XXX CORPS REACH LAST FEW BRIT PARAS NORTH OF THE RHINE!!!

 NEWS FLASH TO ALL ALLIED FORCES AND HOME-FRONTS:

After spending the night of Sept. 18 and early morning of Sept. 19 racing up the last stretch of the just-cleared Hell’s Highway, XXX Corps crosses Nijmegen Bridge in preparation for…

…Traversing the swampy ground located between the Waal and Rhine rivers, known as “The Island" along the last stretch of road between Nijmegen and their final objective of Arnhem...

…spearheaded by the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, who as seen above and below landed on the boggy ground of "The Island,” reached the South end of Arnhem Bridge and at approx. 0700/0800 Hours on Sept. 19 began to cross it in support of the last remaining survivors of the British 2nd Battalion, 1st Parachute Regt., 1st Parachute Division -- now reduced to Company strength and holding on by the skin-of-their-teeth inside one building adjacent to the North end of the bridge...

Last of the "Red Devils" in Arnhem:

Polish Paras advance across the bridge:

And then 3 turns later, at 1000 Hours Sept 19 game time & date, the advance element of XXX Corps rumbles across Arnhem Bridge…

Sherman Bulldozer takes point as spearhead of XXX Corps reaches North portion of Arnhem Bridge, with recently installed Polish Paras visible on rooftop to right...

...achieving VICTORY for the Allied Forces!

In REAL TIME Game was played from SATURDAY c.10:45AM to c.10:00PM w/breaks for lunch & dinner… then from SUNDAY c.10:00AM to 12:52PM, when XXX Corps reached Arnhem Bridge

In addition to RJ, Frank, Mark & myself, I believe we had a total of 10 players participate over the 2 days.

Eindhoven post-liberation by 101st Airborne & XXX Corps...

First  successful air support attack on Germans in Arnhem...

Views of Nijmegen with its Medieval walls and tower...

Casualty collection point for the Hell's Highway table some 3-1/2 hours into the game, c.2:00PM Saturday afternoon...

ARNHEM BRIDGE...

RED CHIPS used to denote FIRE ORDER per AFV and/or INFANTRY UNIT as per FIRE AND MANEUVER WW2 rules...

THE HELL'S HIGHWAY TABLE, seen from its North-West corner...

ARNHEM TABLE IN FOREGROUND, HELL'S HIGHWAY TABLE visible in background...

Hell's Highway table seen from long Western edge...

XXX Corps staged to cross Nijmegen Bridge headed North...

XXX Corps visible atop Nijmegen Bridge heading into the swampy, boggy stretch of Holland located between Nijmegen and Arnhem and known as "The Island"...

German Naval Infantry move to attack British Glider troops near the Western edge of the battlefield on the far end of the Arnhem table...

To the East, Kampfgruppe Brinkmann’s 10SS try to retake Arnhem bridge from the north on the morning of the 18th in an effort to rescue the trapped crew from Grabner’s (9th SS recon bn.) failed bridge crossing from the south...

Master modeller Mark "Duke" Deliduka, without whom the tables would not have been ready in time for the game to start on schedule...

Me & my son, Skylar.  He served as co-commander of XXX Corps on Saturday...

Game Master Nappy who wishes to remain anonymous...

Wider view of Der Napster...

Group pic c.1100 Sunday, at the conclusion of the epic conflagration, featuring from far left: FRANK PATTERSON, CHRIS 82ND, KEN 101ST, GM NAPPY, ME, ALEX THE GERMAN...

VIDEO TOUR OF THE BATTLEFIELD COURTESY OF FRANK "'BAMA" PATTERSON...

I SHALL RETURN WITH MORE PICS AND MORE DETAILED AAR FOR THE EPIC GAME BUT FOR NOW I WANT TO POST THIS SO MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE CLAMORING FOR PICS AND SOME INFO ON THE RESULTS CAN GET THEM ASAP.......

Thanks to JG Randall, Rod, Frank "’bama" Patterson, Mark "Duke" Deliduka, Matthew who printed all the charts & terrain labels, and to Harmon "HMGS-PSW" Ward for getting us the spot we wanted and all the many MANY tables we needed to make this game possible!

Also thanks to ALL THE PLAYERS who showed up and stuck to it, including but not limited to: 

Alex the German

Bill XXX Corps co-commander

Ken of the 101st

Mark of the 82nd

My son Skylar XXX Corps co-commander

Our buddy Matthew the German (in player mode!)

Patrick the British Para

Theron of British Glider fame

Chris the German

...& last but not least, the big guy who stepped up and ran the British Paras for the latter stages of the game, whose name I sadly do not know!

80th ANNIVERSARY MARKET GARDEN GAME AT MINI-WARS SEPT 28th in O.C.

CALLING ALL FANS OF EPIC GAMES,

VETERANS & NEWBIES ALIKE!

On Saturday September 28^th

the St. Crispin’s Irregulars Wargaming Club

is going…

 

A BRIDGE TOO FAR!

 

Join us at the upcoming HMGS-PSW Mini-Con 2024 and try to succeed where the Allies failed!  Can you take and hold the Bridge over the Rhine, making it possible to beat the Russians to Berlin and win WWII by Christmas of 1944?  Show up and find out!

