Seven days in Venice

It's not the first time I've been to Venice but it's a great city and it's worth visiting at least twice in a lifetime. Leaving the arrangements to my wife again proved best as she came up with a wonderful apartment, with outdoor space, in Dorsoduro very close to the Canale Della Giudecca.

The weather was variable. It ranged between 31 and 34 degrees Celsius, was breezier on some days than others, and there were even some clouds on the last morning. All in all, perfect weather for messing about in boats - and with no cars or buses, you tend to do a lot of that in Venice. 

Apart from its unique architectural beauty Venice can boast a few bits of interest to the military enthusiast - and I spent a lot of time thinking what a great renaissance skirmish scenario a Venetian city battle would make, what with so many canals and bridges. 

My first military port of call, pun intended, was the Arsenale and the maritime museum. The Arsenale is where the Venetians built their naval ships, at one time employing 2,000 people to build its galleasses and whatnot. 

The Arsenale is still an active military base so you can't actually get into most of it but, the maritime museum has a few exhibits worth seeing, including a 'chariot' and several very nice scale models. There are also a few cabinets with proper lead soldiers in them. 

Anyway, some pictures of what is there (caveat: most descriptions from memory).

A 'Chariot'. 

For state of the art WW2 technology, I think this piece of kit is scarily basic. 

This one was used against the British in Alexandria.

 A 17th century galleass.

 16th century swivel guns (recovered from the sea floor?) on reconstructed mountings

A Lepanto period galley. I'm definitely going to do this as a naval game at some point. Galleys (so wind isn't a major consideration) with cannon!

One of the most interesting models was this beauty. An 11th century Venetian galley.

The figures manning it were, at best guess, 40 mm. 

I liked it so much I took three pictures of it.

The next lot of pictures I took for no other reasons than that they are of toy soldiers and they provide uniform guides for various horse and musket period marines. I will not be painting them, but someone might find these useful (sorry about the light, the sun was streaming in).

 Finally there was this thing that took my fancy. 

It's the flag ship of some Korean dude.

I believe that it might be called a 'Turtle Ship' and if my long term memory serves there is a full size replica of one somewhere (Korea?).

The model is belter (as models go) so I took three photos of it.

Next up, the Doge's Palace. The military angle is quite small here as it only comprises a small selection of the stuff in Venice's 'armoury'. Also, just so you know, not all of it is pictured here. Some of my shots were spoilt by the sunlight bouncing off the glass cabinets, including some containing some wonderful suits of armour (medieval and renaissance knight's full harness); there were many cabinets full of various weapons but, though nicely displayed, they were a bit samey. Also, I forgot to take my camera to the palace and had to use my wife's, with limited memory space. 

Most of the collection dates from the late 15th through to the 17th century, so quite a bit had more than a passing interest. However, this visit to Venice was a family holiday so lengthy lingering over old steel was not an option. 

Persian stuff. There is only one cabinet of this stuff and again the light has ruined the pictures of some stuff in it. Fortunately, the photo of the Persian 'mace' came out reasonably well. 

BTW, all of the cutting weapons were described as daggers which, given their sword-like size, I thought a little adventurous.

I have no idea what this is (above the obvious). It was in a closed room and the photo was taken whilst leaning over the barrier at an ungainly angle with a security guard giving me the evil eye from ten paces. 

Whatever it is (it looks eastern to me?), I bet it was pretty high velocity for its time!

So there we have it for my 'military bits of Venice'. Not exactly military fuelled but, for a family holiday, enough to keep me going - along with the book "1809. Thunder on the Danube" by J.H. Gill (thanks Gonsalvo, an excellent recommendation).  

League of Gentlemen Wargamers SYW

Last month Mark D. and I wended our way up to Merry Old Scotland to do battle with the League of Gentleman Wargamers. The theme for the weekend was, apart from drinking, eating and general merrymaking, the Seven Years War.

The multi-table campaign scenario was devised and umpired by Charles Grant. With some amendments, the rules were The Wargame by Charles Grant senior. These, I'm reliably informed, are not 'Old School' rules; they are 'Traditional'. The game was brilliantly organised by Charles and everything went very smoothly.

The game, involving a dozen players and several thousand figures. It lasted from first thing Saturday morning until pack up on Sunday. 

My mission, with my dutiful subordinate Peter N., was to march my Russians westward to aid my allies (Prussians and British / Hannovarians) against the combined might of the French, Austrian and Reichsarmee. My efforts were intolerably delayed by the interventions made by the French under Kevin C. and John D., and I failed miserably.

Can't wait for the next LOGW meeting - it's 1066 and all that!

Special thanks to Steve R. for putting Mark and I up for the weekend. Also to John D. who walked us through the rules, and acted as 'factor totter' at our end of the room for the entire weekend.

Anyway, some shots of the action on the various tables.

A Very British Civil War - LOGW weekend

Belgians, Morris Dancers and the Grenadier Guards rush past Hemingway to face another crisis in Newcastle - you can tell it was cold - they are all wearing coats.

I've returned from yet another thoroughly entertaining game with The League of Gentlemen Wargamers up in the colder reaches of the U.K. The game was a multi-table 'campaign game', the whole representing the north of England up to Berwick and various players were either Scots, Anglican League, Communists, Albertines or British Union of Fascists - I was one of the four players playing the latter and never a game was so well lost! In fact, the BUF were the target of everyone, and who can blame them for that.

Evening all! Communist cavalry, about to get  stuffed by the constabulary. Very pretty unit that, Chris. 

Virtuallyly non of the photos I took came out, so here is a link to Tim's blog, or Bills blog, where they did. 

Tim's blog

Bill's blog

I had a great deal of fun in this game. Except for a brief foray to the east to fight some Albertines (Bill G.) at the start of the two day game, I spent much of my time defending the city of Newcastle. Single-handedly I fought off an Anglican League faction (Angus K.) and Hartlepool Communists (Chris H.) for the rest of the game until Newcastle fell to the Bishop of Durham in the very final turn of the weekend. 

That church in the background is the base of my two faced, conniving, untrustworthy, backstabbing enemy the Bishop of Durham (Angus K.). That jumper belongs to my two faced, conniving, untrustworthy, backstabbing enemy the Hartlepool Communists (Chris H.). That plane is mine and it's about to 'hang another monkey'.

My Grenadier Guards, with support from the constabulary, Morris dancers and Belgians (amongst others) fought to the last man, last bullet, last throw of the dice. I took down the enemy in their droves; at the last count, including the Albertines on day one, I killed 16 units for the loss of only 7. This was largely due to the sterling work done by the Royal Victoria Infirmary which kept depleted units up to strength with troops returning from their sick beds - this was especially true of the Guards who, to a man, must have each been wounded at least three times during the campaign - Angus was definitely hunting bear(skins). 

BUF volunteers, brave but stupid, await the call from Edward VIII. He was unable to make the call because his trip to Balmoral was rudely interrupted by a band of Celtic supporters (Dale S.). 

Mrs. Simpson didn't seem too bothered, she was busy 'doing things' to the Bishop of York (Kieron P.), the eventual winner who, with all the Royals having been killed, and with the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury (machine gunned from the air), would soon find himself crowned King.

Thanks to Colin J. for organising the game, Bill G. for his knowledge of the rules and answering constant questions with such good grace, and Steve R. (of course) for kindly putting me up for the weekend.

Next up, for the LOGW, it will be an old school SYW game organised by Charles G. using rules from The War Game. I think it's planned to be a pan European, multi-table, campaign affair. Should be good......