England's Naval Glory Pt2

Some more shots from our motor into Portsmouth Harbour earlier in May.

The entrance to Portsmouth Harbour.  Ft Monkton on the port bow, Southsea Castle almost dead ahead.  The actual entrance in directly in front of the Spinnaker Tower.

Gosport, the former RN submarine base.  Dad spent many days here in his navy service.  There are two tall ships, a Swedish barkentine in the foreground and the TS Royalist beyond.

HM Dockyard from the water.  HMS Warrior and HMS Illustrious are most obvious in this view.  The weather was cold and grey that day.

HMS Warrior (1860) the early ironclad frigates were certainly beautiful ships.  I didn't make it on board Warrior this time around, but I've been on her at least twice and she is well worth the visit.

HMS Illustrious due to be retired later in 2014.  A "D" class destroyer is ahead of the Lusty.

The stern of the Lusty.  You can see the masts of Nelson's Victory and a bit of her starboard gun ports behind.  Victory's topmasts have been struck else she would be more prominent.

From left to right, Duke class, D class, Illustrious

More RN ships in port.  It was the May bank holiday weekend so all ships were in port to give the crews shore leave.

England's Naval Glory Pt 1

IMHO, the best way to see sites of interest for naval history is on the water.  On May 2nd Dad and I sailed from the Hamble River to Port Solent Marina in Portsmouth Harbour passing about 1600 years (or more) of naval history along the way.

Let's set the geography first.  Dad keeps his boat on the Hamble River in Hampshire, probably the most crowded yacht anchorage in the world as seen below.  It has a long naval history and on its upper reaches lies the wreck of the Grace Dieu (Henry V's flagship) from 1418.

We sailed on May 2nd from the Hamble to Port Solent (blue line), on May 3rd from Port Solent to Cowes on the Isle of Wight (green line) and on the 5th from Cowes back to the Hamble (yellow line).

If you are into your naval history this is essentially ground zero.  Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, French, Spanish, Dutchmen and Germans have all made their presence felt and their advances mostly rejected.  We sailed through the Spithead anchorage where a young Hornblower got sea sick etc, etc.

Fort Gilkicker with Spitsand in distance

Fort Gilkicker dates from the 1860s and was originally armed with RML artillery, updated to breech-loaders prior to WW1.

Fort Monkton

Fort Monkton (spellings vary on this one) dates from the American War of Independence and was updated in the Victorian age with MLRs and breechloaders.

Spitsand and HorsSand Forts

These forts  date from the 1860s and were built as stationary ironclads!  They were armed with MLRs, then BLs and even used as AA platforms in WW2.  This is quite close to where the Mary Rose sank in 1545!

Spitsand Fort

Here's how the defences look in 1914.

From the 1914 Jane's Fighting Ships.

Visiting a Green and Pleasant Land

II just came back from a 10 day trip to the UK to visit my dad (who I had not seen for 4 years).  More details to follow as I sort my brain and photos out but highlights include

• four days on my dad's yacht (a Bavaria 33, Bavaria being a noted centre of ocean cruising) with stops in Portsmouth harbour (under the walls of Portchester Castle) and Cowes.
• live theatre at the Chichester Festival with Zoe Wannamaker in "Stevie" with my dad managing to get a mention in the Telegraph review.
• a trip to the British Museum to see the Vikings exhibit and other wonders
• a game with Tim Gow of Megablitz (and obscure vehicle and plane) fame for a test game of Funny Cold Wars

I had originally hoped to get together with more gaming contacts but it was a short trip and dad wanted to get as much time on the boat as possible.  Sorry lads, but he's family, has a boat and I don't get much time on the briny blue.  Hopefully next time around.

Canadian Traffic Problems

Normally it's Moose who are the problems…..
Angry beaver delays traffic, roams around miramichi

Light at the End of the Tunnel

I've been silent on the blogging front for the last two weeks as gaming and painting has been interrupted by a severe case of real life - sickness and final exams coexisting in a tight space with a list of "honey dos".  We did get together at Curt's for two games of Formula De, and damn it if I didn't win the second race in Brazil on the last corner having trailed everyone else by 1/2 a lap for the whole game!

I spent Easter weekend deep praying at the shrine of the porcelain goddess with a nasty stomach bug.  We had to phone the butcher to tell them to sell our leg of lamb to another customer (sniff, sniff) and Easter dinner for me was plain eggs (and the first solid food I'd kept down for 2 days).    Back at work on  Monday I was almost un-wobbly when I walked into a nasty head cold.  That is fortunately mostly over but it was a stinker!

I had students writing exams on the 22nd and 24th and I'm in the home stretch on marking - with Spring and Summer semesters (when I have no classes) in sight!  I've lots of interesting stuff on plan for May and June, but I am going to be coy on that front for now.

Dardanelles Submarine Game

Last night we were at Sylvain's for two games.  The second was a Star Wars X-Wing game GMed by or host which was very enjoyable.  For the first game of the double header I put on Bob Cordery's Dardanelles Submarine game which can be found over at Bob's treasure trove of goodies his blog
Wargame Miscellany.  This game which was originally published in the 80s or 90s in a Wargames World annual (the yellow specials by Wargames Illustrated).

This game replicates the very successful attack by HMS/M B11 which avoided mines, patrol craft, gun batteries and hostile currents in a very enclosed space to torpedo the Turkish battleship Messudieh (see details over at Bob's site here).  It's a great little game and well worth the hour's diversion.

In our game, our intrepid adventurers wound their way through the hazards through a combination of good luck, good planning and bad umpiring (just kidding) to find them selves perfectly placed for an attack on their target.  The first torpedoes missed at close range, so the B11 lay low until nightfall so that they could reload the tubes and have at her again.  This time the first fish missed but the second struck home and sank the Messudieh.

Their return journey was far less arduous than the original's had been.  Historically, Messudieh open fired as she sank and B11's crash dive threw her compass off.  A nine hour blind crawl on dead reckoning followed.  When B11 finally surfaced, the oxygen was so low that her diesels wouldn't fire up!

More Shameless Pimping of Worthy Blogs

Ok, I am a sucker for potential free stuff, but these are great blogs so check them out if you haven't done so already.

Thoughts of A Depressive Diplomist  (love the title and the obit of the week)

Mad Padre Wargame I've gamed and drunk with him he's neither irate or crazy (well most of the time..).