Spearhead, or Baptism of Fire, circa September 1914

Well the end result of last night’s game of Great War Spearhead was a bit of a mullering for my poor poilu.  Despite the fact I was slaughtered by Alan’s gigantic Germans I really enjoyed our game. Possibly  the  most amusing  aspect of the whole encounter  was that  I could not  manage to call down any off board artillery  onto the Germanic steam roller.  

 

Creative Commons: C.C. BY-SA 3.0 Europeana 1914-1918

The defeat was mainly down to poor leadership on my part and by advancing my regiment  of green  troops on the left right into the face of German guns. Then by handing the advantage to my advisory and allowing him to move first in the next turn. This resulted in the regiment being decimated in a round of withering rifle fire which killed over half of them. Furthermore we should not forget Alan’s strategic brilliance to take advantage and exploit my tactical errors and storm the left flank achieving both centre table objectives.

My 10mm French feeling a little exposed with German flanking manoeuvre complete.

The German Regiment "Alsace" successfully taking their objective in the foreground.

The first response was to attempt to withdraw my remaining units to safety which  in retrospect would have been the better option. I will argue that  permission to withdraw was  refused  by  someone  higher up in the chain of command.  Instead I attempted to stem the advance by sending  a unit of brave if inappropriately dressed  cuirassiers across to the quickly disintegrating flank.  Sadly for me and them Alan’s eagle eyed artillery spotters saw them riding over the crest of the hill and dropped a well-placed shell on them. By the time they contacted the enemy’s flanking force there was one stand left, they killed the lead enemy stand before routing off.      

On reflection for the close on the enemy and slug it out tactic to be successful the French would need to outnumber the Germans around three to one. This is an expensive way of winning a battle.   

A wider view of the terrain showing the German start line behind "one tree hill"

A battalion of the Brandenburg Regiment controlling  the sugar factory objective     

Next time a more measured approach should be taken and keep the élan and flare up my sleeve for the coup de grace.  

Great War Maps Online

Tonight I am off to fight an early First World War action using the Great War “Spearhead” rules.  These rules require  commands to be  planned and  written on a map in advance of  your deployment  on  the table. Then you simply follow your written orders   until  you bump into the enemy and all hell breaks loose.

This system has allowed me to utilise a cool resource I recently came across, the World War I Maps and Aerial Photography  archive at  McMaster University Library. This fantastic resource has a wide selection of trench maps and aerial photographs from France and Belgium  for the period. Aside from being a really interesting primary research source it is very handy for WWI wargaming,  they offer a huge range of  map and photographic  material  to  base  terrain on.  With some maps you could   recreate a every detail of  a section of  the western front for your battle.  

In the case of tonight’s game I have selected a section of map north west of Beaumont-Hemel for the encounter from  a 1917 1:40000 map of the region around Albert. 

Will try  to let you know how I get  on... 

The Leather Belt

Sunday evening saw a bit of work on the crusader's belt. Now I am much happier with the results and feel it represents worn leather to a better standard now.  

 I started some very diluted black which was gently brushed on to the centre of the belt to add a touch of depth. Once the black had dried I very carefully stippled the top and bottom edges of the belt with beige.

 The paint was diluted around 4:1 with water.  To finish it all off a wash of  cavalry brown was added bringing the separate elements together and give the whole belt a leather sheen.  

Hope you like the progress. 

The next job is to do a bit of work on the red crosses  and get them looking less painted. 

Mucky Hems

So where was I, Oh yeah, engrained dirt. The process of working dirt into the tabbard continued      with very diluted mixes of chocolate brown and khaki, about a eight to one mix which was figuremethodically painted around the hem of the crusaders tabbard each coat slowly built up the dirt with slightly different tones. Interspersed in the brown and khaki coats were the occasional coat of ivory which was feathered up into the off-white of the fabric. It is a slow but pleasant process and it seems to be producing results.

Currently I am not totally happy with the leather belt. It needs a little more work to get a the worn look just right...

