Plague Update #34 - Report Report

 Well the report on the investigation into the Ruby Princess debacle has been released.  For those of you who have been trying to obliterate the last few months from their memory allow me to ruin your hopes.  The Ruby Princess was the cruise ship that dumped a couple of thousand diseased passengers on the docks at Sydney a few months ago in the hopes no one would notice.  Given the number of infections and deaths that resulted questions were naturally asked as to how they were permitted to do that and who was responsible.  

Those questions were formally encapsulated in an enquiry which reported last week.  It basically pointed out the obvious, that there had been catastrophic failures on the part of the various government officials responsible.  Since the only other possibility was that they did it deliberately I can't imagine that this surprised anybody too much.  What did surprise some people were the recommendations for how to avoid this in the future.  There weren't any.  In summation the report basically said "a whole bunch of people screwed up but, you know, whatever."  To be fair what the report actually said was that the people who made these mistakes realised their errors and wouldn't make them again.  Wouldn't it be nice to have such a sunnily optimistic disposition?  I guess we'll just have to wait until the next cruise liner turns up with a batch of sick passengers before we find out for certain.

Meanwhile humans are not the only ones suffering in the pandemic.  Rescue shelters (which are basically just euthanasia centres for animals) report a massive upsurge in people adopting dogs (and to a lesser extent other animals).  Apparently the desire for companion animals in these times of doom has been so great that the shelters have been swept clean.  Animals who were looking for a dignified way out of their misery have suddenly been dumped with a bunch of needy humans who expect them to fill the coronavirus created holes in their lives.  That's a lot to ask of a dog, particularly one who, since it was in an animal shelter in the first place, can reasonably be expected to have a few issues of its own.  If this goes on much longer the streets are going to be full of emotionally disturbed people hauling traumatised animals around on leashes.  I'm not immune from this myself but I would point out that I had my stuffed puffin well before the COVID outbreak and he quite enjoys being hauled around on a leash.

In the meantime animal shelters are just bare spaces with the occasional tumbleweed blowing through and a screaming mob at the door demanding companionship.  It seems that workers in these places will be the next to lose their jobs and there won't be any animals left to help them through the difficult times to come.  I would encourage those people to stay strong, times might be tough right now but you will get your job back eventually.  As soon as the pandemic is over those shelters are going to be filling right up again.

Silly After Action Report - Romania Victor

 Major Horea Stansinacu stared with naked distrust at the Luftwaffe officer standing before him.

"Seriously," the German said with what he thought was a winning smile.  "You guys go in and we'll hit them from above."  He gave a snappy salute and strode off to where a fieseler storch and a long haired dachshund were waiting for him.  He greeted them both with a disturbing amount of affection.  Stansinacu rolled his eyes, at least the Luftwaffe liaison officer had turned up to the briefing.  The artillery had simply sent a gift card and apologies.  Stansinacu sighed, he was too well known to successfully desert so he might as well get on with it.  Gathering his officers he pointed at the village crouching under a layer of snow.

"Get in there, get the big buildings any way you can.  And if you see any aircraft, duck!"

It was my turn to choose the scenario Mike Sexton and I would play and I made my decision by simply turning over the scenario card I had been playing with Dave and picking the scenario on the other side.  This then is scenario FT 191 - Romania Victor.  It is set a day after my debacle in the Crimea and apparently I haven't learned my lesson because I'm doing it again.  To win I have to hold more non rowhouse multihex building than Mike's Soviet defenders.  My at start force consists of six elite squads, two officers a good 9-1 and a mediocre 7-0.  In support there is a 47mm antitank gun, an 81mm mortar, two heavy machine gun, two light machine guns and a pair of foxholes.  On turn one I get another five elite squads, a half squad with a mmg and an lmg plus a 60mm mortar and an antitank rifle.  On turn three I receive another three elite squads, led by another 9-1 with an lmg and a demo charge.  For comic relief I have 100mm offboard artillery (first two chits were red, so much for the artillery) and a pair of fighter bombers (who would surprise me by turning up).

To hold this little town Mike has nine and a half first line squads, two officers (including a 9-1) a pair of mmgs, a pair of lmgs a 50mm mortar and a 45mm antitank gun (I'm not sure why).  He also has a pair of foxholes.  On turn one he would get a pair of Stuart tanks.  I checked the scenario card carefully, he definitely gets two.

My at start force sets up in the west, separated from the village by an uncomfortable amount of open ground.  Mike naturally had a mmg and halfsquad set up in the village church steeple and dealing with that was my first objective.  For a brief period all seemed to go well.  My mortar (manned by reliable Romanians not those crappy Germans) dropped a smoke round on the steeple and blinded his mmg team.  I had stacked both hmgs with a pair of squads and the 9-1 and these plus my 47mm effectively swept away such forces as Mike had been foolish enough to leave in my line of sight.  The remainder of the onboard force moved east using shelter where they could and positioned themselves to take my first victory building.  My turn one reinforcements assault moved onto the board and the only fire they took resulted in the generation of my very own hero (I would have two by game end).

