VCOW 2026

The Virtual Conference of Wargamers (VCOW) started during lockdown in 2020 and was so successful it has persisted as an annual event in winter as a supplement to the main summer conference. Here is the general session list. Some are open to all attendees to just turn up, some need to be booked but all are run via Zoom and Discord.

The VCOW 2026 session list is above, but that image is a bit hard to read, so here is a summary.

Friday

• Virtual Battlefield Tour – Defence of the Realm 2026
• Welcome & Introduction
• Battle of Britain II 2026
• The Peninsular War
• Solitaire to Multi Player
• The Eagle’s Den

Saturday

• Tactical Wargame ‘Accuracy’
• When Governments Play
• The Iron Curtain Descends
• 1066
• The Coral Sea
• The Omega Men
• Nuclear Wargames of Cold War 1
• Of AIs and Metaverses
• Eagle’s Flight
• Beneath the Med

Sunday

• Practical Game Implementation
• If We Dare…
• US Army Wargaming
• Firearms in Popular British Music

Conference Closes

Some of those game titles may sound a bit familiar, as we've played them already on our regualr Tuesday night sessions! I gave those a miss so other people could enjoy them. I'd also picked up a bug on my African travels and was feeling quite rough, so didn't want to commit to any booked sessions. 

Despite not being very well, I attended several sessions though, first up was Micheal D'Alessandros excellent Virtual Battlefield Tour of the UKs air defences. A mixture of virtual trips around radar sites, control centres and gun sites from WW1 and WW2 and an overview of the current critical national infrastructure, air defences and likely enemy attack options.

It also included a consideration of situation when the UK was last under sustained cruise and ballistic missile attack - 1944/45, comparisons with readiness and resilience then and now.

I thought it was a fabulous session, very interesting and thought provoking and with links to tons of (public domain) material on the current situation. I'm frankly amazed that the RAF has as many fighters as it does. 

On Saturday I attended Nick Riggs session on Tactical Wargame Accuracy. Nick had posted two different surveys around various wargames groups and forums and this session was a summary of the results. Some of my research gular readers may even have participated in these. 

There was brief summary of the research aims of the surveys. I'll skip over a lot of the slides, and just pick out one or two.

And (many) charts showing the results. This was one of the headline ones.

And its converse about what they get wrong, with some write in stuff too.

Areas prioritised for improvement.

And some not very surprising conclusions. I thought the whole thing was very interesting, although obviously different people will have different ideas what a 'tactical' wargame is about. As I've often said on the blog, personally I think it is one of the hardest level of warfare to game due to both the intense fog of war and confusion, as well as very variable psychological impacts. Once you get to battalions and above it is much more about number crunching and eg the DSTL force ratio/posture/success tables are aimed at battalion/brigade sized engagements.

In the afternoon it was time for a cheery session, 'The Omega Men', a discussion panel around post apocalyptic games which become increasingly popular from the 1970s. 

This sort of thing = Twilight 2000, Aftermath, Car Wars etc. We had a series of short presentations followed by breakout group discussions and feeback sessions around particular topics eg what was the appeal?

I like the mix of presentation and interaction in these sorts of sessions, but I have to confess I've actually played very few of these games at all - maybe Car Wars and Zombies. I prefer to get my post apoc fix from books, TV, films and playing computer games, particularly the outstanding Fallout series. It was interesting to reflect on the enduring popularity of these games though, presumably the result of most of being fed a never ending diet of disaster films/TV shows and growing up the shadow of the Bomb and climate breakdown.

Omega Men was followed by an even more cheery session on nuclear wargaming! This covered both hobby and professional games over several decades. Dr Curry had actually given this talk in the US as a prelude to a session on modern (as in current) nuclear wargaming, in a world which is rapidly moving away from MAD etc.  

This was one of the hobby games I didn't have, although have (and still have) quite a few nuclear wargames including the classic 'Ballistic Missile'. The professional games were perhaps more interesting, although I've played a few of the declassified ones and it was nice to get namechecked for my contribution to the re-published '1956 British Army Tactical Wargame' - which isn't tactics but operations, and includes tactical nuclear weapons.

