Silly After Action Report - Mohnke Business

 Two shabby German soldiers crouched in a pit they had scraped out of the rubble and stared suspiciously across the broad width of the Spree River.  A sound behind them made them whirl round raising their hands automatically.  To their surprise they saw an immaculately uniformed SS soldier holding a map with a hopeful expression on his face.

"Excuse me," asked this recruiting poster come to life in oddly accented German. "Do you guys know where I can find the SS Nordland division?  I've just got back from leave in Denmark and I'm having difficulty finding my way around."

"You were on leave in Denmark and you decided to come back to Berlin?" asked one of the soldiers in tones of disbelief.

"Yes, I should have been back yesterday but the traffic was murder.  I'm trying to find my command post."

"Fine, just go down this length of rubble, turn right at the rubble then straight on through the rubble, take the second rubble on the left and keep going until you reach the big pile of rubble."

"That's my command post?"

"No, its the tourist bureau.  Maybe they can help you out.  Buy a postcard, the city's economy needs the boost."

"What's on the postcards?"

"Mainly rubble."

Dave Wilson suggested we try scenario BRV 10 - Mohnke Business extracted from the Berlin - Red Vengeance campaign game without benefit of anaesthetic.  Here I shall take command of a somewhat eclectic group of defenders (Scandinavians from the Nordland division and some rather unenthusiastic locals) as they fight grimly to ensure that approximately three city blocks of downtown Berlin remains German.  My troops are hunkered down behind the Spree River and have erected do not disturb signs on the three remaining bridges.  To the north of the river is a decent percentage of the Soviet army clutching a red banner.  They either want to raise this banner over the Reichstag or get jobs as extras in a Sabaton video.

The game will be decided by Victory Points.  The Soviets need to get 1.5 times as many VPs as the Germans.  They gain points for every unit south of the Spree and they also get points for captured buildings.  If they manage to plant that red banner on the roof of the Reichstag they win automatically.  The Germans get VPs by killing Soviets.

My defence force consists of eighteen elite SS squads and eight second line definitely not SS squads.  These guys have two heavy machine guns, four medium machine guns, six light machine guns, three demolition charges, two panzerschreks and a partridge in a pear tree.  Sorry, I mean 88mm AA gun.  They are led by five officers and lurking in the background is a Nazi party official who functions as a Commissar to "encourage" laggards back into the fight.  In addition to the infantry three Panther tanks have been dug into the more friable bits of Berlin leaving just their turrets pointing at the enemy.  Five trenches, four wire counters and three barricades (bridges; for the blocking of) round out my at start force.  On the second turn a single armoured car turns up to assist.  Possibly of more assistance are the two King Tiger tanks that arrive on turn five assuming they can siphon enough fuel from wrecked vehicles to turn their engines over.  I also get to fortify a couple of building locations.

Leading the charge for the 3rd Shock Army Dave has six squads of assault engineers, ten squads of elite infantry and fourteen squads of first line infantry all urged along by six officers led by an awesome 10-2.  These heroes of the Soviet Union have two heavy machine guns, four medium machine guns, four light machine guns, a trio of demolition charges, two flamethrowers, three 50mm mortars and the aforementioned red banner.  This banner bestows fanaticism on any unit carrying it but does make it a little difficult to conceal.  A hidden radio connects Dave's troops to a battery of 120mm artillery.  Contributing the "crash or crash through" component of Dave's force are eight armoured vehicles; a pair of T34/85s, an IS2 heavy tank, a pair of the even more impressive IS2M tanks, three SU122 self propelled guns and in a classic case of overkill an OT-34 carrying both a 76mm gun and a vehicle mounted flamethrower.  In case that wasn't enough he gets another pair of IS2s on turn three (it wasn't my fault that Dave forgot about them until turn four).

Here's the problem.  The bridges are the only way to cross the river so Dave's attack has to be directed towards one or all of them.  That's the problem for Dave.  The problem for me is that the bridges are widely spaced which means that my defence also has to be widely spaced if I don't want Soviet troops running around behind me (for the record, I don't).

I set up three separate defence groups, one for each bridge. In the Reichstag I fortified a building hex and placed the 88mm in their facing out towards the Spree.  I also loaded the Reichstag up with my best officers and a fair amount of firepower.  Losing this building was an automatic defeat so holding it was a priority.  I placed a barricade at the end of each bridge and strung some wire around.  Over on the left I had somewhat subsidiary but still powerful forces covering the other two bridges. 

My at start set up

Dave decided bugger subtlety, and simply looked at the bridge closest to the Reichstag and threw his forces at that.  He did have some troops to occupy the attention of my other defenders.  He needn't have worried too much.  There was so much open ground that the likelihood of any of my left hand defenders managing to reinforce the Reichstag were pretty low.

I cringed as I saw the amount of firepower Dave had amassed but there was one comfort.  Until he had battered or blasted his way through the barricade they weren't getting far.  Dave started proceedings by contacting his artillery (red chits, what are they?) but his spotting round landed some distance from where he wanted it (although it did scare the crap out of one of my dug in Panthers).  Then having plastered the bridge approaches with smoke he moved forward.  

It has to be said things did not go his way.  His kill stack of two squads, two hmgs and the 10-2 leader was shot up by my kill stack in the Reichstag and both squads fled for the rear with the 10-2 following screaming obscenities.  Attempting to cross the open ground to the bridge cost him another squad and a half including one carrying a flamethrower which lay unloved in the street.  Dave rolled his flamethrowing tank forward to protect it.  At the centre bridge a critical hit on a panther turret had seen the thing go up in flames without firing a shot but attempts by his infantry to get across the bridge fell to German musketry (or, more accurately; German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and occasional French musketry).  On the far left Dave only had token forces backed by a single T34/85 tank.  Faced with a barricade and a strong defence force there was a tacit agreement that we would leave each other alone unless and until the tank managed to blow up the barricade.

