Category Archives: History

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Blue Fires, Gary Hyland

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“Gary Hyland owns a successful company that produces original
sculptures. He has a long-held fascination for the Nazis’ development
of new technologies during the Second World War.”

Do I need to add any more?

Synopsis

This is one series of speculations about how the nazis might have invented (and built prototype) flying discs at the end of the second world war. There are parts that come across as well researched, particularly when describing the problems of the nazi era for scientists. However there is absolutely no evidence cited for what is contained in the book and even where it introduces things as speculative it then goes on later to treat them as if they were hard fact.

However it does have a high entertainment value. That and I discovered that someone has rcently built a small flying disc out of off the shelf components using the principles outlined in the book as being likely. That said, I still dno’t believe the nazis did it in 1944 and it was further developped by the British, Canadian and American governments in the last 60 years.

From the Back Cover

The extraordinary history of the secret Nazi technologies which were adopted by the Allies after the war

Many theories have been mooted to explain the Roswell incident, most of which involve flying saucers and little green men from Mars. What has never been considered, though, is the odd coincidence that the high-speed, high-flying spherical object which crashed on Roswell bears an uncanny resemblance to some of the extraordinarily futuristic aircraft which were blueprinted in top-secret conditions by Nazi scientists during the Second World War. Blue Fires tells an extraordinary story of cover-ups and conspiracies, and it gives a fascinating alternative version of world history since 1945.

Review

Don’t buy it. I got it for a pound, it was thought provoking and entertaining, but also intensely annoying. If you pay postage I’ll send you my copy instead.

figure, games, History, Scottish, WW2

Battle of the Hills, 21 January 1943

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Seaforth Highlanders
Image via Wikipedia

This is a short article about the advance of the 51st Highland Division in Tunisia in the follow up from El Alamein. I wrote this to be played as a tabletop wargame using Command Decision.

Ground
The coast road between Homs & Corradini in Tunisia. On the right (from the perspective of the British advance) is the sea. The coast road lies a few miles inland at places. There is a steep coastal ridge on the left flank of the battle area with desert to the south. Within all this there are a large number of steep sided, but small, wadis running from the hills to the sea. There are also one or two significant hills that sit astride or on the road.

To quote Captain J.A.F. Watt (OC B Company 5th Seaforths). “At the Assembly Area we met the CO. We were to attack two sharp conical hills we could see faintly outlined against the sky two or three thousand yards away. One of them was farther away than the other and to the left as we looked at them.”

“From what we could make of the maps and what little we could see of the country, it seemed as though the road ran past the right of our objectives. This assumption proved to be wrong. The road in fact curved sharply to the left across the line of our advance, then right again between the hills.” On the right flank a deep wadi blocked the advance of A Company.

Situation
Elements of the German 90th Light Division are dug in forward of two conical hills on either side of the main road 3 miles short of Corradini. Broken ground & wadis lie to their front.

The previous evening 51st Highland Division had been delayed at another hill with a fort atop it (named Edinburgh Castle) on the road between Homs & Corradini. The initial attack failed but an outflanking movement caused the Germans to withdraw well before dark. The initial failure had earned the Divisional Commander a ‘rocket’ from Montgomery and therefore inspired him to issue orders to his subordinates to speed up the rate of advance.

The British are in two main groups. One group (154 Brigade) is marching on foot along the coast to outflank the enemy near Corradini. The second group (spearheaded by Hammerforce) is moving up the main road from Homs to Corradini.

Hammerforce
Commanded by Brigadier Richards (23rd Armoured Brigade).
A Company, 2 Seaforths
A Company, 1/7 Middlesex (MG)
Tank Squadron, 40 RTR
2 Troops, 61 AT Regiment
25lber Battery

5 Seaforths with 40 RTR (Valentines) make assault from 3000 yards (60″). 1 bty 25-pdrs in direct support. The tanks have serious problems moving from the start line because of the terrain.

