New books

I finally got around to doing a new edition of Donald Featherstone's classic book war game. This was the book that did more to launch modern wargaming than any other. I have learnt a lot about editing over the last few years, so I was pleased to have found the time to revisit one of my earliest books.

Donald Featherstone's tank battle series is nearly finished. I have now published volume 3 which is about battles on the Western Front 1944-45. Bruce Quarrie's book is still a classic.

The third book this month is about collecting 1/32 scale figures for the Alamo. Toy soldiers are an essential part of our hobby and I decided to take the opportunity to include 5 books on this area in the project. The Alamo book is the 2nd book about toy soldiers, and the next will be on Airfix.

My next three books are on early naval wargames, Phil Dunn's World War rules (the rules that he used to fight global wargames) and a new book by Charlie Wesencraft. Actually, the latter was lost and now its found.So I am aiming it to get to print in the shortest possible time. Of course, I may get distracted and another book could jump the publishing queue.

The British Army Rediscovers Wargaming May 2014

At professional wargaming conference Connections in September 2013 at Kings College London, it was a little embarrassing to have the four British Army representatives heavily outnumbered by those from foreign armies. The visitors were perplexed where the centres of excellence were in using wargaming for training. People asked about who ran the games at Sandhurst and they were perplexed with the answer of no-one. All the other major military academies, including China, are using wargames.

So the great and the good, largely from the Army, were gathered at one of the homes of innovation in British Armed forces at the Defence Academy at Shrivenham. It was a day in the history of wargaming.

The problem with wargames is they have an image problem for officers involving in gaming, wargaming will never be cool, but will be necessary. Wargaming is technical and requires understanding of the art of war. During the Cold War, there were many innovations from games. Some of these large games, like 1940 Sea Lion by Dr Paddy Griffith [see Sprawling Wargames published by this project] were major events and had many beneficial spin offs.

Wargaming helps develop agile leaders. The games are competitive and they help develop the competitive instinct; war is all about winning. There is time pressure, there always is, but as part of the review of the commissioning course at Sandhurst, they are going to include a pilot study using wargaming for the young officers. The officers will enthuse about such games, but the problem is likely to be some of the permanent staff who will not engage.

Graham Longley Brown then talked about what wargaming is and why the armed forces should do it. In summary, effective training saves lives, it saves money but currently not enough wargaming is being done, it is not being done well enough.

Although a game, it is valuable. Peter Perla, the pre-eminent wargamer of our time, was quoted as saying ‘a wargame is a warfare model…’ Those who dismiss wargames are demonstrating their ignorance of military history and current practice in armed forces around the world.

Although many are obsessed with computer simulations, manual wargames are complimentary to the PC based software. Manual wargames are cheap, flexible, transparent in their assumptions and easy to modify. They can also game effects based operations that are only poorly simulated using computers.

If you trying to predict the future, there are many methods such as experts, unaided judgment, committees… and games. Research has shown games are not that good at prediction, but a game involving role playing the enemy gives double the predictive accuracy of other methods of prediction. Wargames are twice as accurate.

My own view is that a problem with the British Army is that has become very effective fighting a war in a mountainous country in some ways that the British Army of the late 19^th century would recognize. Now the commitment to Afghanistan is winding down the Army needs to relearn some of the skills that would be needed to fight a modern armed forces. One of those tools to help develop the craft of the warrior is going to be wargaming.

The knight who saved England, William Marshal and the French Invasion, 1217 by Richard Brooks

Published by Osprey in 2014 retailing at £12.99

Richard Brooks is a free lance military historian with a reputation for writing analytical military history based on fresh research of original sources. One of his previous books, The Battlefields of Britain and Ireland, is considered the definitive work on the subject. His biography on Fred Jane (founder of Jane’s Fighting Ships and the Fred Jane Naval Wargame) is recognised as outstanding. Therefore, I was very interested when I heard about his new book by Osprey.

This book covers one of the lesser known heroes of the medieval world, William Marshal. He was a right hand man for three kings and the regent for a 4^th. He was loyal to kings, respected by practically all, a fearsome knight at tournaments and a formidable general. His achievement in preserving England as a separate country is important today.

Based in part on The History of William Marshal, the first biography of a non-royal layman in medieval times, the work weaves a complex and detailed tale about the life and time of William Marshal. It covers the tournaments, the intrigue and politics, populated by accounts of the sieges and battles.

There are a number of factors that (to me) make Brooks’s style so interesting. One is his ability to bring together discussion of competing historical sources. Some historians simply state this is what happened, but Brooks outlines if there are different views before giving a reasoned decision which account he deems most likely. Another aspect is the narrative is interspersed with detailed analytical work on the technical aspects of early medieval warfare. Brook’s wider military knowledge is used to place this in a more general context, such as the analysis of the rate of march set against that achieved by armies from other periods of military history. Basically, in times of need, medieval armies could move very rapidly.

I have taken a close academic interest in the critical battle of Marshal’s career, The Battle of Lincoln (1217). This was a very important battle for England in the medieval era and 36 pages are devoted to a detailed investigation of this urban battle. Brooks has done some detailed battlefield walking and this is reflected in his excellent account. A criticism of the book is perhaps the map of Lincoln should have been included in with the chapter about the battle, rather than at the front of the book. I read half the chapter before I remember to check for the map in the front. Perhaps there should have been a note at the start of the chapter reminding the reader of the location of the map. However, this is just a minor point in a very enjoyable book.

