historical Archives - Felix's Gaming Pages

Then and Now

I’ve always found the comparative photographs showing photographs from the 1940s and how those same locations look today. In the past you would have needed to physically go the locations to take those comparative photographs, however with tools such as Google Street View you can now find the same locations online.

The harbours of Weymouth and Portland were one of the biggest departure points for US troops with over 500,000 military personnel, including support staff, and 144,000 vehicles.

This is a circa late May or early June 1944 photograph of U.S. Rangers marching through Weymouth in Dorset, en route to board landing ships for the invasion of France.

Using Google Street View you can get a similar contemporary view of Weymouth.

You can actually see very little has changed since 1944, the hotel has changed its name and the buildings have been repainted, but the substance of the buildings have changed very little.

Down at the Tank Museum

I’ve never been to the wargaming show at the Tank Museum before and it has been many years since I last visited the actual museum, but this year I did manage to get down to Bovington.

There is something rather inspiring about visiting a gaming show amongst the many different kinds of tanks and armoured cars on show. It’s one thing to see a 15 mm Tortoise on the table in an 1947 game and then just on the other side of the museum is the real prototype.

I probably spent more time looking at the exhibits than looking at the games or shopping, but there are some great exhibits. Those first tanks from The Great War were those that impressed me the most.

These metal monsters designed in an era when they didn’t really know what they were doing and there was a lot of trial and error. The Mark IX reminds us that the APC is as old as the tank.

The exhibition is great because you can get right up and close to the tanks and you get a much better understanding of the strength but also the weaknesses of the armoured fighting vehicle. You can see how tall the Sherman was for example and why those flat sides were a real target for the panzerfaust armed Germans.

Having recently enjoyed the film Fury it was great to see the real star of that film, the M4A3E8 Sherman.

On the gaming front, there were some great games on display.

Lots of traders there too ready to take your money, though I went with some ideas of getting some Sarissa Precision models they weren’t in stock and no one had any Copplestone Castings, so in the end I got one of the new 4Ground The Chicago Way buildings and some 28mm Edwardian policemen.

Who do you think you are kidding…

Probably my favourite demonstration game at Bristol’s Reveille 2014 was the Dad’s Army 28mm using the Pulp Alley rules.

The players were in charge of Walmington on Sea’s finest as they hunt for a bailed out German aircrew, the problem is there’s also a German uboat crew searching for them as well…

The scenery looked great.

As well as the Home Guard there was also a lovely model of Jones’ Butcher’s Van.

20mm Afrika Korps

These 20mm Afrika Korps vehicles and guns were part of a 20mm Rapid Fire Desert War game that was displayed at Reveille II.

Really nice models and scenery.

20mm M3 Stuart Tanks

These 20mm M3 Stuart tanks were part of a 20mm Rapid Fire Desert War game that was displayed at Reveille II.

They look very good, and the scenery was nice. Not sure of the make or if they were plastic kits or resin models.

Update: From the comments, they are the old Matchbox plastic kits of the M3 Stuart tanks.

I am thinking that when I do finish painting them and have a game, the scenario would be that a group of officers are separated from the main force, or are on a hunting trip and are then attacked.