Air Campaign: Korea 1950-53

 This is a new Osprey book by Michael Napier covering the strategic bombing campaign in the Korean War. Timely, as I am planning to add the air warfare dimension to my Korean War project, using Blood Red Skies and the new Wing Commander supplement. It's on my Partisan show list.

Air power was crucial in shaping the Korean War battlefield and applying strategic pressure to North Korea and China. This book describes the strategic employment of air power by the United Nations Command (UNC). While this book covers strategic bombing, the limited theatre of operations meant that strategic and tactical operations could be blurred. 

Several features of North Korea made bombing challenging. The flying weather is often poor in the summer, so October to March was ideal. The railway system was a key target, but it was designed by the Japanese builders to be more robust. North Korean engineers were also good at quickly repairing damage, as this was the primary method of moving supplies to the front. Bombing bridges is, in any case, a challenging target, made especially difficult with the crosswinds, even in winter. 

The US Far East Air Force led the bombing campaign with their B-29s, operating mainly from Japan. They were initially unopposed other than a handful of Yak-9s. However, introducing Soviet Mig-15s forced the bombers to fly higher and switch to night bombing with less accuracy. The Soviets had experienced pilots dressed in North Korean uniforms, and their regiments were rotated through the theatre. Chinese pilots, in contrast, were inexperienced and quickly withdrawn. US Fighter escorts were added using the F-84 Thunderjets, and when these proved ineffective, the F-86 Sabre. The F-84 was switched to ground attack in formations as large as 60 aircraft.

Tactically, there were similar disagreements to the Normandy campaign of WW2. The air force objected to being used in close support missions, and there were political restrictions on bombing China or the Soviet Union. Both sides were trying to avoid escalating the war. This meant much of the fighting occurred near the North Korean airfields, in an area known as 'Mig Alley'. The air force eventually ran out of industrial targets and switched to military training facilities. There were also attacks on the dams that drove hydro-power stations, deploying naval aircraft from carriers.

Overall, the bombing campaign had mixed results. As North Korea could call on China and the Soviet Union, the destruction of its industry didn't have the same impact as the bombing campaign against Germany in WW2. Thanks to its breadth and complexity, North Korea could also repair its supply networks.

The author highlights five lessons to be learnt from the strategic bombing of North Korea:

1. A World War II-style bombing campaign against a partially industrialised economy is unlikely to prove decisive.

2. Interdiction against a wide and complex resupply system routed through difficult terrain requires massive force numbers to be effective.

3. Neither strategic bombing nor interdiction can be fully effective if much of the enemy industrial base or source of resupply exists in a neighbouring country where it cannot be attacked.

4. It is essential to deny the enemy the opportunity to operate its aircraft freely within its own borders.

5. The ingenuity and ability of the enemy to repair damaged infrastructure must never be underestimated.

It might be argued that all five lessons had to be relearned during the Vietnam War in the subsequent decade.

This book has all the elements you would expect from the Osprey series. Concise text, plenty of period illustrations, good maps and colour plates. It is a really useful addition to the Korean War library.

British Destroyers 1892-1918

 This book is by Jim Crossley in the Osprey New Vanguard series, looks at the development of Royal Navy destroyers in the period up to the First World War. This is a period of naval warfare I know little about and is an introduction to my HMS Ambuscade project.

HMS Ambuscade, in this period, was an Acasta-class destroyer. This appears to be a step up from the previous frigate status, although destroyers were only introduced into the world's navies in the 1880s. However, everything is relative because the HMS Ambuscade we are planning to bring back to the Clyde is a Type 21 frigate and is over 100 feet longer than the WW1 Ambuscade. The size of a modern frigate was brought home to me when I visited Portsmouth in the summer. HMS Iron Duke was in port, and I was astonished to discover this large warship was a frigate.

Destroyers in this period were developed in reaction to the torpedo menace. Here, a bit of Balkan history slips in because the Imperial Russian Navy were one of the first to launch torpedoes at the Ottoman Navy in 1878, sinking a small gunboat. The Royal Navy called their early vessels Torpedo-Boat Destroyers until 1919. The early classes were small ships able to sneak into harbours and launch torpedoes at short range. The development of the 18-inch and then 21-inch torpedoes meant the destroyer could be used with the battlefleets at sea. In theory, attacking at up to 10,000 yards, although in practice, there was little chance of hitting anything at that range.