 For those interested in medieval history, I whole heartedly recommend this particular book.

Donald Featherstone Memorial Weekend at the Wargames Holiday Centre March 2014

Since Don Featherstone, one of the founding fathers of wargaming left the field of play, there have been a lot of memorial events to mark his passing. For example, Christ Scott, Michael Curry and I ran a stand about his books at Warfare in Reading last year.

Don's life long friend, Ron Miles, wanted a trophy to be awarded annually in Don's name. So in collaboration with Henry Hyde (editor of Miniature Wargames), Mark Freeth (the Wargames Holiday Centre), Chris Scott and I, a plan was hatched to run an annual weekend at the Wargames Holiday Centre Basingstoke . It fell to Henry and Mark to organize the detail and make it happen.

The event was run in March 2014. 28mm figures, huge terrain boards, rules pasted onto the walls, the event was run in a friendly style that the early wargamers would have valued.

At the end of the event, the trophy was awarded unanimously to one of the early wargaming legends, Charlie Wesencraft. In his eighties, the spritely Charlie was energetically engaged all weekend (even if his character figure was killed). Don's daughter Jane presented the award, which also included Don's lucky dice, a free subscription to Miniature Wargames and a free return to the holiday centre next year. Two runner's up received copies of Don's last book on Wargaming Commando Operations.

The presentation was captured on video and is On YouTube.

Good one Henry Hyde and Mark Freeth, Don would have been pleased with the event.

Looking for early wargaming rules from 1960's and 1970's- can you help?

During the 1960's, 1970's and early 1980's, there was a large range of short, usually A5 wargaming rule books. Some were produced by Skytrex, Navwar, Minifigs etc.. but others were individual wargamers sharing their creations with the wider world. There was one about roleplaying bunnies, wargaming with dinosaurs, early attempts at ACW, medieval and ancients.

My quest for these old rules suddenly started with  the realization if I do not capture some of these now, within a very short space of time, the majority will be gone for ever. In some ways, the history of wargaming project has been a race against time to find some 'lost material'. I ordered a copy of Tacspiel (an unplayable wargame used by the USA in Vietnam War to devise tactics). After I published this obscure text, the archive contacted me as they had lost their copy. If I had not got it to print, it would probably have been lost. It has since been used by various military historians for the operational analysis data it contained.

Some of the classic lost material the project has published includes:
   Donald Featherstone's Wargaming Commando Operations, the book was never published before my edition.

   The Fletcher Pratt Naval Wargame, we had all been using the 1933 version of the rules, not the 1939-45 previously unpublished version.

   The various professional wargaming rules on my site,

    The story of DBA, the list goes on, with many of my books having various pieces added to them. .

Future classic material will include a lost book by Charlie Wesencraft (ACW) and a lost set of rules by Phil Dunn (world war). I have many more 'lost' sets of professional military rules to produce, some of which I suspect I have the only copy in the world. Some were given to me as they were throwing them out of the archives into the bin and a few vigilant wargamers thought of me in time to intercept them.

So my hunt for the early wargaming rules from the 1960's and 1970's is now on. They will be added to my digital library, but I cannot imagine most to them being posted on the internet for the foreseeable future due to copyright issues. The History of Wargaming Project reproduces old material with consent of the estate or the author. The only exception are short extracts as permitted by UK copyright law (and generally accepted by most countries around the world).

In addition to the published material in the more than 50 books/ rules sets, I have a growing digital archive of huge amounts of wargaming material. This is not for publication, but bona fida researchers (e.g. a wargamer producing new rules) can have access to assist them in their work. One day, a university will have this material in their archive to assist war studies students. Well, it is nice to have a dream.

Table Top Sale and Game 11 May 2014 Bristol

On Sunday 14th May I will be selling books etc at my local wargaming Club's Table Top Sale. This is basically a wargaming carboot sale. After the sale, at around 1.30pm, I will be putting on a participation game. I will have my latest new books for sale and will be happy to chat about the History of Wargaming Project.

The sale details will be posted at Bristol Wargaming Club

When a modern wargames becomes real - Ukraine Crisis 2014

For interest I was gaming a potential crisis in the Ukraine. The scenario was an East West confrontation over dividing the country.

At that point I did not know that Ukraine, while not a member of NATO, had a memorandum of understanding with NATO. The question of whether this is legally binding to commit NATO to military action if Ukraine is attacked is one for international lawyers. However, there would be huge moral pressure on NATO to support an ally under attack.

So I was a little surprised to find the real world crisis is starting to resemble one of my wargames. Obviously, in my game, Russia could not stand up for long against a determined effort by NATO based in Poland. When faced with defeat, Russia started to deploy its heaviest weapons and my game stopped at the point of the crisis becoming Armageddon.

It is a somewhat surreal experience to see one of ones wargames played out in the real world. I just hope the politicians are operating at their finest to avoid this crises escalating down a one way path to a confrontation neither NATO nor Russia wants to face.