Monopoly Buildings

I worked on an unusual project this week for a friend, John Drye. He is planning on hosting a large wargame event this summer at the Historicon, the largest historical miniatures war-game convention in the world. To put this in perspective, it's like the NMRA National Convention, though Historicon typically gets about twice as many registrants as the NMRA National.  I used to attend Historicon regularly in the 1990s. John Hill, Dean West and I used to host massive Johnny Reb games at this event. The largest game we hosted involved 60 players over two days. If you think about it, that's one game with about half the participation of a typical Prorail event. There are hundreds of such events, though most not as big as that one, at Historicon.

Several of my friends are or were affiliated with Historicon management.  This year, I am planning on going to Historicon, but not the NMRA National. I am helping my friend prepare his scenery for the game since I really enjoy doing scenery. I am also doing some play testing for his scenario, which is based on Operation Market Garden. He plans to cover the whole campaign including the airdrops and the British 30 Corps race to the Rhine at Arnhem. This is the famous, "Bridge too Far" battle.

Unit counters are 2 inches square

His game system he plans to use is called "Breakthrough." It was written by Frank Chadwick, a very well known, prolific game designer. John is one of the official play testers for the game system. The game is very high level. Each counter or stand in the game represents a battalion or about 1,000 men or 50 armored fighting vehicles. Each inch of game ground equals 500 yards of actual terrain. The stands have 1/285 scale miniatures mounted on them, but not in a  one for one ratio of actual vehicles. For example, the 559th Schwere Jagerpanzer Abtielung, (559th Heavy Tank Destroyer Battalion), which had about 40 assault guns, has two vehicles mounted on a two inch base. See the photo at the right. The game plays very much like a typical board game but with miniature figures and scenery.

Nijmegan with 15mm (1/100scale) Miniatures

The game includes combat in Built-Up areas, i.e. towns and cities. These areas are depicted in the game with 3 inch square templates that are gray colored. Buildings might be scattered about the gray templates, but they need to be removable so that the 2 inch square unit counters can fit inside. The photo at the right shows how they were doing this with larger miniatures, but still using the 2 inch bases.  This was a game that I helped play test.

This way of modeling towns in a miniatures game was  off-putting to me. One of the fun aspects of a miniatures wargaming is the spectacle of seeing models on terrain. Some folks could care less and play mostly for the games sake. They use a simple green cloth and put the models on them without hesitation. In model railroading, we have folks like that too. But I prefer the terrain to look as good as the figures the play on them.

So I tried to develop a way to model the city of Nijmegan that will be playable in this game system and still look  like a European city in WW2.  The requirements were - develop a model of the city of Nijmegan on a 3 inch grid, and decorate it with model buildings in such a way that 2 inch unit counters could fit.

First, I got copies 1/25000 scale maps of the area during WW2 from the US Library of Congress. One thing that is obvious in comparing  these maps to satellite images from Google earth is how much more urbanized Holland and Belguim are now compared to then. Of course the same is true of the US. I adapted the topo maps to the grid that game uses. In consulting with John and using the maps for reference, we decided that Nijmegan should be one grid of dense urban and six adjacent grids of suburban terrain.

Town grid and a typical unit for comparison 

I made a drawing of the street grid that is a much simplified version of the actual road network. The scale is somewhere between the actual ground scale and the scale of the miniatures used in the game. Thus buildings are about 0.25 wide  by 0.5 inches long. They look like the little buildings from the Monopoly game, with a little more detail. Each three inch grid has a removable 2 inch insert. When the town is unoccupied by units, it looks like a model town. When units occupy the town, the unit counters replace the inserts. There are now less buildings in the town, but it still looks like an urban area.

When units move out, the town inserts are placed back in the town grid.

This gives you an idea of the overall size of the models

There were two important bridges in Nijmegan, the highway bridge and the railroad bridge. These are also modeled in a representative way. They can be removed if they are destroyed during game progress.  Though the city grid shows rail lines, they don't have impact on play except at the bridges.

