ... and by doing so I will able to feel as if I have made some progress on my Belle Époque project.
After I wrote my recent blog post entitled HITTING A BRICK WALL, I have done a lot of thinking. One thing that I did was to read a blog post that I wrote back on 11th January this year. It was entitled A LONG, HARD THINK ABOUT MY FUTURE WARGAMING, and in some of the concluding paragraphs I wrote the following:
I have been mulling what my future wargaming priorities should be for some time. Until very recently I was still very undecided … and then I read an obituary about the late John Ruddle’s garden wargaming, and things began to fall into place.
In the obituary, the wargaming part of John’s garden was described as being L-shaped, with a long left-hand border that was split into Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. At right-angles to this and across the bottom of the garden were sections that represented Africa and the Northwest Frontier of India. At the join of the two section was Turkey, and the lawn represented the oceans. My immediate reaction was ‘I’d love to do something like that, but my garden isn’t suitable.’ However, after some thought, I decided that an indoor version of something like it might be possible.
My current thinking is along the lines that I could create a terrain board for each of my Belle Époque imagi-nations using the game board/map from Waddington’s CAMPAIGN game as a guide. These terrain boards could be stored in my future wargame/toy room and be brought out and used as and when required. It would allow me to exercise my terrain modelling skills (something that I have recently rediscovered and that I really do enjoy!) and become the basis of an imaginary wargaming world where nations – both large and small – are constantly vying with each other.
I now realise that this might have been a bit too ambitious a project ... but I think that there is a kernel of a good idea in it. I don't think that I will have room to build and store a large number of terrain boards but I might have room for a number of home-made terrain cloths. Alternately, I might be able to find a way to use my Hexon II hex terrain system and my mini-campaign board.
This appears to run contrary to what I wrote so recently, but I can see no reason why I cannot buy a laptop with a bigger screen, and Sue has – within reason – agreed to get anything that I need for my toy/wargame room. This would remove the two things that are currently restricting the work on my Belle Époque project, and as my mobility improves, these restrictions should ease.
The brick wall is still there … but I’m finding ways to get around it.
The latest issue of the Victorian Military Society's SOTQ (Soldiers of the Queen) arrived by post on Wednesday, and I have read it over the past few days.
The articles included in this issue are:
Yet again there is lots in this issue for anyone with an interest in Britain's military history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The index of past issues is extremely useful, and although I do not have access to every copy of SOTQ that has been published, knowing where to find a particular article may be very helpful in the future.
The annual cost of membership of the Victorian Military Society is:
As I have written many times before, in my opinion it is well worth it.
The Victorian Military Society will be holding a special event at the National Army Museum on Saturday 14th September. It is entitled ARMY, EMPIRE AND CINEMA and will be looking at how the wars of the nineteenth century have been portrayed on film. The speakers include Ian Beckett, Ian Knight, Mark Connolly, Rodney Attwood, and Christopher Brice.
The cost of a ticket is £20.00 for members and £25.00 for non-member and tickets can be booked online at www.victorianmilitary.org/shop.
I broke my left leg eighteen weeks ago ... and I have been striving to get better ever since. For months I was basically confined to my bed or a chair next to my bed, and it is only during the last fortnight that I have begun to get the sort of treatment that I need to regain my mobility. I can now stand (with assistance) and I have manged to walk a few steps using a Zimmer frame (which is also known as a walker or walking frame) to support me. I no longer need a hoist to get me in and out of bed and can do that myself (using the Zimmer frame) as long as I am supervised ... just in case I run into any difficulties.
All of this is very positive, and the fact that I now have a diagnosis of axonal polyneuropathy* in both my lower legs means that the physiotherapists can devise a programme of exercises that should help me regain more mobility in the future.
What has yet to be determined is the cause of the neuropathy. The most common causes are excessive, long-term alcohol consumption and diabetes ... but as I don't drink alcohol and blood tests show no sign that I have diabetes means that I will need further tests in the future to identify the reason why I have developed this condition. My fear is that it might be something that cannot be treated and reversed as this will mean that any mobility that I do regain might be restricted for the rest of my life.
During the past eighteen weeks I have been using my interest in wargaming to help keep me from falling into a state of despair. The old 'Black Dog' has been sniffing around quite a bit of late and there is only so much thinking and writing about wargaming that one can do before a state of ennui cuts in. I have now reached that stage and desperately feel the need to set up some terrain, get some figures on a tabletop, and play a wargame!
To date I have been very lucky in that I have had the support of my numerous wargaming friends and acquaintances, many of who have written me wonderful messages. Thanks to Zoom, I have even been able to observe at least one wargame and been involved in it at a distance. However, I can sense that my enthusiasm for arms-length wargaming is waning, and I really need to take a step back and reappraise my future wargaming projects.
I had already decided to concentrate my efforts on my Belle Époque project, but to do so I really need to have access to a better computer than the current, small 12-inch laptop that I am using as well as to the Belle Époque figures that are in my currently unreachable toy/wargame room. I need to find a way by which I can undertake further work on this project within my currently restricted circumstances. I have a couple of ideas ... but I need to think about them before committing to one of them.
* According to online sources, axonal polyneuropathy is defined as follows:
Axonal polyneuropathy is a type of polyneuropathy, which is a systemic process that damages nerve cells, nerve fibres, and nerve coverings. It causes symptoms and signs related to axon loss, such as impaired sensation, muscle weakness, or pain. Axonal polyneuropathy can affect both large and small fibres, but small-fibre polyneuropathy can specifically interfere with the ability to feel pain or changes in temperature.
Those sources identify its main causes are:
Quite early in the film, there is an aerial dogfight between two 'fighters'.
They are in fact a Percival Mew Gull ...
... and a Hawker Fury.
These were both civilian-registered aircraft, and the Fury was retained by Hawker as part of the development programme that eventually led to the Fury Mark II.
Percival Mew Gull
The Mew Gull was a single-seat racing monoplane built by the Percival Aircraft Company between 1934 and 1938. Only five were built and they dominated aircraft racing in the UK in the runup to the outbreak of the Second World War.
The aircraft's characteristics were:
Hawker Fury
The Fury was a single-seat biplane fighter built by the Hawker Aircraft Company from 1931 onwards. 275 were built in two marks (Mark I (87) and Mark II (112) and the aircraft was operated by the Royal Airforce (196) as well as the air forces of Norway (1), Iran (22), Portugal (3), South Africa (ex-RAF aircraft), Spain (3), and the Yugoslavia (50).
The Fury Mark II's characteristics were:
I have created a pair of YouTube videos that tell the story of the Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich.
The second deals with the history of the second location of the museum – Firepower! inside the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich – and includes coverage of some of the exhibits that used to be on display.
This video can be found here.
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