A lot of the professional games were committee/decision type games although some were technical ones around strike planning. During the session we were presented with some of the decision points in the games to work on as groups eg in 1961, the DDR shoots down a NATO cargo plane in the Berlin air corridor. What is your response? An interesting problem as 1961 is pre Berlin Wall, there is no Kremlin hotline and NATO powers didn't recognise the DDR government.

I particularly enjoyed the missile allocation sub-game with missile availability and reliability rates, how many (nuclear) missiles do you allocate to each of 20 targets to ensure their destruction. You can try that at home, missile availability 75% and reliability 75% (which is wildly optimistic based on test firings of Polaris).

It was a really good session, and the very short group activities which interspersed it helped to break it up and made it very engaging.

A bit of lighter relief was Nick Riggs 'Practical Wargame Implementation', which was essentially a demo of how to set up a game from scratch on Table Top Simulator. it was something I vaguely looked at during lockdown as a means to run remote games, and tbh, setting up something from scratch looks horrendous. Fortunately, there are zillions of pre-done games which other peopl have made, which saves a lot of hard work, and the user interface for actually manipulating the pieces is very nice indeed.

I think for around 15 quid, that is well worth a pop.

I also attended James Langhams session on US Army Wargaming, 1948 to 2019. I'm already familiar with the some of the older games which were essentially TEWTS or staff rides (often across ACW battlefields!), but the umpires guide is very handy as it includes umpire notes for resolving combat etc.

The core of the discussion was around the pros and cons of the 1970s era Dunn Kempf rules, largely based on the modern WRG set, as well as touching on 'Firefight' and the Canadian Army's 'Contact'. I do have a copy of an operational set of US Cold War rules too, whose title escapes me right now.

The core of James argument was that the rules were overly focussed on technology, with little account taken of quality and command issues. Given DK are based on WRG, that is entirely reasonable. Their big strength was that it gave individual units the ability to fight out hypothetical engagements in their actual area of operations using tables modelled on their assigned areas in Germany, which they hadn't really had before.

There was a really good discussion around this one, although it is possible we may have got a bit side tracked as to when NATO noticed the T62 had been superceded by the T64 and T72. Interestingly the 1978 British Army Tactical Wargame was still putting Chieftans up against T62s, so it wasn't just the Americans....

That was followed by a more light hearted examination of firearms references in popular music from the 1940s to the twenty first century. My humble contribution being 'Armalite Rifle' by the Gang of Four, and I was cursing as I belatedly remember the Clash referencing both Thompson SMGs ('Tommy Gun') and Stens, as in the line 'Sten guns in Knighstbridge' from '1977'.

That was a great (virtual) conference and I'm really glad I could attend, particularly after missing COW 2025.

I have been to.... Mauritius

 We fancied a bit of winter sun, and were drawn to Mauritius after our younger daughter had her honeymoon there, so I've been away for a few weeks. As ever I'll try not to bore you with too many holiday snaps and instead focus on things of historical interest.

We stayed in Chamaral in the southwest corner of the island, which is still largely mountainous tropical jungle (the rest of the island is largely given over to sugar cane production) . This the view from the mountaintop near our hotel, which we slogged up in 30 degree heat and 80% humidity for the excellent view. That big rock in the distance is Le Morne Brabant, tucked in behind the coral reefs. 

Le Morne Brabant from sea level. It was a holdout for escaped slaves on the island prior to the abolition of slavery. Originally colonised by the French, Britain captured Mauritius in 1810 although French (and Creole) is still very much the lingua franca.

We stayed in Chamarel for a few days and then relocated to the capital, Port Louis (named after Louis XIII iirc)

Port Louis features a combined natural and military history museum!

It is pretty easy to spot thanks to the large mortars on the grass outside. 4.2" perhaps?

The military museum is on the upper floor, and features various uniforms like this WW1 one.

And this WW2 one. This was typical of the uniforms worn by the Mauritian defences forces. 35,000 Mauritians served in WW2. Who knew? The majority (27,000) were pioneers.

But many of then weren't. Being French speakers, some ended up employed by the SOE.

There was a nice array of 1/35 scale models.

And some sections on Napoleonic naval warfare.

The natural history museum wasn't huge, but inevitably featured a section on the Dodo.

Including this rather nice reproduction. The museum has some of the few remaining complete skeletons.

