Lobositz and Kolin photos from several years ago.

I thought that I had only hard copies of the photos I took on a trip to the Czech Republic several years ago. Then, whilst looking for a set of rules for Soldier Kings (that I think are permanently lost), I came across these photos on a disk. They are from 'negative thumbnails' only, but I thought I'd share.

Lobositz

 This shot was taken from the Austrian side of the field from just above the Morellen- Bach. There is a drop of several meters to what, pre-drainage, must have been very boggy ground; now the Morellen - Bach is allotments. The drop is steep - definitely a good place to form a defencive line. Across the valley is the Homolka Mound (left) and the Lobosch (right).

 Across the Holmolka Mound from just above Wchinitz.

 From the Homolka Mound: The Lobosch. The valley between the two is where Frederick deployed the bulk of his 10,000 cavalry.In this photo, they charged from left to right. It is great cavalry ground. 

 From the Homolka Mound: The town of Lobositz. In the mid distance (centre left), just above the strip of white buildings, is the Elbe.

 From the Homolka Mound: The southern end of the field. I believe that the built up area in front of the industrial complex is Sullowitz.

 Myself and Mark Dudley on the Homolka Mound. In the far distance, more volcanic mounds - any battle around these parts would probably feature one.

 From the edge of Wchinitz: The valley between the Homolka and Lobosch opens out onto a very flat plain. It must have been quite something, 10,000 cavalry moving forward on that misty morning. 

 ....and that volcanic mound really is quite an inspiring battlefield feature. This was one of the best visits to an unexploited (no museum, etc. - not that that is a good thing) battlefield that I've ever made. From the Homolka especially, you can 'see it all happening'.


Kolin

 From the top of the slope - looking towards Brzistwi. The tops of the trees you can see are in a short steep sided gorge.

 These are the 30 Years War earthworks that must have been used by the Austrians and might explain why they were able to hold the Prussians so easily.

 From the earthworks looking down towards the Kaiser Strasse: It is definately higher, definitely a superior position from which to view the enemy, but it is not a slope that would impede movement. What a killing ground.

 More earthworks running around the church at Krezechorz.

The church.

The Kolin Monument. I can't rotate the thumbs on the disk.

Currently, my brother-in-law is living in Prague. I intend to revisit Kolin, next year perhaps. This trip was fleeting - perhaps an hour or so - and it left me uninspired. More exploring next time; next time without the (very bored) ladies. 

BTW, Chotusitz is also in the area and we went there on route to Kolin. You can see Chirkwitz Pond from the main road, but the rest is covered by a secured military airbase - can assume that it was always billiard table flat? This is one you should, if you have limited time, miss.

Stop laughing at my smokes - It's the way I tell 'em

This week I've made some heavy duty smokescreen smoke.  Why on earth have you done it that way, I here you ask, surely cotton wool / duvet stuffing looks better?

Maybe it does to you, though to me it just looks like clumps of cotton wool. When I have used it in the past it has hung around for months and I can't count the time I've spent picking strands of the stuff off figures, bases, terrain, etc. And God forbid that anyone should wear a jumper. It tends to get squashed in storage, blows about in anything approaching Beaufort 1, and it mysteriously tends to get longer (to cover more frontage) during games. Also, after a while, given the other uses for cotton wool, it takes on the appearance of something you would rather not handle. With that in mind, and remembering the model hedges of times long gone, I decided to do 'cartoon' smoke to go with my 'cartoon' WW2 figures.

2 packs of cheap sponges were obtained from Boyes (69p for 6, but only 2 in a pack were white). I cut these in half, as shown. 

Then I pinched (between thumb and forefinger) chunks out of the sponge to give an irregular shape. 

Now I have to admit that I made a mistake here. Later, I found out that I had not pinched enough from the bottom edges - the smoke looked too firmly planted to the ground and I had to pinch out some more after some painting had been done.

I painted the sponge, with brush and a squeeze, a dirty grey colour using a mix of white emulsion and some cheap acrylics.

