Wanders around the Metropolis

It's been a quiet month on the blogging front. Partly because of the recent hostilities in North America, sorry, I mean the World Cup. But with Argentina's antics, including during and after the final, the gap between sport and violence was very thin at times.

Reading

No games or painting or modelling in the Schloß, but I have been reading. Firstly, Reed Browning's The War of the Austrian Succession, leant to me by Neil Patterson. I enjoyed it more than I expected (Neil didn't oversell the book!). A very good introduction to the subject. Then I picked up Henry Hyde's Wargaming Campaigns, which I'm about 3/4 of the way through. It contains a lot of useful information, but I feel that a bit of pruning would help - if for no other reason than it would make it less of a work out to hold. So far I haven't found a lot that I will use in my campaigns. The suggestions tend to be admin heavy. There's a lot on the process rather than concentrating on the effects. But that's probably because the author is into creating a rich narrative. One thing I will probably do is introduce more weather effects in my campaigns.

Hounslow Heath

Back in the real world I've been on a few walks. At the end of June Lincolnshire Tom and I went on a combined walk with the Battlefields Trust and Hounslow Local History Society. The subject was the Military and Aviation History of Hounslow Heath. This was very enjoyable and informative.

Not much physical evidence of the military history survives. Barrack Road is one vestigial sign. There are old barrack buildings remaining but the site is boarded off for re-development.

Random shot of the heath. Not far from here is the River Crane Walk and that goes past an old Shot Tower. Or at least that's what it is labelled as. The guide said recent historiography has cast doubt on its purpose.

Seen on the Hounslow walk. Can't remember what variety of moth/butterfly these will turn into.

On the way home one evening in June I noticed that mountains had sprung up in the direction of Kingston-upon-Thames. They were gone not long after.

The Odyssey

Saturday just gone, saw the Margravina and I venture into London to see the Odyssey. We could have seen it at a local cinema but I fancied a wander around some of my old stomping grounds so we went to the Curzon* at the Brunswick Centre. The film was good, overall, but a couple of things niggled. One was that the makers couldn't resist adding bits to the story. It's only been around 3,000 years so it obviously needs a bit of re-writing to help it survive. I don't think I'm spoiling the plot if I mention them. There was a whole new piece about young boy who volunteered to go to the war. That added time, so out went one of the key points in Odysseus' journey to the Underworld - his talk with Achilles. I get having to cut things to fit into the budget, but not when they add a load of new things in not in the story. There was another change too, concerning Calypso. I had a similar reaction to the Hobbit.

* The Renoir, as was.

There was also a tendency to treat the audience as a bit dense and forgetful. Something about the Law of Zeus (I forget exactly, it only got mentioned in every other scene). I also, pedantically pointed out to the M that at a couple of points, the crew were rowing wearing their helmets and body armour (not in a war scene). 

On the positive side, there were a couple of decent innovations. One concerned rumours of the Sea Peoples. The other was the way Circe turned Odysseus' crew into pigs.  Overall, I would recommend seeing the film.

I enjoyed our foray into that area of London. We had to walk from Farringdon Road near the old Mount Pleasant Post Office site because the buses were on diversion. Like a lot of London this area has been gentrified. Back in the 90s I'd ventured over that way a few times and it was a bit grimy. It's still not pristine in parts but it feels very different. One thing that helps is the lack of diesel vehicles trundling around, as well as the redevelopment work. We wandered over to the cinema past a few of my old stomping grounds (code for pub visits) and it rekindled the desire to go back again. One thing I'd like to visit, and haven't before is the Foundling Museum off Coram's Fields. I was able to point out my old office (some so-and-so had left the window open!)

Like the Mount Pleasant area, the Brunswick Centre has become somewhat gentrified since I was last in the area. The site underwent a major refurbishment a few years ago. And there's now even a Waitrose! Something that was definitely not likely in the 90s. I wonder if the old 70s council flats are still social housing or if there's been 'social cleansing' too.  On the positive side, the place looked a lot more vibrant.

The M suggested walking back down to Waterloo rather than catching the bus back, so we had a pleasant stroll down past Queen Square, Boswell Street, Red Lion Square, Lincolns Inn, down between the LSE buildings, the Aldwich, Strand, Embankment and Waterloo Bridge.

                                    Plaque at Red Lion Square

One of the buildings at the LSE. Romans invented shopping trolleys?

