Petrograd Nights - or “a knout to remember”

Bolsheviks and Kronstadt sailors come to blows while Conservatives and Socialist Revolutionaries look on. 

The high quality replica of the square. 

This was the first full playtest of Russell’s new game. Taking as it’s subject the various Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the game starts with a session of the National Executive Committee. 

Surely this will pass off peacefully with everyone in agreement. Well no, because some silly sod always calls a strike. This soon descends into a vulgar street brawl and so resolved using 54mm toy soldiers to represent the various factions.

I had ‘volunteered’ to run the fighting in the square and wrote what might easily be mistaken for rules for such. I assembled various factions of toy soldiers – including two brigades of sailors from Kronstadt – and deployed them on my museum-quality replica of Palace Square.

In our game there was a strike almost immediately but that was followed by two. NEC sessions in which a number of progressive and enlightened measures were…….rejected. 

Fighting in the square 

The factions gathering 

Russell had thankfully resisted the temptation of cheap typecasting and so the factions were:

Bolsheviks - Martin Rapier

Socialist Revolutionaries - Russell

Liberals - John Armatys

Conservatives - Your humble correspondent

Tsarists - John Bassett

The NEC was soon dominated by the Tsarists and Conservatives and we resisted a number of seditious proposals which if passed would clearly have undermined the stability of Mother Russia. This nonsense included the exile of the Tsar, collectivisation of agriculture and ending illiteracy among the peasants. It was widely agreed that all of these went against the laws of God. The one motion we passed was to make peace with Germany, which we all felt was quite a good idea. A government was eventually formed of Conservatives and Tsarists. 

The very busy hospital!

While the Liberals initially supported us, they soon decided to take to the streets! In a close fight in the square, the forces of law and order prevailed over the anarchist street thugs (as we called anyone with even mildly progressive views) and stable government resumed under the slogan ‘Forward to 1850!’

Both regiments of sailors joined the final fight in the square 

A most entertaining game which might well have spin-offs for other situations. Russell has run it again today for a larger group,of players - it went very well.

Look out for it at COW 2022

And if you’d like more information about any of the toy soldiers please let me know in the comments. 

Sen Toku part 2 - the horrors of haiku

 (report by Tim Gow, poetry by John B & Simon W)

On Wednesday we were joined by the Admiral who entertained us with a haiku – as it turned out the first of many.  Cultural wargaming eh?

Heroes sail to fate

Seeking honour and glory

Women weep salt tears

Once the Admiral had decided on a plan - to destroy the Pacific lock gate of the Pamama Canal – he recited another inspirational haiku.

Like lotus blossom

On a bright spring mountainside

We shall smite our foes

We then executed the mission.  The plan was to use all four subs, three each with 3 bomb-equipped seaplanes and the fourth packed with explosives and with a hangar full of 10 manned torpedoes.  Each also carried a 10-man Marine party.  I’d originally hoped to have another two players at this point for the ‘walk on’ parts of the captains of I-402 and I-404.  The Admiral asked for volunteers at which point several players remembered urgent appointments elsewhere.  Capt. Yamamoto and Cdr. Fujimori eventually agreed to take the roles.  Cdr Sugai decided to command his Marines in person and sailed aboard I-400.  Major  Takada joined hist manned torpedoes on I-404.  Needless to say the Admiral’s sealed orders included a further haiku.

We shall overwhelm him

The enemy who lurks offshore

Like a wrathful shark

The mission was then resolved by a combination of dice rolls and umpire invention.

When the target area was reached, three subs surfaced and prepared to fly off aircraft and launch the Marines in their little rubber boats.  I-404, known by now as the floating bomb, carried on submerged.  A combination of mechanical failure and navigational errors meant that only five of the nine seaplanes approached the target.  One succeeded in bombing and setting ablaze a ship in the lock.  Two seaplanes were lost to enemy fire while more mechanical and navigation issues meant that only one was hoisted back aboard.  While I-402 was thus engaged it was spotted and sunk by US aircraft.  The Marines were something of a mixed bag.  One party blundered around and got utterly lost.  A second ran into a US patrol and perished in a hail of .30 cal fire.  The third heard this exchange, ambushed the patrol and after causing further mayhem took to the hills.  The last survivor is confidently expected to surrender in about 1974.

And what of I-404?  Having crashed gently into the lock gate, the Marine party secured the immediate area while Capt. Yamamoto came ashore trailing wires behind him, triggered the demolition charges and……nothing happened!  The courageous Captain returned to the sub and detonated the charges in person.  The subsequent bang warped the lock gate but failed to destroy it.  At this point Major Takada remembered the manned torpedoes still aboard I-404 and heroically exploded them, finishing off the lock.

Both I-400 and I-401 made it safely back to Japan where, as well as medals all round there was the inevitable haiku from Adm Osami:

Noble Samurai

Like the dawn on Fuji San

Their honour is great

As with all such games it was made a memorable event by the enthusiasm of the players.  I will leave the last words to Capt. Kuroshima….

While friends shed their blood

I am with my geisha girl

Kuroshima smiles

Sen Toku part 1 - the horror of war

As I write this it’s almost 11 months since I ran the first remote game for our Sheffield based group (& friends).  Since then we’ve managed a game (sometimes two!) each week since and seen a variety of games presented by at least ten different people.  For this week’s game I dug out Tim Price’s ‘Sen Toku’  - a committee game set in 1944 Japan in which the players have to plan and execute a dramatic mission with four of the huge new I-400 class submarines.  This game was first seen at COW some years ago and features in ‘Innovations in Wargaming Vol.1’ as published by the History of Wargaming Project.

