Travelling Pathetically - A Spit Bridge too Far Edition

 My Tasmanian correspondent contacted me the other day in a terrible state.  She moaned about her neck, her foot and her children and how collectively they had prevented her from doing what she really enjoyed doing which was abandoning her family and roaming the wilderness like some predator of old.

"I must live vicariously through you," she announced, "and make sure there are photos."

I glanced around at the nylon cord, handcuffs, ball gag and the shackle rings on the wall.  Turning to my puffin I asked.

"Do you think she means..."

"Absolutely not," replied the puffin.

"Bushwalk it is then."

The weather has not been particularly conducive to roaming the outdoors lately.  At least it hasn't been conducive if you've been looking for any excuse to not roam the outdoors.  There was a threat of rain so I put off (with an internal sigh of relief) my bold expeditionary plans to the wilds of suburban Sydney and looked for something a little closer to home.  What I came up with wasn't much closer to home but was probably closer to emergency services should something go wrong.

I decided to walk from the Spit Bridge in Mosman to the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Milson's Point.  This is actually an acknowledged walk that would take me around various headlands, reserves and parks near the edge of Sydney Harbour.  My puffin pointed out that the walk was twenty kilometres.  I indicated that I could handle such a distance.  My puffin pointed out that I get out of breath walking up the street to buy cigarettes.  I stuffed the ball gag back in his beak and terminated the conversation.

It was grey with a threat of rain when I mounted the bus to take me to the Spit Bridge.  Possibly for this reason I had actually remembered to pack the hat to protect my head from the Sun.  It is to this forethought that I attribute the fact that I am not completely dead.  The bus stopped at the Spit Bridge, unfortunately I wasn't on it.  I'm not very familiar with the area with the result that I got off the bus far too soon and the first stage of my journey consisted of trudging down an overused road to actually reach the bridge.  See what I do for you Clare?

A view while wearily trying to reach my start point

Sadly my puffin was right.  My triumphant march to Milson's Point would devolve into a desperate stagger around Mosman.  I literally would not leave that suburb the entire time despite walking for fourteen kilometres.  By the end I thought I was in a high rent Escher painting.

Once down at the Spit Bridge I promptly left it again plunging into the wild.  However this is Mosman so the "wild" turned out to be a road with trees on either side of it.  Slightly downhearted by this I nevertheless plunged on and took my first opportunity to leave the road when a path appeared that offered to take me to Pirrama lighthouse.  I could actually see the lighthouse from the road but I took the path anyway.

By careful use of the camera I can give the impression that I'm in the wilderness

Taking the path turned out to be a great idea.  It literally took thirty seconds to reach the lighthouse (there is a better lighthouse photo later) but the path went on and eventually wound up down at the shore.  A sign announced that there was a walking path to a nearby beach which could be used when the tide was low.  I don't know if the tide was low but there was a distinct amount of water where I would have expected a walking path to be.  Undaunted (because it was still early in my walk) I clambered and occasionally slithered over such rocks as seemed most likely to stay unsubmerged, negotiated somebodies boat ramp and eventually wound up on the beach.  I'm sure it has a name but I descended to and climbed away from so many beaches that they've all become a bit of blur.  Along the way I didn't take photos of lizards.  The area around Pirrama lighthouse positively heaves with lizards but the camera shy little beggars fled at my approach.  Some more relaxed lizards would happily pose for photos later.

I'm not sure if this is a tidal pool or an unambitious stream

It didn't actually start raining, apart from a few spots, rather the moisture in the atmosphere simply condensed onto my body with out going through the formality of rain.  The weather however was about to take a turn for the better.  Apparently simply sick of the entire concept of rain the clouds vanished and I found myself walking under a brilliant blue sky with an equally brilliant Sun.  Fortunately I had a hat.

Not a bad little beach really

Rocks with water running off them.  It's fair to say I'm not going to be asked to do a nature documentary anytime soon

With my first beach behind me I walked through my first reserve and wound up on what sadly was not my first suburban street.  Before I could find someone to complain to though I was back on a path hugging the harbour and barrelling directly towards my next beach which I remember was Balmoral.

I've actually been to Balmoral beach before (although without the tedious walking) and it is a positively charming place.  Or at least it would be if you could get rid of all the people who tend to congregate at positively charming places.  Along the way I amused myself by taking photos of spiders.

Spider #1

Spider #2

I actually took a lot of spider photos but these were the only two that came out half way decently.  The rest of the spiders blended irritatingly into the background.  By now I had been walking for an hour and a half (I know the blog seems to have gone on much longer) and I stopped at Balmoral for lunch.  This wasn't so much because I was hungry as because I took a look inside my pack and realised the sandwich I had made had come off worse in a confrontation with my water bottle and I had better eat it while it still vaguely resembled food.  I dined on what was halfway to becoming cheese and apple soup and drank water from a bottle that managed to exude a definite air of triumphant smugness.  While doing this I also tossed a crumb to a bird that approached me so boldly that I was worried it might steal my shoes if I took my eyes off it.

Aforementioned bird.  Don't mock, it was scarier than it looks

With lunch completed (and the bird eyeing me speculatively) I decided to push on.  Somewhere over this collection of headlands was Sydney Harbour Bridge; my goal.  At this point I was still at the ludicrously optimistic stage of my journey.

Now I was walking through unspoiled bushland or, to be more accurate, I was walking beside unspoiled bushland.  Said bushland was walled off from me with a barbed wire fence and warnings that trespassers would suffer hideous consequences (such as getting caught up on barbed wire).  The reason for the fence and the warnings (and the bushland) was that I had encountered HMAS Penguin, a naval base that sprawls over half of Middle Head.  If you want your bushland preserved, give it to the military.  The occasional unexploded round and totally deniable drum of nerve gas notwithstanding its a great way to preserve some of the natural environment.  One of the ways they preserve it is by erecting barbed wire fences and not letting anybody in.

