Plague Update #59 - Finally!

 Do you remember covid?  That dread disease which scoured the world and forced the bulk of the human race into panic stricken isolation until we decided to ignore it instead.  Now that all of the shouting has died down, the restrictions lifted and the politicians we praised for saving civilisation are now being pilloried for wasting huge amounts of money the time has come.  Naturally I had to wait to catch covid until it was no longer fashionable.  Rasping, coughing and trembling slightly (you might call that covid I call it "morning") I blew the cobwebs off a covid testing kit that was so old it should have been sold in Africa and stuck a swab up my nose.  Possibly excited at finally being the centre of attention the test kit came up with an enthusiastically positive result.  Right on cue my symptoms started deteriorating as my body realised it had a perfect excuse to stop trying.

"I have covid," I announced to no one in particular.  The seedy gang of plush toys who collectively make up "no one in particular" in my household greeted the news in a variety of ways.  The spider stared in horror at the ruined cobwebs and muttered something about me being a home wrecker.  Boris the bear from London said something but his Cockeye accent is difficult to understand (Cockeye is like Cockney but a bit higher up).  The puffin was on a three day Ajax bender and simply gibbered but the most disturbing response was from the plague doctor.  He was delighted, apparently he had been breeding a fresh crop of leeches for just such an occasion.

"Don't worry about a thing," he said unsuccessfully trying to remove the grin from his face.  "I will take care of you.  I'll heat up the cupping jars right now and sharpen my best blood letting knife."  I looked around at the others but they were all backing slowly away and doing their best not to breathe the suddenly polluted air.  I tried to inform the plague doctor that I was vaccinated and that surely I would be fine after what I hoped was a brief period of discomfort.  He wasn't listening, he was too busy pulling out his medical textbooks (the most recent was written by Galen) and checking the potency of his scorpion venom.

As much to escape unwanted medical attention as for any other reason I fled to my home office and informed my colleagues that I had covid but would nobly struggle through without missing any work.  One of said colleagues contacted me and, as politely as she could, queried my sanity.  I admitted I was afraid of showing weakness in front of the plague doctor who would try and treat me or the puffin who would steal my shoes.  In light of the concern showed by this individual I revised my "nobly working through" plans in favour of "sitting around doing nothing" plans.  It was as well that I did.  Logging on to my work computer was the last coherent thing I was capable of doing that day.  The discomfort increased to the point where "pain" is a better definition and my attention span disintegrated to the point where I couldn't remember whatever it was that I was doing when I stopped remembering it. 

One constant remained, the plague doctor fussed around pressing various liquids on me that he wanted me to drink and producing ever more disturbing pieces of surgical equipment whose fate it was, apparently, to wind up in some part of my anatomy.  At any other time I would have wondered where he got all of this stuff from.  I'm pretty sure you can't order it over the internet without the police paying you a visit.  At the moment though I simply forgot its existence whenever I left the room which made it an unpleasant surprise when I encountered it again.  I didn't drink the liquids.  I spilled a little and it burned a hole in the carpet.  I was going to pour it down the sink but the puffin said he would take care of it.

I spent a miserable, pain tossed night.  Sleeplessness was my companion partly because of the covid but mainly because I was terrified of what the plague doctor might get up to if I fell asleep in his presence.  I dragged myself out the next morning whimpering in self pity.  The dining table was adorned with burnt herbs, prepped leeches, various extraction instruments (although god knows what they were intended to extract) and a bowl of something green and bubbling sitting over an open flame.

"No," I whimpered, "no, no, no."

"Oh for god's sake," snapped the plague doctor.  "If you really want to feel better there's half a box of Codral on your bookcase that you've had for ages.  That should deal with the symptoms at least."

I can't really explain why it took forty eight hours to figure out that Codral might help in this situation but once realisation dawned I started gobbling them like tic tacs.  It is for this reason that the next two days of covid were infinitely better than the first two.  I can still feel the covid under the surface but the Codral is managing to mask the symptoms quite effectively and frankly that is all I usually want from medication anyway.  Recovery or death will happen eventually, I just don't want much in the way of discomfort while my body is making up its mind.

Silly After Action Report - The Last Fire Mission

 Hauptmann Rudolf von der Rotnasige-Rentier winced as a whistle blasted shrilly in his ear.  He turned to face the referee.

"For the last time, my guns are not offside.  And do you honestly think this is the best time to be playing a football match?"

"It's the quarter finals," replied the referee with a helpless shrug.  "What are we supposed to do?"

"Frankly I'd suggest learning Russian because in about fifteen minutes you are going to have one mother of a pitch invasion."

"Can we have our ball back?"

"In a minute, Gefreiter Blitzen is taking a penalty."

After the lengthy Konitsa Crackdown Dave and I agreed that with the year drawing to a close and our mental reserves pretty much drained that we would cap off the year with a couple of smaller scenarios.  I selected FT286 - The Last Fire Mission.  It's Berlin 1945 and while those in the German army with any sense were heading west at a great rate of knots an artillery battery is preparing to engage the oncoming Soviets over open sights.  I shall command the brave (indeed, some would say foolhardy) members of Artillerie Regiment 20 of the similarly numbered panzergrenadier division who have paused in their panic stricken flight to give the Soviets a decent chance of overrunning them.

