I almost forgot about these. Nine aircraft, generally for Barbarossa (well, and a couple for France 1940). Castings are from I-94/Raiden, Scotia-Grende, ad Heroics & Ros.
While completing the Soviet 6mm fighting positions a few months back, I started working on a covered artillery bunker for the Soviets. This type was of earthen and timber construction. I actually need several of these for 76mm, 45mm, and machineguns.
In this case, I just built a one-off bunker to experiment with construction method a little, which is generally similar to the open positions that I built previously with the addition of plastic work to model the timber part of he construction.
The basic shape of the bunker was cut, mounted to a base, some acrylic paste added to the foam where the plastic would be glued, and the plastic cut and fitted. The process proved to be a little more tedious than hoped for, particularly as the plastic had to be glued in place, rather than solvent welded. The solvent readily dissolves the foam, and the acrylic paste doesn't provide adequate barrier.
In any event, here is the finished the bunker:
The finished bunker measures about 3.5" wide and 7/8 inch tall. I think it came out okay, useable, but I had hoped for a little more.
I'll have a few more in process with a couple of revisions to construction. I'll need to get those wrapped up over the weekend.
We have decided to put our Star Fleet battles campaign of the General War to rest after over four years of inactivity. The campaign was paused due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and then further postponed by some other real life issues.
As the campaign stood, the Lyran empire had made some minor gains in Kzinti space, and had destroyed the majority of the Kzinti fleet (though with little actual benefit). The Klingons had crossed the Kzinti border in several places, destroying base stations, and with forces converging on the first Kzinti Starbase. Kzinti space would likely have been reduced to the homeworlds, maybe a starbase, and maybe a tether to the Federation.
The Hydrans had massed most of their fleet into one invading force in Lyran space, with the Lyran's having lost a planetary system, and the Hydrans having the capacity to take at least one more Lyran system, and causing a lot of damage to the Lyran fleet. The Lyrans had tactical victories in most of their battles, but were losing the strategic situation.
The Klingons were beginning to enter Hydran space, and in time would likely have conquered the Hydran empire, as the Hydran forces would have been greatly reduced in numbers by the Lyrans, and were at a strategic disadvantage which would have likely lead to most of their surviving fleet being cut off from supply by the Klingon advance.
The Klingons would have found themselves in possesion of much, if not all, of Hydran space, a big chunk of Kzinti territory, and a notable chunk of southern Lyran territory, after defeating the Hydrans. The Lyrans at best could have traded back some Kzinti space to the klingons, who may or more likely may not have given the Lyrans back their lost territory.
I played the Lyran and Klingons as two separate "characters", always making decisions based on what was in the interest of the respective empires, rather than as a single unified force. Thus the Klingons did not send their available fleet to aid the Lyrans in the big battle with the Hydrans, as greater Lyran losses in that battle served the klingon interest every bit as much as Hydran losses in the battle.
Depending on how long the strategic rules kept the Federation from getting involved, there is even a chance that the Klingons could have openly attacked the Lyrans and taken their home world, resulting in almost the entire "western half of the map becoming Klingon territory.
The Federation had amassed a large fleet with the intent of eventually attacking the Klingons, but were restricted by a series of rules whereby the Federation could be released early (relative to the General War timeline) to go to war with the Klingons.
If the Federation had sent an expeditionary force into Kzinti space (which they could have done), and they had been attacked by Lyran or Klingon forces, it would have released the Federation for premature extry into the war and kept the Klingons honest. But this did not happen.
As things stood at the end of the last turn, the Klingons probably had enough forces to stop the Federation from taking the Klingon Home world, and could have likely pushed the Feds back into Federation space, before the Federation ship building program (which had not yet ratcheted up) could have had any effect on the game.
The question is whether the Klingon construction rates with the gained Hydran, Kzinti, and possibly Lyran resources and construction rates could have come up to speed fast enough to outmatch the Federation construction rate, and given the Klingons the ability to defeat the Federation, once they became the primary Klingon focus.
My feeling is that the Klingons would not have consolidated the conquered resources fast enough, and that eventually the Federation would have been able to conquer the Klingon homeworld, and destabilize the empire.
Involvement by the Romulans (my favorite race in the game) and Gorn was so far down the timeline, that I have no feel for how they might have impacted the war, or if they ever would have had the chance.
In any event, the Kzinti empire was down to about a dozen ships, most serving as a task force of the Hydran fleet and remainder in Kzinti territory could not defend much beyond their homeplanets.