154 Brigade
Commander – Brigadier Stirling
7th Bn Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders
2nd Bn Seaforth Highlanders
7th Bn Black Watch
Tank Squadron, 40 RTR
25lber Battery, 126 Field Regiment RA

90th Light Division
A mixed battlegroup. No detailed information available, although the British histories report the following, which suggests depleted Regimental strength:

– Germans have MGs & mortars.
– 3 MGs dug in on one hill (Weapons Stand)
– counter attack by infantry & half-track (only 1 – so no model)
– retreat in captured British vehicles with several AT guns and a tank
– heavy 210mm guns
– many 88 mm AT guns (2 stands)
– 12 dual-purpose 20mm guns (3 stands)
– many mortars
– 260 prisoners & 10 guns captured

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Books, History, Scottish, WW2

Book Review – Field of Fire: Diary of a Gunner Officer by Jack Swaab

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Field of Fire: Diary of a Gunner OfficerField of Fire: Diary of a Gunner Officer by Jack Swaab

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read the hardback version very shortly after it came out. I collect first hand accounts of the WW2 and unit histories of the 51st Highland Division in particular, so this one was a must buy. That said it is one of the best first hand accounts that I have read, and certainly the best from a gunner (it comparies favourably to George Blackburn’s Guns of War series – he was also a Forward Observation Officer).

You can have no doubt about the hardships of war, what the conditions were like for both the gunners on the gun line and the infantry on the front line. The book is very descriptive without becoming flowery and it avoids glossing over some of the less pleasant aspects. Also it tells you about everything, not just the combat and the aftermath, but also of the minor details of daily life.

View all my reviews

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Books, WW2

Tank Tracks, Peter Beale

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This is the story of 9 RTR in WW2 written by one of its officers and including material from many of the survivors and contemporary diaries, including the battalion war diary, the brigade history and at one point the radio logs. It is packed with a wealth of material, much of which is directly quoted from a primary source. If you want a feel for what life was like for a heavy tank battalion then this is the book to read.

The stories told by the survivors and in the diaries don’t pull any punches, and some of what is described is quite horrific, many of the casualties in the battalion are well documented and the nature of the injuries suffered by tank crews tend to be severe.

The battalion re-formed in [late 1940/l941] and was one of the first to be equipped with Churchills. It trained in the UK until mid to late June 44 when it went to France. It took part in Goodwood & Epsom and the Falaise battles supporting the Canadians and 43rd Wessex Division at various stages. After that they were involved in the capture of Le Havre, Walcheren, and the Reichswald.

Each of the stages of the battalion’s existence and each of its battles forms a chapter. These are opened by the official account of what happened followed by personal narratives of events during the same period. Often the same incident is reported from several sources which gives you a clearer idea of what might have happened, and the level of confusion. For example one tank driver reported that he had no idea where he was during one operation as his vision slits were covered in mud and he was relying on the tank commander to guide him. At the end of the book are several appendices with a wealth of statistics and other information useful to gamers. Amongst other things the casualties are very well documented, not only in the usual table of numbers, but it also gives service number, rank, name, trade, appointment (e.g. troop leader’s driver), date, place, and sometimes a short description of the incident (e.g. mortar fragment in the face). There are also extracts from operational orders and most battles have several maps showing you the ground and the movements of the troops.

Overall I’d rate the book very highly and strongly recommend it to others that have an interest in WW2 and/or tank operations.

ISBN 0750915196

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Books, WW2

Taming the Panzers, Patrick Delaforce

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Taming the Panzers: 3 RTR at War, 1914-45

This is a history of 3rd Royal Tank Regiment (a battalion sized unit for those not au fait with UK Armoured regiments). It starts with a chapter of their origins in the First World War and then their subsequent peacetime evolution. 3RTR fought in the 1940 France campaign at Calais, then in Greece in 1941 followed by the western desert. They returned to the UK in late 1943 and took part in the NW Europe campaign eventually meeting up with the Russians in the Baltic.

The Author was an artillery officer (with 13 RHA) who supported 3RTR in the NW Europe campaign and this gives him a connection to those that he has written about, much of the text is based on letters and conversations with the surviving officers and men of 3 RTR.

Synopsis

During the desperate days of May 1940 that ended with the fall of France, the 3rd Battalion Royal Tank Regiment was sent to Calais where it played a vital role in the week-long battle. In helping to stem the inexorable German armoured advance, the battalion was praised by Churchill for giving the British Expeditionary Force vital extra time to effect the crucial evacuation from Dunkirk‘s beaches.

In the spring of 1941, 3 RTR fought the panzers once again in the ill-fated Greek campaign. They fought a costly withdrawal against the Germans, losing all their tanks, but inflicting heavy casualties. Hitler was furious: the six week Greek campaign delayed Operation “Barbarossa” which allowed the Soviets time to re-group before the Germans reached Moscow.