 

St Mary le Strand. Now 150 yards from the river, before the Embankment was built in the 19th century, the Strand was the beach front of the Thames. Hence the name.

The Curiosity Cabinet on the Strand. Part of Kings College London (a second university just metres from LSE).

The defunct Aldwich tube station on Surrey Street. It is now part of the London transport Museum. Also on the to-do list.

St Paul's Cathedral from Waterloo Bridge.

The view west from Waterloo bridge

Looking back east from the bridge.

The City

Overall a grand afternoon out and 12,500 steps logged.

Fort Processes

So you might be finking that after buying those Brigade Models fortress pieces I would crack on and paint them up. That would be too easy for me. You might have noticed a trend on this blog for me to agonise/navel gaze or indulge a propensity for analysis paralysis.

The latest bout of agonising arose when I started thinking about the practicalities of working on the bought pieces.  It isn't as simple as cleaning them up and painting them. How should I make higher parapets? I could use a strip of balsa wood or something similar. For that to work I would need to cut off the existing parapet and cut the wood at the appropriate angles - easy for some but I am a bit cack-handed. Green stuff would work - I wouldn't need to cut off the existing parapet but it won't be as neat.  Doable options but it involves quite a lot of work. I asked myself would that work be worth the effort?

To help me answer that I thought I'd set-out the pros and cons of the commercial versus the totally scratch built options.  When I started doing that I realised there were more things that I'd need (want?) to do with the commercial option.

Commercial Option
Pros	Cons
No drawing	Angles etc not quite ‘right’
No cutting	Pieces move on the table
Flexibly layout	Have to build up parapets - how?
	Difficulty of modelling glacis/covered way without fixed enceinte
	Have to build up terreplein for enceinte to accommodate bases

Homemade Option
Pros	Cons
Dimensions ‘right’	Drawing
Glacis/covered way modelled	Cutting
Individual pieces won’t move in the table	Uncertain properties of materials*
The satisfaction of the challenge.	Have to cut and stick paper walls
	Inflexible

* i.e. will the XPS board cut up bobbly like the expol? I actually tested it and it doesn't, so strike that from the list of cons! It cuts nice and neatly and you can create nice sharp angles.

Overall there is more work with the scracthbuild/homemade option.  There is no doubt, but the commercial option comes with a fair amount of work too. More even than I anticipated before I started making the above lists. When it's all done the commercial option, with several separate pieces, is much more flexible. This comes with two challenges. First, how would I stop pieces sliding around on the table? Remember these are TINY pieces.  If I stuck them on to a board then I lose the flexibility. If I use magnetic paper, that's more work.

The bigger issue, I think, with the commercial option is the glacis/covered way/ditch ('GCD' for convenience). With a flexible layout cutting pieces for a GCD that is equally flexible multiplies the work and adds to the problem of small pieces moving around the table.

The way I'm feeling right now is I prefer the homemade option. I made the first step by re-drawing the template on paper. At least I've done the main enceinte, with a few ravelins sketched in and a trial sketch for the GCD. Of course I didn't make a copy of the original template!

Something to sleep on. And any comments/suggestions would be very welcome. Of course if I do the homemade option, I'll have a load of fortress pieces spare.

Update

After a number of comments I thought I'd do an update to show the issue with the commercial model. I understand the principle of '1-scale down'. That's why I bought a 2mm scale fortress. I intend to use the fortress with 6mm figures directly on and in it. The parapet is not even knee high to the 6mm figures. That's without a base to support the figures. It's not the overall height of the model fortress that is the issue, it's just the parapet.

There's also a lack of depth on the curtain wall if I'm to have any base for the toy soldiers.

Give them a Broadside

I'm afraid this won't be a picture extravaganza. I looked at the pictures I took and found them wanting. Pop over to Richard's blog for that, or feast your eyes on Big Lee's post on the game designed by him and Ray and hosted on by Postie's Rejects.

I don't think I've seen a war memorial which mentions the Korean War before.

This is more of a personal impression of the show put on in Gillingham by the Milton Hundreds Wargames Club. The show came highly recommended by many South East based bloggers so I was determined to make my first visit. I've been to Gillingham several times - I usually turn east out of the station, but this time I headed west. I was up and out of the house early (for me) and arrived in Gillingham not long after 10:00 and walked the 1/2 mile or so to the Medway Park Sports Centre. I had time for a quick spin round the hall, stopping off to chat to Lee at the Posties Rejects table (deservedly voted Best in Show, against some tough opposition).

