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Sunday 17 March 2024

What size grid? A few experiments might help

Before I begin work on my new gridded terrain board, I need to decide what size grid squares I’m going to use. I laid out the options available to me in a recent blog post … and most comments from my regular blog readers seemed to favour the 8cm x 8cm/11 x 7 grid.

To help me decide which of the three options I will choose, I drew three squares and placed a number of figure bases from my Belle Époque collection in each to see both how many each would hold, and which looked best. The results are as follows:

11cm x 11cm

I could easily get three double-base infantry units and a single-base artillery unit into an 11cm x 11cm grid square.

8cm x 8cm

I could just about get two double-base infantry units and a single-base artillery unit into an 8cm x 8cm grid square.

4cm x 4cm

I could only get a double-base infantry (or a single-base artillery unit) unit into a 4cm x 4cm grid square. I could not have got a double-base cavalry unit into the size of grid square.

I think that having done this the best option is obvious ... it has to be the 8cm x 8cm grid square.

Friday 15 March 2024

Meeting the Curator of Time

Last night Sue and I visited the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre where we meet the ‘Curator of Time’ (Dr Emily Akkermans) and one of the conservators who work on the museum's collection of timepieces.

After a brief introduction, the Curator took us to one of the large climate-controlled store areas, and after explaining the difference between solar time and siderial time, she showed us some examples of timepieces and other material that are part of the collection but not currently display.

A very early and very expensive chronometer.
An early pendulum clock. It was only capable to telling the hour, which is why it only has one hand..
A drawing by the famous chromometer designer, John Harrison.
This chronometer was graded as 'useless' when it was purchased because it could not keep accurate time of a number of months. It was therefore 'converted' into a clock that could be carried around the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, where it was used to set the time on all the clocks in use there.
This chronometer was used on several expeditions across the globe.
A timepiece that can best be described as an alarm clock that was used to alert astronomers at the Royal Observatory as to when to sight their telescopes on certain stars. The names of these stars are engraved on the clock's face.
Part of the electrical relay system used to coordinate the time ball signals at Greenwich and Deal.
An atomic clock. This has been recently acquired by the museum from the National Physical Laboratory

We then made our way to the conservation area where all the museum's timepieces are conserved and maintained. We saw various timepieces in different stages of repair and renovation, and the conservator explained how the different lubricants that had been used in the past (and some that were currently in use) caused corrosion and wear. (I must admit that I thought that there was very little difference between the types of lubricants used in clockmaking, but apparently they all have their costs and benefits.)

He also demonstrated the machine that they use to cut the teeth on gear wheels before finishing his talk with a flourish when he unveiled a replica clock that had been built some years ago by the museum and that was being prepared for loan to another museum.

The tapes and ropes have been used to ensure that no part of the clock is damaged in transit..

Our tour lasted over ninety minutes and we could easily have spent twice that time at the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre. In fact, we enjoyed ourselves so much that we are booked on the next Delve Deeper tour of the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre which will be taking place on the 11th April. It is entitled PROTESTS AND CAMPAIGNING: REVEALING STORIES THROUGH OBJECTS FROM THE PAST AND PRESENT and will be presented by Laura Boon, the Lloyd’s Register Foundation Senior Curator: Contemporary Maritime.

Thursday 14 March 2024

The Curator of Time

Sue and I need a break from decluttering, and we have booked a visit to the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre to meet the ‘Curator of Time’ (Dr Emily Akkermans) ... which is a wonderfully Whovian title for the person in charge of all of the National Maritime Museum’s timepieces.

We’ve met them before, but this time our visit will be as part of a small group who will be given the opportunity to see those items from the collection that are currently not on show or are undergoing preservation.

Monday 11 March 2024

What size grid?

I have been pondering what size grid to use on my new terrain board. The board measures 35" x 22", which translates into 88.9cm x 55.9cm.

If I select a grid square that is 11cm x 11cm (or 4.33" x 4.33"), I can create a gridded terrain board that is roughly 8 x 5 (and have 40 grid squares), ...

... but if I choose a grid square that is 8cm x 8cm (or 3.15" x 3.15"), the grid will be 11 x 7 (and have 77 grid squares).

As my Belle Époque collection is based on 4cm wide bases and cavalry and infantry units consist of two bases, it means that I can deploy individual units in line without them overhanging the edge of the grid squares.

I did consider making the grid squares 4cm x 4cm (or 1.6" x 1.6"), but this would mean that a two-base unit would occupy two grid squares if it is in line or – in the case of cavalry – column. The upside of this option would be that my grid would be 22 x 14 and have 308 grid squares.

At present I have not made a decision as to what size grid square I intend to choose. Each of the options has its pros and cons and I need to carefully look at them before making my final decision.

Saturday 9 March 2024

The Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel: A bit of progress has been made ... but not much!

I have finally started work on creating a Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel. To date, I have designed a banner ...

... and a watermark, ...

... and actually registered the channel with YouTube. However, there is no content as yet and the channel's front page currently looks like this:

I hope to put together a short welcome video at some point over the next week, and I will write a blog post when I have and invite my regular blog readers to subscribe to the channel. After that, who knows what will happen!

Friday 8 March 2024

John Ruddle’s garden wargame: Some more photos

Whilst sorting through the pile of clippings in my office I found several more photographs of John Ruddle’s garden wargames.

