Oh Woe is Me

 More on the title anon. This week at the club it was back to the Ambush scenario but this time the Jerries were up against British Paras with some help from the Yanks.

In my third attempt at taking the crossroads I wanted to push most of my troops along the right flank and across the iron bridge, the 222 armoured car and the kubelwagen with my command along with one MMG and a squad would do what they could on the left. Michael, who is fairly new to Bolt Action kept his men as far back as he could which allowed me to advance almost to the outskirts of the hamlet. He did take his chances with the PIAT, anti-tank gun and his machine guns but these all fell to overpowering return fire, once again the Allied anti-tank was ineffective and was soon removed from the game. I once again got a FUBAR and a squad ran to the rear upsetting my timetable. More and more enemy squads now turned up around the village and despite being cut up by my armour it seemed to take forever to damage them while my own infantry began to take losses.

Although I had taken seven dice from the Allied total and only lost three the remaining Paras had an iron grip on the crossroads as we approached move ten, these defending squads also were replete with molotov cocktails so still managed to be a danger to my vehicles. Michael's tactic of keeping his forces as far back as possible was a good move, the Germans spent almost half their turns simply getting to a point where they could begin to take on the main enemy position, which of course proved too strong to overcome.

Once again the result was a draw and although this scenario gives a good fight and always extends that elusive chance of a German victory it simply is never going to happen. I have been very lucky in my games that the enemy anti-tank fire was ineffective and that keeping my armour intact and dealing a good amount of hurt helped me get as far as I could, this is not something I am sure that would continue. This is a good scenario and one which deserves a little more thought, I don't think bigger tanks are the answer and I like the thought of a reconnaissance unit probing forward, but I do think perhaps one more German squad and have all of them in transports although I would keep the speed of off-road movement to advance only. We will see.

I won't be at the club next week as my wife has an op on the Monday and should be home on the Tuesday so it would be bad form to leave her and put my own fortunes first. Not only will I be running after her every whim for the next three months but I have had my own troubles with health over the past four days and despite being on antibiotics the things are not working fast enough for me. It really is no fun getting old.

Just to top things off the planning wallah at the Council has decided I need to put my now defunct Post Office up for sale before I can get planning permission to take down the old shop front and put up a lovely new wall and garden. The old PO is just a room, with no amenities at all, it was part of the original cottage, there is nothing to sell, but the young gent would rather have me spend a fortune and carry out needless marketing research to sell something which does not exist. It looks like I shall have to appeal his upcoming decision, yes, you have guessed it, more sheckles for the Council coffers.

Enough of real life, my camp is well on the way to completion, I suspect I will manage to complete it by tomorrow before I start my three month sentence. The little vignettes from Warlord Games have been a joy to paint. Next up is another sidetrack back to WWII and a lovely 3D vehicle from Paint and Glue Miniatures, more on this when I complete it. It will then be back to Italian Wars cavalry, I received yet another bunch of TAG figures yesterday so now have all the French cavalry I need for now, even with my quick method of horse painting I am not a fan of painting cavalry no matter how good they look so this might become a bit of a chore.

We have a large Napoleonic game here on the 22nd and I believe Julian and I are back to Italy on the 25th. With all my other jobs I now have a full book of map projects to work through as well, so much for retirement.

Foreign Legion fort in Rif Mountains.

 

1806-1807 Russia.

 

That's it for now I am going back to wallowing in my despair. Oh, I forgot about the new comedy being streamed on one of the channels, "The Rig", having worked offshore on three different platforms over twenty years I see nothing familiar in this dreamt up nonsense, and please do not get the impression it has any base in reality.

A real Radio Op at work, not a tool or a beard in sight.

HMS Tartar 4th Commission 1971 22 - The End and another beginning.

