All Guns Blazing — May 2010

1 All Guns Blazing! Newsletter of the Naval Wargames Society No. 193 –May 2010 EDITORIAL Well, my biggest wargaming event this month, chaps, was a jaunt to Salute at the Excel Centre in the Docklands area of London. Work—as always seems to be the case with me these days—got in the way and meant I was only able to attend for the morning, but I managed I good browse around nonetheless. Of course, the Society was represented most ably by another of Simon Stokes‘ participation games, this time the Union attack on Fort Sumter in 1863. The models, both ships and forts, were a credit to all those concerned: the beautifully-finished white ironclad had exercised the skills of Rob Hutton until 3.00am that morning! I have no doubt that Simon will furnish us with one of his excellent accounts of the action at some later date, but in the meantime I thought I‘d add a few pictures to get you in the mood. The objective: the Confederate-held Fort Sumter. Federal monitors and ironclad break the boom!

2 Simon convinces the players over a point of the rules… …while Jeff seems to be trying—in vain—to convince Rob to give Seekrieg 5 another go! Talking of Seekrieg 5 (sorry, Rob!), the other main naval game present was run by the Tonbridge Wells Wargames Society and A&A Games‘ Andrew Finch and Allen ?. It recreated the British destroyer attack on Narvik in April 1940 and used the in-depth American rule-set SK5. Although SK5 has not found many supporters in our Society (something that always amazes me really, but hey-ho) it has nevertheless attracted quite a following among denizens of Tonbridge Wells. With a core of seasoned players, the game was zipping along at, well…a rate of knots! Looking towards the German anchorage at Narvik.

3 Torpedo Strike! British destroyers wreak havoc among Andrew Finch’s beautifully painted and based GHQ models. On another show-game note, a public game is to be staged on Sunday 30th May on board HMS Belfast, based on the Yantze incident. The game is to tie in with Belfast‘s Cold War theme this year. If anyone wants to participate, contact Simon Stokes at simonjohnstokes@aol.com for details. Last month I was unable to sent AGB to a new member in Australia, a Mr. Michael Simpson; every time I tried, I received an error message saying something like ‗Unknown address error‘. The strange thing is, I‘d sent Michael the latest AGB a couple of weeks before when he first joined and there was no problem. Mal Wright, a fellow member in the Southern Hemisphere, has had a go at making contact, but I‘d thought I‘d throw it open to the Society at large—I‘d hate the chap to think he‘d been forgotten about! If anyone knows anything, please email me so I can re-establish communications! Like many of you I suppose, I‘m a member of various Yahoo discussion groups, and I just read a posting an hours or so ago of an online carrier game called ‗Fighting Flattops‘ that looks rather interesting. Obviously, as I’m far too busy at the moment putting this edition of AGB together to play myself, I can‘t tell you any more! However, if you want to check it out, go to www.fightingflattops.com. And if you do have a go before me, you could always send in a short review. All contributions welcome! A fair amount for you all this month; I‘m afraid I‘m still ‗rabbiting‘ on about the Goeben, while regular contributor Rob Morgan has sent a very positive review of a book on the US Navy‘s Plan Orange (and I can back up every word, as I read it myself five or six years ago) and there is some more news about Navy Days. Yours Piping ‗Up Spirits‘ Richard Wimpenny wimpenny@talktalk.net

