Aerial Picture - Normandy

I have come across an aerial picture of the Bocage, and thought I would compare this to my photo taken a few weeks ago.
                                                        The first is of Deadmans Corner.

An aerial shot of Bocage 

Made up tabletop terrain

Battle Group Kursk - Display game at Bovvy 7th & 8th July

Warwick Kinrade, Piers Brand and Will ( from Plastic Soldier Company I think) will be doing a display game of BGK. I hope to be there and join in if I can, also getting a sneek peek at the 1st proof of the rules, as well as having a go at the game itself. They will be there over the weekend, Saturday and Sunday. I will be taking my faithful Fuji with me so will hope to get a few pictures, and maybe some freebies - a chart or two perhaps.

Yeovilton Airshow 2012

Just came back from Yeovilton Airshow, which surprisingly had quite reasonable weather. It's a good day generally, but there appeared to be less of it this year than previous years. I was looking forward to seeing the Mustangs scheduled for display, but unfortunately they were not flying today, or on display.

However, as said it was a jolly nice day out with the family, made especially so with a visit to the cider stall - the drink of choice aroundbouts. I managed to get some nice videos clips and some pics of some of the aircraft. I have 3 of the Red Arrows that I think are the best of the lot with my little Fuji Finefix. I have to mention a flyby by an Antonov A124 cargo plane. Russian pilots are always good value for money, and this was no different, with this rather porky sled attempting some elementary tricks. I'm sure the public liability insurance doubled when the insurers were told.

The 3 Red Arrow shots

Battle Group Kursk - new WW2 rule system

Well it's now officially out in the open, the release and preorder option for Battle Group Kursk - BGK. It costs £30, with a bonus StugIII from the Plastic Soldier Company for the first 500, and entry into a prize draw as well for a large wedge of PSC goodies. Visually impressive, hopefully surpassing KGN for playability and value for money. Yes I may preorder but details etc will be forthcoming from Piers Brand and Warwick Kinrade via various websites - Guild in particular. A preview outing to Bovington has been organised, which I will be going to instead of Devizes. Hopefully grubby tanks will be there as well.
So watch the web, and of course this space.

http://theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=70&products_id=292

Regimental Combat Team Smith

My US armour has slowly been getting finished off, and I have finally got round to getting a photo or two. Included in this is an Armoured Infantry Platoon.

The Armour is of 4 squadrons of 3 Shermans each, 2 M4 'Jumbos' with 105mm guns, with a Recce squadron of an M5 and 2 M8 armoured cars. The Armoured infantry is an HQ M3, 4 M3's, 2 M21 mortars with trailers, an M16 SPAA, M7 105mm SPG, 2 M10 tank destoyers, M20 utility car, 2 recce jeeps and a Medic jeep.

Nearly all the tanks require accessorizing with various detritus, which I'll be getting round to shortly. There are also a few bits I'm still trying to get sorted; a couple of weapons carriers and towed A/T guns, and an armoured dozer and Sherman dozer will be arriving soon.

South Somerset Wargames Group

I suppose an introduction to the 'club' is in order, as nearly all my wargaming activity is based in and around SSWG. We are very much like any other groupof like-minded individuals with a common obsession. That said they are a very nice bunch of people.

There is a lot of FoG going down, Renaissance and Napoleonic, with a base firmly established in Ancients. We have a very strong FoW lead by Colin, who is very involved with the FoW UK scene. And we have a range of 15mm, 20mm and 28mm collectors.

I'm doing my best to promote 20mm WW2, and there are several people who have collections. KGN is being played, though not really any other systems. KGN gives a very reallistic and playable freeflowing game.

Games are organised at Ilchester practically every Thursday, with a meet down at Stratton just outside Dorchester. This is the Dorchester club meet - once a month. The club has many crossover members with Dorchester and the Weymouth Levellers, and all the local clubs try to support each other, as well as welcome in other gamers from the above clubs.

Battle of the Hedgerows

A small unit action was arranged last night for KGN at Ilchester, a continuation of the learning excercise to get familiar and confident in handling the game mechanisms. Its working ! Its also a lot of fun watching both teams working the problem, instead of being on one side or the other. I'm alsogetting positive feedback from the players as well.

