Hooptedoodle #369 - Doomsday Obsession

A number of threads - of childhood nightmares, and of my failed career as a political activist...

This story is partly prompted by a piece of old junk I found when I was clearing my mother's house a few years ago - a sort of souvenir of my early teenage years, from a time of no little uncertainty and personal anxiety.

I've been watching the goings-on in the USA and elsewhere on TV, and, I'm afraid, I've always had a tendency to expect the worst. Usually, over the years, I've turned out to be unnecessarily pessimistic, but I guess I must be a slow learner.

I've always had some kind of Doomsday syndrome, I think. I was born in Liverpool, a city which was very badly smashed up by bombing during WW2. When I was a little kid in the 1950s, on the bus with my mother, travelling into the city centre to buy shoes or something, you could see the damage, still very much in evidence. Liverpool did not have a lot of money to rebuild, and these areas would have been a low priority anyway - there would be plans somewhere to demolish the whole lot for redevelopment as soon as possible, but all I could see were the gaps in the streets - if you travelled from the Dingle to the Pier Head, along Park Road or Mill Lane, which ran parallel to the river, within half a mile or so of the Southern Docks, every 5th, 6th, 8th, 12th house would be missing. These blitz sites gave me the horrors. Real nightmares.

Liverpool took a pasting in May 1941, when the Luftwaffe had bases near enough to put on massed raids - destruction of the port and the docks would have been a big strategic blow against the UK as a whole. The local defence chaps did their best, with searchlights and barrage balloons and AA guns and all the toys, but they stood little chance. The bomber crews would fly in over Warrington, and on a clear night they could see exactly where the targets were, as the river reflected the moonlight; they just flew along the East bank of the Mersey. Easy.

The actual air-raids were years before my time, but that whole story made a big impact on me - I guess I was a rather insecure child anyway, but the idea that some outside force could turn up and drop bombs on your house - I mean your kitchen, your toys, your mum, all the comfort in the known world - that was just devastating. I was really very obsessed with this stuff for years.

When we moved to Mossley Hill, a little further out into the suburbs, Saturday morning trips to the shops in Rose Lane now took us past the district Civil Defence HQ next to the railway station, and they had signs up on the walls telling you what you would have to do when the nuclear alert came - where to go, what position to assume, what you should take with you, what would happen. Not "if" the alert came - "when". This was like the WW2 blitz on an even more nightmarish scale. And there was no end of public information films on TV - all my school pals knew how near to the blast you would have to be to be vapourised, and we all knew that if you were not vapourised then things would be particularly grim thereafter. No wonder some of us grew up a little strange?

I remember going on holiday with my family - my dad hired a motor car, a real treat for us (it was a Morris!) - and we went down through the towns on the Welsh border, spending a week in Cornwall. At that time, I wasn't interested in anything - there was no point - we were all going to be vapourised anyway, so what could possibly be the point? My schoolwork was suffering, I had given up all my hobbies. On the holiday, at one point we reached a key moment - we were in the car park at Land's End. It was blowing a gale, it was cold and there was horizontal rain. My dad told me that for goodness sake I should cheer up a bit - this was a famous place, and I should enjoy being there - I might never have the chance again (in fact I've never been back). I was unimpressed - I knew that, like everywhere else, one day soon there would be a big flash in the sky (it might be over there, or it might be over there) and everything would be vapour and rocks.

Eventually I got over it, but I've always been a staunch pacifist, given the chance. I was at school when the Cuban missile crisis boiled up, I was at school when Kennedy was assassinated - I always had a good idea what was going to happen next...