4 BATTLE OF ZANTE PART THREE: TO THE AEGEAN By Richard Wimpenny Last month I continued the report of my Troubridge Vs Goeben campaign, and outlined how what had begun as a simple tabletop encounter to introduce my old friend Mike Dowd to the Seekrieg 5 rule-set turned into a full-blown campaign. In the initial game, Mike, playing the Germans, sank two of my (Troubridge‘s) armoured cruisers and crippled Defence, but suffered the loss of Breslau and a fair amount of damage to Goeben herself in return. The fact the Mike and I live so far apart and get to meet up so infrequently meant that we couldn‘t continue with a normal face-to-face game; therefore, I controlled all the tactical play after receiving instructions, sometimes mid-turn, from Mike via phone or email. When we restarted the game, a year after the first day‘s play, Goeben broke away to the south east, pursued by Troubridge with the light cruisers Gloucester (now wearing Troubridge‘s flag) and Dublin, the armoured cruiser Warrior, and the destroyers Beagle and Bulldog. Furthermore, Admiral Berkeley Milne had sent the battlecruiser Indomitable and the light cruiser Weymouth to join Troubridge with all despatch, while the rest of the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron coaled at Malta. The knowledge that heavy support was coming induced a seething Troubridge to attempt to slow Goeben down with Gloucester—in broad daylight! Not one of my soundest naval decisions, as things turned out! Thus, Part Two ended at 1500 on August 7th, with the brave Gloucester closing on the fleeing Goeben just off the coast ofMessina. (As in last month‘s instalment, I will give details of how SK5 worked out damage, etc, in square brackets.) ACTION OFF MESSINA As Gloucester gradually closed the range off Goeben‘s port quarter, the German‘s big guns remained curiously silent. (I had consulted Mike about this and he was reluctant to use his limited stock of 11-inch ammunition on a light cruiser.) As Troubridge, I realized that this must be the case, too, and I decided to try and a long range torpedo shot, or at least threaten one. To do this I needed to get a little ahead of Goeben and close to a minimum of 7,000 yards. However at 1520, Goeben‘s 5.9-inch secondary battery opened up on Gloucester. A combination of smoke interference and Gloucester‘s evasive action (and unlucky dice!) meant that Goeben‘s repeated broadsides failed to achieve any hits. At 1524, with the range down to 12,000 yards, Gloucester struck back with her two 6-inch guns; but by 1528 Troubridge, sensing that his run of good fortune couldn‘t last, ordered a turn away to port. Despite smothering Gloucester in shell-splashes, Goeben‘s secondary battery‘s fire control solution remained poor [never higher than 4 on Chart I1]; it was time for drastic action. In frustration at being so humiliated by the smaller ship, ordered Goeben‘s primary guns to open fire; the effect was immediate and devastating. One of the11-inch SAP shells hit Gloucester‘s superstructure [9V], but it failed to detonate properly on the thin metal [Class B hit. 120 Damage Points and no ‗Damage Effect‘]; however, the 120 DPs caused Gloucester to cross Damage Tier 4 [a reflection in SK5 of accumulated damage, rather than a specific hit] which knocked out the aft 6-inch gun and two of her port side 4-inch guns [DE 606]. Far more importantly, however, was the resulting flooding meant that Gloucester could no longer turn hard enough to undertake evasive action, and her steady course and a range of only 10,000 yards meant that she was struck by four 11-inch shells the following turn! Despite making smoke, Gloucester was ripped apart. The for‘ard 6-inch turret was destroyed and all the fire control equipment knocked out, the torpedo mounts were blown apart, the mast collapsed, and an engine and boiler room were both flooded. [DEs 104, 110, 609, 612 and 601.] Two further hits at 1540 (and crossed Damage Tiers) caused a serious fire that threatened a fatal explosion and more serious flooding [DEs 110, 602, 603, 613 and 608], and at 1548 Gloucester turned turtle and sank. At 1630 Warrior came across Gloucester‘s survivors in the water; Rear-Admiral Troubridge was not among them. Goeben, meanwhile, had turned to a course of 75° and was heading towards the Cervi Channel at 20 knots. As Warrior had trouble steaming above 17 knots, command of the pursuit devolved upon Captain John Kelly in Dublin. Assuming that Goeben was heading in the direction of Cape Matapan, Kelly proposed that the destroyers Beagle and Bulldog should break away to the south east till out of sight of Goeben, then race at 25 knots south of Kythera and into the Cervi Channel by night fall, where they could try and ambush the German battlecruiser. At 1700 Admiral Milne signalled his approval, and Kelly‘s plan was put into operation.

5 (Milne had begun coaling the Inflexible and Indefatigable at Malta at 1100, and, using Chart S4 SK5, by 1600 they had taken on 1,030 and 835 tons respectively and they dully departed for the Gulf of Taranto. I decided that Milne would take station to guard against any sortie by the Austrian Fleet and he took no further part in the game.) Map 1 shows Goeben’s track from the afternoon of August 7 to the following evening. ACTION OFF CAPE MATAPAN Dublin regained contact with Goeben at 1536, and Captain Kelly began to make regular reports of her course and speed. After receiving Kelly‘s report that Goeben was approaching Cape Matapan, the battlecruiser Indomitable, still two hundred miles astern, changed course to due east at 1900. Dublin clung onto ‗the chase‘ for the rest of the afternoon and early evening, but by 1920 reducing visibility caused Captain Kelly to lose Goeben in the gloom. Twenty minutes later, however, he relocated Goeben, but lost her again against the blackness of Cape Matapan before the order to open fire could be give. [SK5‘s visibility rules and Charts D2 and D4 worked superbly during this skirmish.] However, at 1948 Dublin managed to engage and hit Goeben with two 6-inch HE shells at 6,000 yards: one bounced of her belt armour and the second skidded off a turret roof [both were Class C non-penetrating hits that caused 40 DP]. Next turn Dublin hit a further three times and knocked a knot off her speed [DE 173], and the resulting 100 Damage Points caused the battlecruiser to cross Damage Tier Three [DE 604], which reduced her damage control parties, knocked off a further two knots, disabled all her primary fire control equipment and put her starboard search lights out of action, while flooding caused a list to starboard! In return, Goeben managed to hit Dublin with two 5.9-inch APC, which passed through without causing too much damage [two Class B hits causing 30 DPs each], but she also waisted ten rounds of her precious 11-inch to no effect.