Most of our regulars signed up and I drafted in a couple of ringers for special roles.  Players were emailed the briefings the day before and encouraged to bring silly hats and suitable flags. 

The Boss (Wednesday only)
Fleet Admiral	Nagano Osami	Imperial General Staff	John B
The Operational Strike Committee (in strict order of military seniority)
Captain	Kameto Kuroshima	Senior Staff Officer and Chair of the Committee	Simon W
Captain	Chikao Yamamoto	Staff Officer (later OC, I-404)	John A
Captain	Tanaka Ariizumi	Sen Toku Force Commander, OC I-400	Russell K
Commander	Yasuo Fujimori	Submarine Staff Officer of the Naval General Staff, responsible for the I-400 design (later OC, I-402)	Jack W
Commander	Teuhisa Komatsu	experienced submarine warfare commander, OC I-401	Martin R
Commander	Takeo Sugai	OC, 9th Special Naval Landing Force (Marine special forces)	Mark F
Commander	Soemu Toyoda	Nanao Naval Base, Support, Construction and Maintenance	Tim C
Technical Major	Teiji Takada	Number Nine Research Laboratory (Secret Weapon Projects)	Pete S
Minister	Nobusuke Kishi	Commerce & Industry (Industrial & Materiel Support)	Jerry E
Mr	Subaru Mitsubishi	Dockyard Superintendent, Nanao Naval Base (meeting facilitator and procurer of competitively priced Geishas for the Admiral)	Tim G

 On the Tuesday evening - our normal session times are 1945-2115 – the committee met to discuss their options.  Capt. Kuroshima had devised a scoring spreadsheet which he used to evaluate the several plans.  He did mention later that it had been “hard work….”

Coming next - enter the dragon Admiral

1973 - The COW 2019 Plenary Game

The plenary game - run by Ian Drury - worked rather well. Even Ian’s rationale that a game which had taken three hours with 20 players would obviously only take 90 minutes with 40+ players seemed  to stack up. Teams represented USA, USSR, Israel, Egypt, Syria and individuals represented UK, France, UN, Saudi Arabia, West Germany and Libya. An elite team of er, ‘volunteers’ formed the Game Control team. I was the air umpire, so was completely occupied with the rather busy skies over Golan and the Canal Zone. I have only the haziest idea what went on at a political level - and even that is based on a chat over breakfast with ‘Colonel Gadaffi’ - hardly the most reliable witness!

In the air, the EAF and IAF contested the skies over the canal and despite the Israelis generally having the upper hand, most of the Bar Lev Line was soon in Egyptian hands. Over Golan things started a bit later, the Syrians ignoring an UN-sponsored ceasefire which meant that the full weight of the IAF was headed their way!

COW 2018 overview

Two weeks have whizzed by since COW and what a splendid weekend it was!
I ran two games - on Friday night my suddenly again topical 'Out on a Limb' about UN Arms Inspectors which was originally seen in 2003.

The OOAL booking-in poster

Thought, bluff, cunning and bewilderment.  All on the faces of the players!

The diabolical plot - uncovered at last!

I then played in John Curry's 'Target for Tonight' as the navigator (god help us) in a Lancaster which zigzagged it's way across Europe before missing the target with a huge bomb.  I still say we must have destroyed something...

On Saturday morning I was lured into playing Tom Mouat's game which had originally been prepared for a certain unit of the British armed forces.  The Brits were trying to extract their nationals from an entirely fictional port city while wicked terrorists got in the way.  I, of course, was a terrorist...

the map of the entirely fictional city

the faces of terror - no acting required!

In the afternoon I ran my Somme game - as seen previously here and here.  More on this in a later post.

A worrying moment for the German observer - photo by Bob Cordery.

Having roasted under a baking sun during the lawn game, dinner was preceded by a brief nap and a shower.  No photos of that you'll be pleased to hear!

After dinner I enjoyed John Curry's 'Random tales from professional wargaming'.  Somewhat to my surprise, I merited a mention!
This was followed by Jim Roche's singalong session.
Sunday morning saw John Armatys and I running the Ideas Exchange session which as usual threw up several useful ideas.
Then it was off to Bob Cordery's very informative talk on self-publishing before packing the car and chairing the WD AGM.

As has been the case for many years, there were at least six sessions I wanted to attend but couldn't.  I blame whatever bungling oaf arranges the timetable....

Operazione C3 / Herkules - The invasion of Malta 1942

The recently deceased Paddy Griffith, who had previously run a number of games (Operation Seelowe - the invasion of Britain 1940, the invasion of Crete 1941 and the 1940 Norwegian campaign) at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, was due to run another such event on 16 October 2010.

I am happy to be able to report that the game will go ahead, and with the help of Paddy's notes (kindly sent on to me by his son, Robert) a group including myself, Jerry Elsmore, John Drewienkiewicz, Adam Poole and Richard Clarke will design and run the event.

The game will deal with the planning and execution of the Axis invasion of Malta in 1942.  Players will represent military, naval and political leaders.  Brirish, Maltese, Italian and German interests will be represented.  A team of umpires will set the scene and keep the game on track.

For booking details please see the Duxford website. http://duxford.iwm.org.uk/server/show/conEvent.3269
You must book with Duxford in the first instance and then contact me for briefing details etc.