Heavy Metal Weekend 2019

That is … tanks and armour, of course … a wargames and simulations weekend organised for likeminded enthusiasts at the Defence Academy from time to time.

We did several matrix games on modern warfare themes, a Defence Procurement exercise, a ‘Footfall’ rescue mission, a team mission on the computer simulation they use for officer training – and clambering on tanks (there was also another group computer simulation on the starship Artemis but I had to leave before that final session in order to do some heritage guiding back in Northamptonshire).

(why it’s called ‘Heavy Metal’ …)

Plus piracy in the Renaissance Mediterranean and a Western Gunfight … and I took down the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society‘s Edgcote 1460 game (armoured warfare – just of a different era … ).

(amongst other things we managed to solve the Iran sanctions crisis – see those smiley faces starting to appear!)

One weekend, 10 games, 6 different game designers, from tabletop figures to computer simulations … from the Medieval World to Outer Space … and tanks …

(the gunfight had some interesting mechanisms gave a fun game, lovely card buildings and cut-out figures)

But as this is my 20th Century blog, I’ll show you some Heavy Metal (quite a bit of which is post 20th Century, of course, but it’s otherwise fully on message) …

Name that tank (or fighting vehicle)!

Now that’s a mighty big beast …

There’s a lot of ordnance around …

… and examples of what it can do …

(gratifying to know we retain the ability to blast holes in reinforced concrete)

The piracy game had us all following a decision track but making different decisions along the way.  And picking up consequently different scores.  I didn’t trust the Venetians so did OK.

In the Officer Training rescue mission (First Person Shooter) I didn’t do quite so well.  I was having a lot of issues adapting to the controls (I’m not a computer gamer)  … I did eventually get to the objective, went (literally) nose-to-nose with the last terrorist … only to have no bullets left and all my spare mags used.  Whatever else I did, I needed to have saved the last burst for him.

Edgcote

I will update this blog with a link to the ancient and medieval stuff once it has been written up (for those of you who want more of this one), but, off theme here, here’s a some flavour …

Robin of Redesdale faced the earl of Pembroke across the little river that flows through Danesmoor a few miles from Banbury.  It is the decisive battle of the 1469 rebellion.  The Northerners have their showdown with William Herbert’s royalist army from Raglan.

(Herbert mounts up his retinue and charges across the watercourse into Redesdale’s lines)

It’s a 28mm reconstruction and the play-through uses an adapted version of Hail Caesar.

We played it twice with 2 very different outcomes.  The first game saw both sides’ reinforcements slow to materialise, something of a ‘score-draw’ as the earl of Devon failed to engage for the royalists and Herbert’s attempted flank attack was beaten back with some losses.

In the second game the action moved at a brisker pace, both sides’ rearlines were up quickly … Herbert charged the rebel centre and seemed to have them on the ropes – but he failed to follow up.  And, shortly after, John clapham turned up on his flank with the rabble from Northampton under their wild rat banner.  They aren’t history’s finest but they were good enough on the day to swing the balance and Herbert’s army quickly went from ragged to routed in a couple more turns.

Many thanks to my players for a cracking game.

Here’s a link to some more on Edgcote …

Here’s a fuller report on the Edgcote games …

Read Full Post »

Cold War Missile Crisis

‘One Hell of a Gamble’  was John Bassett’s anniversary Cuban Missile Crisis dual location crisis game.

Wargaming the ungamable?    Well, it worked very well.

Washington (most of the rooms and corridors) and Cuba (the shared social space – a bit like Uncle Sam’s back kitchen) were in London, populated with a big US Administration team (White House, Pentagon, CIA etc.), a handful of Soviet players (ambassador, KGB bureau chief, arms convoy commander etc.)  and Bob Castro …

The Kremlin was in Sheffield hosted by Tim Gow.

There was an open Skype line connecting the two locations, plus the various players had their line contacts and moles on mobile links.

I played Dobrynin, Soviet Ambassador in Washington, and my most regular game contacts were Gromyko in Moscow by phone, and the Attorney General (Robert Kennedy – my best line to JFK), face-to-face, in the Washington corridors …

The communications were a bit clunky, which seemed appropriate, and real time events could rapidly overtake the process of reporting back and waiting for Politburo decisions in response.   This felt very plausible.

Did we save the world?  Yes – of course … a telephone hot line was set up and the warm war cooled down again.

I have played in a number of these Committee/’crisis’ style games, and having the remote players in another city really enhanced the feel of it.    I think, 50 years on, this was a good time to play a Cuban Missile Crisis game – and this format suited it well.

We were able to play the vital days over a few sociable (if fraught) hours before repairing to the pub for an essential post debrief ‘debrief’ …

Read Full Post »