Way Dowwn upon the Swaneee Riiiveer!

Aye well- tuneless or what. So Saturday 12th Novemebr dawned and off I went to the R- one the Commercial but all the letters fell off ! for another meeting of the TWATS. I was in the chair and in honour of Garth's imminent departure for the Royal Navy I decided to go for some Smoke on the Water... Not Richie Blackmores anthem but some ACW naval . I'd actually forgotten about this small collection until Floating Jeff remined me. There were 5 TWATS present Floating Jeff, Andrew the Tekkie , Garth and Farmer Dave - not forgetting your gentle Author. The models were all Thoroughbred 1/600th scale except for a couple of Peter Pig river steamers which while passable were not in the same league modelwise as the Thoroughbred item. I have about a dozen ships but today was a day for a set of singler ship actions. I quote from the recently discovered diary of Commodore Hiram J (Floatin' Jeff) Awdas... " November12th 1864 weather dull slight swell up the Yazoo- too much sow belly n' grits ... I stood upon the roof of the pilot house of the USS Monitorand watched as 2 rebel Ironclads hove into sight ahead off to Larbord stood the USS Minatomah . God will ing we'll show the Dammned rebels.. By God they have opened fire . I shifted me into the pilot house as a mighty clang echoed from the turret - a hit but mercifully no explosion. Through my glass I can see that Minatomah has opened fire with her Forrard guns shell splashes bracket the rebel tub Albermarle Full Speed ahead I yell above the belching of the dammed boilers. There is a second rebel ship- Atlanta banging away. All 4 ships have now opened fire and are manovering for position - Atlanta has a spar torpedoand attempts to ram but fails. Alas we are hit - a shell from the Atlanta and again .. bit hot in here ain't it......."

At this point the diary ends the bridge diary of the Albermarle takes up the action " We registered hits on the Monitoras did Atlantaand without warning a Titanic explosion rent the air as the smoke and steam cleared Monitor was simply gone we steamed to where she had beenand recovered a small leather bound book and a half empty flask of Bourbon...

Minatomah continued the action and hit our engines which despite much labour failed However Albermarle once more tried to Ram and successfully grappled the minatomah- which had been concentrating here fire upon us. For some time the action boiled upon the Yankess deck but the finally the Stainless Banner was seen flying above the Union- Minatomah was ours... Rules used were "Beer and Pretzels Ironclads" a simple but flavoursome set which echoes the confusion of ACW Naval actions. Long range work is largly pointless but get close in and hits can be devasting. We fought a second 4 ship action which resulted in a union victory-A fire on The CSS Planter only being put out by the inrushing water as she went down. A good and fun time was had by all much helped by a few beersand the obligatory Beef Butties- and chips- served up by Jean the Landlady. A quck chorus of "In the Navy" and sundry scurrilous and unrepeateable jokes prepared Young Garth for his life on the Ocean wave. Good Luck Lad.