The Hydrans had achieved operational overreach, and could not have gotten their forces back to their homeworld in time to stop the Klingons.
The Lyrans were in the process of expending their fleet to destroy much of the Kzinti and Hrdran fleets, at the expense of not being able to control their own space. The Lyrans won most of the battles, and the Klingons were winning the war.
The campaign lasted about 18 months before Covid hit, and we had some great fun, some really odd situations, and it would have been interesting to see how it would have played out. But being four years removed from the campaign, it just feels like something that we did, rather than something that we are doing, so yesterday, while playing a pick-up game of... Star Fleet Battles, we dicided to put the campaign to rest, and discussed starting over with a General War campaign.
And two more Hawker Hunters for the RAF:
These will give NATO a little more support in my 1958 WWIII games.
... my daughter, who was in high school at the time, began to offer some views on the conflict in Rawanda and about the Hutu and Tutsi. This took me by surprise, as I was half shocked that she knew of Rawanda, let alone had any oppinions about the war there and the horrors that took place between the Hutu and Tutsi. While I doubt that the goings on there play much part in the pursuit of most gamers, in my case, I had started my African imagi-nations campaign some years prior, and the history of Rawanda was part of the research that eventually manifested on my table as the Uwanda-Mugabia War.
My daughter does not share my passion for history, though she is frequently curious about historical events, and asks me questions usually leading with, "In one sentence or less, why did bla bla bla....". Inevitably I offer a sentence in response with the qualifier, "...but that is over simplifying things." Which leads to the also inevitable dissertation that she was hoping to avoid.
Anyway, as she explained her views, I tried to recover from the shock that war in Rawanda had made it to my daughter's social studies classroom at school. Though she spent a little time studying the ancient world, mostly focussing on several religious groups (rather than empires and military conquest as my schooling had done), most of her school history covered US interests, spanning the American Civil War to Vietnam.
This got me thinking about the contrast in both the bits of history, the interpretations of that history that she and I received in school, and in general, my own experience learning history through the miracle of public education.
She also spent a little time studying what we call "Ohio History". In my day (mid 1970's), we used an early 1950s vintage book, illustrated with red ink line drawings (an absolutely horrible little book), explaining how the noble and heroic white dudes freed Ohio from the clutches of the savage Indians.
My daughter's version spent more time addressing the injustices imposed by the white dudes on the mostly peace loving native inhabitants of the Ohio territory. We both found it curious how the history of 200-300 years ago had changed in the last thirty years. If nothing else, it made a dramatic point to her about tryng to maintain a little objectivity with respect to how one embraces history.
This morning, while reading up a bit on Russia's role in the Seven Years War, it occurred to me that the SYW was never mentioned in any part of my schooling.
Imagine that. A war that was closely tied to the existance and shape of my nation, and that was maybe the first truly "world war", was utterly irrelevant to the public educators of my day.
My public education relating to history was pretty sad really. I generally disliked history in school, mainly because of how it was presented, mostly as a rapid succession of dates, places and names of those who "liberated" distant lands from native inhabitants. Curiously, separating native peoples from their land and culture was always presented as a good thing, rather than just a thing.
The reality is that there was almost no study of the history relating to the heavily stressed lists of anitquarian details that we students were expected to memorize. Very little about the how and why of what happened.
An example of the scope of study and how it was addressed in class and on our tests follows. In class: Inca, people conquered by Pizarro of Spain, 1532. There would be little more than the insinuation that it was good for both the Inca and the Europeans who did it. But on the test:, "Who conquered the Inca?" Answer: "Pizarro, Spain, 1532". That's it. Seriously. No other names, nothing about cultures, devoid of any substance.
One day in history class, the day that we studied the entire 20th century (which by the way had apparently ended in 1945, despited it being 1977 at the time) in my 8th grade history class, I learned an important lesson about WWII (which we studied for about 4 minutes). World War II, won by the US, who, for all practical purposes, defeated Hitler's Germany single-handedly, and in a sort of side conflict, dropped the first atom bomb on Japan. World War II, US defeats Germany, Japan glows in the dark, 1945, the end. At least in my mid-1970s history class.