At one point I took advantage of a free period at school, sagged off, took the bus into town, and visited Progressive Books in Mount Pleasant, up the hill from the Adelphi, towards the old University, and bought a small supply of CND badges for me and some fellow pacifists at school. I believe they were one shilling and sixpence each, by the way. The badges disappeared like the proverbial hot cakes, and I was commissioned to return to the "Commie Bookshop" for a further supply. No school uniform this time, either - anarchists didn't wear school uniform. The people in the bookshop were very kind to me, and obviously tried not to embarrass me, but they produced some leaflets (political - oooh...), and asked would I like to take some of these for my friends, and they were having a meeting the following Saturday if we would all like to come. I imagine I left at a good, brisk trot, without the leaflets. I delivered my load of CND badges, and the world moved on.

Not quite - I've always had that ability to see the Apocalypse coming over the hill - yet again - here it comes - 3rd time this week. That's why, when everyone was excited, watching the Berlin Wall come down, I was watching through my fingers, waiting for the shooting to start.

That's also why, when the fat fools who are in charge of the USA and North Korea were threatening each other with extermination recently, I felt that old, familiar sinking of the heart, and wondered why they couldn't get some grown-ups to do these jobs. I do hope they don't frighten any little children in the world - being a child is scary enough as it is.

That's not much of a story, probably, but a lot of the shaping of my views is captured right there, however silly it may seem. That is how we were brought up - maybe I was a good boy, and reacted the right way. Maybe not. Whatever, I've always been a mug for any casual Doomsday story.

In passing, many years later, when I was married, with a young family, and striving to make ends meet, one birthday time I was given my Annual Appraisal at work by my boss of the day, who was a nice old boy - I liked him. As we finished the discussion of what I hoped to achieve, and how the professional exams were going, he said to me, "You're not still involved in the political stuff, are you?".

I was completely bewildered - I assured him I was not the slightest bit interested in politics, never had been, and he made a brief note on my file. I forgot all about it.

Many more years later, by which time I was a rather more important member of staff than I had been, something happened (was it the start of Data Protection?) and I was given the opportunity to see my personal staff file, by the same employer. I took the chance, and didn't think much about it, but in the miscellaneous section at the end was a handwritten note:

Active member of Communist Club at University and possibly a party affiliate of some sort - started at school?

I was dumbfounded - no basis for this at all. Untrue, in fact - not even close. Next to the note, in red ballpoint pen, my old boss, Bill (who had subsequently retired and was probably dead by then) had written: no evidence of this now, and that seemed to be the end of it.

Red Herring

 It doesn't matter now, but I have sometimes wondered where that came from - what on earth was it about? I guess I'll never know - probably a mistake. Yes - let's assume it was a mistake. At least they haven't vapourised me yet, though I suspect they are working on it at this very moment.

Conversions - Some British Dragoon Command Figures

I need to improvise some command figures to complement some Hinton Hunt OPC British Dragoons I am in the process of refurbishing - Waterloo period uniform. I've considered various alternatives, but this afternoon's effort looks promising. This is an SHQ-Kennington trumpeter mounted on an HH horse.

He must have had a rather uncomfortable time being adjusted to fit his new horse, but it took a lot less work than I anticipated. Here he is pictured with one of the HH troopers - good for scale and general appearance, I think. I have a slight concern that the "shaving brush" at the front of the helmet is a bit puny by HH standards, but I think some fusewire and a little acrylic putty will put that right - a simple enough job - and I'll try to patch up that trumpet a bit while I'm at it.

Officers and another trumpeter to follow, then a group paint job - could be another low-effort refurb job (with luck!).

French Refurb - 70eme Ligne

With an enforced break in the WSS factory, I have had a chance to make a return to my ongoing rescue of some bought-in French Napoleonics - the boys of "Carlo's Army". Here are another two battalions, 1st and 2nd of 70eme Ligne, to join the 3rd Division of the Armée de Portugal, circa Spring 1812 - a period which has always been my natural home. The figures are mostly Les Higgins, vintage 1971 or so, with a few command bods brought in from Art Miniaturen, SHQ and Schilling. My approach to refurb work these days is such that there is probably none of the original paintwork of these figures still visible!