As the type developed, they got bigger, with the Tribal class at up to 290ft long, setting the standard for future generations of destroyers. Still a lot smaller than modern frigates. The Acasta class was renamed K-Class in 1912 before HMS Ambuscade was launched in January 1913. These ships were 267ft long armed with three 4in guns, one 2pdr gun and two 21in torpedoes. They had a speed of 31 knots. The Royal Navy gave their destroyers a powerful gun armament, which paid off in actions against German destroyers who relied heavily on torpedoes. 

Tactically, the challenge for a destroyer serving with the fleet was to get close enough to the larger enemy ships without being blown out of the water. There were two options. Steer towards the last shell or turn violently when you see the enemy gun flash. German battlecruisers were also well protected against torpedoes, even if you could hit one in battle conditions. The British fired 96 at Jutland and scored six hits. One of those came from HMS Ambuscade. I had thought boarding actions were consigned to the Napoleonic wars, but the author describes a Dover Patrol action when HMS Swift rammed a German ship, and a boarding action commenced.

In conclusion, destroyers made an important contribution to the development of the Royal Navy, but it did not end the era of the big-gun warship as the Germans had hoped. This book has all the technical specifications, lovely colour plates, and plenty of illustrations. All you need for an introduction to the period.

I managed to get this postcard in the Rotary Photo series recently. On the left is George V, and on the right is Admiral Jellicoe.

The Flowers of Chivalry

 The Bruce is dead, and a child king is on the throne. It was one of the most dangerous times, internally and externally, for any medieval kingdom. This is the setting for Flowers of Chivalry, the latest in my bedtime Nigel Tranter re-reading project.

In this book, Tranter returns to a favourite technique of telling the story through a lesser-known figure close to the main action, often from his Lothian home. In this case, Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsey a local noble who was one of the more effective Scots knights of the period. Having a child king is less dangerous when there is a strong Regent. However, the book starts with the death of Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, one of the last living close comrades of Robert the Bruce.

David II succeeded to the throne at the age of five. After Moray's death, Scotland was ruled by a series of less-than-effective regents. Edward III took advantage of this by invading and putting Edward Baliol on the throne. He put his governor in charge when he failed to counter the inevitable insurgency. Following the English victory at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333, David was evacuated to France, where he remained in exile until it was safe for him to return to Scotland in 1341.

The book covers the period up to his return in 1341 when he took back the throne. Although the wars with England continued, they merged with the Hundred Years War. Scotland was allied to France, and at least the fighting on the continent distracted Edward III long enough to give Scotland the occasional breathing space.

This is a lesser-known period of Scottish history, told in the typical Tranter style. Ramsay arguably did the most with Sir William Douglas to save David's throne and keep Scotland independent. There were a few set-piece battles, but again, this was a period of small wars well suited to refighting on the tabletop with rules like Lion Rampant.

Some of my 28mm Scottish infantry of the period

HMS Ambuscade

I will shortly start a new writing project about Royal Navy ships called HMS Ambuscade. I am a member of the Advisory Group for the Clyde Naval Heritage charity, planning to bring the latest vessel of that name, a Type 21 frigate, back to the Clyde where it was built. This HMS Ambuscade served in the Falklands War and was later sold to Pakistan. The Pakistan Navy has kindly agreed to donate the ship; we just have to get it home!

So, I am writing a history of the ship with all profits donated to the charity. The first HMS Ambuscade was a 40-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was formerly the French Embuscade, launched in 1745 at Le Havre and captured by HMS Defiance in April 1746. Sold off in 1762. The next HMS Ambuscade was a 32-gun fifth-rate  (Amazon Class) frigate of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford in 1773. It fought in the American Revolution and captured an American and a French brig and a French privateer. In the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, she captured a French privateer, a chasse maree and a merchant ship before being captured herself in 1798. Serving in the French Navy as Embuscade. She was recaptured by HMS Victory in 1803 and served in the Mediterranean. She was broken up in 1810.

There were two captured frigates briefly called Ambuscade during the Napoleonic Wars, and it almost became the name of the Royal Navy's first steam-powered frigate. During the First and Second World Wars, Ambuscade was given to destroyer classes, Acasta and W-Class. One fighting at Jutland and the other serving on Arctic convoys. More on this in later posts.