The man himself! John Ruddle sitting in the midst of his garden, surrounded by the terrain over which he fought his wargames.
A detail from the above photograph showing some of the numerous buildings that he constructed.
The main British naval base.
A full-scale naval battle in progress on John Ruddle's lawn/ocean.
Part of the British army on parade at one of the numerous barracks that dotted the garden battlefield. Notice its proximity to the railway, which enabled the troops to be rushed to the frontier in times of diplomatic tension.
A British coastal town. It has several defensive mobile artillery batteries as well as a small barracks for its defenders.
A typical inland town. Many of the model buildings were apparently based on real buildings.
Another British port. The building at the front with the double set of stairs leading up to its front door seems to have been based upon ...
... the Queen's House in Greenwich.

I was particularly interested to see so many of his warship models ‘sailing’ across his lawn/ocean. Truly inspiring, as were all his models.

Thursday 7 March 2024

Decluttering our home office … and building a baseboard

Yesterday I started the process of decluttering our home office. My first task was to clear the large pile of cardboard boxes that we had been saving ‘just in case’ we needed them, and these have now been collapsed and consigned to our recycling bin. This took longer than I expected, mainly because I had to carry everything down two flights of stairs from our second-floor office to the ground floor.

I also began to sort through my pile of magazine clippings and put them in files, a task that I expect will take me quite a long time. I took several breaks whilst I did this, and when I did, I disassembled the spare half of my pasting table so that I could glue and screw the hardboard top to the pinewood frame. The pasting board had been very made as cheaply as possible and was only held together by a number of metal staples. The corners of the frame were held together by unglued open mortise and tenon joints. By gluing and screwing the whole thing together I was able to make it much stronger. I also cut down two of the pasting table’s wooden legs to make cross-braces which I then glued in place.

Tuesday 5 March 2024

The decluttering of my toy/wargame room is almost complete

I have almost finished decluttering my toy/wargame room, having spent almost all my spare time over the past week packing stuff into crates and taking it to the storage unit we have rented. I have retained my Belle Époque collection and my model railway layout as well as most of my books so that the room doesn’t look totally denuded and I still have the opportunity to fight a wargame if I want to and to run my locomotives and rolling stock should the mood take me.

I have also retained the unused half of the pasting table that I used for my model railway layout, and I am thinking of using it to create a SHAMBATTLE/3 x 3 PORTABLE WARGAME terrain board. It would certainly give me the opportunity to build upon my recent model railway terrain building experience and will help to occupy my downtime whilst I declutter our home office. (I find that I need a break every couple of hours when decluttering to stop me getting too bored and our home office is on the same floor as my toy/wargame room. I can easily slip from one to the other without having to climb up and down stairs.)

Sunday 3 March 2024

Rediscovering the RISK EXPRESS dice

Back in 2011 I experimented with the use of the dice from the RISK EXPRESS game as a way to randomise the number of units a side could activate during a PORTABLE WARGAME turn. I later moved on to other methods and had – to all intents and purposes – forgotten about the RISK EXPRESS dice until I rediscovered them again during the decluttering of my toy/wargame room.

The dice had to following symbols on the sides of the dice:

  • A general
  • A cannon
  • A cavalryman
  • One infantryman
  • Two infantrymen
  • The infantrymen

I used the RISK EXPRESS dice in a number of Colonial battles that were fought on my original 8 x 8 chessboard. The dice were allocated as follows:

  • European troops: one RISK EXPRESS dice for every three non-Command Units (with any remainders being rounded up) plus one RISK EXPRESS dice for the Command Unit.
  • Native troops: one RISK EXPRESS dice for every three non-Command Units (with any remainders being rounded down) plus one RISK EXPRESS dice for the Command Unit.

For example, if a European force of eight Units (including a Command Unit) were facing a Native force of eight Units (including a Command Unit), the Europeans would be allocated four RISK EXPRESS dice (7/3 = 2.66 [which when rounded up = 3] plus 1 = 4) and the Natives would be allocated three RISK EXPRESS dice (7/3 = 2.66 [which when rounded down = 2] plus 1 = 3).

This would supposedly reflect the superior discipline of the European troops as well as preventing the Native force from having far more RISK EXPRESS dice than the European force. In addition, the number of RISK EXPRESS dice allocated to each side should diminish as Units are destroyed, and the loss of a Command Unit would therefore have serious consequences.

Looking back at this, it is a game mechanism that I should probably have persevered with a bit more than I did. One reason why I did not was the fact that Parker/Hasbro – who manufactured the game – ceased production and I saw no point in describing and developing a game mechanism that other wargamers could not try for themselves.


I did investigate how much copies of RISK EXPRESS are now selling for on eBay ... and the prices ranged from £25.00 (with free postages) to £65.50 (plus £3.99 postage). That seems quite a lot to me, and I won't be buying another copy of the game just for the dice!

Friday 1 March 2024

Thinking about a YouTube channel

Over the years I have made a few YouTube videos which I uploaded to my YouTube channel.

As you can see, some of them related to games I had taken part in or seen at COW (The annual Conference of Wargamers), one was a sort of scene-setter for a game I played based on the attack on the hill people from Korda's film THINGS TO COME, and a couple were of car accidents that I had been involved in or witnessed. The most recent is the video I made about the narrow-gauge model railway that I built.

It was after making the last short video that I began to think about the possibility of creating a YouTube channel devoted to supporting this blog. I have a few ideas that I would like to explore, such as documenting the story of how the PORTABLE WARGAME came about and possibly converting some of my 'How to ...' documents into short presentations that people can access. I might even include the odd battle report or news item.

This is all very much at the 'thinking about' stage, but it is something that I am giving serious thought to whilst working on the decluttering of our house.