Apparently this particular football field is worth defending to the death (well it is the quarter finals after all).  Victory goes to the Soviets if they amass more CVP than the Germans as long as at least one German gun is captured or eliminated.  My force, to give it a name it doesn't truly deserve, consists of five squads, three first line and two second line commanded by a pair of deeply mediocre officers.  These heroes have a grand total of one lmg between them.  There are also five concealment counters (because a football field is a great place to hide).  Also in the mix is an SS halfsquad carrying a panzerschreck who apparently just happened to be walking by at the time.  Then there are the guns; three 150mm artillery pieces.  It's fair to say that these don't often feature on the front line.  Unfortunately for them the front line is now moving faster than they can.  Given that this is Berlin 1945 the guns are short on rounds with circled B9 for low ammo purposes.  Still if they hit anything that thing is going to stay hit.

Spearheading the 10th Guards Tank Corps is Dave's force consisting of eight elite squads and two half squads.  They're led by two officers inluding a 9-1, considerably better than my commanders, and have a pair of lmgs, a heavy machine gun and a 50mm mortar.  Armoured support is present in the form of three T34-85s commanded by a 9-1 armour leader.

The guns must set up unconcealed and non-emplaced with CA facing east and both adjacent hexes of each guns CA cannot contain building or rubble.  This is an issue because in Berlin 1945 there's very little that isn't rubble.  Oh, also the guns have to set up adjacent to each other and they can't set up in gully hexes.  Basically they have to sit out in that field and invite firepower.  One of my MMC can set up HIP, if he has any sense he'll stay that way and try and sneak off after the fighting is over.  In addition to all of the pre-existing rubble both sides get to rubble four more locations just for a laugh.

Below is my set up.  The guns as required are set up in an open field.  I set them up like that so that at least one gun could deal with a frontal attack and the other two could pivot and hopefully deal with any flanking attack.  A couple of squads and a leader sat in buildings directly in front to hopefully provide a little protection.  The remainder skulked in the buildings and rubble to the south hoping to hold off flankers.  A squad, the lmg and my other leader were HIPed with a line of sight down the road that ran NE-SW towards my front.  The halfsquad with the schreck went into the hex next door to keep an eye on the other road and hopefully kill a careless tank.  Sadly Dave's tanks wouldn't be quite that careless.

At start set up.  Whoever heard of a soccer field with a gully in it?

Dave hastened slowly in his approach, rightly fearful of the staggering firepower I could deploy.  For me any turn I didn't have to test the low ammo provisions was a win.  A stack of three squads skipped gaily across the road covered by my HIP lmg team who fired on them with no effect except to reveal their position.  For the rest Dave had been careful not to give me any targets.  My troops tugged their concealment counters a little closer about their persons and waited.

End of Soviet turn 1,it's hardly a triumphal charge to the Reichstag

Still I was a little nervous.  Two tanks lurked beneath concealment counters on the other side of a couple of hedges from my guns and I was uneasily aware that only one of my guns could actually take the relevant hedge under fire.  In my turn I tried skulking and discovered that the one Soviet squad in firing range had a line of sight to the shellholes I had intended to hide my troops in.  Fortunately my boys passed the ensuing morale check.  The rest somewhat more successfully shuffled away from tank fire.  Given the number and quality of my troops skulking was survival or at least a better chance of survival than would otherwise be the case.

End of German turn 1.  So far I've survived

Things really kicked off in Dave's second turn.  He pushed a pair of tanks forward to the hedge and started to move other forces up as well.  A 150mm had mixed success firing on one squad.  I casualty reduced it but the survivors battle hardened meanwhile down in the south a lowly second line squad broke such troops as had been rash enough to disdain their fire.  But the big result was in the north.  The one gun that had LOS to the hedge found a HEAT round and smashed a T34-85.  Dave's tank force had been reduced by a third.

End of Soviet turn 2.  I'm feeling smug, not for long

My second turn didn't live up to its early promise.  His surviving T34-85 in the north broke one of my squads and the other exterminated itself when an attempt to fire a faust from within a building simply resulted in my laminating myself over the walls.  Suddenly my guns infantry cover was gone.  Down in the south I slunk my troops away from the gradually approaching Soviets and prayed.

Normal service has been resumed.

The next couple of turns saw the brutal grinding down of my defences in the south.  With troops to burn Dave flooded my front with troops (judiciously, I didn't get too many free shots) and bulled forward challenging me to close combat.  In the far south a pair of second line squads and a dummy stack survived by being a little better at hiding than most but soon my centre such as it was would go the way of their comrades in the north.

My lmg team survived a little longer than expected, being routed they fled over a wall.  Dave promptly moved up to the wall meaning my boys kept their DM counters.  The next rally phase I rallied both officer and squad and Dave promptly claimed WA over them which is the first time I've ever seen that done in an opponents rally phase but Dave assured me he could do it.  The end result was that my newly rallied troops got slaughtered before they could fire a shot.

While my troops in the centre went the way of all flesh Dave took his courage in his hands and roared his southern T-34-85 past my remaining defenders and took up a hull down position where he could bring fire on my guns.  With no gunshields or emplacements nothing but a little grain (on a football field? Seriously?) protected my gunners from death or at least serious injury.  To add more injury to injury he pulled his northern T34-85 out and sent it after its southern comrade.  I had of course cranked a gun round previously in anticipation of this very event and I celebrated my foresight by first running out of HEAT and then persisting in hull hits.

A tank has sneaked around behind me and a bunch of guys with a hmg are threatening my last infantry

Then Dave malfed the MA of his tank.  My gun crews heaved a collective sigh of relief.  A second line squad which had spent most of the game cringing from one building or rubble hex to another now sneaked into the building behind the tank.  We both knew what was coming next it was just a matter of how it would work out.

