Houdini Blues
Issue 2, April 2001
Welcome to this, the second issue of Houdini Blues, a subzine of TAP edited by Michael Lowrey, 6903 Kentucky Derby Drive, Charlotte, NC 28215. My email address is mlowrey@infi.net or call me nights at (704) 569-4269. Bonus points if you catch the music reference in the subzine name.
© 2001 by Michael Lowrey. All right reserved.
Vaclav Havel Endgame Statements
Brendan Whyte (Russia/Survived): Gunboat has always seemed a game of luck to me. You can either go full guns form turn one, or wait. If you go full guns, you may get a good lead, and be unstoppable, or you may just leave a pile of nice empty SCs for someone else to walk into. If you wait, you may be able to profit from the follies of the others, or you may have missed the boat while a full guns style chap cleans the board.
Without even press, once one player gets ahead, he is at a distinct advantage as the others are likely to bounce each other in their inability to coordinate a defence or counteroffensive.
From midway through the game it was obvious I wasn't going to win, so I was quite content to be 4th out of 7, most likely to be wiped out next, but at least I'd made it to the last 4 on the board. It was obvious for some time France was going to win, which is why I am surprised some one voted against the win.
Well done to France, but on the whole I think I prefer press gunboat game, where there is a bit more opportunity for working against a possible victory you can see coming and as it provides a bit of interaction. I can play silent gunboat on a computer, but I can't play a decent game with press against a computer. The social element is still there, but also the fog of war.
Harry Andurschak (Turkey/Survived): For better or worse, Turkey's fate was decided by Italy's NMR in Fall 1901. This enabled Austria to jump Italy in Spring 1902, grab SCs, and quickly grow strong enough to be a real danger to Turkey. Only the lack of Austrian fleets saved Turkey. Turkey had opened by attacking Russia, and had been lucky enough to eliminate the southern fleet. This gave Turkey complete control of the Black Sea. After stagnating several game years at six SCs, I realized that France was the big danger, so I stopped trying to obtain the 7th SC and sent orders to support Austrian and Russian units as a kind of peace gesture.
Perhaps I did this too late?
The Most Successful Submarine
For whatever reason, submarines have achieved special recognition among the warships of the Twentieth Century. There have been several successful movies set on submarines and certainly submarines are by far the most numerous form of World War II naval museum in the Unites States, yet the popular culture's presentation of undersea warfare remains rather uninformed and limited.
Nothing expresses this better than what would seem a straight forward question: what was the most successful submarine? The answer is, bizarrely enough, a German World War I submarine, the U 35, that spent most of its career operating out of Austrian ports.
Under four distinguished commanders she would sink 224 merchant ships of 539,741 tons plus the sloop HMS Primula. These commanders were, in turn, Waldemar Kophamel, Lothar von Arnauld de la Periere, Ernst von Voigt, and Heino von Heimburg. Kophamel, von Arnauld de la Periere, and von Heimburg were three of the 29 German submarine commanders to be awarded the Pour le Merite (Blue Max), though Kophamel and Heimburg received the award for service on other boats.
By comparison, the top U.S. boats of World War II, the USS Flasher and USS Rasher, would each account for 100,000 tons of shipping and the top German boat, the U 48 (yes numbers were reused) with 307,655 tons sunk to its credit.
Deadline for all games is May 5.
Vaclev havel 1998Mrb32
GM: Michael Lowrey Zine: The Carolina Command & Commentary
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
Austria 5 7 5 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 8 Heath Gardner (Drop, F 03), Daniel Gorham (Survived)
England 4 3 2 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 Randy Davis (Drop Spr 04), David Hood (Elim F 07)
France 5 5 6 6 7 8 10 12 15 17 18 Frank Easton (Win, Fall 1911)
Germany 4 6 6 6 5 4 3 1 0 0 0 Melinda Holley (Res Spr 04), Andrew York (Elim F 09)
Italy 5 3 3 3 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 Pat Conlon (Eliminated, Fall 1908)
Russia 5 5 5 4 5 6 6 6 4 2 2 Brendan Whyte (Survived)
Turkey 4 5 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 Harry Andurschak (Survived)