Jim Werbaneth - Line of Departure

I just saw the word that one of the worst men on the face of the planet, Radovan Karadzic, was just arrested. For those with short memories, he was one of the most shameless perpetrators of genocide in my lifetime; as President of the Republika Srbska, he officiated over the Bosnian Serbs' policies of ethnic cleansing against their Croatian, but especially Moslem, neighbors. In the most infamous incident in 1995, the Serb forces… Continue

If you're an American, happy Independence Day. If you're not, then this is still a good day to celebrate freedom, liberty, and even healthy defiance. You can't have the two former without the latter on occasion, whether it's telling telling some petty manager or bureaucrat or manager to go tapdance on a landmine, or taking up arms against an oppressor. Standing up for yourself is a prerequisite of freedom, and going along and getting along all the time makes one a subject. This is one of those… Continue

The sixty-second issue of Line of Departure magazine is ready to start going out the door. The lead review is of Manila '45 from Strategy & Tactics, and there's an in-depth analysis of SPI's monster The Next War. Also, I cover British strategy in Paul Rohrbaugh's downloadable game A Master Stroke, and present the first u-boats of the reborn kriegsmarine, for Avalon Hill's Submarine. The latter comes with free, downloadable counters of each and every… Continue

Tentatively, I've reserved a space in the next issue of Line of Departure for a feature on Avalon Hill's Submarine game. I definitely owe the readers a game supplement, and Submarine lends itself well to that kind of project, just as much as scenario design. This name of the article that I'm finishing now is "The Reich's First U-Boats," and it starts with brief historical background on the first two classes of u… Continue

As I've mentioned in other venues, the current state of the American economy is going south, and it's claiming some business ventures. One of them is the insurance career that I began seven months ago, with extremely high hopes and enormous confidence. Now I'm looking for new opportunities. One of the things to which I keep returning is that nearly forty years in wargaming, with a lifelong interest and education in military history, has to amount to something of value to business. On top of tha… Continue