I have been to... Chile

Me and my wife have recently returned from a cruise around the bottom of South America from Santiago to Buenos Aires. On the map it looks fairly pathetic, but it was still 4000 nautical miles, which is a fair old way. First stop was Chile (we started with a few days in Santiago).

In the museum in Santiago is this painting of the Battle of Chacabuco, evidently the decisive battle of the war of Chilean Independance. The General in the foreground is Bernard O'Higgins. There are statues of him all over Chile, as well as a number of rather grand streets.

The rather Fascist looking new University on the Plaza D'Italia.

Santiago from San Cristobal, the Andes dimly visible through the attractive smog. Santiago is in a basin in the mountains, and in summer is notoriously smoggy. It was over 30 degrees too. 

A very old South American mummy.

Sailing further south, it got colder and we passed many volcanoes, like this one.

Glaciers also put in an appearance once we got to Patagonia.

Some of them were quite big.

The wreck of a WW2 troop transport near the Magellan Strait.

We finally made it to Punta Arenas on the Magellan Strait. If ever there was  windswept hell-hole, it was here. The original colonists all died of starvation as nothing would grow. This is a Chilean arctic survey ship.

An unexpected surprise was finding HMS Beagle! Only a replica, but even so...

It was an excellent repro, and shockingly small (around 90 feet).

It looked rather good from the beach.

This is one of the launches.

Another repro was this Caravel, Magellans 'Nao Victoria'. It was also tiny, only 75 feet long.

Demonstrating how to operate the breech loading swivel gun.

My trusty assistant managed to never remove her finger from the lens.

Ready to fire. No health and safety here (and there really wasn't, we clambered all over and into these ships, I could have gone up the rigging if I'd been so inclined).

This is a repro of Shackletons lifeboat from the Endurance. It was also tiny, I really can't imagine navigating 30 foot seas in this.

There was an excellent display about Shackletons expedition in both Spanish and English.

Shackletons parka.

Just to show we were there.

This beached ship was just down the coast. Although it doesn't look it, there was a howling gale (it blew all the clouds away) and all the sailings of smaller ships from the port were cancelled.

General O'Higgins again.

Down in Tierra Fuego, this is the Beagle Strait, one of the most desolate places I've ever been. We didn't see another human for two entire days, and just one other ship. There was hardly even any vegetation, although plenty of wildlife (seals, dolphins, whales), and lots of glaciers. 

The howling gale was getting worse and the Captain was keen to get over to Argentina as fast as possible, so we skirted Cape Horn and pressed on through the channel in daylight. We passed Desolation Island (of Aubrey and Maturing fame) on the way.

Richard Burton in Where Eagles Dare? Maybe not.

The Chilean/Argentine border was marked by this Chilean listening post, the first settlement we saw in two days. In the channel we we sheltered from the storm and it was dead calm.

Zvezda 'Panther A'

I have a few elderly Peter Pig Panthers, and now that I have a full complement of Pz IV specials and Stugs, I thought it was time to flesh out the numbers of the shiny new 'medium' tank that was supposed to replace the Panzer IV.

I would have got some PSC Panthers, but a trader at Partisan was selling Zvezda Panther As at the knockdown price of £2.50 each, so it was hard to resist.

I got four of them, as they were relatively numerous later in the war. Here they are looking suitably menacing, rolling across the dining table.

These models are at the more complex end of the Zvezda 'snap together'; approach. In fact they are ludicrously complicated, quite why they couldn't mould a single piece upper hull instead of the seven (!) seperate pieces is beyond me. The smoke dischargers are also designed for people with much smaller fingers than mine. 

Smoke dischargers also means that these are not Panther As at all, but Panther Ds, as they also have the distinctive letter box MG slots and early cupolas without vision blocks and AAMG rails. Well whatever, they were fairly numerous until the end of the war despite the distressing propensity of the exhaust system to burst into flames.

This pair are modelled as early Ds with their smoke dischargers, and lightly modified with some missing skirts and the addition of a radio antenna and commander to one of them (I had to cut off the top of the cupola and make a new hatch). I also added a bit of stowage, including an unditching beam which seems to have been a popular feature. The spare tracks on the hull are moulded on.

This pair are modelled on some Panthers of 5th SS Panzer Regiment, with their distinctive plain white turret numbers. They got outline balkan crosses on the hulls which are quite subtle.

You can see the exquisite detail on the engine deck. It is a shame that Zvezda chose the make the hull construction so complex, as I would have far preferred a simpler hull coupled with more complex details like separate spare track links and a separate commanders hatch.

These two are late model Panther Ds, so minus the smoke dischargers. I had to fit the dischargers as there is a huge hole in the turret to take them, then trim them flush. These two also got some stowage and antenna. They have more conventional black turret numbers edged in white, and the black centered balkan crosses stand out a mile away! These two have darker green disruptive camo.

