1983 Retrospective (or something like that)

 As mentioned in the previous post, the descent into A Levels, hunting for a part time job and joining a club for ‘proper’ wargaming began in September and I can reasonably claim that was the point at which the childlike joy of toy soldiers began to fade into ‘serious’. At 60, I look back and wonder if that is why I am now so jaded with the gaming element of the hobby. John Ruddles got it right.

One of the things that amazes me was how I managed to experiment with so much in the first half of the year: Pony Wars, AWI, Zulu Wars, Commando raids… All on a shoestring budget! I think the inventiveness that characterised younger wargamers in the 70s and 80s has been lost. How many wargamers nowadays start off looking at magazine photos and aim for that, buying into whatever ‘system’ and it’s associated figure ranges has the best advertising, rather than chopping up cardboard boxes and raiding bins (especially the bins from Skool woodwork and art rooms - yes, I did do that) for useful bits and bobs. Or spun through a loo roll if they needed a lighthouse.

Perhaps I’m being unfair, but it would be nice to see people struggling with hair roller armies, or trying to create pipe cleaner cavalry for pipe cleaner infantry. I can do both 😉.

My main inspiration in those early years came from films, comics and Commando books. Of course, I was reading ‘proper’ history books and building my library (courtesy of Bryan Forbes’ bookshop) but who wants to do a ‘Dark Age Infantry Slog’ when you can be Gregory Peck and David Niven? This game was a mix of all those influences.

Sadly, the music which powered me through all my experimentation up to September rapidly went downhill, UB40 being the catalyst (can’t stand them!) and the excruciating Flying Pickets giving the year a musical coup de grace. There were a few honourable exceptions - Lionel Richie, Simple Minds, Assembly - but even groups that had come up with earlier belters were scraping the barrel. Compare Let’s Dance to Modern Love: even Bowie was letting us down! Little did I know Queen were limbering up to save the world…

However, worth a mention was the late, great Bonnie Tyler, whose Total Eclipse of the Heart video was filmed up the road from me in what was Holloway Sanitorium! I actually visited there on a skool trip once. Yes, St Ann’s Heath Middle Skool thought a great day out for the kids was a trip to a functioning mental hospital. Mind you, it’s where most of the teachers should have been.

1984 would see an improvement musically, academically and financially over the final months of 1983, and I mostly enjoyed my Friday nights at Staines, although it was clear I was not part of the ‘in crowd’ and I would not make any friendships, lasting or otherwise. From a gaming perspective it did introduce me to different periods and scales but I’m not sure if I spent my years there just going through the motions and doing what I thought was expected of me, because no matter what I played there was always something missing…

It was the smell of French Marigolds as you rummage around to find a paratrooper with a broken leg.

Anyway, a quick visit to the loft and I found these survivors from the raid. Enjoy!

Lloyd, Ravenwood, Marion & Doctor Jones

Written in 1978!

German mobility!

If I look harder I may find some more bits. Note my WSS generals are being prepped…. 

For men of a certain age…

Let me take you back to… August 1983

 The summer of 1983 was probably the warmest and sunniest since 1976. This was ideal for my purposes as I could set everything up and leave it out overnight, giving me a whole day to play and time to savour every event. In many ways, it was the last gasp of toy soldier innocence: in September I would join a club, start A levels and planning for life in the real world. It would also be the last gasp of cracking chart music as UB40’s awful droning kept Madness off the number one slot, Culture Club’s soft poppy nonsense appeared and the year ended with The Flying Pickets destroying Only You with their bing bong bobbly bollocks. This might be worth a full post later…

Anyway, on with the show!

The Plan

The commandos split into three teams: 3 men (including the sniper) would be parachuted into the jungle to set up a block or ambush on the coast road, the main group would land at the port, which would be secured by the local resistance (leaving a signaller to alert the sub for extraction), and head for the radar station. They would enter as stealthily as possible, take anything of interest and blow up the rest before racing back to port.

All the baddies’ reactions would be diced for - nothing was fixed, I would make it up as I went along, using Recon’s figure skills where I could. After all, I wanted a few surprises! If all went well, it would be a boring game: but the dice gods were not going to let that happen…

This is roughly the makeup of the teams. Sadly, I did not keep all the stats or write a battle report, so this is all from memory. All the commandos and resistance had names, but I can only remember a few.

Team 1: Captain, Lieutenant, RAF Sergeant (Howard), Radar Expert (my Australian officer conversion to Indiana Jones!) with the remainder mostly Australians with one US infantryman (following the US involvement in Take or Destroy. He was named Lloyd, after Jim Lloyd, a character in Centennial which I wrote on his base in 1978!). There was also RSM Peacock, the Matchbox 8th Army Bren gunner who looked like Jack Watson.

