Wet Weekend = Engineering Win

Regina is drying out after a very wet weekend - 91 mm of rain over two days following about 10 days of on and off rain.  Photos below.

http://www.leaderpost.com/news/regina/Photos+Regina+mopping+after+deluge/9986688/story.html?__federated=1

While neighbours were spotted lugging pumps and hoses about and pumping out their basements, ours stayed dry thanks to the work we had done a couple of years back.

We have a strange yellow orb in the skies (it burns the eyes) and it's scheduled to last 10 days.  Hopefully our very wet garden dries out before then.

Oh yes and Happy Canada Day!

Shameless Plugs

I've just found this blog care of the Mad Padre, but on a cursory perusal it's a veritable treasure trove of information (see I new the Thesaurus would be useful).

Annibal Invictus

Oh yeah and he's having a 200k hit milestone give-a-way.

Free Stuff...Sign me Up Tamsin

I have no pride, but I also like the Wargaming Girl's blog.
Go check it out....

Oh yeah she's got a prize draw going on.

Free Stuff...Sign me Up Tamsin

I have no pride, but I also like the Wargaming Girl's blog.
Go check it out....

On Painting Kilts

A comment rail on a recent post over at analogue hobbies moved off on a tangent on painting highlanders.  I'd be interested in hearing how others conquer the kilt.  My personal approach has always been to forget the details and get the big picture right.  While the actual tartans have a lot of detail up close, from any distance when the kilt is being worn and thus moving constantly, the details merge into a blur of earth tones.  Therefore I treat a tartan like a camo pattern - a base coat with a regular semi-contrasting blotchiness on top.  If I get a checkerboard or line pattern into the mix, so much the better but I certainly won't beat myself up for not getting them if the overall looks good from a distance.

Somewhere in in a rubber maid in my basement I have 25mm colonial highlanders from 3 regiments, 2 in kilts and one in trews.  If I get a chance to dig them out and take a photo I'll post them later.   Until such time I'll make do with the following historical photos.

Yes it's me, yes it's the 70s.  'Nuff said!  I can't recall what tartan it was, but you can't tell from the photo.

Same city, but much less emotional scarring from modern re-enacters of the 78th at the Halifax Citadel.  Regardless of the official pattern - it looks like very dark green with thin white line.

Black Watch reenacters and the tartan has almost merged into a solid dark green.  Personally I'm far more worried about the dicing on the socks and bonnets.

Don't know which regiment of tartan but it looks like a dark rust background with a light rust line over top.  And these guys are standing still, at a trot it would be just a rust blur.

Naval Warfare Blog

There's an interesting post today at naval warfare , covering the Italian Battleship Roma.  Her history is covered in full on the blog, but her most noteworthy action was being sunk by a German guided missile while trying to surrender.  There's a lot of interesting photos, including several of her last moments.

Real Men Go Fabric Shopping

Rossmac's post about terrain cloths got me thinking about my own cloths and then buying fabric in general.

Here's a couple of Canadian cultural icons to guide you through how to buy fabric.  For Yanquitos, Don Cherry is an ex-hockey coach and now TV commentator who combines John Madden's passion for his sport with Rush Limbaugh's sensitivity while Rick Mercer is a more left wing and funnier John Stewart.  Sorry I can't think of appropriate British equivalents.


Note that Don has a sewing club membership card to get a discount.  

Naval Warfare Blog

I'll give a shout out to the navalwarfare blog for today's post on the USS Brooklyn (the pre-dreadnought CA-3, although the next Brooklyn also had history of note).  The Brooklyn played a key role in the Span-Am war, and looked cool to boot.  I have modeled the base hull for her (dating back 10 years ago) and while I got the tumblehome about right I'm still not sure how to mount the wing turrets on her.

Lots of cool pictures c1898 at the blog, both of the ship from a distance plus on board activities.  Past entries cover ships (mostly of the USN) over the last 100+ years.   Well worth a look.

Rules, Rules, Rules

I've been away from the blogging for a bit (and also away from modelling) due to a chronic case of real life.  I am a university lecturer and it's the second last week of classes - so I'm busy but the light at the end of the tunnel is visible.


However, I've been thinking about possible pre-dreadnought rule sets to use for my Santiago project.  The contenders include.

