Good King Richard

 Club and another shot at the new Chain of Command, this time it would be Germans against Simon's Soviets, late war and the Jerries were defending a small hamlet. Simon rolled rubbish for support points so I had five and he had eight, so no big cats would be turning up although Simon could push a T-34 if he wanted to. 

I really wanted to take a panzerschreck team and a lot of other stuff but in the end I decided to leave my anti-tank defence in the hands of the hand carried panzerfausts each of my squads had, I also once again tried to take a tripod machine gun thinking it would deal death and reduce cover. I later found out that would only happen with a heavy not a medium machine gun, damn. my last points were spent on Fritz and Hans the sniper team, having learnt nothing from Svetlana and Natasha the week before. Simon did in the end take a tank, two in fact, both T-70's, I did wonder if I would have enough panzerfausts to knock them out.

The Reds are cautious.

An objective marker.

I did not take up any defensive positions in the first part of the game as Simon had to come to me in order to capture one or both objectives positioned in the hamlet. His sniper turned up but then had to move in order to find a target, support in the shape of and infantry squad and the tanks then turned up, at this point I put my MMG on along with the sniper to take advantage of his squad being in the open. I dealt out some shock but nothing too serious, Fritz and Hans were then tasked with finding the Soviet sniper which meant Simon did not fire and instead just hid and waited. More Russians turned up now but only slowly made any movement towards the objectives, this also applied to the tanks.

T-70.

Jerry turns up.

Seeing a possible opportunity one enemy squad ran to capture an objective at the crossroads, a wrecked truck, the first German infantry turned up and dealt out some deadly fire into the unprotected Reds, the tanks tried to support but Simon had trouble finding enough orders. Soon the whole squad minus a dead NCO broke and ran, the objective was safe. It was now time to knock out the tanks, two squads fired their 'faust's but only one hit and dealt a couple of scratches to the paintwork of its target.

Time was up and with the German defence firmly lodged in the hamlet we called it a night. It was Simon's first game and my third, we made the odd mistake but time had run out for the Soviets, two tanks sounded like game changers but as they required a command dice each and being crewed by only two men could not shoot and move they were not much of a threat in the end. Still some questions to be answered and some important changes to be remembered but the game certainly presents a challenge.

I had offered Erik a game here in the Bunker and decided to get my Seven Years War troops out of semi-retirement, I chose a game based loosely on the battle of Eutaw Springs with the French taking the place of the Americans. The British are slightly outnumbered but if they advance quickly the French second line can be nullified as it cannot get into a decent position to help the first line. 

French line.

French army.

British line.

To this end I advanced my whole army trying to bring all my firepower to bear, I did manage to get close and blast away with some decent casualties being put on the French left, my own left did not do as well and Erik managed to bring battalions forward to lengthen this flank. Erik did manage to withdraw his wounded battalions on his left and replace them with fresh troops, I had lost the opportunity to cripple a couple of his battalions, instead a couple of mine were now forced back, the French shooting being far deadlier than mine.

The boys advance.

Steady lads.

There, there are the enemy.

There was a cavalry clash on my left where both sides got nowhere and both left the field exhausted. It looked like I could possibly turn the enemy right with a bit of luck while holding on on my right. After a few more volleys my firing line was disrupted on both flanks which enabled Erik to bring overwhelming firepower on several battalions which either retreated or ran. I was fast approaching my army's break point so handed over my sword.

Wait for it, steady.

 

 

 

 

 

Fire!

Why did I build up two SYW forces, I know almost nothing of the period and unlike all my other armies which were researched to the 'enth degree I really cannot find the interest, apart from the uniform and flag data I remain ignorant in the main. I have a vague notion that I should have at least one redcoat army flying the Union flag, a bit like when I decided that only a real wargamer should have a Roman army (I now have three). Looking over the table today and having enjoyed the game despite the rules being fairly simple I think the boys are safe from eBay, but I do have to get them out and about more often.

I headed south last Friday for a weekend at No.1 sons who had got me a ticket for the Duxford Air Show for Father's Day, No.2 had cooked me an excellent three course Indian meal from scratch, lucky guy. The weather was cloudy but warm at Duxford, the first event a team parachute event was cancelled as was the flypast by the Battle of Britain flight, the wind was the reason (excuse). All the event aircraft flew fine so why the BoB flight was put off by the wind is beyond me. The main attraction a Red Arrows flypast was also cancelled at the last minute, although some research would intimate that RAF Mildenhall being under the auspices of the US was closed down due to an unlikely strike by the Iranians hence the Arrows were not allowed to fly, at least to the show. 

DC4 used by US Navy, flown over from Texas, 30 hrs.

B17, of course.

Spitfire.

Thunderbolt.