A malfed MA and I survive another turn

Dave started his tank but before it could move my hero second liners dug a faust out of their knapsack and fried his tank while simultaneously surviving the backblast (maybe they opened a window) with only a pin result.  With two tanks down my guns could start to turn their attention to Dave's infantry and the slaughter started.  A 150mm is not something you want to take a hit from.  Dave's mortar team having dragged their unwieldy weapon towards the front lines found they could rout much faster without it.  I also started pounding his troops in the centre, extracting a measure of vengeance for my defenders there.  To heap Pelion upon Ossa Dave's last tank chose that moment to malf its MA.

Oh dare I hope???

With the last turn upon him and his surviving infantry having failed to inflict harm on my gun crews Dave took his last roll of the dice.  No seriously it was the last roll of the dice.  He roared his remaining tank through gullies and wheatfields (seriously I'll be speaking to FIFA about the state of this ground) and rolled into the nearest gun location and tried his last with the tank machine guns, and failed.  Having failed to take out any of my guns the CVP score was irrelevant and I had a rare and not entirely undeserved win.

End game.  His tank is sitting on a gun position but gun and crew are still intact.

 

Not entirely undeserved but damn lucky all the same.  While a check of the stats post game showed that Dave's dice were pretty good on average it is fair to say that he rolled poorly at the critical moments.  My dice were equivalent and I had some dreadful rolls but, as it turned out, never when it really counted.  I didn't even get a low ammo counter on any of my guns until the final turn.  Many thanks to Dave for the game which was short, sharp and fun.

"Goal," shouted von der Rotnasige-Rentier, "well done Blitzen."  He looked around at the football field now littered with wrecked tanks and Soviet soldiers dragging themselves away clutching their leaky bits.  "Well done everybody else as well."

A grimy, smoke stained gunner saluted wearily.

"Did we win sir?"

"It's Berlin 1945, for Germans winning is a relative term."

"What does that mean?"

"It means 'no'.  Now take your position, they're about to kick off.  And tell the referee that if that whistle goes anywhere near his mouth I have a 150mm and I'm not afraid to use it."

Travelling Incrementally - Great Reward for Little Effort Edition

 I normally lead a quiet solitary life without too much in the way of human interaction except for that imposed on me by my employment which has already proved disinclined to take my personal preferences into account.  I was relaxing at home (almost certainly not during working hours) when to my surprise I received a video call from my Blue Mountains correspondent.

I mustered up my best "I'm pleased to see you smile."

"Hello my dear, how are you?"

"Oh for gods sake put some clothes on," she replied.

A few minutes later we resumed our conversation.  After the usual pleasantries and threats of legal action she got down to the purpose of her call.

"I've been reading your blog,"  I didn't bother to hide my astonishment, "and you seem to make a big deal out of walking through the bush and boasting about how many kilometres you achieve."

"Is there something wrong with that?"

"Have you ever considered visiting?  Up here you can see amazing scenery for little more effort than simply walking down to the end of the road."

I pointed out that doing that would involve making my way up to the Blue Mountains, interacting with other humans and generally going to more effort than I would consider worth while.  She pressed her point, extolling the beauty of her home, the presence of handy antique shops and insisting that I would enjoy such a trip.  Finally she tossed in the fact that her son would be cooking roast pork for dinner.  I started to get a little suspicious, almost nobody is that eager to see me. 

"What's going on?" I demanded.

She looked a little uncomfortable.

"All right, I'm getting a bit worried about you.  You never seem to go anywhere and every time I see you there seem to be more plush toys crowded around the computer.  I'm a little concerned that you're becoming isolated."

"Don't listen to her," whispered the psychedelic coloured shark that had turned up from somewhere.

"We're all you need," hissed the platypus.

"She's the enemy," rasped the puffin who was busy cooking up a spoon full of drain cleaner.

Despite these words of concern from my nearest and dearest I did promise to drop in on my correspondent the first chance I got.  Knowing me rather well she nailed me down to an actual date and somewhat to my surprise I found myself heading for Wentworth Falls one rainy Saturday.  It rained and when it wasn't raining it was raining.  Sometimes the rain stopped so that it could catch its breath and rain harder.  One of my correspondent's more proactive neighbours was guiding two of every animal he could find into an ark.

With rain hammering down outside I caught up with my correspondent and her husband and the three of us compared notes to see who was ahead in our traditional game of "what life threatening medical condition is that?"  My correspondent's husband is currently leading and while I had a strong year last year I have since lapsed into something almost akin to healthiness.

Of course it couldn't all be rain and diseases.  At one point my correspondent just had to flaunt her latest grandchild at me.  I was informed that he was named after a rare earth mineral and was invited to admire exactly how perfect he was in every possible respect.  This I did with great enthusiasm (it was evening, pissing down with rain and I had no way of getting home) which led to said infant being presented to me to hold.  I held the baby the same way I hold anything precious and breakable that doesn't belong to me.  That is far too tightly and with a look of agonised paranoia on my face.  I've probably scarred the poor child for years.  Fortunately it was removed from my fevered grasp before long term physical damage was inflicted.

After a nights sleep interrupted only by the discovery that I had somehow managed to lock a cat into the bedroom with me I emerged bleary eyed and disheveled (which is exactly how I went to bed so don't tell me sleep is good for you) to discover that my correspondent actually intended to make good on the fat juicy promises that had brought me up here in the first place.  The weather had obviously joined her conspiracy and presented blue skies and a scorching sun to compensate for the near biblical deluge of the previous day.

The promise had been for views without much in the way of physical effort.  Given the combined level of health and fitness of the three of us "physical effort" was a relative term.  The physical effort of getting out of bed is enough for me to need a little lie down to recover.  Since she was hellbent on redeeming her promise and since I have a weak and biddable personality we piled into their car and drove to a carpark, not a good start but said car park clung to the side of the national park and a path snaked into the bush.  