Trying to take a photo of bushland without barbed wire

Having made my way down to Balmoral Beach and then back up the other side I wound up on Middle Head where I took a detour to wander down a path that eventually took me further along Middle Head (at this point I was basically just looking for walking paths that didn't run along the side of the road).  Eventually the path connected up with the road again at a rather handsome restaurant.  This restaurant used to be the clubhouse for Mosman golf course until the military took it over during the Second World War.  The fact that the military were right next door anyway probably helped.  The military eventually released their grip on it and its now a restaurant.  A nearby sign boasts that the building has been preserved by which I think they mean they didn't knock it down.

Quite a handsome building really

Being deeply uninterested in former golf clubhouses I instead wandered along and took a look at a former gun battery that had been built on Middle Head to help defend Sydney Harbour.  I have noted before in my blog (look it up) that the British tended to defend their possessions from seaborne attack despite the fact that they were the only ones capable of launching said attack.  To be fair it makes more sense in Australia since an invasion is hardly going to come from somewhere else.  Anyway convict work crews hacked away at what was then virgin stone surrounded by bush and when they were done hauled cannon up to the platform thus provided so that Sydney could be defended, for about six years.  At the time (1800) Middle Head was a long way from the centre of the colony through trackless bushland and it actually proved very difficult to maintain the guns or the soldiers based there.  A few years after the thing was built it was effectively abandoned although other battery positions would be build later.

A gun battery, you just have to imagine the guns, as indeed did the Colonial authorities for much of it's existence

There were other batteries further on but I was uneasily aware that time was passing and I was getting no closer to my destination so I retraced my steps, for about a hundred metres before plunging down a side track that seemed to lead towards the harbour.  It did indeed lead towards the harbour and I took some great photos from a  convenient vantage point.  After taking said photos I looked around and noticed there was a man near me.  I noticed three things about him.  He was a powerfully built man, he was completely naked and there was a younger, highly decorative man, equally naked with his arm around the first man's shoulders.  I looked at them, down at my camera and decided that discretion was the better part of getting my head kicked in.  So I retraced my steps back to the point where I was retracing my steps and then retraced those steps as well until I was back on the path that led me down Middle Head at which point I turned and walked in the other direction.

Random bush and water shot #1

Random bush and water shot #2

 

I was rewarded for my return to the actual path I was supposed to be on when a lizard stopped and posed for a photograph.  Unlike his earlier flighty cousins this one was far more relaxed.  Either that or he was stupefied by the Sun.  I had sympathy and clutched my hat a little closer to my head.

He's either dozy or an attention whore

 

Although I was leaving Middle Head reminders of its military purpose kept popping up such as when I looked up and found myself staring at a cannon mounted over my head apparently still guarding the harbour approaches.  I had no idea why at the time but according to a little map checking after my return this was probably Georges Head Lookout.  It's nice to see someone takes the tourist trade seriously.

 

Just try getting in without a ticket

Since I had been going up for a while it was only appropriate that I should start going down again.  This time I plunged towards the harbour only to stop a few scant feet from the water at a collection of buildings clinging to not terribly much semi flat ground backed against the sandstone cliffs which appear to be a feature of this part of Sydney.  I had encountered Clifton Gardens.  Or rather I had encountered Chowder Bay, Clifton Gardens was just on the other side of this rather quaint collection of buildings that I didn't take a photo of because despite the fact that they were largely cafes and restaurants they still managed to give off a bit of a military vibe.  A vibe that wasn't helped by the sign warning me that having my bag searched was a condition of entry to the whole area.  Since I almost got arrested in Mombasa for photographing an inconveniently placed bird I've been a little nervous about taking pictures of things that might belong to authority.  At least if the authority is close enough to bother me.

I trudged along Clifton Gardens' inevitable beach and struggled (and by now it was becoming a struggle) up the rise on the other side.  Now I was on the way to Bradley's Head and an excited sign informed me that soon I would be walking through one of the last unspoilt remnants of the original bushland that had once fringed Sydney Harbour in its entirety.  As if that wasn't enough the sign gushed that there would be other signs, informative ones, along the way to help identify all of the plants and wildlife that you almost certainly won't see.

Somewhat perked up by this (it turns out I am disturbingly easy to please) I strode forward under a cool canopy of trees which was very welcome.  The bushland may have been pristine but I bet the walkway I was traversing had been around the block a time or two.  Then I encountered my first informative sign complete with a picture of the animal it was describing.  These have got to be the worst animal pictures of all times.  I was familiar with some of the animals, familiar enough to know that they looked nothing like the pictures.  One of the signs told us to watch out for humpbacked whales.  I didn't exactly expect to see one on the path but if I had I certainly wouldn't have recognised it from the picture which resembled an obese penguin with downs syndrome. 

No need for artful photography now, I was in genuine bush

And for no reason at all a photo of another lizard

The dreadful pictures did provide me with a certain amount of innocent amusement which was necessary because the truth was I was flagging badly.  Only the "I told you so" look on my puffin's face was keeping me going.  Fortunately Bradley's Head was genuinely worth the effort and at the end of the walk I managed to take a decent photo of a lighthouse which I know you've all been waiting for since I mentioned such a thing many paragraphs ago.

Now that's what I call a lighthouse

And that's what I call a brush turkey.  It's my blog, I don't have to have reasons

After Bradley's Head it was just a little further to Taronga Zoo the sort of place I might like to visit on a day out if I hadn't just exhausted myself wandering around the shoreline adjacent parts of Mosman.  I reached the zoo and thought "surely I can go a little further".  I was right, I could go a little further.  Specifically I got as far as Mosman South ferry wharf at which point my legs threatened to seek asylum in another body if I continued.  I took the hint and, stinging with defeat slunk home.  My puffin was very gracious about the whole thing for which I was grateful.  I have certainly built up a large appetite for dinner but it remains to be seen if I am physically capable of producing it.

