Broadside Show, and Churchills in the Car Park

On Saturday I was able to get to Medway Park Sports Centre, Gillingham, for Broadside 2024, organised excellently as ever by Milton Hundred Wargames Club  ( a fine bunch of guys clearly, and they hail from my childhood home town ). It's always a good show, not one of the larger events but in a good spacious venue, which means it's always easy to see the games, and there are not too many games,  so you are not rushing around to catch them all, can take your time with each one.  A decent selection of traders,  and a nice feature is that a number of tables are available for a sort of wargaming 'flea market', of which more later.

Admittedly several of the games had been at SELWG, Cavalier or Salute so I had seen them before, but they were all good so worth seeing again! I took a few pictures, so here are some of them: 

Postie's Rejects: Ray's Haiti 1792 game

 

Postie's Rejects were there, of course - this is their local show - with a game organised by Ray Roussell,  The Battle of Croix-du-Bouquets 1792, from the Haitian slave revolution against the French (who of course were themselves 'Revolutionaries' - something of an irony there! ). A great-looking game, see Ray's Don't Throw a One blog for much more on this. 

Ray directing operations -  note 'pencil behind the ear' symbol of office 

 

Shepway wargamers' brought their 'Dornier Down'  game, set in a thankfully imaginary Nazi invasion of UK, 1940, and I think it won best in show. 

Shepway - 'Dornier Down'

 Medway Wargames Club put on a Mythical Greek period game, I think the rules were Dragon Rampant. A nice idea - use your Greek hoplite armies wih just a few additions of various gods, heroes and mythical beasts. Very colourful!

Medway - Greek Myths

South East Essex (SEEMS) always do a good setup, this was the  imaginary ACW Action at Bryson’s Crossroad - I think the location might have been inspired by the 1965 James Stewart film Shenandoah. Rules were Rebels and Patriots, I think.  Some really nicely-painted figures, as you can see in the second picture.

SEEMS : ACW 'Bryson's Crossroad'

 

Central London Wargames promoted the Emperor of the Battlefield Napoleonic rules produced by their member Ian Godwin :

Central London Wargamers: Emperor of the Battlefield

These chaps are always very friendly and happy to talk you through the rules, but I always have to admit that I don't do Napoleonics! However,  I gather the rules were developed from an earlier set for the Seven Years War, and those are hopefully going to be re-issued soon in an updated edition. I shall be interested to see them! 
 

Skirmish Wargames group brought their Boxer Rebellion game - complete with gunboat! the game used 54mm figures, beautifully and colorfully painted. 

 

Maidstone Wargames Society showed their 'Summer of 77'  Battle of Britain game, which I had seen at the Cavalier show - based on a free boardgame published in a Warlord comic in 1977.  

Hailsham Wargames club brought their '(Evading) The Devil’s Paintbrush' WW1game - and appropriate headwear. Sadly I didn't get a picture of the players in 'Picklehaube' helmets! 

Hailsham club: WW1

A nice 'Cold War Gone Hot'  (1980s) game - not in the program, but I think it was by the Milton Hundred club? 

 

Deal Wargamers showed their 1936 Palestine rebellion game : sadly, somewhat topical,  of course, But nice to see  'early war' British kit, including Gloster Gladiatiors

 

I liked this Peninsular War village setting for a skirmish participation game by  Big on Strategy - 'A Whiff of Grape'

 

And finally I spent some time with Retired Wargamers Reloaded and their splendid 'Hold Until Relieved' D-Day Pegasus Bridge game

 I had a good chat over coffee with my old buddy Tony who is a member of the 'RWR' group, and with luck some face-to-face gaming may result, in the near future! Great to meet Tony again and have a good talk, and of course get a close look at this amazing layout  ( I also thought it especially realistic as, look where you might, Prime Minister Sunak was nowhere to be seen...must have gone home early).

 

**UPDATE**: for even more, and  better, pictures, and of more games than I captured, see Ray's 'Don't Throw a 1' blog for his report on the show.   

There was a little shopping done, naturally - the 'flea market' stalls had lots of interesting stuff. I bought some books from one, which turned out to be run by the Whitehall Warlords Group, of which I was  once a member, for a few months in about 1988. I thought  those chaps looked familiar..

Issue 19, from 1966

The copy of 'Tradition' includes part of a series on 18th Century wargaming by Charles Grant, which five years later would be published in book form as - of course - 'The War Game'.  
 

I've been interested to see these rules in use recently by Postie's Rejects for FPW games - I have a bit of a yen for the '19th Century Europe' period, so these may be interesting.  

