Silly After Action Report - Well That Didn't Take Long

Hauptmann Felix von Kummerbund sighed heavily and approached the command post.  Knocking gently on the door he was rewarded with a faint scream from within.  Entering he straightened up and gave a smart salute.  He needn't have bothered, Oberstleutnant von Kattelrussler was squatting on an ammunition box staring into space.  A tic over his right eye spasmed across his face.
"Herr Oberstleutnant," murmured von Kummerbund gently.
Von Kattelrussler leapt to his feet and clawed at his holster, fortunately his orderly wasn't permitting him to load ammunition into his pistol.  Glancing wildly from side to side von Kattelrussler caught side of von Kummerbund and calmed down slightly.
"Well?  What news?"
"The reports of our scouts are definite.  There are absolutely no halftracks anywhere near us."
"Thank god," replied von Kattelrussler sinking back down onto the ammunition box again.  "And that idiot from R&D?"
"We shot him this morning after he delivered the flamethrowers.  Ah, what should we do with the body?  People might ask questions."
"Roll him into a ditch and recommend him for a wound decoration," said von Kattelrussler.  "You're absolutely certain there are no half tracks?"
"Absolutely Herr Oberstleutnant.  This attack goes in on shanks pony."
"Excellent, then victory is in our grasp.  Wait a minute, did you say flamethrowers?"
"Indeed Herr Oberstleutnant, flamethrowers and demolition charges to help with the assault."
A serene smile crossed von Kattelrussler's face, "Then we are blessed dear von Kummerbund.  Nothing can survive the purification of the flames.  This will be a holy mission."
"Yeah, right, holy, as you say sir."  As gently as he could von Kummerbund coaxed his commanding officer to his feet and led him to the jump off point.  On the way von Kattelrussler babbled excitedly about flamethrowers and how he intended to adopt one after the war.

OK, I have to admit I'm getting a little fond of von Kattelrussler.  Anyway in the next scenario BFP114 - Engineering Defeat there aren't any of those crazy half tracks to worry about.  I as the Germans have twenty squads, fourteen on board and six reinforcements to drive through eleven Polish squads and capture three of four buildings in the rear.  Lest I linger in the process on turn four the Poles get six squads of reinforcements including a flamethrower of their own.  To bolster my attack force I have some assault engineers, a pair of flamethrowers and a pair of demo charges.  What could possibly go wrong?

I suppose the writing was on the wall from the get go.  Ivan set up with a strong seeming force forward hidden in buildings and cringing behind walls.  What I should have done was send half squads forward to strip concealment and opportunity fire powerful stacks once the job was done.  At least that's what Ivan would have done and I have to concede it couldn't have worked any worse than what I did.

Centre and right.  Surely nothing can withstand my firepower.

Blinded by the sheer firepower of my stacks I thought I could take a few prep fire shots and possibly clear away some enemies before I launched my halfsquads on a death ride.  After all even at long range against concealed units a flamethrower still gets a 6 flat shot right?  Not if you break them both in the first prep fire phase they don't.  Not that they were alone in failure, not one of my shots managed to so much as strip concealment and the only result I got was when a sniper pinned (and thus revealed) a green halfsquad hiding up on the hill.  Still with the assistance of some smoke from my assault engineers I managed to get a couple of squads across the road on the extreme right and broke what turned out to be another green halfsquad on the hill.

My plan had been to crush his centre by weight of fire (flamethrowers featured heavily in this) and push onto the hill on the right to build a firebase.  My reinforcements were due to push gently along on the left through the grain but the main effort would be the centre and right.  In the centre I would drive down on either side of the road and on the right I would build a firebase with a couple of mmgs and pound his flank which seemed a little skimpy.

In turn two I had another go at smothering his forward centre defenders with fire.  I broke two machine guns.  There was no other result.  On the right the firebase building continued apace.  The hill was mine.  Unfortunately the entire "inflicting harm on the enemy" bit just failed to happen.  I pounded what turned out to be a halfsquad with an mmg for three turns without even stripping concealment.  On the right of the road I managed to kill a squad in CC and on the left I traded a squad for a half squad leaving me approximately one halfsquad in profit as far as CC was concerned.

OK, thing haven't really changed too much but at least the hill is mine.

Over on the left I was trotting patiently through the grainfield and was also starting to ease through the orchards despite the fact that a squad and a half of green troops held out in my rear.  Having held me up for three turns these guys left their buildings on their own terms and continued to give me grief further to the rear.

I was desperately behind time and apparently incapable of inflicting harm on his troops.  I hadn't got anywhere near where I needed to be.  In turn four Ivan's reinforcements would pour on and since my twenty squads hadn't been able to deal with about four green squads worth of Poles I didn't see that they would do any better against elite and first liners.  I got a little desperate but I saw a glimmer of hope.  The road that led to the nearest victory building was open.  Most of Ivan's force was deployed on the flanks.  If I could occupy the attention of his troops covering the road I might be able to sneak some troops down there.  At the very least it would give me a toehold and Ivan something to think about rather than simply killing me as I moved forward.

Looks good doesn't it but his damn green heroes are still lurking under those pin counters.

It was a tactic of despair, I hadn't done enough damage to Ivan's force to justify it but in three turns I had barely done any damage to his force at all and it was only going to get stronger.  On the right a half squad charged forwards on a fire drawing mission.  He certainly succeeded but rolled snakes on his first morale check and generated a hero.  This hero then undertook fire drawing duties and between the two of them they forced Ivan to reveal his entire right flank, something two squads, two mmgs and a 9-1 had failed to do for three turns.  Naturally they died but firepower had been soaked up.  On the left side of the road I pushed my reinforcements towards his defenders and once again soaked up firepower at an unpleasant cost.

Now was the time,  every one of his units capable of firing on the road had been finalled out.  Leader led squads charged down the road.  Whereupon a green half squad crucified three squads with a pair of FPF shots.  The resultant 1-2 residual crushed another three or so.  Yes I know 1-2 isn't to be sneered at but you might expect one squad to get through it.

It's a little difficult to tell but underneath all of the counters lies the wreckage of my hopes

At the end of my turn four and with most of my force broken (the part that wasn't dead) I conceded.  I had nothing anywhere near the victory buildings, my men were incapable of passing a simple morale check and Ivan's reinforcements were looking at their watches and awaiting their cue.  My defeat stemmed from my utter inability to break Ivan's forward line except on the right where the gains made proved irrelevant by my inability to break (or even reveal) his right flank position until it was too late.  I definitely made a mistake relying on the flamethrowers on the first turn.  Over on the left creeping forward through the wheatfield got my troops forward but I was unable to cross the road.  Two half squads died on separate attempts to get across the street.  Strangely Ivan's sniper which had a formidable 5 only got a couple of results although one of them was on a squad on the hill on the first turn.  This broken squad then pointblank refused to rally in six subsequent rally phases.  Sigh, defeat resounding and absolute.

"Traitor," moaned von Kattelrussler.  Tears streamed down his cheeks as he struck at the malfunctioning flamethrower with a jagged rock.  "You promised me fire and gave me nothing.  I defy you gods of war!"  The rock slammed down onto the flamethrower again.  Hauptmann von Kummerbund backed slowly away until he was out of his commanders line of vision at which point he turned and ran for his life.  The subsequent explosion still blew him off his feet.

Birthday Greetings # 62

Wouldn't it be great to be emperor?  Let me clarify that.  Wouldn't it be great to be emperor if all you had to do all day was lounge around being dissolute while somebody else did all the work?  Lissome, smooth skinned women, and handsome, well sculpted young men would be yours for the having if you could spare the time from drinking, gambling, eating, sleeping or collecting stamps (some emperors get a little weird) and all you had to do in return was pose for the occasional coin.  Is being emperor starting to sound a little more attractive now?  Hells yeah!