We paused to allow young people in inappropriate clothes to take a video recording of their excursion into the untamed wilderness and then set off down the path.  Our journey was slow due to the fact that one of our number was almost crippled (oddly, not me) but we limped, hobbled and shambled through the sunlit bush enjoying the scenery and listening to the shrill calls of other tourists doing the same thing.  It has to be admitted that this was hardly a plunge into the unknown.  In fact it was a plunge into the very well known.  My companions pointed out other paths we could take if we wanted to engage in any actual effort but by mutual agreement effort was relegated to some unspecified point in the future.

Eventually we arrived at our destination, Queen Victoria lookout.  In fairness she had a lot to look out on.  Photos were taken as evidenced below.

Since you've ploughed through this entire blog entry you deserve a few photos

With Queen Victoria lookout photographed from every angle that didn't involve dangling over the edge we turned around and made our way back.  Since our journey was now uphill our progress made our approach look quite speedy by comparison.  Still the slow pace enabled me to encounter the Clare McIntyre memorial fungus preening itself for the cameras.  I pandered to its exhibitionist tendencies while my companions hobbled slowly onwards.

The Clare McIntyre memorial fungus

Some time later we arrived gasping at the car park have walked a grand total of about one and a half kilometres although that did include the diversion into the obligatory cafe for a cup of coffee.  It was a pleasant trip but I had to get home, god knows what my plush toys had got up to in my absence.  The last time I left for more than twenty four hours the puffin had swapped my television for a four pack of spray and wipe.

Silly After Action Report - Konitsa Crackdown

 Maggiore Colonnadi Portico shouted down the field telephone trying not to let the panic show in his voice.

"The damned Greeks are almost on top of us.  Where the hell is my armoured support?"

Indecipherable crackling came from the receiver followed by,

"You have reached Commando Supremo, your call is important to us.  This call may be recorded for self exculpatory purposes.  If you wish to surrender press 1, if you desire our surrender press 2..."

Portico lowered the phone in disgust.

"Are our guns ready at least?" he asked Capitano Pirelli.

"Those that aren't frozen solid," affirmed the capitano.

"What about the gunners?"

"Much the same."

Portico lifted the phone to his ear.

"If you would like a signed photograph of il Duce, press five.  If you want advice on Commando Supremo approved hair styles press six..."

"For god's sake," muttered Portico.  Down the slope of the hill he could see masses of infantry moving towards his position.

Well I finally managed to select a reasonably well balanced scenario.  This is Scenario HG2 - Konitsa Crackdown.  Here I shall command a not very enthusiastic but spectacularly gunned up pack of Italians defending possibly the only hill in Greece that hasn't been recaptured yet.  My force is nestled on the top of two snow covered hills staring down at fields that would be covered in snow if they weren't already covered in Greeks.  To win Dave Wilson, my doughty opponent, has to accumulate 30VP.  Victory points are gained from building control, control of level three hexes on board K and level 4 hexes on board H.  To prevent the Greeks simply hurling their force at one particular hill the rules state that they must earn 10VP on each board.  

There are two hills, one covered in forest and one more resembling the surface of the moon.  In the valley between are a collection of buildings that can't be ignored if only for the fact that they're the only VPs on offer that don't require you to climb anything.

I have quite the arsenal to do the defending.  Forget the 15 first line squads, five conscript squads and four leaders of varying levels of adequacy.  Check out that support; two hmgs, four mmgs, four lmgs and six (count them) six 45mm mortars.  Then we wheel out the big guns; two 65mm artillery pieces, one 75mm and two 81mm mortars.  Even with the prevailing quality of Italian ammunition the amount of metal flying through the air is going to be impressive.

It will have to be because there are a fuck ton of Greeks heading hillward.  Twelve elite squads, eighteen first line squads, two half squads (to die drawing fire), seven leaders including an impressive 9-2, four medium machine guns of his own plus six light machine guns and his own artillery support in the form of one 65mm gun, one 75mm gun and two 81mm mortars.  Seriously the air is going to be solid.

Terrain dictated my deployment.  Board K is thickly endowed with trees, buildings, olive groves and general hindrances to swift movement.  There is almost nowhere you have a line of sight that extends for more than two hexes.  Board H on the other hand is scantily provided with cover at best and the hilltops look particularly bare.  Infantry would defend board K and the guns would defend board H.  A solitary 65mm gun set up forward to cover the Greek approach.  Foxholes filled with a mix of concealment counters and expendable conscripts occupied the forward slope.  I didn't commit any more because I figured, correctly, that Dave would blanket the area with smoke.  Both big mortars and the 75mm would set up to the rear where they could take Dave's forces under fire as they crested the hill.  A leader led squad with an mmg also occupied the area.

I horribly misplaced my best leader and hmg setting them up in a foxhole overlooking the valley that was never threatened during the game.  I think I had visions of pouring fire down on hapless attackers plodding along the valley floor.  I forgot that Dave isn't a complete moron.

Over on board K I did allocate a single 65mm gun to set up in a building to provide some stiffening for the defence which otherwise rested on infantry more or less alone.   Conscripts took the lead in defending the woods with (allegedly) better troops behind.  A mix of dummies and infantry held the village for at least as long as it took the Greeks to arrive.

Set up

Dave set up the bulk of his force facing board K while a select group (his best officers, mmgs and crews) set up on board H ready to sweep over the bald hilltop to victory.  Both his mortars ran out of smoke but not before blanketing my forward foxholes (the foxholes were a mistake, I just gave him defensive terrain) My 65mm fired on some Greek troops but achieved nothing more than a pin which was matched when his 75mm took it under fire.  Then his machine gun crews charged somewhat slowly forward (the snow was achieving a better defensive result than my troops) and seized the smoky foxholes.  

