PBEM / MBX Wargaming

We should let everyone know that people who are involved in active wargames should not discuss the specifics of their activities here. This is to avoid compromising that ongoing game and/or letting something slip (even inadvertently) to the "enemy".

Bill Jennings' "War in 2010" MBX is picking up steam, and looks set to be a very interesting wargame indeed. Anyone else around here (besides me) crazy enough to be involved ?

https://discord.gg/t7pekGk in case anyone wants to join a fully public Harpoon 5 Multiplayer discord server. I can help you get to know Simplot2 and how to use it for double-blind games using the Discord channel. We have successfully used this method for both play by post (similar to PBEM style, submit orders, then update Simplot2 then show images then submit next turn orders) and real-time games. Discord offers both voice and video comms too for the realtime games or occasional "team" chats for Red or Blue teams.

Now that this is out, would anyone be interested in one using SimPlot 2? I'm not going to referee, but I'd be up for playing something.

Excerpt from the Executive Summary: Global Shipping Game report (PDF)

Morning guys, well it is morning in South Africa right now I am an avid follower of the Admiralty Trilogy games, okay to be honest, CaS and Harpoon...but players from this neck of the woods is few and far between. I want to propose a small PBEM game for Harpoon, a very small simple scenario to be played via PBEM. I have not run a game before, neither in person nor PBEM, so this will be a learning curve for me. I was thinking...maybe something small like "The Day Before The Morning After" (SS/SSN vs SSBN) from High Tide or something similar. Would anybody be interested in something like that? Juhan

For the next PBEM, I am proposing a variant of the Red Star Over The Gulf - Divide and Conquer scenario from Naval Sitrep #48. The Soviet forces are two escorts and three merchants. Iranian forces are two warships and maybe a few aircraft. That means we could have 2 Soviet (blue) players and 2 or 3 Iranian (red) players. The scenario will take place in the middle of the Persian Gulf, with the Blue objective to run to Kuwait to deliver war cargo, and the Red objective is, of course, to stop them. We could build this scenario with Blue side selecting their escorts (within reason--from ships that were actually in the gulf at the time). This will be known to Red s…

Gents, I am looking for two players for a PBEM scenario using SimPlot and SimPlot Viewer. The objective is to test using SimPlot as a referee tool and SimPlot Viewer as a player tool. Players will need SimPlot Viewer v0.9.1 and the Persian Gulf map. Although the scenario will only use a small portion of the map, I want to test using the map feature of Viewer. The scenario is from the Red Star Over the Gulf article in Naval Sitrep #48. The article contains several Soviet vs. Iran scenarios, and if this test goes well then I would like to play other (larger) scenarios later. If you are interested, then please reply here. Kevin Edit: You don't need a …

I would like to run a PBEM game based on the Gulf Escort Deja Vu scenario from the H4 Quickstart guide. The game will be played out with SimPlot v1.6.0.0. This will give me a chance to evaluate SimPlot for multiplayer use. My own in-house experiments show promise, but now it's time to play for real. Turns will be played by me until either a new detection is made or we reach a decision point (no set time frame per night--it will be "event driven"). I will then communicate to the appropriate player (sending a new turn file and ask for new orders). It will be inevitable that a player may not get an email from me every night. You will definitely get one when somethi…

How time flies ... Ten years since that massive MBX Global Thunder. Link to the ENN news page that covered some of the major events of the wargame: ENN coverage

Anyone interested?

I won't be doing this for a few months, but I'm planning to do a Harpoon 4 game over at Myth-Weavers. The scenario I intend to do- after a quick one from "High Tide"- will be an epic recreation of the assault on the Varyag and Novorossiysk groups from Barrett Tillman's The Sixth Battle. Anyone interested?

Hello everyone. I am new to the forum and am wondering what aids there are for playing Harpoon/CaS/FG&DN by email. Back in the old days, I had programmed using Quick BASIC a game assist program to keep track of various platforms. It did quite a bit, allowing the game moderator to input the orders from the players and then generate search result reports for the players. It kept track of location, heading, speed, depth or altitude, sensor status, damage and also tracked the turns when missiles or torpedoes would strike. Sadly, I am no longer in possession of the program diskettes nor the energy or brain power to recreate it. Surely something similar could be d…

Well worth a look, including after action reports and game plots ... Full article here: Dance of the Vampires

CyberBoard, a free tool for aiding PBEM games. I haven't tried it out as yet but thought I'd share anyway in case someone else has words to say about this one. http://cyberboard.brainiac.com/screensh.html

As this was conducted as research for my upcoming RP, Carrier, I'm not going to reveal what the precise aircraft types were. All I'll say was that BLUFOR consisted of four 4.5th gen heavy fighters and two strategic aircraft, while REDFOR consisted of six 4th gen light fighters. REDFOR had bounced BLUFOR after hacking into the country's air defence system, but BLUFOR spotted the attack in time to take evasive action and pickle drop tanks, so neither side started with an advantage. In two turns, both strategic aircraft were down with only one REDFOR fighter, although the crews managed to escape. BLUFOR took its revenge on REDFOR, killing a total of three fighters an…

From Naval War College Review, Spring 2001 issue War Gaming in the Information Age (PDF)

This is a follow on poll from the previous, more general poll found here. Please reply to the poll only if you have an intention (however slight) of being involved in the wargame, should it happen. A couple (Red Beach and Kola Strike) are drawn from High Tide, and I've tossed in a couple of new ideas just in case folks might want to pursue something a little off the beaten path. For convenience sake, a bit of a primer on what those H4/HT choices entail ... Red Beach, circa 16 May 1988 This is somewhat of a follow on to the scenario David and Goliath, which is being gamed right now under management of HG member Silent Hunter UK. STANAVFORLANT survivors …

This boxed game is supposed to be an intro to the Second world War at Sea series from Avalanche Press. I ordered it last week and was waiting for me upon my arrival home after being away for a few days. Nice components...eg counters tactical map, and two ajoining operation map segments. Series Rule book appears to be a decently prepared photo copy as well as the game specific rules/scenarios. Scenarios include two of the shorter "Battle" Scenarios - "Night Action" and "Convoy Defense". The Operational Scenarios call for a "Battle of the Coral Sea 1-10 May 1942" scenario of 60 Turns (Each Turn is 4 Hours), and the full blown "Coral Sea Extended Campaign, 1-30 May 1…

Shapeways New interest is being generated in modern miniatures. Some are being created in both 1:2400 and 1:6000, in particular 1:6000 Modern Chinese PLAN. I have a set of 1:6000 PLAN Type 052 DD, Type 054A FF and Type 071 Amphib with hovercraft. I'll try to post pics once I receive them and get them painted up. We'll see. There is also a 1:6000 Naval yahoo group for those interested. Designer is open to Dreadnaughts as well. 1:6000 Naval