It remains to be seen if this concept for representing cities works out. If it does, then I will make additional cities for Arnhem, Eindhoven and Veghel. If not, we can have some neat games of Monopoly.

Back to my roots?

Scene from a Johnny Reb  game depicting Gettysburg with some photoshop smoke.

I was feeling under the weather this week, and my mom was ill too, so I did not get  much modeling done. However, on Friday, my buddies JD Drye and Mark Franke, invited me to participate in  miniature war-game depicting combat in France in 1944.  I decided to accept their gracious invite, especially since some of the models we would use were painted and detailed by JD and Mark, both experts in that hobby.

I used to do a lot of war-gaming, both in miniature, and board games, and some computer games before taking up model railroading. Since I was primarily a Mac OS user, the selection of decent computer war-games was slim, so I didn't partake much. But I did a lot of miniature gaming, particularly with John Hill and his Johnny Reb system.

John exhibits exceptional sportsmanship as he acknowledges an extremely lucky
57mm anti-tank shot that destroyed the sole armor support he had in the scenario.

As I got more into model railroading, I let my gaming interest wane. In fact, in the past 20 years, I had played just one miniature wargame.  There were several reasons for that.

First, model railroading is a great, multi-faceted  hobby that can be very time consuming. If you want to get a layout done, you have to stay focused. That might sound odd from me, as I dabble in lots of things, but the Aquia Line has been a steady current though all the conflicting tides of disparate projects, museum models and other diversions.

The second reason is that wargaming can be competitive. Life is tough enough without more competition. On the other hand, model railroading is cooperative. I like that aspect of the hobby. It's one of the reasons I am not a fan of model railroad contests, though I do occasionally partake them. Afterwards, I usually ask myself, why did I do that?  About a few years will transpire and I will go through the same cycle. Doh!

Model railroaders is also a very social hobby. Even though we spend lots of time alone in the basement, we can share the hobby with a world wide fraternity through writing, blogs, joint work sessions, open houses, RPM meets, and the NMRA. My wife is no longer amazed about how, regardless of where we travel, there is usually a fellow model railroader we can visit.

By modeling a Civil War railroad I was able to combine my interest in military history with model railroading. I feel my civil war era railroad allowed me to opportunity to learn a lot about American political, technology, military, and economic history.  At the same time, I was able to develop a somewhat unique railroad that also allows for fun operations.

I also had a nagging feeling that some aspects of war-gaming trivialize combat, especially WWII. Many war-gamers are infatuated with German WWII weaponry, while ignoring the attendant horror. I studied WWII quite a bit in my high school and college days, but I didn't have much urge to wargame it. I used to say to folks, I lose interest in war-gaming with the advent of the machine gun and its wholesale slaughter.

However, JD and Mark spoke highly of the WWII game system they were starting to play. It's called Bolt Action. It's a skirmish level game meaning that battles that are platoon to company size with individual soldiers and vehicles.  I picked up the copy of the rules and it did appear that the game system captured the fire and movement of WWII tactics without too much complexity. Being a former Army officer, a realistic simulation of tactics is important if I am to appreciate a game or simulation.

The Bolt Action system is oriented to using 28mm figures, which scale out to about 1:56. Somewhere between S and O scale. I should note that I have hundreds of 28mm civil war figures on my layout as forced perspective objects.  But I was dubious that such large scale figures could work in a game, after all weapon could fire across the  room if done to scale.

Armored vehicles are primary targets in a situation like this.
JD did his utmost to neutralize this Sherman, even
after it was immobilized by an anti-tank round from his
 armored vehicle.

So I went into the game Friday with an open, but skeptical mind. Unfortunately, Mark had to cancel at the last minute, but JD and I went ahead. JD had created a nicely detailed terrain board with an interesting, freelanced scenario.  The game system presented a lot of difficult decision making. It did reward sound tactics, but luck and some gamesmanship played a part too. Overall it was an enjoyable experience, and I would probably like to see how works in other scenarios too. The larger figures worked out well since the game focuses on infantry combat, with armor and artillery in support.