1. Fire When Ready
• This is the current front runner.  I have a lot of time for David Manley having read several articles, scenarios and rule sets of his over the years.  I have a copy of these rules, and they are well though out have good ideas (and look like the type of rules I'd like to write).
2. Perfidious Albion
• Another set of professional rules, which has been used by the Edinburgh club (including Angus Konstam).  They are apparently fun and do carry over from the Fred Jane Rules.  It looks like there's a lot of paper work, the Edinburgh games seem very bloody>  I also have some issues with the probability models used for gun combat (it wouldn't bug most people but I teach 3rd and 4th year courses in probability theory!)
3. Fred Jane Rules
• At some point I will run a game using these rules, they look fun and they were state of the art 120 years ago.  These do require an umpire (at least for rules interpretation) and the production of both scoring templates and strikers.
4. DBSA (Damn Battleships Again)
• Phil Barker's DBA variant for pre-dreadnought naval games.  Look like they give fun, fast, easy to learn games.  However, they are abstract and may not translate well to cases where the two fleets are of diverse qualities.
5.  General Quarters Variants
• The option does exist and there are rules translation out on the web.  The GQ system is abstract (but not as much as DBSA) but does give good results.  This will involve some fiddling around on my part (which might lead to me writing a whole new set of homebrews).
6. Memoir of Battle at Sea
• Bob Cordery intrigued me with his posts.  He kindly sent me an up--to-date set.  Again they look like they give a good fun and fast game.  Plus there's the advantage of being playable in a limited table space.  More abstract than the others.
7. Homebrews
• In days of old (pre-child, mortgage etc) this would be the natural starting point.  However, this looks to be yet another project that I would start and then stall at.

The Internet Library for Wargamers

So over the last year or so I've been finding a lot of useful wargaming resources (ok, useful to me maybe not for anyone else) on the net.  With the digital age, there's a lot of older books that are out there and available.


FYI, I don't own a Kindle, I Pad or any other fancy e-book reader.   I just find these and save them as adobe pdfs on the hard drive of my macbook.  All of them cam (as my Irish father-in-law would say) free, gratis and at no additional charge.


Here's a sampling of the more useful books I've found for Naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  I know that similar treasure troves are out there for other periods (for instance the James' history of the Royal Navy 1793-1815 is available in its entirety).

Books available online

1.     Brassey, T.

a.     The Naval Annual (1886, 1887, 1888-9, 1890 & 1902 editions – I am still trying to track down the 1896 and 1898 editions – these are valuable troves complete with plans, armour and weapon details and squadron Orbats)

2.     Cassard, W, G

a.     Battleship Indiana and Her Part in the Spanish American War, 1898 (by her chaplain!)

3.     Gibbs, F.T.

a.     Illustrated Guide to the Royal Navy and Foreign Navies, 1896

4.     Goodrich, C. F.

a.     Report on the British Naval and Military Operations in Egypt, 1885 (prepared for the US Navy)

5.     Jane, F.T.

a.     The British Battlefleet, 1915

b.     Heresies of Sea Power, 1906

c.      The Imperial Japanese Navy, 1904

d.     (Copies of Jane’s Fighting Ships are so far proving elusive)

6.     Jones, H.W.

a.     The Battle of Santiago On board the U. S. Battleship "Texas", 1913 (another chaplain at Santiago)

7.     Lodge, H.C.

a.     The War With Spain, 1899

8.     Mahan, A.T

a.     Lessons of the War With Spain, 1899

b.     Naval Strategy, 1911

c.      On Naval Warfare, 1918 (a selection of Mahan’s articles)

9.     McClure, A.K.

a.     The Naval Battle of Santiago, I am not sure of the publishing date but Cornell’s copy has a library stamp from 1903!

10.  Reed, E.J.

a.     Modern Ships of War, 1888 (with Simpson and Kelley)

b.     Our Ironclad Ships, 1869

c.      (Reed was a controversial former chief constructor for the Royal Navy)

11.  Schley, W. S

a.     The Battle of Santiago, 1898 (Schley was in charge of the US fleet for the first part of the action – this was his action report)

12.  Stevens, G.W.

a.     Naval Policy, 1896

13. US Office of Naval Intelligence

a.     Some Information Concerning Some of the Principal Navies of the World, 1909

b.     The Views of Admiral Cervera, 1898 (the view from the other side)

c.      War With Spain, Operations of the US Navy on the Asiatic Station, 1900 (Dewey’s reports)

14. Wilson, H.W.

a.     The Downfall of Spain (Naval History of the Spanish American War), 1900 (the best resource for this War)

b.     Ironclads In Action, 1896 (classic resource covering 1855-95)

c.      Japan’s Fight For Freedom, 1904 (covers early parts of the RJW, and yes that is the actual title)

d.     I am still looking for Wilson’s “Battleships in Action” covering Russo-Japanese War and WWI