End of Soviet turn 1.

In my turn Dave corrected his spotting round and brought down his FFE unfortunately it drifted by a small but significant margin and his artillery just wound up tearing up the already lacerated soil of Berlin.  I for my part was content to hide behind walls and concealment counters for as it turned out very good reasons.  Although Dave and I had command of some impressively elite forces experience showed that neither of them was particularly keen on passing morale checks.  This was frustrating for me but more so for Dave who was attempting to move forward under heavy fire.

To attempt to smooth his path Dave sprayed even more smoke about the place but while his troops could get on to at least two of the bridges (over on the left he settled for banging away at the barricade from a distance) all they could do was claw feebly at the barricades with their fingernails.  Meanwhile my 88 scored its first kill of the day frying a SU-122 in a building, the subsequent billows of smoke causing Dave more problems when trying to set up an effective kill stack.

The defence is holding

 Two turns in and I was mildly cockahoop.  So far Dave's attack had got nowhere and the occasional squad break notwithstanding my boys were holding all along the line.  I dealt with my success in a restrained and civilised manner, any comments from Dave to the contrary are filthy lies.  Having given the dirt of Berlin a vigorous pounding Dave's next artillery mission was bang on target raining down fire on the Reichstag, rubbling a rooftop (which fortunately didn't drop through to the floor below) but my units safely tucked into fortified locations laughed at the 120mm shells dropping all around although the laughter may have got a little strained at times.  If nothing else the artillery meant an extra +1 for my troops shooting out of it.  Incidentally on the next picture you'll see a lot of Kilroy markers, this is because we couldn't figure out how to get rid of the FFE overlay.  We worked it out eventually.

 Dave's formidable IS-2M broke its MA and I must admit I was delighted.  Little did I know this was what Dave was waiting for, he may have even rolled that boxcars deliberately.  In the next turn the toothless beast rolled forward, its armour sneering at even attempts by my 88 to scratch the paint. Over the bridge it moved and slammed headfirst into the barricade.  Pretty soon there was an IS-2M shaped hole in the barricade and a detachment of infantry that had been waiting amongst the smoke for this opportunity moved forward. What with all of the smoke I didn't bother firing at them and slunk away except for one DC toting half squad which cringed under a concealment counter and hoped for the best.  Staring straight down the road at Dave's recently victorious tank was a dug in Panther which did its best under the circumstances and shocked the IS-2.

 

Over on the far left and unexpected critical hit had evaporated the barricade there as well but Dave didn't really have the troops to exploit it.  Still two barricades were now gone and near the Reichstag Dave was doing his best to exploit the hell out of the breach.  His flamethrowing tank followed where its hulking brother led and then for reasons neither Dave nor I can explain wound up parking in front of my 88.  In the next turn I would brutally punish such presumption.

 

Presumption brutally punished

 Dave's infantry was starting to trickle through the breach and push through the (admittedly thinly defended) buildings between the bridge and the Reichstag.  Perhaps not a danger yet but Dave's troops were queueing up to risk the bridge passage and the trickle threatened to become a flood.  My DC halfsquad covered itself in glory and also blood and tank components.  Dave advanced a squad against them confident of success only to be wiped out in CC.  In the next turn this half squad would carefully glue their demo charge to the back of the IS-2 and blow it up.  After that in a fury Dave threw a pair of squads against it in CC and my halfsquad locked them up in CC for two full turns.  Posthumous iron crosses to the lot of them and free passage for their bodies back to Scandinavia or France assuming the locals let them in.

While Dave mourned his IS-2 it had to be admitted that things were starting to swing in his favour.  He finally managed to take out the last barricade and assault engineers started to pick their way across the smoke shrouded centre bridge.  Fortunately I had an hmg/lmg stack waiting for such a move (well it just happened to be there actually it was supposed to be a last line of defence for the left hand bridge). For a couple of turns I cheerfully shot up his troops as they tried to cross the bridge. 

Meanwhile back at the Reichstag Dave decided to forget about HE artillery strikes (which had so far managed to break one squad, swiftly rallied) and dropped a smoke concentration down onto the building instead.  With my defenders blinded he swiftly reinforced his troops across the bridge and soon was building up a powerful force.  As much to reassure myself as anything else I promised my King Tigers would redress the balance.  I should have kept my mouth shut, that reminded Dave that he had forgotten to bring on his reinforcing IS-2Ms a turn and a half ago.

Frankly I was of the opinion that Dave had quite enough armoured vehicles already.  Despite the heroics of my halfsquad and the 88 my defences were being swarmed.  Things didn't improve when I intensive fired my Panther turret and disabled the gun.  My armoured car had had an unfortunate encounter with a 122mm shell at pointblank range not that it had really contributed to proceedings much up until then.  In the centre Dave rolled an SU-122 across the bridge to give support to his flagging infantry. Unfortunately it got bogged on the wire and stuck there for a while.  Meanwhile a disturbing number of Soviet squads had made it across the bridge near the Reichstag including the halfsquad (formerly a full squad) clutching the precious red banner. 

 

Things are starting to look bad

Just when things looked their bleakest my King Tigers arrived.  Which was fortunate as a critical hit from an IS-2 wiped out my 88mm in the same turn.  I took this calmly and once Dave had coaxed me in off the window ledge I applied myself to the battle.  Unlike the unimaginative lettering system Dave had used to identify his vehicles I christened my Tigers Helga (after the character in 'Allo 'Allo) and Barbara (after a rather attractive Transylvanian German of my acquaintance).  Rolling through the streets of a ruined city CE is risky to say the least but these were possibly the last Tigers available and I didn't plan to save them for a museum.  I sent one up behind my armoured car (which only had seconds to live) and circled the other around behind the SU-122 that was giving the armoured car grief.