Things are, very briefly, going well

In his turn Mike brought his two Stuarts on and sent them to bolster his in the east (bottom) while the Luftwaffe stopped fondling their dachshunds long enough to put a pair of fighter bombers into the sky.  One of the tanks, whom Mike had fondly christened Piotr, gained acquisition on my recently minted hero stack but that was the most he would do.

End of Soviet turn 1

 

At this point it has to be admitted that while I was unfortunate with my artillery (again) and I had some bad luck in various dice rolls the simple fact of the matter is I messed this scenario up.  My turn one reinforcements oozed slowly towards his defenders at the bottom of the screen covering the ground at a speed normally associated with glaciers.  Such of my at start force as had moved did indeed capture an undefended multihex building but there was an entire village between them and the rest.  My two forces would fight separate battles and lose them both rather than combining.

None of this would do Piotr any good.  Deciding that a Romanian hero was too rare a beast to lose the Luftwaffe dropped a bomb straight down the hatch of the offending Stuart and blew it to pieces.  Sadly my other fighter bomber would miss the other tank and their subsequent strafing runs would be ineffective.

Bereft of viable targets my hmg squads would risk hernia attempting to lug their immensely heavy support weapons a little more combat adjacent.  The 47mm gunners would likewise start shoving their weapon through the snow.  I think I did this as much to keep them occupied as anything else.  Certainly the game was over before they got anywhere useful.  Meanwhile Mike's other tank was proving that concealment counters were no barrier to beating the crap out of the Romanians and my centre force was floundering before it really got anywhere.

Things are bad and getting worse

 

With the bulk of his defenders in useful positions there was little Mike's troops had to do except polish their weapons (not a euphemism) and wait for the Romanians to present themselves for slaughter.  This the Romanians obligingly did.  Doubling down on failure I brought my final reinforcements on in two groups.  The 9-1, DC and a single squad I assault moved next to his defenders.  The other two squads I brought on closer to the centre in a belated and unsuccessful attempt to link up my two forces.  My at start forces pushed forward from their recently captured building and despite missing an obvious line of start (goodbye to another squad) the survivors managed to surround a Soviet squad and wipe him out in close combat.

The reinforcements I had brought on directly in front of his tank fared surprisingly well, only a half squad was killed leaving me with a concealed 9-1 and a halfsquad facing a squad with an lmg.  I pretty much had to advance into CC otherwise I would have been killed in the open.  After all I had a 9-1 officer and a concealed unit, surely that would compensate for being outnumbered?  Nope, so back to the drawing board.

The current picture flatters me

With three turns gone and little appreciable progress made I made a determined push and paid for it dearly but first a brief moment of unalloyed pleasure.  With the smoke gone from the steeple my mortar attempted to drop some more but had run out of smoke.  No problem it scored a critical hit with HE and then rolled snake eyes on the effects dropping the entire building into a pile of rubble and taking out his mmg position with it.

My hero finally achieved something, guiding my mmg team to take out the squad that had slaughtered my 9-1 and a squad ran straight across the front of Mike's surviving tank to grab the building.  Attempts to support it would end in bloody chaos.  A recently rallied halfsquad did sneak out and retake my long abandoned mortar.

Time was running out, I had two turns left and virtually no one in useful positions.  Attempts to gain useful positions resulted in carnage and I'm ashamed to admit broke my personal morale.  Not even the generation of another hero could raise my spirits.  Perhaps I could have scraped together enough forces to achieve a win.  My hmg squads had finally arrived and were in a position to challenge for a victory building and some scooting and a little bit of previously absent luck might give me one or two more.  On the other hand it turned out that I had launched my main assault exactly where Mike had his heaviest defences.  I had a single squad clinging on to a victory building and no way of reinforcing it that didn't involve running through mortar, mmg and 45L gun fire.  I decided enough Romanians had died this day and conceded.

When I decided to give up with one turn to go

Well that was a bit of a mess.  Congratulations to Mike who fought a skillful defensive battle.  I am now going to undergo a lobotomy to remove the recollection of this battle from my mind.

Major Stansinacu stood to attention staring at nothing in particular while the general shook his head in disbelief.

"Got beaten again didn't you" asked the general.

"Yes sir."

"Relied on the German artillery again didn't you?"

"Yes sir."

"Does your family have a history of failing to learn from experience?"

"No sir, I'm an only child."

Silly After Action Report - The Land of Fire Part 2

Dave and I continued our playing of FT190-The Land of Fire, colloquially known as Cock-up in the Crimea when I challenged him to justify having two Stuart tanks when the scenario card plainly allocated one. Dave apologised profusely and after he sacrificed his first born I forgave him and we continued.  We settled for removing one of the offending Stuarts and otherwise left things as they were.

Which left me in a bit of a pickle.  I had three turns to go and had yet to capture either of the two objectives I had set my heart on.  Further with my recalled StuG in the south slinking off the board in disgrace capturing the lighthouse was beginning to look a little problematic.  By the end of this turn problematic would be an optimistic description.

