A small group at “Axes and Ales” has recently become interested in 12mm science fiction big battle gaming. As often happens in this hobby, what began as a casual conversation quickly evolved into discussions about armies, rules, terrain, painting plans, and the inevitable question: “How many miniatures do we really need?” The answer, of course, appears to be “more than we currently own.”

The attraction of 12mm is easy to understand. The scale sits in a sweet spot between spectacle and practicality. Infantry formations look like formations rather than scattered skirmishers, tanks can manoeuvre in meaningful numbers, and entire battalions can fight across the table without requiring a second mortgage to buy miniatures or a village hall to play the game.

With this in mind, I have decided it is finally time to start working through my Mantic Epic Warpath collection. Most of the figures originate from the Warpath Kickstarter and have been patiently waiting in their boxes for several years. By “patiently waiting” I mean quietly judging me every time I walk past the hobby room and start yet another project instead.
The forces in question are the Plague and the Marauders, which conveniently represent two very different approaches to warfare. The Plague favour horrifying biological monstrosities, rampant mutation, and the sort of battlefield appearance that would make a health inspector resign on the spot. The Marauders, on the other hand, seem to have looked at military doctrine and concluded that if something is worth building, it is worth building larger, noisier, and with considerably more guns attached to it.

One of the attractions of the project is the opportunity to paint genuinely large armies. Individual figures are small enough to paint efficiently, yet large enough to retain plenty of character. A platoon can appear on the painting desk and actually leave the painting desk within a reasonable period of time, which is not always the case with some of my other projects.

A small group of us at Axes and Ales has recently become interested in 12mm science fiction big battle gaming. As often happens in this hobby, what began as a casual conversation quickly evolved into discussions about armies, rules, terrain, painting plans, and the inevitable question: “How many miniatures do we really need?” The answer, of course, appears to be “more than we currently own.”

The attraction of 12mm is easy to understand. The scale sits in a sweet spot between spectacle and practicality. Infantry formations look like formations rather than scattered skirmishers, tanks can manoeuvre in meaningful numbers, and entire battalions can fight across the table without requiring a second mortgage to buy miniatures or a village hall to play the game.

With this in mind, I have decided it is finally time to start working through my Mantic Epic Warpath collection. Most of the figures originate from the Warpath Kickstarter and have been patiently waiting in their boxes for several years. By “patiently waiting” I mean quietly judging me every time I walk past the hobby room and start yet another project instead.

The forces in question are the Plague and the Marauders, which conveniently represent two very different approaches to warfare. The Plague favour horrifying biological monstrosities, rampant mutation, and the sort of battlefield appearance that would make a health inspector resign on the spot. The Marauders, on the other hand, seem to have looked at military doctrine and concluded that if something is worth building, it is worth building larger, noisier, and with considerably more guns attached to it.

One of the attractions of the project is the opportunity to paint genuinely large armies. Individual figures are small enough to paint efficiently, yet large enough to retain plenty of character. A platoon can appear on the painting desk and actually leave the painting desk within a reasonable period of time, which is not always the case with some of my other projects.

The plan at this stage is to begin with the Plague, work out a painting scheme that can be applied quickly across large numbers of figures, and then move on to the Marauders. Whether this sensible plan survives first contact with reality remains to be seen.

Hopefully over the coming weeks I will be able to post some progress photographs as the armies begin to take shape. With luck, this will result in two painted forces ready for some large scale science fiction battles. With slightly less luck, it will simply result in a different collection of partially painted miniatures occupying space in the hobby room.

Either way, it should be an entertaining journey.

Photos from Mantic and image created using ChatGPT.

I picked up Alan Gallop’s Mr Stanley, I Presume? largely because of my interest in colonial pulp gaming. At first glance that may seem an odd reason to read a biography of Henry Morton Stanley, but Stanley sits behind much of the imagery that feeds the genre: expeditions, river journeys, armed porters, lost routes, hostile terrain, rival adventurers, and the confident Victorian belief that the world existed to be mapped, crossed and claimed. He is almost a ready-made pulp character: journalist, explorer, self-inventor, celebrity, imperial agent and ruthless survivor.

Yet that is also why the book needs to be read carefully. Colonial pulp gaming often turns the period into colourful adventure, but Stanley’s real career was tied to violence, coercion, racial arrogance and the brutal opening of the Congo. Gallop’s biography interested me because it helps look behind the adventure story and see the harder historical reality beneath it. For a gamer, the period offers rich scenario material, but it also requires judgement. The trick is to use the drama of the setting without forgetting the world that produced it.

Gallop’s biography is a solid and readable account of one of the most famous and troubling figures of nineteenth century exploration. The title plays on the famous meeting with Livingstone, but the book is really about the man behind the phrase. Stanley was born John Rowlands in Denbigh, Wales, and later remade himself as Henry Morton Stanley, American journalist, explorer and public figure. Gallop is good at showing this process of self-invention. Stanley was not simply exploring Africa. He was also manufacturing Stanley.