Well you know where this is going.  Happy birthday to Lucius Aurelius Verus Augustus, Roman emperor.  We know him as Lucius Verus and when I say "we" I mean whoever Wikipedia cribbed the information from.  I've commented in the past on the Roman habit of creating descendents for themselves by the simple expedient of grabbing the nearest male in the vicinity and adopting them.  Following this method the emperor Hadrian adopted Lucius' father.  However the father died before Hadrian leaving the emperor no choice but to start again.  His eye was on a capable young lad named Marcus (I'll bet it was) but he also had a soft spot for the son of his first choice.  So he adopted an elderly senator named Antoninus Pius on condition that he in turn adopted both Marcus and Lucius.

At this point its starting to sound like the plot of a daytime soap opera but it all worked as planned.  Hadrian died and Antoninus Pius took over.  Then Antoninus Pius died and Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus took over.  Mind you the Senate would have been very happy to just take Marcus but he insisted that Lucius come along for the ride.

With Antoninus Pius safely among the gods Marcus settled down to rule the empire and Lucius settled down to provide an interesting contrast.  At first things went pretty well with both men in Rome dealing with floods, poor harvests and all the things emperors are supposed to deal with.  Unfortunately one of the things that Roman emperors had to deal with was the Parthians.  They invaded Armenia (a location that both Rome and Persia considered worth fighting over for reasons that are beyond me) and beat up the local Roman troops.  Then they beat up some less local Roman troops and when rumours started to spread of a revolt in Syria as well (I could just be getting this stuff from the news) it was decided (by Marcus) that the presence of an emperor (Lucius) was required.

Its unlikely that the presence of an emperor was required.  I say that because Lucius took about a year to get to the warzone (or more accurately, adjacent to the warzone) largely due to his habit of stopping off for long parties along the way.  Once there he busied himself finding a mistress while his commanders won the war.  That's the official story anyway.  On the other hand if you're a commander in chief with absolutely zero experience and a clutch of obviously talented subordinates then keeping out of their way is probably the best military decision you can make.  Lucius made the troops know that the emperor's eye was on them (a bloodshot eye with a dilated pupil but on them nonetheless) and reassured them of how seriously the state took this campaign.

With victory gained Lucius returned to Rome where Marcus gave him a triumph.  Lucius settled back down in Rome hanging out with actors, turning his home into a bar and going nuts over the chariot races.  So far so normal.  Whether it was deliberate or not Lucius probably did quite a bit to help his imperial collaborator.  Marcus could run the empire better than anybody (and certainly better than Lucius) and didn't need any help in that regard.  But a stoic, dutybound workaholic wasn't any better thought of in those days than it is now.  Marcus gave the Romans good administration, Lucius kept them entertained.  Those of you in England think about Princes William and Harry.  I'm sure William is terribly nice but lets face it, he's about as interesting as a bowl of tapioca pudding.  Enter Prince Harry to distract the crowd while William does the boring important bits.

Unfortunately for Lucius the good times were coming to an end.  Now that the Parthians were beaten the Germanic Marcomanni tribe (who had been patiently waiting their turn) went to war with the empire and both Marcus and Lucius headed north to sort them out.  For Lucius it was the last foray.  The war was less than a year old when he came down with what was diagnosed as food poisoning (but is now suspected to be smallpox, an interesting commentary on the state of medical science at the time) and died shortly afterwards.  Marcus seems to have been genuinely upset which indicates that possibly Lucius was a little more important to him than people realised at the time.  Games were held in his honour and naturally he was deified.  By this time there were so many Roman emperors among the gods that the originals were probably feeling a little outnumbered.

Silly After Action Report - Big, Cumbersome Vulnerable. Pick any Three.

Oberstleutnant Heinrich von Kattelrussler stood impatiently in a field staring with deep suspicion at a large shape covered with a dust sheet.  Also present was a member of the Wehrmacht's Dubious Research and Irresponsible Field Testing Unit.  As the man approached von Kattelrussler happily moved his suspicious glare to encompass him.

"So oberstleutnant.  What do you think of your assignment?" asked the man cheerfully.

Von Kattelrussler shrugged, "The Poles have got bunkers, trenches, wire, mines, field pieces and enough heavy machine guns to open a shop.  It will be tough but I have the tools to do the job."

"Indeed you do," replied the other man with a giggle.  He was rubbing his hands with glee.  A horrible suspicion started to form in von Kattelrussler's mind.

"I have eighteen squads, brave and true.  Assault engineers, flame throwers, mortars, demo charges and artillery on speed dial.  The Poles won't know what hit them."

"And you have us," said his companion, delight radiating from his features.  "Behold, the Wehrmacht's latest secret weapon," he yanked on the dustsheet and before von Kattelrussler's horrified gaze something huge, cumbersome and ugly was reveal in all its (for want of a better word) glory.

"Secret weapon?  Its the size of a barn," said von Kattelrussler already looking around for an escape route.

"The Poles will never see this coming!"

"They'll see it coming in freaking Mongolia!"

The other man refused to be deflated, "That's an 88mm gun right there.  You might not realise it now but in two or three years this will be the world's most awesome tank killer."

"The Poles haven't got tanks in this scenario and what the hell have you stuck it on?  A mutated tractor?"

"Mobility is king," babbled the other.  "Imagine the terror the Poles will feel when they see this armoured beast rolling towards them."

"I hate to burst your bubble but a double coating of paint does not count as armour plating.  I don't care what the hell you do with that, or the other three I see you've left in the officer's carpark but they're not getting anywhere near my attack."

"Sorry son, its a Fuhrer Order.  These beauties are attached to your unit and will go in with your attack.  Tell us how they get on.  Oh and try not to get them all destroyed, the Fuhrer intends to use them in the victory parade."

"He'd do better to convert them into a low income housing estate."

We shall leave the despairing von Kattelrussler trying to figure out how to integrate four of the least stealthy vehicles in the world into his assault and move on to the after action report for BFP Scenario 113, Bunker Bash.  Here I command the noble Poles stoutly defending their homeland from the enemy and Ivan will command the long suffering Oberstleutnant von Kattelrussler in the attack.  As the Poles I have fourteen squads, three leaders, two 75mm guns, four (count them) heavy machine guns and a pair of mortars.  Additionally I have twelve trench counters, six pillboxes, six wire counters and twenty four factors of landmines.  To win Ivan needs to capture 31VPs worth of locations.  Stone pillboxes are worth 5VP, wooden ones are worth 4VP.  In addition each building on board DW6a is worth 2VP.

I did a set up and we commenced playing.  After a turn we stopped playing when it became obvious that I had made a total mess of the setup rules which rendered the scenario unplayable.  We started again after Ivan cheerfully promised to tattoo the set up requirements onto my face if I didn't read the damn scenario card.  Below is what I came up with.

Basically I have set up two fortified strongpoints linking trenches, pillboxes and buildings.  Mines and wire defend what are the most likely approaches while the two guns are sitting in bunkers covering the centre of the board.  My four hmgs are set up (not in pillboxes) to cover the flanks.  One is in a trench over on the far right while the other three are sitting back in trenches and buildings on the left.  The guns will defend the centre (nobody came that way anyway) while the hmgs defend the flanks.  A few squads are set up in the forest forward simply so Ivan can't simply walk down half the board.  One of my mortars is hidden in a trench in the rear while the other is in what turned out to be a foolishly exposed position at the front.

Ivan set up his assault engineers on the right along with a full complement of demo charges and flamethrowers, officers to egg them on and a radio promising (but never delivering) artillery support.  His remaining force (fourteen squads) were weighted to the left, he would bring all four of his 88mm halftracks on there as well.  Accurately deducing that my guns were set up to cover the centre he put pretty much nothing there.

The first turn or two didn't go so well for me.  Over on the right Ivan's assault engineers pushed forward without much opposition while on the left there was more opposition but little of it was effective.  Still the mere presence of my troops slowed him down a little.  One of his halftracks turned up and tried to look scary but managed to break its MA.  The repair die roll was a six and suddenly Ivan was down to three, hope started to kindle in my breast.  Here's the thing with the halftracks, they're mobile and that 88 is terrifying but they're so big you can hardly help hitting them and the armour is pretty lousy, well within the capability of an hmg to deal with.