Team 2: Sergeant, OR, Sniper (Shepherd) - all Australians.

Team 3: The resistance and Signaller (Thomas).

Act 1: No Plan Survives…

Although the mission started on time and there was perfect coordination between the sub and paras, the parachute landing was chaotic, with the three paper discs going all over the shop and Shepherd breaking his leg on landing, so one down already (very Dirty Dozen)! The others were widely separated, but they eventually managed to work their way to the road. There was a much bigger problem, though: the DAK spotted the parachutes and quickly arranged a force to investigate.

The Italian reaction was… stay in bed.

The main group landed successfully to find only two resistance fighters that answered the call: Ravenwood and Marion (you can see the heavy influence of Raiders on my teenage years!). The captain judged this would not be enough to guard the port, so along with Signaller Thomas one man was left (any more would weaken Team 1 too much). But that should have been enough as was no sign of the DAK and Team 2 was OK, wasn’t it?

Team 1 quickly set off for the radar station, while the DAK assembled a strong search team for what they thought was just bailed aircrew. This force was a Hanomag, a Kubelwagon for the Kapitan and sergeant (Airfix, the sergeant being a DAK grenade thrower that Paddy the moggy had chewed the grenade hand off!) and a Bedford, all fully loaded. There was also a Stalwart but the dice said no.

Team 3 set about fortifying the port as much as possible, fortuitously including a roadblock. At this point, there was still no sign of the enemy, but I thought that would be the most sensible course of action. With Team 2 still scrambling about the French Marigolds, it would prove a good call.

Act 2: Ambush!

The DAK quickly motored down the coast road, reaching the barricade without incident. The hanomag passengers dismounted to clear the obstruction, but luck was with the commandos this time as the DAK Kapitan failed to smell a rat and dismount his remaining troops. Suddenly, Team 2 arrived and all hell broke loose, with both teams pouring fire into the hanomag group, catching them in a crossfire. Despite the good start, the armoured support soon told and the hanomag’s MG blasted the defenders with accurate fire. 

Now, the action remains a bit of a blur, but the commandos were getting the worst of it. Despite lower skill ratings, the ‘quick casualty’ method I used for the baddies was to D6: 1 = no effect, 2,3 = pinned and 4+ out of the fight. While this was easy to manage it meant they had a 50% chance of surviving and doing further damage, while the commandos could be weakened by wounds.

When Team 2’s sergeant saw the DAK dismounting the Bedford, he knew he had to act, so a heroic action was needed… He charged the hanomag, tossed a grenade to kill the crew (4+ all round, I think!) and turned the rear machine gun on the Bedford, scattering the DAK. Sadly, he missed the KW which had driven off road and a blast from the MG killed him outright.

It was now a matter of mopping up. The remaining commandos and resistance were either dead or seriously wounded, but they had halved the DAK and the Hanomag was burning and blocking the road. The Kapitan now realised there was more than downed aircrew and the radar station was at risk, but it took the DAK some time to clear the obstacles and that all helped Team 1.

The Italians slept through it all…. Mostly.

Act 3: Charge!

Team 1 made good time to the checkpoint and managed to stealthily ‘remove’ the guards with some ease, but the sentry on the main gate was either eagle-eyed or heard the port battle, because he raised the alarm and sleepy Italians stumbled out of their barracks to take up their posts. At this point, the commando captain realised there was no other option than a rapid and violent attack, so with Peacock leading the charge they stormed the gate and made short work of the unfortunate Italians with only a couple of light wounds to show for it. Peacock took two commandos to the rear where the colonial troops completely ignored their officer and charged up the mound to retake the station. Peacock & Co made short work of them, including their brave officer who fought on alone until cut down by a Tommy gun burst. As Jones and Howard went to work on the radar, the prisoners (yes, I gave the pinned Italians the chance to surrender) were locked in their barracks and Lloyd volunteered to slow down the vehicles that could be heard revving their way cross-country to get round the still burning hanomag.

Lloyd was confident his Garand had range and rate of fire to make a nuisance of himself if he hid in the rocks. He also took a 2” mortar (the nib and cartridge of a Parker Replay pen which, when the nib was held back and released, would spring forward about 4 feet!).

It was now obvious there was trouble at t’radar, so the Kapitan sped forward in the KW with the Bedford following close behind with the handless sergeant. Lloyd waited until they were in range and fired the 2”: it landed straight in the front passenger seat of the KW, killing everybody aboard! In true James Coburn style, Lloyd cursed his luck: he was aiming at the Bedford.

The DAK sergeant, thanking his lucky stars he changed his ride, ignored the KW wreckage and sped onwards, the DAK passengers shooting at Lloyd, wildly but close enough to keep his head down.

