Valentine Tanks Disguised as Chocolates

Just like a box of chocolates?

Talk about camouflage, 

but perhaps not ideal for desert conditions.

I bought a box of five Valentine tanks by Plastic Soldier Company, only to find there were so many spare parts I could create an extra five tanks, to make ten in total.  These are for a Rommel scenario take takes my fancy and I've decided to do a better job of matching kit to game.  I had hoped to have them finished for Valentine's Day, but this is as far as I got.

 The main part that needed fabrication was the lower hull.  

I settled on creating them out of balsa

 and was presently surprised how well they turned out 

(both in terms of ease of construction and final look and feel).

 The shield over the exhaust I could have left off,

 but I crafted them out of sheet aluminum.

 The two tool boxes are from plastic, 

except the top for the front one wass cast using modelling plaster.

 And now they are all base coated ready for their final paint job.

Holland'44 - The Battle for Nijmegen

The game continues

 It is the afternoon of 20 September.  

The British and Polish airborne troops are trapped just outside Arnhem.

The US paratroops are not yet organised to try and assault Nijmegen.

 The east flank is secure and being pushed back.

 While the west flank is also being secured.

 The night sees the first attacks against Nijmegen.

 The Germans are retreating in the east.

 And in the west.

 Morning of the 21st sees an overcast day.  

The good weather couldn't hold forever, but this is bad.

The attack on Nijmegen goes nowhere.  Time for a rethink.

 The eastern push is also stalled.

 And the Germans launch a counterattack from the western edge.

 The fighting at Arnhem is dire,

but with a change of strategy (and appalling dice rolling by Richard)

Nijmegen has been captured.

Then I realise it is going to be no good if I can't get across the river.

 Progress has resumed in the east with the arrival of some Netherlands units.

 The fighting continues in the west.

The city is an objective (there are two on the eastern flank as well).

 The night of the 21st has the British and Polish paratroopers still hanging on,

the Guards' Division has got across the river, but will they be able to breakout?

 Progress is slow in the east, but the Germans, 

despite their counterattacks, are being pushed back.

The West is also having its share of mixed progress.

If I lose too many units (the reason why the Germans keep attacking)

they will get enough Victory points to win.

Great game, but the dice can be cruel.

France Mid 1940

Session 11

We are across the Rhine!

The Spitfire arrives.  We licence it from the UK and commence production.  Our air force has been pulled back to rebuild, so here's hoping new technology will allow us to challenge the skies (I think the problem really is production volumes rather than equipment quality).

One of the "flaws" in the AI is that it masses enemy airpower in single regions.  So they are overwhelming in one spot (Western Germany with fighters, or East North Sea with bombers) and absent in other areas (Italy).

10 July 1940 and the Soviet Union announces it is prepared to offer security to the small nations of Europe.  That's so sweet.

The Germans are now cleared from the west bank of the Rhine.  Hurray!

But on a bleak note, France has run out of manpower.  I can increase mobilisation, but I need political power to do that and that is something seriously lacking in France (particularly when playing on Elite level).

Britain is a similar state, with battleships it can't launch for want of crews.

The battle for Essen commences.

Session 12

This is probably the Allied high water mark, July 1940.

We've been having performance problems with the game, both in terms of speed and responsiveness to commands.  Apart from the fiasco with the British fleet (wiped out as it refused to move out of the Eastern North Sea for two months or more), there is also the situation were exhausted troops won't retreat or worse when they have they just sit there thinking they are still in combat.  Now possibly you could explain that in some historical sense, but it seems more like a bug.

We play on.

4 August 1940 and we here about the assassination of Trotsky.  Seems the Russians have form in killing exiles in foreign countries.

There is ferocious fighting against our Rhine bridgeheads.  It is annoying (although this is about to get a lot worse), in that the territory has been claimed by Belgium, but they are not doing much to help defend it.

There is also fierce fighting in Austria against Innsbruck and Salzburg.  We capture the former but the latter is saved by the timely arrival of Germany's allies the Hungarians (who obviously don't work under the same guidelines as the Belgians).

23 August 1940 Germany has broken through the Maginot line and reached as far as Nancy.

WTF?

Admittedly we were focused on Austria.

I can only think that either I made a mistake in shuffling troops around defending the Rhine and somehow left an area undefended (possibly due to failure of my command to move a unit to register due to game response problems), or that somehow the Germans got lucky in an attack (hadn't been the case so far).  The area they broke through is the skinny tile, four up from the Swiss border

This is a disaster.

The race is on to plug the gap.  The Belgians just sit there doing nothing.  The French move so slow and end up getting pinned down.  Luckily the British (and Bruce's skill) manage to create a defensive line and start to push the lead German units back.

At least we now have the political power to be able to implement extensive  conscription.

We do recapture Nancy.

In our hour of need Belgians decides to cancel their Lend Lease agreement with us.  Are they thinking of deserting the cause?

2 September 1940 and we call off the offensive in Austria.

I am no longer feeling confident.

I blame Bruce as he said the game was getting bogged down like the WW1 front.  Hmpf! Too much excitement now.

