A hasty Hannover - part 1

In urgent need of a German two-seater recce aircraft for the re-run of the Somme game I opened - not without trepidation - this old Airfix kit.  

Actually it wasn't too bad a build, save for the usual need for seven hands to get the top wing on straight.

So (with yet more trepidation) I contemplated a colour scheme....

Somme day I'll find you - part 3

 For the second air phase the RFC decided on a single recce 'plane with a heavy fighter escort.

 One of the fighters was French - piloted by none other then Guynemer himself.  Having visited his memorial a few months ago it seemed only fair.

 The beastly Boche put up the by now usual cloud of Fokkers.

 A messy scrap was soon underway high above no-mans land.

 A British fighter was soon plummeting earthwards, it's pilot slumped lifeless over the controls.

 The recce 'plane also took hits and turned for home

 Freed of his escort duties, Guynemer had a go at the German observation balloon...

...and hit the thing!  While several hits would be needed to disable the gasbag, it had at least suffered a slow puncture.  Good enough for a 'kill', we agreed.

Quartermaster General

Let's take a break from the horrors of the Somme for er, the horrors of another war.  We had a brief run through of this boardgame a few weeks back and last week we assembled five players to give it a proper go.  Jerry provided the game and played both Germany and Italy, Tim C was Britain, Martin played Japan, John was the USA and your humble correspondent played the ever lovable USSR.

The game is necessarily pitched at a high level and uses wooden counters to represent armies, fleets and air forces.

The game is driven by cards which allow players to build new forces and launch attacks.  Other cards cover special events and economic warfare.

To allow you to follow the action I tried to take a photo at the end of every turn.  German pieces are grey, Italian purple, British yellow, Japanese white, US green and Soviet red (of course!)

The Japs embarked on a drive (or rather a float) across the Pacific..

...while their German and Italian chums overran Europe.

US efforts were directed against the Japanese

This time we made pretty good progress with the game and were rattling through a turn in about 10 minutes.  The photo above shows the positions reached after about 2 hours of play.  I'd managed to hang on to the Soviet Union and repel several Fascist onslaughts.  Well that's my story.  Interestingly at another table some other club members were also playing QMG under the leadership of Pete S.  When I left their Soviet player (Paul S) was down to a single province - I wonder how it ended.

Somme day I'll find you - part 2

Or as our comrade in blogs Conrad Kinch would have it - 'The Puns of August.'

Phase to of the game saw the massive British artillery bombardment, with a gun line of ten gun models each firing 5 rounds.

You may remember me buying this pair of Cresent guns with crews at the Birmingham Toy Soldier Show last year.  I picked up the battered but worthy limber very cheaply.

 I provided six 18-pounders.

 At the other end of the line there was a seventh 18pdr and three(!) of these huge Britains howitzers.

The wicked Germans engaged in some counter-battery fire with their three batteries.  This is an Emhar 77mm

 This monster is a metal model intended for use with 28mm figures.

  A Marklin tinplate gun dating from before WW2.

An the results of all this furious fire?  One of the British howitzers was blown up but we're confident that all the German wire has been broken and that all their front-line troops are dead.  Oh yes.