 Then, in three coats, the first whilst the undercoat colour was still damp, I stippled and dry brushed them with white emulsion. 

I decided to base the smoke screens on 5" long 2mm MDF bases, textured with sand and grit, and again painted with household emulsion.

This is what they look like on the table.

With the paint they are now quite rigid and will be easy to store. They have also lost all of their static charge; which worried me during the pinching out process.

I believe jumpers may well be in vogue again this season.

Sidi Rezegh - Set for an upcoming game.

Following two games, each with a slightly different layout and scenario plan, I have decided to play it for a third time. The main difference between this scenario and the other two is that I have done away with the arrival of reinforcements from off table (see previous posts on this scenario). I am lucky in that I have a table that is twice the length of the one the used in Benghazi Handicap by Frank Chadwick and I can use the extra space for reinforcements to be deployed on table and far enough away to still seem distant. In the previous games the battle has been fought as two separate actions at different ends of the table, one between the infantry and one between the armour, this has made complex arrival times, and so forth, redundant anyway. 

Hopefully, this scenario should now work much more cleanly (I hope), and if it does we will take it to Fiasco as a demo-game later this year. With that in prospect I have taken some steps to improve the terrain. I have made 16 feet of wadi sections (some of which is being used here); three new 'hills' for the escarpment; and a few more feet of road; I have also made the singular feature of the battlefield that is readily identifiable to those who know about this action, the feature that gives the battle its name, I have made a representation of the Sidi Rezegh Mosque (BTW, apparently, Sidi Rezegh was an Islamic holy man; something like a Christian saint). I may, at some point, try and make some more appropriate aerodrome buildings (a tin hangar and a control tower?) for the landing ground so that it looks a bit 'Hollywood'.

If this scenario does work, I will post full scenario notes and briefings. Until then.....

The Battlefield:

Deployments:

 German infantry of Group Knabe, 8th MG Battalion and regimental troops.

More of Group Knabe, 2nd Battalion, 104th Rifle Regiment.

 Group Stephan - 5th Panzer Regiment and its attached elements. It is deployed in a typical formation with artillery and infantry sandwiched between its two Panzer battalions.

Panzer II, III, and IV in roughly the right proportions with towed artillery and infantry .

The British. They are deployed in three concentric arcs. North to south: Infantry, then guns, then armour.

British infantry of 1st Btn, Kings Royal rifle Corps overlooking trig Capuzzo from their sangars. 

 Two regiments of 25pdrs (three of the 4 batteries) await orders.

Guns of Support Group and some of what remains of 7th Armoured Brigade.

22nd Armoured Brigade, fanning out over 4 km of desert. 

The tiny Mosque of Sidi Rezegh.

One last thing, have I shown you this? Is that unit behind the flank?

 I picked up this 'builders spirit level laser' from Woolworth's when it was open. It casts a straight line onto a surface rather than a one point beam. It is actually MUCH brighter than it appears here. It's great for LOS - £5 well spent! The photo is from one of the previous re-fights of this action. I was commanding the valiant 22nd. BTW, umpires call - Not Out.

Fortifications at St. Martin, Ile de Re

I've just got back from a holiday in France. I stayed in the old village of St. Martin, on the island of Ile de Re (Isle of Kings), off the coast of La Rochelle. The village is sited within Vauban fortifications which, except for two modern road entry points, is completely unspoilt. Most of the fortifications are accessible to the public - the one exception is the citadel, which is being used as a high security prison. 

The island has been subject to attack, most famously by the Anglo-Dutch fleet under the command of the Duke of Buckingham during the French Wars of Religion: He tried to capture the island. It was this fleet that caused the significant damage to the church - still partially a ruin. 

Here are some photos taken during my stay. There are a few more from the top of the church tower which give an idea of the area they cover. I will add them ASAP.

(BTW. The exact position of the rented cottage is at the small green space - a tennis court - between the Route de l'Omeau and Cours Pasteur. As a holiday location I can thoroughly recommend the island).