Seeing that desperate measures were needed to salvage the situation Dave sent an IS-2 looping around behind Helga (the one behind the armoured car) but I needn't have feared, as the monstrous beast approached Helga spun her sixty tonne bulk around in her own length and smashed it in a gun duel.  The next turn Barbara would crucify the nearby SU-122 thus gaining a measure of revenge for my armoured car.  But this was only the start, with the immediate armour threat averted Barbara rolled around behind the IS-2 that had killed my 88 and took that out too.  Meanwhile Helga guarded the street Dave's troops would have to cross if they wanted to enter the Reichstag.

 There was a brief flurry of activity over on the left.  With the barricade destroyed Dave had managed to stun the panther turret guarding the approaches and rolled his T34/85 forward to capitalise on this apparent advantage.  Whereupon a HIP halfsquad put down their sandwiches, picked up a panzerschreck and incinerated everything within a twenty metre radius including themselves.  At the end there was a burning tank and a panzerschreck sitting alone in a building.  After that the left flank went back to sleep for the remainder of the game. 

And suddenly things are looking better again

 Dave's armour losses weren't really important in the grand scheme of things (it wasn't like the Soviet Union was running out of tanks) but he missed the added punch to help his troops forward because it has to be said these were the most pusillanimous storm troopers you've ever seen.  Admittedly they were trying to get forward against a ferocious defence led by a newly promoted 10-2 and a Nazi party official who managed to swiftly rally any backsliders without killing any of them.  Just to add insult to injury (well injury to injury actually) my sniper who had spent most of the game partying with Fegelein in a cellar stumbled upstairs long enough to shoot Dave's 10-2 in the head before passing out in a pile of bottles.

With casualties mounting and the Reichstag staying defiantly unconquered Dave tried one last trick.  He raced another tank across the centre bridge and pounded down the road heading for the Reichstag.  If he made it Helga would be in danger and what was left of his assault force might be able to get forwards.  Remember what I said about the risks of driving CE through the streets of a ruined city?  A volley of fire from the Reichstag windows terrified the crew of his tank which ground to a halt in an area I had affectionately named "Helga's killing zone"

End game

 

At this point Dave conceded, he had four armoured vehicles left one of which was bogged and at least another of which was doomed.  His troops were cringing in ruined buildings weeping in fear while my principal defences had suffered barely a scratch the occasional 88mm AA gun notwithstanding.  Thanks to Dave for the game.  In fairness it has to be said that Dave could have expected a little more resolution under fire from the troops hand picked to capture the Reichstag.  Especially given that my forces had a nationality mix more appropriate to a UN peacekeeping force than the last desperate defenders of the Reich.

"Well that was surprising." said one of the scruffy German soldiers we met earlier.  "I would have sworn we'd all be on our way to Siberia by now."

"There's always tomorrow," replied his comrade.  "Oh look, there's that crazy Dane again."

The SS man stepped forward his eyes shining.

"That was glorious, a magnificent triumph.  Who says the Reich is doomed?"

"Oh for Christ's sake man, are you serious?" demanded one of the soldiers in exasperation.

"Not really," replied the Dane wearily.  "It's just that sometimes one's life choices turn out to be fucking stupid and then you have to try and make the best of it."

The two soldiers exchanged glances and one of them nodded.

"We've got a set of civilian clothes here, and what's left of the Danish embassy is just down the street."

"Do you honestly think they'll want me back in Denmark?"

"Not as much as they'll want you in Siberia."

"Good point," replied the SS man and started to change.  After he had gone one of the soldiers turned to the other.

"Do you think we might have helped a war criminal escape?"

"It's always possible, I'm Martin Bormann."

"I know, I'm Walter Schellenberg."

Travelling Pathetically - Pocket Suburb Edition

After yesterday's raging success where I walked several kilometres for the occasional glimpse of a derelict waterway I was eagerly seeking a way I could keep this record of achievement intact.  Not difficult you might say but you don't know my usual record of achievement (unless you've been reading my after action reports).  I applied my mighty brain to the subject.  Five minutes later I realised that was a waste of time and watched television.  As I giggled at the antics of the paid buffoons on the screen (I think I was watching the News) the thought suddenly popped into my head "What is the smallest suburb in Sydney?"

Immediately the plan was born.  I would find out this smallest suburb and travel to same and then report what I had seen on the pages of this blog.  I honestly expected it would be somewhere in the heart of the city.  Some little colonial relic with old buildings, cafes and a diverse array of interesting people.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the town of Campbelltown in Sydney's southwest has apparently been shedding minor suburbs like a leper does body parts.

Somewhat to my horror I realised that I had committed myself to travelling to Macarthur (a suburb of Campbelltown) and then striking out for the little known suburb of Englorie Park home of a little over four hundred people.  Englorie Park takes its name from a prominent former resident of the area, a greyhound breeder by the name of Park.  The Englorie aspect is actually a corruption of Euglorie and was named by someone from Condobolin a town some four hundred odd kilometres from Englorie Park.  No attempt has been made to explain this.

Campbelltown, the urban sun of which Englorie Park is the most modest satellite is the major town of southwest Sydney. It is noted as having a great sporting tradition.  As in most similar places "having a great sporting tradition" is code for high unemployment and cases of crimes against property.  Despite this there is apparently a strong community feel to the area (I guess its difficult to stay mad at the guy who stole your car when you play football together).