Postie's Rejects game of the crossing of the Berezina 1812. A Dunelm sofa throw provided the cloth.

The whole table was fabulous and testament to their hard work. Sorry this is a bit out of focus. The broken ice on the river was great (pieces of perspex, 'sanded' to give that opaque look).

Last port of call on my initial tour of the hall was Brigade Models . They had the 2mm 'Vauban' fortress models I was interested in and described in my previous post as Plan C. To no surprise the parapets were low compared to a 6mm figure, but were otherwise perfect for my purposes. As luck would have it, they had everything that I had for my plan so I made the purchase there and then.

My acquisitions set out on another Dunelm throw! Castell de San Antonio to be used as a citadel. 

More of Brigade's products painted up and on display. I like the fact they had a model of Chatham Anchor Wharf given the proximity to where Broadside was held.

Shortly after I bumped into David-in-Suffolk and spent the rest of the day wandering around the show and chatting to various people. I had originally thought that I would spend a couple of hours at the Royal Engineers Museum next to the park, but it's a good indication of the quality of Broadside and the company that I stayed there until well after 3PM. Short breaks outside for coffee and lunch excepted.

This was another star of the show: Milton Hundreds Wargames Club's Sword Beach. Complete with sand from the actual beach!

Lots of lovely detail like this DD Sherman

I loved these LSTs(?) This one with self-propelled guns - sorry I don't know the name of them. Priests?

Another landing craft with Hobart's Funnies. Brilliant model showing some brilliant innovations.

As well as Lee and Ray, we bumped into Richard (also of Postie's Rejects) and had a nice chat. It was great to meet in person and put a face to the name. As an extra bonus, Richard revealed that the Brigade Models can be readily cut when I said that the curtain walls were just slightly too long for my fortress plan!

Another star feature was Hailsham Wargames Club's Malplaquet, 1709. All Les Higgins exquisite 20mm figures.

It reminded me of Tony "Prometheus in Aspic'''s preference for these models

More Malplaquet! The terrain for this was fabulous.

And yet more!

Another game I was keen to see. The Battle of Maidstone, 1648, by Canterbury and Littlebourne Wargame's Club. Nice terrain. And achievable for the average gamer. I liked the explanation of the scenario - the New Model Army had to achieve a win in a restricted number of moves to win the game. Without this constraint it would be too easy for the NMA player to win, so this made it a more competitive game. The gamers at this table were all young, which is nice to see.

Another lovely looking game was this example from the '45 Jacobite Rebellion. Played with Pendraken figures. Lovely castle centre right. And nice to see use of a baggage train. I couldn't help thinking that the choice of soft drink (top left) was appropriate for this. Irn Bru.

Another personal favourite, the Society of Ancients Gaugamela.

The SOA were using Impetus rules

There were many other great looking games and friendly hosts including the team who put on a pre-Dreadnought battleship game (sorry I didn't remember the club name or take any pictures). I will definitely go again next year. And I'd highly recommend Broadside to anyone, especially in the SE of England.

My train was due at 16:31 so I strolled back up through town and killed a bit of time in a pub that I haven't visited before. I almost turned around when I heard the noise inside - the party had well and truly started early! Actually it was relaxing and I enjoyed the choice of music. Can't go wrong with Boney M.

I was cream crackered by the time I got home and had a quick snooze before a very pleasant barbecue in the garden with the family and the Youngest-of-the-Youngest's beau, who was down from Yarkshire.

So, thanks for all the show participants for putting all the effort in and their friendliness, and to the Milton Hundreds club for putting on the show. And thanks to David for your company again.

Fortress Construction Update

Plan A

Well I cut out the paper template and then proceeded to carve the polystyrene. As many of you predicted, this led to ‘rough edges’ due to the nature of the material.

The side that the template was on wasn’t bad.

Template side: I left the ravelins until later

But the other side was as rough as a badger’s arse.

The fact I'd not cut out the ravelins makes it look worse than it probably is.

In one respect this isn’t a showstopper because the polystyrene sheet at c.2cm is much thicker than I need and the rougher bits can be carved away.  But that is a lot of work. 