The book works best when it presents Stanley as driven, wounded, ambitious and often difficult. Gallop avoids turning him into the clean heroic figure of Victorian adventure writing. Stanley’s endurance was extraordinary, and his journeys through Central Africa were remarkable feats. He understood publicity, newspapers, lectures and the power of a memorable phrase. In that sense he feels surprisingly modern.

Where the book is less satisfying is in its treatment of the wider imperial damage surrounding Stanley’s career. Any modern reading of Stanley must deal with his connection to King Leopold II’s Congo project. Gallop does not ignore the darker side, but the book remains mostly a biography of Stanley rather than a deeper study of African experience, colonial violence or the horrors that followed in the Congo Free State. That makes the book accessible, but it also leaves some hard questions only partly answered.

For a general reader, Mr Stanley, I Presume? is a useful introduction. It gives the shape of Stanley’s life without burying the reader in academic argument. For someone interested in colonial pulp gaming, it is also a reminder that the raw material of adventure stories often came from a brutal and unequal world. There are scenarios everywhere in Stanley’s life, but there are also traps for the unwary gamer or writer.

Overall, this is a readable and engaging biography of a remarkable but deeply compromised man. It restores Stanley as a complicated human being rather than leaving him trapped inside one famous sentence. It should not be the final word on Stanley, the Congo or European imperialism, but it is a good starting point. Read alongside more critical histories of the Congo, it becomes much more useful.

Verdict: a strong introductory biography, clear and accessible, but less complete as a modern reckoning with the imperial world Stanley helped create.

Authors Note:

The following scenario is presented as a sample from my forthcoming book on wargaming the Kokoda campaign of 1942. The book examines how the campaign can be represented on the tabletop without reducing it to a simple jungle firefight. Kokoda was a campaign of terrain, exhaustion, supply, fear, command friction, and small unit endurance. Any game that ignores those elements misses much of what made the fighting so difficult.

This sample, based on the fighting around Templeton’s Crossing, shows the approach taken throughout the book. The aim is not merely to provide orders of battle and victory conditions, but to help players recreate the pressure of the Kokoda Track itself. Visibility is short, movement is punishing, units become separated, and both sides must fight against the ground as much as against the enemy. In that sense, the scenario is intended as both a game and a design study in how to make historical conditions shape player decisions.

The Battle of Templeton’s Crossing, 1942

The fighting around Templeton’s Crossing during the Kokoda campaign represented one of the defining moments of the struggle for the Owen Stanley Range in 1942. It was not a single battle in the conventional sense but a series of brutal engagements fought in mountainous jungle terrain where exhaustion, terrain, rain, isolation, and logistics shaped events as much as direct combat. The battle demonstrated the changing character of the Kokoda campaign. Earlier fighting had largely involved delaying actions by understrength Australian militia formations attempting to slow the Japanese advance toward Port Moresby. By the time combat reached Templeton’s Crossing, however, Australian forces increasingly combined battle experience with reinforcements from the Second Australian Imperial Force. The fighting also exposed growing Japanese logistical difficulties and demonstrated the cumulative effects of attrition within the jungle environment itself.

Templeton’s Crossing lay deep within the Eora Creek valley system north of Myola. The crossing itself marked one of the critical points along the Kokoda Track where movement became compressed by steep ridges, narrow approaches, thick jungle growth, and the creek itself. The terrain was physically punishing. Movement off the track rapidly became disorganised and dangerous while observation remained limited to extremely short distances. Combat therefore occurred suddenly and at close range. The battlefield imposed severe restrictions on command and control. Platoons and sections frequently became isolated from one another while officers often fought with only fragmentary knowledge of surrounding positions. Under such conditions the battle became one of endurance, initiative, and small unit cohesion rather than manoeuvre in any conventional operational sense.

The crossing itself had already acquired symbolic significance within the campaign. It was named after Captain Sam Templeton of the 39th Battalion, who had disappeared during the early fighting near Kokoda in July 1942. Templeton had commanded B Company during the desperate initial defence against the Japanese advance and was widely respected by his men. Lieutenant Bert Kienzle of the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit later named the crossing in his honour while assisting in the establishment of supply routes through the mountains. Thus, by September 1942, Templeton’s Crossing already carried emotional and institutional weight within the Australian Army.

The first major fighting around Templeton’s Crossing occurred during the Australian withdrawal southward after the Battle of Isurava. The Japanese South Seas Detachment under Major General Tomitaro Horii continued to press aggressively toward Port Moresby following the fall of Kokoda and the subsequent Australian retreat. Australian commanders sought to impose successive delaying actions intended to slow Japanese momentum while buying time for reinforcements to move into position farther south. Brigadier Arnold Potts and the exhausted formations of Maroubra Force therefore attempted to use the terrain around Eora Creek and Templeton’s Crossing to impose delay and disruption upon the advancing Japanese columns.