Attentive readers may recall that I had a berserk halfsquad ready to hurl itself on the nearest of his defenders.  I also had a squad adjacent.  I didn't really think the berserkers would achieve anything but I hoped they might tie up his defenders until the CC phase when I would be ready to reinforce them.  To assist with the reinforcing I assault moved a concealed squad forward as the same time as my berserkers charged to their death.  The berserkers of course died and subsequent fire was quite sufficient to break the two squads lined up to make the assault.  My attack died for lack of available troops.  Until I could get some reinforcements there the south was a dead letter.

Reinforcements in the shape of an lmg toting squad, a 9-1 leader and the nearest of my two remaining StuGs were on the way but they would take a turn to arrive.  Dave passed the time by shattering all my remaining troops in the south just to drive home the point that I wasn't going to capture the lighthouse.

Things looked a little more hopeful at the state farm where my long idle troops in the west finally took a deep breath, commended their souls to God and raced across the open ground to the rear of the farm.  Dave's two guns which I had been mildly paranoid about all game revealed themselves and banged away but much to my surprise my troops made it to the shelter of one of the stone buildings unharmed.  In the advancing fire phase my mortar scored its second critical hit to vapourise his 45mm gun leaving him with "only" the 76.  In the coming turns the mortar would beat that one up as well.  It has to be said that both of us got good mileage out of our mortars in this game.

Reinforcements are heading south but will they be in time?

The noose was tightening on the state farm, I had finally amassed enough firepower to strip concealment from one of his squads in the fortified building whereupon my flamethrower charred him to a broken crisp.  Moving in I would treat his other squad in the same way and suddenly the only unit Dave had in the farm was a hitherto hidden squad with an hmg and a 9-1 leader.  The leader fell to the most mediocre of morale checks but the squad proved to be made of sterner stuff.  Just to set the seal on what should be obvious success a morale check resulted in a Romanian hero adding his two bans worth to the conflict.  Which was good as the hmg squad smashed up the first troops I sent against him but I had plenty more.

In the south my reinforcements arrived just in time to witness the virtual destruction of my initial force as my troops proved incapable of passing a morale check to save their lives.  Rushing to the rescue the 9-1 was first pinned, then broken and finally sniped to death in what seemed a little like overkill to me.  With nothing left to reinforce the two squads and single StuG would have to achieve a miracle.  Just for a second it looked like they might.  I gunned the StuG forward, passed my ESB roll and parked right on top of his first trench, then moved a squad right next to it.  In the close combat phase these heroes would wipe out the defenders and I would have a squad quite close to the objective.  Of course there was a Stuart tank and a squad with an lmg between them and the lighthouse and another squad in the lighthouse but I permitted myself a tiny trickle of hope.

End Romanian turn 6.  There is still a tiny chance left.

 

Over in the state farm I decided to overwhelm his sole remaining squad (and hmg) with sheer numbers.  Having finally dispatched his sole other squad in CC I now had a StuG, a flamethrower and no end of squads within range.  The last turn rolled around and I made my move.  Firstly I hit the recalcitrant squad with fire from the StuG's 75mm gun.  I needed a nine to hit.  I rolled a ten.  I intensive fired the gun and rolled an eleven.  Another StuG out of the battle.  So much for softening him up.  Time for the assault.  Three first line squads guided by the hero assaulted into the building beneath the defenders and another pair of elite squads stormed up the stairs next to him.  Dave settled for firing on the three squads beneath him for a 20+3 shot.  He achieved a morale check.  Two squads broke and the third pinned.  The hero alone was left to advance.  I shrieked of course but I still had two squads adjacent and had moved my flamethrower into position for an advancing fire shot.  The flamethrower managed a pin result and I looked forward to the upcoming close combat with relish.  Despite being pinned the bastard still ambushed me and then I rolled boxcars on my CC die roll.  The state farm would not fall.

Which just left the lighthouse where perhaps I could salvage a little pride.  My StuG dropped a smoke round into the building and the lmg squad underneath it tried a 12+2 squad at the adjacent trench bound defenders for no result.  I was out of options.  I had an 8-0 and one squad left.  The only thing I could do was push them through the trees and hope they survived the ensuing defensive fire to wind up next to the lighthouse.  Dave took a shot with the machine guns on his Stuart tank and rolled a three.  That was the end of my hopes.  I had achieved not one of the three objectives never mind two.  I was a little disappointed as (the occasional piece of lunacy not withstanding) I didn't think I had played too badly.  Still c'est la guerre and I would have another chance with the Romanians as I was playing Mike Sexton in the sister scenario Romania Victor the next day.

End game. All that's missing are my hot, wet tears.

Major Stansinacu listened in disbelief to the torrent of abuse pouring out of the receiver.  When the general paused for breath, and possibly a heart attack, he attempted to defend himself.

"My men did not flee the field and abandon the artillery to their fate.  The artillery are making that report from Sevastopol, my men are dead on their objectives!"

Another burst of vituperation from the phone.

