2022 In Review

As has become customary in blogland I hereby present my review of the year. First off I'd like to apologise to my "regular readers" for the lack of content over the year, particularly in the second half. Whilst I've been busy with wargaming and other fun stuff my blogging mojo has been notable by its absence, hence not much here. I'll try to do better next year. 

So, first off - how did I do against "the plan" - 

Narrow Seas - I will get the campaign system finished along with modules for the North Sea and the Channel. I will also aim to get at least one update of the Data Annex issued

Nope, didn't get very far with this. I have an update for the data annex just about ready to go. It will probably appear early in 2023 as there's a few other things I'd like to add. Getting on with the campaign system is a "must" though.

Dahlgren and Columbiad – I will finish the Triple Alliance scenario pack, as well as an update to the ship data tables for the ACW (I’ve already added about 20 new ships but have others to stat up). I’ll also work up some more ACW ironclad and gunboat 3D models now that I have a decent system to do that.

This was my "big push" of the year. The "Triple Alliance" turned into my first all-in-one project with the rules (D&C and Iron & Fire for more detailed actions, and my ACW variant of "Man o War" for parti games), the campaign pack and five packs of 3D models for printing(of which I have sold the princely sum of two sets :) I'm extremely pleased with since its pretty unique - I've not come across anything similar in 1/600 and there was only really the OOP "Spithead Miniatures" line in 1/1200 (the 3D model sets I've created of course will print at 1/1200 if I'm careful with the masts so they will also fill out my 1/1200 collection). I premiered the models with MOW at the Naval Wargames Weekend in Yeovilton in October and they seemed quite popular. Getting the complete collection painted will be a big job - perhaps I'll have them all ready to do Riachuelo at the NWW next October :). 

On the ACW front I caught the 3D modelling bug big time, with nearly 40 new models created. This is definitely an area that I will continue with into 2023, with a small series of European monitors on the drawing board at the moment. But also some other fun stuff for the ACW (watch this space).

“Bumper Boats” – a fun set of rules for ancient galley games to use with my 1/300(ish) galley models. This will just be a private project I think and not entirely serious.

The rules are written but at the present time I haven't progressed the fleets much past the Greek and Persian ships I had done this time last year. I have Roman and Carthaginian ships printed, just need time (ha!) to paint them up and then gibe the rules a run out.

In other wargaming news I knocked up a few 1/100 models for my AK47 armies, and a Matilda Hedgehog for my 15mm "Burma Skirmish" collection, and I printed & painted up the 1/700 models i needed to run my hex-and-miniatures version of "Swarming Boats", Nick Bradbeer's UCK game that we use to teach students about close quarter naval combat. On the more serious side I attended the Connections wargaming conference in Washington DC, umpired and then ran the Falklands 82 game for the Royal Marines amphibious warfare course, visited Damen Naval Shipyards in Vlissingen for some teambuilding/educational wargaming and of course got engaged in wargaming with my students at UCL.

Other fun stuff this year:

• A couple of weeks working in Australia in November where I also managed to catch up with a great many wargaming and work friends

• Taking part in a SINKEX off the Outer Hebrides in September (where I won the sweepstake on which stage of the exercise would see the target being sunk)

• Creating and a lovely 1930s air racing game based on "Wings of Glory" with some cute 3d printed aircraft and then running the game at the Wings of Glory Weekend in Doncaster (abd being asked to bring it again in 2023)

 

• Heading out to Red Sands Fort on the paddle steamer "Waverley" for a day

• The arrival of Magnus, our new kitten

and may more things besides. There's been other, less happy stuff, but I'm not dwelling on that and just remembering the good things.

So, as 2022 draws to an end I'd like to wish everyone a very happy New Year and I'll see you all, either here or in person (hopefully) in 2023. Look out for details of "The Plan, 2023" in a day or three :)

Pacific Coastal, 1/700

One of the byproducts of getting wrapped up in Cruel Seas - and also in continuing the development of my own new set of coastal rules - is that my interest in coastal actions in the Pacific Theatre of Operations has been piqued. Oh, and also from picking up a cheap copy of "They Were Expendable" on DVD just before Christmas.