The battlefield itself heavily favoured defence. The track descended sharply into the Eora Creek valley before climbing again through steep jungle covered ridges. Any force moving through the area became channelled into narrow approaches vulnerable to ambush and defensive fire. The Japanese advance increasingly encountered resistance from concealed Australian positions positioned to exploit terrain rather than hold continuous linear fronts. This was not European style positional warfare. Instead the battle fragmented into isolated firefights, patrol clashes, ambushes, and short violent assaults fought within dense vegetation and difficult terrain.

Australian troops during this phase consisted primarily of battalions from the 21st Brigade including the 2/14th, 2/16th, and 2/27th Battalions together with remnants of the 39th Battalion. These formations had already endured severe fighting at Isurava and were physically weakened by hunger, disease, and constant movement. Supply remained one of the central operational problems throughout the campaign. Every round of ammunition, ration, medical supply, or mortar bomb had to be carried by Papuan carriers or Australian troops across mountain tracks frequently reduced to mud by heavy rain. Men fought while exhausted and underfed. Many soldiers suffered malaria, dysentery, tropical ulcers, and exposure.

Japanese forces experienced similar difficulties despite their continued tactical aggression. Early Japanese successes along the track had depended upon rapid movement, infiltration tactics, and aggressive offensive doctrine. However, by the time fighting reached Templeton’s Crossing, Japanese logistics were increasingly strained. Supply lines stretched back toward Buna and Gona while Allied air attacks and terrain imposed mounting burdens upon Japanese transport capacity. Food shortages became severe. Japanese troops increasingly relied upon captured Australian supplies or reduced rations. Operational momentum therefore became difficult to sustain despite continued tactical pressure.

The fighting itself around Templeton’s Crossing during late August and early September developed into a series of delaying actions. Australian troops used the terrain effectively to inflict casualties and slow the Japanese advance while withdrawing before encirclement. The dense jungle and steep ridges prevented large scale manoeuvre. Instead platoons established concealed positions overlooking likely approaches and engaged the advancing Japanese at extremely short range. Bren guns, rifles, grenades, and mortars dominated the fighting. Visibility often extended no more than several metres. Soldiers described hearing enemy movement before seeing opponents. Combat therefore became psychologically exhausting as much as physically dangerous.

The Japanese repeatedly attempted flanking movements through the jungle to bypass Australian blocking positions. These tactics had proven effective earlier in the campaign and remained a hallmark of Japanese infantry doctrine. However, terrain around Templeton’s Crossing imposed significant difficulties even upon experienced jungle troops. Movement through the steep valleys and thick vegetation proved exhausting while coordination between advancing units became difficult. Australian patrols and defensive fire frequently disrupted Japanese attempts to achieve decisive encirclement. The result was not a clean breakthrough but a grinding advance imposed through cumulative pressure and attrition.

One of the defining characteristics of the battle was the role of terrain as an active operational force rather than a passive backdrop. The Eora Creek valley compressed movement and fractured cohesion. Men slipped from tracks into ravines. Weapons malfunctioned from mud and rain. Evacuation of wounded soldiers became agonisingly slow. Commanders struggled to maintain communication with forward companies. Runners frequently became lost or killed while moving between positions. Wireless communication remained unreliable within the mountains. In many cases platoon and company commanders exercised initiative with limited guidance from higher headquarters.

Australian resistance at Templeton’s Crossing nevertheless succeeded in imposing delay upon the Japanese timetable. Every defensive stand forced the Japanese to deploy, probe, attack, and reorganise before continuing southward. This delay proved strategically important because it allowed additional Australian forces to establish defensive positions farther south near Efogi, Ioribaiwa, and eventually Imita Ridge. The battle therefore formed part of a broader operational strategy designed to trade ground for time while progressively weakening Japanese offensive capacity.

The psychological dimension of the fighting also deserves attention. By September 1942 many Australian troops had already endured weeks of continuous combat and withdrawal. The strain of repeated retreats weighed heavily upon morale. Nevertheless, the fighting at Templeton’s Crossing demonstrated increasing tactical confidence among Australian formations. Combat experience sharpened jungle fighting skills while leadership within battalions adapted to the realities of close terrain warfare. Junior officers and non commissioned officers became especially important because small unit initiative often determined local outcomes. The battle therefore contributed to the broader transformation of Australian forces during the Kokoda campaign from inexperienced formations reacting to Japanese initiative into increasingly capable jungle fighting troops.

The Japanese meanwhile faced growing operational dilemmas. Although tactically aggressive, they increasingly struggled to sustain offensive operations across the mountains. Casualties mounted steadily while disease and malnutrition weakened units. The deeper the Japanese advanced toward Port Moresby the longer and more fragile their supply lines became. Japanese assumptions regarding rapid victory began to erode. Strategic reverses elsewhere in the Pacific, especially around Guadalcanal and Milne Bay, further altered the broader operational context.