Over on the right Ivan moved forward against minimal opposition and his radio operator woke up his supporting mortars and told them to get ready.  On the left three halftracks replaced the one now slinking for the exit and positioned themselves to unleash a storm of metal on my hapless troops.  In the centre he calmly and methodically disposed of my speedbump troops and edged closer to the rear defensive position.  All looked good for a major push in the next few turns.  His assault engineers were separated from my right hand troops by a wire and mine infested forest but he had firepower and artillery.  On the left he had trickled a squad or two down the board edge feeling for my flank.  Then it all went to hell!

Ivan pushing forward

One of my hmgs stunned a halftrack, in the next firephase doubled stunned it and suddenly another of the wunderwaffe was heading rearwards.  Over on the right the artillery turned out to be a damp squib as my sniper simply shot dead anyone who tried to so much as touch the radio.  After losing an 8-0 and a 7-0 Ivan decided he had better things to do with his officers.  Such as rally the shattered wreckage of his assault engineers.  True they had taken a chance with the artillery gone but as they pushed forward my right hand hmg went on a demented rate tear and killed two squads of assault engineers and broke another.  In the centre things didn't go terribly well for me and Ivan pushed forward capturing a squad and officer of mine on the way.  Over on the left my hmg teams once again earned their pay hitting a third halftrack and gaining a snakes on the to kill roll sending the thing up in a ball of flames.

Suddenly Ivan was reduced to one halftrack (losing all four was an automatic loss).  When the survivor broke its main armament Ivan took the hint and hid the thing in the rear without attempting to repair it.  Over on the right his few remaining troops wandered into a minefield and generated a hero but my hmg team cheerfully killed them both.

At this point Ivan might have been forgiven for giving up (I probably would have) but he was made of sterner stuff.  My forward mortar crew had been driven berserk and had charged towards his mortar team only to die horribly.  In return a pair of his own squads had similarly gone berserk and attempted to make up for the assault engineers failure by charging towards my right hand gun position.  One squad died on the way and the other was killed in close combat but it caused some anxious moments and gave the people on that side of the board something to do apart from shoot at his mortar team which was causing me some troubles with airbursts in the woods.

His berserkers close in on the right.  On the left his flankers move forward under the guiding light of a merrily burning halftrack.

Meanwhile on the left without any halftracks to shoot at my hmg crews started to mince his flankers.  My rear mortar position got into the action as well, I'm not sure if they actually hurt anything but they certainly added to the general air of tension on the German side of the lines.  It couldn't last of course.  Ivan had taken horrible casualties but he had finally got his remaining troops into position to take some decent shots at my left hand defenders.  When he did so my guys proved no more capable of standing up to morale checks than his.  The right hand position was safe, literally everything Ivan had thrown at it was dead or broken beyond repair but up on the left it was a different story.  My guys could dish it out but they couldn't take it.  All three hmg positions broke under German fire and suddenly all that remained of the defenses was a gun and a halfsquad with a mortar.  All Ivan had to do was rally enough of his own troops to get forward.  I had gone from quietly confident to hysterically nervous.  If Ivan had been given a vote he would probably have preferred the former.

At the moment its a race to see who dies first

  From the wreckage of his units Ivan patched together a formidable force.  First a squad (skilfully evading the gun's CA) charged for my defensive position.  All I had was a half squad with a mortar, get past that and I was done.  Dumping the hardware my halfsquad reached for their rifles and sent Ivan's squad back in shattered rout.  Residual did the same for a second squad and when a third wound up right next to the halfsquad they covered themselves with glory by rolling snakes on a 2-2 final fire shot.  Even with cowering a 0 on the 1FP column means death.  This halfsquad saved my bacon.  It wasn't the end of the game, Ivan pulled together the rest of his forces and got past the halfsquad next turn and captured the pillbox with the gun but by this stage time was running out.  With the extermination of pretty much everyone on the right flank I moved my one surviving hmg team back to where it could cover my now vulnerable pillboxes on the left.  It did just enough, pinning one of his squads on the last turn to stop it taking occupancy of an abandoned pillbox.  Ivan managed to capture two pillboxes and a handful of buildings simultaneously killing the various broken units of mine lurking in the rear but this got him nowhere near his victory total.  At the end of the game I had one and a half squads left plus a gun crew (with a broken gun courtesy of intensive fire on his mortar crew) from my original OB.  Ivan had about three squads left unbroken from his original eighteen.  The bloodbath was virtually complete.

Endgame: Who dies first?  Pretty much everyone

Admittedly I was lucky, I rolled some good numbers when I needed them and made Ivan's job incredibly hard.  On the other hand so did he as witness the dreadful shortage of living Poles at the end of the game.  In my opinion Ivan underestimated the ability of my hmgs to deal with his halftracks.  Yes the kill number is low but with three ROF3 weapons firing on them the numbers are going to turn up eventually.  I fired my three left hand hmgs at his halftracks to the exclusion of all other targets until I had got rid of them (well I got rid of two, luck removed a third) that plus the failure of his artillery forced Ivan to launch an all infantry attack with little time remaining.  To his credit it almost worked.  Thanks to Ivan for the game which we both agreed was pretty awesome and one of the best we've had from the Poland in Flames pack.

The Rules of Retraction

I come to you cap in hand, dressed in sackcloth and with the weals on my back still weeping from their recent flagellation.  Undeserving of forgiveness though I am I most humbly beg pardon for my cruel deceit.  To those who have been hurt by what I now acknowledge to be the most scurrilous of untruths I offer my heart (diseased), lungs (tarry) and kidneys (surprisingly functional according to my doctor) in part compensation for the grievous wrong you have suffered at my reckless hand.  To both my readers out there I offer the most sincere of apologies for I have deceived you.

Yes, strange as this may seem I wrote something in my blog that wasn't true.  Perhaps more to the point I wrote something in my blog which not only wasn't true but was easily provable to be false.  In a blog entry not so many days ago I noted that my parents, as part of their role in their local bushfire brigade, assisted with the defoliating of certain, Christmas tree intensive parts of the landscape.  So far so true.  Unfortunately I also intimated (and by intimated I mean "explicitly stated") that one of the perks of doing so was a free tree for themselves.  Sadly this turns out to not be the case.  My parents were very emphatic that they paid good, hard earned cash for every damn Christmas tree they acquired over the course of the last forty years or so and furthermore they considered it a vile slander against their good name that I should intimate (or indeed explicitly state) otherwise.

This probably wouldn't have been a problem if I had given them time for the incident to slip their minds (they're old, it doesn't take long).  Unfortunately my father inconsiderately had a birthday this weekend and as I went (willingly, let the record show) to perform my filial duty I found myself ambushed by not one but two parents who alternated hysterical weeping with outraged threats to my inheritance if I didn't retract.  I attempted to ease the situation by pointing out that currently my inheritance looked likely to consist of a bunch of travel journals and fifty percent of a rather irritable cat.  Unfortunately this just started two new conversations.

"I thought you liked my travel journals!" wailed one parent.

"I thought you liked the cat!" accused the other.

At this point my brother failed to help by offering to sign over his fifty percent share of the cat to me immediately.  In fact he still did this even after I promised to publish a retraction.  However I have no wish to upset my parents unnecessarily (or at least I prefer to keep my "upsetting the parents" powder dry for a more important occasion) and it is true that I have finally managed to make an error of fact in my blog that somebody actually gives a crap about.

Thus to set the record straight and ward off the possibility of cat bestowing burst blood vessels on the part of my parents I state, for the record, that at no time during their involvement in Blaxland Bushfire Brigade's Christmas tree sale did my parents ever benefit to the tune of a free pine tree to decorate in their home.  Any assertion to the contrary in previous blog entries I acknowledge as false and I humbly apologise for any hurt and suffering (although not to the extent of offering financial compensation) that my parents or anyone else may have undergone as a result of those or any other statements that I may or may not have made over the years.

There you are Mum and Dad, now will you please give the cat to Geofffrey.  I will take some of the travel journals though.

Catch and Kill Your Own

It's that time of the year again or very nearly.  That time when eager eyed people venture out into the wilderness, hack off a little bit of it for themselves and take it home to place in a corner of their lounge room.  Why we do this for Christmas I'm not entirely sure.  It isn't like we go out and gather moss for Easter or anything like that.