Plague Update # 47 - Deja Flu Edition

 During my lunch break the other day (and absolutely not when I should have been working) I flicked on the television to see what was happening at the tennis.  The Australian Open is currently on and I always like to check in just to see whether Nick Kyrgios has finally snapped and is swinging from a light fixture like a baboon.  Instead of a borderline bipolar tennis player having a meltdown I was treated to the sight of the premier of the surviving population of Victoria solemnly informing the citizenry that they had cocked up the quarantine yet again and as a result the entire population of Melbourne was being sent to its room.

This wasn't due to COVID, oh dear me no.  This was due to the new, improved and super sexy COVID which is apparently far more contagious.  This variant has taken Britain by storm and is currently on an extended tour of Europe.  Apparently Brexit didn't come quickly enough.  The premier assured the population that the current lockdown was largely a preventative measure designed to get on top of the outbreak quickly and "protect the most vulnerable members of the population" or at least such of the most vulnerable members of the population as survived the previous outbreak.  

While Melbourne enjoys a preview screening of Quarantine II: The Return attention in the rest of the country has been focussed on the vaccine.  Or rather it has been focussed on the vaccine shaped holes in our pharmaceutical supply chain.  Despite the government boasting that we were at the front of the queue for a vaccine it would appear that we are the last inhabited continent (penguins don't count; sorry Antarctica) to receive it.  There has been criticism and muttering about the impressive vaccination process of other countries such as Britain.  As far as Britain is concerned that's a little unfair.  Britain's COVID prevention measures were so wretched that they had very little choice except to grab every needle in the country and stick them into its citizens regardless of the contents.

As for the rest, well this is the problem when you don't actually make things yourself.  You rely on other people to make them and then you rely on further people to ship them to you.  Finally you rely on yet more people to unpack them without accidentally dropping them on the floor.  If anything gets in the way of such a process (such as a pack semi hysterical bureaucrats having a fit after they buggered up their own vaccination process) then you suddenly find the queue is very long and you just have to wait.  The good news is that the EU has now graciously permitted the drug company to ship the product we've already ordered (and which was made in Belgium) so, assuming the US navy doesn't hijack the vessel on the high seas we should be receiving the vaccine at some point in the not too distant future.

While I wait for the pride of Belgium's pharmaceutical industry to reach us I will have to be patient and take solace in the little things.  Little things like the fact that I don't live in Melbourne.  Mind you I was taking solace from that fact well before COVID.

Amusing Children in Tasmania

 I stared at the missive in front of me trying to make some sort of sense of it.  Giving up I put in a call to my tech support.  They greeted me with their usual start of mild surprise.

"Oh hello," they said smiling oddly.  "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," I responded.

"You're not suffering from COVID at all?"

"No, as a matter of fact I'm disgustingly healthy."

"Well that was waste of bats."

"Why do you guys keep trying to kill me?"

"It's a hobby.  What can we do for you?"

"I've just got the latest report from my Tasmanian correspondent and I'm afraid she's going insane."

"So are we."

"You've read the report?"

"No."

I sent them the report and waited patiently while they scanned through the latest news from the most down under part of my country.  From somewhere behind them I could just hear the hysterical screams of one of their "research assistants" but before I could ask any questions they had finished.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"She's batshit crazy."

"What should I do about it?"

"How far away is she?"

"About sixteen hundred kilometres."

"That's a safe distance so why do anything?  Sit back and enjoy the show.  Besides if you don't publish that crap you're going to have to think of your own blog entries."

Sage advice from my tech support as always.  I thanked them profusely and promised to test their new batch of anthrax vaccine (at least I'm pretty sure they said vaccine) when it arrived and addressed the report in front of me.  The first sentence was "A sloth shits a third of its bodyweight" which should give you some indication of how this is going to go.

When she isn't pestering the local platypus for selfies my correspondent spends a lot of time trying to ensure her two daughters spend a lot of time.  This reduces the amount of time they have left to bother her.  Her well of daughter appropriate activities must be on the verge of drying up because the other weekend she took them to a blueberry farm.  The opportunity to go blueberry wrangling presented itself because a friend of my correspondent decided to take up blueberry farming as a hobby.  No, I don't understand it either but in the person's defence there really isn't a lot to do in Tasmania.  Apart from one's siblings of course.

My correspondent arrived at the farm with two mutinous offspring in tow just in time for (surprise surprise) harvest time.  Gleefully herding those too young to refuse out into the blueberry paddocks (or whatever) my correspondent idled on the balcony while her nearest and dearest sweated in the sun picking blueberries.  Of course being young and not entirely consensual their definition of "picking blueberries" frequently meant "ripping up the entire plant and stuffing it blueberries and all into the picking basket".  Shall we say a certain amount of quality control is going to have to be undertaken before those blueberries are fit to sit under a layer of dust beside the road in the hopes that a passing traveller might have an urge for a child mutilated fruit.

Still the work was done and my correspondent proudly announced the presence of fifteen kilograms of blueberries although that figure does shrink a little once you remove the branches and the roots.  If this keeps up Tasmania is going to have a child labour led economic recovery.  In time it will become known as the second Bangladesh but with a worse cricket team.

Possibly feeling a little guilty about hiring her daughters out as forced labour my correspondent decided to make it up to them by taking them to a shit show.  No, that isn't a comment on the quality of the show; she took them to the Museum of Excrement.  It is called, of course, The Pooseum.  It's website promises an interactive experience which I would have thought was sufficient to get it an adults only rating but apparently its terribly educational if you're interested in excrement.  This is where the random sloth fact above was sourced.

Sloths have on the whole a terrible bathroom experience.  Sloths live in trees but they crap on the ground I'm not sure why.  After all if you're clinging upside down to a branch is their any need to descend to the earth?  Just make sure nobody you're fond of is walking underneath.  Nevertheless descend to the earth the sloths do.  Whereupon they get eaten.  Things prey on sloths, these things can't climb trees so what they do is they wait until the sloth comes down for a crap and then they eat it.  Apparently fifty percent of all sloths die by being eaten when they pop downstairs for a shit.  The other fifty percent die of constipation.