Part of the enjoyment of the miniature war-gaming hobby is making an interesting, but functional terrain board.  Some people care less about this and are happy to play over a plain table, but most others prefer a nicely detailed scene. I learned many of the scenery techniques I use today in model railroading from building war-gaming terrain.

War-gaming terrain has to be tough as it gets handled a lot in the games. It should be reconfigurable as to allow use in multiple scenarios. However, I specialized in making detailed pieces for each battle. For example, I  once made a detailed model of the Marshall House that was about 2 by 2 feet for use in a large wargame depicting the battle of Cedar Creek. Unfortunately, I never got any good photos of those terrain pieces. I do have some scenes from a Gettysburg game, see above.

The Bolt Action game was a fun diversion. JD and Mark are good friends and any excuse to hang out with them is welcome. Mark commented to me, that he is glad he is getting into WWII gaming as it is causing him to go back and research things that he had forgotten or never knew. All of our parents participated in the war in some manner, so it is a way for us to think about their sacrifices in a pleasant setting. As JD says, "our soldiers don't bleed."

John Hill Passed Away

John Hill passed away today of heart failure in New Mexico. Most known for his game designs such as Squad Leader and Kasserine Pass, John was also a die hard civil war historian, reenactor and game designer. He designed the wonderful civil war game Johnny Reb. 

I first met John at a game convention where I  played in a Johnny Reb game he hosted. We became good friends. We worked on many joint projects. I have many fond memories of those.   In large measure I can attribute my interest in the Civil War to his influence.  He was an amazing military historian. He had a knack of getting to the crux of an issue. He was brutally honest, but fair.

He was also an excellent model builder. He taught me many scenery and modeling techniques and tips. This photo of an N Scale diorama is one of the joint projects we worked on. Alas I don't have many other good photos. 

In his life he worked as a professional defense analyst, ran a hobby shop, owned a game publishing company, and had a beautiful narrow gauge model railroad But he really loved war gaming, especially the civil war. 

He is survived by his wife Lu, and daughter Stephanie. I will really miss him.

19th Century Farms

In researching tools for the 19th century I came across two websites that I found very helpful.

The first is the Dalziel Barn, a Pennsylvania style barn in Ontario, Canada. Their website is chock full of interesting data on life for early and mid 19th century farms, architecture, tools and life.

The second is Bushong Farm,  a 19th century farm near New Market, VA that figured prominently in the Battle of New Market. The farm is now a museum. It would be a perfect prototype farm  for ACW model railroaders to simulate.

Many years ago I visited this farm and then built a 1/250 scale model of the main farm house for use in 10mm (1:160) scale war gaming. I tended to selectively compress  my war gaming model structures by making them in a smaller scale than the figure scale. This was due to the ground scale being much smaller, typically 1:900, than the figure scale, which was 1:160. If the farm house was built to 1:160 scale it would be about the size of a foot ball field on the gaming table.

I had always wanted to try some figure wargaming where the ground scale was the same as the figure scale. Once I did build a small european town in 1:700 scale and scratchbuilt some 1:700 scale armor vehicles to try some WWII gaming, but never did complete the project. I still have the kits from this and may go back to it a some point.

N Scale Supply Depot

About 13 or 14 years ago, John Hill built a union army supply depot diorama in N scale. I contributed many of the figures, the sailboat and the trains for the diorama. Here are some pictures of the project.

While it was a fun diorama to look at due to the intense busy scene, many of the structures and models were built using war game parts, which are designed for robustness and not fine scale. Thus the models do look a bit clunky. This combined with the poor running quality of N scale 4-4-0 locomotives convinced me that modeling a ACW railroad in N scale wouldn't meet my objectives. Thus began my search for a better approach that ended up with the current O Scale project documented on this blog.

More info on Horse Forage

I received a follow-up message from Dean West, pictured here as Captain West,

B Troop, 9th KY Cavalry. (He no longer wishes to remain anonymous.) I must say he looks dashing on his steed. The picture shows him on his Morgan.