The PTO was actually one of my first areas of coastal interest back in the late 1980s when I picked up a couple of boxes of the 1/700 Skywave fast attack craft set. This has a Vosper 72'6, German S100 and an 80' Elco, each in a stopped and high speed version. I had a few 1/700 Tamiya, Hasegawa and Matchbox bigger ships as well. When Action Stations took off in the mid 1990s the first demo game that I ran at the old Bristol wargames show was a Pacific game with these. But by then I was also hard over on games set in the North Sea, the Channel and the Med, and these using 1/600 models. The Pacific theatre stuff was consigned to a storage box where it has stayed pretty much ever since, until now.

Going through that box and a few boxes of "odds and sods" revealed quite a few damaged or unmade models that, with a little work, could revitalise my collection. So in the last days of 2018 and over the last couple of weeks I've set to getting them all sorted out. The results can be seen in the following few photos. I must say, I'm quite pleased at how these have come out in the end. Only 30 years in the making! 

More 1/700 Fun

I think I mentioned a while back that I was doing up my 1/700 modern coastal collection for "Bulldogs Away", having found a few unmade models whilst I was renovating my 1/600 WW2 collection. In the last few days I've been building or finishing off a few larger 1/700 craft, in particular a kit of an Allen M Sumner class destroyer that I picked up at Thornbury a couple of weekends ago.

The Sumner was a model in WW2 configuration and I was going to build it like that as a low tech "target", but I had a change of heart and decided on an upgrade. So I replaced the aft superstructure with a small DASH flight deck and hangar, built a new tripod mainmast and replaced the torpedo tubes with a couple of MM38 Exocet boxes. The end result is a "FRAMish" Sumner which is representative of the post war conversions that many of the class enjoyed and which were then sold off around the world. It is by no mans "accurate" but serves to give an impression. And I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out.

Other newcomers include an FFG7, a Charles F Adams, a Knox, HMS York (Type 42 Batch 3), a high speed ferry and a civilian research vessel.The ferry was an Old Crow 1/300 scale model. I scrubbed off the window detail, filled in the gap between the hulls and the superstructure, added a foldable stern ramp typical of ships of this type and built a new full width bridge to give the right impression for 1/700. Again something I'm quite pleased with.

Coronado

Lat week I picked up a few plastic kits from the IPMS Thornbury show. My "prize" was a 1/700 model of LCS-4, USS Coronado. I've been after one of these for a while for my modern coastal collection but only found them on Ebay for ridiculous prices so it was nice t find a more reasonably priced one on my doorstep. To be honest the LCS programme is a bit outside of my modern coastal timeframe which tends to end in the 1980s or early 1990s, but I have a soft spot for the trimaran version (some of my work at UCL went into the design) and it looks suitably outlandish to make a model rather irresistible.

At the same time I used the Delta III model that I got at Thornbury to make an earlier Delta I, an easy conversion that simply needs the missile compartment shortening by 4 missiles. There are probably more detailed differences but for the purposes of wargaming a perfectly acceptable solution. Whilst I painted up the Delta I also repainted an old Oscar II that had been sitting unloved ina box for about 20 years.

Finally I finished off a few packs of 15mm Scots pikemen that have also been in a box for decades, remnants of my WoR campaign plans in the 1990s. These guys went missing and were replaced at the time by some Essex figures but they are done now and will take their place in with their older painted brothers soon. They are nice figures and have a more irregular look than the Essex troops. I wonder if the Falcon figures are still available?

An Astute Observation

latest model off the workbench, and this time its something that I've had a real hand in designing (albeit some years back when the boat was just a cloud of electrons in a CAD package. I hadn't realised that someone had made  a plastic kit of ASTUTE until I came across it on a modelling website a few weeks back. Chinese (!) company "Hobby Boss" have done  a very good job from what i can see from this 1/700 scale model - the detail is quite impressive.

Its also available in 1/350, but since I have a half decent collection of 1/700 modern boats I thought I'd stick with the smaller version.

Now to find a decent model of DARING :)