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Sharing Knowledge:
Using Flames Of War Miniatures in Teaching
with Jökull Gislason

Several years ago I borrowed the main hall of the Russian-Icelandic Cultural Society (MÍR in Icelandic) to host the Battle of Minsk. In return, I held a three-hour open lecture on the war on the Eastern Front which was open to the public and well attended as a result.

Left: Delivering my presentation.
The event gathered interest with the media and it was covered on the two major television networks in Iceland as well as a major newspaper, giving us the back page. The main item of interest was the Flames Of War battlefield which as you know is quite visual.

What followed was interesting; I was hired by an Icelandic director to assist in making a battlefield and teach actors to play Flames Of War and then assist in designing scenarios for the film. A specialist if you will (although I asked to be credited as a Military Advisor), but more about that later when the film is closer to its release. The other thing was I became a guest lecturer at Endurmenntun Háskóla Íslands EHÍ, the University of Iceland Re-Education Department. EHÍ offers a range of courses for graduates, some work oriented others that Fall into cultural and history category and are aimed at personal gratification. Attendants paid for the course and since I had done a course with them, Napoleon's Invasion of Russia 1812 I knew that it was a tough crowd since quite a few know their military history and have high expectations of the lecture.
I was given free rein in selecting the subject matter and settled on the Fall of France in 1940. To me this is a very interesting period in World War Two history and as a designer of various Firestorm campaigns. I must say I would have a very hard time recreating France 1940 since statistically the combatants are well-matched and the German victory was against the odds. The seminar was to consist of two evenings with the first evening covering the background and build-up to the campaign and the second evening covering the actual campaign itself.

Right: The opening slide to the presentation.
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To advertise and to make information more accessible, I decided to setup a Facebook page focusing on the lecture. It is also helpful in providing one place for all the information while I was preparing my notes. You can have a look, but I confess that unless you read Icelandic it is of limited value:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fall-Frakklands-1940/145503142285599
Sharing Knowledge The other thing I decided to do was to setup a battle scene using Flames Of War miniatures for each evening. This would be a first for me and EHÍ but I thought to use it similar to a museum display. For the most part, I used Power Point slides as a guideline my lectures. I favour slides with little text and plenty of photos and I organised the lecture around them. But I also found the Flames Of War display very useful. By having the actual models it is easier to hold attention and in this case explain the differences tank designs and the tactics used.

Left: A museum display at Musée de l'Armée.
For the first evening I decided to do a re-enact of the Battle of Hannut. It was one of the largest tank battles in World War Two and where it can be argued that both sides achieved their objectives; although the French aims were tactical while the Germans were strategic and the French fell right into their plans.

Right: The Panzer II; the Early-war German workhorse.
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Below: A scene from the Battle of Hannut. This gave me a chance to showcase different tank types and talk about their relative strengths and weaknesses.
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Below: The Battle of Stonne where Capt. Billotte took out a column of Panzers. Using the dual guns of the Char B1 bis he took out the front and rear tanks and then worked up the line.
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Sharing Knowledge The display gave me a very good focal point to open discussions and actively involve the students. My experiment was well received; it made the entire lecture more alive and broke up what would have been one-way traffic. Participants were free to examine the models at will and it did showcase the involvement of tanks and aircraft. Talking around the models also felt comfortable and was done in a closer circle than talking from the teacher's desk.

Left: Table placed in a prominent place in the classroom.
Overall my seminar was a success. Seventeen participants attended the course, fourteen men and three women and at the end the participants rated the teacher and the course and my grades were 86% for teaching and 92% for the course. I am very happy with that because as I said anyone attending such a course is likely to know his military history and will be critical of what they see. The outcome means that I have been asked to do more courses and I think I will follow up with the Desert War. Next year however will be 75th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II and I would like to do the six year period of the conflict in chronological. But we will see how that goes.

~ Jökull.
About The Author
Jökull Gíslason has been a wargamer from a very young age. He is a Detective Inspector with the department of the Special Prosecutor in Iceland. He has been actively involved with Flames Of War since 2008 and you can see his name and that of his group Einherjar under playtesters in several of Battlefronts publications. He has also been part of Question of the Week from the very beginning and written several articles for the Flames Of War website. His major past time is devoted to military history and anything connected to it even going as far as being an extra in Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, where about 500 Icelandic men became US marines and the black volcanic sand beaches of Reykjanes became the shores of Iwo Jima roughly 9000 miles away. He thought himself very lucky when he was selected to carry a BAR in the film but the 20lb gun did get a bit tiring after a few days (hours).


Right: In full regalia as Jökull Gíslason, USMC (Ret).
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Last Updated On Thursday, December 12, 2013 by Blake at Battlefront