On the other flank a Greek halfsquad died under a hail of conscript fire, the remainder pushed forward but didn't get very far what with snow, woods and slopes.  In the centre my dummies were swiftly revealed and Dave pushed (again slowly) for the village.

End of Greek turn 1

In my second turn the shape of the battle became obvious.  On board K he slowly ground away at my defenders who attempted to trade space for time and present concealed opponents to the Greeks who would promptly break them due to the generous amount of firepower his squads possessed.  I dared not stack against him as a break would blow my front wide open so I bled slowly but inexorably as his troops ground forward.

On board H however his machine gun teams met the full fury of my mortars.  I love 81mm mortars when they're on my side.  Now that the Greeks were up on the hill his own artillery was largely impotent and I created carnage amongst his brave machine gun teams.  I kept my 75mm hidden waiting for the moment Dave had thought he'd won and could relax a little (another mistake, I should have thrown everything I had at them from the moment they appeared.)  Because of my reluctance to engage my 75mm early while Dave's initial assault was smashed over the next couple of turns I couldn't quite wipe his force out and sufficient rallied to cause me anguish later.  Oh and his 75mm and my 65 kept plinking away at each other wasting their respective nation's ammunition reserves to no good purpose.

On board K I am unsuccessfully trying to put some distance between my troops and the avenging Greek horde

Realising his mortars could do no more Dave dismantled them and started the laborious process of hauling them up the snow covered hillside.  He would abandon that effort a couple of turns later in favour of using the crews to replaced their deceased comrades manning the machine guns.

The next couple of turns were a combination of elation and despair.  My mortars reduced his force on board H to a couple of broken crews while his surviving officer scrambled to try and rally something while over on board K my troops engaged in what I call a "fall back defence" which is the say the Greeks would approach, blow the crap out of my defenders the survivors of which would fall back or rout as it is sometimes called.  I was funneling troops forward from my rear positions to maintain a front and at least slow his forces down although I doubt if I was putting much more of a brake on him than the terrain would have imposed anyway.  The 65mm gun I had hidden in a building had one brief moment of glory when it evaporated an elite Greek squad but then succumbed to the mass of fire Dave could deploy.

Things started to go sour midway through the game.  Over on board K my troops were crumbling as rapidly as I could thrust them towards the front, a task made easier by the fact that the front was getting slowly closer.  On board H the heroics of my mortar crews couldn't last.  Firstly his 75mm finally broke the crew of my 65 and in doing so ended its own participation in the battle.  Then one of his surviving mmg teams broke the crew of a mortar while the other malfed without any involvement from the enemy.

Oh crap

Suddenly board H was bereft of heavy hitters apart from the still hidden 75mm.  A 45mm mortar team did their best to make up the difference and over the course of a couple of turns managed to kill a Greek squad clambering slowly up the hill from the valley.  Nevertheless things looked bad.  My mmg team had already been traumatised out of any capacity for resistance and I was learning exactly how stupid my positioning of the hmg and my best leader was.  In desperation I abandoned the malfed mortar and moved the crew to the its comrade which was still intact but bereft of crew.  This got one mortar back in action but my firepower was significantly reduced and while it was reduced Dave rallied what he could and moved back up crews to grab mmgs whose previous owners had passed beyond the need of earthly things.

Meanwhile over on board K the slow but inexorable crumbling of my position continued although a halfsquad with a mortar sneaked behind the Greeks to recapture a building while their opponents were looking the other way.

Things are not looking all that great

The end, when it came, was abrupt.  My remaining 81mm mortar and the 75 were banging away manfully but not getting quite enough in the way of results to deliver victory.  Then his 9-2 guiding a single crew and mmg stepped forward.  A morale check on my mortar crew led to failure, rate then delivered another morale check on the crew of the 75 which similarly failed.  That was the end.  Every single artillery piece was out of action and there was literally nothing to stop Dave sweeping across board H for the locations he required.  Over on board K defeat was only a matter of time as well.  With a heavy sigh I conceded the game to Dave with two turns to go.

I have only myself to blame for my defeat.  The foxholes, keeping the 75 hidden too long and the boneheaded positioning of my best leader and hmg (who didn't fire a shot all game) all contributed to my demise.  Nevertheless it was close for a considerable period of time.  It was really a tale of two battles as my troops on board K slowly crumbled without any input from the Italian artillery while on board H for quite a while it did look like I would hold my position and deny Dave the victory.  Many thanks to Dave who had to put up with self congratulatory ranting and hysterical tears depending on how things were going for me at any given time.

Greek soldiers pushed cautiously through the wreckage of an Italian gun position.  A squawking tinny voice caused alarm until it was tracked to the receiver of a field phone dangling where it had been dropped.  Curious a soldier placed the receiver to his ear.

"If your position is under attack and you need urgent armoured support, press 724."

Travelling Pathetically - Mangrove Fetish Edition

 Gazing at the map of Sydney on my computer I looked for a patch of green that had not yet been graced with the tread of my boot.  Unerringly my gaze zeroed in on Homebush Bay which had been the site of Sydney's Olympic Games a magnificent event I traveled to a different continent to avoid.  In an attempt to make the athlete's surroundings a little less revolting the authorities had remediated and generally defilthed a certain amount of poisonous wasteland and restored it to something approximating its condition before we started discharging factory waste into the area.  Of course they couldn't help themselves and there are also carefully sculpted parks to give people the impression of nature without forcing them to actually encounter any.  It would be to this green spot that I would travel one Sunday a couple of weeks ago.  