Up on a hill in Port Louis is Fort Adelaide, constructed by the British in the 1830s after the island was captured from the French. It is a fair old slog up the hill as it is quite steep.

But is is pretty spacious inside. This is the main courtyard. Even though it is cloudy weather the day was very hot and sultry. Not much fun for the garrison I imagine.

There are various random muzzle loading artillery pieces scattered around. I do like a metal gun carriage.

On top of the bastion is the site of a swivelling gun carriage. The post in excellent condition considering its age, location and weatehr conditions (the island is often hit by cyclones). The carriage wheels would have run around the raised lip below the parapet.

This lengthy battery faces the hills inland, probably its most vulnerable spot, although the fort is in a very commanding position over the city and port.

Courtyard from the ramparts. You can see the hills behind.

After a week in Mauritius, we took a cruise across to South Africa via Reunion and Madagascar.

Reunion was fairly remarkable as it is a French overseas territory, so it is in the EU and treated as metropolitan France. It was settled as an alternative to Madagascar, which proved to be very difficult to subdue, and was originally under the inhabited iirc. 

This battery is along the waterfront in the capital, St Denis, near the site of the original settlement in a natural harbour. 

This rather magnificent monument commemorates General de Gaulles visit in the 1960s.

But really, you could be in any town in the south of France. This is the Great War memorial outside the town  hall. The main difference between Reunion and mainland France are the enormous volcanos on the island. The ones in the centre are dormant, and the active site has moved to the eastern coast. It erupts fairly regularly. The sea is 4000m deep here, so you can imagine how huge the volcano is

After Reunion we had a brief stop in Madagascar, docking at Port Dauphin. Site of the first French colony, the Dauphin in question being the future Louis XIV. Due to a rebellion, Mauritius was a no travel zone until fairly recently, but a military coup has restored some order.

This is Fort Dauphin near the site of the original settlement. It is used as family accommodation for the nearby military base.

The old fort walls are still in evidence. 

It has dominating views across the bay (similar on the other side as it is on a peninsular).

There are still some surviving bastions with rusty cannon placed in them.

There is an interesting museum distributed across some of the buildings on the site. In this case a dugout canoe and fishing gear.

Weapons and other artefacts. The French initially  evacuated Madagascar after fierce local resistance.

Various types of woven goods.

Accommodation blocks in the old fort.

Fort Dauphin commemorative plaque. 

I know I said I wouldn't put up any general holiday snaps, but we were in Madagascar so Lemurs....

They were all very interesting places, although it was very much a whistle stop visit to Reunion and Madagascar (you can hardly do an island the size of a small continent justice in one day!). I'd recommend Mauritius to anyone, lovely place and direct flights from the UK. 

Reunion has no less than four direct flights a day from Paris which also makes it attractive. It has amazing hiking trails and there is a large off grid community living inside one of the old craters, who are supplied by helicopter. 

 Madagascar? Well, one of our friends lived out there for a year working on development projects, and as one of the poorest countries in the world (most of the population live on less than a dollar a day), it is much as you'd expect. We didn't feel unsafe, but the grinding poverty was everywhere, and pretty miserable.

Devils in the Dark

 In a change from the Normandy hedgerows, our plucky US Paras are now in sunny Sicily in 1943, although perhaps not very sunny as it is night time. This is another Fireball Forward scenario converted to Tigers at Minsk, and originally it was published in one of the Skirmish Campaigns book. The map in FF seems to have been lifted straight from the original scenario book.

As part of the Allied invasion of Sicily, the 82nd Airborne dropped at night prior to the main landings, tasked with taking various key objectives inland. One of them was a fortified winery, held by Italian coastal defence troops.

Battlefield from the south, the winery is the three hexes of tall buildings in the middle. There are a few orchards and some low scrub around, the latter only gives cover to stationary units and doesn't block LOS.

The winery is heavily fortified with no less than five pillboxes, connecting trenches and lengths of barbed wire all around. Fortunately it is night and most of the defenders are in the buildings asleep! The pillboxes have a 180 degree arc of fire only, indicated by the position of the firing slit. 

A slightly more atmospheric view from ground level. The winner is the last side to have sole control of the winery. I made the bunkers ages ago and have used them in one or two games but it is nice to get them out again.

The game lasts 60 minutes and the sun comes up after 45 minutes, until then visibility is one hex.