I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised when I got off the train at Macarthur.  I won't say I actually expected to alight in the middle of a gang war but I didn't necessarily expect it to be pleasant.  And it was pleasant, the station is adjacent to what must be the least benighted and godforsaken shopping mall I've ever encountered, Macarthur Square.  The pleasantness of the shopping precinct surprised me.  Surprise turned to astonishment when a sign informed me that the owners were an Australian property development company most famous for creating buildings of stupefying ugliness.

Macarthur Square is the preeminent shopping centre (it really deserves the term precinct) in the region and a good part of Englorie Park's reputation as a "desirable" part of Campbelltown can be explained by the suburb's proximity to the shopping centre.  In fact the only complaint I have about the shopping centre is it took a fair amount of time to get through it onto the road that would lead me to Englorie Park.

It would be more accurate to say that the road led me in the general direction of Englorie Park. Getting there was a little more problematic, I had to go down a side road, through what appeared to be some natural bushland, across a creek, under a road, past a football field, up another road to get back onto the road I had been on originally and then I had to nip up a path behind a bus stop.  The road itself ran right past the suburb but didn't go in.

Here's the thing.  Englorie Park is one of those suburbs that presents a solid ring of houses to the outside world.  A single road (on the other side of the suburb) provides access, circles around the houses on the inside and meets up with itself.  If you're driving this is the only way of accessing the entire suburb.  On foot as I was there are a couple more options such as the path I mentioned.

Having circumnavigated half the suburb I finally stumbled gasping into its very heart and gazed around to see what the place had to offer.  Since the entire suburb is only eleven hectares in size the answer is not very much.  The Campbelltown city website extols the reserve, which seems to take up about half of the available space, in terms of almost gushing enthusiasm.  I have to admit that if you like grass well, there definitely is some.

In fairness there is nothing wrong with the reserve.  There is grass, the occasional tree and a nice view down to the aforementioned bushland and football field.  However I don't think it's going to make Forbes top 500 reserves any time soon.  In terms of amenities the suburb has precisely one; a childcare centre for the benefit of those parents for whom abandoning their children in a reserve is just a little too blatant.  The centre is actually based in Mr Park's old house which is heritage listed and probably quite nice but there were trees in the way and you don't want to be caught peering into a childcare centre if you aren't actually a parent so I passed it by with only a cursory glance.

With that unless I actually wanted to bang on people's doors and demand access (I didn't) there was nothing more that Englorie Park could show me.  I think it took me half an hour to walk through the suburb and ten minutes of that was spent trying to find a way back in when I inadvertantly wandered out into neighbouring Glen Alpine. 

Travelling Pathetically - Poisonous Waterways Edition

Isn't it amazing how rapidly one's options narrow?  Normally when I take some leave I like to travel.  Unfortunately at the moment a trip to my letter box seems like an expedition.  With a few days to spare I decided to see what the city of Sydney could offer me that didn't involve being around loads of people.  Hanging out at an oversized poisonous drain seemed like the perfect choice.

I've mentioned the Alexandra Canal before in this blog.  It was dug late in the nineteenth century, messing up a perfectly functional creek in the process.  It was intended to allow ships to make their way to the factories and warehouses of Alexandria.  That's the official story anyway, in actual fact it was never really a success (too shallow and too sandy) and the only real benefits it produced were a certain amount of employment (there was a recession happening at the time) and to facilitate the dumping of toxic waste by the aforementioned factories and warehouses.  

Eventually such shipping as did use the canal petered out and it became a largely forgotten stretch of somewhat noxious water hidden from public view by all of the industries that lined its banks.  A few decades ago our state government decided that the canal should be cleaned up and transformed into a glittering waterfront showcase with fine shops, restaurants and all of the urban renewal bells and whistles.  At which point the Department of the Environment stepped in and pointed out that the canal bed was so toxic that even breaking the surface of the water was liable to create an environmental disaster.  Some things are just so polluted that the only sensible thing you can do is leave them alone and hope for the best.  Somewhat to my surprise the state government did precisely that and the canal remains a largely forgotten stretch of somewhat noxious water.

For reasons I can't begin to explain I've long wanted to take a look at this ribbon of liquid death so fearsome that it could even scare our state government into making a sensible decision.  Now, due to a complete absence of other options I got my chance.  I did a little research (I looked it up on google maps) and found that the creek which flowed into the canal was convenient to Green Square railway station.  I decided I would go along to Green Square, find the creek and follow it to the canal.  Then I would walk down said canal until it came to its junction with the Cooks River (another poisonous waterway) in the general vicinity of Sydney Airport.  If I had done more than a little research I would have known that this was impossible.

Things started well though, I got to Green Square and without getting lost so much as once I found my way to Shea's Creek which flows into the canal.  Unfortunately most of Shea's Creek is now covered over and I didn't so much follow it as use it as a general reference point.  Still I made it to the start of the canal.  The canal might not have been deep enough for ocean going shipping but its certainly broad with a thin fringe of trees that don't quite conceal the various industrial enterprises that still line its banks.  There was a pathway along the side of the canal and I strode along it congratulating myself on my organisational skills.

These congratulations came to an abupt halt shortly afterwards along with the path which petered out and eventually wound up in the carpark of one of the aforementioned businesses, downstream (or downcanal I guess) I could see that other businesses stretched right up to the edge of the canal and that walking alongside it was impossible unless I wanted to risk dogs and security guards.  After some careful thought I decided that I didn't.

Still my parents didn't raise a quitter (which is why I'm still smoking at the age of 51 when I should really know better) and I kept up the hope that possibly just down the canal there would be an opportunity to rejoin the waterline so I strolled down a parallel road instead.  Business after business passed by my eyes and every one of them felt it was important to inform me that trespassing would be treated with the utmost severity and that the canal water was only the second most dangerous thing I would encounter if I dared set foot on their property.