However as noted above when a sloth shits it really shits.  Assuming it gets to the ground and assumes the position without becoming something else's lunch it doesn't stop until it could be the poster boy for a Weight Watchers ad.  It went down a sloth and came back up a ferret.  I suppose if every trip to the bathroom had a fatality rate higher than smallpox we'd probably hold it in as long as possible as well.

If the defecation cycle of the sloth isn't enough to attract you then there are all sorts of displays and 3-D models of various digestive systems which can apparently be taken apart.  Because it is never to soon to start teaching your kids the rudiments of vivisection.  They might be a science type person themselves one day and you don't want them standing in a room with a hacksaw and a chained up monkey without knowing what to do they've got to start early.  On an unrelated note if the person who stole the pictures of me holding a hacksaw next to a chained up monkey would return them I will pay any amount you ask.

Once she had sated her children's scatological interests there was nothing left to do but take them home for dinner.  On the menu; blueberries.  Possibly for the next six months.

Silly After Action Report - Testis Megalos

 Tenente Pollo Cacciatore gazed around at the village in disbelief.  All around him were signs of defensive positions being prepared, guns were being hidden, their ammunition stacked neatly next to the regulation white flags.  A couple of soldiers were stringing wire that looked like it had been sourced from a ball of steel wool and one soldier was scattering brightly coloured objects across the ground.  Normally Cacciatore didn't speak to his soldiers because, well one didn't.  That's what sergeants were for.  It was bad enough that he had to talk to the sergeant but this time his curiosity overcame him.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Taken by surprise at being addressed by an officer the soldier surrendered but when it dawned on him that a trip to somewhere with decent food and a functioning command structure wasn't in his immediate future he sighed and explained.

"Preparing defences sir."

"Are those booby traps?" asked Cacciatore?

"No, they're lego blocks."

"Shit, don't let the Geneva Convention find out about that."

The whole "talking to one of his men" thing was going to the young tenente's head and he found himself unburdening to the rather tattered soldier who showed not the slightest interest.

"I don't know why we've stopped.  We advanced two miles yesterday, now that's what I call blitzkrieg."

"Only because you've never seen a dictionary," muttered the soldier.

"What was that?"

"We stopped on the colonello's orders sir."

"Why?"

"He's not well."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's got a bad case of testis megalos."

"I heard they had penicillin for that now."

OK, I'm sure that's not the first time such a joke has been made but I couldn't resist it.  As stated in my previous AAR I have fled the grim battlefields of the eastern front and reverted to type by commanding a bunch of over matched Italians engaged in the military equivalent of self harm.  Having cunningly waited until the Autumn rains turned the fields of Epiros into icy mud the Italians launched possibly the most ill managed offensive since the Jameson Raid.  A couple of days and a few miles later and they altered tactics from half baked offence to panic stricken defence.  Never let it be said that the Italian army wasn't versatile.  There was no end to the ways they could cock up a battle.  

This is Testis Megalos which sounds like either a disease or an exotic type of dinosaur but is actually a Dezign Pak (yes, apparently I am spelling that correctly) production pitting a deeply mediocre but strangely well armed group of Italians against the pride of the Greek army.  Having captured an entire village from the Greeks my Italians now prepare to defend it to the death against a Greek counterattack.

To do the defending I have fourteen squads split between barely adequate 347 bersaglieri and deeply suspect 346 fanti.  Supporting this semi human material is a hmg, a mmg, four lmgs plus two 65mm guns, a 47mm AT gun and a single L3 tank (just because).  Four officers including a more than adequate 9-1 command.  My mission is to have an unbroken MMC in at least two of the village's four multi level buildings at the end of six and a half turns of no doubt furious Greek attacks.  Dave Wilson leads the vengeance happy Greeks who have determined not to leave an inch of Greek soil no matter how low rent in the invader's hands.  Dave's forces consist of some twenty three squads split almost equally between elite 458s and first line 457s.  A magnificent beast of a 10-2 leads them forward with some other officers basking in his reflection.  Clip clopping along behind is a wagon slowly hauling a 105mm gun to the general vicinity of the front line.  If the hay holds out it could be bad news for the Italians.

Below is my set up.  I had precisely three wire counters which I used to lock off one of the roads entering the village.  I set one of the 65mm guns up forward in the hope that it might take some Greek infantry unawares before its rapid and inevitable death.  The 47mm I set up in the road with a line of sight to the hill that overlooked my entire defensive position.  Other armies might think that was a good spot to defend, not apparently the Italians.  I scattered my 346s across the forward buildings and kept the bulk of my "good" troops back amongst the multi level buildings that would be my last stand location.

At start and I'm already feeling nervous

Dave brought his troops on in the east (top) and south (right) and promptly ran into trouble.  A 2 flat shot from my mmg broke three of his squads in the east and temporarily eased my concerns on that front.  Which was good as his southerners sneaked forward, keeping concealment all the way.  Even his wagon lurched along what must have been the only road in the vicinity sheltering under an oversized question mark.

End of Greek turn 1, despite his losses he's moving forward

It isn't my intention to give a blow by blow account of this game for reasons I will explain later so I'll just give you the salient points.

Despite the early losses Dave's eastern troops (led by the 10-2) pushed forward until I unveiled my 65mm which broke several squads (and the 10-2) and delayed him for a while.  Up on the hill Dave had amassed a pair of squads with two hmgs and a leader which opened fired on my 9-1 guided hmg on the first floor of a convenient building.  Both leader and squad broke and fled downstairs but I had prepared for this eventuality and had another squad with an 8-0 on the ground floor which advanced upstairs to reman the hmg.  Dave tried the shooting trick again but it didn't work and in response my hmg went on a rate tear which killed everybody in the hex.  Dave would lose more troops trying to get his hmgs back into action.