"No sir, of course I'm not accusing our German allies of lying.  Why on earth would they do that?  The Third Reich is famous for its straightforward, simple honesty.  No sir, of course I'm not being sarcastic, a man as insightful as yourself would pick up on that immediately.  Oh, a chance to redeem myself?  Oh thank you sir, yes I do think I have winter camouflage," suspicion crept into his voice, "Why?".

Silly After Action Report - Land of Fire Part 1

 Major Horea Stansinacu watched as his men reached their assigned pre-assault positions.  They looked good he thought.  Tough, eager, ready to fight.  Then his gaze fell on his German artillery support.  For some reason they had already hooked their guns up to their trucks and were intently studying maps all of which seemed to depict areas somewhat to the rear of their current location.

"Are you guys ready to support the attack?" demanded Stansinacu a little suspicion creeping into his voice.  Their officer looked up and, after a certain hesitation, reluctantly saluted.

"Oh yeah, we're good to go.  Just tell us where you want us."

"I can't help noticing that all your ammunition and supply trucks are currently barrelling down the road towards Sevastopol."

"It's their afternoon off."

"But you will be ready on my command?"

"Absolutely as long as our observer has radio contact with us."

Stansinacu glanced at the observer, he looked thoroughly miserable and was holding what appeared to be a pair of tin cans connected by string.

"Observer," called Stansinacu, the man shrieked and threw his hands up in the air.

"And he's ready to do semaphore if communications break down," added the artillery officer hastily.

Mentally writing off his artillery support Stansinacu returned to the comforting bulk of one of the assault guns that would be going in with his troops.  The crew seemed to be dismantling their main armament but he put that down to last minute maintenance.

After my previous dismal showing against Dave Wilson (which you don't know about because it was such a catastrophe that it wasn't worth an AAR) it was my turn to choose the scenario and be the attacker.  I was keen to try something with Italians or Axis Minors because I always am so I ferreted through a decaying stack of cardboard and came up with this one by Le Franc Tireur - FT190, The Land of Fire.  Here a collection of suspiciously well equipped Romanians are attempting to prolong the death agonies of their nation a little further by destroying one of the bridgeheads the Soviets have established on the Kerch Peninsula.  To perform said prolonging I have an at start force of six elite squads and eight first line squads including a pair of assault engineers.  These heroes are led by an awesome 10-2 plus two other officers of lesser distinction and are equipped with a medium machine gun, four light machine guns (including two apparently borrowed from the Germans), a 60mm mortar, a demolition charge and a flamethrower.  Lest this seem insufficient they have German support in the form of a pair of StuGIIIG assault guns and 100mm offboard artillery.  On turn two these forces are augmented by another ten Romanian squads a couple more officers and another StuG.

To oppose the pride of eastern Europe Dave has seventeen Soviet squads including six elite, a heavy machine gun, a medium machine gun, three light machine guns, a pair of antitank rifles, a 50mm mortar and two guns; a 45mm AT gun and a 76mm infantry weapon.  Armoured support turns up on turn two in the form of a Lend-lease Stuart tank that the British seem to have provided the Soviets simply to make them feel better about their own tank designs.  Additionally he has four officers, six trenches, a pillbox and is allowed to fortify two building locations.

This seems like a perfectly adequate force to see off these presumptuous Romanians but Dave is hampered by the fact that a portion of his force is scattered to protect three widely separated strongpoints; a state farm in the southwest (top), a lighthouse in the southeast (bottom, obviously) and a row of hills in the northeast.  To win the Romanians have to deprive the Soviets of ownership of at least two of these.

My plan was to strike hard for the lighthouse and hope to capture it quickly while the remainder of my force (and most of the reinforcements) crept up on the state farm and hoped to essentially drown the Soviet defenders in bodies.  I would use my artillery to make a smokescreen which would hopefully reduce his forces on the hills to the north to impotence.  Usually when I detail my plan the very next sentence is "Naturally this didn't work".  Anyway, naturally this didn't work.  The artillery's first spotting round wandered so far I think they were trying to shell Moscow and the German gunners, incensed by Romanian criticism, promptly drew two red chits and went home.  The God of War having decided to take the day off it was all up to my Romanians and their armoured support.  Below is the at start set up.

Things went ok for the first turn I managed to swarm troops around and kill the squad that Dave had posted in the southeast and started cautiously making my way towards the lighthouse.  In the west I had brought on a StuG and a pair of lmg toting elite squads to make a show of threatening the state farm while the rest of my troops put their boots on and tiptoed nervously forward.

Bereft of artillery I decided to use my westerly StuG to drop some smoke on the state farm only to discover that he didn't have any.  With that my troops in the west decided to hide out in the woods and await events.  Events were indeed coming.  Perhaps a little buoyed by my early success I decided that I had enough squads to take down the lighthouse and diverted a goodly number of my troops to approaching the state farm from the south.  I also sent the bulk of my turn two reinforcements in that direction as well.  

End of Romanian turn 1

In response to this less than blitzlike Romanian advance Dave sheltered beneath concealment counters and waited for his chance.  He did reveal his 50mm mortar up on the hill which tried unsuccessfully to shoot up some infantry in the southeast.  In the next turn this mortar would gain three critical hits in a row but fortunately without inflicting much harm on my troops.  Hoping to keep the bulk of my forces intact I hastened slowly easing from cover to cover and trying not to give Dave any good shots.  In the west my 60mm mortar started dropping a rain of largely ineffectual fire onto the only one of the state farm defenders it could reach.