I have included naval warfare in all my books but wouldn't claim to be a maritime historian. Anyone playing me at Black Seas will know of my irritation with sailing ships, which just won't go where I want them to go! So, any advice is welcome. And I will apologise now if my reading and archival research has a nautical flavour for the next few months.  

Napoleonic frigate warfare was an essential part of the story in my book, The Frontier Sea, but I had yet to read Mark Lardas' Osprey book, British Frigate v French frigate 1793-1814. To command a sailing frigate was a glorious thing. Fast and well-armed, they acted as the eyes of the battle fleet and as commerce raiders. A function that made many frigate captains rich. It was eye-opening when I poured over the Malta court records to see how much cash was involved in prize money. 

French naval architects led the way in ship design, and the British caught up initially by copying them. Frigates got progressively larger as the war progressed, regarding sails and armament. While the British carronade, made in Falkirk, gave the British an advantage at short range, the French copied that with their designs. British frigates were by 1800 some of the finest sailing ships in the world, and coupled with experienced officers and crew, were rarely beaten. The reasons for this advantage are explained in the book, along with excellent graphics. 

Mark finishes with several examples of frigate combat. This helpfully, from my point of view,  includes Ambuscade v Baionnaise in December 1798. Sadly, for my story, this was one of the few French victories achieved by boarding. Baionnaise had extra soldiers on board returning from the West Indies. It was the only ship-to-ship action won by an inferior French warship during the Napoleonic wars. 

Apart from that unfortunate outcome, this is an excellent starting point for understanding frigate warfare during the Napoleonic Wars.

This is a painting of the action. One of many lovely paintings of naval warfare during the conflict.

The Battle for History

 I was listening to Gary Sheffield's podcast on his former colleague at Sandhurst, John Keegan. Most famous for his book The Face of Battle. The following day I was browsing through our local Oxfam bookshop and spotted a book of his I hadn't read, The Battle for History: Re-Fighting World War Two.

This is a slim volume, published in 1995, essentially a historiography of the Second World War. The problem with historiography is that it quickly becomes dated, so he covers the classics. He starts by describing some of the significant controversies, not least the causes of the war. Much of this takes me back to my A-level history course on this subject. Keegan is somewhat more critical of A.J.P. Taylor than my teachers were. 

He is kinder to Churchill than most histories today, particularly over Greece, less over his Mediterranean strategy, but he was part of the wartime generation. There is a schoolboy error referencing the Ionian Islands rather than the Dodecanese, which I hope was addressed in subsequent editions. However, I'm not convinced there is any evidence that Hitler was planning on invading Turkey in 1941. In fact, he went out of his way to negotiate a non-aggression treaty. Keegan concludes that Turkey may be regarded as the most successful neutral of WW2. I'm not sure the population more generally felt they were successful given the economic hardship, but if success is measured solely by casualties, then he has a point. 

He is not uncritical of David Irving, but kinder than most historians would be today because of his holocaust denial. I'm afraid I cannot view him as 'a historian of formidable powers', given how he has perverted those apparent skills.

At least we are spared some recent revisionism regarding the war in Yugoslavia. Milan Djilas' book Wartime gets special praise 'as one of the most brilliant literary achievements of the Second World War.' It is on the Eastern Front that his analysis looks the most dated. He was writing before access to Soviet and other Eastern European archives. He also underplays the role of the Wehrmacht in atrocities in the Eastern Front and the Balkans.

His chapter on the brains and sinews of war is also a bit dated. However, even in the 1990s, the view that Germany outmatched the Allies' equipment 'in quality and arguably in size' is debatable. Most would argue it was strategy and tactics that gave Germany the edge.

It's an interesting wee tome if a bit dated. You can pick it up today for very little, which is probably just as well. As Gary Sheffield pointed out, his later works have been criticised, although that should not diminish the groundbreaking work of The Face of Battle.

Strength and Honour

 These are the new rules by Mark Backhouse for fighting the epic big battles of the ancient world. I played these at Partizan in a refight of Cannae. The outcome of using Hannibal's tactics was historical, and it was the first time I felt this classic battle had been faithfully reproduced on the tabletop. The downsize (pun intended) is that the game is designed to be played with micro armies (typically 2mm). My experience of playing 3mm WW2 games has not previously encouraged me in this direction. However, here, the unit blocks are placed on a large base, which is easy to identify and label.