Dave's hmg position is gone

Dave's wagon finally arrived at what he considered the least inconvenient place to unload his gun and caused a desperate fumbling for the rulebook.  My little L3 shot up the wagon as it was unloading and rolled low enough to destroy it.  We searched in vain for any indication of what might happen to the gun in such circumstances.  Eventually we decided to reverse engineer the rules for hooking up which state that if the wagon is destroyed while hooking up then so is the gun.  Working from that we presumed that the act of hooking up had taken place when the fire was laid and therefore working the other way that the gun would have been unhooked (and thus survived) when fire was laid.  So Dave's wagon was gone but his 105 survived.  It would celebrate by bouncing a 105mm shell off the frontal armour of the L3.

Eventually of course the 105 got the L3 and massed firepower (guided by the recently reinvigorated 10-2) took out my 65mm but delay had been caused and the number of broken (or killed) Greek squads was reaching embarrassing levels.

In the south Dave pushed troops up near one of the multi level buildings he needed to capture but pointblank firing from the building and supporting fire from my remaining 65mm broke a couple of squads and actually garnered me a squads worth of prisoners.  Things weren't really helped when Dave rolled snake eyes on a morale check and a Greek half squad went berserk and charged the building all by itself while its comrades cringed under DM markers.

Dave pushing forward but is it too late? Spoiler alert, "yes!"

 

Dave did manage to struggle a squad and 7-0 through the wire in the woods and get into CC in the adjacent building and there they stayed for the next few turns.  I reinforced the melee with a squad but Dave promptly killed it but on my next turn the Italians fixed bayonets and butchered the Greeks hand to hand (no I can't quite believe it either).

Finally at gruesome cost Dave's troops in the east managed to rout or kill my defenders in the forward buildings and positioned themselves for the final assault across the road.  Then the 47mm sitting in the street stepped forward and shot his troops out again.  Finally when my 47mm gained its second critical hit and took out three squads Dave conceded.

So that was the game.  You may notice that I haven't dwelt on it at great length and I don't seem to be rejoicing too much in my first victory over Dave in quite a while.  The reason is simple.  Dice!  We play on VASL and I don't know what drugs the dicebot was on that night but it was incredible.  I literally could not fail.  My average IFE shot only rose to 6.5 in the last third of the game, for a while I was averaging 5.  I only had to shoot to gain results and conversely Dave could not get a decent roll to save his life.  It was genuinely embarrassing.  I was actively considering cheating in my opponents favour.  I can't imagine that the game was fun for Dave to play and frankly it wasn't that enjoyable for me either as I know I can't take the slightest credit for my victory.  The only dice rolls where my average was above 7 were morale checks but that didn't matter because Dave wasn't inflicting many.  As one example among many, Dave took a 20+1 one shot that didn't result in so much as a pin.  I took a 6+2 shot and broke two elite Greek squads and an 8-1 officer.  That was repeated continually throughout the course of the evening.  I would probably have been in hysterics (I am a total drama queen in case you hadn't guessed) if I had been on the receiving end of it.  Dave took it all with good natured stoicism but the second critical hit with the 47mm was his breaking point and he conceded a good two turns after I would have thrown my computer out the window and sworn off ASL for life.  Apologies to Dave but it really wasn't my fault.  He gets another chance to beat up my Italians next week in Dangerous Crossroads.

Prisoners!  Tenente Cacciatore stared at them in astonishment.  He had heard that other armies sometimes captured enemies but he had never expected it to happen to him.  A surly looking Greek officer, limping badly, was brought before him.  The Greek ripped off his boot and upended it, a single lego block fell out.  Cacciatore ignored the man's accusatory glare.  Staring fixedly at the ceiling he muttered,

"Your kid must have dropped it into your boot on your last leave."  Behind him came a plastic rattle as one of his soldiers became very busy with a dustpan and brush.

GemCon

 Around Australia Day the reader of this blog normally expects tales of my journey to Canberra complete with extensive bovine commentary and gratuitous insults towards our national capital.  Subsequently the aforementioned masochist can look forward to a nailbiting account of my deeds in the ASL competition at the Canberra gaming convention, CanCon.  Not, alas, this year.  In deference to the plague ravaging our planet the organisers of CanCon have wisely decided not to proceed with an event that brings together several thousand people many of whom have only a passing acquaintance with personal hygiene.  While responsible this left several middle aged and relatively freshly laundered men of my acquaintance without anything to do.  Faced with the prospect of spending the holiday weekend with their family and loved ones a desperate planning session was undertaken.

A venue was sought and found, prayers (and the occasional blood sacrifice) were offered up to the plague gods in the hope that a very specific portion of the state would not be under lockdown at the relevant time, funds were gathered and spent on accomodation, food, alcohol and strippers.  Wait, did I say strippers?  What I meant to say was that money was definitely not spent procuring strippers (saved it).  With all these things in place a select dozen or so people chosen solely on personality, charisma and the ability to pay were invited to gather in Leura for what they told their spouses was a weekend of gaming.

For those of you who don't know Leura is in the Blue Mountains and is sort of like Katoomba only with higher prices and fewer junkies.  Over the course of Friday this leafy mountain village (think suburb with hills) became the gathering point for a dozen grizzled cardboard warriors who came from near and not quite so near.  The one person who was planning to come from "far" couldn't make it past the border guards.  Our destination was a two story wooden house nestled in among trees and overlooking a creek, or at least it would have been overlooking a creek if the damn trees hadn't been in the way.  There were many rooms, a confusing floor layout and broad balconies overlooking the trees which blocked our view of the creek.  In defence of the trees they also blocked our view of the houses on the other side of the creek and thus gave a wholly spurious air of remote isolation to a place that was about ten minutes walk from Leura train station.