By the end of the second Romanian turn I was starting to wonder whether I had been as clever as I thought.  It was true that a vast tide of dark green was oozing molasses like towards Dave's positions but I could already see that an unholy traffic jam was going to develop on the south side of the state farm while events would soon show that I had not given the lighthouse boys quite the force necessary to do the job.  Still I wasn't too bothered, after all I had a StuG to help them forward, surely that would be sufficient.

Dave was still working on the "discretion is the better part of valour" theory so apart from his mortar going on a maniacal (but largely ineffective) rate tear the only real action of his turn was bringing on his tanks (tanks, plural?).  These rolled forward and after a little indecision Dave decided to commit them both to supporting his troops in the lighthouse.  His sniper, seeing that the mortar was having little effect jumped on one of the squads that had shrugged off a critical hit and broke it anyway.  Some days it doesn't pay to be Romanian.

By the end of turn three things were (in my rose tinted opinion) looking good.  Not only had I casualty reduced another of his lighthouse defenders but I had taken the survivors prisoner.  These in a gross violation of the Geneva Convention would be herded forward in front of their captors and would die in a hail of bullets meant for Romanians.

Up at the state farm all was deceptively quiet as I tried to get my unwieldy assault force properly placed in such cover as existed and my 60mm mortar contributed to the depletion of Romanian ammunition stocks without much result.  His 50mm mortar continued to be the standout weapon on his side (to be fair it was pretty much the only weapon he was currently using) breaking another Romanian squad to replaced the ones sniped who had just rallied.

It's been relatively quiet so far but the bloodbath is not long delayed

Down at the lighthouse Dave managed to bog one of his tanks on the beach trying to sneak around behind my forces but sadly extricated himself the next turn.  I had pushed a halfsquad plus some prisoners forward on a "fact finding mission".  The prisoners died but a snake eyes on their morale check sent the halfsquad berserk, right next to a trench full of an elite Soviet squad.  For reasons I can't begin to explain I sent another squad and an 8-0 leader up onto the hill beside the berserkers where they were promptly monstered by the other of Dave's tanks.  Retreating forward they wound up in the same hex as the berserkers and in Dave's next turn they would be broken while my berserkers stood proudly alone.

Things were starting to happen at the state farm too.  I had finally gathered a large proportion of my force within shouting distance of the required buildings and I sent a squad forward (sacrificial halfsquads being a little thin on the ground) to strip some concealment.  This wasn't successful but I did identify one of his fortified building locations.  My 60mm mortar finally came up trumps scoring a critical hit against his troops in one of the state farm buildings, casualty reducing it and breaking the survivors.  Unfortunately its on the other side of the farm from where my forces were massing still it was a good morale fillip.

Which was necessary because at the lighthouse things took a turn for the worse.  I had brought my StuG forward to provide much needed fire support for my infantry and Dave cheerfully drove one of his stuarts right around behind it.  I swung the StuG around and fired to no avail.  Dave continued to roll happily past at a range of about six inches so I intensive fired the gun.  Intensive fire tends to work when people use it on me.  I have a long history of rolling boxcars when I try it and thus it was on this occasion.  Suddenly my only armour support in the vicinity was following the example of the artillerymen and going home.  Which left me with a not particularly impressive force facing at least equal numbers of Soviets hiding in trenches and a stone lighthouse.  Things do not look terribly hopeful.

End of Soviet turn 4

That's where we left it for the night.  When we recommence it will be Romanian turn 5 and time is definitely starting to run out.  I also need to have a quick chat with Dave about the fact that he seems to have 100% more tanks than allocated to him by the scenario card.

Killing Nemo

 I was engaged in a thoroughly innocent and blameless activity that did not at all involve bloodstained altars and polished human skulls when I received a priority message from my tech support.  Pausing only to mop the worst of the evidence off my face and hands I opened the link so their visual surveillance of me was official rather than surreptitious.

"What can I do for you guys?" I asked, a little nervously it has to be admitted.

"Are you busy?" they asked, "we can wait until you've finished whatever the hell it is you're doing."

"Just killing time," I assured them.  Not strictly accurate but time was certainly one of things I was killing.

 "Fine, we need you to do something about your Tasmanian correspondent."

 "Why me?" I groaned.  "You're the ones with the space based particle weapons.  What's she getting up to now?"

"We have it on good authority that she's planning to buy more goldfish."

This was certainly terrible news for the goldfish species.  My Tasmanian correspondent was the piscine equivalent of the grim reaper.  At one point she was flushing so many dead goldfish down the toilet it almost blocked Tasmania's entire sewage system to say nothing of making the place look like a temple for some dark goldfish sacrifice obssessed god (don't laugh, there is such a god.  I can give you a link to his facebook page if you like but its pretty boring).  What I didn't understand why my tech support was so concerned.

