Napoleonic, WSS & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Saturday 14 December 2019

More on the 1965 Waterloo War Game at the DoY's HQ, Chelsea

Many, many thanks to Jim Walkley, who found a report on the event in the April 1965 (?) Wargamer's Newsletter in his loft, and to Steve the Wargamer, who very kindly scanned it and sent me copies.

Steve has also sent a scan of the complete magazine to the WN Archives, which is only right and proper. If there is some copyright reason why it is illegal for me to put these scanned pages up here, please let me know and we can take it from there. On balance, I thought there was probably sufficient interest in this game, and sufficient time has elapsed since publication, to justify posting it here.

A few first thoughts from me:

* the date of 3rd March on the Alamy photos would appear to be incorrect
* so Wellington was Bob Gould! - Eric Knowles was Picton
* the game ran out of time - that's never happened before or since, has it?
* we can now fit names to faces
* that table looks bigger than 13ft6in to me!












11 comments:

  1. I enjoyed reading the article.

    There are many Wargame Newsletter at theis site http://www.fourcats.co.uk/mags/.

    The article on Waterloo is in Apr 65 edition no 37.

    I was interested in the unit organisation used which was 30 figure Infantry units and 20 for Cavalry. There is no mention of the rules used but I wonder if, based on the unit organisation they used the Tunbridge Wells Napoleonic rules by Bayonet Publications.

    Thanks for posting.

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  2. Yes, yes, yes! Thank you for posting this. Probably like many other wargamers, I've seen the off photo or three from this particular game here and there in books or online and longed to know more about it and the gamers involved. Great stuff!

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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  3. wargaming gold, and an issue I dont own which makes me even more envious.

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  4. Brilliant! Thank you so much for this.

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  5. Gentlemen - all credit to Jim and to Steve - top fellows. I feel privileged to have seen this - I was certain we'd never get to see this! Well done! RESULT.

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  6. Great stuff, thank you all! ( can't think why the idea of a regimental band next to the tables at a wargames show didn't catch on.. )
    I am now wondering if the archives of the various newspapers mentioned as covering it might be accessed on-line. I wonder what the Grauniad made of it? Might be some more interesting photos there, too.

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  7. answering my own question: newspapers.com has The Guardian for the relevant date, but it's a subscription service at $7.95US for a month. hmmm... ( and they might not allow posting their stuff on blogs. I guess )

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  8. Tony - you are welcome... as Mark mentions it is indeed the April '65 edition (#37), this and more at John Haines WN archive.. http://www.fourcats.co.uk/mags/

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  9. Yes, as Steve says, you are welcome. Glad the article turned up and was of interest.

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  10. That’s a great read. Thanks Tony, Steve and Jim.

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  11. I especially enjoyed seeing the names of the commandeers, and observing that for now days, this was a relatively small version of the battle! :-)

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