Two Words, One Answer.
naval clash
 In Harm's Way: A Napoleonic Naval Roleplaying Game $24.61 In Harm's Way is all about being a naval officer and gentleman during the Napoleanic Wars, designed to emulate the naval fiction of Forster, O'Brian, Parkinson, Lambdin, and others rather than the actual history. In Harm's Way uses the StarCluster 2.5 System * Play British, American, or French characters. * Players play three characters, an Officer, a Warrant Officer, and a Seaman * Honor and Practicality adds to your chance of success due to your reputation. * Interest and Notice: You accumulate Notice and add your Interest to advance in rank. You're born with Interest, but in order to get Notice, you must burn with zeal and throw yourself headlong in harm's way. * Competitive Play: There can be only one Captain. One hero. Is it going to be you? * Avocations: You're an officer, sure - so are all your fellow officers - but you are also an intelligence agent.  Clash of The Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II $16.00 Tillman's book on the Marianas Turkey Shoot has great research and great details. It covers the massive air sea battle that marked the end of Imperial Japan's naval aviator forces and I just didn't like the writing style. Tillman assumes a strange level of knowledge by the reader. For example he refers to Essex class Carriers as "the DC-3 of Aircraft carriers" without explaining what a DC-3 is. He used the term `CAP' or "CAPPED" frequently without explaining that they mean a Combat Air Patrol. He frequently rattles off the heading for a plane such as "they headed out on course 50" without explaining what that means You feel he is writing to people with a certain level of knowledge but then he goes into detail about how Carriers are built, the need for wind to launch planes, the need for fuel oil and how radar operated. This is such an odd mix it makes you question to whom he was writing. If you already know what a CAP or a DC-3 is you probably know the ships need fuel oil and have wooden decks. The pacing is odd. After more than 100 pages of set up, as you think you are getting to the meat of the battle "it was the start of what would be a 14 hour day" he suddenly breaks off for a long explanation of carrier construction and tactics. The idea is so that the reader will know what is going on but this should have been the start of the book, giving the reader an education in carriers so they can understand what is to come. Not a sudden break off for basics just as you think the action is starting. One thing desperately needed by the book is at least one good map. there is one early on showing the sea between the Marianas and Philipines but something showing the relative places of the different fleets as the battle progressed would have been invaluable. The opposing leaders suffered the fog of war, the reader shouldn't have to. One element that I cannot put down to just a matter of taste is how he handles Navy officers. Tillman seems to be a hopeless snob. He loves the professional officers who passed out of Annapolis. Indeed he can't seem to name an officer without adding as a suffix the man's class, but he doesn't give any example that they were superior to the non-graduates or that non-graduates were strikingly inferior. He marks them as separate and as we know "separate is inherently inferior." Without such proof this is a grave disservice to all of the many war time commissioned officers who served in the war. Tillman has done his research. He has compiled it and tries to give as much credit as possible to all parties, focusing not just on the Admirals and the pilots but also to the officers who direct the planes to their targets and the `lowly' supply ships who were invaluable. He uses very flowery phrases in the middle of spaces which seem badly out of place in a book written recently but would have seen more in place in a book written in the 1950 and seem to me to be quaint today. But this is clearly just a matter of taste. He wants the reader to know this was the biggest, baddest, greatest battle to date and the United States was the very best there was and we were great and...you get the idea. It seems overblown to me. Let the acts speak for themselves and you don't need to impress the reader with hyperbole. The jingoism also is a little unbalanced. A japanese ship is said to be only 6 months old and it is, to the author, an example of how unprepared the Japanese fleet is. An American ship only 6 months old is an example of America's great industrial output. Similarly the failure of the Japanese to bomb American carriers is regarded as the excellent combination of fighter cover and anti-aircraft fire. But the myriad of near misses, meaning they didn't hit either, by American fliers is just the chance of war. I just find the imbalance, at best, distracting. This book does have the facts and if you like Tillman's writing style then this is a great book for your collection. No ifs ands or buts. Unfortunately I found it too cluttered with jingoistic styling's to really enjoy it. It will sit on my shelf as a reference book, but not as a good read.  The Naval SITREP Magazine - Issue #36 $6.49 The journal of the Admirality Trilogy game system, this issue covers: New scenarios for all three games Sensor technology development A special flanker feature Many new products |
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