Possible Scottish Gathering

Dave Knight from Falkirk Wargames Club, who hosted SOTCW at a past Caronnade show has suggested a SOTCW event or twentieth century-themed day at their club in the Autumn of 2013.

Caronnade is a well-run show and I'm sure a Falkirk SOTCW event would be great fun and well organised.  I'm going to prepare to coordinate any such event through this blog.  Any thoughts on what members would like to see would be gratefully received.

Next Year's Game?

For some time I've been discussing with Stephen Oates of The Baggage Train the possibility of SOTCW putting on some sponsored participation games using Stephen's recently completed, massive 1/300th scale Arnhem Bridge.

At Gauntlet I suggested to the team that we put on a series of Cold War Commander games using the bridge as a centre-piece of the terrain.  I thought we could do a series of scenarios linked by a common narrative thread with the result of each game influencing the set-up of the following game.

Now as usual my first thought was to pick a setting for which I could provide all of the toys now as that way, other people could get involved but in the case of a disastrous no-show by someone we would already have everything we need.  this in turn led me to suggest that the game be set in the fictional North African republic of Maghrebia - I'd like to use my late 1980s Spanish Marines as interventionists against the republic's suspiciously Iranian-looking armed forces.

However, I think I may have been too prescriptive in my enthusiasm for my idea.  Ian Shaw suggested reusing the Andreivia setting and in retrospect I think that's got a lot going for it.

So what do you think?  I'd like to hear from the members.  What should we do?

More Carronade pics

OK, so I'm back from Carronade and listening to Gin Blossoms on the stereo while I let you know how it went.

The battle of the Krefeld Salient resulted in a narrow NATO victory and provided a great opportunity to let the good wargamers of Scotland know about SOTCW. The Falkirk club are to be congratulated on a well-run and enjoyable show.

As usual click on the pics to see larger versions. The first shot (below) shows the battlefield from the west with the British entering the battle area. The Brits (commanded by Richard Crawley) deployed as two battalion sized forces - an infantry battalion less one company and reinforced by a squadron of Challengers advanced between the railway line and the secondary road on the left (foreground of the picture below) while a tank heavy force (the rest of the Challenger regiment plus a company of mechanised infantry) straddled the Autobahn.

Here (below) we see the battlefield from the eastern corner. The Soviets split their force into two commands - the mechanised infantry hid in the woods either side of the Autobahn bridge whilst the T-72 battalion lined up on the large hill on the northeast bank. The CO and his supporting elements took up a position on the right flank.

We managed to get a number of players to join in. This is Callum - he was a wicked dice roller!
The Soviet airsupport table seemed to have a glitch. Whatever interesting units I included Stuart only ever rulled a 3 or a 4 so kept getting the MiG 27. Here we see it contributing to the destruction of the British infantry company that tried to dash across the secondary bridge.

Jim McCoy joined us for an hour or two and was a most welcome addition to the British personnel. Jim himself would have been involved in the war had it happened!

The Brits were luckier on the air support table - here we see three Harriers going in for the kill.

Stuart and Jim enjoy a break.

Stuart desperately tries to find some intact Warpact forces to move!

But it's not enough - as turn ten draws to a close, a cluster of 4s, 5s and 6s inflicts decimates the reinforcing T-80 company and the Soviet rearguard starts to break contact.

Carronade game - first pictures

I popped into Carronade for a short while in transit to points North. I'm please to reveal that the Game was underway and casualties were already being inflicted on both sides.

2010 Anniversaries

We need to come up with a subject for a game at Carronade in May so I thought I’d go back through the last 100 years and see what anniversaries it might be interesting to commemorate.

One hundred years ago in 1910 we have an Albanian uprising against Ottoman rule, the Wadai War (French colonial conflict in what is now Chad), and the outbreak of revolution in Mexico.  1910 also saw Royal Navy patrols active against gun runners in the Persian Gulf and on the coasts of Baluchistan - this was the subject of our 2007 game at Gauntlet.

In 1935 (75 years ago) we have the beginning of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War as Italian forces under General Emilio de Bono invade Ethiopia.

I’m ignoring, for now, the seventieth anniversary of the Blitzkrieg campaigns in western Europe - I think we all know what the options are there.  Much of it’s been done before.

60 years ago takes us to 1950; not a great year for world peace. The French-Indo China War was in full swing.  June saw the beginning of the Korean War and October the Chinese invasion of Tibet.      

2010 is the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya (January 1960).  That month also saw a major insurrection in French Algiers.  In February there were clashes on the snowy borders of India and China and in December there was a failed coup d’etat in Ethiopia.

Moving on to 1980 (30 years ago) we have Operation Eagle Claw - the failed Delta Force operation to rescue the US Hostages in Tehran.  A few days later, the SAS successfully retook the Irnaian Embassy in London after it had been seized by six Iranian-born terrorists.

Meanwhile, the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan was on-going.  The first offensive in the Panjsher Valley took place in Spring this year and the Soviets began to adopt a scorched earth policy to deny resources to the Mujahideen.

In September, Iraqi forces moved into Iran initiating the longest conventional war of the twentieth century.

Finally, as far as interesting anniversaries go we come to 1985 and the silver anniversary of the Third World War!  You missed that one?  Well it was actually a fictional war as covered in General Sir John Hackett’s book of the same name - a great excuse to dust off those Cold War forces and go at it on the North German Plain one more time!