"Fish stocks around the world are dangerously depleted," they explained.

"Because of you."

"Yes, but she's not helping, besides the people of Belarus love goldfish."

"Really, as pets?"

"No, as added protein.  Can you ask her to stop?"

"I can ask her whatever you like," I sighed, "OK, I'll have a word with her.  In the meantime can you get back to sorting out this entire coronavirus mess?"

"How often do we have to apologise for that?"

"Let's start with once."

I severed the connection and put into a call to my Tasmanian correspondent.  She greeted me with suspicious expectation.

"That pack of fifth rate cyber criminals told you about the goldfish didn't they?"

Which at least helped me broach the subject delicately.  I had to admit that I was a little surprised that she was getting back into the goldfish rearing game.  After the last series of fatalities she seemed to have acknowledged that the writing was on the wall and that the writing had been executed in goldfish blood.

Things, however had changed.  As I mentioned in this blog some time ago she had taken over the "care" of a bunch of large goldfish from a friend who was travelling interstate.  They were kept outside in a bathtub as part of an aquaculture feature.  She got eight of them several months ago and her care has been so diligent that there are still seven left.  What happened to the eighth is unknown but there was a large bird hovering around her home whose actions were of interest.  Sadly an interrogation will be impossible because the bird in question rapidly met canine vengeance which at least gave my correspondent something different to flush down the toilet.

Still, the unexpected survival of a significant number of fish has so encouraged my correspondent that she is intending to purchase more and place them in a tank in her office.  Nothing I could say would dissuade her from purchasing more goldfish at the earliest opportunity.  Shamelessly she played the children card; her daughters were excited about getting goldfish and were eagerly awaiting the opportunity to select the next victims.  I had to agree that it was good to get children familiar with the penultimate stage of the circle of life at as early an age as possible.  By the time these kids leave home they'll be convinced that the lifespan of a goldfish is fifteen minutes at best.

The only concession I could get her to make to address the concerns of my tech support was a promise that after their inevitable death rather than flush them down the toilet she would send them in a food parcel to Belarus.  To sweeten the pot she offered to throw in some home made tartar sauce as well.

Plague Update #33 - No Unicycles but Sex is Still OK

 The streets of Melbourne are empty and the only sound to be heard is the hysterical weeping of a million parents as they realise that they have to spend even more time with their children.  The weeping of the children would be louder but they slid into catatonia some time ago.  Melbourne is under curfew, grim faced military personnel are knocking on doors to make sure the disease ridden are staying at home and my plague correspondent's husband can no longer ride his unicycle to the shops.

To be fair its a sort of off/on curfew.  You're allowed out during the daylight as long as you have a legitimate reason.  Legitimate reasons include shopping, exercise and sex.  At night everybody is locked down and you just have to have sex with whoever is available in your own home.  It would seem that the coronavirus only travels at night.

Nursing homes are still the epicentre of the latest outbreak with the elderly dead being carried out in droves.  Given that nursing homes are essentially storage facilities for the feeble and failing and are run by people whose principal interest is making a profit out of the entire enterprise I'm a little surprised there were any living people in the places before the virus struck.  Politicians (largely those in opposition) have made dark mutterings about investigations into some of these homes.  Those politicians in power have been trying to soft pedal a bit for a very simple reason.  The more private nursing homes there are the less the government has to support the elderly and the near dead.  If it is revealed that our private nursing homes are ill run hell holes some of them might be driven out of business (or at least forced to rebrand) which would immediately place pressure on the government to pick up the slack.  Therefore the government is desperately trying not to discover that private nursing homes are ill run hell holes.

In my slightly less infected neck of the woods we appear to be teetering on the edge of disaster without (so far) quite tipping over.  New cases are in the low teens daily as opposed to Victoria where they're in the middle hundreds.  Adding credence to the "coronavirus only travels at night" theory most of the new cases seem to be connected with people on pub crawls.  Personally I don't see why you can't do a pub crawl during the day but there are still some people who think that 10am is a little early to be starting on your third vodka and tonic.  Among those people is my stuffed puffin who has taken to hiding all the alcohol in my flat in the hopes that I might still be sober at midday.  Frankly I think that's a bad idea, if he ever gets to encounter my real personality he's going to be sorely disappointed and possibly deeply terrified.

Still there is some amusement to be gained.  There is a court case going on over in Western Australia challenging the legality of their border closure.  This case was brought by a, well let's call him a businessman since a phrase like "bloated criminal" might be misinterpreted, who was greatly wrath that border closures actually applied to him as well.  At the time the Federal government eagerly joined in this case since it was annoyed that Western Australia had implemented these measures when it was hoping to get through this without having to go too far.  Since then Victoria has exploded, every state is locking off every other state and the government has realised that supporting a morally dubious blow hard isn't exactly a public relations success story.  The government is belatedly trying to extricate itself from the entire mess and is now backpedalling so fast its falling over itself coming forward.

Desperate for some good news I contacted this blog's silver linings reporter to see if she could provide a ray of sunlight in the gathering gloom.  It has to be said she came up trumps.