6 Captain Kelly ordered the torpedo room to stand by [Bridge Command ‗TR‘], but when Goeben made a sudden turn to port (north west) at 2004 she disappeared again. Nevertheless, Kelly‘s spirited action had really hurt the mighty Goeben. More importantly, by sticking to his north westerly course for an hour to make sure that he had lost Dublin and then taking a less direct route to the Cervi Channel, Mike lost a total of five hours before Goeben was back on track. During which time Indomitable had closed to only 125 miles. (Mike still had no idea that he was being pursued by a British battlecruiser. I had sent him a report from a ‘spy’ that two battlecruisers had put into Malta at 1100, but it was a long time before he realised the importance of the word two; when he did, it definitely added a sense of urgency to his game!) Bulldog and Beagle reached the Cervi Channel at 2200 and began to circle at 15 knots. Their high speed dash to gain the position had used 37 tons of coal, and they now had only 96 tons left. (When these coal- fired destroyers were reduced to around 50 tons, their speed was limited, due to a lack of crew to trim the coal from less accessible bunkers; therefore, even if Goeben was not contacted during the night, the two British destroyers would have to abandon the pursuit next morning.) The trailing Warrior was ordered at 2200 to steam down the west coast of Kythera and then take up a position to cover to the southward of the island. Captain Kelly, having given up hunting for Goeben in the darkness, made for the Cervi Channel too, and to reduce the chance of ‗friendly fire‘, signalled the destroyers to ‗expect‘ Dublin around 2230. (All the British ‘eggs’ were in the Cervi Channel basket, to coin a phrase, which as it turned out was the right decision: though I must point out that I—as both player and umpire—made all my dispositions before Mike was asked to give his course for the Aegean. Had he taken the long route south of Kythera, he may have avoided the old armoured cruiser Warrior and escaped without further ado. Mike, however, was concerned over his remaining coal and chose the shortest route) As Goeben had seemingly shaken off her pursuers, Mike took the opportunity to reduce speed to 15 knots, stand Goeben‘s crew down from action stations and carry out repairs. [Details of how this is carried out are provided in SK5 in section 8.7, and in Charts M3 and M7.] Although the gun that had been knocked out in turret ‗Dora‘ during the initial engagement against Troubridge (See August 2007‘s AGB) and the primary battery‘s fire control were beyond repair, the starboard searchlights could be brought back into service, but not till 0900 the following morning—they would be absent during any night encounter! The list to starboard too remained, quite literally, a thorn in Goeben‘s side. ‗BEAGLING‘ IN THE CERVI CHANNEL At 0100 on August 8th Mike ordered Goeben to turn north east and accelerate to 18 knots; an hour later the battlecruiser slipped past the north of Kythera and into the Cervi Channel. Although Mike didn‘t know it, Beagle and Bulldog were ahead of him about six miles apart (Beagle the more northerly), with Dublin ten miles astern covering the gap; while, as mentioned above, Warrior was some twenty miles to the south, off Kythera. I set up a tabletop game at this point, 0300, and, as in the Action of Cape Matapan recounted above, the rules in SK5 for night spotting (or not spotting!) worked beautifully. At 0308 Goeben spotted the wraith-like silhouette of Beagle at 9,200 yards and turned 30° to port, to open the range. Nevertheless, at 0312, the British destroyer spotted Goeben hugging Cape Malea at a range of 7,800 yards and promptly sent a W/T sighting report to both Dublin and Bulldog and increased speed to set up a torpedo attack. At 0320, Beagle began to charge in pell-mell against Goeben‘s starboard side, which, unable to fire her secondary battery because of the list, fired off her depleted 8.8cm rapid fire batteries at the incoming destroyer—they all missed. (It was here that the loss of some of Goeben’s light batteries and searchlights in the initial battle off Zante were really felt. Thus the type of damage that is often inconsequential in a quick game had a real impact on events in our mini campaign.) In desperation Mike risked expending Goeben‘s dwindling stocks of 11-inch ammunition and unleashed her big guns at 0322. Two of the twenty rounds of SAP fired struck the destroyer at a range of only 3,800 yards. One passed through Beagle‘s thin skin without exploding properly [a Class B hit that caused 70 DPs], but the other detonated fully [120 DPs] and caused heavy casualties among her crew [DE 147] and some dangerous flooding [DEs 604 and 613]. More importantly for the mission at hand, Beagle‘s torpedo mounts were damaged [DE 601], meaning there was only a twenty per cent chance she would be able to launch her