Of course in this sophisticated day and age the actual job of wilderness venturing and hacking is usually delegated to specialist wilderness hackers.  Most people satisfy themselves with venturing out into a carpark or sales lot to purchase the fruits of these people's labour.  For many years my father was one of these noble wilderness hackers.  A couple of weeks before Christmas he and his colleagues from the bushfire brigade would head out to a state forest located somewhere in the unpaved part of Australia and there they would assault the trees with chainsaw and axe until, laden with the spoils of war, they would return to sell the thus murdered trees to people who wanted to decorate the inside of their home with dead (actually dying) plant material.  This had the joint advantage of raising some money for the bushfire brigade and reducing the amount of flammable material in the bush.  Oh yes, there was another advantage as well.  We got a free Christmas tree.

Now as my father approaches an age where the trees might be able to outrun him with a brief headstart he has delegated the hunter/gatherer role to the younger generation but still shamelessly trades on his bushfire brigade connections to get himself a tree.  In this he is following a fine tribal tradition where those too old to be useful are nevertheless fed in the hopes that they may have wisdom to impart to younger generations.  Also they're a readily available source of food in hard times.  It would be unwise to think our predecessors were in any way sentimental.  If the old were permitted to live it was because the rest of the tribe wasn't finished with them yet.

Down in Tasmania a much more rugged approach to Christmas tree harvesting is adopted.  As the day approaches the people of Tasmania leave hearth and home and then wrestle radiata pines to the ground in brutal one on one contests of domination.  According to this blog's religious festivals reporter the radiata pine is another of those brilliant "let's introduce an alien species into the environment, what could possibly go wrong?" schemes.  The radiata pine was introduced because it was a fine timbering tree.  The entire of Tasmania is covered in trees that the locals are currently chopping down in order not to make a profit but nevertheless at some point they felt they had to import more.  Frankly I'm more and more amazed that the Tasmanian government was so concerned about foxes.

At least unlike most introduced species the radiata pine fulfilled its promise of being a fine timbering tree.  Unfortunately it was so prone to fire that it almost spontaneously combusted in Summer time and it poisoned the soil so that it wasn't good for growing anything other than (surprise surprise) radiata pines.  Due either to poor control techniques or sheer bloodymindedness the radiata pine swiftly escaped the plantations and is now roaming free.  As Christmas time approaches the good folk of Tasmania do their bit for biodiversity by driving down the road, spotting a likely looking specimen and crash tackling it to the ground.  Sure they've heard of chainsaws and axes but its far more heroic to engage in a physical man/tree contest where teeth and nails are pitted against bark and branches and there can only be one winner.  To the victor the spoils and many a radiata pine will decorate Tasmanian homes come Christmas.  My colleague is planning to take her daughters; presumably they will be pitted against younger radiatas.  She has admitted to me that they also intend to take tree chopping equipment with them.  She has obviously been away from Tasmania for too long, she's gone soft.  Grizzled Tasmanians will sneer at them and children will follow them down the street singing mocking songs.  But they will have a Christmas tree.

It's Been A Long Time Between Penguins

A penguin was rescued from a stormwater drain in Sydney last week.  This was such exciting news that it pushed the latest articles about how appalling Donald Trump is (very temporarily) off the front page.  I've no great sympathy for Trump but I can't help thinking that if he could cure lepers by the laying on of hands then the headlines would read "Trump Molests the Sick".  Does anybody else get the feeling that if he doesn't actually obliterate the planet in his first six months of the job large sections of the media will actually be disappointed?  What I do know is that history will treat him harshly.  I know this because his enemies will write it.  In fact, they've already started.

But back to the penguin.  The news reports stated that the penguin was "rescued" from a stormwater drain but this wasn't quite true as a reading of the small print revealed.  When discovered the penguin was indeed stuck in a stormwater drain.  He wasn't rescued by the discoverers however, he was rescued when a burst of stormwater flushed him out into a canal whereupon the penguin got up, shook itself off and went on its way.  The two guys who found the penguin followed it in the hopes of picking it up and taking it to safety, something the penguin seemed to be doing by itself.  Unfortunately every time they approached the penguin it got aggressive.  Or to put it another way two representatives of the species that claims to rule this planet were faced down by a baby penguin.  Not humanity's greatest hour.  Eventually the penguin got tired and the guys were able to pick it up and put it in a tote bag until the RSPCA arrived.

Another interpretation of this story would be, two grown men chased a baby penguin until it collapsed from exhaustion whereupon they kidnapped it and would have committed god knows what disgusting acts of man on penguin depravity were it not for the fortuitous advent of a special forces strike team from the RSPCA who HALO jumped into the canal, called in an airstrike and two days later declared the area secure and the penguin safe.  The RSPCA transferred the penguin to Taronga Zoo.  After a series of deeply invasive and borderline illegal tests the zoo was prepared to announce that this was in fact a penguin and quite a young one at that.

There is no indication how a baby fairy penguin wound up in a storm drain in Summer Hill.  However since the drain connects to a canal, the canal connects to the harbour and the harbour connects to a fairy penguin colony in Manly I'm going to assume a combination of walking and swimming was involved.  Walking and swimming are two skills within the reach of most fairy penguins.  The unscheduled trip in a tote bag and the diversion to Taronga Zoo were probably not part of the penguin's original travel itinerary.

I hope the little guy checked out the penguin enclosure at Taronga Zoo during his enforced stay.  It's pretty awesome and he may want to investigate it as a permanent residence as opposed to being dumped back in Manly where he'll have to catch his own fish.

Silly After Action Report - I Suppose That Could Have Been Worse, Somehow.

In late 1944 a small group of senior Hungarian officers met in a heavily camouflaged coffee house somewhere outside Budapest.
"Well," said one, "we really screwed that up."

"Oh come on," said another.  "How were we to know that Hitler was a demented lunatic and his nation apparently has a deathwish?"

"We could have just watched the news," suggested a third.

"Ssh, they're coming," hissed the first.

A group of German officers strode into the coffee house and found seats by the simple expedient of shooting some of the occupants.

"Heil Hitler," barked one.

"Er, yeah right.  Heil and all that," replied the most senior of the Hungarians.  "Tell me, is there even the slightest chance that our country isn't going to be crushed underneath a Soviet juggernaut?"

The German officers consulted briefly among themselves.

"None whatsoever," replied the one designated as unreliable ally liaison.  "But we have good news!"

"Really?  Has Stalin had a sudden heart attack?" asked one of the Hungarians.

"Has Hitler?" muttered another under his breath.

"No and no," replied a German officer with sharp hearing.  "But, get this, the Romanians have betrayed the Axis and are now fighting alongside the Soviets.  They're helping to invade Hungary."

"The Romanians?  Those bastards!  We'll kill every son of a bitch!  Don't worry General von Whatever, we're with you to the end.  As long as we get the chance to beat up the Romanians."

"Absolutely," replied the German whose name was actually General von und zu Etcetera.  "But first we need you to help defend Debrecen."

"Are the Romanians attacking it?"

"Actually no, its the Russians I'm afraid."

"But we'll get to fight the Romanians afterwards?"

"Ahh, yeah, sure, whatever."

"You can rely on us Herr General"

"I wish that were true."

So this is how I wound up playing ASL Scenario AP117, Second City.  Here Hungarians are defending the town in Hungary that isn't Budapest from rampaging Soviet forces.  Thinking better of relying completely on their Hungarian ally the Germans sent the contents of a tank repair workshop to assist them.  Richard Cornwall has taken on the joint Axis forces while I command the noble Soviets en route to the lair of the fascist beast.  And when I say "noble" Soviets I mean of course thoroughly egalitarian worker and peasant type Soviets without a hint of class prejudice or aristocratic breeding.

To defend Debrecen Richard has eight squads of elite Hungarians backed up by a 20mm AA gun and a pair of home grown armoured vehicles, a Turan tank (lousy gun but awesome machine guns) and a Zrinyi SPG (awesome gun and no machine guns at all).  A couple of light machine guns, one medium, a pair of not particularly great officers and some concealment counters round out Richard's at start OB.  On turn three his German allies come steaming to the rescue with five elite squads of various calibres with a full complement of flamethrowers, demo charges, panzerschreks and a couple of somewhat shopsoiled panther tanks.