The US army was represented by  John and Mike, 2 platoons, 50 cal team,Battlegroup HQ with a jeep, and an Observer team with a jeep. 2 offboard 81mm mortars.

The Wehrmacht was represented by old hand Steve, reinforced infantry platoon, Observer team and a Battle group HQ with schwimwagen . 2 offboard 81mm mortars.

The US were attacking across the table, probing the 'line'and pushing on if possible, eliminating German resistance where necessary. All figures were deployed on the table, last game any troops in ambush were not deployed. This gave a somewhat surreal experience for the US as nothing seemed to be happening. Not true this game.

US Battlegroup Command comes on to watch the action from the cover of a cornfield. Not a good idea as he parked in front of a MG42, in sight of the German observer in the windmill. After losing his staff officer, the team jumped over a hedge in front of another MG42 team. Take a morale chit and no rerolling of dice! An illustrative example of the high combat loses of inexperienced leaders in combat.

 The US forces developing their attack, which kind of stalled on the right, but was not able to draw support from this to develop their left flank attack.

 The US right flank finally starts to move - but loses a section and a half, as well as suffering the effects of the loss of the Battlegroup command, 2 dice giving 3 is a bad roll!, especially if done in the following turn as well!!

 The US left flank gets going, but is slowly running out of steam. The 50 cal has spotted and shreded the windmill, removing the observer from play

After 3 hours, the Germans start getting morale chits giving a total of 9 out of 12, whilst the US have 19 out of 27, and a marginal US victory.

Any lessons to be learned would be the importance of coordinating the actions of the infantry, and plenty of heavy weapons supporting the advance to contact, or allowing manoevre of infantry on the field free from enemy interference.

KGN is no more !

Well a bit late with the news, as most people know that Games Workshop - hence forth to be known as EE ( Evil Empire ), has closed down Warhammer Historical. What are OrkBoyz doing at Waterloo anyway I hear you say, well thats what the suits thought as well. So, EE has pulled the plug on all historical rulesets, and have put the legal team on a long leash to go for violation etc of Intellectual Property. By the  way, they will not sell any of the rulesets out, so no second chance.

Having sold off my 15mm FoW as I was getting more and more disatisfied with it, to move into KGN, I now find myself in the situation that EE has pulled the rug out on me. I have managed to get a copy of the 21st Panzer listing, and bought a copy of WI with the Brit Para list in, the writing was on the wall when EE strenuosly objected to WI publishing KGN related articles. This was only clear to me after it was pointed out by someone on the GMG Forum who had experience of EE much earlier with Warhammer Ancient Battles, so I can't clear prescience here.

However when viewed from a distance, perspective gives a clearer picture. My comments relating to the 50% sale of historical product at the start of the year as a firesale were dismissed, but I believe it was an attempt to get stock out of the door. I have been told that even with the reduction, costs of £12 were more than met at a £24 price, goes to show what the profit margin is at £48. The rules sold though.

It seems that Historical was at odds with the aim of EE and its focus on Warhammer etc etc. Fine, but the whole thing could have been hived off and given a prod with a barge pole to keep it away. Now, we have a situation where the only way to go is to produce a crafty 'clone' of KGN but changing all the specific content to some anadine construct, or write your own set and compete out there with everyone else. Activity has started to dry up in relation to KGN whilst waiting for the 'new' set to appear, so when I know more I'll let you know.

US Infantry ready to roll

Finally got all the US painted ready to roll. I have a Battlegroup Command, 2 observer teams with jeeps, Jeep recce, Engineer section in 2 light trucks, 2 50 cals, 2 81mm mortars, 3 60mm mortars, 3 30 cals, sniper, 2 platoons of infantry and a jeep medic.

KGN terrain pics

Pictures of my Normandy terrain, showing farm complex, some orchards and several cornfields. Hedged roads and 2 high banked hedges/bocage

                                  Overview of the terrain, taken up astep ladder looking down.

                                  The following pics taken at 90' quarters to table - 6ft by 4ft

I think its  a busy table, but not to busy, and obviously can be moved around to different configurations. It is missing the windmill though, but the purpose is to show off the terrain. From pictures of the countryside around St Lo, and descriptions from Glover S Johns book - The Clay Pidgeons of St Lo, fairly accurate.