"Proposed Naval Reforms for The Miniatures Page" Topic

Hendrik van Minderhout: The Battle of Lowestoft, 13 June 1665, showing HMS Royal Charles and the Eendracht

It seems that naval gaming is under-represented here on TMP; certainly the various naval boards are a bit spotty. There have been numerous proposals to sort them out, to which I add one more.

Proposed Naval Reforms for The Miniatures Page

Galleys – This board should link to the Ancients, Medieval, and Renaissance boards.

Pirates – Probably fine as it is. I know that sometimes people want to game "pulp era" or modern pirates, but in those cases, they usually post on the respective boards.

Age of Sail – Replaces (or exists in tandem with) the Napoleonic Naval board; may be found under Renaissance, 18th Century, and Napoleonic boards.

Ironclads – It needs to be moved from the American Civil War boards to the 19th Century boards (lots of countries had ironclads).

Naval Gaming 1890-1929- I suggest an earlier start date to encompass the pre- Dreadnought era; admittedly, the division is still somewhat arbitrary.

World War II Naval – Fine as it is.

World war II Naval Painting – Consider broadening its purview to encompass the Great War.

Modern Naval – Fine as it is.

Thanks for reading; please respond below if you have any interest in naval wargaming. I am not trying to make more work for TMP editorial staff, but I believe that these changes will spur greater interest in naval games within our community.

Ron

Ironclads – It needs to be moved from the American Civil War boards to the 19th Century boards (lots of countries had ironclads).

Why can't it be in both?

Re: Rebelyell2006

Of course, it can. It should not, however, be solely under the ACW boards. Thanks for your suggestion.

Ron

I still dislike " galleys"- which is like "biplanes", except that it encompasses 3,000 years.

I'm for breaking it by "ancient", "medieval THROUGH Renaissance" (otherwise, the medieval naval board will be a ghost town), then AOS.

This breaks down mostly evenly by category, except that the med-Renn naval appears on both parent categories.

Everything else sounds great.

I enthusiastically support all ideas on this page, at least so far!

TVAG

Sounds good.

Perhaps Napoleonic Age of Sail, and Age of Sail prior to that, since the rules and tactics used are apparently quite different.

Cant we have a naval board and then divide it up there.

We have had various talks on this subject before:

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In addition, I have discussed this matter via PM with Our Dear Leader. The reaction seems to be there are some technical issues with the board structure than what to us appear simple and logical changes seem to The Dear Leader something equivalent in difficulty to attempt to climb Kangchenjunga at the beginning of the 20thC with hemp rope whilst wearing tweeds.

I doubt this will get a vote, though I hope it does.

I would certainly vote in favour of the changes.

Ironclads – It needs to be moved from the American Civil War boards to the 19th Century boards (lots of countries had ironclads).

I agree with Rebelyell2006 – it needs to be in both. I'm happy it now is.

- Ix

You have my support.

ok with me.

I think the name "Modern Naval Discussion (1946 to 2005) " needs to be renamed, perhaps to "Modern Naval Discussion (1946 to Present)

Climb Kangchenjunga? Very Swallows and Amazons…

Add The Far East to that mix, as there is literally over 2,000 years of naval and riverine warfare history that operated in isolation from the West, a world unto itself to be perfectly frank:

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Definitely a world unto itself, and there's a great deal of "undiscovered seas" for wargaming IMHO…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I like the new lists

Joe

Add The Far East to that mix, as there is literally over 2,000 years of naval and riverine warfare history that operated in isolation from the West

Are you suggesting we should have one or more Far East naval boards? I'm pretty sure that wouldn't accomplish anything except to hide the few (if any) posts ever made about the subject in a forum drowned by crickets and tumbleweeds.

A quick Google search for TMP posts about turtle ships turns up some previous discussions about turtle ships cross-posted to Galleys, which seems perfectly appropriate to me.

- Ix

Strongly oppose all changes proposed. You are Straightening Up The Deck Chairs, when you could be letting Bill finish TMP 4.0…

sergeant
I suppose you are sarcastic aren't you?
or else; finishing TMP 4.0 ??? LOL

"… these changes will spur greater interest in naval games within our community…"

I doubt it. It seems that people are either interested in in Naval Warfare or not. As an Aerial Aficionado (well in my dreams) I wish others enjoyed it as much as I do but… they don't.

Others' burning interest in some periods/Genres contrasts with my "Meh" response to those (WW2 land combat on the East Front, Napoleonics, ACW, naval warfare in general (except as targets for airplanes,)and Gothic Horror,) and makes me believe re-structuring the Naval Boards might (or not) make for efficiencies in posting but I very highly doubt you can build interest in Naval Warfare (any more than Aerial Warfare) just by restructuring the message boards here.

