Your April magazine was excellent,- it had many controversial Points and I felt I must comment. Firstly Stephen May's decision to give up wargaming. Peter Gouldesbrough's letter has certain lapses in logic. Just because Stephen's action does not make wars less likely is no criterion to judge. Each human is accountable for his actions. if I stopped swearing or being a thug I doubt if swearing would end or thugs disappear. However my decision would be correct. Not only does wargaming clash with a Christian's non-violence but it also contravenes to some extent the command "You shall not learn war anymore." Stephen May is right. I only continue wargaming because if I did not my time would be wasted drinking or going goggle-eyed in front of the telly. It is I feel the least of two evils and if it keeps me off the streets it is worthwhile. Pat Condray seems to be laboring under a delusion. That is his statement about zapping the Prussians with superior fire Dower. I knew Austria had fine artillery but as its rifles fired one shot to a Prussian 4 (or 5. or 6) I cannot see Austria attaining superiority unless it captures the Prussians asleep." Charles H. Vasey (Guisborough) "Over Easter I shall be working out the rules for an interstellar campaign set a century or two hence. This will be a large-scale postal do with all the players out of touch with one another. The main problem of all concerned will be how to feed a population increasing in geometric progression. Several people have already expressed interest, and we may learn something about how things will go in the future when Man contacts other intelligent life." Andrew Barton (London) "To me most solo games seem to rely more on luck than the personal skill of the player. I therefore set up a table where my "opponent" has a straight forward game with plain, obvious movements while I am in a tricky situation. Despite the fact that you know exactly what your opponent is doing it is useful for coaching. The art is preparing the game so that the opposite side has no complicated moves and no decisions to make, if there are then honesty is the best Policy." Clive Darke (Nottingham). "I read 'Movement of Artillery Batteries' by Peter Gouldesbrough, with interest and agreed with his basic rules and speeds for the movements of guns on the battlefield. However, I feel that he is bringing unnecessary and, I suspect, inaccurate information to bear when restraining the movement of batteries in the field due to casualties. Any battery would not only have the gun limbers with horses, but also ammunition wagons, spare wheel carriages and usually a mobile forge (in horse batteries). These would have their complement of horses and whilst they would not all be in the front line during an action, it can be assumed that they would be available at short notice. Put yourself in the place of the battery commander; your duty is to move your guns to where they can bear against the enemy - if this means that some of the ammunition carriages do not have the full quota of horses, this is of secondary importance. Bear in mind also that ammunition will be used from these carriages so that several of them anyway will be empty and will be disposable for the sake of the prime objective. In a horse battery there would also be horses of the gunners; whilst these would not be ideal they would be better than nothing and the prudent commander would have seen to it that some of these had been in harness at some time. In conclusion, I agree with the basic concept of restriction following the advent of casualties in the limber team, but think that it would be simpler and more accurate to simply make the limber stay in that position for a period of time (one or two game-moves). This would represent the disentanglement of the casualties and the re-harnessing of the replacements." Dick Tennant (Stockport) "Our M.G.C. H.Q. chapter in Waterloo, Ontario, is busily engaged in weekly battles emerging from our new "Diplomacy" series. de move and negotiate on a map of Europe, and fight out our battles on the table-top. Tunis has changed hands three times in the last month: First, the Italians captured it from the Bey of Tunis, then Prussian Marines took it away from the Italians. However, there was a bright spot for Rome; the Ottomans switched sides to Italy from Prussia! Italy now has a solid Mediterranean bloc for the Allies. Gerard de Gre of the Model General's Club Here are a selection of pictures of Gerard's wargaming activities. Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 99 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