Author: james
-
Book Review – The Stress of Battle by David Rowland (Part 1)
Not exactly a book review, more of a synopsis of a great work of Operational Research by David Rowland. The Stress of Battle: Quantifying Human Performance in Combat is the end result of years of work by David Rowland and his team at the Ministry of Defence. Rowland was the father of historical analysis as…
-
Book Review: Watching War Films With My Dad by Al Murray
Watching War Films with My Dad by Al Murray My rating: 4 of 5 stars I really enjoyed reading Watching War Films With My Dad. The book plays off his fascination with military history, and that for him it stems from growing up in the 70s and 80s playing with Action Man and building Airfix…
-
CLWG December 2013 Meeting
Alexander and I went along to today’s session of Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group in Anerley. Despite the engineering works we still got there in time to take part in both sessions, although we nearly missed Brian Cameron’s Weird War Two. Weird War Two Captain America was the movie of this game, which has been played…
-
Five Reasons for Establishing a Colony
In looking through my notes from previous story and game design ideas I came across one about the reasons why colonies might be set up. This was primarily for a set of scenarios for science fiction games set in Jim Wallman’s Universe that a group of us having been playing around the Full Moon each…
-
A215 TMA01 – Night Patrol
Here is the text I submitted for the Creative Writing assignment. The first and third parts are unaltered. I lightly edited Part 2 based on the feedback received (in net terms I added five words). Part 1 is a freewrite, intended to spark ideas based on a prompt. Part 2 is, in my case, a…
-
On Syria
The situation in Syria has caught public attention because of the alleged use of chemical weapons (most likely Sarin) by someone. I don’t usually stray into current affairs quite so much as this, these sort of situations are too raw to even think about designing games about them. However the press coverage seems to be…
-
Games on COIN
This post is prompted by an excellent post by the guys at On Violence. You should read Capturing Australia! COIN is Boring Pt.3 to which this was my belated comment. My apologies for coming late to this one, I’ve been on leave for a couple of weeks now and being spending time with the family. I’ve…
-
Trawling the Archives
I’ve been looking through some of my early writing on my computer, most of which was written for publication in Chestnut Lodge‘s club magazine, known affectionately as MilMud (a contraction of Military Muddling). I found several articles from the mid 90s which I have cut and pasted into the blog with dates when they were…
-
Book Review – Biggles in Spain by W.E. Johns
Biggles in Spain by W.E. Johns My rating: 4 of 5 stars I picked this up for a pound in a charity shop in Caterham. I was surprised to find that it stood up well to the passing of time. It was written towards the end of the Spanish Civil War, during which it is…
-
Book Review – In the Face of the Enemy by Ernest Powdrill
In the Face of the Enemy: A Battery Sergeant Major in Action in the Second World War by Ernest A. Powdrill My rating: 5 of 5 stars I borrowed this from the library and liked it so much that I bought my own copy. I found it very interesting because it is unusual for an…
-
CLWG July 2013 Game Reports
There were five of us at July’s CLWG meeting, myself, Nick, Mukul, Dave & John. There were three game sessions presented: I went first with a two part committee game called “The High Ground” about the consequences of cheaper surface to orbit space travel; Nick presented an economics card game for educating people about markets…