WHEN:

Starting at 9:00am on Saturday September 28th 2024

WHERE:

The Howard Johnson by Wyndham Hotel & Conference Center

222 W. Houston Ave, Fullerton, CA 92832

We kick off at 9:00am and will go until XXX Corps reaches 

The British 1st Airborne Division

OR

The Red Devils are overrun like they were, tragically, in 1944.

We need players all morning, afternoon and night.

If you can't be there at the start, stop by any time

& you may get a chance to step in and command troops.

*   *   *   *   *

We’ve done Eindhoven...

We've done Nijmegen...

 

And of course, we’ve done Arnhem...

 

BUT WE'VE NEVER DONE THEM

ALL TOGETHER IN ONE MEGA-GAME BEFORE. 

Do we have enough troops, terrain & tables?  YES!

Have we play-tested it?  YES!

Will it work?  YES!

Are we nuts?  Maybe.

…but that never kept anyone from enjoying our games before!

LINK TO CONVENTION PAGE:

https://tabletop.events/conventions/hmgs-psw-mini-wars-2024

FOR A PRIMER ON THE "FIRE & MANEUVER" RULES SYSTEM 

WE'LL BE USING FOR THIS MEGA GAME, CLICK

ON THE HANDY LINK BELOW:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.269878913059135.60614.258863347494025&type=3

The Head GM for this game asked me to post these 2 pics 

showing German success vs. the lead element of

XXX Corps on Hell's Highway and are his favorites

out of all the many photos taken at the many different

"component" games  from Operation Market Garden

we've played over the years, since it recreated reality

so closely...

 

Scratchbuild a Simple & Easy 28mm Water Wheel

Way back in November 2019, when I was finishing up the last touches on a Vauban fortress I had done a few tiny modifications to and painted from scratch for a friend (if you're interested in seeing more of that terrain project, CLICK on this LINK to visit the first of 7+ posts [!!!] on this blog that cover it) I set up an c.18th layout on my table and took a bunch of "postcard" or "chocolate box" type pics featuring the fortress, before packing it all up to send to its final destination.

The layout included my river and after looking at the fort with the river it hit me that I had a watermill I'd bought for use in the c.14th-c.15th Medieval European games I used to play quite often, back before I built my "Maiwand Day" terrain boards.  I dug it out and set it up alongside my river and realized that since the waterwheel itself had been built for use as a piece of tabletop "scatter terrain," it wouldn't work very well with a river built into a terrain board like mine.  But I still loved the idea of having a waterwheel on that river, so... I built one from scratch that would fit better.

It may sound like a big deal but the only hard part was the idea for sourcing the wheel itself.  Once I figured that out the rest was very simple and easy -- hence the title for this blog post.

The solution was staring me in the face inside my hobby storage closet: the cardboard ring (technically referred to as a "core") from an empty roll of masking tape.  

I wanted to do a post on it way back then, but for whatever reason, sadly, never got around to it.

Once I had the "eureka" moment re: the masking tape core, the rest of the waterwheel virtually "made itself," as you can see in this series of WIP pics:

NOTE: It was 5 years ago and unfortunately I didn't take any pics featuring adhesives, but I'm pretty sure I used WHITE GLUE/PVA for everything.  Since the only materials being glued together were cardboard and wood, once dry this resulted in a very sturdy model...

WE INTERRUPT THIS SIMPLE & EASY W.I.P. TUTORIAL where I decided -- after spray-painting the waterwheel a base-coat of FLAT BLACK -- that it would look much better if I glued on pieces of balsa to cover the exposed portions of the outer side of the cardboard core.  It would have still worked without this, but adding the additional heft to the ring and more importantly adding actual wood texture and the slight gaps a the joins between the pieces, really improved the look once the dry-brushing was done.

WE NOW RETURN TO THE SIMPLE & STILL PRETTY EASY W.I.P. TUTORIAL:

The reason I finally got around to posting about this cool little project -- from 5 years ago -- is that I recently used my homemade waterwheel for my Ali Masjid game set in Afghanistan...

It worked well BUT... its color scheme was just too temperate.  To really fit into with tabletop environment the wood finish should have been more sun-bleached, more pale.

I didn't want to mess with my homemade waterwheel -- which also did yeoman work on a layout I helped set up for the big Battle of Brooklyn game I played with a bunch of friends down in Anaheim a year ago, where it fit in perfectly...

So all of the above has led me to the realization that I am: a Wargames Terrain Nut.

When did I learn this for sure?

A week or so ago I had to repair one of the pickets on our fence and when I was digging around for some stuff in my garage, I was suddenly filled with joy when I came across this:

YES: one empty and a second near-empty roll of masking tape, ready to be turned into a bespoke Afghan/NWF waterwheel, complete with pale, sun-bleached wood finish!  In fact... while thinking about it it also hit me that I can easily brush some GLOSS MOD PODGE onto the blades so they glisten like they were just in the water!

Once I get around to actually building it I will come back and posts about it, but for now, I leave you with these reference pics of real-life Afghan and Indian waterwheels...