Okay maybe I will just ruin it and have to start again.  Watch this space !

Lest We Forget

On a corner of the perimeter wall of Heathfield School in Ascot sits a memorial to the only son of its former bursar, Flying Officer Henry (Harry) Beaucourt Skyrme of the Royal Air Force, who went missing on the night of 16 January 1941. Skyrme was listed  missing in The Times on 7 February 1941.

  

Henry “Harry” Beaucourt Skyrme was born on 8 October 1917 in Bexhill-on-Sea, the only child of Major Theophilus Garfield Skyrme. His middle-name refers to Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre on the Somme, where his father was wounded during the First World War, subsequently losing his leg.

Harry attended Radley College, Abingdon 1931-35. In the school newspaper,  The Radleian  a short obituary of Harry, which describes him as a loyal Radleian although not known for eminence. Skyrme’s service record lists his interests as ‘rugger and rowing’ and The Radleian also mentions him crewing a coxed IV for his house in inter-school competitions.

Skyrme was a salesman for Stratstone Ltd in Pall Mall before volunteering for the RAF on 4 October 1938. He scraped through his flight exams at the second attempt and was authorized to wear the coveted RAF cloth pilot’s wings. On 23 September 1939 he married Georgina Alexandra Bellanti from Gozo Malta . On 25 October 1940 he was promoted to the rank of Flying Officer and on 1 November 1940 he joined No.10 Bomber Squadron under the command of Group Captain W.E. ‘King Kong’ Staton.

On 16 January 1941 at 18:32 Skyrme and four comrades (Sergeants Rowlett, Sandland, Polkinghorne and Brookman) took off from RAF Leeming in Yorkshire as part of an 81 aircraft raid on Wilhelmshaven following up a successful raid the previous night. During the night of the 16th fewer crews found their targets and Wilhelmshaven reported only light damage with two people killed. 

Five aircraft did not return from that raid including the Whitley Mk V bomber T4220 ZA-S piloted by Skyrme on operational mission. The last report of his aircraft was timed at 21:15: they were going to drop altitude to try to find warmer air because the flaps were icing up. The aircraft and crew were presumed lost in the North Sea.

On 10 September 1941, Harry Skyrme’s daughter Jacqueline was born. The following day, The Times listed him in the roll of honour: “previously reported missing now presumed killed in action”.   He is commemorated by name on three memorials:

Heathfield School, Ascot (Pictured)

The Ascot War Memorial

The RAF Memorial, Runnymede (Panel 30)

The Yellow Scarf

Last night more  progress was  made on the yellow scarf  around the crusader's waist. Firstly I went over all the upper surfaces of the scarf with a light sand highlight. Once this dried a went over the entire scarf with an opaque covering of lemon yellow.  Once this was complete a mix of some off-white was added to the yellow and the added a further light coat over the high-light areas once again. 
After a couple more coats progressively lighting the yellow until I was happy with the highlight. 
It was not to be too light but defined enough to show the texture and the folds off to their best. 

For the recesses and folds in the fabric a tiny spot of chocolate brown was mixed in with the yellow. This too was watered down in to an opaque consistency and gently added into the low- lights. The final stage was to paint over a final top coat to bring together the different shades and tones into one element encompassing light and dark. 

Finally the next part to deal with will be to start working on the bottom of the crusader's surcoat. Ideally we want to achieve an ingrained dirt look resulted  from months or possibly years of campaigning ...

Boots and Gloves

Recently some of the readers suggested that I should focus efforts on finishing up this crusader. So over the next few free evenings I am attempting to add the finishing touches to him. And attempt to get a nice uniform tonality on to the fabrics.

So far I am very pleased with the boots and gloves, both of which I imagine were made from un-dyed hide.

Currently I am working on the yellow waist scarf. This represents a piece of looted fabric from an enemy warrior. I hope to achieve an extra level of refinement on this item to contrast with the earthy tones against off white.