After our second stint on the useless Beira patrol we stopped in at Port Elizabeth, South Africa for our last jolly before making our way home. Port Elizabeth was quite subdued after Singapore and all stations East, I still remember walking down the main drag in brilliant sunshine and pints of Castle beer in several pubs. The city closed down the night I got ashore as the Trogs were playing at a local venue, hosted by Roy Castle, now the Trogs by that time had pretty much had their day in the UK, but here they were a big thing, we managed to get in to the venue but left again pretty quick to wander the empty streets and eventually make our way back to the ship, almost sober for a change. Plum and I put our names down for a trip to an elephant park with a local family, needless to say we didn't see any elephants despite claims they were "there! there!" all I saw was foliage moving, to cap it all they dropped us back at the ship right after, no party, no daughters, but kind all the same. Refuel at Freetown, Sierra Leone and another few hectic days in Gib and we headed for Blighty.

We got to Plymouth and anchored off for HM Customs to pay us a visit before we could get ashore and head off on leave, we had to fill in forms as to what we had bought and where then line up for judgement, some got off lightly while others paid over a small fortune, no one asked me about my Omega watch so I was happy enough. Eventually we got alongside and I had my 'rabbits' packed ready to distribute on getting home, a painting from Mombasa, some wooden animals, a salt and pepper set from St. Helena (which I got back when my Gran died), some incense burners from Pakistan and that was about it, something for Mum and Dad and my two Grans. I had my watch and my Sanyo cassette player.

During our time away we had visited fourteen different countries, we had missed out on Australia but I doubt it would have been better than Singapore. Our helicopter flew 18,000 miles, we watched three and a half million feet of film, smoked one and a half million cigarettes and consumed quarter of million cans of beer (that's just the stuff onboard). We were away for 324 days and sailed 51,000 miles.

In April 1971 after we had all enjoyed a few weeks leave we set sail for the West Indies where we were to be the guardship for six months, a long, beautiful summer which was another great adventure for me.

A balmy day in Hamilton, Bermuda.

The tally for the full commission was 75,740 miles using 12,000 tons of diesel costing £108,000 in old days money. We fired 1,980 4.5" shells and 4,000 40mm rounds from the Bofors while the anti-submarine mortar shot 60 times. Our full tally of countries visited was 30.

HMS Tartar 4th Commission 1971 21

We left Gan and the bats behind and arrived in Diego Suarez, Madagascar on Sunday 17th January, we were there for two days. Another mechanical breakdown meant the crew had to take turns peeling spuds for the 285 hungry mouths onboard until the peeler was fixed.

French Navy on a run ashore.

  1971 is the year of the Pig, our Chinese laundry crew along with leader Freddy, although that is probably a nom de convenience, celebrated by having their one day off. These guys work every day and make a little extra money by selling underwear, very much what we would now call 'boxer shorts' out of odd pieces of material. They would go ashore if a casino was available, otherwise they lived all their time on the ship.

Madagascar being French we had a trainload of local dignitaries turn up for cocktails, the messdecks of course had a much ruder name for such gatherings, which were all pomp and ceremony while we had to slink off ashore unseen on the aft gangway "Don't look Fiona". I got one run ashore and it was a wild one, I can remember being in a very large bar looking down on the ground floor where there was standing room only while Jack Tars and French Foreign Legionaries danced, laughed and drank with each other. We got friendly with some of them and they invited us back to their barracks to continue the party, however we were turned back at the gate by some stern faced sentries. We refuelled and were off again on the 19th.

Don't look for me, feet up in the Radio Room, or lying out in the mess.

  Another tour on the useless Beira Patrol, two of us this time, HMS Lynx is also in the area and during her six weeks only stopped one tanker, which she had to let go. We of course had competitions to keep the 'Biera Bucket' along with quiz's using the radios with Lynx and our fleet auxiliaries Resource and Tidereach, most of us simply topped up our tans for our return to Blighty.

Beira will take us into February, our 'reward' is a few days in Port Elizabeth South Africa, after that it is plain sailing for home.