And what do I as the absolutely not noble, my parents weren't even muzhiks, Soviets have to attack with?  I have six elite squads, four smg toting first line squads and six other run of the mill first liners for fourteen squads in all.  I also have three light machine guns, a single medium and a couple of demo charges.  Four officers are there to urge the troops on and I have a charmingly eclectic group of armoured vehicles in support.  Two Sherman tanks bring the promise of multiple machine guns and smoke rounds to the fray, an SU-76 provides a large 76mm gun on a small chassis and finally an M17 halftrack mounting a quad .50cal "meatchopper".  Apparently a lend lease ship simply dumped a bunch of stuff on this unit and then left.

The city Richard is defending has been chopped up into eight "blocks" ringed by roads.  If I can capture five of them I win.  Richard surprised me by setting up a forward defence, essentially defending in front of the target area.  Of course it meant I slammed into his entire force pretty much immediately but if I slammed hard enough it offered the opportunity for a breakthrough.

Spotting his less capable Turan anchoring the (my) left flank I decided to set up the bulk of my forces on the left and centre while sending lesser forces against the right (anchored by the formidable Zrinyi).  Soviet troops can't deploy which means that you have to do your drawing fire with full squads.  I was in a hurry and I fully expected to lose troops as I sent my first liners out to draw his fire.  A couple of squads went down but I was quite successful in stripping concealment on my left and centre and sufficient troops survived to menace his forward positions.  One Sherman I had detailed with dropping smoke in front of some defenders (it didn't) the other (along with the SU-76) supported a left board edge drive to flank his front line defenders and hopefully take out the Turan.  Over on the right I hastened slowly, not taking too many casualties but not getting far either.  The half track I sent over to support the right or I would have only it bogged trying to get over a hedge and froze into surly immobility.  For his part Richard belched smoke from both his vehicles providing some cover for his defenders but also my attackers.  His 20mm had made an appearance just behind the front and attempted without success to kill one of my squads.

End of my turn 1.  I'm coming from the top and trying to drive down.

I started off with four officers.  By the end of the first turn one was dead and another wounded, damn sniper.  That's after his sniper had already killed my sniper.  Since four was Richard's sniper number you would think this meant a lot of good results for me as well.  You would be wrong.

In the second turn I really got moving.  I managed to persuade the halftrack to get moving and aided by that awesome 24FP plus Richard's smoke I managed to drive in his right forward position and pushed towards the nearest objective block.  Things went well in the centre as well, I actually won a close combat (sorry Richard, just your bad luck that the one in a hundred event happened while you were playing me) but the right wasn't going too well.  I was easing forward, helped by his smoke but I wasn't really outflanking anyone.  I decided on forward tactics and pushed my Sherman out into the road near his 20mm while the more vulnerable SU-76 slunk up behind keeping to the shadows and looking out for an enemy with its back turned.

End of my Turn 2, pushing unexpectedly through the centre

That decision would turn out badly for me in the next turn.  Meanwhile I'd got the bit between my teeth in the right and centre pushing forward to his next line of defences and menacing the bulk of his remaining forces.  A modest one squad flanking attempt on the far right ended in tears but I was largely trying to occupy the Zrinyi's attention as much as anything else.  On the left a wounded officer hobbled painfully towards his Turan clutching a blood soaked demo charge to his chest.

On his second turn his damn 20mm immobilised one of my Shermans.  I cursed of course but the crew stayed staunch and it wasn't in a bad position to inflict harm on the enemy.  It was when the thing broke, then malfed its cmg and then turned out to have no smoke shells that I really started cursing.  Despite the tank failure I felt I was making headway.  I managed to wipe out his 20mm crew and he had taken some significant losses which I added to when the .50cal halftrack took out another squad and I pushed into the first block.  Then I did something which in retrospect was unwise although the odds seemed worthwhile at the time.  I rolled my surviving Sherman behind his Turan and accompanying squad.  If I could take them out he simply wouldn't have a flank.  I knew Hungarians could get panzerfausts but I thought the odds were worth taking.  This opinion was only increased when his squad pinned attempting to find a faust.  The opinion rapidly changed when he made a second faust attempt, found one and then fired on the Sherman.  What with moving, pinned, avoiding backblast etc he needed a three to get a hit.  He got a three and my last Sherman exploded into flames.

Suddenly tankless (and with a certain amount of swearing) I was in a bind.  Despite mauling his troops I hadn't achieved a breakthrough and on turn three his German reinforcements arrived.  Richard managed to pull back what was left of his force to create another defensive line.  I bulled forward into the first block, capturing it while Richard pulled back what was left of his force (apart from the Turan and that damned squad) towards the rear.

It looks like the way is open but just out of shot a swarm of Germans are arriving to bolster their ally

I conceded at the end of Richard's turn 3.  Half his at start force plus both AFV had survived and were setting up rear positions but more importantly his German reinforcements including a pair of panthers had rolled up to stabilise the line.  With both Shermans out of the picture I had no more smoke capacity and my somewhat battered force was left with the job of winkling elite Germans out of stone buildings in the four remaining turns.  I couldn't see myself doing it.  Possibly I could take another block or two but Richard need take no chances, he could even concede me a couple of blocks and simply hold the remainder for dear life.

Thanks to Richard for the game and for putting up with my whining and swearing.  Despite appearances I actually thought this was a fun scenario with some interesting tweaks but I do think its a little tough on the Soviets.  I think they need to effectively win the game in the first couple of turns or they're going to find it very hard going indeed.

Really Just An Excuse to Post Photos of Mr Moo

Ah Mr Moo, we've come a long way together.  From the early days when you were a defiant young steer inspiring revolutionaries everywhere with your refusal to cross the road right up until today when beaten but unbroken you see out your days grazing with your fellows who gaze upon you with the sort of reverential awe I only give to hamburgers.

Mr Moo with some more expendable cows

Oops, sorry didn't mean to mention the "h" word.  Yes, reluctantly we both must concede that there is a road trip to the abattoir somewhere in your future but let us hope that day is a long time coming.  As long as you keep eating twice your body weight in grass there is hope.  I must confess I always assumed that my colleague's father in law raised beef cattle for the purposes of selling them as, well, beef.  I didn't realise he kept the cows largely because he likes a well trimmed lawn.

But this could be your salvation Mr M.  Of course its pretty hard cheese on the grass but screw it, grass doesn't have an activist group noisily protesting on its behalf.  Heavily tattooed hipsters don't turn up their nose at grass and treat those who eat it as psychotic murderers one step worse than Hitler.  In short, grass doesn't have any sort of advocacy body so its feelings can be safely ignored.  Eat that green stuff Mr Moo, eat it until it comes out your ears.  Perhaps you can persuade your owner that a nicely trimmed herbaceous border is utterly dependent on your continued survival.  You don't have time for sympathy or fellow feeling, if any of the other cows show signs of serious grass eating you should nudge them towards the front when the truck comes for that "special trip".

The other thing you have to do is kiss up to my colleagues daughters.  Pander to them nauseatingly.  If there is something that might save your life it is the tears in his granddaughter's eyes when the time comes for the farmer to pack you off to the slice and dice.  If you play it right you might get one of them to throw her arms around your neck in tears at the thought of this happening.  If either of them do this its important that you don't throw them off and trample them into the mud.  That would probably undo all the good work you've done so far.  I'm going to be speaking to my colleague about "Save Mr Moo" t-shirts and we'll get something trending on twitter so, you know, we're doing all we can.

I'm posting photos of you on my blog so that all my readers (about a dozen at last count none of whom have any influence with your owner) can see what a fine cow you are and how much you deserve saving.  Again, I can't emphasise the "not trampling small children into the mud" bit hard enough.  I know kids can be annoying but these girls have gone through a lot what with having a mother who thinks she's a fox and living in Tasmania and all.  Any slack you cut them now could add years to your life expectancy.  Anyway that's all for now Mr Moo, I wish you many more years of eating grass and, er, well whatever it is that cows do.  Whatever it is, I'm sure you're brilliant at it.

