Why We Drive A Subaru

Aka What Winter Looks Like, aka Why An Outdoor Game is a Ways Away Yet

I took these photos this week while walking to work.  Every year we have this on going discussion with my brother in law (who lives in Halifax and is an expert on EVERYTHING). It basically goes like this "you really don't need all wheel drive, front wheel drive does almost as well and uses less gas and any way it's not a problem once they plow the streets", "but they don't plow the streets", 'yeaj but once they plow them it's not a problem"....

Anyway we've had 1.4m of snow and we rarely see a snow plow on anything but a major artery.  So the snow gets compressed down (on our street the multiply daily school bus trips do it nicely) into 4-6" of solid ice.  Think of Sedimentary Rock being transformed into Metamorphic Rock and you get hte idea.

Typical side street moonscape driving.  The university student in the background gives context of the snow bank and drift heights.

A neighbour cleared the sidewalk (that's a pavement to you Brits) down to bare concrete.  At the curbside (sic there is a curb in this photo) she found that her sidewalk was a couple of inches below the current driving surface.

Here the city has cleared the ice away from a manhole cover - note the 6" drop below driving level.  This one sits in the middle of an intersection of two side streets.

Tough to see but for most of the winter there was a car parked here.  Note the second car under the pile of snow on the left.  Because the car provided shelter - the bottom of the hole is the original paved street level.  The top of the hill is the current driving level.

Thoughts on the Outdoor Naval Game...

Now that we've thawed out, I thought I would debrief a bit and share some thoughts on both the outdoor gaming experience and the Fletcher Pratt combat system.

As a reminder, three of us set us set out on a cold blustery fall day to play with toy ships in the park.  Details can be found at my earlier post,  and Sylvain's post over at Curt's blog.  For the record I should add that Sylvain used General Quarters for damage allocation, but allocated hits by the Fletcher Pratt ranging guessing method.

Pros

1. Playing in real scale really felt nice.  Curt and I were hitting at 30 feet or 12,000 yards.  It really put things into perspective.
2. We did really appreciate the need to maneuver your ships in a way to help your gunners.  I've seen some naval games where the maneuvers are so intricate, the ships' tracks look like modern art.  Try that with FP range guessing and your messing with yourself as much as (or more than) your messing with your opponent.
3. The FP range guessing does reward skill (but not tactical skill - see below).
4. The combat results did have a "morale" impact on players.  If you opponent is hammering you and you're not able to range in, it is very easy to get panicky and flustered.
5. It got us out in the (very) fresh air, which my better half tells me is a good thing.
6. It was fun and forced us to think differently (I found myself estimating ranges in "Sylvains" at one point).
7. It amused the heck out of my family members!

Cons

1. The range guessing is (literally) hit or miss, all or nothing.  More over, once you've ranged in it's reasonably easy to keep ranging on.  I know it is skill and judgement based, but it actually felt more like luck than anything else.
2. I would rather blame the dice than blame my eyesight!  To paraphrase Homer Simpson "Weaseling out of responsibility is what separates us from the animals".  More scientifically, when you roll badly, you know that the odds favour you making it up sometime in the future with a good dice roll.  When you can't find the range, the odds are that you'll keep on missing.  
3. It rewards physical skills over mental ability - and I speak as someone with excellent long range vision and depth perception.  I thought that I endured junior high school gym class so that I wouldn't need to be judged this way an adult!!
4. It gives the wrong level of command.  I want to be a ship captain or an admiral, not a gunnery officer.  And I certainly shouldn't be acting as both.  I prefer game systems where you have mechanism to account for the actions of your subordinates and let you focus on command decisions at the appropriate level.  The technical term for these mechanisms is dice and combat tables!

I know that there are FP fans out there, but not me.  I enjoy it as a historical experience and a challenge but not as a gaming style. A I think I'd be happier using Fred Jane's striker's to shoot at ship plans.

Outdoors Adventures

So an actuary, an archivist and a French literature prof walk into an open field...

Sylvain wanted to use his 1:1200 WW2 battleships in a Fletcher Pratt style game, so he decided that we would do it grand scale and play in a park.  With winter approaching, this was best done sooner than later so Sylvain, Curt and I went out to play with toy ships in the park today (much to my family's amusement).

Today's weather was, well bloody cold and miserable...Ok my picture didn't work but the weather network has the following readings at 2pm on October +6C (-2C with windchill), and winds of 43kph from the NW.


I had two USN battleships (USS Colorado and Arizona, based on neither ship being at Pearl Harbour on the 7th) while Curt  fielded the Kongo and Ise for the IJN, with Sylvain acting as GM.  After about 35 minutes of game time (about an hour and a bit of real time) we traded some hits with my eyesight proving superior to Curt's.  He decided to cut and run, which was quite alright with me.  I did my running sprinting across King's Road park chasing down ship logs and turning circles blown away by the gale force winds.

I am sure that Curt will post much better pictures but here are the ones off of my I phone.

Colorado (to the right) leading Arizona

Same ships but from a lower angle.

My fleet in line a head.

Sylvain and Curt by the IJN force from the USN position.

Sylvain takes measurements while Curt takes photos.  Note the paint roller shell splashes - very effective!

We're ranging in on the target.

Curt's shots are short but getting closer.

Rules discussion.

A hit!