I caught the train to Homebush because it seemed that from there I could follow a creek all the way to the Parramatta River and take in the wetlands, mangroves and occasional remnant forest along the way.  Bizarrely this turned out to be exactly right.  Powells Creek starts its life as a rather miserable looking storm water drain near Homebush station and heads north towards the river in a bed of concrete gathering water and enthusiasm along the way.

The less than inspiring beginning of my journey

Once I had found Powells Creek I turned left to follow its path only to find Parramatta Road in my way.  Having skipped through the traffic I followed the concrete bound creek underneath the M4 overpass and somewhat improbably discovered an entire park beneath the sheltering concrete.  The day was already hot and suddenly the M4 went from a concrete monstrosity to a shady area of recreation.  Local citizens were indeed recreating in the shade with ping pong tables and childrens play equipment doing a roaring trade.  Definitely motorways are better from the underneath.

I gazed at this idyllic scene in sheer disbelief for a moment but continued my journey before any of the parents saw fit to report me to the police.  I Followed the "creek" along its concrete path.  This was made easier by the fact that a park had been established alongside it for much of its length.  I was walking on concrete but there was grass visible and even the occasional tree.  Water, I'm not entirely sure where from bulked out the wretched trickle that had been all that Powells Creek could present at first and before too long I encountered an excited sign which informed the world in breathless tones that from this point the creek had been stripped of concrete and returned to something vaguely approximating its natural form.  I took a picture of this auspicious location and carried on.

There, doesn't that look better

In keeping with this new dedication to all things nature the park I was walking through petered out and after a false start walking past some factory carpark I found myself bound by something approximating nature of both sides.  To my right was the creek and to my left the Mason Park Wetlands although given the recent weather they were more drylands or damplands at best.

There is some wet in there if you look closely

Wetlands mean birds and in case you didn't see any there were signs informing you of what you had missed.  Of particularly interest is the curlew sandpiper, a migratory bird that is extinct in the area due to our unfortunate habit of ruining its home, the sign is hopeful that with this wetland now available to them the sandpipers might return assuming there are any left and gives a helpful description just in case you happen to see one.  If, while lurking in the environs of Mason Park Wetlands you do happen to see one of these storied birds of legend please inform the parks authority as I suspect it will enable a number of their staff to die happy.

On I went, past the dampland heading towards my goal.  I passed under yet another motorway (Homebush Bay Drive I think) but there was no recreation area at this one, just the traditional rubbish and odour of stale urine.  Powells Creek on the other hand was really starting to hit its straps.  Liberated from its concrete shackles and inspired by the dampland on its right it went full nature with trees and shady bits and a rather pleasing coastal swamp look.

Yes, this is the same Powells Creek from a kilometre or two ago

Just as I was getting used to this new "back to nature" look I left the creek for a while.  I had reached the official parklands and veered off onto a new track which would take me in the direction of the mangroves which were the principal objective of all this faffing about with wetlands and concrete creeks.  The track took me away from the at least semi natural environment and into Bicentennial Park which is adorned with the sort of stuff that people think a flashy park should be adorned with.

Well its pretty I suppose, if you like that sort of thing

One of the things the park is adorned with is a treillage tower.  "Treillage" is a French word meaning "pointless construction".  The tower stands on a rise (because building a tower in a gully rather defeats the purpose) and allows a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside.  I climbed the tower because, well you do don't you.  A tower in a scenic spot always promises even more scenicky stuff if you expend the effort to climb to the top of it.  I climbed to the top of the tower with my arthritic knee complaining at every step.  When I got there I had a great view of everything I had already seen quite adequately from ground level.  I took a photo because by that time I felt committed.

The treillage tower. 

And this is the view.  This is basically the direction I will be walking in

With the treillage tower thankfully in my rear I down for the last and most interesting part of the journey.  Behind me lay the smoothly mowed park and ahead of me a tangle of estuarine vegetation.  It wasn't just mangroves, oh dear me no.  Indeed helpful signs announced the presence of at least five different vegetation types depending on how many millimetres the land in question was above the level of the river and therefore how likely it was to be periodically underwater.  Mangroves are just one of the soggier options.  I forget the others but none of them were smoothly mown grass.

Mangroves are of course terribly fragile so rather than defile them with our tread walkways had been built so that we could make our way through the mangroves without going to all the effort of blundering through them.  This is convenient as from a walking perspective mangroves are basically tree roots and sucking mud.  Mangroves also abound with life according to the signs.  Life presented itself in the form of far more birds than I saw at the supposedly bird intensive wetland (incidentally wetland is not mangrove there are vital millimetres of difference in height above the river level). 

Mangroves

 

Wildlife

More wildlife

Even more wildlife

OK we're probably getting sick of wildlife by now

Wildlife as you can tell mostly consisted of birds.  Or at least birds were the only ones who didn't sneak out of the way as I blundered past.  I did see fish when I stared very closely at the water.  Possibly because most of the water I look at is at least somewhat polluted I always seem to see the same type of fish.  They're small and nuggety and look rather like a fist with fins.  They give the impression they could survive in any water that isn't actually solid.  Any other life was buried under the mud waiting for the camera to leave.

More mangroves

When my mangrove journey came to an end I had a decision to make, namely what was I going to do now.  Somewhat belatedly I came up with a destination for my journey.  I would make my way to Wentworth Point, a gleaming new suburb on the banks of the river surrounded by parks, mangroves and, of course, water.  From there a ferry would take me back to civilisation.  For those of you who aren't sick to death of bird photos, hang around.