Hurricane.

Blenheim.

No matter, we had some lovely aircraft flying around of which the restored Blenheim was my favourite, although looking and performing well it was sadly obsolete against modern fighters and flak in 1940. Some of the aerobatic aircraft performed some hair raising manouvres, one in particular with two small  jet engines to help its main engine could actually hover at the end of a steep climb. At the end of the show a modern Typhoon literally blasted the area at speed as it climbed and rolled, the noise was incredible. A good day out.

On the journey home the Memsahib wanted to go to Jeremy Clarkson's pub for a nosey, I wanted to go and see Richard III, I won. The drive through the centre of Leicester was horrific, once parked I also led the expedition the long way around to the Visitor Centre, several times. The centre is not huge and concentrates on the finding of the grave and the excavations, you also get to stand above the grave in a special room with a glass floor. After this it was a short walk to the cathedral to see the new grave site, a kind of pilgrimage for me. I asked if it was OK to take a photograph of the tombstone and the lady began to tell me of the do's and don'ts then stopped herself and said tellingly "you are not the generation I need to explain this to". So, an item ticked from the bucket list. I am of course a fan of Richard III, no real idea why, he was English after all and had actually led a raid into Scotland at one point. I think it may be the outcome of the battle of Bosworth, only the second battle to be lost through treachery despite the perception it was everywhere, my villain is the Earl of Northumberland, the cunning Stanley's only joined when they saw Tudor would win, I doubt they turned the course of the battle. But our mate Percy, he controlled maybe a third or more of the army and simply sat and did nothing, he was not behind a hill or late, we now know the battlefield was almost perfectly flat, he sat on his backside.

I managed at last to finish the vexillation from XXX Ulpia Victrix, but since then have not managed anything else on the wargaming side, I have a Roman heavy cavalry unit up next needing cleaned and primed, maybe later in the week.

Oh and that book on the siege of Malta, halfway through and not a shot fired yet, it probably will not last much longer, stick with The Great Siege of Malta 1565 by Ernle Bradford.

What I did on my summer holidays.....

 There were several real life matters which meant we were not going abroad this year and as we made our mind up to get away late we did not have much choice in where we went, we ended up with a cottage in North Norfolk for a week followed by a weekend with No.1 son in Rickmansworth and then a trip to Portsmouth to visit Evelyn's sister and have a look at the Naval Museum and ships before stopping in on Richard III in Leicester on our way back.

Norfolk was very nice but pretty much empty, the weather was very kind to us. We visited several seaside towns which would not have been out of place fifty or more years ago, the larger towns had not handled the lockdowns well with empty shops and a tired, defeated look about them. We did some walks along the cliffs and the coastal path, a local village called Burnham Market had a hotel in which Nelson recruited men for the Royal Navy, he had been born in nearby Burnham Thorpe. A trip to Sandringham wrapped up our stay, not recommended, the tour of the house took 25 minutes and the gardens were simply woodland, the service in the cafe/restuarant was abysmal.

Searching for fossils.

Sandringham.

Holste Hotel, Nelson's recruiting station.

On the way to Graham's we stopped off at Sutton Hoo, I was not expecting much as wokery has overtaken history in many of our institutions. I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the visit, the craftsmanship of many of the objects is just astounding.

Beautiful, there are 13 creatures on this buckle.

One of the main points of our trip as far as Evelyn was concerned was a visit to Windsor Castle we did this while staying at my son's. Windsor was extremely busy both the town and the castle, we had a bit of a wait to get in as despite having our ticket barcodes on the phone you also need a paper ticket, so we had to queue to get one while those who had a paper copy walked right in. Windsor is a very modern castle and I did not really get a sense of the place as a fortress, however if you are a fan of the Royals the State Apartments will be right up your alley, Evelyn loved it and you get more bang for your buck than Sandringham. My highlight was the small amount of tournament armour on show (Henry VIII) and two equestrian mock ups of armoured men-at-arms. A day later and we were off to Pompey and a trip down memory lane.

Windsor.

Ditto.

As we approached Portsmouth the old familiar names started to appear, Petersfield, Liss, Horndean, Havant etc. We stayed at the Royal Maritime Club which had been something different back in the early '70's where Jack on a run ashore got a cheap room with a simple bed and a wardrobe for the weekend before returning to the ship. The place had been refurbished but you did not need much imagination to remember the old days, the rooms thankfully were different. It was also five minutes from the main gate into the dockyard. I had visions of running into some old shipmates also on a nostalgic trip but I suppose now we are all old men and probably would walk past each other oblivious.