I can't remember if I have ever posted to a Naval Board (probably? Maybe? remotely possible?) and schematic scrambling won't make my interest increase in any amount.

I concur – reorganizing the naval gaming fora won't recruit any more acolytes to the naval gaming Path of Light.

However, we should try to make it easier to find, browse and participate in naval gaming discussions for those who are interested in naval gaming. I see naval gaming postings to non-naval boards all the time, and I'm not surprised – I'm an avid naval gamer, and it took me literally years to discover all the boards I was interested in. A little careful jiggering of existing board names and cross-linking to multiple zones of interest should help.

- Ix

Are you suggesting we should have one or more Far East naval boards?

One (1) Far East Naval Board.

I'm pretty sure that wouldn't accomplish anything except to hide the few (if any) posts ever made about the subject in a forum drowned by crickets and tumbleweeds.

Perhaps. Or perhaps it might start the ball rolling to push past the ethnocentrism of some people and make others aware that there is more to naval warfare than Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar (and it is worth reading up on, collecting ship models for, and wargaming in equal measure).

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Anything as long as you don't reduce the Rum ration.

How about a Riverine section?

Are you suggesting we should have one or more Far East naval boards?

One (1) Far East Naval Board.

I would vote against that. The most likely result of making a forum for every underserved topic is an excess of underutilized boards. I'd much rather see postings about naval gaming in Far East settings in existing boards that best fit them – Galleys, Age of Sail, Pirates, Ironclads, whatever.

Perhaps. Or perhaps it might start the ball rolling to push past the ethnocentrism of some people and make others aware that there is more to naval warfare than Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar (and it is worth reading up on, collecting ship models for, and wargaming in equal measure).

I admire your vision, but I think you're dreaming. If there aren't already people gaming that theme and posting about it somewhere, creating a new TMP board isn't going to suddenly conjure them into existence.

If you really want to expand interest in Far East naval gaming before the invention of the steel battleship, the best way to do that is to post lots of AARs containing attractive photos of nicely crafted miniatures, on boards people are browsing already. Attractive games get gamers stoked and start them spending money, reading, crafting, etc. It would help tremendously to show people how easy it is to get miniatures and rules for the period. If it generates a lot of interest, eventually there will be enough voters to get a separate board for the topic, and enough traffic to keep it going.

- Ix

No

I think Naval wargaming on one board would be a great idea as I have interests in at least 4 naval periods. Presently I am looking at Anglo Dutch under Napoleonic boards , Pre-dreadnought in WW1 and Ironclads in ACW which kind of puts people off.

If it is all on one page, we can look at and/or open threads we wish to see.
Be safe
Rory

Bill (Armintrout) already said "no" to creating a new NAVAL GAMING BOARDS zone of interest with all the naval gaming boards cross-linked to it.

I would personally vote against combining all naval gaming boards into one big board. I think some of the posting traffic needs to remain segregated (e.g. Modern Naval has lots of discussions verging into tech and politics, a lot of postings in Pirates are about land skirmish games, etc.).

I might support combining the Age of Sail and Galleys boards into a "Age of Sail and Oar" board or something.

I might also support combining the WWI and WWII naval boards, and even throwing in pre-dreadnoughts. Most of the posting traffic is by the same people anyway.

Having said all that, I don't know how Bill deals with removing an existing board. I would vote against any concatenation of boards if it meant deleting old posts instead of folding them all together into the new board. I think postings should remain in place for all to read until TMP is voluntarily abandoned by its audience.

- Ix

I gave up on all this after the last debacle on this subject. We can dream all we want about a better way, but the power that is will never, EVER let it happen.

Well we've had some clarification of the periods and the Ironclads Board can now be accessed through the 19thC Boards.

We can argue about the ending of the Ironclad era and the beginning of the Pre-Dreadnought period but what we have now works.

Thank you Bill for implementing these changes.

You have my vote.

In my opinion, we should never have created the age of sail board.

I think the Age of Sail board is awesome. The name is more inclusive, and cross-linking it in multiple periods is a definite organizational improvement. I'm pretty happy with that change.

- Ix

Personally I'm enjoying having the slightly more inclusive Age of Sail board. What's the downside? Is content being lost or mis-categorized?

How about combining them, into one board called "boats"

It would have to be two boards, "boats" and "ships". Naval gamers are picky about the distinction. :-)

- Ix

Hence boats, just to annoy them!