#SundaySummary – Flash news, marking #Wargame & #Boardgame, and Midway summer reading

July 24, 2022 ~ RockyMountainNavy ~ Leave a comment

Wargames

Next wargame arrival (this week?) should be Harold Buchanan’s Flashpoint: South China Sea from GMT Games. I expect this one to be an “office-al” lunchtime game. I also ordered from The Gamecrafter the “Baltic Approached Aircraft & Mini-Cards” for Red Storm: Baltic Approaches also published by GMT Games.

Boardgames

Speaking of markers, designer Dan Bullock offered a set of after-market markers for his game No Motherland Without: North Korea in Crisis and Cold War (Compass Games, 2021) which should make the game look so much nicer on the table.

The Kickstarter fulfillment for Reality Shift from Academy Games is supposedly “ready to ship.” Funded in December 2020 with an original projected delivery of May 2021, it’s only running about a year late. Sadly, of the nearly 20 items in my Kickstarter/Preorder GeekList this one is smack dab in the middle of the pack, doing much better than the oldest P500 from October 2019 that still languishes…

Books

Articles

The Spring 2022 edition of Naval War College Review has an article by Jonathan Parshall, co-author of Shattered Sword. The new article, “What WAS Nimitz Thinking?” looks at the Admiral’s battleplan for Midway. One part I really enjoy in this Parshall analysis is the comparison of “Bad Hornet” and “Good Hornet” with regards to that carriers initial strike. Of great potential interest to wargamers, Parshall actually looks at some of the alternative battle situations by using an Operations Research approach through the work of Aneli Bongers and Jose L Torres and their article “Revisiting the Battle of Midway” published in a 2020 issue of Military Operations Research. Hmm…

Parshall, Jonathan B (2022) “What WAS Nimitz Thinking?,” Naval War College Review: Vol. 75: No. 2, Article 8
Bongers, Aneli and Jose L. Torres, “Revisiting the Battle of Midway,” Military Operations Research: Vol. 25, No. 2 (2020), pp 49-68, https://doi.org/10.5711/1082598325249 via JSTOR.

Feature image courtesy navsource.org. The accompanying text reads: “On Thursday, 4 June 1942, during operations near Midway Island, an F4F-4 Wildcat, # 3-F-24, from VF-3—USS Yorktown (CV-5)—, piloted by Ensign Daniel Sheedy, accidentally fired its .50-cal machine guns while landing on USS Hornet (CV-8). ENS Sheedy had been wounded during the battle and the controls to safe the guns had been shot out, according to eye-witness accounts. Five Hornet crewmembers were killed (one of them LT Royal R. Ingersoll II, son of ADM Royal E. Ingersoll and grandson of RADM Royal R. Ingersoll) and 20 others wounded in this accident.”

Sunday Summary – Now You See Me…. @ADragoons @bigboardgaming @gmtgames @compassgamesllc @MultiManPub @JimDietz1 @Bublublock #Wargame #Boardgame #TravellerRPG #Books

March 28, 2021March 28, 2021 ~ RockyMountainNavy ~ Leave a comment

Although I have “appeared” a few times on the Mentioned in Dispatches podcast at the Armchair Dragoons the past few seasons this past week was the first time I “appeared” on Kev’s Big Board Gaming Channel. As in I literally “appeared” on a live stream. Kev is a great host and it was a good time. I’m not sure what sort of impression I’m making on people as I’m just out to convey my love for the hobby. If you have a chance please drop by and take 45 minutes to watch and hopefully get some inspiration to play something.

Wargaming

My next “Reading to Wargame” series started with my comments on Antony Beevor’s The Battle of Arnhem book. Check back next week to see how it influenced my play of Mark Simonitch’s Holland ’44: Operation Market-Garden from GMT Games.

This was a good week for wargame arrivals. Three new titles are in the RockyMountainNavy house and in various at various stages of learning:

Kido Butai: Japan’s Carriers at Midway (DRK, 2016) is a solo game on the Battle of Midway focused exclusively on Japanese aircraft carrier operations. I may submit my thoughts to Brant at Armchair Dragoons since it could compliment an earlier article I wrote for the site on another Midway wargame, Fury at Midway (Revolution Games, 2020).
Fifth Corps: The Soviet Breakthrough at Fulda (Central Front Series, Vol. 1), Strategy & Tactics nr. 82 (Sept/Oct 1980) from SPI and Jim Dunnigan. Many Cold War games I have, from Bruce Maxwell’s NATO: The Next War in Europe (Victory Games, 1983 – Now up for reprint at Compass Games albeit with a slightly different name) to Fabrizio Vianello’s Less Than 60 Miles (Thin Red Line Games, 2019) to Carl Fung’s Iron Curtain: Central Europe, 1945-1989 (MMP, 2020) all reference in some way Dunnigan’s classic game. It’s past time I study this masterpiece myself.
Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1 (Multi-Man Publishing, 2004): I own the designer John Hill’s original Squad Leader (Avalon Hill, 1977) and I remember one time playing a copy of a friends Cross of Iron (Avalon Hill, 1978) and Crescendo of Doom (Avalon Hill, 1979), both Squad Leader gamette’s, but I never played Advanced Squad Leader in either the Avalon Hill or Multi-Man Publishing editions. Now that changes.

As I was waiting for the new titles to arrive I used a random number generator to select a game from my collection to play. Thus, Mississippi Banzai (XTR Corp, 1990) landed on the gaming table. This “alternate history” game envisions a Stalingrad-like offensive around St Louis in a 1948 as Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany face off in a conquered United States. More thoughts forthcoming soon.

Boardgaming

My Kickstarter copy of Supercharged by Jim Dietz is on the mail. I’m looking forward to getting it in ouse this week and not-so-secretly hope the RockyMountainNavy Boys and myself get it to the table in a renewed weekend Game Night.

With North Korea making news this week I hope you all have read my comments on Daniel Bullock’s No Motherland Without: North Korea in Crisis and Cold War (Compass Games, 2021) that was published by the Armchair Dragoons. I think the whole world is wondering which Missile Test Event Card Kim Jong Un might play next.

Books

With the arrival of Kido Butai in the house I looked at my Midway collection of books. Not wanting to rehash my read of the 2005 Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully I instead picked up Dallas Woodbury Isom’s Midway Inquest: Why the Japanese Lost the Battle of Midway also from 2007. Written in some ways as a counter to Shattered Sword, I ended up focusing on Appendix D which is the “rules” for a “war game” Isom uses in Chapter 10 of his book. Thoughts forthcoming.

Shattering Operations in Fury at Midway (revolutiongames.us, 2020) #wargame posting courtesy @ADragoons

June 4, 2020 ~ RockyMountainNavy ~ 2 Comments

RockyMountainNavy, 4 June 2020 BLUF: A Battle of Midway wargame/historical conflict simulation focused on air operations. Fury At Midway (Revolution…
Shattering Operations in Fury at Midway by Revolution Games