According to Dean," the Morgan was a popular pulling horse during the Civil War. The horse Sheridan rode from Washington to the battle of Cedar Creek was a Morgan named Reinzi. Sheridan changed its name to Winchester at some point after he came east to command the AoP cav."

That horse would have come in handy when he, John Hill and I did a day of exploring the Cedar Creek Battlefield in preparation for a Johnny Reb game we once ran. Those were fun times. But I digresss.

This photo shows a scene from a typical Johnny Reb game that John Hill, Dean West and I hosted. John spent many years developing portable terrain pieces for his Johnny Reb games.

Dean provides some additional information about horse related forage statistics. Since this data shows that it is possible that a large animal might need more than 25 pounds of feed, perhaps the confusion comes from the use of the terms "grain and hay" used in the Encyclopedia citation. Hay is less nutritious than grain and thus more would be needed.

"I reviewed The Whole Horse Catalog, which says that a horse has the following grain ration daily in order to work at various levels. Also, there are some types of hay, such as Alfalfa, that is so rich in protein that grain rations need to be scaled down, and I know a couple guys who feed their draft animals all the Alfalfa they want, but just a a pound or two of grain per day. This issue can be unbelievably and unnecessarily complicated, unless the horse in question is a $1,000,000 Thoroughbred, and even those guys are fretted over too much.

Anyway, here's what Whole Horse Catalog says:

Light Work (1-3 hours per day: half pound of grain per hundred pounds + 1 1/2# hay per pound (1000 pound ridiing or show horse: 5# Grain 15# hay)

Medium Work (3+ to 5 hours per day: 1 pound of grain, one and a half pounds hay per 100 pounds (10 pounds grain per day)

Heavy Work (5+ to 8 hours per day: one and a quarter to one and a 1/2 pounds of grain per day (12.5 to 15 pounds per day)

Notice that a 3000 pound Clydesdale could need as much as 45 pounds of grain per day if working very hard.

Six-horse teams were the prescribed number for pulling full size army wagons. I have a funny General N.B. Forrest story of what happened in late 1864 when some official from Gen Hood's HQ handed him an order demanding he turn over two mules from each of his six-horse supply wagon teams in order to augment the tranportation of an infantry corps. The closing salvo from Forrest was for him to "git", and that Hood's officers should not come back to his camp unless they wished for beating or death. The mules remained with Forrests wagon train."

Another viewpoint on animal forage

I received the following from an old friend who is an ACW Calvary reenactor and a military historian. He found the comment 0f 25 pounds of forage per horse to be excessive. Here is the comment he sent me. I am keeping it anomymous for reasons that will be obvious once you read it.

Being in to horses, I must comment that when I read the history of logistics piece 

included on your web site, I was astonished to learn that the average grain allotment for U.S. army horses was 25 pounds per day! I must say, believe it was the lucky cavalry horse indeed that received that amount of grain on a regular (or irregular) basis, and if such a beast was not working hard for at least 16 hours straight pulling a heavy load or walking/trotting/cantering, surely that much grain would soon founder the animal, especially if it were not used to eating that much grain on a regular basis. In the wild, horses do not even eat grain. We feed it so they have the energy to work hard for us. Hard working draft horses weighing 3000 pounds might need that much, but a 1000 pound cav mount probably does not. I have a personal story in this regard:

A few years ago one of my horses, 1100 pounds and ridden almost every day at the time, got into a bag of grain (50 #) when I accidently left the tack room door open overnight. It ate about half the bag, then even it had had quite enough.

Next morning, an emergency vet visit was required to save the bloated and moaning beast, which could not be kept on its feet. Consternation spread throughout the land- all my fault! After a half-hour with a hose pushed way down its throat pumping castor oil and water into its system, the very displeased horse seemed not to be quite so distressed. Prior to this intense waterboarding procedure, the vet had to insert her arm way up the horse's ass to pull out impacted grain and hay. Horses can't regurgitate, so there is only one way to remove anything that gets stuck in their digestive systems. Under heavy criticism for my negligence, I had just finished fashioning a noose from a lead rope in order to end MY suffering, when the horse jumped up, dazed, pissed-off, but recovered.