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!
