The Military History SIG and Cry "Havoc!" were recently spotlighted in the March 1999 issue of the Mensa Bulletin (the magazine of American Mensa, Ltd.). The article nicely summarizes our recent history and the editorial policy we apply and our overall goals. — DWT The Military History SIG Founded in 1996, the MH SIG is, to say the least, a bit unusual. The SIG's focus is to provide a forum for persons interested in military history and wargaming – fairly straightforward stuff. But there it's connection with a normally run SIG ceases to exist. Among the more unusual aspects of the SIG is that it's never actually met as a SIG, its coordinator lives in Saudi Arabia and over half of the members are non-Mensans. "Most of what we do is focused in the SIG's quarterly publication Cry "Havoc!" said coordinator Dave Tschanz. The editorial policy that's evolved is fairly simple. "CH tends to focus on material that isn't found in the mainstream military history press, e.g. we'll run an article on the battle of Ain Jalut before one on Gettysburg. We also work at trying to provide unpublished authors with a fairly non-threatening place to get their feet wet. I think one of the big thrills for members is when one is able to get published in a mainstream magazine after building up some confidence here." Running the SIG from overseas is not as difficult as it might seem. Correspondence sent to a mailing address in the States is forwarded at SIG expense and e-mail has greatly improved communication. Another step in maintaining communication via cyberspace is the electronic transfer of CH via e-mail as a PDF form. The cross platform technology of the file format and its excellent rendering of the material not only provide a great cost-savings (e-mail memberships are $10 per year vs $25 per year for the snail mail version) but have other benefits as well. "The pictures retain their quality and their color," said Tschanz, "plus delivery is instantaneous and we can correct any problems quickly." Because part of the SIG's "mission" is to expose people to the ideas in our articles, CH has recently partnered with MagWeb, an Internet based subscription service devoted to military history and wargaming. (Special thanks to Julie Olson, Editor of the Mensa Bulletin and American Mensa's Executive Director Pam Donahoo for permission to reprint the above) Back to Cry Havoc #26 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by David W. Tschanz. 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