A couple of slim volumes of Colonel Horace St Paul's journals of life in the 7YW Austrian army - good to be able to try them before possibly buying the big, glossy (and expensive) recent Helion editions...  

And finally this vintage 1970s  'Knights Battles for Wargamers' book on Dettingen. This has some heritage, as it has an inscription inside from its previous owner  Seamus Bradley,  who was  chair of the Whitehall Warlords when I was a member. I remember him as a really nice, friendly and enocouraging chap;  sadly it seems he is in a care home now, suffering from dementia. I think more than one of the above came from his collection. I am quite pleased to become a custodian of them, and hopefully get some enjoyment and use out of them, in a sort of small tribute - thanks, Seamus.

One slight 'downside' of the venue is that parking there was  a nightmare - especially as there was also a large athletics event going on there!  But I had realised that just over the road is the Royal Engineers Museum,  where the car park was (a) nice and quiet and (b)  contained quite a few vintage armoured vehicles! In the week of D-Day, it was interesting to park next to a couple of Churchills: 

Churchill AVRE (post-war Mk VIII version)

  

.. and AVLB Bridge-Layer

I had time enough to spend an hour or so in the museum - luckily the ticket lasts a year, and I hope to be able to return for the 'Replay' gaming show there in October, at least.  One notable treasure they have is the 'Waterloo Map' , which it seems was used by Wellington during the 1815 campaign, and bears pencil marks made by the Duke when planning to take up his position at Mont St Jean. Quite a piece of history! 

Wellington's Waterloo Map

..with positions marked by himself !

So all in all, a pretty good day - I enjoyed it very much, and I hope you have enjoyed seeing my impressions of  it. Many thanks, of course, to all who organised the show, put on games etc. 

This week I have been painting - but mainly '1:1 scale', interior and exterior of my house! But I hope to get some more hobby time soon, time for my 'D-Day Dodgers' to test out the  Rapid Fire Reloaded rules, so hopeully that will be the subject of my next post. Until then  keep well, everyone.

Punjabis Painted (almost) and an Italian miscellany

I have, at last (almost) completed painting my Indian battaltion for the 'D-Day Dodgers' Italian Campaign 1943-45 project.  So here, on parade for the camera on what looks suspiciously like a stopover in rural England before deployment, are the gallant men of the entirely imaginary  11/8th Punjab battalion:

 

They comprise (from the front )  the HQ company with Battalion commander, PIAT team, 2-inch mortar team and truck;  three  rifle companies each of 8 figures with a truck;  a fourth company with 8 figures and 2 Bren carriers;  and the Support Company with 6-pounder A/T gun,  3-inch mortar, Lloyd carrier and Bren carrier. 

Keen readers may remember that I was unsure how to recruit the fourth company, having limited numbers of figures with Punjabi Muslim style turbans or British steel helmets - I am grateful to Neil from the excellent aufklarungsabteilung blog who suggested that I could consider a Sikh company in a Punjabi battalion.  I had enough Sikh-turbaned figures to do that, and it seemed a nice idea, giving a bit more interesting variation in the battalion. So we now have 'A', 'B' and 'C' Companies of Punjabis, and 'D' Company of Sikhs. I'm quite pleased with them

 As I said, they are 'almost' complete - if you look very closely at the back, you'll see that the 6-pounder crew are in need of a change of uniform colour and skin tone. So indeed not quite finished yet, but almost! Also the transport is 'from the pool' so to speak (specifically the vehicles bought recently from the collection of the late Eric Knowles),  hence their carrier crews also look distinctly White British. So the next step is to provide some more appropriate crewmen - which should be simple enough. 

If you'll excuse my 'impressionistic' painting style (as ever, button-counters should look away now), I'll risk a close-up :

 hmmm... those HQ company bases may need a little work. You may notice that the only White British figure is the  battalion commander - as far as I know, this is pretty much true to reality (note that this is a battalion for Rapid Fire Reloaded, in which one figure represents about 15 men). Anyway I am quite pleased with them overall, and hope they acquit themselves well when they finally get to the gaming table! 

When  painting them, I decided to be a little more adventurous than a very simple 'block-painting' style, and found  some useful tips in Andy Singleton's book Painting Wargaming Figures: WW2 in the Desert

 

I liked this book, as it starts from the very basics and really assumes no prior knowledge of various painting techniques, hence great for beginners.  He also has step-by-step instructions (with plenty of good photos)  for painting figures at each of three levels of skill, which he calls 'Conscript' ( block colours and a little dry-brushing )  'Regular' ( some dry-brush highlights, and shading to finish ) and 'Elite' ( using layering and spot-highlights ).  My chaps are somewhere between Conscript and Regular, I think, and that will do nicely for me. We'll have to see what level they fight at..

