Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group
In 2023, Connections UK, the conference for wargaming professionals, was held at Sandhurst Military Academy on 5-7 September. Due to Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions, this was the first time I was able to attend. Needless to say, I was as excited to see and explore the building as I was to listen and participate in […]
1942WATU, a newly created wargaming unit of the British Royal Navy, is tasked with developing and disseminating new tactics that would counter the successful attacks of German U-boats on trans-Atlantic merchant shipping convoys seeking to bring essential supplies to Britain. Naval escorts were provided by the British and US navies, but still, they could not […]
I’ve been drawn back the last two years into reading about Operation Market Garden through going back to the museum in Oosterbeek, a battlefield tour and helping out in a miniature wargaming project. I’ve also branched out into other operations in the Netherlands in 1944-45, such as the Battle of the Scheldt, operations in Noord-Brabant […]
After an exchange of good war movies to view at a recent Virtual CLWG meeting, I offered to curate a list for Milmud. I had in mind pulling together war movies that would be plausible enough for members who may not have a strong background in a particular era to gain some context for creating […]
Emu Wars is a landscape (map) -based game derived from real life events. In 1932, over 20,000 emus, large flightless birds indigenous to Australia, broke through the rabbit-proof fence on their annual migration to the coast. The emus saw the recently established croplands as a ‘tucker basket’, and the farmers saw the emus as dangerous […]
by Deborah Southwell As part of a course on game design, I was asked to critique a game. I thought it may be of interest to other Military Muddlers. Urban Nightmare: State of Chaos (Game designer: Jim Wallman) is a megagame exploring how government and city authorities in the USA might respond to an emerging […]
This is a review of a radio broadcast and a musing on the ideas it deals with. Review The radio broadcast was on the BBC World Service and is part of the series: The Cultural Frontline. The episode: Board games: The politics of play It starts by looking at the boardgame Pandemic, and its happenstance […]
Museum Review by Jim Wallman So, it being a bank holiday it was a good time to finally visit the Kent Battle of Britain Museum at Hawkinge. I’ve been through Hawkinge many times and always wondered what it was like. Today I found out. Described as the worlds [sic] largest Battle of Britain collection. I […]
Destructive and Formidable by David Blackmore analyses British infantry doctrine using period sources from the British Civil Wars of the seventeenth century up to just before the American War of Independence. If anything you can see the constancy, which drove the success in battle of British forces, even when outnumbered. Development of British Infantry Doctrine […]
Onside Review by Nick Luft Game Aim My aim was to design a game about the command, control and communications aspect of modern warfare, integrating near-real-time surveillance and intelligence with a live boots-on-the-ground operation. As I pondered my design I realised that this game would be well suited to being played using a computer to […]