Challenge and Reply II

 Since my excursion into WW1 naval models, inspired by Sailor of Austria and the Italo-Ottoman War, I have been looking for a set of rules. We were playing an adaptation of DBA (De Bellis Navalis), which I picked up to play HMS Ambuscade's role in the Battle of Jutland. They were nice and quick, but didn't really capture the key issues commanders faced. 

After a quick hunt around Wargames Vault, I settled on Challenge & Reply II by Richard Watts, published by Aegema Games. They also had lists for the Austrians and the Italians.

While they recommend 1/200th scale, they work fine with my 1/3000th models. You organise fleets into squadrons, with some movement challenges if they don't keep together. Other than that, it's mostly a matter of picking your formation and sailing into battle. You can comfortably play a game on a 4' x 3' table. There are scenarios, if you want them, which can fit into a campaign.

The battle rules start with visibility, which can be affected by the copious smoke that coal-fired ships belch out. Torpedoes are launched before movement, which has cruising and double speed in battles. You can slow down, but it's a slow process, so watch out for islands and other ships. Shooting is pretty straightforward. Each ship on the list has a range of guns and armour protection. First, test whether you can hit, then check whether the gun can penetrate the armour, and finally test the impact. This can include fires, boiler damage, and guns knocked out. The worst option is that your ship blows up, which happened a bit in our game, with pre-war ships. 

Overall, the rules are simple to pick up, and you will only need the QRS after a couple of moves, except in unusual circumstances. We played with six ships a side, and I would reckon you could play in a couple of hours at most.

We played Italians against Austrians. I played the Italians and was very pleased to knock out a cruiser in the first round of firing. However, one of mine quickly sank as well. As the ranges narrowed, the firing became more effective, and I sank two more ships and set the rest on fire. I lost another battleship myself. Torpedos were fired from the destroyers, but they were fairly easy to avoid, and none hit on either side.

Remembrance Sunday

 Today is Remembrance Sunday in the UK, when we gather around the local war memorial to remember those who gave their lives. Lest we forget.

It seems a good day to remember the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Most British soldiers who died in conflicts across the world are usually buried near where they fell. This means there are hundreds of cemeteries, beautifully maintained for us to visit and remember those who died far from their families and friends.

On my trips to the Balkans and elsewhere, I always try to visit the CWWC sites. Here are a few.

Belgrade

Bucharest

Thesssalonika

Struma Valley

Doiran

And our local ceremony in Troon today.

Lest we forget.

El Cid

 Mentioning the Spanish medieval warrior El Cid brings back memories of my childhood Christmas TV, when the classic Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren film would air every time, and we never missed it. More Sophia as I reached my teenage years, and Heston went off on a strange political journey.  No streaming services in those days. So, when I spotted this book by Nora Berend in our second-hand bookshop, it was an immediate buy.

For those not familiar with El Cid, he was born in 1043, and his real name was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. He was born in Vivar, near Burgos, Spain, and became a skilled soldier who fought for both Christian and Muslim rulers during the medieval period. Spain was divided between Christian kingdoms in the north and Muslim territories in the south, known as Al-Andalus. Al-Andalus was culturally advanced, with important centres of learning, science, medicine, architecture and trade. Christian kingdoms such as Castile, León, Navarre and Aragón expanded southwards, seeking to gain territory from Muslim rulers. In practice, it was more complex, with Christian and Muslim rulers sometimes forming alliances. El Cid was best known for his military victories against the Moors and for conquering Valencia in 1094. He ruled Valencia until his death in 1099. 

This is not just a narrative history of El Cid and the period he lived in. The author spends just as much space addressing his afterlife: how he was portrayed and used in literature, film and politics.

It will come as no surprise that the romantic view of El Cid, promoted after his death, is somewhat detached from historical reality. His military achievements were remarkable, but his motivations were those of a warlord, rather than the venerated Christian prince he was later turned into. 11th-century Christian rulers in Spain were more likely to die from hostilities with fellow Christians than Muslims. Attempts to turn him into a saint were rejected. El Cid fought for Muslim rulers and regularly fell out with Christian kings. 