Plan B

Before I went away on a project I found and ordered a thinner sheet made out of a different material that looks like it is less likely to suffer from the bobbliness* of expanded polystyrene. * that’s the correct technical term by the way. 

'XPS Board'.

This is produced for underfloor heating and comes in sheets 6mm thick. One sheet was c 5 quid for more than enough to layer up. One layer will do for the glacis level, one up from that will do for the ravelins and one more up for the bastions and curtain walls.  It's easier to show than to describe......

Cross-section Plan B

The issue with this method is that I might need to draw a new template (the original will probably tear when I unstick it from the polystyrene). And I might need different templates for each layer OR use each layer as a template working up from the bottom.

This is where a potential Plan C came to my attention. I think it was Neil who found a supplier of ‘Vauban’ fortress pieces in different scales. My issues with this option were (a) that the geometry of the bastions etc was limited and not suitable for the dimensions and angles I wanted, and (b) the website for the e-Bay seller was difficult to navigate and work out what the products were exactly like . Then last week another blog (sorry I forget which) showed some products from another company. They have options for different bastion ‘angles’ and the dimensions are close to what I drew on my template.

I’m hoping to see some samples on Saturday at Broadside which should help with my remaining questions. Plan C could turn out to be much easier to execute than Plan B. In a way that would be a shame because I was finding the ‘self-build’ route satisfying. But at least the XPS board could be turned to other uses, like trench lines where the little guys can actually be below the surface of the table!

We’ll see.

If you’re going to Broadside on Saturday and would like to say hello let me know through the comments.

A bientôt mes braves.

Fortress update

I think I've completed the drawing stage. The serious work begins tomorrow if I can get the workspace cool enough. Here's the plan.

A few comments about 'design'. I've pretty much kept to the same ground scale as the tactical rules (2cm = 100 yards).  The distance from the apex of the two end bastions is c.30cm so about 1500 yards. I've strayed from the ground scale when it comes to the ditch and the glacis. I've made the ditch a bit too wide at 1.5cm or 75 yards. This is in order to get bases of infantry comfortably inside. As compensation I've made the glacis the same depth and therefore a bit too short. But both added together are about right.

Another 'design decision' is to simplify things. I've done away with a separate covered way and ditch. The covered way would be too small at the right scale. The eagle eyed will note there are no places d'armes either. Too small and fiddly. No distinction either between terreplein and banquette either.

The plan now is to cut out the ditch and the area outside the glacis leaving me with a template. The template will get stuck down to a sheet of expanded polystyrene (somehow) and then I'll cut out the shape. Simples! Well, probably not. Something is bound to go wrong, but nothing ventured nothing gained. Once I've got the shape cut out I'll apply the paper stone walls I bought years ago from a model railway supplier. Next will come the embrasures and the talus. Then the whole lot will be stuck on a piece of board and I can 'do' the ditch floor and glacis. The trickiest bit I think will be chamfering the polystyrene to form the slope of the glacis.

Well that's the idea.

End of Season / Drawing Progress

Saturday afternoons are now free for the next three months. Grimsby got knocked out of the playoffs on Friday night. We went out in a slightly disappointing way but the club has made progress over the last 12 months. 78 points versus 68 points last season and we reached the 4th round of both major cup competitions. Along the way we've had some great times, including THAT win at the end of August. A night that will live with me for the rest of my life. I'm sure my son will also be boring future generations with the tale long after I'm gone!

Just before kick off on That Night.

My mood was not helped on Saturday by Celtic beating Hearts in the last game of the season to take the SPL title. Not because I have any particular feeling for the Jam Tarts, but because, in common with many fans, I want to see the Old Firm stranglehold loosened. I have a feeling though that Hearts will be competitive again in the coming seasons and punch above their weight.

Happier memory.

*************************

So what of the drawing? Well I managed to grab some time between work and dinner to experiment a bit and I think now to actually make a proper start. The amount of good quality light in the early evening, despite the weather not being great, is a real help.

After dabbling around with slightly different dimensions I settled back on the original ones from my first version last week. With a minor tweak. The first job was to plot the overall shape of the fortress. I went for a 'decagon' with elongated sides. The shape joined up the apexes of what will become 12 bastions.