Occasionally a narrow pathway would lead down to the canal giving me the opportunity to admire the warning signs that proliferated at the water's edge.  The signs pointed out that the canal was highly toxic and that fishing, disturbing the sediment or even breathing heavily in the general vicinity were to be avoided at all costs.  Strangely they didn't say "don't drink the water" possibly they thought that terms like "highly toxic" and "contaminated" should be enough of a hint for most people.

By this time I was getting a little discouraged, I was well along the canal's route and had actually seen the canal for about five percent of my journey.  When the road I was walking down ended in a quarry I should really have taken the hint.  Instead I checked my phone and it seemed that if I persevered there would be a walking trail a bit further along.  I persevered and then I persevered some more.  Then the new road that I was walking down ended in a container terminal which at least told me I was getting near the airport.  Something else that told me I was getting near the airport was the plane which passed a couple of hundred feet over my head on its approach path.

Retracing my weary steps I persevered even more.  Basically I was walking down the Princes Highway which is not a particularly aesthetically pleasing environment to be sightseeing in.  Just before Tempe however my patience was rewarded when a side street petered out into a narrow path, walking; for the purposes of.  Suddenly I was in bushland.  I still wasn't at the canal but at least I didn't need to worry about being run over by container lorries.  And if the canal eluded me there was at least some water.  The area was what environmentalists call "wetland" and what a plumber would call "poorly drained"  There was a largely invisible stream and a couple of shallow ponds in which a small handful of birds risked life and beak by fossicking in the sediment despite the warning signs.  I stood on a small bridge and looked at a sign warning against diving and swimming a little superfluously in my opinion since whatever stream existed was doing its best to go unnoticed and diving would involve bouncing off several large rocks.  If you were lucky your unconscious body might inadvertently roll into the stream post impact.

Then I hit a golf range.  There wasn't sufficient room to squeeze an entire golf course into the strip of land between where I was standing and the canal but they had stuffed in what they could.  I skirted the range and there it was; the object of my desires, the Alexandra canal in all its toxic glory.  Feeling triumphant I strolled through a pleasant park with the canal on my left and felt slightly silly when it connected with the Cooks River about five minutes further on.  I had managed to walk from one end of the canal to the other a distance of approximately four and a half kilometres and I had seen the canal for perhaps a couple of hundred metres of that.  All the rest of the time I had been seeing traffic, container terminals and industrial sites.  Ironically given the condition of the canal a lot of them seem involved in waste disposal and recycling.

Birthday Greetings #82

 Some days are worse than others.  For the Roman empire the 31st of August was a bit of a downer since it marks the birth of not one but two of their least edifying emperors.  Each of them had their own interesting "quirks" and both of them seemed to exist largely to point out why hereditary succession is not necessarily the best way to run an empire or, for that matter, a family.  But which to choose?  After careful consideration I decided to go with the one who appeared to be genuinely deranged as opposed to merely stupid, self indulgent and vicious.

So with that as an intro, happy birthday to Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus more commonly known to posterity as Caligula.  Caligula was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty that (in the person of Augustus) actually created the empire on the ashes of the old republic.  With Order 66 implemented Augustus could look forward to a long reign for himself and his descendants.  The only difficulty turned out to be a depressing shortage of descendants.  Augustus adopted his step-son, Tiberius, to maintain a facade of family descent and by the time Tiberius turned his face to the wall the only immediate member of his family that he hadn't done away with was his nephew, our boy Caligula.  Tiberius intended Caligula to rule jointly with his grandson Gemellus however Caligula persuaded the Senate that Gemellus should be cut out of the will on the grounds that he was insane.  In light of what was to come that was ironic to say the least.

At this point it has to be admitted that we don't actually know a lot about the reign of Caligula.  Most of the histories written about him are lost to us and apart from the occasional snippet the only accounts of his reign come from the authors Cassius Dio and Suetonius.  Suetonius is probably the more reliable since his account was written only eighty years after Caligula's death and he's therefore the closest thing we have to an eyewitness.  What we do know about Caligula is all of the batshit crazy stuff he (allegedly) got up to in the few years between taking the throne and getting murdered by the Praetorian Guard.

It's fair to say that Caligula can't have been particularly popular.  At least he can't have been popular with the sort of people who could make their slander last through eternity.  The histories of Suetonius and Cassius Dio both tell us that Caligula was a sadistic, irrational, sexual deviant with a god complex.  He'd probably make a great reality TV star.  There are the famous stories; the horse as consul, seducing his own sisters, setting up a statue of himself in the temple at Jerusalem and ordering the Jews to worship him.  Whether any of this is true or not is unknown.  There is one interesting comment; both our historians agree that Caligula seemed a nice enough guy when he became emperor but shortly into the job he became seriously ill and when he recovered he seemed to have had a complete personality change.

Quite apart from having a gibbering loon as emperor there was a bit of a financial crisis going on and a famine as well.  Caligula either caused these or at least didn't deal with them effectively.  It's entirely possible that he simply wasn't very good at his job.  With genuine doubts about the competence of the emperor (never mind doubts about his mental health) some of the more influential people in the empire started to discreetly explore options.  When he found out Caligula indiscreetly killed them.  Strangely this didn't make the surviving influential people any happier.  The option exploration continued with a certain added urgency.  After the emperor had been hacked into bits there was a definite need to come up with a better reason for assassination than "he couldn't manage inflation" so all of the other stories were added in as well.

