Lars Boye Denmark: I am working on an article (read: been planning to get down to it) on playing boardgames solo. Both some general aspect on which types of problems can be overcome by soloist, and some specific hints on how I play Columbias games and AH's We the People, Hannibal and Successors. The idea is to tell people, not to be dishearted by low solitaire rating or simultaneous movement. If this project gets done, can I send it to you or should it go through Godfrey Bailey? [Lars, send it direct to me and then I will include it in Godfrey's column. Kenn] Chris Grice I was interested in your reply to my last letter, which you included in LW123. If you haven't had any other offers, I would be glad to run a tournament along the lines you mentioned, perhaps in either ancient or renaissance periods. I have one or two ideas for this, but if you give the go ahead I'll see what details you have recalled from the earlier competition and adapt them accordingly. I had my fill of 1500 points, 3 bits of terrain on a table, rule lawyers wargaming when I went regularly to a club, but if I can't turn out a tournament that breaks that mould I'll eat my hat! [Chris, I love the idea and would certainly sign up, using an army I don't possess - could be really good fun. Kenn] Ron Moore One of those 'anecdotes' from WW2 which doesn't need a copy from 'Buzz'. I was serving one of two destroyers which left Bari on an E-boat hunt in the Adriatic at night. We were in 'line ahead' with the Senior Officer in the lead. After a while he ordered a 90 degree turn in our course. We thought he ordered "alter course 90 degrees to starboard" and did so accordingly. After a while zig-zagging about we picked up an echo on our radar and immediately opened fire. At the same time we found we were under fire! To cut a short story even shorter, when we did that 90 degree turn the other destroyer did the same but in the opposite direction! Fortunately the only damage done was to both Skippers' ego! [Some Chance Card!] On a different tack entirely. All my wargaming is based (loosely) on Napoleonic times so I have not yet used a "Forward Observation Officer" (FOO) and neither have I read a report of a wargame including FOOs. Perhaps many gamers have not heard of them, so let me write a few words about them. FOOs, often on their own but sometime (I was told) accompanied by a signalman or, in my days, a wireless operator, would be well in advance of their artillery and would endeavour to keep their guns informed of target location, and then whether guns were hitting the target. At Salerno on the West coast of Italy, when Jerry was counter-attacking in force after the Allies had landed there, the destroyer on which I was serving carried out under direction of an FOO a series of bombardments to help Allied troops maintain their position under attack. Without a FOO to guide our bombardment we might have shelled our own troops, because we were 'firing blind' - i.e. firing at an unseen target. Our main armament was four 4" guns, mounted in pairs, one on forecastle and one pair down aft. It was easy to miss or misunderstand an FOO's directions over radio, even at comparatively short range, bearing in mind that one's attention was also taken by occasional enemy aircraft, or the possibility of attack by U-boats or some madly suicidal fools in E-boats, or return bombardment by enemy artillery. Salerno was where we first made the acquaintance of Jerry's glider bombs whose flight was controlled by the aircraft that dropped them. Quite exciting they were! Our Gunnery Officer's Report reads - "On 14 September 1943, in the 45 minutes from 1205 to 1250 we fired 90 rounds of 4" (target tanks), and on the 15th between 1445 and 1530, we fired 36 rounds (target tanks), and in the 15 minutes from 1540 to 1555 we fired 42 rounds (target troops). From the shoot between 1445 and 1530 we knocked out 18 from a group of 21 tanks". That illustrates the value of FOOs. In my opinion FOOs were largely unsung heroes, most Royal Artillery bods I believe. I should mention that our 4" shells each weighed 65 lbs and had to be manhandled into the breech of the gun. That explains why I, a 9 stone weakling, was not part of a 4" guncrew! [I was trained as a FOO to bring in attack aircraft but never used it for real. I recently had a WWII game using 'Rapid Fire' rules and had called down, using an FOO, a naval bombardment to wipe out a strong point which was holding up my advance off the beach. The stonk was highly successful and the strong point flattened but unfortunately on the next move when I attempted to lift the bombardment I threw a '1' and had lost radio communications. This resulted in my pre planned advancing armour and vehicle mounted infantry driving right into the next round of high explosives shells! Casualties were caused and the weather changed, in that the sky turned blue but these things happened in war! I believe that FOOs came from all three Services and were indeed unsung heroes. Kenn] Lynn Noonan Greenfield, Wisconsin : I would like to renew my membership for your fine journal. Having enjoyed a great deal of the articles and rules in this, my first year, I wish to send you and the membership my deepest appreciation for all the hard work. I have to say that it is very important for people like myself who have a hard time coming up with new ideas to have access to this kind of information. It is amazing how intent one can become when you are involved in a solo wargame. You become oblivious to things around you and your troubles no longer exist. Since reading the different articles on fantasy I can see the fun this kind of wargaming can bring. The club I associated with would have nothing to do with fantasy gaming but now that I have gone solo, I have begun to collect some 6mm fantasy miniatures. I plan to do some campaign gaming based on the work of J.R. Tolkien. Again, thank you for the hard work and encouragement. Enclosed find a money order for a two year membership. [Lynn, thank you for the good words. As you know, it is our members who are also our authors and without them, there would be no Lone Warrior which we all treasure. Rich] Jonathan Aird I have enclosed a listing of all the articles of Solo wargaming interest in Practical Wargamer, to date. This latter was prompted by a letter in LW 109, from Paul Grace, who suggested such a listing would be handy (along the lines of the Society of Ancients "articles of interest in other recent magazines"). I've been looking back through some old issues, and found in issue 119 an article by Chris Grice - on the Elizabethen wars in Ireland which quite took my imagination on re-reading. If I manage to get to a wargame show this year I'm going to scout around for some suitable figures. The OU course I mentioned last time I wrote (which, incidently, is leading me into thoughts of purchasing a 17th century French army) as well as taking up a fair amount of time also has managed to have seminar/exam dates clashing with Salute, Colours and others! Sacrifices have to be made! Talking of looking through old issues, is there any possibility of an update to the index ? I think the last was a sheet sent with issue 113, I find this very useful when hunting around for something I can remember reading some time ago. I've had a bit of success with a "portable" game - Havok the skirmish. It's a quite simple set of SF skirmish rules with a range of pre-coloured plastic figures to support it (available mostly from SF book/toy stores and Argos (!)). Being a less monumental task to learn and play than many wargame rule sets means I've managed to get a few games in with non-wargaming friends. Worth a look for a quick, and not too serious, game. Looking forward to the next LW - recent issues as good as ever! [Jonathan, thanks for the articles and I thought it was a typo when I read 109 but on checking you are correct. That issue was completely lost when my computer crashed and I had to redo it all from scratch but it taught me the need for back-ups! David McCann was one step ahead of you and you will have noticed his Index for 114- 119 was in 123. I also found that studying gets in the way of wargaming but have been catching up during the summer vacation. Good luck with your course and look forward to hearing from you in the future. Kenn] Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #124 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Solo Wargamers Association. 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