Following their evacuation from Greece they re-formed in Egypt and fought in the Gazala battles, Operation Crusader and then in El Alamein and contributed to the subsequent defeat of the Axis forces in North Africa.

Taking part in the D-Day invasion in June 1944, 3 RTR was in the thick of all the desperate Normandy battles. They took part in the “Great Swan” to capture Amiens and Antwerp, then provided right flank protection in Operation ‘Market Garden’ and helped halt the panzers in the Ardennes. Equipped with new Comet tanks 3 RTR swept across the Rhine and four other well-defended rivers to meet the Russians on the Baltic.

Review

This book is very well informed, the author was there personally for some of it and was able to speak to those that were directly involved in other parts as well as having access to war diaries etc. The style is very readable and it is an excellent unit history for a tank regiment that was involved in all of the main campaigns in NW Europe and the Med.

ISBN 0750931973

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Books, History, Naval

The Floating Republic, Manwaring & Dobree

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18th century illustration of Richard Parker (B...
18th century illustration of Richard Parker (British sailor) about to be hanged for mutiny. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An Account of the Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797 by G.E. Manwaring (Author), Bonamy Dobree (Author). First published in 1935 and re-published by Pen & Sword Military Classics in 2004. 300 pages in paperback.

Synopsis

The naval mutiny of 1797 is the most astonishing recorded in British history; astonishing by its management rather than by its results, for other mutinies had been successful. Though it shook the country from end to end, it was largely ordered with rigid discipline, a respect for
officers and an unswerving loyalty to the King. Moreover, it was so rationally grounded that it not only achieved its immediate end, the betterment of the sailor’s lot, but also began a new and lasting epoch in naval administration. Here are familiar names: the aged hero Lord Howe, the indecisive Lord Bridport, the giant Admiral Duncan who held a mutineer over the side of his ship until the wretch admitted his error, the ever unpopular Captain Bligh, and less familiar figures such as Richard Parker, who led the mutiny at the Nore and paid for his insurrection at the end of a rope. This fascinating account will appeal to all who love Horatio Hornblower, Jack Aubrey and other fictional heroes of the era. The value of The Floating Republic does not merely reside in its excellent treatment of its theme – but likewise in the light it sheds upon the history of the eighteenth century generally.

Review

This was a fascinating and thought provoking read. Drawn very heavily from the primary sources of the period it paints a picture of the events and also how the prevailing attitudes of the time shaped them. Those at the top believed (erroneously) that the mutinies were caused by foreign interference (from French Jacobins, or their English supporters). Those on board ship felt that the improvements in standards of living across the entire 18th century had left them behind, in 1797 the pay rates for seamen were the same they had been under Charles II. This was brought into stark relief by the sudden increase in the size of the navy with the war, bring on board many educated volunteers.

Life on board ship was harsh in the extreme, many officers brutal bullies who ignored the protections in the discipline regulations. Pursers sold short measures (the naval pound had 14 rather than 16 ounces) and the quality of their food was awful, not fit for human consumption – even by the laxer standards of the time. The book shows the conditions and explains why the mutinies happened, it contrasts the conduct and management of the two mutinies, both from a mutineer and an official point of view. There are lessons both on how to conduct a mutiny and on how to peacefully end one, the two adjacent mutinies clearly showing this.

I certainly felt inspired in reading the book and would strongly recommend it to both naval historians and social historians, an excellent work on a period that otherwise gets overlooked.

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Books, History

Charlie Company, Peter Cochrane

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This is a history of C Company 2nd Bn Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in the western desert, Sudan & Eritrea, Keren and then in Italy. They were part of 4th Indian Division.

The author was an officer who did all his active service with the same infantry company and this covers his experiences and those of his company.

Synopsis

Of the many books about the last war, some offer the general’s view of an entire battlefield, others have been individual experiences or divisional histories. “Charlie Company” is something original, the story of a rifle company of the Cameron Highlanders whose record of service in the Western Desert, Eritrea, and throughout the Italian campaign fully deserves this tribute to their courage and endurance.

Peter Cochrane joined the company as a young platoon commander in 1940. He won an MC in their first action in Libya, and followed this with a DSO for his part in the grim assault on Keren. Badly wounded there, he missed the disaster at Tobruk, but was back as company commander at Monte Cassino and afterwards for the long haul up Italy. From his own experience he has told the remarkable story of a small group of soldiers of whom any country would be proud. The stresses and horrors of war are there, but so is the humour and the wonderful spirit of men whose morale was somehow sustained to the very end. It is a deeply moving book.