Or possibly he really was barking mad and the tales that have come down to us don't even mention the half of it.  I think we can definitely conclude that he was probably both unpleasant and incompetent.  His successor Claudius was widely regarded as an idiot but he was a genial buffer and he lasted for years.  Caligula's predecessor, Tiberius, was a paranoid sociopath who ran the empire by remote control from the Isle of Capri and murdered people all over the place but he was formidably competent and he died at the age of seventy seven.  Caligula didn't see his thirtieth birthday.  That probably tells us as much as we need to know about him.

Plague Update #35

 Terrible news for the city of Melbourne already under lockdown due to the ongoing awkwardness with communicable disease.  For those who do venture outside, appropriately garbed in disinfectant soaked plastic and a jaunty face mask a new threat hovers over their heads, literally in fact.  Melbourne it would appear is under sustained aerial attack from the local magpies.  Decent citizens can't make it to the shops without sharp beaked terrors descending on them from the sky.

The problem is the masks apparently.  It turns out that magpies have their own version of facial recognition software (ie they recognise people) and with everybody wearing a mask the poor confused birds have decided that to be on the safe side they're just going to attack everybody.  To hear the media report it there hasn't been this much terror in the skies since stukas first appeared over Poland.  Those who must brave the increasingly dangerous outdoors apparently have to wear pillows on their heads or have broom equipped escorts.

This leads to two questions; the first is how long will it be before the population of Melbourne gives up on the outdoors entirely and decides to live a completely subterranean life?  Now we see the terrible shortsightedness of our politicians.  If only they had completed building that underground metro system then at least the population would have had somewhere to stretch their legs without having to fear death from above.  For the elderly of course many have embraced an underground existence already, its called burial.

The other question is even more disturbing.  If magpies can recognise faces (and apparently they can) and are only attacking indiscriminately because of the masks that means that prior to the pandemic every magpie attack was deliberate and specifically targeted at the individual involved.  What did these people do to piss off the magpies?  If we identify them and herd them out into the streets to face avian wrath will the magpies be appeased and allow the rest of us to go about our business?  Another question is given our facility for making animals extinct why is it that we don't seem to have been able to get rid of the ones that really annoy us?  Pandas, rhinos, dodos no problem but apparently our talent for genocide seems to fall short of magpies, rats and annoying little yappy dogs that jump all over you.  How difficult can it possibly be to wipe out chihuahuas?

This is more than an academic question.  At some point the magpies and chihuahuas are going to take pity on the remnants of the rhino and whale populations and share their secrets.  Then we're really going to be screwed because if you think magpie attacks are bad just wait until its rhinos and whales swooping down on us from the skies.  Pigeon crap is annoying and unsightly but a rhino is going to bury your car and then swoop on you while you're trying to dig it out.

When a COVID vaccine comes its going to be a very different world.  People will flit from cover to cover while rhinos patrol the skies.  Roofs will collapse under the weight of whales roosting in them and no doubt there will be protests in the streets as various idiots claim that the anti rhino vaccine is a violation of their sovereign rights.  Dark days are coming my friends if only because the rhinos and whales will block out the sun.

Dulwich Hill

 But wait, there is one more light rail station that I didn't somewhat dubiously immortalise on the pages of this blog.  None other than Dulwich Hill itself the start point (or, if you're traveling in the other direction, the endpoint) of the line.  The reason for this shameful oversight is simply that this is where I started so I began the series with the first station I traveled to, Dulwich Grove.  Now a sense of duty and completeness (and not at all because I'm running out of things to write about) compels me to correct this grievous oversight and give Dulwich Hill it's day in the sun.

Unfortunately there's not a lot to say.  Dulwich Hill is the end (or beginning) of the line for the very good reason that less than a hundred metres from the end of the track is a quadruple set of heavy rail lines plunging across its path at right angles.  Dulwich Hill is where the light rail stops unless you want to build an expensive bridge or dig an expensive tunnel.  So far neither of these options have appealed to those in charge.  The station itself clings to the side of a modest cutting, above the station is a small carpark and a stretch of homes and shops.  There isn't another side to the cutting as that location is covered by railway tracks.

The light rail station is about two minutes walk from Dulwich Hill heavy rail station and the one thing they have in common is that neither is particularly convenient to Dulwich Hill.  The suburb's shopping precinct (well, shops) and the bulk of the housing stretch some twenty minutes walk away to the North.  In fact the stations are only just within the boundaries of Dulwich Hill at all.  I live five minutes walk away from them and technically I live in Marrickville.  Not that the stations are particularly convenient to Marrickville either.  What this means is that mostly what surrounds the stations is suburban housing with a handful of shops that have no doubt clustered to take advantage of commuter trade.

If nothing else I certainly picked a good day to find nothing much to write about.  The late Winter sun was shining and the air was almost sort of warmish.  This precursor to spring was heralded by the presence of birds.  Cute little birds with green breasts, dull grey birds with spiky heads plus of course the ubiquitous pigeons which had apparently taken time out from crapping on my balcony to follow me and see what I was up to.  There was even a butterfly looking somewhat lost and no doubt feeling a little foolish when it realised that none of its compatriots had joined it.

Adjoining the station (on the non cutting side) is a skate park.  The local council have taken a part of the desolate wasteland that accompanies all railway lines like remoras on a shark and have converted it to a place where adults can legitimately abandon the more irritating of their children.  There is grass, there are trees and in the middle of this are curved concrete depressions, skating; for the purposes of.  There weren't any kids skateboarding when I wandered through, in fact the kids there seemed to be using every form on non powered wheeled conveyance except a skateboard; scooters, bikes, I'm pretty sure I saw one kid performing aerobatics in a shopping trolley.  While I was there a single girl turned up on a skateboard and paused with a somewhat defeated look on her face.