After his death, the story was embellished in many ways for political reasons. Tourists today can visit the site of deeds that never happened, with dubious artefacts to go with them. The famous swearing scene, when El Cid required the King to swear an oath that he hadn't killed his brother, obviously didn't take place in a 15th-century church. Even the story was tweaked much later. Much of the romanticism comes from a later historian, Menéndez Pidal, who did so largely for political reasons. El Cid was used to maintain the huge inequalities in Spain in the late 19th century and in the 20th century, particularly during Franco's dictatorship. During the Spanish Civil War, the fascists chose their version of El Cid as their champion.

The film is also largely based on Pidal's version of the story, and sadly few of the sites reflect the actual historical sites. The idea that El Cid only used violence as a last resort is particularly daft. A wonderful film, but not accurate.

My love of the film led me to wargame the period, initially with the WAB supplement and more recently with the Midgard lists. A largely fantasy rule set is particularly appropriate!

Spanish light cavalry, the Jinetes in 28mm

Offspring of Mars

This is Emanuel Buttigieg's new book, published by Helion, on the Knights of Malta, 1614-1714. It covers the later period, after the Great Siege of Malta, though the Ottomans remained a threat.  This is especially timely for me, as the Knights are a significant element in my current project. 

The Knights of Malta, formerly the Order of St John (Knights Hospitaller), have been based in Malta since 1530. They operated as an independent religious and military state, governed by a Grand Master. Its principal role was to defend Christian interests against the Ottoman Empire and the North African Barbary corsairs. During the seventeenth century, the Order's galleys and later larger sailing warships conducted regular expeditions against Ottoman and North African shipping, capturing enemy vessels and taking prizes. This activity, known as corsairing, brought considerable wealth to Malta and helped develop Malta's economy. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Knights were beginning to experience changes in their traditional role. The development of larger European navies and changes in Mediterranean warfare gradually reduced the importance of its traditional galley fleet. After 1700, its maritime operations against the Barbary corsairs began to decline, reducing the wealth generated through captured ships and cargoes. 

The author starts with an overview of the Knights' structure and how they continued to finance and strengthen their base in Malta. The Knights were supported by a much larger force of locally recruited soldiers, who increasingly played an important role, both on ships and as landing infantry.

In the first half of the century, the Knights attacked towns in North Africa (Barbary pirates) and launched expeditions into their former hunting grounds in the eastern Mediterranean, as far as Crete, Cyprus and Egypt. These were not large fleets, typically consisting of up to ten ships. Initially, galleys, but sailing ships were becoming important. Increasing firepower meant that galleys had to be strengthened, and their own firepower increased. Attack was deemed to be the best form of defence, and supporting allies fighting the Ottomans was a regular use of the fleet. Many maps show how Malta's defences were strengthened with the latest designs.

From my last trip in 2002

The second half of the century saw their wars supporting Venice, despite strained relations. The Knights felt that Venice all too often made compromises with the Ottomans to maintain trade links. The Cretan War and the later wars for the Morea were major struggles that strained the Knights' finances and manpower. 

There are some fine pictures of reenactors, which will be useful for wargamers and modellers. This was a transitional period for weapon use on land and at sea. The author has made extensive use of the archives, and the reports tell the story of the Knights in a different way from the traditional narrative. This substantial tome, reflected in the price, is essential reading for anyone interested in the period.

I have some figures from Front Rank, North Star and League of Augsburg for this period. I need to crack on with the painting, but I will include a unit of landing infantry from the Knights. 

Some of my Black Seas galleys.

Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth

 This is the latest, and fifth, in my bedtime reading of Alex Rutherford's historical fiction series on the early Mughal emperors. This book focuses on Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor.

Shah Jahan was born in 1592 as Prince Khurram, the son of Emperor Jahangir and the grandson of Akbar the Great. After a struggle for succession following Jahangir's death, in which he killed all competitors, he became emperor in 1628. Shah Jahan strengthened Mughal imperial authority and maintained a large empire of over 100 million people. He led military campaigns in India's Deccan region, though he failed to capture Kandahar from the Persian Empire.

He is best known for the buildings he commissioned, which were so expensive that they nearly emptied the treasury. The most famous is the Taj Mahal, built in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631. Other famous sites include the Red Fort in Delhi and Jama Masjid, one of India's largest mosques. While these were fabulous buildings, they don't necessarily make for great fiction, though the author does capture his obsession with both his wife and the building. 

