Foy

Well having whinged earlier about never getting a chance to wear my WW2 gear I managed do get along to a WW2 game run at the Gunman Eversley site near Reading in March. This covered the fighting around Foy during the Battle of the Bulge, but this time the other Foy on the Meuse where 2nd Panzer Division rode to its doom, not the Band of Brothers one.

The German players for this organised themselves into platoons centered around particular uniform variations, the dearth of games meant we had weeks to sort out who was wearing what. I ended up with the Assault Pioneers, which took the real kit challenge of lugging as much stuff as possible to extremes.

The well dressed Assault Pioneer, note the pioneer backpack stuffed with not only all the personal kit, but also numerous heavy explody things. The assault shovel strapped to the side of the pack is a particularly unwieldy item.

A better view of the shovel, the shovel head clips to your belt and the haft to the pack, which makes it really hard to take off... I seem to have been promoted to Obergfreiter for this, well I've been doing it long enough.

Along with all the engineer kit, our zug of 12 had two MG42s and a 50mm mortar to carry. The ammo box is full of mortar bombs.

Not to be outdone, the US brought this extremely heavy .30 cal 'light' machinegun.

The SS contingent had a hand cart, clearly a typical late 1944 panzer division.

The 'panzer division' in action.

Plucky Brits from the Rifle Brigade mingle with various Germans and Americans at the briefing.

Pioneers are briefed by the CO.

Our illustrious leader, Oberfeldwebel Steiner.

Hanging around eating.

More hanging around eating.

Sadly helmets off reveals the age of many of the participants!

Luftwaffe Field Div.

Mine clearance. There were lots of mines to clear all over the site. I managed not to blow myself up this time.

Period-ised photo.

Fallschirmjagers.

Hanging around in b/w

Pioneers patrolling.

Pioneers hanging around.

Lurking with an MP44.

Just to show it wasn't all Germans! US Infantry.

A platoon of US troops.

Another jolly weekend trudging around the woods, notable partly for the huge quantity of beer we got through on Friday night and also for the discovery that years of applying dubbin have rendered my low boots into virtual wellingtons of waterproof-ness. Unfortunately when you've filled them with swamp water from misjudging water depths, this keeps the water inside...