The second major phase of fighting around Templeton’s Crossing occurred during the Australian counter offensive in October 1942. By this stage the strategic situation had changed significantly. Japanese forces had abandoned their advance toward Port Moresby and begun withdrawing northward. Australian forces under Lieutenant General Edmund Herring and Major General Arthur Allen now pursued the retreating Japanese back across the Owen Stanley Range.

This second battle around Templeton’s Crossing proved particularly costly. Japanese troops established strong defensive positions north of the crossing within terrain ideally suited for defence. The Japanese had become highly skilled at constructing concealed bunkers integrated into jungle and ridge systems. Australian troops advancing north encountered interlocking fields of fire, hidden machine gun positions, and carefully prepared defensive localities. The steep terrain again restricted manoeuvre and forced frontal attacks through narrow approaches.

Australian commanders increasingly attempted to use flanking patrols to outmanoeuvre Japanese defensive positions. Yet movement through the jungle remained extraordinarily difficult. Patrols often lost direction while carrying supplies across steep ridges. Rain, mud, and exhaustion slowed operations. Nevertheless, Australian numerical superiority and improving logistics gradually imposed pressure upon the withdrawing Japanese forces.

The October fighting exposed tensions within Australian command structures regarding the pace of the advance. Senior commanders including General Douglas MacArthur and Lieutenant General Thomas Blamey criticised Australian formations for perceived slowness. Yet such criticism frequently underestimated the realities of jungle warfare within the Owen Stanley environment. Every advance required movement through terrain where tracks barely existed, supply depended upon human carriers, and every ridge potentially concealed prepared Japanese positions. The battlefield fundamentally resisted operational tempo. Templeton’s Crossing illustrated this reality clearly.

Combat during the counter offensive remained intimate and brutal. Japanese defensive doctrine emphasised concealed positions and determined resistance. Australian infantry therefore frequently closed with enemy bunkers at grenade range. Patrol actions, ambushes, sniper fire, and close assaults characterised the fighting. Casualties continued to mount on both sides despite the broader Japanese withdrawal.

Eventually Australian forces forced the Japanese out of the Templeton’s Crossing area and continued advancing north toward Kokoda. The battle nevertheless revealed the enormous physical and psychological cost imposed by the campaign. Even successful advances occurred slowly and under severe strain. Terrain and logistics continued to dominate operations. The campaign remained one of attrition rather than rapid manoeuvre.

The significance of Templeton’s Crossing within Australian military history rests partly in how clearly it demonstrated the relationship between terrain, logistics, endurance, and small unit cohesion. The battle was not defined by sweeping manoeuvres or dramatic breakthroughs. Instead it represented the cumulative grinding character of jungle warfare in New Guinea. Men fought under conditions where exhaustion and isolation shaped outcomes as heavily as tactical doctrine.

The battle also contributed significantly to the development of Australian jungle warfare experience. Earlier assumptions derived from Middle Eastern campaigns proved of limited value within the Owen Stanley environment. At Templeton’s Crossing Australian forces increasingly adapted to jungle conditions through patrol based operations, decentralised leadership, and flexible defensive tactics. The campaign therefore became a learning process fought under extreme pressure.

Templeton’s Crossing further occupies an important place within Australian memory of Kokoda because it symbolises both sacrifice and endurance. The crossing itself commemorated Captain Sam Templeton while the surrounding battlefield became associated with some of the harshest fighting of the campaign. The area represented the physical reality of Kokoda more accurately than many later commemorative narratives. Combat there involved hunger, mud, confusion, disease, fear, exhaustion, and fragmented violence within terrain largely indifferent to human effort.

Modern interpretations of Kokoda sometimes risk simplifying the campaign into a straightforward national story of heroic resistance. While courage undoubtedly characterised the fighting, Templeton’s Crossing demonstrates the complexity of the campaign more fully. Australian success emerged not from singular moments of heroism alone but from endurance, adaptation, logistics, and the cumulative wearing down of Japanese offensive capacity. Likewise Japanese defeat resulted not merely from battlefield losses but from strategic overextension and logistical collapse across impossible terrain.

The battle therefore stands as one of the central engagements of the Kokoda campaign because it revealed the essential character of the wider struggle. Terrain imposed constraint upon both armies. Supply determined operational possibility. Small unit leadership became decisive. Combat dissolved into fragmented local engagements fought under extreme environmental pressure. Templeton’s Crossing thus remains one of the clearest examples of jungle warfare in the South West Pacific during 1942.

Footnotes

1. Dudley McCarthy, South West Pacific Area — First Year (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1959), 216–240.
2. Karl James, The Track: A Historical Desktop Study of the Kokoda Track (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 2009), 32–47.
3. Nicholas Anderson, To Kokoda (Newport: Big Sky Publishing, 2014), 72–192.
4. Peter Brune, A Bastard of a Place (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2004), 180–240.
5. Gordon Maitland, The Second World War and its Australian Army Battle Honours (East Roseville: Kangaroo Press, 1999), 142.
6. Samuel Milner, Victory in Papua (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1957), 85–130.
7. David Horner, High Command: Australia and Allied Strategy 1939–1945 (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1982), 250–275.
8. Peter FitzSimons, Kokoda (Sydney: Hachette, 2004), 310–360.
9. Australian War Memorial, “Battle of Templeton’s Crossing,” accessed May 24, 2026.

