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Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

I just recently discovered that the email contact form on this web site was not properly forwarding emails to me. I feel awful about this. I’ve always taken great pride in personally answering every letter or email written to me – going back to the days of dot-matrix printers and postage stamps – and, literally, hundreds of people wrote to me and never heard back.

To clarify: if you responded to a post with a comment, I did get an automated message for those and did respond immediately. Only queries using the contact form page on this site did not forward emails to me.

Pretty much all that I’ve been doing for the last three days is writing emails (occasionally taking a break to walk the dog and feed the other animals here). I apologize for having to send out some form letters but the important thing is that you now all have my personal email address. In fact, if you go to the ‘Contact’ page on this site you’ll find my personal email address. Is this a good idea? No. I definitely do not encourage people to post their email addresses on line because you will get spammed. But, I guess, this will be my penance. Mea culpa, me maxima culpa!

Army Editor Released for Beta-testing!

Article about General Staff in Finnish

Using General Staff to Create a Simulation of the Battle of Isandlwana (January 22, 1879)

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We recently asked you for your favorite 18th and 19th century (‘Age of Gunpowder’) battles to be included free for early backers of General Staff (see this link). We don’t want to spoil any surprises, but the Battle of Isandlwana was one of the top vote-getters.

Screen shot of the General Staff Scenario Design Module showing how to edit specific unit type versus unit type combat equations. In this example Blue Light Infantry (Zulu regiments) have been adjusted downward. Click to enlarge.

The Battle of Isandlwana is an especially challenging scenario to simulate because of the difference in technology (the British were armed with Martini-Henry breech-loading rifles while the Zulu warriors carried the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields). Yet, there are ‘Light Infantry’ unit types in both the Red and Blue forces, but clearly there is a very big difference between the Red (British) Light Infantry and the Blue (Zulu) Light Infantry units.

General Staff, which is based on the UMS Wargaming System, has the ability to adjust a unit’s combat firepower versus other unit types (see the above screen capture). In the above image we have set Blue’s Light Infantry (Zulu regiments) with a lower Attack Multiplier representing the Zulu troops lack of muskets and rifles. This matrix is available from the General Staff Scenario Design Module.

Screen capture of the British army Order of Battle for Isandlwana . Click to enlarge.

In the above screen capture from the General Staff Army Design Module we see a portion of the British Order of Battle at Isandlwana. The question is: what should Leadership, Morale and Efficiency be set for each of these units? How good were British commanders? What was the morale of native troops? How efficient were they? We would love to hear your comments.