So Amazon Cancelled My Preorder of SM

MJD said:
Damn, I payed a lot for my Conways books!

Well, Vol one was more than that if its any consolation.

Never knew you were an ironclad geek ! Next time you're in California, Drop by and I'll drag out the 1/600 collection of Larry Enoch scratchbuilts....we can use feathersones rules for maximum oldfartyness....
 
Not really an ironclad geek as such, though steam & shell is my favourite era of naval warfare.

When I worked in the arms trade my 'thing' was modern naval weapons systems and assymmetric warfare, but I've always been into big gun ships myself.
 
MJD said:
Not really an ironclad geek as such, though steam & shell is my favourite era of naval warfare.

When I worked in the arms trade my 'thing' was modern naval weapons systems and assymmetric warfare, but I've always been into big gun ships myself.

Ah ! Thus the original comment about the steam and sail book. Its an interesting read, and focuses on the utility and effectiveness of the concept rather than kind of skipping over them as some kind of useless hybrid on the way to the Monitor; Yeah, I have to admit that unlike (it seems) most Americans I'm less interested in the civil war ironclads as I am in the worldwide fleets of earlier steamers and the later development of such. Big guns are indeed cool, and it sure is the period for it.

And if I have to see another book about Hampton roads....dear god.

Anyway, good to know there are others with relentlessly obscure interests....and the offer stands...I'll even let you play the Turks....
 
I'm not really a wargamer but I'll give it a go. (My main wargaming credential is that I wrote some fairly trivial small detail stuff for Victory At Sea).

I'm fasacinated by steam frigates, early armorclads, floating batteries etc and the way it sall led to the giant battleships. Armoured cruisers on the colonial station... that's the way forward.
 
So there are another two people who compete with me on the market
for such books ... :shock:

Personally, I prefer the very early steam warship era, the time around
the Crimean War, when the major navies switched from sail to steam
and experimented a lot with combinations and somewhat bizarre con-
cepts. :D
 
When I said steam & shell I was pretty much thinking of the 1850-1920 sort of era in general, before pesky aircraft started spoiling it for everyone.
 
MJD said:
When I said steam & shell I was pretty much thinking of the 1850-1920 sort of era in general, before pesky aircraft started spoiling it for everyone.

yeah, I'm with that. Me, I also despise those ungentlemanly, cowardly torpedo things - the self propelled ones.
 
BenTOGS said:
Traveller Forum, right. What the heck are ironclads?.
It's a new kind of Battle Armor, yah that's it. :wink:

:lol:

Back OT: I find I can never trust Amazon for new releases. I never buy them from Amazon. Now older books, fictional reading material etc then Amazon is great. But my "I want this ASAP game fix" type buys? I get those from my FLGS and never have the issues you are dealing with.

Daniel
 
dafrca said:
BenTOGS said:
Traveller Forum, right. What the heck are ironclads?.
It's a new kind of Battle Armor, yah that's it. :wink:

:lol:

Well, given how much of traveller's OTU seems cut from the cloth of very edge of the age of sail, it's probably more appropriate than not....and yes, I am using my rationalization-5 skill.......;)
 
Amazon preorders are good for one thing, the cheaper price pre-release. If you're ok with waiting or possibly never getting the book, it's alright.

captainjack23 said:
Amazon has generally been pretty good, but then, I've never done a preorder from them - most of the stuff I buy from them tends to be about a decade old, and badly remainered, anyway (the beauty and curse of esoteric historical interests - ie " evolution towards ironclads : the steam and sail navy")
MJD said:
Thought it was just me that bought books like that.
rust said:
So there are another two people who compete with me on the market
for such books ... :shock:

So there are least 4 of us then. We should form a club or something, or I should just check out the Victory at Sea* section of this site? :oops: I like the ever changing tech, the actual & possible wars of the time, and the small ship actions. Oh and rams. :wink:

MJD said:
A close analogy for the Traveller paradigm is the colonial era 1880 or so.
Yes, and it's one reason I like the game. Among other aspects of the period, from Interstellar Wars to 1248 there's always room for the likes of a small ship showing the flag.


* though Traveller space combat does tend to be Jutland in Space, so it is kinda on topic :wink:
 
For Far Avalon, I went with the Armoured Cruiser thing muchly. Smaller craft might be able to make a torpedo run but it is the big gun that rules the stars....
 
serene_muse said:
I like the ever changing tech, the actual & possible wars of the time, and the small ship actions. Oh and rams. :wink:

Ah, that reminds me of one of my personal favourites, the Battle of Lissa
in 1866:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lissa_%281866%29

They had almost everything there, sailing ships, steam ships, ironclads,
big and small, but they did not have much experience in how to use them,
so they tried a number of tactics, including ramming, and the whole af-
fair turned quite chaotic - small wonder, with Austrians and Italians in-
volved ... :D

It could be an interesting idea to play a very early space battle with a
comparable mix of "old" and "new" ship types and a comparable lack
of tactical experience of the commanders, perhaps one of the first en-
gagements between fleets of different races which never fought a war
in space before, and therefore have to learn on the spot.
 
AKAramis said:
I'd argue that Traveller is less jutland and more age of sail+steam. Say, 1800-1870.

It acts more like the 1800's in terms of long range communications , but more like the steam age insofar as sailing ships are much easier to maintain at any random port. Steam engines need coal, and iron, and infrastructure. Not that ships of the line don't - it's just easier to find parts.

Politically, it really does seem right out of Kipling.....although the 1800's were no slouches in "the great game".
 
And as to space combat, the tech mix of most fleets does kind of suggest Lissa/predreadnaught stuff. HG combat did always have that "line up and fire like at Camperdown or Jutland" kind of feel to it - but I suspect that's more the level of abstraction than the actual way combat (imaginary, I admit) occurred.



That said, Avalon does sound interesting - I'm embarassed to say I don;t know about it except for references on Avenger -
 
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