Jam

At the club on Wednesday night I took the Phoenix for a flight.  This time I had the special ability "sniper"meaning I could chose which one of two damage cards to deal (basically picking the best card from each choice of two).  The downside was that if my guns jammed, they couldn't be unjammed...

Mark B had the other Phoenix, while Stephen took the two Triple Entente scouts.

And what happens on my first shot?

I draw two cards and both have the guns jammed symbol.

I break off, limping a bit with rudder damage and a nasty head scratch.

Mark B sets one of the enemy scouts on fire.

I've been slowly climbing.

I'm being chased, their plane is faster than mine, but I have altitude.

Mark B is continuing the dog fight with the flaming scout.

Finally turning on his hapless opponent and shooting him down.

I fly off into the sunset.

I was at half damage with just three cards, my comparate had received a handful of zeros while the surviving enemy scout was being held together by song and pray.

France 1940

Session 9

Fighting rages on the Rhine and in southern Italy, where the Italians, now devoid of German support, look like collapsing.  Indeed Rome falls on 21 February 1940.  But the Italians fight on.

We launch a second offensive on the Italian Alps.

The Germans start sending troops to Italy again.

Colonial industry starts to come online.  France is desperately short of industrial capacity and is not keeping up with equipment losses.  We are getting Lend Lease trucks from Belgium, artillery from the US and (later) rifles from the UK.

De Gaulle plans an offensive against Koln (19 March).  It is a fizz (due to the AI misbehaving and continual destabilising attacks from the Germans and ineptitude on my part most likely).

Late March and our Italian offensive is starting to make progress.

Argh!! There are mutinies in the Army.  We attempt to surround the mutinous troops with loyalists and carry on.  Perhaps that was why De Gaulle's offensive failed?

In April 1940 the Battle for Turin and Genoa starts.  Turin is captured by mid April.

The mutiny is crushed by 26 April.  Phew.

Session 10

The situation at the beginning of April 1940.

One of the odd things in the game is how the minor countries can grab territory even though other countries fought for it and won it.  Belgium is a case in example.  All gets sorted out in the eventual peace conference, but meantime they get all the resources.

After the mutiny at the beginning of the year, France then faced elections in which the Communists gained ground.  I decided to go for a broad coalition of democratic parties to try and head them off, even though it did decrease the country's stability.  France is not easy to play.  Just how hard it is I was about to find out.

Fighting continues on the Rhine frontier.  It is impossible to coordinate with the Belgians.  The airwar is also going badly.

Genoa falls on 3 May and shortly after Italy capitulates.  There is then the race to get to the Austrian alps.  Our southern front is able to advance to just outside Innsbruck and Salzburg, before German resistance empeds further progress.

Koln is captured on 14 May 1940.

The USSR declares war on Finland and makes the country their puppet by mid June.

The French plan a big offensive against Salzburg.  It is a failure.  The French army just doesn't have the capability.

With the demise of Italy and the security that brings to the Mediterranean, I start to move some naval capacity to the Indian Ocean.

As June closes, US troops are observed moving into Norway on the border with Soviet Finland.  This could be interesting.  What are they up to?

Military Modelling Magazine Index 1971 to 1976

The first installment was almost a year ago. While not so much a tedious task, it is not something to tackle in bulk and also has lots of rabbit holes to go down as well as trips down memory lane (mainly from some adverts and various articles).

I have now finished creating an index in Excel of the first six years worth of Military Modelling magazine.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=15xdMRDAKKy8v2HP3vD5igD9jEazPedIj

I hope people find it of use.

Cheers

Mark

Holland'44 - The Next Day

The game continues.

With some spare time I was able to go through the rules and of course discovered we were doing a few things wrong.  Possibly nothing that couldn't have been accounted for based on die rolls, so we carried on.

19 September, 1944 (turn 6) could have been bad weather, but I scored clear skies.  On with the para drops!

 Arnhem bridgehead (ha ha) desperately needs reinforcements, 

but the Poles have been given low priority.  

At least they have drop zone options.

 The 82nd Airborne at Nijmegen are busy securing their rear areas 

and unable to press an attack on the city, 

especially as they now have supply problems.

 The high water mark of the German counterattack on the west flank.

On the eastern side they are in retreat.

 Turn 7 and the Poles arrive.

It is essential that there are Allied forces north of the Rhine to avoid an instant German victory.

 The 82nd have received reinforcements.

Now they just need supplies.

 Bridge repair starts on canal,

but in some good luck, eh, hard fighting,

a bridge was captured intact on the eastern flank.

 The night of the 19th.

 Seems very quiet...

 The flanks of the thrust are secure and troops are getting ready to head north.

 20 September and more clear weather.

However the Germans are starting to make progress on wearing down the paratroops around Arnhem.

 Supplies are now flowing, 

but a German counterattack has destabilized the 82nd 

(although perhaps just briefly).

In the east the Germans have retreated into the marsh.

In the west they have retreated off the map 

(one of the features of this game is that the edge of the map is not the end of the world).

Tense stuff!

There is a German armoured brigade on the eastern flank, just behind the 82nd, and it might cause problems.  Other than that it will be a slog for Nijmegen, while hoping that the British and Polish paratroops can hold on.