ISBN 0701122803

 

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CLWG, design, games, WW1

Hot Blood & Cold Steel – onside Report

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This was a design session on how to do a WW1 skirmish game, focusing mainly delivering a participation game for Jerry Elsmore’s 50th Birthday con. I’d already done a first darft of the rules but wanted to talk through some of the principles about what I wanted to achieve.

I found the discussion particularly useful in clarifying my methods for running a participation game at a show. Gone is the idea of having all the action in a static circle of squares that represented all that could be seen (I may do this at CLWG sometime as I still like the idea, although it would be too time-consuming for being run at a show). I did get some ideas for making changes to the terrain though so that it would only become clear when figures entered the square in question.

Also useful was the discussion on how to simulate disorientation and when that might be appropriate. This means that I have some ideas for retaining the confusion that can happen when patrolling at night, especially when shooting starts.

The next version of the game in a complete and playable form will be around at the January meeting and again in February so that it will have had a couple of outings by the time Jerry’s birthday convention comes round. Any volunteers to help run the game on the day will be more than welcome.

In the meantime the draft rules (which are an evolution of Jim’s Starship Solder rules converted to work with 2d6 and have a WW1 flavour) are on the web. http://www.cold-steel.org and there is a fledgling mailing list (using my usual server) at list@cold-steel.org (send a blank e-mail with ‘subscribe’ (no quotes) in the subject line).

Also if anyone has photos (preferably aerial ones) of trenches or shell craters (regardless of period) then I wouldn’t mind if you could send me some scans. I need to make up a stack of terrain cards for the game and one of the things that impressed me at the conference was Jim’s use of laminated card pictures for counters. I reckon that terrain cards made up the same way would look pretty good.

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CLWG, design, games, History

Revolutionary Warfare

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When I played Andy Grainger’s A Month in Country I immediately thought of some of the parallels with the Revolutionary Warfare (RW) game that I have run myself a couple of times, although with only a few players. I would particularly like to re-do my Palestine game as the players I ended up with (well one player in particular) didn’t give me the sort of game that I was expecting as they couldn’t cope with the whole concept of the role that they were given. (I won’t name names, but those that were there know who I am talking about – the British Governor wanted to hold elections for a PR power sharing assembly between the Palestinians and the Jews).

Anyway, the concept I was playing with was similar to Andy’s but played on a slightly larger scale. At the time of design I had been toying with the idea of producing ‘Lion Comes Home’ as a megagame and the RW module had to work very smoothly. It is essentially one sided, there would be a small group of roving revolutionaries that would start a new revolution when their current one had been crushed, or at a point determined by the political control team. I haven’t completely shelved LCH, but development has stalled over the last couple of years. Anyway I’m not volunteering something like this as a megagame until I’ve written it all.

In the RW module the resolution is at province level, in the Palestine tryout there were 16 provinces. This could be too low for a megagame but I didn’t want governments suddenly losing control of entire colonies as that just didn’t happen historically. The Government players would set the rules of engagement and the alert levels for the police forces and any military units in the colony.

Each province has an unrest level that can be affected by the actions of both the government and the revolutionaries. If the revolutionaries are successful (or the government inept) then the tension levels can escalate from content to ungovernable via stable, unrest & tense.

The forces of revolution will normally start out with a small amount of support to get them going. They can gain support from the effects of their actions. They also use up support to perform actions as there is only so much support that can be called upon at any time. Revolutionaries may espouse peaceful or military action or a combination of both. At different stages of the revolution different strategies will reap the best rewards in increased tension levels and the downfall of the government. The stages of revolution are broadly:

1.Raising Awareness: getting the people to realise that there is a problem with the government and that they can help to change this;

2.Low Intensity Struggle: starting to make small demonstrations against the government and perhaps attacking key figures or installations;

3.High Intensity Struggle: making the country ungovernable and forcing the government to make concessions to the revolution;

4.Open warfare: becoming a government and opposing the old regime openly to ensure its downfall.

In Andy’s game the revolutionaries are somewhere between stages 2 & 3 depending on where they are in the country. Some parts are probably even in stage 4.