This week has coincidentally provided some more Italian-related interest and events, as follows: 

(1) a trip to the BFI ( National Film Theatre, as was ) in London for a showing of  Roberto Rossellini's  Rome, Open City , which I had shamefully never seen before (and I call myself a film fan?). Absolutely  relevant to the 'D-Day Dodgers'  period, this neo-realist classic depicts life in Rome under the Nazi occupation of 1943-1944, and the hazards of involvement in the political/violent resistance movements. It's famous for being filmed very close to the time it depicts, and as the program notes say it was 'made on the streets of the war-ravaged capital with stolen electricity and scraps of 35mm stock supposedly sourced on the black market'.  It was first shown in September 1945,  less than a year after the Allies liberated Rome, and only months after the German forces in Italy had surrendered. It struck me that the people of the areas where filming took place (and the allied troops in Rome) may have been pretty shocked if chancing across the filming, as tenement blocks were surrounded and 'residents'; rounded up by parties of SS troops in full uniform, distinctive helmets and fully armed! There must have been some delicate negotiations between the film-makers and the authorities, and the locals. It's a great film, well worth catching. 

 

 

(2) Picked up at a neighbourhood 'give a book, take a book' box,  A Walk In the Sun  by Harry Brown, a slim novel recounting the experiences of a fictional US Army platoon landing on an un-named  beachhead in Italy in 1943 or 1944,  Harry Brown was a US Soldier, but not on the front-line - he was a writer for Yank magazine ('the army weekly')  from 1942. He went on to be a film screenwriter, with Sands of Iwo Jima among his credits.   I was pretty suprised to learn that this novel was published as early as 1944, as it is not in the least 'gung-ho' and does not paint a romantic picture of war, quite the opposite indeed. The platoon finds their commanding officer incapacitated before even reaching the beach, and then try to follow what little they know of their orders, given  no  contact with their parent unit. The writer  must surely have interviewed real-front-line troops, and the story 'rings true' in its depiction of ordinary men in the  extraordinary situations of war.  I haven't finished it yet, so no plot spoilers, please!  

 

 (3) Last but not least,  a different period but also Italy-based, I was lucky to take part in another of Jon Freitag's remote games, this time recreating  the battle of Bassignana, 1745.   

I'll give nothing away except Jon's picture of the initial deployments, trusting him to provide his usual excellent report of what was one of his usual excellent games, which came to quite a dramatic last-gasp  conclusion!

 I was privileged to play the 'Gallispans' C-in-C Mallebois, with a small brigade command too, while Chris 'Nundanket' and Dave 'St Cyr' took the Spanish and French wings, against Piedmontese and Austrians led by Mark 'Jolly Broom Man' and Tony 'MS Foy'.  Many thanks to Jon and all concerned, as usual, for a great game! 

Next, it must surely be time to actually try a game of Rapid Fire Reloaded : and next weekend there is the 'Broadside' show at Gillingham which I hope to attend. Plenty of material for future blogging, then. Until then, keep well, everyone.

Fnurban #30 A Mighty (Roman) Fortress

Following on from last time's Roman theme,  I have recently visited an impressive Roman site - Burgh Castle,  on the Norfolk coast.  Last month we spent a few days at Great Yarmouth, and Burgh is just out of town from there, so we took the chance to see it. It was well worth a visit! 

About a 15-minute drive out of  Yarmouth town, the site is owned by the Norfolk Archaeoligical Trust (the stone walls are managed by English Heritage). There's a car park, then a short walk across a field to the site - passing the nearby round-towered church (a Norfolk and Suffolk speciality) which is also worth a  look. .You are greeted with this sight: 

 

What you are seeing here is just over half the width - the gap in the wall to the left is the East Gate of the fort, which is in the middle of the East wall. Overall, that wall looks to be a bit over 200m long, and as you can see it is pretty much complete.  That goes for the North (shorter) Wall too, and the South Wall is about half-preserved - the West Wall has gone, probably tumbled into the river it sat alongside. So overall, more than half the fort's walls remain, and they survive to their original height, too, with complete bastions at intervals along the walls and at the corners. 

Bastion in East Wall

 

and a closer view, note red tile courses

North-East corner

Visitors can go through the gate and look around inside the enclosed area, which gives views across marshes and the River Waveney running next to the site.  There are no remaining structures or ruins inside the walls, but you get a good impression of the area that would have been enclosed - about 2.2 hectares in all. 