Templeton’s Crossing, 1942

A Kokoda Track Scenario

This scenario is designed for platoon level World War II rules with an emphasis on exhaustion, restricted visibility, jungle movement, and fragmented command. It is particularly suited to systems that model morale, cohesion, or command friction rather than simple attritional firefights. The scenario recreates the fighting around Eora Creek and Templeton’s Crossing during the Japanese advance south along the Kokoda Track in September 1942.

The battle should feel compressed, uncertain, and physically exhausting. Visibility is short. Movement is difficult. Units become separated easily. Firefights erupt suddenly at close range. The battlefield itself is the greatest enemy.

Historical Background

Following the fighting at Isurava, Australian forces withdrew southward through the Owen Stanley Range attempting to delay the Japanese advance toward Port Moresby. Around Templeton’s Crossing the track descended sharply into the Eora Creek valley before climbing again through steep jungle ridges. Australian troops established a series of blocking positions designed to slow the advancing Japanese while preserving enough combat strength to continue withdrawing south.

Japanese forces attempted repeated frontal probes and jungle flanking movements to dislodge the Australian defenders. The result was a series of brutal small unit engagements fought in thick jungle under terrible physical conditions.

Table Size

6′ x 4′ recommended.

Terrain Layout

The table should feel narrow and claustrophobic rather than open.

Map produced with the assistance of ChatGPT.

• Dense jungle covering at least 70 percent of the table
• One steep ridgeline running diagonally across the table
• Eora Creek crossing near the centre
• Narrow jungle track running north to south
• Muddy slopes and ravines
• Fallen logs and broken ground
• Bamboo thickets or tangled scrub
• At least two elevated firing positions overlooking the track

Terrain Effects

Thesed may differ from one rule set to another so treat these as suggestions only:

Dense Jungle

• Visibility limited to 6″
• Units moving through jungle count all movement as difficult
• No unit may move at double speed in jungle

Steep Slopes

• Half movement uphill
• No heavy weapons may redeploy uphill faster than normal movement
• Units retreating downhill test for disorder

Eora Creek

• Counts as difficult terrain
• Units crossing lose any charge or movement bonus
• Heavy rain may increase movement penalties

Forces

The scenario works best with reinforced platoon sized forces.

Australian Forces:

Elements from the 2/14th Battalion, 2/16th Battalion, or remnants of the 39th Battalion.

Suggested Force:

• 1 understrength platoon HQ
• 3 rifle sections
• 1 Bren gun team
• Optional exhausted reinforcement section arriving later

Australian Special Rules

Again treat these as suggestions only as most rules have their own special rules for different nationalities.

Experienced but Exhausted

Australian infantry may re roll one failed morale or cohesion test per turn.

Jungle Veterans

Australian units ignore the first movement penalty caused by jungle each activation.

Ammunition Shortages

Japanese Forces

Elements of the South Seas Detachment.

Suggested Force:

• 1 platoon HQ
• 4 rifle squads
• 1 light machine gun squad
• 1 grenade discharger team
• Optional flanking patrol

Japanese Special Rules

Aggressive Infiltration

One Japanese squad may begin hidden off the main track and enter from a jungle flank.

Offensive Doctrine

Japanese infantry gain bonuses in close combat or assaults.

Supply Exhaustion

After Turn 6 all Japanese units suffer penalties to morale recovery or command rolls.

Deployment

Australians Deploy first.

• At least half the Australian force must begin hidden.
• No Australian unit may deploy within 12″ of the northern table edge.
• One section may begin in reserve.

Japanese enter from the northern table edge along the track.

• No more than half the force may begin on table.
• Remaining forces arrive over subsequent turns.

Scenario Length

10 turns recommended.

Optional sudden tropical storm rule may shorten visibility during the final turns.

Objectives

Japanese Objectives

Major Victory

• Break through the Australian line and exit at least 50 percent of combat units off the southern table edge.

Minor Victory

• Control the crossing and force Australian withdrawal.

Australian Objectives

Major Victory

• Delay the Japanese advance while preserving at least half the force.

Minor Victory

• Prevent Japanese breakthrough before Turn 10.

Hidden Movement

This scenario works best with hidden deployment.

If the rules you are using do not cater for hidden movement here are some possible methods:

• Dummy markers
• Written deployment
• Blinds system
• Hidden movement map

The Japanese player should never be entirely certain where Australian positions are located until firing begins.

Random Events

At the beginning of each turn after Turn 2 roll 1D6.

Command and Control

Communication in the jungle was extremely difficult.