As with almost all of the series, his rule ended in a succession dispute. The savage ‘throne or coffin’ traditions of his ancestors – descendants of Genghis Khan and Tamburlaine. Unusually, his children were from the same wife, which he hoped would minimise conflict. In 1657, Shah Jahan fell seriously ill, though Rutherford argues his children used this as an excuse to revolt against the eldest son and likely successor, Dara Shikoh. Another son, Aurangzeb, defeated his rivals in the war of succession and imprisoned Shah Jahan in Agra Fort. He died in 1666 and was buried beside Mumtaz Mahal in the Taj Mahal.

I've enjoyed this series, and we have played a few games of Scourge of Princes, dusting off my 28mm collection. The first book was the best, although, in fairness, Babur has the best storyline. A Disney TV series is based on the books, but sadly it is only streamed in India. Hello Disney, people outside India are interested in Indian history!

Naval actions in the Italian-Ottoman War 1911-12

 Having completed the land armies for the Italian-Ottoman War, I decided to look at the naval units. For those unfamiliar with this little-known conflict, here is a handy meme that summarises the war.

The Italian Navy dominated the naval conflict; in 1911, it was one of the best in the world. For the initial actions against Ottoman Libya, it deployed two squadrons commanded by Vice-Admiral Augusto Aubry. The First Squadron had four battleships and five cruisers. The Second Squadron had three battleships and six cruisers. It also had seven light cruisers and about 62 destroyers and torpedo boats. The Italians had laid down dreadnoughts, but these were not yet available. However, they wouldn't face anything that required this level of firepower.

The pre-dreadnought battleship Roma, in the First Squadron.

The Ottoman Navy was much smaller, with few modern warships. It had two obsolete battleships, two cruisers, and seven destroyers based in Beirut. It also had two cruisers and four torpedo boats in Albania, and a destroyer and gunboats in the Red Sea. The two modern German Brandenburg-class battleships were in Constantinople with 12 torpedo boats.

German Brandenburg-class battleships

Even the modern Ottoman warships were in poor condition and largely stayed in harbour. As a 1910 British report put it: ‘At present the Turks have neither the officers to navigate and fight, nor the crews to man the ships which they have bought from the Germans, nor are they likely to for some time to come.’

This gave the Italians control of the sea, enabling them to bombard Ottoman ports in Libya with little opposition, other than coastal batteries. As a consequence, the war in Libya revolved around the Italians holding the ports and then launching attacks against the Ottomans and their tribal allies in the desert. This generally went badly for the Italians.

The Libyan part of the war is well recorded, not least because of the useful diaries published by the Ottoman commander Enver Pasha. However, the war spread across the Mediterranean, with the Italians attacking Ottoman positions to force them to abandon resistance in Libya. There were attacks on Beirut in February 1912, and then in the Aegean. As with navies before and after, attacking up the Dardanelles proved too much for the Italian navy. In March 1912, they sent torpedo boats toward Constantinople without success. A further attack in July reached the Ottoman fleet, but torpedo boats were not enough to have any impact. Italy's allies, which included Britain, opposed any blockade of the Straits.

The more realistic plan involved capturing islands off the Anatolian coast. The most interesting was the capture of Rhodes, with two infantry regiments. The Ottomans had to abandon the town of Rhodes because of the threat of naval bombardment. The Italians landed farther south, but they had to use the ships' boats because they had no landing craft. The navy occupied many smaller islands with little resistance, taking 13 of the 15 islands by May 1912. The Italians were supposed to return the islands after the peace treaty, but they held onto them until the end of WW2, when they were given to Greece.

Small naval actions occurred in the Adriatic. Five Italian destroyers under the Duke of the Abruzzi chased off two Ottoman torpedo boats near Preveza, and Ottoman coastal batteries opened fire. Two Italian destroyers entered the port and sank two Ottoman torpedo boats. While a small-scale action, all the European Great Powers, and most particularly Italy’s ally Austria-Hungary, were extremely sensitive to any disturbance of the status quo in the Balkans. As Bismarck put it, a ‘damned silly thing in the Balkans’ might precipitate a wider European war.

For more on this conflict, I highly recommend Charles Stephenson's book, A Box of Sand. He covers all the campaigns, including the naval actions.

I built a decent-sized Italian fleet in 1-3000 scale, as I intend to do the Adriatic actions against the Austrians in WW1. Plus a small Ottoman fleet for a few hit-and-run actions. We tried this in the midweek game, using an adaptation of DBA, which is simple, but it's not very convincing. I will need to research a better set of rules. However, I did manage to inflict some damage in the game, which, given my complete lack of naval skills, was quite pleasing. I usually crash my ships!