It seems that Burgh was built in 'the late 200s AD' which I take to mean late in the 3rd Century, as part of the 'Saxon Shore' ( Litus Saxonicum ) chain of forts which stretched from Brancaster, Norfolk, to Porchester, Hampshire - the name seems to mean 'the shore attacked by the Saxons' or  'The shore of the Saxon Sea' .  It is possible that the forts may have originally been built as naval bases for controlling and protecting trade across the North Sea,  but they are now mainly associated with defending the coast of Roman Britain from Saxon invaders, whose first documented raid on Britain was in 286 AD.  The landscape has changed since then, but originally Burgh would have stood at the mouth of a 'Great Esturary' into which flowed several rivers,  with another fort, Caister Castle, standing on the oppoiste side.  The fort would have been able to house 500-1000 infantry, or up to  500 cavalry. It is known that the garrsion included a cavalry  unit called the Equites Stablesiani.  There is also substantial archaeological evidence of a significant civilian settlement ( vicus )  outside the walls.

The walls themselves are about 3.2m thick at the bottom, 1.5m thick at the top, and 4.6m tall - complete except for a parapet which would have stood on top. They were  built with  a rubble and mortar core and  flint facing stones, with up to seven triple layers of red fired clay tiles helping bond the facing stones to the core. Six of the original  ten bastions survive.   All very impressive - the relatively complete walls give a powerful impression of how imposing the fort would have been when in use. Needless to say, if you are interested in Roman military history, you really should see this!  By chance we visited on an 'open day' with a stall and display by the Norfolk Archaeological Trust, which allowed us to buy a guidebook covering Burgh, Caister and Brancaster - from which the information here is taken. Of course there are websites - from English Heritage and Norfolk Archaeological Trust.   

Great Yarmouth itself has a decent selection of historical sites, including some stretches of medieval town walls - and for those interested in the  ECW, you can visit the Elizabethan House Museum,  a 16th Century merchant's house  with its rather grand 'Conspiracy Room': 

 It seems that in 1648 the heads of the New Model Army ( including Cromwell ) were  at Yarmouth, and the house's owner John Carter was commander of the local Trained Bands, and would have hosted the senior officers. It is said that in this room a meeting was held, at which the decision was taken to put King Charles on trial for treason - this of course resulted in his execution the following year. 'A great reckoning in a (fairly) small room', perhaps?

That's enough historical meandering  for now.  In the meantime there has been a little hobby progress, as I have been getting on with painting my 'D-Day Dodgers'  WW2 Indian battalion 

 

Very much a work  in progress, but we are getting there - perhaps the next post here will show off the completed unit, if I keep up with the painting sessions.  Meanwhile, keep well, everyone.

Fnuraban #29 I Am Legion

The other day I was fortunate to be able to visit the British Museum, to see their exhibition Legion: Life in the Roman Army.  the first thing to say is that it's well worth a visit if you have any interest in the Roman Army,  but be sure to book ahead and be prepared for it to be pretty busy! ( not intolerably so at 11:00 am on a Thursday morning,  I'm glad to say ). 

I took some pictures, and I'll simply show those I think, with a brief commentary.  Of course these are only a minority of the objects in the whole show. So, in more or less the order of the exhibition: 

Auxiliary Infantry

 There were a fair number of these sculptural pieces depicting Roman soldiers with identifiable weapons, standards etc. I didn't take detailed notes, but I think these are 3 auxiliary spearmen.  

 

Legionary Sandals 

Some amazing survivials of perishable items were included - there was even a pair of legionary socks, with a division for the big toe,  allowing them to be worn with sandals. Sadly I didn't get a picture of that.  

Legionary equipment: Sword, Belt, Dagger, Tools

An interesting point made was that the mark of being a Roman soldier  was the belt, sword and dagger etc rather than any particular items of clothing/uniform.  One of the caption cards even stated  there was no specific uniform beyond a military belt.   Now that very much caught my eye, given the very uniform appearance of all modern depictions of Legionaries - though it was also stated that helmets, armour etc did tend to be standardised (even if made in local workshops which allowed some variation), and I suppose this would tend to impose a 'uniform' look.  

Another fact that I had not been aware of was that soldiers were expected to provide or pay for their own equipment - the narrative of the show was maintained by following the story of a real soldier of the early second century AD whose letters have survived. In fact, most of the letters quoted seemed to be dominated by his pleading requests for money or equipment ( 'I have replaced my  footwear twice a month').  It was also interesting that there were hurdles to be cleared even to join up - only a Roman Citizen could be a Legionary, and they needed letters of reference to support their application. Our example soldier had to join the lower-status Marines first, before eventually getting into a Legion.   Surprisingly to me, the pay rates quoted were 250 denarii per annum for an Auxiliary (non-citizen) but only 300 denarii for a Legionary. Obviously, more senior ranks were paid a lot more - a Junior Centurion about 15 times the Legionary rate, I think? 