So, I bought the rules and a batch of figures from Antonine Miniatures (Warbases). My first matching armies were the Dacians and Romans. At this scale, the Dacians will do for almost any warband army of the period. I also bought some pike blocks intending to do some of Alexander's early battles as well.

This was the first batch of painting. I glued the metal blocks onto the bases, which are standard and a little deeper for the Roman legions. The warbands looking suitably irregular and the Roman ten cohort legion supported by auxiliaries. After priming them in brown I painted the legions in red around the edges and the auxiliaries in blue. Then dry brushed the helmets with a few crests for officers. The Dacians got dabbed a range of colours. Then a fine sandy base mix, followed by a green foilage mix. 

The same approach for the second batch, which includes cavalry, two camps and skirmishers. I also bought some scenery pieces from Warbases.

On to the tabletop, meant reading the rules. Much helped by my memory of the participation game at Partizan. Everything you need is in the nicely laid out booklet, plus a downloaded QRF and command board from the Two Fat Lardies site. The game is played on a grid, typically 75mm, so I used my 150mm To the Strongest mat.

You dice for command points and allocate them to the command board. I'm embarrassed to say we largely forgot to use these, but they give various benefits, although you can only use a point once. It doesnt seem to overpower the game as sometimes happens in other rules. 

The key mechanism is activation, which includes movement, combat, charge, shooting and reform. A roll on a D6 means variable movement, which, as I discovered, makes it difficult to keep a neat battle line. This matters as isolated units can come up against supported enemies. Manoevre, which means anything other than straight ahead also has to be diced for and failure means the end of your turn. So, do it last. It also discourages unhistorical dashing about the tabletop, which is all too common in osome other rules.

Combat and shooting is straightforward, based on a unit combat factor with typical modifiers. If you lose then the combat result table can result in a pushback or worse. You are also likely to attract setback or disaster cards which are drawn from a pile and placed face down. These have numbers which added together can reach the break point for the army. We didn't reach that when we had to call it a night, but my Dacians were losing heavily. Never mind, wait till the Romans get into the mountains!

The book has army lists and scenarios as well as some basic campaign rules. Overall, we had a good game and will certainly return to these for when the big battle itch has to be scratched.

Turkey and the Second World War - A Wargamers Guide

In the first draft of my book, Chasing the Soft Underbelly: Turkey and the Second World War (Helion 2023), I wrote an appendix on wargaming the actual and potential campaigns in the book. However, space precluded its inclusion in the book; in any case, I felt it didn’t do the subject justice. For that reason, I have written a booklet to supplement the detailed history in the book.

This booklet offers a new army and campaigns for Second World War gamers looking for something different. We all love the Western Desert, the Steppes of Russia or the Normandy bocage, but there is another world out there to embrace!

It explains why and how Turkey was involved in the Second World War. How the armed forces were organised, and what you need to model them on the tabletop. The vehicles, tanks, artillery and aircraft come straight out of the lists for the main combatants. Infantry requires a little effort, but this can be done relatively cheaply, particularly in smaller scales. The Turks could have fought most belligerents, so opponents will already be in the collections of many gamers. Germans can invade Turkey during Operation Gertrud, and Russians can do the same from the north at Batumi. These are both actual plans, prepared but not delivered. However, I also indulge in a bit of alternative history, which is the wargamers licence.

The organisation and doctrine of the Turkish armed forces are outlined, along with army lists for some of the most popular WW2 rules. There are eleven scenarios to get you started, with maps and illustrations from my collection. Turkey’s strategic position offers battles in European Thrace, the Caucasus mountains, or the sands of the Middle East. Something for everyone. That includes naval and air warfare scenarios.

Each of the eleven scenarios gives the historical background, the orders of battle, objectives and a tabletop map. I conclude each scenario with an analysis of what might have happened.

This is from the Operation Hercules scenario - the invasion of Rhodes.

When writing history books, there are legitimate constraints when you stretch away from actual events. So, I enjoyed the freedom writing this booklet gives. It is a good value (just a fiver) PDF download because I accept this is a niche interest, and in full colour, it would be prohibitively expensive to do a print version. 

This is the contents page, and you can get a copy here.