The role of the government is not a purely reactionary one, it is possible to be proactive and prevent terrorism before it has any great effect. The setting is such that there will be an overall political framework to be worked within and the government players will represent the colonial governor and possibly the garrison commander. There may also be scope for the home government to become involved in solving problems. For the purposes of a tryout I would either play it one-sided (more accurately with several revolutionary factions) or have a couple of reliable players to play the local governor and military commander.

 Government actions are determined on a matrix of the current alert state and the general intention of the active units under command. Each police district and company sized unit can be given an intention and an area of responsibility. Doctrine for dealing with internal trouble is of police primacy unless a state of emergency has been declared. Declaration of a state of emergency is not something that should be done lightly, and certainly not before the police have lost the ability to deal with the situation.

 Anyway if there is sufficient interest, and the dates are finalized early enough to let me book cheap flights, I could run this at the Games Weekend. It would need five or six players and would take about three hours all told. If interest was very high I could even run two simultaneous colonial engagements. I would also like to do a design session on modeling opinion polls and elections.

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CLWG, roleplaying, universe, WW2

CLWG December 1999

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What you missed at the Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG) December 1999 meeting.

English: Wreckage of a Fairley Battle shot dow...
English: Wreckage of a Fairley Battle shot down by the Wehrmacht, France, on May 1940. Deutsch: Trümmer einer von der Wehrmacht im Mai 1940 in Frankreich abgeschossenen Fairley Battle. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The CLWG December 1999 meeting started from 12 at John Rutherford’s house and we played until after 9pm. Afterwards we chatted, with the aid of several bottles of wine, until almost midnight. In total we had 13 members at the meeting. It started with a fairly light-hearted game called ‘Battling Druids‘ which was originally designed by Trevor Farrant as a participation game for wargames shows for another club that he is a member of. This involves four 100mm models of druids, four fountains, a cloud with a lighting bolt, hordes of hedges, magic spells and a whole lot of fun.

A sergeant air-gunner mans his Vickers 'K' gun...
A sergeant air-gunner mans his Vickers ‘K’ gun from the rear cockpit of a Fairey Battle. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Next up was an RAF Aircrew RPG which I ran with the help of a couple of others. This involved the layers creating themselves characters, setting off in their Fairey Battles and hamming it up big style. Every stereotype was there, from the Australian bush pilot (who was a real-life Quantas Jumbo Jet pilot) to the terrible ex-public schoolboy who drove his Morgan nearly as fast as the aircraft. All the players ended up in enemy hands (what do you expect when you take a Fairey Battle to bomb a bridge in Maastricht?) They were separated, interrogated and then combined in a prison camp (except for the Aussie who broke out and ran for it like a man).

This led us nicely into our next game from Jerry, which was set in a POW camp near the Swiss border in the later part of 1944. It was based on one of the exercises that the regular army uses to test its potential officers reasoning ability. We split into two groups for this, and although both groups came up with reasonable plans neither of us managed to get the ‘DS solution’ which is what the army consider to be the correct answer. Admittedly the set problem does tie your hands a bit and railroads you towards a sub-optimal solution (at least in my view). This also ran alongside another session of the ‘Battling Druids’.

Next up was the club quiz, run by me. It came in two parts. The first part was where I asked people ten questions about their ideal game, its title, what it would feature, what it wouldn’t feature, where it was set, its subject and who the dream designer would be and a couple of other things too. The interval was filled by Chinese takeaway and some wine. After that I read out the answers to each of he questions and people had to guess who had written which answers. Given the rather silly nature of some answers (e.g. one of the games was titled something like “Manchurian Kung-Fu Space Marines vs. Psycho-Alien Death Nazis from Mars”, another called “Charles & Die” – about the English Civil War naturally) this was a highly amusing game where people were accused of all sorts of things.

After the club quiz things degenerated further into hilarity with a game of Starship Marine. The game was different from normal because each player had to write down what actions the player on their left did (which rotated round the table each turn). When you got the bit of paper telling you what had just happened you announced what you wanted your character to do next (and hopefully the person who was writing down what actually happens was listening to you). This game involved teddy bears, VR porn, scantily clad women, large alien robots, leaking steam, a system failure in a suit of powered armour, accidental grenade throwing and a host of other improbable and hilarious outcomes that wouldn’t normally have happened in one of our usual games using the rules.

All that happened after that was that we sat around and talked for an hour or so before deciding that we had to leave to get last buses/trains/etc home. In all it was a good session.

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