Immersive Reporting

A week or so ago I charged this blogs introduced species reporter with discovering the truth about Tasmania's fox plague as represented by some droppings of dubious provenance and a fox corpse conveniently located by the side of the road.

I didn't hear anything from her for several days and on Thursday I fielded a worried phone call from her husband.  Apparently she had smeared herself in camouflage paint, dressed in fox skins and vanished into the Tasmanian bush.  Furthermore disturbing reports started to filter in of some strange hybrid foxwoman attacking sheep in remote pastures.  I was just about to press the button on the self destruct device I had planted in her skull while she was asleep when a blood spattered message stick was dropped on my doorstep by a slightly mauled courier.

Once I'd washed the matted sheep remains off the stick it's message was explosive.  Vile fraud has been perpetrated on the innocent Tasmanian people!  The fox carcass which was supposed to be proof that Tasmania was sinking into the sea under the massed weight of foxes predating the local wildlife has turned out to be imported.  A careful autopsy has proved that the unfortunate animal died elsewhere and was imported into Tasmania post mortem.

Which just leaves the question of why anyone would stuff a fox corpse into their suitcase before taking a trip to Tasmania.  "Conspiracy," say some.  Those who stand to gain from fuelling a fox scare are using dirty tactics to keep the fear alive (at this point it might be worth reminding the reader that the Tasmanian government has so far spent around $50 million dollars investigating a non existent fox menace).  Others suggest it's simply a Tinder date that went horribly wrong.  Alternatively it might be a hoax from the sort of person who finds carrying a dead fox around in a suitcase intrinsically hilarious.

I must get my fox conspiracy reporter to investigate but that's going to take a little time.  According to her husband easing her back into human society is still a work in progress.  They're currently keeping her in a paddock where she's guarding the garlic crop and making Mr Moo nervous.  They hope to reintroduce her to cooked food and her children in few weeks when she can be trusted to tell the difference.

All at Sea

There is a cruise ship parked at the international passenger terminal.  It is a huge, white floating monstrosity which glories in the flatulently pretentious name "Celebrity Solstice".  At this point I can't help wondering if cruise lines are naming their ships based on suggestions from their CEO's nineteen year old, ex stripper third wife.  Possibly they just give her a sheet of multi syllable words and tell her to pick any two.  Presumably the Celebrity Solstice has a sister ship called the Paparazzi Equinox.

Who wouldn't want to cruise the world on the Paparazzi Equinox?  The  name reeks of luxury and privilege.  Well it reeks of something anyway with a little healthy paganism thrown in.  Can't you see yourself on the geriatric hedonist deck of the Paparazzi Equinox as it wanders around the worlds oceans swamping low lying island nations and terrifying the local sea life as she passes.  For the passengers it must be like sitting in your lounge room being attended by a third world domestic staff while the scenery changes very slowly outside your window.

I can imagine myself aboard the good ship Paparazzi Equinox staring in wonder at the luxury and facilities and finally of course in horror as the dock slides slowly behind us as the slaving gang who dragged me onboard muffle my screams and hustle me below decks.  And so many decks!  By the time they dump me down in the hold the most important item present is the caged canary serving as an early warning system should the air get difficult to breathe.

Slowly the Paparazzi Equinox makes its majestic way out through Sydney Heads pausing only to hose off a Manly ferry which got inexplicably tangled in the propellers.  The siren booms a warning. "Stand aside peasants, you are in the presence of something so wealthy and powerful that we didn't even have to bother coming up with a sensible name for it."  Meanwhile I'm down in the dimly lit hold engaged in a vicious, life and death struggle with rats, half starved service staff and a small tribe of Troglodytes hitherto unknown to science.  Next time I'm taking the plane.

Silly After Action Report - A Drama, or possibly A Farce, in Three Acts - Adapted From the Musical

Act 1

Well in my last AAR I noted the remarkable absence of air support for the Germans trying to conquer Poland.  I'm pleased to announce that in the next scenario I'm taking the Germans and there is a mass of air support.  Unfortunately its all Polish.  Scenario BFP112 - Killer Carp has a set of decidedly second rate Germans (that's even before we factor in my leadership) plugging through the woods towards a Polish village.  On the other side is a roughly equivalent group of Poles plugging through more woods to the same Polish village.  The skies are ruled by Polish aircraft.  I'm definitely going to be writing a stern letter to the local Luftwaffe commander about this.

There is little to report for the first couple of turns.  My forces came on and made their way villageward without too much interference from a non existent Polish defender.  The air support turned out to be a damp squib as Ivan tried three times to attack the same group of concealed troops and failed each sighting task check.  So much for the air support.  Over on the other side of the board Ivan's forces also moved unhindered through the trees towards the village.

Ho hum, trudging through the forest

Let me see if I can inject a little excitement into this.  The German forces moved forward cautiously, a foe could lurk behind every tree.  Overhead the drone of Polish aircraft searching for targets chilled every man to the bone but orders were orders and Europe wasn't going to devastate itself.  Guns at the ready, eyes narrowed, ears straining for every whisper of sound the German troops moved from tree to tree, wriggled cautiously through grain filled clearings and always cast one eye upwards for the dreaded Carp of the Skies.

At the other end a gang of Polish ne'erdowells shambled forwards shouting and singing kicking badgers and shooting at endangered species as they came.  Pausing only to belch and toss beer cans all over the place they wandered in the general direction of the village because it was the only place for miles that sold cheap vodka.  The noise of aircraft overhead and the sound of gunfire as the Polish troops shot at them for fun added to the din.  The Polish officers were either drunk or back in Warsaw trying to arrange for their mistresses to be evacuated to France.  As they blundered into one end of the village the Germans crept stealthily into the other.  Which didn't stop Ivan rolling a snake eyes to obliterate what I was hoping to be a kill stack before it could fire a shot.

Both Ivan and my troops have reached the village now and have occupied about half the buildings each.  In order to win one of us will have to take at least one building from the other (or move troops onto the other side's entry board, a prospect that seems to be lessening by the minute).

Act 2

I approached the resumption of play with trepidation.  Two mmgs were sitting alone in a building while a pair of broken squads cringed in the nearby woods accompanied by a wounded officer weeping and holding his leaky bits.  But things were about to look up.  Panting along a little behind my main force were my reinforcements, three squads each one toting a large, cumbersome but ROF 3 heavy machine gun.  This allowed me to reinforce my right, left and centre more or less simultaneously.  I also benefited from the terrain which gave the Germans a wooded area more or less in the centre of the board where forces could mass unharmed (or recover from breaking) before moving forward into the village.  Its fair to say the next couple of turns went badly for Ivan.  Over on his right he had a concealed stack six counters high.  I knew that meant a pair of squads, a pair of support weapons and, no doubt a competent leader to go with them.  Over in the centre his 10-1 commanded the hmg unit which had crucified my kill stack while other units filtered through the woods. On his left a mortar, plus an mmg team had stopped an over optimistic flanking manoeuvre in its tracks.

Not great, a pile of unattended MMGs sit in the centre while broken squads cringe behind and their officer snivels about his quite trivial injury

Nothing much happened for a turn or two on the left.  Ivan shot at me a bit, stripped a little concealment and broke the occasional squad but my guys slunk back into the trees and I pushed other concealed units into their place.  Unfortunately with a range of five to my meagre four I wasn't confident I had the firepower to deal with him.  On the right the gods smiled on me.  His would be kill stack failed to scratch my troops in the building and in return a meagre 6+1 shot broke a squad and officer and reduced the stack to more manageable proportions.  I got a shock though when he sneaked a halfsquad past me.  I thought it was on a concealment stripping mission and ignored it to allow myself to fire on his kill stack.  Instead the damn thing kept on going and charged into my rear area.  Suddenly Ivan had a unit in the rear board victory location, the status quo would not be sufficient.  Ah but then my automatic weapons started their execution.  I pounded his kill stack some more and even broke his hmg team and officer.  Another hmg started shooting up his forces on the left breaking the bulk of the forces he had there. 