Getting the basic shape down. The points with circles will be the apexes of the bastions and the 10 sided shape will therefore represent the outside points of the enceinte. Beyond that there will be a ditch, possibly with ravelins and then the glacis.

Drawing in the bastions in accordance with the guidelines shown in Fire and Stone. The slight tweak mentioned above is that with the corner bastions I adjusted the re-entrant angle between the flank and the curtain wall so that it is less acute. This means the bastion gorge is wider than t would have been. Overall dimensions are 30 cm by 20cm. 2cm = 100 yards.

Once I've drawn the rest of the bastions I'll add in some gates. One main one and a couple of smaller ones. Then add the ravelins - at least to cover the gates. I think that will require more trial and error. On the finished model, I will also have detachable parts so I can split the walls and have a river.

As the overall scale is pretty true to the ground scale of the tactical rules, there isn't space for my normal base sizes along the walls and in the covered way. For that I plan to use guns and infantry figures from my spares box. I might even have a bash at making some guns on fortress carriages (the ones a bit like ships' gun carriages).

Post Script

I finished off the bastions and main walls, adding in ravelins where I want to place the main gates. As luck would have it, two railway tunnel entrances that I bought a few years ago are almost exactly the same width as the space between bastions on the long sides of the fortress. Also, I worked out roughly where I want the glacis to start and finish. The key question in my mind now is whether to place ravelins all the way round. At this scale they are quite small, so they will be fiddly to model. Once I've decided on that I can draw in the covered way.

Ships and Planes

The Ships

Bit of a departure for me this. At least partly. One of the books that I fairly recently bought was a bargain from Naval and Military Press. It wasn't something that I was looking for but because it was great price it was a good opportunity to spread my wings. The book in question was Lepanto by Nic Fields. [Insert barrel-scraping pun about  the French version of Puss in Boots].

It's a great introduction to the subject, at least from my point of view being a complete novice. It's broken into three main parts. The first concerns the various parties and factions involved. The second part deals with the nuts and bolts of the technology, the men and how galley warfare worked. The final part covers the lead up to the battle and the actual combat and its aftermath.

There is a fourth part which describes some of the stories of participants, which included the Spanish Golden Age writer Cervantes. 

The Planes

Bit of a ruse this because the planes in question aren't flying machines but the drawings of a fortress I am planning to build. These are rough (very rough) attempts at drawing using the guide given in Duffy's Fire and Stone. I did two versions on spare pieces of A4 paper I had lying around. A4 works because it is about 30cm in length, which is a bit shorter than a mile in the ground scale of my preferred battle rules, where 2cm = 100 yards.  This would allow for a pretty big city. From memory, I think Prague in the mid-18th century was about a mile long excluding the Kleine Seite.

The idea is to create a template on paper, and then to use this to cut out the material for the walls.

The Duffy guide (based on one of Vauban's 'systems') has bastion faces of 50 toises (100 yards). Or in other words 2cm. All the angles are worked out so the flanks of each bastion covers the face of the neighbouring bastion. The first drawing came out more 'wonky' than I would like. For example, bastion #3 in the picture below could be moved so the apex is further 'north'. However, I'm not that bothered about a really regular shape as nothing is in reality.

The first system. I can see here that I haven't drawn in the walls joining bastions 8-9 and 9-10.

The second attempt was to get bastions on a bigger scale. The reason for this is to fit my 3cm wide artillery bases in the bastions. I doubled the scale so that the bastion faces are 4cm long. The problem is that where the outer trace takes a sharper angle, the bastion neck is very narrow and the gun bases might still not fit. Allowing for the depth of the walls I really don't think I can go less than 4cm long faces to have an internal length of 3cm. I personally don't think this looks as good as the smaller scale with more bastions.  Another advantage of the larger scale is it will look better with my 10mm ECW and AWI figures.

The second system

Both versions are also deficient in three key aspects:

1. No gates
2. No river - there probably should be at least one waterway involved
3. No covered way or ravelins etc.

1. could be fairly easily addressed. For 3. I need to plot the whole thing on a bigger sheet of paper. 2. is a bit trickier and will need more thought. I think I need to look at several examples of city plans from the period. Also I need to look at how many had the earlier Italian style bastions with retired flanks and how many had the straighter 'later French' style, especially as I seem to be basing a lot in the Italian theatre these days. Though to be honest, the thought of carving recurved bastion flanks scares me.