Sea battles in miniature: A guide to naval wargaming

I read this as a teenager and finally managed to get a copy of my own recently. It is eminently readable and enjoyable. It is an essential for the Naval Wargamer.

Paul Hague's book is a great guide to do-it-yourself wargaming. If you want play a naval battle without all the extras and buying a pre-published version, Paul can show you the way. I use it for Dungeons and Dragons when I need a naval battle and just adjust the rules to fit the game and events. It is a great resource and gives you just the right level of detail to play a battle without much more than some ship models (the ones on the cover are painted balsa, cardboard, toothpicks!) and a few miniatures. This is the classic hands-on gaming book. MRW

A delightful book with suitable rules for learned, well read gentlemen to employ in the purpose of pushing miniature ships from all eras around the living room floor and invoking simulated combat while enjoying the company of other similarly minded people and quaffing a few beers. Or is that quaffing a few beers and pushing miniature ships around the living room. Doesn't matter. Sign me up.Chap 1. About Naval Wargaming. Not comprehensive, but adequate to set up the rest of the book.Chap 2. Equipment for Naval Wargaming. Pencil, paper, a few cardboard cutouts, some dice, and miniature ships. It can very inexpensive. Taking your wife out to dinner as compensation for disarraying the parlor will cost you more.Chap 4. Ancient galley warfare: sails, oars, archers, marines, crew energy, ramming, repair, oar raking, boarding, supporting sinking ships, bolt throwing engines, stone throwing engines and crew moral.Chap 5. The Battle of Thestos c 200 BC.Chap 6. Napoleonic Naval Warfare: cannon, broadsides, boarding, striking, collisions, wind direction changes, wind strength changes, movement rules relative to wind, heaving-to and wearing.Chap 7. The Battle of Ushant, 1795Chap 8. The Ironclad Period, 1865-1885: Great armored mastodons belching fire and smoke and destructive projectiles and occasionally ramming each other.Chap 9. The Battle of Hellespont, 1881Chap 10. The Dreadnought Period: the scale increases to 1:18000 and we get torpedoes, turrets, concentration of fire, submarines, magazine explosions, directors, conning towers, propeller shafts, smoke, and mine fields.Chap 11. The Battle of Texel, 1916Chap 12. Other Periods: The middle ages, the renaissance, the armada, the Dutch wars and the 18th century, the Russo-Japanese war, the Second World War, the American civil war,Chap 13. Campaigns: maps, secret movement, weather, repair of damage, siege of Hagage, The war in Ireland-1702, an 18th century trade war, war in the far East-1880, The Baltic project-first world war, the first world war in the North Sea.