Optional rules:

• Officers beyond 12″ may not issue direct orders
• Radio communication unreliable
• Units separated by jungle may activate independently
• Lost contact may cause delayed reinforcements

Casualty Evacuation

Australian players may attempt to evacuate wounded troops.

Each wounded figure successfully removed from the southern edge grants additional victory points.

This encourages historically appropriate withdrawal pressure rather than suicidal last stands.

Atmosphere and Tone

This should not feel like a conventional battlefield encounter.

The scenario should feel wet, exhausting, uncertain, fragmented, and claustrophobic.

Firefights should erupt suddenly at very close range. Players should struggle to maintain cohesion and awareness. The battlefield itself should create pressure upon decision making.

Templeton’s Crossing was not a battle of sweeping manoeuvre. It was a grinding contest of endurance fought in terrain that resisted movement, visibility, communication, and control.

Suggested Rules to use

• Chain of Command
• Bolt Action with heavy scenario modification
• Crossfire
• Combat Patrol
• Disposable Heroes
• Conflict Under Constraint adaptations
• Homebrew platoon systems emphasising morale and cohesion

Designer’s Notes

Templeton’s Crossing demonstrates how terrain and exhaustion shaped jungle warfare in New Guinea. The battlefield compressed movement into narrow tracks while dense jungle fragmented command and visibility. The scenario works best when players resist treating the battle as a straightforward firefight and instead focus on pressure, uncertainty, and the gradual erosion of cohesion.

The Australian player should feel constant pressure to delay without becoming trapped. The Japanese player should feel compelled to maintain momentum despite mounting disruption and uncertainty.

Feedback would be appreciated.

Noel Barber’s The Fall of Shanghai is best read as a vivid popular history of a city in collapse rather than as a modern academic study of the Chinese Revolution. First published in 1979, it is a relatively compact book of about 248 pages, and its full title points clearly to Barber’s central interest: Shanghai as a city of splendour, squalor, foreign trade and revolutionary upheaval.

The book’s great strength is atmosphere. Barber gives the reader Shanghai not merely as a place on a map, but as a living, frightened, unstable city. He is interested in clubs, hotels, traders, refugees, servants, black marketeers, diplomats, businessmen, gamblers and ordinary people watching the world around them change. He understands that a city often falls before the army finally enters it. Authority drains away. Rumours multiply. Money loses meaning. The rich look for exits. The poor endure. People keep eating, drinking, bargaining and pretending that tomorrow will resemble yesterday, even when everyone knows that it will not.

The historical setting is dramatic enough. Shanghai was taken by Communist forces in May 1949 during the final stage of the Chinese Civil War, as Nationalist power collapsed and the People’s Liberation Army moved into China’s greatest commercial city. Contemporary Australian newspaper reports described Communist troops entering Shanghai in late May 1949, while broader accounts of the Chinese Civil War place the city’s fall within the larger Nationalist defeat of 1949.

Barber uses that moment as the hinge of the book, but his real subject is not simply the military occupation of a city. It is the death of old Shanghai.

As narrative history, this works very well. Barber had a gift for human detail. He writes with pace and colour, and the book is easy to read. He is good on fear, uncertainty, corruption, expatriate panic and the strange mixture of decadence and desperation that marked the last days of Nationalist Shanghai. He catches the mood of a society that still had its rituals, manners and pleasures, but no longer had confidence in its future. That makes the book valuable, especially for readers interested in the human side of political and military collapse.

For a wargamer or military historian, the book is useful in an indirect but important way. It is not an operational campaign study. It does not give the reader a detailed order of battle, a precise tactical analysis or a map heavy account of the Shanghai Campaign. Anyone wanting that will need other works. What Barber does provide is the social and psychological setting. A game or scenario based on Shanghai in 1949 would need more than troops entering streets. It would need refugees, rumours, collapsing currency, shifting loyalties, frightened foreign firms, political pressure, uncertain police, desperate Nationalist defenders and Communist cadres trying to impose order on a city that had long been difficult to govern.

Where the book needs qualification is in how it stands up to modern historiography. The answer is: reasonably well as a popular narrative, but only partly as modern history. Barber’s Shanghai is still compelling, but it is also a Shanghai seen through an older narrative lens. He is especially drawn to the foreign community and to the passing of treaty port Shanghai. That is not wrong, because the foreign presence was part of the city’s history. But modern scholarship asks a wider set of questions.

Modern historians are less likely to treat 1949 simply as the final curtain falling on a glamorous old city. They are more interested in continuities as well as rupture. They ask how Communist rule was actually imposed, how local institutions were transformed, how business was managed, how workers responded, and how much of Shanghai’s existing urban life survived under new political forms. Joseph Howlett’s work on Communist takeovers of British companies in Shanghai, for example, examines the transformation of foreign firms at ground level and shows the mixture of ideology, pragmatism and state building involved.

That sort of analysis is largely beyond Barber’s frame.