 The gate closest to the citadel. It is accessible. 

 One of the modern road entrances passes what must be a magazine. It lies just inside the fortifications, opposite the citadel, and the mound affords significant protection from incoming fire.  

 The bastion complex just two minutes walk from my holiday cottage. This shot shows one of the access points to the ditch - in this case the door to a very dark spiral staircase.

 From the same viewpoint, the ditch.

 The rear corner of the bastion from the ditch.

 Access to the bastion is a narrow stairway.

 A sally port in the inner wall.

 The sally port inside.

 The ravelin gate further along the fortifications. This is almost at right angles to the main gate which lies beyond a further bridge.

 A well inside the ravelin gate.

 The bridge from the ravelin to the main gate. It is identical to the gate at the citadel end of the fortifications. 

A side view of the looong bridge.

 The bridge is well covered from the inner defences.

 Inside view of the gate.

Just to show the symmetry, a shot taken from the other gate's bridge. Compare with above.

Desert wadis - practical wargame terrain

In general terms there are two considerations for wargaming terrain. The first is the aesthetic quality, the second is practicality. Sometimes the aesthetic can be practical, especially when it comes to 'moveable' / free standing terrain. Fantastic looking buildings can be made and ways found to make them practical - by giving them gardens for occupying troops to go in, etc. Trees and other vegetation can also be both because they can be moved around to make space for any troops passing through them. Things become a little more tricky when it comes to larger features, especially hills, rivers and other major topographical features.

If I were to wish for something to add to my wargaming set up, it would be a collection of nicely sculpted modular terrain tiles. No it's not! Scrub that wish because I could probably have them if I wanted - my modelling skills and knowledge are probably good enough - what I need is a spare £500,000 to buy a spare house big enough to store it all in; because lets face it, I'd want an awful lot of modules to re-fight this and that battle. Therein lies the truth about practical wargames terrain - storage.

At Fiasco, Leeds Wargames Show later this year, I intend doing a WW2 Western Desert demo game. For it, I need a lot of wadis and escarpment. I have two options. I can spend a heap of money and do it with purpose built terrain modules - which I will have to take down to the dump immediately afterwards because I'll have nowhere to store it - or I can do what I usually do and go the way of versatile, easy to store, applique terrain pieces.

This week I started planning and making my applique wadi sections. Aesthetically they leave a little, possibly a lot, to be desired, but with a little imagination you can see what they represent. They are certainly better than the pieces of beige paper I've been using up to now.

They are also extremely easy, and fairly cheap, to produce - I marked and cut the 2mm MDF and glued the banks on sixteen feet this afternoon. I also did a test run on a couple of feet. Here is the result of that test and a "How I....".

A 12" wadi section. The wadi is 9cm wide overall with 2cm 'banks'. The base is 2mm MDF well primed and undercoated. The banks are foam core. 

I wanted to be sure of the width of the gap / wadi bed, so I cut the banks down the centre. This also saves on wastage and means section ends match up. I also marked each pair A, B, C, etc. just in case they got mixed up.

 Next I trimmed off the outer bank of the wadi with various craft knives. It does not have to be accurate, but fairly even is best.

 Here is a pic of the wadi in section.

 After trimming the banks, I undercoated them. This is a water based household, exterior undercoat.

 PA good coat of PVA and sprinkled sand and grit gives texture. I will need to go out and get another 4 litre container of this - I've almost used 4 litres in a year!

 There is too much of this to do with an ink wash, so I'm doing these with a cheap acrylic.

 Dry brushed with the paint I used for the table (Dulux emulsion) will blend it in.

 More dry brushing with a lighter colour at the base of the wadi so it stands out a little.

And that's it. I will be doing turns as simple arcs of 30 (x9) and 45 (x4) degrees. They are river beds, after all, and can meander a bit.

As flexible as the paper sections (almost), more durable and better looking than the paper, but not as good as sculpted modular terrain - though sixteen feet of modular wadi terrain tile is a lot of module. These will do until.....