Despite some nasty Polish casualties getting across the road towards the other building hexes that might give me victory was still looking doubtful.  Then Ivan fired on some guys in the woods and they went berserk.  Problem solved, they charged across the road, laughing contemptuously at Polish fire and into a building containing a Polish half squad.  Advancing fire killed the half squad and my berserkers settled down in their newly occupied building and looked around for their next victim.  I took advantage of this charge to actually snatch another building and  push some reinforcements towards my berserkers as well.  My occupancy of the second building didn't last long but I'm now firmly lodged in the village and hoping to use my burgeoning automatic weapons to essentially blast my way to victory.

Weight of metal is starting to tell in the centre.

Over on the left I can start to move as his forces have been gutted.  The right is a concern as various bits of his kill stack have managed to reassemble themselves so I will have to guard against a counter attack from that direction and I have to stop any more half squads following the example of their comrade who is now living it large in the rear area safe from retribution.  In the centre Ivan has brought up his reserves and rallied some units but his position is a little worse than it was.  I hope to  make it a lot worse.

Act 3

You know how in the previous act I said that Ivan's forces on the left had been gutted?  Well they had and Ivan didn't help matters by breaking the mortar which was pretty much his only support weapon left to guard the flank.  So what did I do?  I moved boldly forward and in advancing fire shot at a cluster of broken halfsquads to keep them under DM.  Naturally one of them rolled snake eyes and promptly went berserk.  These heroes charged forward laughingly shrugging off hmg fire and a 20+1 attack to hurl themselves into close combat with a squad and a half of my own.  The close combat didn't happen as the 2 flat advancing fire shot broke all of my forces and forced them to rout through interdiction to rather dubious safety.  In one move my left flank was destroyed.

Fortunately things went better in the centre.  With my own berserk guys licking their lips at adjacent troops Ivan brought up three squads to bolster his firepower.  The berserkers broke one with advancing fire and an adjacent lmg team broke another.  Meanwhile in the village things went from bad to worse for him.  I now had so much firepower nestled behind wooden walls that I was literally able to shoot him to pieces.  It wasn't even close.  Towards the end Ivan had to take silly risks just to try and get some troops forward but even before then he just couldn't build and maintain a position.  His squads proved incapable of standing up to even NMCs.  This wasn't just Ivan's problem, my own troops were equally fragile but I had the centre woods as a safe and centrally located rally spot and the amount of firepower I was able to bring down limited Ivan's chances for inflicting truly game changing casualties on me.

My berserkers died of course, they were halved charging into the hex containing Ivan's surviving squad and the remainder were killed in CC but by this time I had troops to burn and Poles were getting increasingly thin on the ground.  He finally managed to break my lmg team in the building on my right and I had a horrible turn when I broke an lmg and an hmg in the same firephase but even with these inconveniences the sheer weight of metal I could throw out decimated his troops.  Three reinforcing squads with hmgs might just be a little too much.  Possibly it might be more interesting if they were reduced to two.

The end; don't bother looking for any more Poles, there aren't any.

Ivan conceded with one turn to go.  Of his at start OB he had precisely four unbroken halfsquads left scattered across the board.  I'm always glad to get a win but Ivan and I agreed there wasn't much replayability in this scenario.  Basically the Germans and the Poles line up in their respective parts of the village and then just blast away at each other.  The first player to get a good turn of firing (in this case me) will probably inflict sufficient damage to put the other into a position where its difficult to win.  Our respective flanking moves didn't really come off.  I got nowhere and Ivan managed to sneak just one halfsquad through.  I guess the air support is intended to be a bit of a leveller for the Poles and its true that Ivan had dreadful luck with his sighting task checks failing all three for no result but even so a sighting TC against concealed units in cover needs a six, less than a 50% chance.  Thanks to Ivan for the game and to his perennial good humour as automatic weapons and dice conspired to destroy every clever idea he came up with.

Sheep As Ships

OK, I guess I'm going to have to explain the title.  Not only is the joke bad even by the low standards set in this blog but it occurs to me that it might be a little obscure to some.  Of course all I have to do is mention the name Senegal and all becomes clear.

Senegal has been the subject of a brief shout out in this blog before when I noted that they actually have a decoration to reward good truck driving.  Since this, no doubt, ignited an intense fascination with all things Senegal here are some quick facts about the country.  Senegal is a country in west Africa.  It's capital is Dakar.  Now you probably know enough to get a position as a lecturer in west African studies at any of our major universities.  I've decided I wouldn't mind going to Senegal if only to see an award ceremony where truck drivers are honoured for, presumably, not running down too many pedestrians.

I was googling the Senegalese navy the other day (as one does) and got a neat little precis on what they do and what sort of ships they have.  At this point I imagine you screaming, "Neil, I can't live another moment without knowing what sort of ships the Senegalese navy has and what they do with them!  Tell me, tell me now!"  Well, if you insist.  The Senegalese navy consists of a handful of offshore patrol vessels and a couple of geriatric landing craft.  Modest, you might say, even minimalist.  Very true although an argument can be made that the Senegalese navy is more suited to purpose than the Australian.  Let's face it, the Senegalese navy is unlikely to be called on to refight the Battle of Midway any time soon.  What they are called on to do (with depressing frequency) is chase off foreign flagged fishing vessels illegally fishing in Senegal's waters.  For Australians such an occurrence is a minor economic nuisance, for Senegal with millions of poverty stricken coast dwellers the industrial scale raping of their fishing resources is in danger of depriving desperately poor people of their primary source of protein.  The landing craft are for hauling the army's heavy equipment to places that have beaches but limited road access.

When they're not chasing off fishing vessels or acting as the army's removalists the stalwart men of the Senegalese navy kick back with their religiously appropriate non alcoholic beverage of choice and settle down to watch This Sheep.  This Sheep (Khar Bii in the local dialect) is the most popular television programme in Senegal.  It's kind of like American Idol only Senegalese and about sheep.  It's fair to say that the Senegalese are rather fond of sheep and not just in the usual, with mint jelly way.  Any Senegalese with a little bit of extra space will be keeping a couple of sheep.  For the record a spare bedroom in an inner city apartment qualifies as "a little bit of extra space".  The programme This Sheep is quite simply a contest to find Senegal's most handsome and impressive sheep.  People enter their sheep in This Sheep and judges come out and assess each sheep based on criteria such as health, horns, heft, coat and symmetry of testicles.  Nationwide kudos, a cheque and the certainty of interest from breeders await the winner although for mine the greatest attraction must be to see the local equivalent of Simon Cowell checking the symmetry of a sheeps testicles.

But back to the navy.  As I said, the Senegalese navy seems quite fit for purpose on the other hand I'm not entirely sure the Australian navy is.  Centrepiece of our navy is a pair of massive great LHDs (that's Landing Helicopter Dock not some kind of disease).  These monstrous beasts can carry a reinforced infantry company, all of its equipment and tank support within their capacious bellies.  The role of the bulk of the remainder of the navy is to protect these two ships (you know as opposed to Australia, for instance) which would be OK if I could think of a single reason to have them in the first place.  I'm not saying we don't need some sort of amphibious capacity but the ability to move two tank heavy infantry companies from one place to another is either ridiculous overkill or nowhere near adequate.

Seriously, can anybody think of a nation within easy sailing distance of Australia that could be overrun by a couple of infantry companies and doesn't have the wherewithal to sink the ships en route?  Holy shit, we're going to invade New Zealand!  We'd better be careful though.  When the Senegalese hear that we're invading a peaceful underarmed nation with a fondness for sheep they'll be sending the kiwis reinforcements.  Worse, they might cut off my satellite feed before I get the opportunity to watch the latest episode of This Sheep.

Birthday Greetings #61

Some people inherit empires, the throne passes from father to son in a seamless transition while the collection of thugs, chancers and freakshows collectively described as the aristocracy look on approvingly.  Others make use of the access to sharp pointy things that high rank in the army provides to promote themselves a little further than perhaps their predecessor expected.  Still others sleaze, manipulate and cut deals which result in them slithering onto a jewel crusted throne despite the fond hopes of various other candidates.  Finally there is the occasional guy just wandering blamelessly past minding his own business when a bunch of people throw a purple robe at him and say something like, "Congratulations your majesty, try not to piss off the army."