If rolling over curved concrete isn't your idea of fun fear not, the local council also installed a basketball court.  A measure of how popular basketball is in Dulwich Hill can be gained by the fact that there was a tennis net stretched across it.  Not that anyone was playing tennis either.  The public toilet nearby was a square concrete building with steps on either side just in case anybody felt a burning urge to climb to the top of a toilet block.  From the top you get a panoramic view of the skate park and nearby houses, pretty much what you can see at ground level.

But I was done with the skate park for through the trees and houses I had spotted an expanse of lush open green and headed towards it.  When you get such a broad expanse of greenery in the middle of a city it means only one thing, a golf course.  On the way to the favoured venue for those waiting for death I passed an infants version of the skate park.  It was small, fringed with trees and had a bunch of climbing equipment in the centre.  It was also locked and chained up, despite this there were families and kids playing there, I can only assume they climbed the fence.

 Marrickville Golf Course stretches alongside a wretched channel of stinking poisonous ooze (that's the Cooks River to you).  Fish live in this biological disaster area and if the clean up continues at the present rate will be safe to eat in a few centuries.  Tales of fishermen being dragged to their death by horribly mutated river dwellers are probably exaggerated but you wouldn't catch me out on the water after dark.  Misdirected golf balls which land in the river dissolve before they sink to the bottom.  A couple of property developers have actually built rather handsome housing estates on the banks hoping to attract customers with a desire for riverside living and no sense of smell.

In my meandering along the golf course I looked up and was reassured by the sight of the dilapidated bulk of my own dear home looming above the surrounding houses.  The whole suburb is "in transition" which basically means it is being simultaneously demolished and built over.  Dull, uninspired suburban homes are being replaced by dull uninspired blocks of flats at a startling rate.  A new development is actually being built just a couple of houses down from me.  When its finished the block of flats will completely ruin my view of the block of flats behind it.

Being possessed of neither a set of golf clubs or a skate board (I'm too young for the former and too old for the latter) left me with little to do in the designated recreation spots within easy reach of the light rail station.  Fortunately my apartment is also within easy reach of the light rail station.

Silly After Action Report - Recapturing Ernage

 Oberst Felix von Kummerbund sat at a makeshift desk in the captured French farm house and stared at the map in concern.  The earlier attack had been a mess, orders from above were contradictory and in some cases in defiance of sanity.  The oberst hadn't seen a shambles like this since Poland and now apparently a major general was dropping by to add his two pfennigs worth.  A sudden buzz among the staff officers heralded the newcomer's arrival and von Kummerbund's eyes widened in horror at the heavily bemedalled and terrifyingly familiar figure.  Suddenly everything became clear.

Generalmajor von Kattelrussler strode into the room sucking enthusiastically on the end of his baton his eyes darting everywhere.  He wasn't necessarily looking for anything, his eyes jumped about like a flea on speed at the best of times.  Von Kattelrussler stopped and stared at the empty desk that awaited him.  Beside him a staff Hauptmann looked around in bewilderment.

"I assure you Herr Generalmajor the oberst was here just a moment ago."

Von Kattelrussler slapped his baton down on the desk and jumped at the noise it made.

"Fear not Hauptmann, I shall take over."  He turned to another staff officer, "You, I want a situation report on this desk in thirty seconds."  He pointed at the Hauptmann, "the enemy have tanks so I want every man equipped with a boar spear."

"A what sir?"

"A boar spear, it's like a pig spear but way cooler.  And somebody get a hold of the Luftwaffe and tell them to shoot down that damned stuka, the siren is setting my teeth on edge."

The staff officers stared in disbelief for a second and von Kattelrussler lost patience.

"Sitrep, boar spears, stuka!  Go!"

The officers gave hasty salutes and fled.  Generalmajor von Kattelrussler sat down on the desk and apparently addressed the empty air.

"I do know you're under there Felix."

But there was no response except for a slight sound which a knowledgeable listener might have interpreted as the sound of an oberst in the German army attempting to dig an escape tunnel with his fingernails.

After my previous disasters with the Romanians Dave Wilson and I decided to do something a little more mainstream.  Dave suggested GTF-7, Recapturing Ernage and because I couldn't think of a reason not to I agreed.  After mismanaging their initial attack on the French village of Ernage the Germans now face a combination of Morocccan troops and Renault tanks making a counterattack to reclaim the bits of Ernage currently in German hands. The scenario is ten turns long, presumably to give the slow moving Renaults a fighting chance to actually approach the objectives.

I commanded the Germans and found myself in charge of a reasonably competent but desperately small force.  I had two elite squads and four first line squads equipped with a heavy, medium and light machine gun plus an antitank rifle.  Added muscle was provided by a 75mm infantry gun and a pair of PzII light tanks.  On turn one I would be reinforced by a pair of PzIII medium tanks.  Despite von Kattelrussler's orders a single stuka circled the skies above looking for something convenient to drop its bomb on.

Dave in command of the avenging French  Had a tank heavy force that came in in three waves.  On turn one he gained four squads (two elite and two first line) with an lmg and an antitank rifle.  Accompanying them were three Renault tanks two of which were armed with the stubby 37mm gun and one sporting the not quite as short variant of the same weapon.  On turn two another three elite squads arrived carrying a dismantled medium machine gun and 60mm mortar.  Escorting them were another two Renaults one of which had the slightly longer gun.  Finally on turn three four first line squads and another dismantled mmg turned up accompanied by a further three Renaults.  That was eight tanks in total.  To win Dave had to capture two buildings at the rear of my position in the face of no doubt furious resistance.