We started our tour of the dockyard the next day and kicked off with the Mary Rose, this exhibit alone is worth the entrance fee, a beautiful museum built with care and thought for the visitors, we spent a long time in there. We had seen the ship not long after it was raised and being sprayed to keep it from rotting, but now, although only a part of her was salvaged she is magnificent. You also get an idea of the size of the ship and how they managed to cram 500 men on to her is hard to imagine, 35 survived the sinking. My last ship HMS Sheraton was a bit longer (though not nearly as tall) and she had a crew of 33.

HMS Warrior.

The Queen Elizabeth.

Fired first shell in WWI.

Still got it.

Next up was HMS Warrior, I was particularly interested in this ship as we had tied up alongside her once when we refueled as she was being used as an oil jetty. That hulk is now long gone and the mighty warship she once was has been lovingly restored, she is beautiful and impressive, a crew of around 700 and although she is much larger than the Mary Rose it must still have been a squeeze. Tartar and Nubian which were a tad smaller had 253 men.

We finished the day in the Museum building and the Nelson room was especially impressive, they had a section which was very modern and it was simply a mish mash of 'stuff' with no coherent story, but maybe that's just me. We had planned the next day to visit the Submarine Museum and the Explosives Museum on the opposite side of the harbour but they close on a Monday and Tuesday, so maybe next time, I hope so. We also took a harbour tour which was very interesting, the whole area having been dug out by French prisoners-of-war, a monumental task by hand. Sadly however the ships of the modern navy were all in for repairs/refits, taking two or three years, a sad state of affairs, made even worse by sailing past the hulk of the once lovely HMS Bristol, I had really wanted a draft to that ship.

Lovely ship.

A sad end.

And to top things off Leicester Cathedral is closed until the Autumn so we couldn't pop in to pay my respects to one of my heroes.

And there you have it, we had planned to pop over to Europe later but have decided against it and to get the Post Office done first and save for our big holiday next year.

Kettle Run, run, run

 I am still busy having taken on too much map wise recently, however I hope to finish several projects this week or in the next few days so that the pressure is off and I am back to normal, it's my own fault as I like to get things finished sooner rather than later and funnily enough, like to help people out.

Last Tuesday at the club was an ACW game with the Warlord Epic scale figures and Black Powder rules organised by Fran from one of my scenarios, Kettle Run. Fran has worked on the rules to give more of an ACW feel to the basics and has been play testing them for some time but I have not been able to join in until now. The Confederates hold a wood quite far forward from their main line and the Union objective is to throw them out of it and force the Rebs to withdraw, I had the Union left along with the part of the centre and Alex held the right. A small conflab was held and we decided to try and weaken the Reb units holding the wood then attack and throw them out, a mistake as it turned out, but a well thought out one, going hell for leather for formed troops with clean muskets and at close range does not usually bode well, and at that point we were not prepared to throw our men's lives away.

The musket duel in the woods fell the Confederates way, my own fire was ineffective while my regiments began to take casualties making charges all the more doubtful. Union reserves now turned up and I pushed a brigade forward on the extreme left, these guys were really keen until they saw grey jackets in front of them when it then took heaven and earth to move them. Alex slowly advanced to contact over on the right, by now the Rebs had brought more men forward and their line had solidified and the troops in the objective now had reserves behind them.

The Wood.

Nicely painted Zouaves.

Full house at the club.

Just before the end.

 A bit late I now asked my boys to charge, which they refused to do twice as more and more Rebs turned up, when one regiment did gather enough courage to surge forward it was beaten and ran for the rear taking a supporting regiment with it, a hole had appeared in the Union line, as I tried to fill it I lost another two regiments and the hole got bigger,  you could sit an entire brigade in it, if you had one spare. As we neared the final turns it was obvious we were not even going to squeeze a minor win from the debacle, thankfully Stewart and Fran did not break into a Rebel Yell.

A good game but my timidity and disastrous morale rolls at the end finished it for the Federals. How did the rules play, better than vanilla Black Powder and with more of an ACW flavour I suspect than the ACW supplemental rules, I cannot fault my own choice of Johnny Reb 2 but I would happily play these again at the club.

Nothing new on the Italian Wars front at the moment, I have finished the horses for the gendarmes along with two standards and the riders are 60% done but I have not been able to concentrate on them for a week or so. Not so sure I will get much done this week either as I have the club on Tuesday and a refight of Kettle Run (using JR2) with Fran here on Friday and then Matt Crump coming on Saturday for a War and Conquest Dark Ages clash on Saturday.

