Neil Cogswells so well known for his brilliant and thoughtful contributions to the Newsletter, is a "thinking" wargamer. Here are some of his recent thoughts. My idea is for a wargame situation of the month and to invite other people to play the action and write their reports and experiences using of course their own rules - I would then send you an edited version plus what actually happened in practice to give a series of three - but I will let you see the detail later. --DF Casualties I too tried this once half molten figures - harmless enough - but it very nearly put an end to my wargaming. Even with my low casualty rules and allowing three out of four as walking wounded the eight of the field thoroughly alarmed me and made me realise that however much military history should fascinate me I would never have the nerve to be a general. War is certainly a vicious and irrational undertaking for man. The triumph of wargaming is to turn something so degrading as the wanton slaying of fellow humans into something between an art and a science. Like many scent manufacturing processes wargamers have turned something basically obnoxious into a stimulating and, dare I say it, graceful relaxation. Now Sir How could so reputable journal as yours perpetuate such scandalous errors as have appeared in two of the biggest, bulkiest, books on the history of war and the 18th century in recent years. I refer to your note of Grenadiers. The Giant Grenadiers were the plaything of the father of Frederick the Great. That man - the drill Sergeant of Europe - is he who is shown in your picture and possibly one of the children of Frederick. On succeeding his father Frederick disbanded the Giant Grdnadiers and incorporated them into field regiments. Frederick had no time for "toy soldiers" -- and little for women either so that he had no children, to correct the second error. Incidently, did you know that Frederick William (Frederick the Great's father) also assiduously recruited giant women to mate with his Grenadiers -- what a battalion that must have been! Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 101 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1970 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com