The defenders, there seem to be an awful lot of them.

Two Italian defence platoons each of two rifle squads and an MG squad, plus an MG platoon with two fiurther MG teams. I've used Breda 20mm AA for the latter as I'm a bit short of Italian tripod MGs.

There is also an attached German liaison team, done as a German rifle section. The Italians are poor quality and the Germans average, force morale is 3 chips.

The mighty 82nd All American. The drop was complete chaos and only around 45 paras assembled for the attack. Here they are done as five rifle squads in two platoons, plus a .30 cal MG and a 60mm mortar team. These guys are all superior troops and have a force morale of four.

The Italians all set up in either the winery or pillboxes. The must put at least one MG team up in a pillbox, but tbh I cant see why you'd bother setting up anywhere except in the main building. So for this run I did the hedgehog defence, three MGs and four squads in the main building, a fourth squad and an MG in the bottom right pillbox. I plan to run it back to safety once the fighting starts. 

I guess the alternative would be to garrison four of the pillboxes with an MG and a squad each leaving one in reserve, and occupy the interval trenches once the shooting starts. That alternative plan looks like a really good way of losing the winery to me. Against a day attack, it would work fine, but not a sneaky night attack. 

The US troops can come on anywhere, but if they enter from the east or south there is a 15 minute delay, so they simply rushed the first line of fortifications using a double move as they are out of sight. Historically they overran an MG position here, captured the gun and used it against the defenders.

That is a scenario option (the US can capture MGs) , but the Italians have hidden all their MGs well out of harms way. 

The Italians know where the US are now, so redeploy, occupying the lower building with a squad and MG too. The pillbox garrison come running back to home.

The US don't have time to waste so drop 60mm mortar smoke in the scrub next to the winery and simply charge into the cover of the smoke. The Italian MG guns down one squad but another takes its place,

The Americans rush the northwest corner of the winery covered by the .30 cal.

And after a brutal fight, take it. Another US squad goes down in the fighting, but the Italians are pushed back. They have a number of pinned squads but none lost so far. The Italians are having problems with stacking limits, which is why two MG teams have ended up with the DAK guys in the bottom building hex.

In real life the entire garrison surrendered at this point, but that wouldn't be much of a game would it?

The garrison pours point blank fire into the Americans. Even though some Italian squads are pinned, the fire is devastating as the US are so bunched up,

Another US squad goes down. Only two left and just one morale chip!

The Paras keep going (view from the north to see better) - they conduct another assault covered by the .30 cal and drive the Italians out of another hex, routing no less than two entire sections. The Italian morale drops to one chip.

There is nothing for it but to counterattack, the DAK assault the Paras covered by all the Italian MGs.

And overrun the Paras! The US force breaks and the .30 cal and 60mm fall back into the scrub. The last Para squad is still hanging on though.....

Using the cover of the buildings, the last Para squad takes on the Italian MG teams. MGs don't do well in close combat...

And the Italians are driven back to the outhouse.

In an astonishing feat of arms, the Paras then drive the Germans out of the northeast corner! The defenders are in disarray with numerous units pinned and/or out of command. It is nearly dawn now.

As the sun comes up the Italians reoccupy the southern part of the winery and launch a desperate counterattack on the Paras.

Supported by the 60mm and .30 cal, the Paras managed to throw the assault back although all the defenders are pinned in combat.

As the clock ticks over 60 minutes, the US were the last side with sole occupation of the winery so they win! Gosh that was a glorious fight, the Paras won with 80% casualties and the Italian morale never actually broke, they just kept losing close combats.

Well that was a really tough battle, when we played the Skirmish Campaigns version the US were roundly defeated and I'm not surprised as it is very difficult proposition for the attackers. I'm glad quality triumphed over quantity and position in the end, but it was a very tough fight for the Paras unlike the real battle where the Italians basically just gave up after losing one MG team. As I said in the commentary, it wouldn't be much of a game if they did though. Well done to the 82nd for pulling that off.

That was so tense I didn't have any particular inclination to fight it again, partly because I dont think it is tactically interesting. I suppose at some point I might try a perimeter defence and see how that pans out, but the Axis were pretty unlucky to lose and I think the hedgehog defence is the optimum one given the victory conditions.