There was no competition or specific game.  Rather the whole weekend was centred around impromptu gaming.  A spreadsheet was set up to assist us in the organisation of our impromptu gaming.  Being an ASL aficionado (a fancy word which means "I like it") I had arranged to play a three handed campaign game with Dave Wilson, my regular Wednesday opponent and Mark McGilchrist.  I say "I arranged" what I mean is Mark and Dave arranged the game and I whined until they let me in.  We played Time on Target's "A Dish Best Served Cold" which consisted of three parts involving a rampaging horde of Americans (jointly commanded by Dave and myself) attempting to evict a collection of heavily but somewhat bizarrely armed Germans from a village.  This was supposed to last us three days but Dave and I skillfully demonstrated the weaknesses of command by committee and the Americans were done by the time we got part way through the second part.  Mark's predilection for rolling low when firing sturmmosers didn't help.  A number of American squads became integral parts of the German landscape during the advance and not even the fortuitous killing of a jagdpanzer was able to help us through.

Although chastening this defeat did at least allow me to take part in a Call of Cthulhu game late on Sunday.  Its the first time I've played that game and it was immense amounts of fun.  Ivan Kent was our game master and provided us with a great atmospheric setting although he was a little disconcerted by my suggestion that we cold bloodedly murder four people along the way.  In my defence they were witnesses to certain acts of nefariousness that our characters had got up to and killing them would have definitely been the safest option.  I was outvoted but only narrowly.  Despite our institutional squeamishness we managed to fumble and blunder our way through the scenario and save 1920s Arkham from various nameless horrors at the price of only one of our company going irretrievably insane.  We left him painting the walls with his own faeces and went off to celebrate.

Aside from the gaming there was bonhomie and good cheer which I understand are old fashioned terms for the result when you gather a group of men together and none of them actually try and kill each other.  Although David Bishop might be considered guilty of an attempt when he produced a bottle of Jeppsons Malort and invited the two people he thought might have the most amusing reaction (myself and Daniel) to have a glass.  Daniel's reaction was all that he might have hoped for but sadly for David I quite liked it.  Sadly for me its almost impossible to source outside of Chicago.  Between the malort and the absinthe it was a rather wormwood heavy weekend but all of us emerged with our eyesight and our sanity intact or, to be more accurate, those of us who had possessed such attributes going in still had them more or less on departure.  

Encased, as we were, in a tree surrounded wooden house in the mountains the temperature was pleasantly cool which was convenient as this was the week when nature suddenly remembered it was Summer.  While the rest of the state boiled we just simmered gently and enjoyed pleasant breezes blowing through the house at the price of being ground zero for enough insects to make a nature documentary although probably not a particularly interesting one.  Huge amounts of thanks to David Bishop and Gordon McClelland who conducted the cat herding exercise necessary to get all of this happening.  It almost makes one hope the plague is still continuing next year so we can do it again.

Plague Update #46 - Herd Immunity Edition

 Well the holiday season is over but COVID-19 is hanging around like that irritating relative who just wont take the hint (sidenote; according to my parents that relative is me).  It's been a little difficult to write about because after months of steady gloom things have been jumping about like a roller coaster.  First we were fine, then half of Sydney got locked down, then things improved then we were told to staple masks to our faces and encase ourselves in concrete.  Various parts of my home state have been walled off from other states, opened up again and then shut down again.  Apparently one of the symptoms of COVID is bureaucratic schizophrenia.  Then, just as everything seemed a little calmer word came out that a new and even more virulent form of the virus had made its way from the UK to our shores.  At least that should reassure anyone who was afraid British exports would take a hit post Brexit.

To make matters worse, or at least not better, a couple of government MPs have taken to social media to parade their idiocy in front of the general population.  Snide comments about masks and vaccines and generally trying to ensure that the United States doesn't have a monopoly on cretinous internet commentary.  One went so far as to say that making your offspring wear masks was a form of child abuse.  Whereas I presume dying of COVID is a gift from god.  More irritatingly still the more formal, leadership parts of the government have twisted themselves in knots trying to avoid criticising these clowns.  If we have learnt one thing from the recent history of America it is that when someone in power says something stupid it is very important for the remainder of government to call them out on it.  Or rather, apparently we haven't learnt that.

However there are encouraging signs on the vaccine front.  A number of people are starting to worry about whether the particular vaccine we are getting our hands on will indeed confer herd immunity.  This is a big improvement from "will there ever be a vaccine?"  Suddenly apparently we can afford to be picky.  Obviously herd immunity is desirable, nothing good comes from an infected herd, but just at the moment any sort of immunity would be good at least for the people so immune.  The rest of us will just have to spend a few more months hiding under the bed with a pillow strapped to their head.

Unless we're tennis players of course.  The Australian Open is due to kick off in a few weeks which means that a horde of sweat crazed string monkeys are descending on our nation.  Of course strict quarantine measures are in place and of course no sooner have they arrived than some of those involved have starting breaking that quarantine.  At this point it is fair to ask how seriously we're taking the entire thing.

The same questions which were asked about the cricket are now being asked about the tennis.  Those questions being variations on the general theme of "what the fuck?"  No doubt all precautions are being taken and hopefully it all goes off without too many infections.  As to the wider question of "why are we permitting this at all?" the answer is a simple one although I doubt if it will be explicitly spelled out.  For the sake of their mental health humans need diversion.  They need to be entertained and entertainment has been a little thin on the ground during the worst of the lock downs.  Tennis and cricket are incredibly popular and it is quite likely that someone, somewhere has decided that a bit of infection and the possibility of a few deaths is a reasonable price to pay for keeping all of the surly, isolated and generally grumbling members of the population from blowing their tops.

At least I hope that's the reason.  I much prefer to believe my government is making cold eyed decisions and weighing up the likely cost in deaths from providing bread and circuses as opposed to simply being reckless and irresponsible.  I could go further on this topic but I need to go and watch the cricket.

Silly After Action Report - Tough As Nails

 A mechanic slid from out underneath the tank and wiped grease on to his coveralls.  He didn't need to but he was aware that there were certain conventions that applied when working on a vehicle, he actually kept a small pot of grease on hand for this purpose.

"I think that's got it, Herr Hauptmann," he reported.  The hauptmann looked a little concerned.