Act 4: Finale

Now the game was in the balance. There were not enough DAK to retake the station but not enough commandos to blast through the DAK, so if the DAK played it smart they could corral the commandos long enough for me to make an umpire decision on the result (considering there was another Stalwart’s worth of DAK available!). But I had reckoned without Peacock, who with a sharp burst of fire killed the Bedford’s driver causing it to crash. Again, the commandos reacted quickly and rushed down the mound, using fire and movement and Peacock’s covering fire to keep the DAK down. The DAK could only respond with a few pot shots, so the sergeant and two surviving men ran to the nearest cover (I think it was my heel print in the spoil heap) where they were safe but unable to influence events. Or so I thought…

Charges successfully placed, the surviving commandos withdrew, but as Peacock turned to leave the last DAK rifleman took a chance and fired off a shot at extreme range. Peacock fell dead, a fluke headshot.

Soon after, a large explosion shattered the radar hut (no Italian prisoner were harmed) and the surviving commandos returned to the port. They found Thomas wounded in the Airfix Strongpoint and I judged he was fit enough to signal the submarine so ended the game there.

Epilogue

This sort of game could never be reproduced on a table or played anything other than solo. The nature of the garden gives the kind of terrain no table can provide and the solo element allows a single vision that can easily be tempered by the Recon system, flexible thinking and dice. It’s obviously not something that can be thrown together in an evening; it involved a lot of planning, but the end result was worth it. If I had my time again I would love to have a crack at a John Ruddles garden, but time, age and my crumbling knees are against me.

But while I could, I did. And I will never forget it.

 Please note the numbers on the counters are only a vague indication of strength!

Last of the Line

 A quick break before the penultimate 1983 post, here is the final batch of WSS units which would be fully prepped if I had not run out of black primer! All are plastic Warlord/Wargames Factory and most are destined to be Portuguese. I have a pile of generals to do too, but these are Front Rank. I could have used the excellent Ebor miniatures, but I wanted them larger than life. Never been a fan of Front Rank, but their WSS and 9YW ranges are wonderful. Service from Gripping Beast was top notch.

Black! Black!

Let me take you back to… the end of July 1983

 Fresh back from holiday, and unemployed as I had lost my shared paper round (my chum had got an apprenticeship and we were both replaced by someone younger and cheaper! It was also the last I saw of the local paper; an early lesson in how the nation works today), I began to put my plan into action.

So, here is the map my imagination transferred to my dad’s beautifully kept garden with some photos I found as close to 1983 as possible, as there was a fair bit of transformation going on in the 80s. My dad had just built a base for his new greenhouse on the site of my sister’s old Wendy house, which was lifted and shifted to the position on the map, along with a pile of the original crazy paving. That part of the garden was now basically a spoil heap, which would prove ideal for wargaming.

As far as the kit was involved, the radar station was two bricks on a mound of spoil from the greenhouse base, surrounded by barbed wire made from garden wire I wound round a broom handle! The bridge and lookout tower were from the Airfix Checkpoint set, the ‘resistance house’ on the port was my sister’s Britains farmhouse. The German camp was bare concrete as it was just a starting point and the Italian colonial troops (all the dismounted Airfix Indians!) lived in tents made from folded cardboard. Otherwise, the Italians guarding the station were Airfix (roughly 10 figures), the Germans were something like 20 Airfix and Matchbox DAK transported by the Airfix Hanomag and Bedford and the Britain’s Kubelwagen. The Good Guys were a mix of Airfix (mostly Australians), Matchbox, Timpo and Britains and totalled (eventually, as the resistance would be DAV x figures strong)15 figures.

All the goodies had individual stats in accordance with the Recon rules, but for the sake of my sanity, the baddies had group stats, with the DAK being better quality than the Italians and colonial troops.

Behold! The cartographic skill of Zod returns!

The Port. A later photo, as there was a huge shrub hedge to the left in 1983.

The jungle, and pretty much close to how it would be in 1983. Note tasty tomato production behind.

A good view of the coast road and my dad’s concreting skills. The German camp is to the right, not the left as my map shows.

My dad, post cancer op, using the hover mower he called ‘that bloody thing’. At least it kept him off the heavy petrol mower for a while… He is standing on the exact location of the radar station, the mower is roughly where the bridge was. Note the paving stones which I designated the only passable area of the lawn.

