Fellow Historians: It has been a busy few months for me. I finally finished "Able Co. 1/1, the story of Ron Broward, from Chosin Reservoir to Horseshoe Ridge". I really wanted to do this project justice because of how intimate I've gotten with the players and the battlefield here in Korea. Any chance someone can get to come over to Korea and look at the demilitarized zone (DMZ), you must come. The DMZ is such a misnomer as well. There are more landmines and loaded weapons trained on this area than in most third world country's entire inventories. In other news, this will be the last issue published out of Seoul, Korea! Hooray. You can't even imagine how painful it was to do anything here. As I move to Moscow, Russia in May, I know it will be better as I've already contacted a couple different repro places and know they are far more accessible than what was available here. The Koreans are more than ready to tell you what they can't do. The Russians are new to capitalism and are looking for ways to expand their horizons. I hope the quality is up to standard, or we're back to square one. I think it will be as I've seen some other publications. I may have to go to a slightly different format, depending on what is available (i.e. A4 size). My last effort out of Korea will be to finish the scenario for Horseshoe Ridge. I'll take more pictures in April when I head back up there and hopefully this time I won't break anything. In February, I took a trip to Florence, Italy, to see some forts and look at the good Renaissance Art. I took a couple pictures of the star fort in downtown Florence and will have an article on it (to justify the trip as a business trip, which of course it was...). I also hope to put in a scenario for assaulting the star fort. Renaissance combat was interesting to say the least. I definitely need to do more research in order to turn out something worth reading. All the books I looked at in Florence on the topic were in Italian and expensive as hell. So, it looks like an On Military Matters or Amazon.com purchase. Being overseas has its drawbacks. You might be asking, what are you doing going from Seoul to Moscow? Why not come back to the U.S. so you can go to Historicon and so you can be somewhere near the wargaming community? Well, that wasn't really an option. My choice was to return to the Marine grunts and see lots of deployed time or to use my training as a Russian Linguist and have my twilight tour where I learn a trade that will guarantee me a job in what I want to do once I retire in 2001. I don't want to work for the government after I retire. And that's about all I could do with all my current credentials and being rusty in Russian. But now, oh heavens no. What will Moscow do for me? It will pretty much guarantee me a job in the real world and I'll be there to do the research that has only recently been touched on. Russian participation against Napoleon all the way to the Cold War. The archives are now open and not much has been done for the wargaming community. My initial focus will be on the Russian Revolution. There are a few figure companies (Essex & Dixon) that make figures for this period and it is as alluring as the Spanish Civil War, except better, I think. The wargaming community needs people like me in places like Moscow to fill in those period gaps. Also, I've joined a wargaming group in Moscow that does primarily Napoleonics. They are also reenactors. So I'll introduce them to Wild West, Pirates, ACW, and WWII skirmish. That's all the figures I brought with me to Seoul that will make it to Moscow. I will be working for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which monitors treaty compliance with various Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, Missiles, and other hardware reduction agreements. Easy day. I'll be working out of the Embassy and that is my new address starting in May (see the Gauntlet ad on page 39 for the particulars). Okay, I've talked nothing about figures or historical miniature gaming thus far. It has been a very dry three months for gaming. I have my Wild West figures out and played with some of the additional rules published in MWAN 97 for the Rules With No Name. A lot of good stuff in there. The scenario was superb and very well developed and documented. I've also found a painter (I believe) in Moscow to finish off my 500 28mm ACW figures. Yes, I'm going to mount them one to a base. My choice as I want them mainly for HG Walls' Brother Against Brother. I'll use magnetic bases for multiple figure stands should I want to play a Fire and Fury game for a larger action. I've received some pretty good stuff in the mail recently, Rich Barbuto's American Edition of the Lone Warrior (always a treat), MWAN's 96 and 97., another treat from Robert Haworth - Painted Sunset: Army-Indian scenarios, and Armies of Arcania by Thane Morgan. The latter is for fantasy army combat and looks really good. I haven't had the chance to give it a thorough reading, but I am enticed by the quick and playable appearance of the system. Very impressive efforts from all involved. More inside these pages and good luck on those morale rolls... Back to The Gauntlet No. 15 Table of Contents Back to The Gauntlet List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Craig Martelle Publications 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