I went to the National Royal Navy museum in Hartlepool yesterday as I had noticed it some time before and thought it would be worth a visit and bring back some memories for an old Jack Tar. I hate to be downbeat about things like this but the museum was really about the frigate HMS Trincomalee which is now 204 years old and the oldest floating warship in Europe, second in the world I think, and my own experience does not extend to the early 19th C. So much for the 'National' part of the title. There was a walk through of life on a ship of the line back in the day and it was pretty good although one part of the voice over was impossible to hear, the exhibition on the building of the ship, it was built in Bombay, was ruined by the lighting being off for some reason so it was difficult to read large parts. There was a large play area for kids on one side of the dock and a couple 19th C. rooms on the other. The ship looked kind of 'dumpy' to me for a frigate which I had always considered the 'greyhounds of the fleet', what do I know though as 47 of the same class were built and she was very well armed. There was a lack of real information on the ship with only a token notice here and there, I knew what many of the rooms and equipment were but to a landlubber it would have been a mystery, you could buy a £5 guide to keep the ship afloat but this I thought would have been better done like many museums with a large, see-through box at the exit in which to drop donations, not many people bought the book that I saw. If you were in the area and had a couple of hours to spare it is worth the visit to see the old girl and help preserve her. I will give them kudos for not shoe horning in 'the message' which ruins so many other exhibits, although the midshipman's voice did sound suspiciously female.........

 

No, not original crew.

So there we go, late but better than never, fifteen minutes to go before I open the door to the great unwashed, although it is torrential rain at the moment.

A dreich week

A fairly lazy week so far, I based my new Paras but still have not made a move on getting some primer, I hope to persuade the memsahib to come in here for an hour so that I can get to town today and then get moving on everything that needs primed.

I finished the second of the Panzer III's this morning, no I am not impatient I just left some bits and pieces off last night and it was only going to take a few minutes to glue them. These kits are very good and cover every PzIII you would need to take you from the invasion of Poland to the odd few left in the ruins of Berlin. I chose an M and a command tank. The panzerbefehlswagen of course has several aerials, now two of these are to be modeled in the down position but you can change this and put the aerial base in the upright position. That sounds good but a brush bristle as recommended or thin plastic I suspect are not going to last long on a wargame table, I therefore used wire for my aerials and had to drill the holes on the two at the sides close but not on the aerial base, once painted I suspect no one will notice. I was hoping to be able to build the Flammpanzer turret from all the spares but you do not get two turret base plates, you could bodge it but I won't, what a lot of useless plastic you are left with, better hope Extinction Rebellion don't get a whiff of it.
 

Sprues from about four kits.

 I have also completed my Kriegsmarine squad, a nice little group of figures from Warlord, while reading Bloody Streets I now might add Spaniards, French and another German Waffen SS squad which I use as panzergrenadiers and need, would like, a reserve squad for them.

My next Von Luck game is a Para counterattack back into Ranville, possibly a bad move for the Red Devils but it is needed to put a delay on the panzergrenadiers and some pressure on Matt. I hope to build the table today and get started this week at some point.

The missus had booked us away for the weekend in the North Lakes, as you know I am not an outdoor type but I did need a break from the PO, don't laugh, we arrived at 1692 near Gosforth and it was first class, a five bedroom farm conversion finished to a very high standard. Did I mention it was raining on the way there? We were very close to the Roman Fort in Hardknott Pass and I said I would like to see it before our intended walk along Wastwater lake. What a desperate journey, the roads are very narrow and in places you have to back up if you meet anything coming the opposite way, the road up the pass was simply horrendous, thank god we did not meet anything on the way up, it was only suitable for a Roman cart. We eventually pulled in at a little sign which if you blinked you would have missed it, the laughable parking space needed some TLC from some Roman engineers. You cannot see the fort from the road but I took charge and headed up the hill to the crest, and yes there was the fort. It is a very good example of an Early Imperial fortress, I suppose it does protect the pass but I suspect that the Wall made it redundant, it was abandoned soon after building and only used once again for a short time thereafter. It was manned by a cohort of Dalmatians for whom I suspect it was a dire posting having come from the sunny Mediterranean. Oh, yes and it was raining.
The downpour at the lake prevented us getting out of the car so we gave up and went back to base.

On the Sunday we headed to St. Bees and a walk along the beach, I have never been so wet, despite all the foul weather clothing the rain eventually began to seep through. We managed to get a coffee and the high wind dried us out a bit in between the rain showers. Off to Seascale and another sodden tramp, a rather nice ice cream cheered me up but it was no good, out came the white flag and back to base. If our accommodation had not been so good we would have gone home. And the day we returned to civilisation, beautiful!

Friend Rob has just popped in and for a change we were not overly disturbed by customers while chatting. There is a huge diorama of Waterloo being planned and the organiser has asked for volunteers to paint up the figures, Rob has asked the club and we are doing a Prussian Landwehr battalion, he popped in my contribution so I can get started, 25 figures for now. He also volunteered, real life permitting, to join in the Ranville counterattack above, so watch this space.