Italian

Ottoman

The Italians are bombarding the coast as I sneak up on them.

Afghan Frontier

This book by Victoria Schfield examines Afghanistan's border regions and how they have, throughout history, become crossroads of conflict. Afghanistan is called the crossroads of conflict because its unique position as a central geographic corridor connecting South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, combined with rugged terrain and intense rivalries among regional and global powers, makes it a flashpoint.

The author takes a largely chronological approach, first explaining the region's geography and the tribes who live there. I picked this book up largely because I was reading a series on the Mughals, who entered India via Afghanistan. Our first understanding comes from Alexander the Great's earlier invasion of India. 

The geography includes the Hindu Kush and vast, rugged highlands, which make military occupation extraordinarily difficult and provide natural strongholds and cave networks for local fighters against invading forces. Afghanistan has multiple distinct ethnic groups and tribes that often prefer localised tribal codes and Islamic governance over centralised state authority, making unified national rule hard to sustain. A Pashtu proverb says, "Honour ate up the mountains, and taxes ate up the plains."

Britain was drawn into Afghanistan to defend India. This led to disastrous expeditions. It is astonishing how they even got there, given the officers' travelling baggage. Sixty camels were considered reasonable for a brigadier, and forty servants for a junior officer. In the first Kabul tragedy, 30,000 camels and 38,000 camp followers were involved. In the early 20th century, the RAF was used extensively to pacify the tribes and effectively win the Third Afghan War. By 1936, there was a code which involved a two-day warning before the rebel village was bombed, to allow civilians to escape.

Attempts at bribing officials and judges were rarely successful. The British Empire at least got something right, though the incentives were small. One judge was offered a golf ball if he would acquit a family of murder. In the Second World War, there was an Axis plan to join up the Japanese and German invasions, a story I covered in my book on Turkey during WW2. The British fortified the Afghan border, including dragon's teeth anti-tank obstacles that can be seen today. The book overplays the non-aggression pact between Turkey and Germany and its impact on British Islamic propaganda. Turkey was never an ally of Germany.

The Afghan army of the period was not insignificant. It had 103,000 men and had received a significant loan from the Germans to train and possibly equip a full division. The Afghan Air Force had British-trained pilots flying 20 Hawker Harts and 8 Hawker Hinds.

The book ends with the Soviet occupation in support of the communist government. This led to the West supporting Islamic groups, which came back to bite them through the Taliban. It ends before the evacuation and the appalling conditions in the country, particularly for women, today.

The book is pretty detailed, but it includes lots of interesting stories that liven up the narrative.

I have a 19th-century Afghan army and the British in 10mm, which I haven't dusted off in some time. I built them as another opponent for my Zulu and Boer War British armies. Osprey has a good book on the wars.

Some of my Afghans. Fun to paint.

Gordon Highlanders Museum

 I was up in Aberdeen today for work. After finishing just before lunch, I decided to visit the Gordon Highlanders Museum, a short bus ride from the city centre.

The Gordon Highlanders were one of the British Army's most famous infantry regiments. Their identity was closely tied to northeast Scotland, particularly Aberdeenshire and the Highlands, and to the distinctive Highland kilt and pipers. The regiment existed as the Gordon Highlanders from 1881 to 1994, when it amalgamated with the Queen's Own Highlanders to form the Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons), which later became part of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

The regiment was raised in 1794. Its early service included the Napoleonic Wars, famously attaching themselves to the stirrups of the Scots Greys at Waterloo.

During the nineteenth century, the regiment's predecessors served in several important British campaigns overseas, including the Indian Mutiny, the Second Anglo-Afghan War, and the Battle of Dargai Heights, 1897. This became one of the regiment's most celebrated actions, and a fabulous painting hangs in the dining hall. 

Nine battalions fought in the First World War with 50,000 recruits; 29,000 became casualties, including 9,000 dead. The Second World War started badly for two battalions, the 1st and 5th, of the 51st (Highland) Division, which were surrounded and forced to surrender at Saint-Valery-en-Caux in June 1940.

The regiment fought in North Africa and Italy, and later in North-West Europe, 1944–1945. Another battalion was captured in Singapore and suffered horrendous losses as prisoners of the Japanese.

It isn't a large museum, but the exhibits are well presented with some excellent dioramas. The staff are knowledgeable and helpful. The cafe also has decent cake! Well worth a look.