"Tasmania's economy is now the strongest in Australia," she announced in tones of mingled smugness and astonishment.

"Say that again?"

She repeated herself and I got her to go through it one more time just to make sure I was hearing her correctly.  There are two principal reasons for Tasmania's near miraculous elevation to the top of Australia's economic heap.  Firstly when the bulk of your economy relies on welfare payments the collapse of the overall economy isn't going to have as much effect on you as it might in an area that used to have jobs.  The second reason is the quarantine.  Tasmania still isn't letting anyone from outside into the state and furthermore most of the other states have similar strictures in place.  Up until this time the first thing any Tasmanian who acquired some money did was leave Tasmania.  Now more or less imprisoned on their little isle they are, with varying degrees of reluctance, holidaying locally and pumping some money into their state's economy.  As long as the mainland mortality rates remain high Tasmania will continue to experience a boomtime.

I congratulated my correspondent on her state's unexpected achievement but she didn't seem as pleased with it as I thought she might.  On closer interrogation it turns out with all of the Tasmanians holidaying at home it was getting increasingly difficult for her to book space at camping grounds.  There was a very real danger that her children might have to spend much of the Spring and Summer months under a solid roof rather than a tent.  In the background I could hear her children celebrating immoderately.

Silly After Action Report - Pynda Avenged

A large body of Greek soldiers made their way cautiously up to the outskirts of the village.  They were primed, ready and remarkably well equipped; some of them had shoes.  Captain Constantine Apatosoros stared at the village with a grim, fixed expression.

"Today," he muttered, more to himself than to his soldiers who had long ago learnt not to listen, "today Pynda will be avenged.  Today we humble the swine from Rome."

A corporal too close to earshot to plead deafness nodded encouragingly.

"Absolutely sir, we'll avenge the crap out of Pynda but first there is the little matter of the foxhole directly in front of us."

"A foxhole?  I spit on foxholes!  Send some troops to clear it out."

"Yes sir," replied the corporal mentally reviewing which of the men in the command he disliked the most.

From somewhere a whistle blew and a crackle of firing broke out all along the line. The corporal grabbed the most convenient soldiers and jerked a thumb.

"Oi you lot, foxhole."

The nearest soldier rolled his eyes,

"Look, who the hell is Pynda anyway?"

"His sister, she had her camera pinched on a Contiki tour of Rome.  He's never really got over it."

Mike Sexton wanted to play WO29 - Pynda Avenged and since it meant I got to command the Italians I happily agreed.  Having made an absolute pigs breakfast of the relatively simple task of invading Greece the Italians are now reaping the whirlwind as the Greeks come storming back to retrieve the approximately six square feet of Greek soil currently under the yoke of Rome.  I command a bunch of Italians from the Ferrara infantry division who aren't so much defending as simply unable to get out of the way in time.  The Italians are sitting in a small village and the Greeks want it back.  To win Mike needs to control more buildings within four hexes of what appears to be an arbitrarily defined point in the middle of the village.

To temporarily stave off the inevitable I have a distinctly seedy bunch of Italian troops lurking in buildings, woods and the two foxholes which is all they could apparently be bothered digging.  I have thirteen first line squads, a pair of half squads all "guided" by three officers the best of which is an 8-1.  Support weapons consist of a single medium machine gun, a single light machine gun and a 45mm mortar.  The 45mm mortar is the infantry equivalent of the L3 tank.  It's small, its useless and it turns up everywhere.

Steaming forward to seize the village Mike has fourteen squads of first line Greeks (ie much better than their Italian equivalents) led by a trio of officers headed by a 9-1.  In support are four light machine guns and one medium.

The first problem that the Italians have (apart from crap troops, lousy leaders, unreliable support weapons and an idiotic high command) is that there are a lot of places for the Greeks to set up and the Italians don't really have the troops to cover them all.  Naturally I popped the 8-1 leader, the mmg and a half squad into the church steeple so I had some view of the approaches.  I set up the bulk of my forces to cover an approach from the east while popping a couple of disposal units (and I just described the entire Italian OB) to the north in case Mike brought troops on in that direction.  The plan, insofar as there was one was that if Mike attacked from the east stern resistance was the order of the day.  If he attacked from the north I would reposition my troops to hopefully slow him down.

Mike attacked from the north and northeast which promptly put a lot of my force out of position.  Fortunately a single squad lurking in a foxhole would cover itself in glory.

End of Greek turn 1

Mike came on hard from the north edge (bottom) with two battlegroups each one charging for one of the two squads desperately showing the Italian flag (white).  In the northeast he deployed a couple of squads and sent the resulting halfsquads forward on a concealment busting mission while a squad and mmg sat under opportunity fire waiting for his chance.  Mike's results were mixed.  At pointblank range in the open its difficult for even the Italians to miss and a couple of halfsquads broke and one actually died under a withering hail of 6.5mm rounds.  To show his displeasure Mike's sniper put a bullet in the shoulder of an 8-0 hiding in the trees to rally the inevitable broken units.  The result was that the broken units were better off trying to rally themselves.  On the far right of the board a single Italian squad proved unable to stand up to Greek advancing fire but closer to the centre it was a different story.  Here lay Mike's nemesis, a single 346 squad in a foxhole.  No, I don't quite believe it either.