Actually the bird photo opportunities turned up a little earlier than expected.  I was at the end of the mangrove walk deciding on my next steps when a noise made me look down.  A brush turkey had quietly come to within two feet of me and was eyeing me speculatively.  I got the impression that it would have mugged me and taken my shoes if I hadn't seen it at that particular moment.

Evading the boldest brush turkey I've ever encountered I walked up a path/cycle track/access road that headed towards the river.  Powells Creek now spilling into Homebush Bay was on my right but once again on my left was wetland.  And what a wetland, this one made Mason Park Wetland look like a badly managed puddle.  It is of course wholly artificial, nature very rarely provides perfectly rectangular wetlands.  There were wetlands here once upon a time.  That time being before the advent of dredging, industry and general environmental devastation.  The one good thing about such devastation is that it provides a clean slate to build on if you ever want to bring some of it back.  They have really gone all out here.  Pumps provide the tidal water that would have come naturally before all of the dredging etc and artificial islands have been created to replace the ones that wound up as landfill elsewhere.  Waterbirds of both the migratory and stay at home varieties have voted with their wings and the place is packed with birdlife.

A black winged stilt

A pelican because you just can't keep them away

A rather disappointing photo of a great egret but the best I could get

Wetlands and birds; generic

By this time I was quite giddy with birdlife or possibly heat exhaustion so I moved on.  On the other side of the wetland Haslams Creek which has an even longer and more wretched concrete encased journey than Powells Creek spills into the Parramatta River revelling in its last few kilometres of concrete free existence.  Once across that I took a hard right at the archery centre (a hangover from the Olympic Games) and headed through Wentworth Point towards the ferry stop and my journey home.

Travelling Pathetically - Just One Bay After Another

After I emerged from the Lane Cover River valley covered in glory (and not leeches as some predicted) I decided for a more modest achievement for my next walk.  I gazed at the map of Sydney and realised I had given scant attention to the southern shore of the harbour.  There were good reasons for this.  Much of the southern shore of the harbour is occupied by the dwellings of those with the money to afford a dwelling on the southern shore of the harbour.  Such dwellings had not left much space for bushland however if I zoomed in on the map and squinted closely it did seem that there might be a shred of greenery not completely built over between Rose Bay and Watsons Bay.  Indeed there seemed to be a walking track of sorts.

"That's it!" I announced to a collection of disinterested plush toys.  "I shall walk from Rose Bay to Watsons Bay."

"You do know there's a perfectly good ferry?" asked the platypus.

I did indeed know there was a perfectly good ferry.  I caught the perfectly good ferry to Rose Bay to commence my walk.  The journey across Sydney Harbour was enlivened by my discovery that Sydney ferries now have the sort of welcoming speech one normally encounters on aircraft.  Welcoming you aboard, wishing you a pleasant journey and informing you of what to do in the unlikely event that the ferry's journey becomes more downward than onward.  When it got to the part detailing the emergency exits I stopped listening.   It's a ferry for gods sake.  The emergency exits are the entire sides of the vessel.  I doubt if the crew are going to order me back on board if I hurl myself into the sea from the wrong spot.

With a specific part of the ferry's side committed to memory should the worst happen I sat back to enjoy the trip.  I had picked a good day, ie hot and cloudless which meant that the harbour was at its best.  Whether this would be ideal for walking was another matter.  Rose Bay emerged blinking from the harbour and attempted to look its best as I approached.  Rose Bay is famous for two things; a golf course which occupies about half of the suburb and its status as Australia's oldest international airport.  

Back in the early days of international air travel the cost of laying down concrete runways of sufficient length for international aircraft was considered prohibitive.  It was much cheaper to land the aircraft on water which didn't need much in the way of construction work.  In the 1930s flying boats from BEA (proud ancestor of its wretched offspring British Airways) and PanAm's famous clippers would carry passengers and mail from the world to Sydney and back again.  And they landed at Rose Bay.  The whole thing came to an end after the Second World War.  During that time so many long concrete runways had been built to facilitate bomber fleets that the world came out of the conflict with an almost embarrassing oversupply of land based international quality airports.

Still Rose Bay airport still exists as the home for a seaplane tour company.  Another good thing about a water airport is the lack of maintenance needed on the runways.

Seaplane parking at Rose Bay

Having alighted at Rose Bay and turned my back with barely concealed contempt on the golf course I peered at the map on my phone and set out on my journey.  I was sensibly dressed for walking in sturdy shoes and long pants.  However the first thing I walked across was Rose Bay beach for which I was completely unsuited both sartorially and psychologically.  When I reached the end of the beach I discovered that I wasn't going any further.  Some extra frantic peering at the map told me I would actually have to leave the sea and walk through Rose Bay shops and reunite with the foreshore a little further on.  I didn't actually get lost but I did go down a couple of wrong streets before I found the right one.  To show willing I did take a photo of the harbour from Rose Bay before plunging into the suburb itself.

Like I said, it was a nice day

Having struggled through the traffic choked main street of Rose Bay I emerged out the other side and pointed myself back towards the foreshore with a very impressive church staring down at me.  Specifically what was impressive about the church was the church's ability to snaffle the best real estate wherever they turn up.  This one managed to give an almost medieval look to what is a very modern suburb.

The worshipers of some grim, dark god look down upon the villagers with disdain

And Rose Bay is a modern suburb and getting more modern by the second.  The reason for this is because it is quite old (by Sydney standards) that means that most of the ground was built on yea these many years ago.  What that means in turn is that if you want to build anything you pretty much have to knock something else down.  Virtually the entire suburb seems to be in a permanent state of renovation.  Fortunately I left the scafffolding and discreet notices indicating that somebody had paid off the local council and finally made my way to a modest piece of bush.