7 ‗fish‘, and, to cap it all, her mast collapsed, taking away any chance of reporting the German‘s movements with W/T. As the plucky destroyer captain turned his wounded boat broadside on, Goeben‘s 8.8cm gunners continued to drench their attacker with shell splashes, but achieved little else. Beagle‘s Gunner T had a perfect shot— but the torpedoes would not leave the tubes! She held on for another turn, and although Beagle wasn‘t hit by Goeben, her luck didn‘t carry to her damaged torpedo mounts. After failing once again to launch [couldn‘t role 20 or less!], I (in my role as the British player) gave up and turned Beagle away at her best speed. As the British destroyers disappeared in the darkness Goeben left Cape Malea astern: she was in the Aegean. Map 2 shows the actions off Cape Matapan and in the Cervi Channel during the night of August 7/8. HOME STRAIGHT? As Goeben slipped into the Aegean she had just over a thousand tons of coal left in her bunkers (enough to reach the Dardanelles but nothing for emergencies should things go awry). Bulldog was holding to her previous 10° course, but Dublin turned starboard to 40° to broaden the search; while Indomitable, accompanied by the light cruiser Weymouth, had managed to close the gap again and was off Cape Matapan—just sixty miles astern. At 0500 Goeben spotted Bulldog‘s funnel smoke in the early dawn twilight, but it took another twenty minutes before the low-lying destroyer could make out Goeben, but she began to send out contact reports on the W/T. At 0530 Bulldog crossed Goeben‘s wake and positioned herself off the German‘s port quarter,

8 where she was difficult to pick out against the dark of the coastline; Goeben, meanwhile, was silhouetted by the rising sun. Bulldog‘s wireless reports (despite some jamming, for which the rules in Fear God & Dread Nought were used) rallied Dublin to the chase and she too was soon shadowing the battlecruiser. The hours ticked by, and at 1100 the tenacious Bulldog was forced by want of coal to give up the pursuit and haul off; she had only 56 tons remaining. Captain Kelly in Dublin, however, stuck to his quarry like a limpet. At 1210, with the Indomitable still sixty miles away, Kelly requested permission to try a long range torpedo shot against Goeben; with the memories of Gloucester‘s demise fresh in everyone‘s mind, this was denied! Kelly was ordered to keep his ship safe, and to keep updating his reports to Indomitable. ―Let the ‗big guns‘ do the work,‖ was the cry! As Goeben had begun to shape a course for the Dardanelles and edged every eastward, Indomitable, thanks to Kelly‘s good cruiser work, had been able to across the Aegean and close the gap more rapidly; and at 1900 hours on August 8th I had to inform Mike that there was a great plume of smoke to the SE. A large ship at very high speed! Remembering the report of only two battlecruisers coaling at Malta, Mike feared the worst. However, visibility was fading yet again, and the Dardanelles was only 170 miles away. There was still a chance Goeben could slip away and reach her objective; if she couldn‘t, she had a major fight on her hands. Once again, gentlemen, to be continued! War Plan Orange: The US Strategy to defeat Japan 1897-1945 By Edward S. Miller IBSN 0-87021-759-3 Reviewed by Rob Morgan This is the title of a book I came upon by chance in the library stack-list a few days ago. It was published by the Naval Institute Press at Annapolis, USA, in 1991, and re-issued in 2007, but is now out of print. The book, subtitled The US Strategy to Defeat Japan 1897-1945, is a hefty 500 page volume, which in my opinion is of inestimable value to the WWII naval wargamer; dealing with the strategies, tactics and occasional cataclysmic encounter in history‘s largest naval war. This isn‘t an account of those battles, but rather the ‗thrust‘ of how ‗Blue‘, the USA, would beat ‗Orange‘, Japan, when (indeed when, not if) a war came between the two states. This was, and the author is right to describe it as such, the most successful war plan in the history of world conflict. A remarkable assertion given the immense distances involved the geography of the Pacific, the political changes over four decades and indeed the huge technological differences between the pre- dreadnought and cruiser fleets which existed in 1897 and those enormous Task Forces of 1945. Two different world‘s, that of Mahan and that of Nimitz!!! The book provides detailed information not only on what in Royal Naval circles might be termed ‗grand strategy‘, but also explores plans of campaign as they came into being, developed then faded alongside others, most of which have never been published until this volume. It is important to

