HMGS East is very pleased to again welcome Weider History Group (WHG) – www.historynet.com – publishers of the interactive history magazine Armchair General (ACG) – www.armchairgeneral.com – and ten other historical magazines, as a participant in HISTORICON.

WHG is sponsoring four of the speakers for the Military Seminar Series: Col. David Glantz, John Hill, Peter Mancini, and Gerald Swick. They will present eight talks with fresh insights on topics from the American Civil War to World War II to the Gulf War. See Events (PEL) link at left for complete details.

Colonel David Glantz – Guest of Honor: Served for over 30 years in various field artillery, intelligence, teaching and research assignments in Europe and Vietnam; taught at the U.S. Military Academy, Combat Studies Institute, and the U.S. Army War College; founded and directed the U.S. Army’s Foreign (Soviet) Military Studies Office, and established and currently edits The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. Has written or co-authored more than 60 books and self-published studies and atlases, as well as hundreds of articles on Soviet military strategy, intelligence, and deception and the history of the Red (Soviet) Army, Soviet (Russian) military history and WWII. Colonel Glantz will be presenting the following series of four WWII Eastern Front seminars about why and how the Soviet Stavka and General Staff planned and conducted offensives in Belorussia, eastern and southeastern Poland, and northern Romania: Planning and the Belorussia Operation (Thurs. 1 PM); The Lublin-Brest Offensive (Fri. 8 AM); The L'vov-Sandomiersz Offensive (Fri. 5 PM); The Lasi-Kishinev Offensive (Sun. 10 AM); see Events (PEL) link at left for complete details.

John Hill: In the field of tactical wargame designs, few designers have had as much innovative impact as John Hill. In the 1970s, John started his own company, The Conflict Game Company, to design and publish tactical and operational games that broke from traditional wargame mechanics such as Verdun, Overlord, Kasserine Pass, and Bar-Lev. John decided that he preferred to design wargames rather than run a business, so he sold the company to Game Designers’ Workshop and became a freelance wargame designer. From that point on, John’s designs for Avalon Hill, SPI, SDC and others, became noted benchmarks for their innovative approaches to simulating unique tactical situations. In 1977, John designed Squad Leader for Avalon Hill. Squad Leader broke the mold for how tactical combat was portrayed on the gaming board, and the impact of Squad Leader – which has had more “expansion kits” than any other wargame – is still felt today. Some of John’s awards included being the first freelance wargame designer inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame (1979), along with Charles Roberts and H.G. Wells awards for best tactical wargames (1977, 1983) and the readers of Campaign Magazine selected Squad Leader in 1980 as the “Best Wargame of All Time.” To the historical miniature wargamer, John is best known for his Johnny Reb miniature rules for the American Civil War period. After 25 years, Johnny Reb – now into its third edition – remain as popular as ever. In the 1980s, John’s flair for innovative tactical simulation brought him to the attention of the Government’s Defense and Intelligence Communities, and for the next 16 years he worked for the government as a senior military analyst. Following a final four year tour at Los Alamos National Laboratory, John retired from classified government work and is currently working with today’s wargame companies to update and republish many of his older designs and to, once again, explore new directions in tactical simulation. Mr. Hill will be presenting two seminars: The American Civil War in the Southwest (Fri. 11:30 AM); Intelligence Success and Failures in Operation Desert Storm (Sat. 5:30 PM); see Events (PEL) link at left for complete details.

Peter Mancini: Has spent over 20 years engineering software systems; for the past four years he has been involved with the Intelligence and Security Command of the U.S. Army. His work includes working on fast, highly scalable associative networks, fast, noise-resistant entity extraction, relational search and navigation, entity resolution and host of other technologies currently deployed in the intelligence community. He has taken a special interest in building tools for identifying and locating high value targets such as terrorists, IED factories, cell headquarters as well as countering asymmetric warfare. Mr. Mancini will be presenting the following seminar: Modern Trends in Intelligence Analysis (Thurs. 11 AM); see Events (PEL) link at left for complete details.

Gerald D. Swick: Senior online editor for www.ArmchairGeneral.com and www.HistoryNet.com, has written for print encyclopedias and Web pages, and edited books on a variety of topics. His articles about history have appeared in Blue Ridge Country, Lincoln Lore, and numerous gaming magazines, and his weekly history column has been entertaining newspaper readers for 10 years. He's here to share his experience and answer your questions – and maybe give you an assignment to write for www.ArmchairGeneral.com! Mr. Swick will be presenting a hands-on seminar for aspiring history writers, Grow Flowers in the Data Dump (Fri. 2:30 PM); see Events (PEL) link at left for complete details.