Some Time Away from Everything

 A few days ago I was sitting down to some tea and cake in Saltram House near Plymouth, traditionally where the family holiday begins (or at least Minime’s Annual Ice Cream Scam begins…), when the Mem’s mobile rings. It’s a text from my doctor with the results of my annual dicky ticker test, which I had taken the day before. To cut a long story short, I was gleefully informed that I was clinically dead and must eat more bananas. That put a shot across the bow and spoiled the atmos somewhat, as the Mem made it clear my usual holiday habits of eating pasties and cream teas until my stent begged for mercy would end when I finished my slice of cake.

Anyway, regardless of that, I was delighted to find that Lidl in St Austell had a good supply of fresh fruit and by keeping to my new diet I was allowed a few treats. I also had a break from the internet as I couldn’t link the iPad to the Mem’s phone so resorted to finishing Ian Knight’s excellent Zulu Rising, Corelli Barnett’s equally excellent biography of Marlborough (our greatest general and I will fight you for it) and two James Holland tomes: Big Week and Brothers in Arms, both from Emma’s wonderful New Chapter bookshop in Mevagissey. I also found a Ladybird book on Oliver Cromwell, so my Cornish ECW thing is still going strong.

Back to reality tomorrow, enduring the day job (I was planning to be retired by now) and dealing with my increasingly batty mother, who has taken to swearing like a navvy and giving nursing staff Harvey Smiths. So here are some relaxing holiday snaps to show life isn’t all bad. Yes, they are more arty sunsets.

Let me take you back to… July 1983

 Almost 43 years to the day, in fact!

Somehow, we managed to go on holiday again. I’m assuming as college finished early, like Minime’s has, that we were able to tuck an extra one in before the Skool holiday ripoff period started. Whatever and however, we ended up in a rather nice bungalow in Ilfracombe, Devon (Willow Close, to be precise!). My sister was far too old for family holidays and had managed to duck out. Frankly, so was I, but a week with my parents was preferable to a week of sisterly tyranny, so I went with mum & dad. To head off any potential surliness my parents told me I could do what I wanted (within reason) so long as they knew where I was. Which was fair enough, but limiting when I didn’t have my bike! Nevertheless, I spent a pleasant week dossing, sponging, listening to music and figuring out the most impressive game ever.

Recon was the catalyst. It was meant to be D&D in Vietnam (or Africa, as you could be a merc), which I tried on the college club with no success. But it did have legs as a conventional skirmish game, so I married it up with Once Upon a Time in the West (only the casualty calculator - I’m not mad, they were equally unplayable) and tried out a few moves with some card counters. What I had was something approaching a cinematic experience: I could create characters and use the D&D elements to make them achieve feats of derring-do. And I was in the mood for a commando raid…

My dad brought this back from work earlier in the year, after it had been read by most of the engineers in W E Sykes (yes - my father was a toolmaker!). It was about a commando raid on the coast of North Africa just before El Alamein. It is a fabulous book, but I had to reduce it a bit from a battalion-size action to half a platoon. My scenario was based in the Aegean (guess what film I was also inspired by) where the hun was building an advanced radar station which could seriously disrupt supplies to the Yugoslavian Partizans (bet you didn’t guess it was the sequel!). A small force of allied commandos would land by submarine, meet the local resistance, and destroy the station before it became active.

My room became a flurry of activity, as I diced for characters, made maps of the garden - yes, it could only be done with 1/32 figures in the back garden! - and worked out a plan that would never hold water militarily but would create memorable incidents. And the fact I remember so much so clearly over forty years later, when now I can’t remember where I put my glasses 5 minutes ago, shows I succeeded.

 Next time: more pictures, maps and, if my knees allow me up in the loft, figures.

And not forgetting…

Let me take you back to… June 1976

Saturday 19th, to be precise. My dad was about to undergo a double hernia op, which was a major thing then resulting in a week in hospital and about a month of recovery. Nowadays, you are in and out in a day but I digress…

The important thing is me, and more so as I would have my 10th birthday while dad was under the knife, so he took me to Addlestone for maximum scamming - whoops! - to choose some presents. I came away with a Matchbox He111 and a box each of the new 1/76 infantry (two German, though - dad did not want to be outnumbered). The one surprise present, though, was the Airfix LCM and Sherman. The LCM has long gone, but the Sherman survives in all its mid-80s Guards Armoured upgrade glory!

The hatch was modelled open as the Matchbox British had a tank commander and he needed a mount. So this is 50 years old and a bit fragile, but I still have my original Sherman which is probably 4 years older!

My dad built the Airfix stuff, but I had a crack at the He111. I did very well apart from not painting the pilots, which was my dad’s first comment when I showed him my magnificent effort. It was high praise indeed if you received a ‘Hmm. s’alright’.

Anyway, I’ll be jumping forward in time to 1983 again for my next post, with yet another holiday and my increasingly fertile teenage wargaming mind (helped by Keren Woodward from Bananarama).