More of a side view, you can see how sleek it looks. This one has a fair amount of stowage, I came across some photos where the crew had actually built a small wooden enclosure on the engine deck and welded a ladder to the side! That must have made traversing the turret interesting.

They were all finished in standard mid war soft edged dunkelgelb/green/brown camo. I painted the tracks and running gear mud coloured all over, and the whole thing was finished with a dark brown ink wash which ran very nicely into the various cracks, and then highlighted with a very light dryrbush of light tan. They came out rather well I think, and look OK alongside the Peter Pig ones, although latter sit fractionally higher and have massively thick gun barrels compared to the slender Zvezda offerings.

Leonardo da Vinci. A life in drawing.

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of Da Vincis death, there are a series nationwide exhibitions of his work including many which have never been on public display before.

Sheffields Millenium Gallery has a display of several of his sketches from the royal archives (they were originally purchased by Charles II). One chilly February afternoon, I went along to see them with Jill.

There were a number of his anatomical sketches, including a dissection of the blood vessels of the liver, and this rather fine study of leg muscles. It was also covered in his miniscule handwriting (paper was very expensive in the fifteenth century). He wrote from right to left as he was left handed and it avoided smudging the ink.

There were other examples of 'natural philosophy' including some studies of water flows. Again, this one is heavily annotated.

He was also very interested in humans and animals in motion. This is a series of studies of horses rolling, which were used to sketch St George and the Dragon (in the centre right of the sketches) as well as some of the horses in The Battle of Anghiari.

This was another study of a horse, this time with a rider (and intended as the design for a monument which was never built).

There were several portrait sketches, this is one of the head of St Phillip, which later appeared in The Last Supper.

Another portrait worthy of Rembrandt, albeit drawn almost 200 years earlier.

This was an amazing exhibition and I feel privileged to have gone to it. The thing that was really astonishing was that he was drawing like this in the fifteenth century, when most European art was still firmly rooted in the medieval. 

There are similar exhibitions all over the country, but if you are in Sheffield, the details are here: Leonardo da Vinci. A life in drawing The only slight let down was that there weren't any war machines!

Kissingen 1866

I've been revisiting the late nineteenth century recently. Rifle and Kepi produces a passable Army level game, I was still hankering after something to do Corps level tactical battles. Minschlacht is great but too fiddly, the various Neil Thomas offerings are either too simple or involve bucket after bucket of dice, the Portable Wargame doesn't have enough grit and To the Last Gaiter Button was briefly interesting and doesn't work with my 6mm figures. My attempts to rework Simplicity in Practice into something true to the spirit of the original yet with more historical verity also came to naught (and as the last playtest showed here, were an utterly crap game).

So, in the end I went back to the standard Neil Thomas nineteenth century rules an had a good long look at the the mechanisms and the modelling of the relative effectiveness of the different tactical doctrines and weapon types. The overall effect I quite like, it just takes so long to get there. I went with an explicit ground and unit scale (500m squares, elements were regiments, cavalry brigades or artillery battalions) and I recalculated all the ranges and weapon effect/formation interactions in line with CRT in Minischlacht. I realised pretty quickly that the saving throws could be binned, and troop quality/cohesion  subsumed into morale throws.

I haven't quite figured out command limitations yet, but after some playtesting I felt I had enough for a grand tactical game fit enough to inflict on some actual humans. I went with Kissingen, as it is an interesting asymmetrical battle , but as it is Bavarians vs Prussians, not as one sided as Austrians vs Prussians (storm columns don't work well against breechloaders). Kissingen was in fact the first playtest scenario I used with Minischlacht, albeit based on the Fire and Fury Francesa scenario. Instead for this one I went with the more grandiose Neil Thomas version which included a much greater frontage.

So, here we have Prince Carls Bavarian Corps vs the Army of the Main in July 1866. The leading Prussian division is commanded by General von Goeben, later to have a battlecruiser named after him.

The view from the Bavarian right. A division of poor quality troops is holding the line of the River Saale, supported by a cavalry division and Jager detachments. Some of the bridges have been burned, but still provide a route for foot troops. Von Goebens Prussians are marching on in the far distance.

Prince Carl of Bavaria keeps an eye on things from the divisional artillery position. The town of Kissingen is to his left front, garrisoned by two infantry regiments.

Von Goebens Prussians. Two artillery battalions already deployed and infantry regiments marching up covered by a Jager battalion. For those interested in such things, the bridges are Irregular 2mm stone bridges, while the streams and buildings are home made. The latter date from the mid 1970s when I made a load of card buildings for WRG 1925-50.