As an example of the last category our current birthday boy is a little hard to beat.  Happy birthday to Marcus Coeccius Nerva Caesar Augustus, more commonly known to us as Nerva.  He was a Roman emperor and his principal qualification for the job seems to be that he was in the vicinity when his predecessor came down with an acute case of assassination.

Nerva's background is somewhat obscure.  Of course by "obscure" I mean obscure for a high ranking member of the Roman establishment who had already held a consulship and was a member of the senate.  I don't mean obscure like the bulk of the Roman population of whom we know nothing and care less.  Still Nerva's background is a little "grey".  He didn't follow the usual "course of honour" for a high ranking nobleman but nevertheless he seems to have been if not at the centre of power then just slightly adjacent to the centre of power for much of his adult life.  He survived Nero, the Year of the Four Emperors and then in turn Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.  None of them thought he was worth killing.  All of them seemed to trust him.  When you consider that a lot of these people wound up killing each other its entirely possible that someone who could persuade each and every one of them that he was on their side while maintaining enough anonymity so that he wasn't purged by the succeeding administration was a very dark horse indeed.

Nerva's immediate predecessor was Domitian who got himself murdered by a conspiracy that Nerva appears to have had no part in.  But then Nerva appears to have had very little part in anything yet at the time of the killing he was a senior senator with two consulships under his belt.  Possibly attempting to explain the choice historians have pointed to the fact that he was elderly and childless and could be considered a "safe pair of hands".  Nerva increased his popularity with the senate by promising not to have any of them killed unless, you know, he really had to.

Possibly a quiet non entity (or someone who could produce a reasonable facade of quiet non entityness) was exactly what the empire needed while everybody calmed down and got over Domitian who by all accounts was a bit of psycho.  Nerva certainly made all the right noises; no more treason trials, fortunes confiscated by Domitian were returned, exiles were invited to come home.  This coupled with tax relief and a public works programme seemed designed to get people feeling a bit happier about Nerva on the throne.  Unfortunately all of this cost money which couldn't be completely defrayed by Nerva auctioning off Domitian's old furniture.  As a coherent economic policy a garage sale wasn't considered to quite cut it.

In addition to financial woes there was a certain amount of murderous anarchy going on.  This was basically the Roman equivalent of political debate but it was starting to get out of hand.  While Nerva had abolished treason trials he hadn't stopped informers from operating.  The result was a free for all of everybody denouncing everybody else while simultaneously trying to cover their own arse and reassure anyone who listened of their own undying loyalty (although who to was sometimes a little difficult to discern).  Finally the army in the form of the Praetorian Guard stepped forward and pointed out that senatorial opposition notwithstanding they had rather liked Domitian and would Nerva please hand over his killers for hideous retribution followed (if it was considered necessary) by a fair trial.  Nerva refused.  The Praetorians insisted.  Their method of insisting included laying siege to the palace that Nerva was currently living in.

The histories point out that Nerva caved, handed over the murderers and adopted a well liked and popular soldier as his heir.  That's true; on the other hand he is pretty much the only person the Praetorians disliked who emerged from a meeting with them with all of his blood still in his body.  There was something about this guy.  Anyway the handover of the killers and the adoption of Trajan (a wine happy pederast from Spain) as his heir pretty much settled everything to everyone's satisfaction.  A few months later Nerva died of natural causes (a stroke followed by a fever.  As far as we can tell it wasn't a sword stroke) and Trajan took over in a seamless transition while the collection of thugs, chancers and freakshows collectively described as the aristocracy looked on approvingly.

Of Fish and Foxes

Tasmania; land of wild scenic beauty.  Where snow capped mountains loom over fields decorated with junked cars.  Where ancient, old growth forests resonate with the sound of bird song and chainsaws.  Where wild rivers rush through their beds on their age old journey to lakes created by massive dams to generate hydro power which still doesn't stop there being power shortages during a drought.  In short Tasmania, where men are men and fish are crowded.

OK, that last sentence might need a little explaining.  People who have read my previous blogs on our southern colony might have come to the conclusion that the working age population of Tasmania is evenly divided between useless government employees and welfare recipients.  This is actually rather unfair.  The working age population of Tasmania is roughly divided into three groups; welfare recipients, the government employees hired to provide the welfare to the recipients and employees in the private sector doing their best to mismanage the state's vast natural resources to the point where they can be transferred to one of the first two categories.

Which quite naturally leads us to fish.  Fish farming is a bit of a Tasmanian success story.  Salmon appears to be the fish of choice (I don't know why, possibly they're easier to herd) and three principal companies have fish ranches at various points on (or more likely, off) the coast.  Salmon, it would appear are being bred at a frightening rate, and herein lies the problem.  Just recently one of the fish farmers has broken ranks with the others to announce that (nothwithstanding industry statements to the contrary) the sheer volume of salmon in Macquarie Harbour, Strachan is getting to be a bit of a problem.  Apparently you can walk across the harbour without getting your feet wet so great is the preponderance of salmon.  Ships frequently run aground on massive fish shoals and some salmon have broken down the fences and joined the wild salmon herds roaming free or something like that.

Gangs of teenage salmon are lurking in drains beating up the unwary and the oxygen content of the water is getting a little sub standard.  What happens if the oxygen content gets too low?  Presumably the fish die.  Is it wrong of me to consider this a self solving problem?  This blogs piscine affairs reporter sent back accounts of desperate fish struggling for breath which are no less horrifying for being completely made up.  Apparently disaster is on the way or, as industry in Tasmania would put it, business as usual.  There are calls for the government to do something about this (what exactly do you do with too many salmon?  Institute a "sushi only" policy in government canteens?). Unfortunately the government is busy chasing imaginary foxes.

Foxes are apparently the malignant fear that keeps all Tasmanians up at night.  Are there foxes in the state?  Could there be?  Might some come if we don't have a strong border policy?  WHY ISN'T THE GOVERNMENT DOING MORE TO PROTECT US FROM FOXES!!!

For some reason foxes worry Tasmanians.  OK, they're an introduced species, they do untold damage to the environment and they're generally undesirable.  So far you've just described pretty much every industry in Tasmania.  Still foxes are, apparently, the line in the sand.  According to this blogs introduced predators reporter the Tasmanian government has spent $50 million dollars in recent years looking for foxes that might not be there.  Frightening evidence of fox presence largely in the form of scat (a technical term for shit) has been found, and analysed to death by various coprophiliac scientists on the government payroll.  However whether this is fox scat and if it is whether it was actually recovered in Tasmania or was smuggled into the state for the sole purpose of justifying a $50 million dollar fox hunting programme is currently being debated. 

If there are foxes in Tasmania they're keeping a pretty low profile and any devastation they're causing amongst the native wildlife seems to have been skilfully concealed amongst the overall devastation of the native wildlife which can be attributed to Tasmania conducting business as usual.  I sent this blog's mythical threat reporter out into the Tasmanian wilderness to see if she could find any foxes.  She responded with a photo of a dead fox by the side of the road. 
"Proof!" I shouted.  "Man the barricades, distribute weapons to the children, prepare for war, the fox hordes are approaching."
"Not necessarily," replied my intrepid correspondent.  The fox in question was found on the road next to some rather suspicious looking tire treads which seem to indicate someone may have driven up and dumped a dead fox in the road.  An autopsy is currently being conducted on the fox to see if this can shed any more light on the subject.

Sighing in disgust I sent her back out into the wilderness and told her not to come back without foxes.  Sadly all she could find was collapsed telegraph poles and inappropriately dressed Chinese tourists.  The Chinese tourists had come for a bushwalk apparently under the impression that they were going for a stroll along a boardwalk.  As such they were finding the pavement a little soggy and distressingly devoid of concrete and the ladies high heels had a tendency to sink in at awkward moments.  As for the telegraph poles, well this part of Tasmania has had a lot of rain lately.  It turns out that the poles carrying electricity to the good folk of Tasmania who live in these parts weren't really inserted with the expectation that the ground might get wet.  Now that it has a number of them have fallen over.  I suggested to my correspondent that she might like to inform the government of this but apparently they've blown the entire budget on mystery foxes.