Wargaming with Marx 1950’s Tom Corbett Space Cadet Playset

Wargaming with Marx 1950’s Tom Corbett Space Cadet Playset

Marx toys had a number of play sets: the Alamo and Fort Apache. I had them both. However the first set my parents gave me was the Rex Mars Tom Corbett Space Cadet. The coolest part was the little clear plastic helmets you could pop on the space men (and space women!) as you ventured into the vacuum of space! Corbett was an early 50’s TV show. See here for an excellent retrospective.

http://www.solarguard.com/tchome.htm

Needless to say Marx got into this TV show business with sets such a Zorro and Rin Tin Tin! They also got into the space race and produced the Tom Corbett play set. From what I can tell Tom Corbett seems to be a rare set and for some reason the re-issue companies have never redone the set as was the case with Fort Apache and a host of others. No matter. Corbett sets are not that hard to come by if you have some patience: they show up on EBay every few weeks.

Well, a few months ago my brother found some old home movies of us when we were little kids circa 1955. And there we were: playing with pristine Alamo sets and, just as I remembered it: my Tom Corbett Space Cadet play set. A much-delayed trip to Virginia and rummaging around the attic in our childhood home produced some fence pieces, a flying saucer, several space men and one treasured clear helmet! The plastic blue car and virtually all the accessories were long lost, broken or – horrors —shot to bits when my brother and I needed targets for BB guns and more lethal weapons. And so some adroit EBaying and some collecting here and there replaced the casualties and the set was restored over many months. Indeed, some genius has made it his passion to produce the helmets and the canopy for the blue car, something of value when you have a car but no top for it.
Me, firing the rocket ~~

And so with the figures all ready, I determined that the best thing was to try them out with a solo wargame. The combat rules for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century seemed simple enough. So I pitted the humans on a mining mission being attacked by aliens. The rescue party arrived just in time to draw off the aliens.

This was just a skirmish: no space ships or other vehicles just yet. I will have to figure out what vehicles the aliens can use since the humans have the space car and some rockets. Perhaps the yellow flying saucers I suppose. But for now it was fun playing with these wonderful toys. Took me back fifty years. What more could you ask?

Me at age six !!!

From the 1955 home movie

The space cadets at class~~

Here are some photos which are stills from the home movies, some stills from the old Tom Corbett shows and the wargame shot on a glass table for superb reflections.

The Command CenterThe Space Car Aliens ATTACK ~~~~wounded humans

Hand to hand !~~~~

Gunpowder Grinding Wheels

Gunpowder Grinding Wheels
by David Raybin

In Nashville you can see a pair of Civil War gunpowder grinding wheels. They were made in England and shipped in the blockage runner “Spray” through Mobile in 1864. They were put to use in Augusta, Georgia. Gunpowder was manufactured by mixing ground water, sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter and then further grinding this mix using these heavy vertical roller wheels rolling through a circular bed trough. The mix had to be wet or grinding would cause it to explode. The wet powder was then pressed hydraulically into blocks.

After the war the wheels were brought to Tennessee. The wheels are about 5 feet in diameter and are on display in Centennial Park.


Now what a dandy game these would make as the Rebs try to sneak the wheels into Mobile aboard the nimble blockade runner. Can the Yanks sink her and have a huge impact on the war? Will the wheels lie in the Gulf of Mexico or be put to use in Augusta, Georgia?
While I can find several citations to the Confederate gunboat CSS Spray (based in Florida) , I cannot seem to find reference to the Blockade runner of the same name. Perhaps more research will turn her up.