"You think?" he asked.  "You're not sure?"

"It's a Russian tank," replied the mechanic.  "All the instructions are in Cyrillic.  I've been using a youtube video for assembling models.  Are you going to be driving this?"

"Not now," replied the hauptmann, "what about the flamethrower?"

"Oh that definitely works.  You remember the fireball in the maintenance shed?  Kleinschmidt forgot his cigarette lighter."

"I was wondering what happened to his hair."  The hauptmann gestured to a rather nervous looking tank crew lurking in the background.  "All right, get in."

The tank crew radiated a distinct disinclination to go anywhere near the hulking vehicle that squatted in the work shop dribbling fuel from an oversized nozzle sticking out next to the 76mm gun.

The hauptmann lost patience, "Get in or I'll cut off your supplies of pervitin."

There was a scramble for the vehicle and both the hauptmann and the mechanic stepped well out of the way as, after a certain amount of trial and error, the engine was started and the tank lurched forward.

"Well done," said the hauptmann as the tank made its somewhat unsteady way towards the front German soldiers scattering to either side as it did so.  The hauptmann left to round up his troops and the mechanic watched for a moment before pulling a small piece of metal from his pocket.

"What's that?" asked the newly bald Kleinschmidt who had just joined him.

"Firing trigger for a flamethrower.  It fell off while I was testing the turret traverse"

"Should we tell them?"

"They'll find out soon enough."

Dave Wilson and I have settled down for another Ostfront city fight.  This time in Stalingrad, a battle so storied that it has generated about seventeen campaign modules so far with another fifty three in production.  Being minimalists Dave and I settled for a simple scenario ITR-4 - Tough as Nails.  It's Stalingrad so you already know what's required, a bunch of Germans have to crawl forward about a hundred yards and capture a building or two to enable them to crawl forward a hundred yards and capture a building or two.  I, commanding the defenders of the Motherland have decided that a nail factory is the particular ditch I am prepared to die in.

As the Germans Dave has to capture a pair of factories deep in downtown Stalingrad.  To do so he has a wide array of tools at his disposal.  He has three squads of 838 assault engineers, eight elite squads and nine squads of first line troops to act as expendables.  These guys have two heavy machine guns, two medium machine guns, five light machine guns, two antitank rifles (why?) two flamethrower, four demolition charges and a radio connecting him to an 80mm mortar battery.  This force is led by seven officers ranging from a lowly 7-0 to a planet conquering 10-2.  Circling in the skies above are a pair of  stukas eager to dispense with their bomb loads and get back to their airfields where they can fondle long haired dachshunds or each other depending on their inclination.

Twenty squads of superbly led troops with artillery and air support being deemed insufficient (the scenario designers have obviously never seen me play)  Dave is reinforced on the second turn with another dozen first line squads, a medium machine gun, four lights and another four officers including a 9-1.  Oh yes, and some armour.  More specifically, a PzIIIH, two PzIVF2s, two StuGIIIBs a StuGIIIG and the fire brigade.  The fire brigade consisting of two captured Soviet tanks, a KV-8 and a T34M43(Fl) each carrying a terrifying flamethrower in addition to their main weapon.

So what do I, champion of nail factories everywhere, have to resist such might?  I'm glad you asked.

I have sixteen elite squads including five 628s who are definitely not assault engineers for any useful purpose.  These guys are supported by six conscript bullet catchers and have an hmg, two medium machine guns, five light machine guns, a pair of antitank rifles and two molotov cocktail projectors.  They have four officers including my own 10-2 and heavy support in the shape of two 45mm antitank guns, a 76mm artillery piece and an 82mm mortar.  I also get fortifications in the form of a roadblock, 24 factors of AP mines, 4 factors of AT mines, a dozen concealment counters and a booby trap capacity which I completely forgot about (have I mentioned I'm not really great at this game?).  In addition I can fortify four building locations.

But wait, never let it be said that Stavka leaves its troops in the lurch (believe me you'd better not say that).  I too receive reinforcements in the form of six squads, half elite and half first line carrying a grand total of two light machine guns and urged towards the fray by a battle hungry 7-0, I also get six more concealment counters.

Below is the set up.  Basically Dave has to capture the two factories in the middle of the board.  The forward one I expected to fall pretty easily to I garrisoned it with dummies and conscripts in the hope of slowing him down a little.  Having set up the roadblock to prevent his armour roaring straight down the most direct route and placed the AT mines on the two flanking roads where they achieved precisely nothing.  The rear factory was my "die in a ditch" location, I fortified a couple of hexes, placed the 76mm and a pair of mmg armed squads led by my 10-2 HIPed where I thought they could do some good (wrong).  The two mol projectors were out on the flanks hoping to get a rear shot as the German armour went by.

At start, the red circles indicate where I have hidden my guns

A close glance at the map will indicate that I have already cocked something up and the game hasn't even started yet.  I obviously don't play with factories enough as I kept forgetting that they don't have any intervening levels between the ground floor and the roof.  I persisted in setting things up on a mythical first floor which would come back to bite me badly later.

Dave started his attack and immediately invalidated a fair amount of my defence.  I thought the rubble, roadblock and stalwart defenders would force Dave to go for a flank but he didn't, he lined the bulk of his troops up and sent them straight up the middle.  My expendables in the forward factory would do all that I could ask of them breaking some troops and simply existing for a couple of turns but to the left Dave's main drive punched forward through the ruins towards his second target.

End of turn 1.  My forward factory holds for now

By the end of the second turn Dave was swarming all over the forward factory but a couple of brave Soviet conscripts still clung to the odd corner.  Dave's armour turned up and one of his captured flamethrower tanks busted its FT on the first shot.  This is why you don't buy tanks on e-Bay.  Technical difficulties notwithstanding Dave's offensive was proceeding nicely although my hmg did manage to break one squad that pushed its luck a little far.  In the previous game I spent a lot of time cursing railway tracks and the increased time it took my armour to traverse them.  This time it was Dave's turn to curse as his tanks picked their way over the rails.

