Esteemed railway wargaming enthusiasts; My German colonial Southwest Africa blog has ventured into a multipart series on the initial fighting during the first days of the German - Herero War of 1904 involving the narrow gauge railway linking Swakopmund on the Coast with Windhuk in the interior. The first post in this series is now up at
http://omaheke.blogspot.com/2015/04/we-have-fought-three-times-with.html, and deals with the
Zwillinge or twin 0-6-0 locomotives that were in use on this feldbahn, some of which were armored during the initial crisis with sandbags and corrugated iron. The Herero drove back such trains three times and the Germans took a number of casualties before breaks in the could be repaired and rail and telegraph connections were restored. The final post in the series will address ways to adapt these skirmishes for tabletop wargaming, drawing on period documentation and certain German accounts I have translated into English. I will likely develop a skirmish scenario for one of these engagements based on Roy Jones and Eric Alvarado's Herero Wars Scenario and Rules Book (itself a variant of TSATF), as Dr. Jones and I did last December for the Battle of Uitkomst. Regards,