100K is Approching

Over this weekend I should pass an awesome milestone, 100,000 views of my blog. It has been a long hard slop to get here, but it is also been a lot of fun.

It has also taken me longer than it should as I have as I took a long break as the Syrian Civil  War was gearing up and it was making gaming in the Middle East distasteful.

So thank you to one and all the have read, commented or possibly learned something from this blog.

Where to Base a Campaign?

Choices, we have so many choices. From the Middle East, Sub-Sahara Africa or Central America. Even in the Caribbean wargamers have so many choices for basing an imagination campaign. It does not matter if we base it on the movies such as Bananas or  Moon Our Parador or any number of Back-of-Beyond stories, gamers have so many choices and I for one do not know what to do. So I will ask (not for the last time in 2015) you the readers to help, where would you like to place or see a campaign occur. (For me I would want to physically play in the Caribbean.) I also would like to know why you want to game there. You have the miniatures or possibly the terrain. Maybe you like the movies.

 

The time frame is the Cold War (1960s to the early 1980s)

 

And your choices:

• Middle East (a country that looks a lot like 1970s Lebanon)
• Central America (think pseudo-Nicaragua or Guatemala)
• Caribbean (small island banana republics)
• Sub-Sahara Africa (sand, diamonds and guns, enough said)

Looking forward to your thoughts and thank you for your input.

Submarine - Cold War and The Falklands

The spring of 1982...

One of the more pressing issues for NATO during the Falkland’s War was how to replace the Royal Navy submarines that went south to the conflict.

Number Available	Class	Number Sent South
2	Valiant Class	1
3	Churchill Class	2
6	Swiftsure Class	2
6	Porpoise Class	0
13	Oberon Class	1

In general for every boat on station two are needed for support. These other two boats are undergoing refit, training, transiting to their assigned areas or in port. Six may not appear be a big number but assets were already stretched in the early 1980s. NATO did not know how long the conflict was going to last or if it would cause a wider conflict.

Both the Porpoise and Oberon Classes could cover choke points in European waters and were probably doing just that. We will have to wait for the release of official secrets to find out more. It was replacing the five nuclear boats sent south that was a concern for the Royal Navy and NATO. These boats can work in areas not conducive to their diesel brethren, under the ice or in the Arctic Ocean.

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So what does this mean for your naval wargamer? Just think of the possibilities outside of the South Atlantic. NATO is forced to use boats in locations and for missions they were not designed for. It may even give the Soviets a chance and wargamers will have a chance to use lesser known classes.

While not as sexy as the fast attack boats, the crews of these diesel boats were well trained. Any takers?