This website is dedicated to my wargaming hobbies, but only the land-based periods. I maintain separate sites for naval gaming, aerial combat gaming, and various gaming projects. About MeI'm a tech worker in Silicon Valley with too many hobbies, many of them outdoors. I made this web site to collect my wargaming projects and publications on line. I've been a wargamer since the age of 9, a miniature wargamer since the re-release of Spartacus in 1992, and an avid reader of history (military or otherwise) for most of my life. Wargaming and history create a feedback loop, each increasing the intensity of the other; when I discovered miniature wargaming, my natural artistic side added to that feedback loop. Underneath the Headquarters link in the navigation pane of this site you'll find links to other web sites for specific periods, genres, or groups I game with.
| Why Stavka? |
The Russian word Ставка (stavka) refers simultaneously to the command staff and to the place where it meets, making it a beautifully compact and efficient name for a personal website dedicated to a wargaming hobby.
| | I don't have any particular affinity for Russian military history, hardly know a word of Russian, can't read Russian (or even cyrillic), and it's only by accident that I have large collections of WWII Soviet microarmor (mostly gifted to me) and 20mm Napoleonics (came along with the rest of the collection). However, Russia has a long history of involvement and study in war, and has the dubious distinction of being one of the primary contributors to modern military theories, techniques and technologies. It is surprisingly difficult to find a word as compact and suitable as stavka in other languages. Equivalent terminology in English, French and German is fractured, cumbersome, polluted by centuries of class and inter-service rivalry. |
|
|