The French arrive from offboard giving me the opportunity to set up wherever I liked.  I settled for a small delaying force up front (a singly first line squad and lmg) plus some dummies.  The remainder I set up for a defence of the victory buildings.  The rearmost building was surrounded by a wall and I parked the PzIIs behind it covering the approaches.  The 75mm gun was off to the right with a line of sight to the approaches to said building. I placed some troops in the building itself and the heavy machine gun with my best officer in the somewhat more foward building.  The remaining forces I spread out in a line across his most likely avenue of advance (across the big grainfield on the right).  My plan was essentially to take up time, delay Dave's movement and take advantage of the low speed of his Renaults to run him out of time.

My set up with the lead elements of Dave's force lurking modestly offstage

Things were quiet for the first couple of turns.  Then they were quiet for the next four turns after that.  Dave's turn one troops rolled and marched slowly towards my positions in whatever the opposite of a blitzkrieg is.  Dave kept his Renaults close to his infantry, logical since they both moved at about the same pace and oozed like an aggressive snail towards my forward defenders.  I brought on my two PzIIIs on the left to hopefully hit the flank of his Renaults.  I think I had fanciful ideas of taking out the tanks and then sweeping around behind his reinforcements.  This was a ridiculous notion as circumstances would prove.

End of German turn 1

My upfront defenders did indeed slow Dave down, not because of anything they did (they did nothing) but because Dave approached cautiously.  Unfortunately I rapidly discovered that my troops had an allergy to morale checks, I think they passed one in the entire game (and that time they pinned) with the result of which that he didn't have to attack my forward defenders so much as just move in.  Sadly this would prove a pattern for the rest of the game.

In a fit of unimagination Dave labelled his eight tanks A through H.  I christened my two PzIIIs Ava and Brunhilde.  Tanks A,B & C were helping his initial infantry deal with my forward position while the remainder of Dave's force came on on the right and very slowly made their way to my main line of resistance.  This is pretty much all that happened for the next couple of turns.  With the forward building captured Dave's centre tanks duelled with Ava and Brunnhilde to the frustration of us both.  Collectively we fired off enough metal to build another tank but appeared to be completely incapable of harming each other.

 

Feel free to take a ten minute break, things won't have changed too much when you get back

This impasse hurt me more than Dave, yes it kept three tanks and his first turn infantry tied down in the backfield but the remainder of his force was descending on me like an unstoppable horde, albeit an unstoppable horde crippled with arthritis.  I held back my stuka for the first couple of turns but with five Renaults slowly advancing on my position and a whole bunch of Moroccans blundering through the wheatfields I finally called it in.  I only had one dive bomber and it did everything one could expect of it.  It's bomb blew up a Renault and a subsequent strafing run broke a 7-0 officer.  That might not sound like much but in the context of my achievements for this game it accounts for about 80% of the damage I inflicted.  After much effort Ava did manage to immobilise a Renault but the crew stayed in and kept on pumping 37mm shells in my direction.  Brunhilde proved incapable of harming a fly.

While the most capable of my tanks were having an impotence off with the Renaults the remainder of Dave's force inched painfully towards my position.  There wasn't much I could do about this as I discovered when I tried.  My troops refused to pass PAATCs and when Dave tried to help by driving his tanks into my hexes they proved equally incapable of taking them out in close combat.  Meanwhile Dave's troops followed on the heels of his tanks and killed my defenders in the subsequent melees.

This is actually the high point for me. One Renault burning, another immobilised and his best troops locked in melee.

Dave had cleared away the chaff as it were with plenty of time to spare and now only the two victory buildings and their immediate defenders remained.  Things got worse very, very quickly.  Firstly a Renault gained a possible shock result on Ava, this became a definite shock and then an unconfirmed kill.  Dave had nosed a trio of Renaults right up to the rearmost victory building while his troops assembled weapons in the safety of the woods.  With French tanks literally closed enough to touch one of my PzIIs (I didn't bother giving them names) tried its luck and broke its gun.  Then Brunhilde broke her gun.  Then the 75mm which had just covered itself in adequacy by breaking a squad (one of only two I would break in the entire game) used rate to fire on a Renault and I broke that gun as well.  At this point both Dave and I decided that the dicebot was messing with us big time.

It was turn seven and suddenly I had virtually no weaponry left.  Dave suggested I concede, I agreed that I would if I couldn't repair any of the weapons.  The next turn Ava recovered from the UK and I rolled three ones to repair all of the weapons.  Apparently the dicebot was having a whale of a time.  Somewhat encouraged my 75mm fired on a Renault and actually managed to immobilise it with an HE shell.  I blinked, perhaps I wasn't quite doomed yet.

Actually I was wrong I was definitely doomed.  I still had an hmg directed by a 9-1 under concealment in the forward building along with another squad waiting to unleash when the French infantry tried to move forward.  Instead Dave settled for rolling a series of threes with his mmg team and wiped the position out, stone walls be damned.  At this point I conceded. I had one unbroken squad.  Dave's infantry casualties had consisted of two squads broken (one by sniper) and the 7-0 in the entire game.  I think both of us were a little frustrated by this one.  There was virtually no fighting (unless you count increasingly hysterical attempts by tanks to penetrate each others armour without success).  Since my troops broke every time they took a morale check Dave's job was reduced to simply moving his troops forward.  This he managed to achieve.  With virtually nothing left and two and a half turns to go I acknowledged the inevitable.

Generalmajor von Kattelrussler rubbed his hands together with delight.

"Well done lads, a great triumph."

This was too much for von Kummerbund who gave a slightly unhinged shriek.

"How can you call this a great triumph, we were supposed to stop the French?"

Von Kattelrussler pointed at the village which was crowed with parked Renaults and Moroccan troops looking for souvenir shops.

"They've stopped haven't they?"

"They've got the village!"

"Yes, but they've stopped.  Well done Felix, I'll note your tunneling skills in my report to Corps HQ."

Oberst von Kummerbund didn't reply, he was busy attempting suicide with a boar spear.