In Wargaming No One Can Hear You Scream

 Mate Robert was popping in again and asked for Johnny Reb, we played this for years before I snuck over Hadrians Wall as the SNP tightened their grip. He mentioned the battle of Olustee which we had played several times and was an easy set up if not an easy game to win for either side. Set in Florida in 1864 it was a setback for Union hopes of a quick victory on the edge of the Confederacy.

The Union player has to rush his troops arriving piecemeal to the front in order to build a defensive line from which to attack the enemy, the same applies to the Rebel commander in order to build up a strong attack force to break the Federal line before it can consolidate. We had our usual chat and got down to it, I decided to play safe and extended my line to give the new arrivals space, they would attack the Union right while I built up enough troops to threaten the Union left. Robert led his cavalry in an aggressive charge and caught me off balance so I lost a mounted regiment while my infantry chased away the Federal troopers, who cares about cavalry? 

The Confederates get ready.

  

The Union prepare.

More Rebs turn up.

Both sides continued to built up their forces while I at last began to think about moving on the Union right, I was building up a good attack and had sent forward some cavalry skirmishers to flank the enemy line. This caused Robert to throw a march column forward to stop this, a daring move as the Reb line was begining solidifying in front of him. Again I lost a cavalry regiment, albeit small and inconsequential, the rest of the army simply watched them go. We called a halt here as Robert had been on the road all day and had another long day in front of him the next day, we had had some fun and as usual put the world of wargaming to rights before he left.

The Federal line solidifies.

Now boys, at 'em.

Still getting in to position.

The Union line.

When I got into the Bunker in the morning I had to finish off the next move, I had a chance to break the Union right which might let me roll up the flank or at the very least cause consternation in the Federal ranks. My Missouri boys leapt forward and put the recently victorious Yanks to flight, a small dismounted cavalry regiment was now in line for the same treatment, the Rebel Yell filled my brain, the Union troopers stood their ground and the Missouri lads shuddered to a halt and then retreated out of harms way. It was not going to be 'I told you so' as the setback would need the whole game to decide a winner, and that was not going to happen.

Next up was potentially the last game of the Gembloux Gap campaign with Matt, could I hold out for three turns, very doubtful but I was hoping for going out with a bang rather than a whimper. I got a decent amount of support for a change and took a Somua S35, a very nice tank and just slightly better than anything the Germans could bring to bear, and an anti-tank rifle as back up, as we were fighting in a village I expected the Luftwaffe to turn up so took anti-aircraft artillery. Matt surprised me and went infantry heavy with five squads, an extra mortar and a Panzer IV, no Goering's boys.

We both had good morale and after the patrol phase the Germans were almost on their table edge, I decided to stay back and defend the centre which had a large open space to my front, high walls surrounding the gardens made line of sight difficult but it suited me. I could possibly have taken the main station building but the amount of firepower from five squads deploying close by put me off. The game kicked off and I brought my armour on to cover my left and the road through the village, Matt made an attempt on my right and I met this with a squad in a nearby wood, the rash German squad ended up pinned but as help arrived I had to pull my lads back into cover as their shock built up.  

Looking  towards the French lines.

 

German HQ.

A tsunami of field grey.

The Boche now took the station and I deployed my last squad in a large building covering that open space I mentioned and put down suppressing fire. By now Matt had had three or four double turns and also played his double crossing French spy who for some reason was called Giuseppi(?), this low life began to take pot shots at my boys and took out an NCO and one of my Poilu's. I countered the traitor by using my anti-tank team to search him out. With several more double turns to enjoy Matt brought on his Pz IV, my tank took several shots and used up a CoC dice to no avail, the first shot from the panzer barely grazed the paintwork but the second blew my big hope to bits. I was very disappointed, I had wanted to kill the Panzer then wreak havoc on the Boche infantry who would then have no chance of taking out my armour. I looked around and saw only defeat staring me in the face against overwhelming odds, I surrendered, as the French do. I just wish you could have seen the look on Matt's face as he did a little dance as he clinched the deal, good for him, the Gap had been taken and 3rd Panzer was racing ahead. 

Behind the line.

My big hope.

My nemesis.

It's all over.

Giuseppe or Gaston or pain in the neck, delete where applicable.

 I am in two minds about the campaign it is either very well balanced for 1940 or heavily rigged in favour of the Germans, I am on the fence with this one. We played eight of the ten games and I won three and the Jerries 'got a by' on one map, I do admit that I made mistakes and completely missed the chance of pulling off a counter-attack, c'est la vie. It does provide some interesting games and we really enjoyed them, would I play it again, possibly, but again would try the French.

My BEF project is coming along nicely, all the infantry squads will be complete by the weekend, this leaves me some command and supports to do, I am expecting them in the next day or so, and they will be ready to go, maybe to help the French and plug the gap. I can only do one thing at a time so the Nashorn, Lee and Soviet tank riders remain on the shelf for now.

A parcel, a rather large one, turned up which I was not expecting, I saw it was from good friend Matt Smith and hoped it was not another starter kit for an army as he had done with the above French. Inside I found the Hartenstein Hotel in 28mm from the battle of Arnhem, it is huge and superbly detailed, I was gobsmacked. Literally years ago I built up an Airborne platoon in anticipation of a scenario book from Two Fat Lardies, the book has still not appeared and I doubt it ever will, no matter the Hartenstein will feature on a table near me as soon as it is painted.

I have been very much at a loss as to entertainment over the past month and am close to giving up with modern TV and movies. I saw that Netflix had a German movie about a Tiger tank crew, I stayed away from it, then one night with nothing but time I decided to give it ten minutes. It is not your usual type of war movie and there are clues around as they rumble their way to the Front, but they are subtle. Yes, there is one incident which is completely stupid but overall the uniforms were good and the fake Tiger was very well done, being a rivet counter I did notice the SU-100 was in fact a ISU-152, but I wouldn't put money on it. So, overall it was not as bad as I expected.

 I don't know what has happened to me and books, I have read all my life but am finding it hard to find one which I cannot put down these days, 'Tunisgrad' got the boot and I am now grinding my way through 'The Last Yorkists' the level of detail the author gives on Edmund and Richard de la Pole from the late 15th and early 16th centuries seems suspect and the book in parts reads more like a novel, I feel the urge to jump to the Battle of Pavia and move on to Prit Buttar's 'Bagration 1944'.

 

The Royal Navy are introducing drink limits on ships, so many units a day or whatever along with two days completely alchohol free. The main past time during my time was drinking, I went two-thirds around the world and my memories are mainly of the inside of bars, that is just how it was. I never got the Tot officially as I was 17 when it was stopped, but I did get a final one on that 'terrible day' and another during a fleet review for the Queen. The Tot was horrible and used as currency for favours where you got 'gulpers' or 'sippers' depending on the favour. Everyone over 18 was allowed three small cans of beer, what happened was that everyone got their cans and they were secreted around the mess and could build up to a very large amount of alcohol, someone was the 'beer bosun' who looked after it all and if you felt like getting tipsy you simply bought as many cans as you could drink. If you asked someone round at lunchtime to the Comms Mess they were given a can from everyone, so at least 18 cans, that was you basically done for the day. People were catogorised as G, T or U, grog, teetotal or underage, funnily enough I never met anyone teetotal.