The Prussians approach the unblown bridge covered by artillery fire and the Jagers. Infantry can only move in column (these are tactical columns, not march columns. The Bavarians are deployed in immobile firing lines which maximise their firepower and protection. I'll have a think about how to better model the formations in future. The approach in OP14 is more promising I think.

The Prussians shake out into firing lines, while the Bavarians form up into tactical columns. Over in the distance some Prussians approach the unguarded bridge. The figures are all Irregular 6mm from various nineteenth century ranges.

Meanwhile in the centre there is much excitement as a lone Prussian Regiment breaks through the Bavarian Jagers and heads for Prince Carls gun position! The Bavarian cavalry cautiously advance, wary of the Prussians needle guns.

In front of Kissingen, the Prussians superior short range firepower and unit cohesion is telling. The Bavarians begin to melt away despite the cover of the buildings.

In the centre, short range artillery fire reduces the charging Prussians to one base (less than a battalion). They however manage to close with the guns. In the ensuing melee, only one single hit is inflicted, hilariously by Prince Carl himself on the unfortunate Prussians who then run away.

The Bavarian cavalry pounces on the survivors and wipes them out. Even in their disordered and weakened state, the Prussians inflict hideous losses on the Bavarian cavalry. They were right to be wary of the needle guns.

Meanwhile the Prussians have finally blasted their way through Kissingen, leaving the town blazing behind them. They overrun the Bavarian rearguard but losses are  mounting.

The next wave of Prussian reinforcements are turning up, but so are better Bavarian troops (who have busly reoccupied the river line in this sector). The village of Hausen is firmly in Bavarian hands and it is now unlikely the Prussians will take it in the remaining time so we called it a day there.

That was a pretty good play test. John and Tim were positive and the mechanisms seemed to hang together OK. I think there was some confusion about the various formations and movement options/restrictions so I'll work on clearing those up. People are perhaps more familiar with the mechanisms used on Command and Colours and OP14, so I may as well switch to using those explicitly, as that is what the various formations and restrictions etc are modelled on.

Pacific Air War 2018

John has been busily painting 1/300th scale aircraft, the latest batch being various WW2 US and Japanese aircraft for the Pacific. He'd also recently become the recipient of a couple of boxes of blue Hexon tiles, so off to the Pacific we go.

One of my great delights back in the 1990s was playing Pacific Air War:1942 by Microprose. Nothing like nursing a damaged torpedo bomber back to the carrier for two hours of flying time only to crash it into the conning tower! Ah well. Hopefully better luck in 2018.

John had done these rather beautiful Devastators in the very early war multi-coloured scheme.

And some more Devastators in the slightly later grey-blue scheme. Sadly we weren't to get to use any of these in the game but they looked very nice.

Instead the IJN was tasked with stopping those perfidious Americans from locating our fleet, which was busily engaged in the entirely justified expansion of the co-prosperity sphere. We'll show those colonialist oppressors who is boss.

A couple of white Zeros.

And a couple of green Zeros.

The Americans are up to something around that distant island.

Some Wildcats escorting a float plane.

A couple more Wildcats performed loops over the island. Very unfairly they seem to have a higher ceiling than us. But we've got bigger guns though.

A great swirling dogfight soon erupts. Sadly one of my Zeros is damaged (indicated by the pipe cleaner).

Out of the melee one of my planes manages to break through and line up on the US floatplane. Although a few hits were scored, not enough to bring it down. Drat.

Another Zero lines up on a Wildcat.

And this time doesn't make any mistakes. Down he goes.

Unfortunately another Wildcat gets the drop on one of mine.

Which also goes up in a great big ball of fire.

Somewhat strangely, the float plane lands by the island. Although one of my aircraft is in position for a strafing run, the others are all way out of position and/or at the wrong altitude. The strafing run duly misses while Wildcats swarm overhead.

After a while the floatplane takes off again, and I try to get lined up for another attack.

Gun camera view of the action.

One of my damaged Zeroes manages to get off an ineffective long range burst at the floatplane, but in turn is tailed by a Wildcat at altitude 1.

Blaaaam. Down goes another Zero.

A final attack by my last undamaged plane manages to score some effective hits on the floatplane, but not enough to stop it limping off the table. Time to head for home.

My damaged Zero heads back to the carrier hugging the wavetops.

So there we have it, mission accomplished. The Americans never did get to look at our fleet, and we downed one US plane and damaged another although we lost two in turn. It seems that the Americans were diverted to carry out a rescue mission rather than a scouting one, and as the floatplane got away with its cargo of downed US airmen (including a Senators son), their mission was successful too, so everyone was happy. 

Now we are more used to these rules the 'flying' seems to work OK. Sure there are some compromises in gunnery and energy conservation/expenditure, but they are are fast and simple with enough grit for it to feel a bit more like a contest of flying skill than blind luck.