"Anyone grow up in a family like this?" Topic

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Mom, Dad, Brother and Sis all crawling on the floor playing a naval minis game.

Dave

Nope, can't say that my dad thought very much about the whole toy soldier thing, considered it a big waste of time.

Played Panzer Leader with my Dad a few times in the mid-70s, and various games with my (younger) brother circa 1980. But nothing like the whole family.

Rob

Fantastic find there Dave! most importantly, what battle are they re-creating – Jutland?

Some interesting playing aides being used here:

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wonder what the rule set was?

Finally, this look says it all….we've all been there:

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"I'm sure I've got Line of sight…"

I Don't think it is Jutland. Looks like an Argentine Ravidavia class battleship to the right of Mom and a Brazilian Mina Gerias at the end of the line of three at the top, and maybe another in front of Sis.

Yup…. Ravidavia…

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Definitely some sort of South American battle, Brazil vs Argentina.

Probably Fletcher Pratt's group. Those sure look like the aiming arrows described in his book. And if you check this picture:

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"Sis" is actually an adult. Pratt's wife was an enthusiastic player, and the book indicates that sometimes other wives joined in.

Dave, and SteelonSand/others – how did you find these images? Is there a Life magazine article associated with them? I use google lots, but not the images links…

Thanks
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Tim

I have seen the photograph before, under the title of a Fletcher Pratt game.

A good clear photograph too!

I wonder what happened to all those models?

Great photo! Nothing like that happened in my family other than the time my mum influenced the outcome of a plastic army men battle when I was seven by hoovering up some of the tans…

The ships are huge. What scale were they and who made them at that time?

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Dan

Actually this battleship almost looks like it is made of wood:

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as the hull looks like it was carved and then sanded.

Dan

Mal,

Funny you ask about those models… A friend of mine in the Connecticut Game Club (USA) owned them. He recently passed and his kids gave some of them to a Navy/Marine museum to put together an exhibit. But I should add that the ones he had --and there were many, many, were not up the quality standards of some in this photo. I see if I can get some of guys who ended up with little pieces of our naval war gaming history to add their two cents…

- Brandon

Dan,

A friend just wrote to say that he thinks they are 1:600 scale and they are all donated now. The last batch went to Annapolis…

- Brandon

There's another picture here which looks like more of an academic setting: link

Wyatt

Yes, amazing pics – my personal fave – link

The photographs are very reminiscent of the hand-drawn caricatures that illustrate the Fletcher Pratt rule book.

Rick

@ Tim/ Ditto Bird: article in blog post about where to find these archive images:

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Actualy, there's a distinct possibility I'm related to Fletcher Pratt. Not only is my last name Pratt. But Fletcher looks almost exactly like my dad!

Who knows??

Oh – and when I was a kid I was fighting Waterloo & Gettysburg against my dad, learning small unit tactics, and practicing soviet aircraft and tank recognition. It was interesting growing up with an intel officer as a dad.

Another prominent naval wargamer in the CGC added this:
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They look very similar – though the one close-up of a cage-mast BB does not look like anything I say in the collection.

Andy's [e.g. Fletcher Pratt's] ships were roughly 1:1200 I'd say, maybe 1:1000. Hard to be precise since they are not necessarily accurate scale models, but convey the major spotting differences of the classes. By the way, years ago he gave me a huge box of charts, rules, and articles. I'll dig it out tonight and remind myself what's in there. "out of sight, out of mind…"

(And for the record, from personal experience I personally would say they were much closer to 1/1000 than 1/600, the latter being too big to use outside of a gymnasium type setting. – Brandon)

Update from the last member of the CGC to handle these ships:
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The scale of the ships that Pratt used was between 1:600-1:1000 ~. I can state this as a near fact as until about a week ago I was in possession of the collection that Pratt owned and played with. They did not conform to any set scale and were all hand made. You can tell by the ships that the bigger ships were probably closer to 1:700 1:800 and the smaller ships were 1:900 1:1000. I think this was to enable them to be identified at the distances these games were played at. I do remember playing it once and the engagement was at 13 ft for most of the battle. I will tell you that MOST were not detailed at all besides what would be needed to distinguish class from the silhouette.

These ships came into my possession after the passing of a very dear friend of Brandon, Byron B., and myself. He used to play Pratt's rules with the same group of people Pratt played with before he passed. The ships went from Pratt to another gentlemen in that group who's name I do not know. He was a doctor in New York. When he passed the ships were passed to our friend Andy Zartolas. When he passed the ships were in limbo in my possession for about two years until the decision was made with the family to donate them.

They are currently on there way to the naval academy to be used as display pieces. There are a few that went to the Naval Museum in Newport RI as well.

I attached a few pictures of the ships in the boxes. As you can see Andy wasn't a master of storage systems. But was near unbeatable on the gaming table.

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