Mike sent a pair of (admittedly CXed) squads up against these heroes and my boys survived the ensuing CC.  A melee would rage which I would win without fighting (inspired by Sun Tzu or possibly Sabaton).  Two other melees marked the limits of Mike's advance.

All of which gave me just enough time to scramble some out of place troops through the rear areas and over to the right where a bunch of Greek squads were gobbling up territory.

End of Greek turn 2

It has to be admitted that while my troops were only so-so when it came to rifle fire they definitely stood up in close combat.  I'm not sure if I inflicted too many casualties on him but they tied down Greek troops for far longer than I had any right to expect.  In the crucial foxhole my guys inflicted absolutely no casualties on the attackers, they settled for hiding at the bottom of the foxhole and praying while I swept the hilltop with mmg fire.  It took a couple of turns but both Greek squads broke and by some miracle my guy didn't.  This was major as it took out a pair of Greek squads and turned what should have been a wall of Greek attackers into two widely separated and disjointed attacks.

Which was good because Disjointed Attack A (on the left) was getting up to steam.  A combination of firepower and close combat took out a pair of Italian squads and the wounded 8-0 died an unlamented death without contributing anything to the fighting apart from taking a sniper's bullet that could have hit somebody useful.  Mike reinforced the remaining close combat and eventually won the day freeing up more troops to add to his push.  I had managed to move unemployed squads over to the right to give a cheery welcome to his flankers as the pushed out of the woods and I reinforced the church as well.  The church building was worth double points and I absolutely could not let it fall.

End of Italian turn 2

In a wooded hill on the left my halfsquad with the mortar sat in secluded impotence waiting to see if Mike would wander into a woods hex before he decided to take out the annoying question mark and to my delight he did.  A halfsquad pushed forward from Mike's recently captured buildings and stepped boldly into the woods whereupon the much maligned 45mm had its moment of glory breaking the cocky interloper.  Mike killed to halfsquad manning the mortar immediately afterwards but I had already gained more of a result from it than I expected.  I surrendered a little territory (and a couple of victory buildings) on the right in return for maintaining a solid and largely concealed front while Mike got his troops lined up for his final push. To add insult to injury he captured my mortar and started peppering the church with mortar rounds which fortunately did as little harm to me as they would have to him if the situation was reversed.

End of Italian turn 3.  Mike is battered but pushing forward.  I'm hiding behind stone.

Mike charged a halfsquad towards the church, perhaps a turn too early as the remainder of his force wasn't in position but I wasn't able to kill it and a melee raged in one corner of the church.  Meanwhile a rally attempt had battle hardened one of his squads to a 458 (because the Italians weren't outclassed enough).  On the right my troops cowered under their concealment counters and disdained to return the fire Mike's flankers were throwing at them.  This plus some judicious skulking allowed  me to keep that flank intact as the final turns approached although he did manage to strip my concealment.

Things are starting to get dicey

Which was useful as Mike was throwing everything else he had trying to break into the village on the left.  I traded a squad for a halfsquad in the church to maintain sole ownership but I was running out of troops and had little chance of reinforcement as pretty much everything else was trying to hold off Mike on the right.  Mike broke his (formerly my) mortar which at least freed me from an irritation and I scuttled the steeple dwellers downstairs, being up there now was more of a liability than an advantage.

End of Italian turn 5.  Mike is about to launch his forlorn hope

Mike readied his final charge while I rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic and hoped for the best.  Mike charged his troops forward in the face of  determined Italian fire which is to say we've determined that the Italians were firing.  He managed to swing a couple of, apparently bullet proof, squads around the outsides of the village to target a couple of buildings in the rear but his main force was crushed in the streets and with no chance of seizing the necessary buildings Mike conceded partway through his turn six.

The point at which Mike conceded

It has to be admitted that I was lucky.  My dice were good, not outrageously so but consistently just a little lower than average when I needed them to be, very important when commanding six morale troops.  I passed more morale checks than I deserved, one squad even self rallied which surprised both of us.  Many thanks to Mike for the game.  One more turn would have seen the defence crushed but as it was the Italians live to surrender another day.

Captain Apatasoros stared at the suddenly unobtainable village with a face like thunder.  Standing at what they hoped was a safe distance his men waited for the storm to break.  One of them nudged the corporal,

"Do something," he whispered hoarsely, "he's going to blame us for this mess." 

The corporal looked around wildly then a sudden smile spread over his face.  Reaching into his uniform he produced a camera and approached the captain.

"Sir we recovered this from the body of one of the Italian soldiers."

Captain Apatosoros snatched the camera, tears of happiness rolling down his cheeks.

"Oh little Pynda, see what your big brother has found."

As the captain skipped away singing a happy song one of the soldiers stared at the corporal.

"Where did you get that camera?"

"Pinched it off some Italian chick while she was on a Contiki tour of Athens."