Here's the thing, there isn't very much bush here.  As noted before people have been living here since some of the colonists decided that a water view was worth being the first to be looted if the French invaded.  However clinging to the very edge of the water a small shred of bushland survives (an oversight I suspect).  This glorified nature strip revels in the name of Sydney Harbour National Park (to be fair there's more in other spots) and much of it has walking platforms so that you don't sully the earth with your tread.  Essentially we are walking along the cliffs which fringe the harbour and which turned out to be slightly more trouble to put houses on that it was worth.  I was rarely more than a hundred metres from somebody's house and frequently much less.  But the day was warm and the little patch of bush was doing its very best to be properly bush like and if you turned your head away from the houses you could see the harbour through the trees and you realised that this tiny strip was worth preserving after all.

Houses to the right of me but this was to my left

I thought that this wouldn't be a particularly strenuous bushwalk and I was right but it was a little more difficult than I anticipated as there was a fair bit of climbing up and down the cliff.  From time to time branch lines of the walking path struck off to take you down to some secluded beach and on a couple of occasions the path itself wandered down there before climbing up the other side.  There were plenty of people on the path but they weren't bushwalkers for the most part, they were people who had parked their cars and were now wandering down to this beach or that.  The difference was noticeable.  For the most part people I have encountered on my bushwalks have offered a greeting varying between formally polite and overtly cheerful.  The people I passed today gave the impression they would stab me if I spoke to them.  So I didn't and this seemed to please both of us.

In welcoming nature lovers or at least people not inherently opposed to nature per se the sign had waxed lyrical about the flora and fauna that frolicked unmolested in this tiny patch of pseudo wilderness.  I have my doubts about the fauna side of that.  There were some birds it is true but there didn't seem to be much of anything else, even lizards were in short supply.  Perhaps most telling of all was the complete absence of signs indicating that fox baits had been laid.  This tells me that even a fox has difficulty finding good eating here.  My attempts to find the Clare McIntyre memorial fungus went almost unrewarded and I'm not sure if the one I did see was a fungus or some sort of tree disease.

The Clare McIntyre memorial fungus, possibly

Fortunately for my scalp there were sufficient trees to more or less protect me from the sun which was useful as I had foolishly forgotten my hat.  As if to deny my previous comments about the inadequacy of the National Park a sign proudly proclaimed that a brand new species of tree had been discovered here only a few years ago.  It was discovered and promptly labelled as endangered which isn't surprising as there isn't space for more than about three of them.  I wish them luck.

At one point I passed by a cemetery or rather what I suspect used to be a cemetery back in the day.  A sturdy fence had been erected to prevent the dead from hurling themselves into the sea.  If you want a viking funeral you really have to put in your will.  Once you're in a box floating you out on a longship becomes a little problematic.

No need to fear the walking dead, they've been fenced off

After the cemetery the path decided I had enjoyed enough altitude for a while and swooped down to sea level to intersect with a beach whose name I don't know and have no intention of looking up.  It was quite compact as beaches go and would have looked very nice if it wasn't covered in people.  If they were whales this would have been a mass beaching event.  I had to restrain the impulse to drag them out to sea.  Those parts of the geography not covered by humans were quite picturesque however.

Definitely picturesque

Once I had picked my way carefully through the beach denizens and started climbing up the other side I encountered a truly enormous tree.  No wonder those other trees are endangered, this one was taking up enough space for a forest.

This is one tree

Giving the tree as wide a berth as possible I continued heading up.  Having flirted with the waterline the path was now apparently intent on seducing the cliff top.  In return for separating me from the water the path repaid me with spectacular views out over the water I could no longer touch.

That's the area I walked through and you have to admit it does look authentically bushlike

Despite the idyllic nature of the surroundings terrors lurked around every corner.  I wouldn't have realised this if signs didn't go out of their way to tell me.  I encountered the sign below at the top of a cliff.  They seem to be keen to include every warning on the one sign I'm surprised they didn't include something about meteor strikes.

For the record I was standing on the top of the cliff with the apparently unstable edges.  The shallow water didn't bother me because it was at the bottom of the cliff but the threatened appearance of "slippery areas" held out the threat that I could travel from the top of the crumbling cliff to the disturbingly shallow water in an unpleasantly short period of time.  Somehow I survived the journey and lit a candle for those before me who hadn't made it (I presume they number in the thousands) may the God of Futile Endeavours look kindly up their sacrifice.

I was now coming to the end of the bushwalk part of my bushwalk having arrived at Nielsen Park which is apparently a "heritage listed historic site and park".  Why?  No idea but there was a decent amount of it.  I followed it until I ran out of bush.  Along the way I came across Shark Beach which was closed for renovations.  Who in the name of a sweet and merciful god names a recreation area Shark Beach?  It might be accurate but come on, a little discretion please.  You don't see chemical works calling themselves the "Mutated Children Chemical Plant" do you?

Before I left Nielsen Park I did manage a semi satisfactory bird photograph.  Cindy Parker, if you're reading this I would appreciate an identification.  I'm really hoping its a shag on a rock because I have the maturity of a thirteen year old.

An unidentified bird

From the park I could see my destination laid out before me.  

My destination, somewhat obscured by an inconveniently placed rock

 

Unfortunately to get there would involve walking through Vaucluse.  From now on my journey would be down suburban streets albeit somewhat high rent ones and therefore isn't particularly interesting.  I did walk through the grounds of Vaucluse House, not for any specific reason, they were just in my way.  Eventually I wound up in Watsons Bay where a ferry was very kindly waiting to cart me back to Circular Quay and my journey home.