9 identify what this valuable book is not intended to be. It provides no detailed account, or comparison, of Blue and Orange forces, or the peripheral forces which were drawn into the eventual conflict. Weapons development, a massive topic in its own right, is omitted, as is the question of naval and military reorganization, as well as intelligence (for which Farago‘s The Broken Seal remains the finest account). Unless these matters directly affected War Plans, manoeuvres and wargames are also left out of the book. Ultimately, it presents a detailed account of the USA‘s Pacific strategy from 1897 up to the ‗Day of Infamy‘ in 1941. It also describes the planning process, and the numerous plans which were occasionally (no, frequently!) contradictory during those long years. The crucial part of the book is the author‘s review of the Pacific War of 1941-1945 through the structure of the ‗War Plan Orange‘ and he compares it to actual wartime events, battles and fleet manoeuvres; as well as describing the remarkable alternative strategies which were conceived during the awesomely destructive encounters on land and sea. Of course the author is forced to leave out the reverse of the coin, the strategy of Imperial Japan. Problems of language and access are mentioned, and the Japanese destroyed vast amounts of military and naval information during the last days of the war; but Miller also suggests that Japan‘s naval planners did not plan as far back in time as the USA, nor as thoroughly. It seems inevitable that Japan would have had to fight defensively after the first months of any Orange plan. Japan‘s strategy is only explained, and it is not by any means ‗second guessed‘, through the eyes and ears of the American strategists. One remark made by Miller is the he omits the Pacific plans of Great Britain (and other Powers) because they, ―…appear to have been rudimentary.‖ Not I fear a point to be argued against. The book is delightfully well-mapped with some twenty-eight maps of the Pacific, interpreting different plans and areas. I found a number of these held enormous wargames potential, such as the ‗Royal Road‘ Plan of 1934, and the 1928 plan and timetable to occupy Dumanquilas Bay in the Sulu Sea; while the planned and gamed ‗Japanese Invasion of San Francisco 1909‘ would make a ‗combined ops‘ wargame of exceptional proportions. Interestingly, the American planners consistently anticipated one vast naval battle during the third phase of the implementation of Plan Orange, to destroy or neutralize the Imperial Japanese Fleet north of the Philippines! Yet remarkably even in the opening stages of the Pacific War, the concept of a crushing encounter between lines of battleships was still pressed by several US admirals. Of course, the USA always had more battleships than Japan. In 1906, a year before the scenario which saw the ‗Blue‘ Fleet shattered and interned, there were 33:14, and in 1922 it was 18:10. Cruiser strengths were usually closely matched. The economic penury of the 1920s alongside obsolescence did erode the margin. The author asserts that it was American recognition of the Japanese concept of ‗face‘, that their capital ships would fight and not retreat to become a ‗fleet in being‘, which made the victory inevitable. There are some amazingly and highly wargamable aspects in many of the earlier plans too. The 1928 planned intention of mounting the biggest amphibious operation ever seen to capture Tsushima Island in order to blockade Japan from Asia would have required (and the tables are provided) 120,000 soldiers and 40,000 Marines! Miller makes some interesting points for the reader. Total blockade, considered vital to the early plans, was difficult to achieve because of the closeness of Japan to China and Korea (hence the Tsushima option!). Minelaying, considered another keystone of defeat of Japan failed until the last summer of the war, when long-range US heavy bombers accomplished the task—with some difficulty. Some options, and not all of them postulated pre-war, suggested the abandonment of Corregidor and the Philippines redoubt. Corregidor‘s commander suggested withdrawal to a line Alaska-Oahu-Panama in 1934. I particularly like the 1932 ‗Quick Movement‘ plan which suggested the final battle would take place just south west of the island of Kyushu. The analysis of events of 1941 to 1945 compared to the Orange Plans throws a score of ‗what-ifs‘ at the reader. The chapter ‗Instant Fury Delayed‘, which examines the deprivation suffered by US admiral of twenty-five per cent of the Fleet to the Atlantic, a greater cost than the attack on Pearl Harbour, is well worth careful examination. Miller takes the opportunity to consider some of the key US thoughts during the first two years of the Pacific War, the obsession with a land and air war campaign in and from China, and the discarded ‗Formosa Option‘, as well as a host of leap-frog and ignored islands and archipelagos. He makes something of a late-surviving American ‗reverence of the battleship as the arbiter of victory‘; though there was no need for ‗Blue‘ to keep his dreadnoughts safe for a Pacific Jutland. It wouldn‘t happen in the plan; it didn‘t happen at all. In terms of battleship activity, he restates the often mentioned points. At Saipan Lee declined a night battleship duel in order to defend the carrier force, and the Yamato was brought to her doom not by the six

