PW & HMGS Make Presentation
at Smithsonian

by Walter Simon

In mid-August, the Potomac Wargamers (PW) and the Historical Miniatures Wargaming Society (HMGS) gave a presentation as part of Dr. Martin Gordon's wargaming series of lectures at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. Dr. Gordon is one of the coordinators and hosts for the Smithsonian Associates; each year he presents one or two programs on military history and the like.

The PW/HMGS group has, in the past, participated in several ways: the organization first helped out a year or so ago in setting up one of a number of miniatures wargaming demonstrations during Dr. Gordon's f irst wargaming course. The organization was invited back for a table-top re-creation of the fight for the Round Tops to supplement a lecture on the battle of Gettysburg, one of a series on the American Civil War. A third invitation concerned a program devoted to WWII; PW/HMGS presented its own 2 hour lecture and demonstration, using naval miniatures, on the battles of Leyte Gulf. Another American Civil War program resulted in a warganning scenario depicting a skirmish between Northern and Southern troops.

The current Smithsonian series consists of 6 lectures on wargaming from both the military and professional viewpoint, and from that of the hobbyist. Game designers and DOD representatives spoke from their end of the spectrum; PW/HMGS gave the historical miniaturist's viewpoint.

The PW/HMGS presentation commenced with a 10 minute introduction to boardgaming ... at Dr. Gordon's specific request. He is a boardgaming fan, and continued association with PW has, thus far, failed to cure him of this one weakness in an otherwise strong character.

Ten minutes, of course, is not long enough for anything, and the boardgaming talk overran its bounds making the other PW members, awaiting their turn, quite fidgity. Jim Butters, the boardgaming lecturer, finally closed off the questions from the audience, however, bayonets were fixed, and the close work began.

Four scenarios were set up. Two were quite simple. The first was a Spanish- American War scene using converted 20mm Stone Mountain and Airfix troops. Fred Haub hosted the game and made the conversions,- Fred does nifty work ... he has sculpted for FUSILIER and is currently designing a 30mm figure set depicting the courier and messenger seen on the front cover of THE COURIER, which the magazine intends to use as an award for those making a contribution to the hobby.

The second simple skirmish, using 33mm Figure conversions, was set up by Wally Simon; some 25 Confederates attempted to overrun a Union artillery park. One of the participants in this game was a woman member of the Smithsonian staff who had come to the lecture just to see how things were going. She was given command of the Union force and it was immediately obvious she was of martial mettle. One of her sentries had fallen, wounded, and was about to be tromped on by the oncoming Confederates. When asked if she wished to see if the poor fella could rise to his feet to try and run, she coolly sized up the situation and replied "No, he's expendable!" A true wargamer.

A third not-so-simple-game employed 15mm figures and IMPERIAL GUARD rules, run by Ed Hyland. Ed performed commendably, guiding 3 or 4 people per side through the complexities of Napoleonic warfare.

Fourth was Pat Condray who hosted a huge encounter which was introduced as an 1859 Austro-Franco-Prussian-SerboCroatian-Italian Neopolitan-Turkish battle. Pat appeared to be the only one that didn't think this was humorous. This scenario used Airfix conversions, a "Napoleonic III" rulebook authored by Pat, and also had 3 to 4 people per side.

Surprisingly, it seemed that no one in the audience hung back; all participated. At past events, it has been noted that when the gaming starts, a large number of the crowd clasp their hands behind and states "I'll just stand here and watch." The enthusiasm of all present at this current affair was most gratifying to the hosts.

More News

Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. V #1
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1984 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com