There were quite a few depictions of actual soldiers in their equipment, taken from their funeral monuments - it seems that they signed up for 25 years service, but only about 50% survived to see out the full term, owing to disease as much as battle. Many of the monuments were to men aged 30 or below.  I took pictures of a small selection of them, including a young Centurion named Marcus Favonius Facilis,  who had died at Colchester sometime before the Boudicca revolt of 61AD.  

Literate soldier holding a book 

Standard Bearer with 'Emperor head'

Grave Monument of a Centurion (Marcus Favonius Facilis) at Colchester, 50-60AD 

Legionary Shield and Boss

..and from the back

Now this was really interesting, and may be the only complete example of such a shield in existence?  It was stated that the wood and leather construction means that the curve has been exagerrated by shrinkage/warping over time, it would originally have been more gently curved. Note also the metal boss, of course.  It was fantastic to see this item, along with one or two others (see below) it was worth the price of admission just to see that! 

 

Swords, Daggers and Helmets (and someone trying on a replica helmet!)

'new pattern' short sword, c.79AD

high-quality helmet and segmented armour

Legionaries in Battle Formation

Cataphract Horse Armour c.200AD - amazing stuff!

The Cataphract Horse Armour was another real eye-opener - if you are interested in the later Roman army, you probaly have to see it.   Pretty much the entire 'trunk' of the horse was covered by overlapping metal scales, which must have been pretty heavy, too!   

And then to complete a trio of wonders, an almost-complete Legionary Cuirass...  This was stated to have come from the battle site of the huge defeat in  9 AD , at the hands of Arminius ( aka 'Herman the German')  in the Teutoburger Wald, and I think stated to be the most complete that has been found.   Another 'worth the price on its own' moment? 

Complete Legionary Cuirass - from Teutoburger Wald

Father and Son soldiers - with hand-me-down equipment

After the required 25 years there would be a handsome bonus for retiring soldiers - and non-citizen auxiliaries would be granted citizenship. The Army was a tough life, but was clearly seen as a good career, and sons would follow fathers into the ranks - sometimes weapons and equipment would be passed down, as depicted above. 

I was also interested to learn about the size of the army - we are told that when Augustus first instituted the Imperial  Roman army,  it had a strength of about 300,000 (half of them Legionaries),  while the population of the Empire stodd at about 60 million.  A map of the empire about 100 years later ( which I really should have photographed!) showed I think about 20 to  30  legions and where they were stationed in the Empire - unsurprisingly, most were along the borders with barbarian areas and other empires such as the Parthians. From my memory, the whole of Gaul required only one Legion.  Given the sheer size of the Empire, a surprisingly modest establishment?   ( c.f. today's British army, also defending about 60 million population - much less than 300,000! )   

If all this (and the chance to wear a replica helmet at one point, which I did not take alas )  inspires the re-enactor in you, the gift shop will oblige - I was slightly surprised that the armour was priced at about £200 - I think I would have expected it to be more! Didn't see anyone buying, though. The exhibition catalogue is well-produced and  doubtless most interesting, but at £30 for the paperback version, I thought I'm not quite enough of a Romanist.. 

from the Gift Shop : be your own Legion (for a few hundred quid)

And finally, there had to be a gaming angle - in a display on camp/barracks life,  examples of a Roman board game -  and  a dice tower, just as many gamers would use today. The caption stated that these were seen as a way of preventing cheating when rolling dice. Nothing new under the sun...  

nothing new under the sun: that's a Roman Dice Tower!

 

That's about all the pictures I took, I probably should have taken many more and made extensive notes, but it would have been a much slower visit, and I was with a 'civilian' ( i.e.  non-wargaming!) friend! Going at an average visitor pace it was about a 90-minute visit,  I suspect I could have stayed longer. Lunch was required, and the Italian Cafe ( 'Tropea' ) in Russell Square gardens seemed highly appropriate, on a nice sunny spring day.  The exhibition was a thoroughly worthwhile visit;  if you are interested and able to get to London easily then I'd recommend it. 

Meanwhile I have made slow progress painting WW2 Indian infantry, so hope to show the results soon, but next time  I think a bit more recent Roman-related sightseeing. Until then, keep well, everyone.