240723 Update (Patreon)

Next up we have a War Room episode- I did originally want to do this on the Battle of Pylos in the Peloponnesian War (425BC) but after a few thousand words I found myself still setting the scene- I think there's a bit too much I need to explain about hoplite warfare, Ancient Greek political systems, the Persian Wars, the development of the Athenian Empire. So instead of having a video that is 90% context and 10% "Well, the Spartans got their arses kicked", Pylos is going on the back burner.Instead, I'm going to take a look at the First Siege of Saragossa in 1808. This is a really interesting battle, with a good account in Oman's (massive) History of the Peninsular War- I think it's an underappreciated urban warfare classic.I'm about 4k words in (ie. 20 minutes) and am just getting to the analysis which might be another 10 minutes. Feels like good stuff so far, with a bit of luck it should be ready to go for Patrons by Friday.In other news, I've started making some Youtube shorts. Shorts are a really weird format, especially from a Combat Mission point of view. 60 seconds is not a lot of time to get a lot of information over and most tactical encounters require a fair amount of context to explain, but... it is enough time to blow stuff up or shoot at things.

So the intent with the shorts is to create a kind of quick reference library. For CM player's it should help nail down the capabilities of different weapons and vehicles (ie. can X penetrate Y at Z distance?), for the more casual viewer there's the fun of watching things explode, for the hardcore crowd there's the technical intricacies of, for instance, German late war armour metallurgy problems etc. Something for everyone!