Modern historiography also gives much more weight to Chinese actors. Barber is strong on foreigners, observers, elites and dramatic personalities. He is less strong on workers, local cadres, Chinese industrialists, neighbourhood organisations, women, unions and ordinary Chinese families. Elizabeth Perry’s work on Shanghai labour is a useful contrast, because it places Chinese workers and labour politics at the centre of Shanghai’s modern history rather than leaving them in the background of elite decline. The same point applies to social control after the Communist takeover. Barber sees the shock of the new order, but modern historians tend to analyse the machinery of that order more carefully. They examine campaigns, policing, labour reform, business takeovers, propaganda, prostitution suppression and the reclassification of social groups. Christian Henriot’s work on prostitution and sexuality in Shanghai, and his study of its abolition after 1949, shows how one of old Shanghai’s most visible social worlds was attacked, reorganised and morally redefined by the new regime.

Barber gives us the fall. Later scholarship gives us more of the mechanism.

This does not make Barber useless. Far from it. It means he should be read with care. His book remains strong on mood, personality and the sense of an era ending. It is weaker as a full explanation of Chinese urban society, Communist state formation or the social history of Shanghai. His account is vivid, but partial. It tells us a great deal about how old Shanghai looked and felt to those watching it collapse. It tells us less about how new Shanghai was built, negotiated, resisted and administered.

There is also a nostalgic tone in parts of the book. Barber is not blind to Shanghai’s poverty, exploitation and moral ugliness, but he is clearly fascinated by the lost world of hotels, clubs, foreign firms and cosmopolitan excess. That gives the book much of its appeal, but also much of its limitation. The splendour can sometimes overshadow the squalor, even though the title recognises both. Modern readers should remember that old Shanghai was not merely romantic, colourful and doomed. It was also unequal, violent, exploitative and deeply divided.

The final judgement, then, is balanced. The Fall of Shanghai remains a highly readable account of a major historical turning point. It is excellent on atmosphere and still useful for understanding the emotional texture of collapse. It is less satisfactory as modern historiography because its centre of gravity lies too much in the expatriate and old treaty port world, and not enough in Chinese society, labour, local governance and the practical construction of Communist power.

I would not discard Barber. I would put him in his proper place. Read him for the feel of Shanghai in extremis. Read him for the fear, colour, confusion and human drama of a city changing hands. But read him beside newer scholarship, not instead of it. His central question is: how did old Shanghai fall? Modern historians ask the harder follow up: what survived, what was transformed, and how was a new Shanghai made out of the ruins of the old one?

Despite this it was not one I would recommend.

Herbert A. Werner’s Iron Coffins is one of the most powerful personal accounts of the German U-boat war. It is not a detached operational history, nor does it pretend to be. It is a memoir written from inside the steel hull, from the perspective of a man who served in the Kriegsmarine from the period of early confidence through to the ruined final months of the Third Reich. That makes it both compelling and troubling. It is a gripping book, but it is also a book that must be read carefully.

Werner gives the reader the U-boat war as it was experienced by the men inside the boats: cramped, exhausted, afraid, proud, fatalistic and increasingly aware that they were being sent into a losing battle. The title is brutally appropriate. These vessels were marvels of engineering, but by the middle and later years of the war they had become traps. The Atlantic was no longer the hunting ground of the early war years. Radar, aircraft, escort groups, code breaking, improved Allied tactics and relentless industrial capacity had changed the balance. Werner’s great strength is that he makes the reader feel that change. The hunter becomes the hunted.

The book is strongest when it describes atmosphere. Werner writes well about confinement, tension, command pressure and the strange mixture of routine and terror that shaped submarine life. The crew clean, wait, listen, curse, joke, sweat and endure. Then, in an instant, depth charges turn the world into noise, darkness and fear. The reader is constantly reminded that war at sea was not abstract tonnage tables and convoy maps. It was men trapped in metal tubes, listening for death.

As a memoir, Iron Coffins is also valuable because it captures the psychological decline of the U-boat arm. Early confidence gives way to strain, then bitterness, then desperation. Werner is often critical of higher command, particularly the continued use of U-boats when Allied anti-submarine warfare had become so effective. That criticism gives the book much of its force. This is not a triumphant account. It is a survivor’s account, written by a man who saw many others disappear.

However, the book’s strengths are also its limitations. Werner writes from memory and from his own position within the war. He is vivid, but not always detached. He can be honest about suffering and danger while remaining much less reflective about the wider moral framework of the war in which he served. This is common in combat memoirs, but it matters. The reader should not expect a full reckoning with Nazism, the Battle of the Atlantic’s strategic consequences, or the experience of Allied merchant sailors who were the targets of the U-boat campaign. Werner’s world is overwhelmingly the world inside the pressure hull.

That does not make the book invalid. It makes it a source that needs context. Read alongside broader histories of the Battle of the Atlantic, Iron Coffins becomes extremely useful. It shows what the campaign felt like from the German side, especially after the technological and tactical balance had shifted against them. It also reminds us that courage and endurance can exist within a bad cause. That is one of the uncomfortable truths of military history, and Werner’s book forces the reader to sit with it.