10 battleships which Spruance could call upon (another tabletop encounter rarely gamed), but by air power. Other battleship ‗duels‘ and encounters as occurred at Leyte were less than decisive, he reminds us. Of course, the Japanese commitment to fanatical, indeed suicidal combat in which troops fought to the last man, was as Miller puts it, ―A final surprise,‖ for the planners, as well as for the men on the ground and aboard the warships. Bypassed garrisons never surrendered, and for Orange death in kamikaze attack became commonplace. It became obvious to many US generals and admirals that only a costly invasion of Japan itself could bring victory. The original planners didn‘t consider this possibility. In the end, it was the two atomic bombs that prevented the final stage of the plan: either a lengthy and arguably ineffective siege and blockade, or an expensive invasion. The Japanese Home Islands could not be by-passed, and remarkably the annihilation of the fleet of its enemy did not of itself bring victory; it only brought proximity to the unbowed opponent. It required a remarkable end-game. NAVY’S SUMMER EXTRAVAGANZA RETURNS TO PORTSMOUTH IN 2010! Don‘t miss what promises to be one the most popular events on the South Coast this summer! Navy Days at Portsmouth Naval Base, Friday 30th July – Sunday 1st August, will feature serving warships of the Royal Navy, ships of foreign navies, thrilling naval displays, historical re-enactments and the world-class attractions of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, including HMS Victory. Explore the ships and meet the crews of the modern Royal Navy including the new Type 45 Destroyers, HMS Daring and HMS Dauntless – the largest and most powerful air defence destroyers ever operated by the Royal Navy and the first time both ships will be open to the public together. Also on display will be two Type 23 Frigates, one of the mainstay ships of the modern surface fleet and the aviation training and casualty receiving ship, RFA Argus. Then see if you have the skills to join the senior service on challenging displays, simulators and climbing wall in Action Stations and see Carrier Strike, an interactive exhibition detailing the aircraft carriers of the future. Watch in awe amazing military displays of the Black Cat helicopter team and marvel at the strength, courage and teamwork of the Field Gun Crews of HMS Sultan and HMS Collingwood. Over 800 years of naval history will be brought to life at every turn with historical re-enactment displays, a cast of hundreds and the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Mary Rose Museum and HMS Warrior 1860. A fantastic, fun-filled day out for all the family is guaranteed! (Thanks to Norman Bell for this ‘flyer’) JOINING THE NAVAL WARGAMES SOCIETY If you have been lent this newsletter and would like to join the Naval Wargames Society, please follow this link to join our Society: www.navalwargamessociety.org. NWS Events and Regional Contacts, 2009

11 NWS Northern Fleet – Falkirk East Central Scotland Kenny Thomson, 1 Excise Lane, Kincardine, Fife, FK10 4LW, Tel: 01259 731091 e-mail: kenny.thomson@homecall.co.uk - Website: http://falkirkwargamesclub.org.uk/ Falkirk Wargames Club meets each Monday night at 7pm with a variety of games running each evening. Naval games are popular with 2 or 3 run each month. Campaign games sometimes feature in our monthly weekend sessions. Games tend to be organised week to week making a 3- month forecast here a waste of time. Please get in touch if you‘d like to come along.  Popular periods – Modern (Shipwreck), WW1 and 2 (GQ), WW2 Coastal (Action Stations), and Pre-dreadnought (P Dunn‘s rules) NWS North Hants [Every 3rd Sunday] Jeff Crane 31 Park Gardens, Black Dam, Basingstoke, Hants, 01256 427906 e-mail: gf.crane@ntlworld.com NWS Wessex [Bi-Monthly Meetings] The Wessex Group has gone into (hopefully) temporary abeyance for the moment. If anyone living in the Bath / Bristol / Gloucester area (or further afield) would like to take on managing the group please contact myself or any of the other NWS officials.