I had a notable interest in WWII at a young age, and started acquiring my library on the conflict before the age of eight. As a result, the scope of my knowledge on the subject was somewhat greater than what was presented in class. As Mrs. Quinn was wrapping up her four minute presentation of WWII, she pointed out a photo in our book that showed the M65 atomic cannon firing the test round circa 1950, with the mushroom cloud rising in the distance, and explained that it was a picture of a US artillery piece on a Pacific island, viewing the atomic bomb which had just been dropped on Hiroshima off in the distance. The caption in the book did not directly adress the photo.
Having the same pic in several of my own books, and "knowing" that she was in error, I quickly raised my hand, was called upon to speak, and explained, "Why no Mrs. Quinn, that is the picture of the atomic cannon...." It must have looked like a scene from "Young Sheldon" (US TV series). Her face contorted, and needless to say, it did not end well for me. I spent the next several minutes learning that the most important fact about WWII was that you don't correct Mrs. Quinn in front of the class.
In all fairness to Mrs. Quinn, she was tasked with teaching the history of the western world from the time of the discovery of the Americas through about 1977 (i.e, 1945) in her year with us. And in retrospect, she was sometimes very passionate about seemingly irrelevent historical tidbits that she would present in class, true historical elements that were never included on the tests, and no doubt, points of particular interest to her. All of these years later, I kind of regret that she didn't have the opportunity to actually teach history.
My parents had "geography" and "civics" when in school, by my day, they were combined into "Social Studies". Basically, it was geography the first couple of years, types of land formations and waterways, then continents and countries. From about 5th grade on it got more into history (well, dates and places anyway), with a mix of geograpy as needed.
In fifth grade, Ohio history was a hot topic, where we were introduced tot he names, date, and places school of history. Over the next few years, there was an overview or mostly western history from the pharaohs to WWII (WWII actually got honorable mention there too), Central and South America from the establishement of modern nation states (curiously, completely failing to mention the US involvement in any of the events or conflicts there). Then we touched on the discovery of the Americas and European conquests there, an introduction to law, and US governmental structure, the glory that was Theodore Roosevelt (a teachers personal hero), the industrial revolution and history of labor, and the history of the study of psychology (??). History ended my Junior year with the French revolution and US economics. I sometimes wonder if the chaos as presented was the plan, or disjointed bits of endlessly changing curriculums.
Ironically, I really disliked history in school; then, went home and studied ... history (and a bunch of other things. I used to think it was fun to come home and read encyclopedias) (Hmmm, used to?). For over five decades now, the study of history has been a hobby. Much of it linked to, but not exclusively related to gaming. It may be "bunk", but I find it fascinating.
To be honest, I remember remarkably few of those dates, and maybe a slightly greater number of the names and places that my educators thought to be important. In place of those many lost dates, I did discover many other dates, names, places, and even more interesting, a little of the how and why associated with some of them.
Despite my effort, I realize that I have learned very little, and no doubt have utterly failed to embrace it in its own context, but I will always remember that most important lesson about WWII:
Don't correct Mrs Quinn in front of the class.
Oh, and if you haven't seen it, give Hotel Rawanda a look. I thought it was a pretty well done, and note that it is a movie, not a documentary.
Another product of my aircraft decal frenzy is a pair of CF-100s from I-94 Enterprises. Here is a pic:
Given my approach to my 1958 campaign, I'm not sure how much I will game the Canadian forces in this version of the Cold War, but at least they will offer some air support for other NATO forces, if nothing else.
These are very nice models with no flash, finished with Flight Deck Decals.
During my recent decal frenzy, I Finished the second half of my French Air Force for 1940. Here are a few pics:
I finally got my 6mm Soviet aircraft for Babrbarossa done, well sort of. I ended up having decals for about two thirds of them, so an order to Flight Deck Decals will be happening soon. In any event, here are a few pics:
I also had a bunch of aircraft for other periods and scales that I was pooling together to complete the decal process all at once, and will be posting pics of some of the them in the coming days.
November remained a slow month on the hobby front, but I did manage to sneak down to the basement from to time, making a little progress on 6mm Soviet aircraft for 1941. Here is a pic of where they stand at the moment:
They are currently ready to receive camouflage and detailing, then decals. I also have a handful of early Cold War aircraft in both 6mm and 15mm that are awaiting decals, so hoping to finish them all at once.
Mounting and cutting the counter sheets for the campaign map this weekend will move me another step closer to getting the war started in the east.
Despite the slowdown over the last couple of months, my Barbarossa campaign will still start a little early, likely during the upcoming Christmas break.
My anticipation is building; just a matter of being patient a little longer.
Take care, and be safe out there.