For the wargamer, designer or military history reader, Iron Coffins has particular value. It is excellent on friction, uncertainty, morale and command pressure. It shows how fear builds over time, how equipment limits tactical choice, and how the enemy’s unseen presence can dominate every decision. Anyone designing submarine warfare, convoy operations or morale systems could learn a great deal from Werner’s descriptions of stress, fatigue and diminishing options. The book is less useful as a technical manual and far more useful as a study of men under pressure.

The prose is direct and often dramatic. At times it reads almost like a novel, which helps explain its lasting popularity. Some readers may find the style too polished or too shaped by hindsight, but it remains effective. Werner knew how to tell a story, and he understood that the U-boat war was not merely a sequence of patrols. It was a descent.

Iron Coffins is therefore best approached as a classic combat memoir rather than a complete history. It is personal, intense, sometimes defensive, sometimes revealing, and often unforgettable. Its value lies not in providing the whole truth of the Battle of the Atlantic, but in giving the reader one man’s view from within one of the most lethal military environments of the Second World War.

It is a grim, memorable and important book. Not comfortable reading, but worthwhile.

A Napoleonic game tonight for a change. Whilst not a fan of Black powder I really enjoyed this “Epic” version of the game.

The British left flank.

The Black Watch ready to take on those upstart froggies! Aye laddie!

The French coming on in the “same old way………………only to be beaten in the same old way” apologies to a certain Duke.

Black watch fight off French cavalry despite being disordered.

A turn about – the British Heavy Brigade force the advancing French into line.

French square hit by the Inniskilling Fusiliers. By name and nature!

French cavalry advance in the centre.

That long thin red line.

The end of the game with the British pouring through the gap in the French centre

A great game was had by all!

David Evans’ A Guide to the Beaches and Battlefields of Normandy is the sort of book that sits somewhere between a battlefield guide, a memorial volume, and a concise introduction to the Normandy landings. It is not a grand operational history in the manner of the larger D Day studies, nor does it try to be. Its purpose is more practical and more human. It is written for the reader who wants to understand what happened on the ground, where it happened, and why particular places along the Normandy coast still matter.

The strength of the book is its sense of place. Normandy can easily become a list of famous names: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword, Pegasus Bridge, Sainte Mere Eglise, Pointe du Hoc, Arromanches and the cemeteries. Evans does a good job of turning those names back into locations. He reminds the reader that the battle was not fought on an abstract map but across beaches, roads, villages, fields, batteries, bridges and churchyards. For anyone intending to visit the area, this is useful. For anyone who has already visited, it helps fix memory to geography.

The book is also valuable because it does not treat the beaches as tourist stops alone. There is a proper awareness of cost. The photographs, maps, stories and battlefield descriptions work together to show that the Normandy landscape is layered with memory. A beach can be a pleasant stretch of sand and, at the same time, a killing ground. A village can be picturesque and still carry the weight of a hard fight. Evans understands that a battlefield guide should not merely say “go here and look at this.” It should explain why the place deserves attention.

From a wargamer’s perspective, the book is useful because it encourages the reader to think in terrain. The Normandy campaign was shaped by exits from beaches, flooded areas, strongpoints, causeways, bocage, road junctions and fields of fire. Evans’ approach helps the reader see why units moved as they did, why some attacks stalled, and why small pieces of ground could become important. It is not a scenario book, but it provides the sort of material from which scenarios can be built. A designer looking for compact historical settings would find plenty of useful prompts here.

There are limitations. Because the book is a guide, it cannot give every action the depth that a specialist study would provide. Readers wanting detailed order of battle analysis, German command decisions, naval fire support tables or a full operational treatment of the campaign will need to go elsewhere. At times the format means that the narrative moves quickly from place to place. That is not really a fault, but it does mean the book works best when read as a companion to the battlefield or as an introductory guide, rather than as the final word on Normandy.

The age of the book should also be kept in mind. Battlefield interpretation changes, museums alter, access changes, roads change, and memorial presentation develops over time. A modern visitor would still want to check current local information before relying on any older guide for travel purposes. As a historical and reflective guide, however, the book still has value.

Overall, A Guide to the Beaches and Battlefields of Normandy is a worthwhile and respectful volume. Its greatest virtue is that it connects history to ground. It helps the reader understand that Normandy is not only a campaign to be studied, but a landscape to be walked, interpreted and remembered. For the general reader, battlefield visitor, veteran’s family member, or wargamer looking to understand the physical setting of D Day, it remains a useful guide.

The last of this platoon is now completed. Although I still have a lot more KNIL to paint it is a great feeling to have finished at least one component of it.

The third Light AA gun, crew and mule team.

Gun NCO

Gunner 1

Gunner 2

Mule Team

The whole 3 gun Artillery Platoon

Next more footsloggers.