End of German turn 2

In a strange way the delay of his armour actually helped Dave a little as with his tanks not yet committed I didn't feel I could pull in the troops on my flanks in case he sent them looping around my flanks once they were unguarded.  My own reinforcements arrived just in time to be welcomed by the Luftwaffe who bounced a 200mm bomb off some of them.  This went about as well for the recipients as you can imagine but frankly I got off rather lightly.

End of Soviet turn 2.  Bomb victims in the rear

 With the forward factory cleared Dave pushed forward and proved how silly I had been to place all of those troops on the flank as his vehicles threaded their way through buildings and rubble to join their comrades in the centre (except for one which bogged far to the rear in a pile of debris).  Fresh from their triumph at the front factory the remainder of Dave's troops joined his comrades in monstering my remaining factory.  I wasn't terribly concerned.  It had taken him three turns to get here and I still had a decent number of troops and hidden guns but disaster was just about to unfold.

Dave is ready to attack the rear factory

Remember that I said earlier that I tended to forget that factories don't have interior levels?  Well I had forgotten that again with my defence of the rear factory.  I had a hidden 76mm gun on the ground floor and a pair of squads with mmgs (and the 10-2) hidden on a mythical first floor above them.  With Dave's forces closing in from all sides I decided the time had come to unleash some firepower at which point Dave noted my error.  He was very kind and allowed me to keep all of my troops in the ground floor location.  I attacked a kill stack commanded by his 10-2 with a 16+1 shot to no effect.  I fired my 76mm at a flamethrower team across the way to no effect.  In the next fire phase Dave rolled a three with his flamethrower and crushed the lot.  Such things are burnt across my soul and Dave had to give me a minute or three while I got up off the floor, wiped the tears from my eyes and indicated my willingness to continue.

Disaster!!

There was a gaping hole in my defence but the immediate effect wasn't terrible.  I had plenty of other troops around so Dave couldn't just waltz on in.  In fact one of my best turns of the game was just about to arrive.  Sadly it would have no lasting effect.  I had been peppering one of his tanks (the T34 with the busted flamethrower) with spotted mortar rounds for a couple of turns with no effect but a sudden critical hit immobilised the thing.  Possibly deciding that two flamethrowers weren't enough (despite recent evidence to the contrary) he rolled his KV-8 forward right past a hidden 45mm gun and a low roll on a rear shot killed it outright.  This probably delayed the inevitable for another turn as Dave diverted troops and demo charges to taking out this gun post before returning attention to the factory.

 

Probably my best turn of the game

Over on the left I was holding my own as I brought my flankers in to reinforce my hmg post.  In the centre and on the right though my defenders were facing a sea of blue.  With troops to burn Dave hurled his men forward across the street.  I broke a goodly number of them but a couple managed to gain a foothold.  To increase the pressure he drove a tank straight into the factory.  My defenders watched in despair as the thing promptly dropped through into the cellar making a mess of their porn stash and hydroponic dope plantation.  

In my turn I managed to smuggle a couple of squads into the factory through the sewers which resulted in four squads and a 10-2 being overstacked in the one location I could still consider secure.  My 10-2 finally recovered from his flamethrower induced nervous breakdown and rallied his troops.  Not before time as Dave sent a second wave of troops across the street to build on the small gains he had made in his first attack.  This time there was no stopping him and he was solidly lodged in the factory.

One chance left...

 

Things were not yet completely black for me.  Overstacked or not I still had five squads in the factory (four led by a 10-2) and even overstacked four squads is a lot of firepower at pointblank range guided by a 10-2.  Dave only had four squads in the factory himself with a pair in the fortified location that still contained my abandoned mmgs.  Well they were abandoned until Dave picked one up.  I decided to take out this position and then hopefully advance into CC to deal with the remainder.  With time running out hopefully this would set Dave back too far back for him to recover.  I hit his pair of squads with a 30+1 shot.  One of the squads broke.  The one that didn't returned fire with a 16+1 shot and broke everything I had in the hex including the 10-2.  At that point I conceded.  To be honest I screamed, wept, threatened suicide, made a number of wholly unjustified assertions about Dave, his parentage and his proclivities then I conceded.

In case you're wondering about Dave's artillery incidentally.  Once the forward factory had been captured his 7-0 obediently lugged the radio up to the roof, called up the battery, brought down a single fire mission and was then shot dead by my sniper.  My sniper was the most productive asset I possessed.  A sniper number of five will do that for you.

Much thanks to Dave for the game, this was the second ITR scenario we played and they were both excellent.  Being slightly scarred by the second experience I have reverted to type and insisted that we play a scenario with Italians in it next time but we will revisit the Into the Rubble pack again in the future.

The  mechanic flicked a little dust from the obersts kubelwagen and stretched, it was almost noon.  Time to finish for the day.  He turned to look for Kleinschmidt and found himself face to face with the hauptmann he had spoken to earlier.  The hauptmann did not look happy.  The mechanic looked around swiftly to see if there was any grease he could wipe on his overalls but Kleinschmidt had taken the pot for his own purposes.

"How did it go Herr Hauptmann?" he asked hopefully.  There was no sign of the tank he had "worked" on earlier.

"Not bad," replied the hauptmann.  "We've captured a couple more buildings.  At this rate we'll have captured the entire of Stalingrad by 1985.  About that tank you repaired."

"Did it give you any trouble?"

"A mortar blew its tracks off."

"Ah well you see, mortar fire isn't covered by the warranty Herr Hauptmann.  I'm very sorry but there's nothing I can do."

"Can you at least go and pick it up?"

"Kleinschmidt does the pick ups."

"I saw him, he was covered in grease and, well I didn't want to interrupt."

The mechanic rolled his eyes.

"Since its you Hauptmann I'll go and get it as soon as I've had dinner.  There's another exit if you don't want to pass Kleinschmidt on your way out."

"Thank you," replied the hauptmann with visible relief.