1st Battalion

2nd Battalion

I also took the opportunity to spruce up a couple of colonels which I have based to act up as brigade commanders - I was never happy with them; so here's this morning's picture of the newly-augmented 2nd brigade of the 3rd Divn, led by Colonel Dein of the 47eme, who is relishing his new, cleaner paint job.

Bde Col Dein - 70eme in front, 47eme behind - the brigade awaits the official 9-figure converged voltigeur "battalion", which will be along sometime soon. I've never been able to work out who the official GdB was. The brigade came to the Armée de Portugal from II Corps when Marmont re-organised his new command in Oct 1811, and the brigadier, GdB Roche Godart, returned to France around that time, subsequently serving in Russia. At Salamanca there is no official GdB in place, so maybe the colonels covered the gap throughout this period. GdB Menne had the other brigade. Sorry - this stuff interests me!

Hooptedoodle #367 - Variants on Social Distancing

Photo by Reuters

 I saw this on the BBC website - distancing system laid out at a college in Brussels. There's a lot of useful creativity being applied to some big social problems at present. What worries me is that this particular arrangement, if it follows my house rules for the WSS, requires everyone to face a vertex, and, though it will allow anyone entering a new hex to turn up to 60deg either way without penalty, any larger turn or any stationary turn needs an extra move.

That could be complicated for the students. We'll suspend judgement on this one, for the moment. Might be better if everyone just had their own tape-measure. Old School - yes, that would be more convenient all round, I can see that.

***** Late Edit *****

I found an ancient photo from the 1955 sci-fi movie, Quatermass II, of the scene in which some picnickers are taken away when they have accidentally got too close to the mysterious factory. I'm quite pleased to have found it, just for nostalgia - there is some very loose mention of this episode in the Comments below...

Are you the bloke who asked about the possibility of an amnesty...?

***** Late Edit 2 *****

I knew you would want to see it. If you haven't seen it before, here's Peter Gabriel let loose in his giant plastic ball - this was live, in Milan, during his 2003 tour. I agree - I wasn't sure whether it was me that was insane or him...

Whatever, I wouldn't mind a shot in one of these.

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Action on the River Coa - 24th July 1810 - The Game

The south-west corner of the fortress of Almeida, which contributed little to the action, really, though the Portuguese garrison gunners caused some loss to the French 3eme Hussards when they ventured too close

Well, because playing a game via Zoom was a new experience for us, I had spent some time this week working on camera angles, and lighting (which sounds grand, but was mostly a matter of which lights to switch on, which curtains to close to avoid table-shine and that strange effect you get when the electric lights are on but the far end of the table is in bright sunshine).

All went very well - this techy stuff is well tried and tested now, and was only really new to us greenhorns, so I shall avoid pretending it was stressful or dramatic, or even particularly clever; the game went well - we finished (just) in the scheduled 3 hours, and we learned quite a bit. Interesting. It was a very good day, I think - a lot of fun, apart from anything else.

We started at 10:30am, Goya commanding the French, Stryker the Anglo-Portuguese allies. The scene was General Craufurd's strange episode on the River Coa. The game was chosen because it is not too big (for a first bash at Zoom, like) - we used my scenario rather than the official C&CN #006 from the book (I was a bit affronted by the fact that the official scenario gives Craufurd a couple of gratuitous British Line battalions, just to balance the game - my usual crib about the official scenarios, in fact).

Our game paralleled quite a few areas of the real battle - interesting. Craufurd should, by rights, have retreated across the only bridge over the Coa a day or so before he did. He was certainly instructed to do so by his Commander in Chief - in the event he hung on, while Ney's VI Corps bore down on him; presumably he had hopes of gaining some kind of personal triumph against the advance guard, but he risked his entire Light Division with no real justification - he was still going to have to retreat eventually. Still, I guess you had to be there, as they say - it's all very well being smart about it now...

Our game required the accumulation of 7 Victory Points for a win - there was some fancy stuff around the availability of extra VPs for successful evacuation of Craufurd's units across the river, and there was also the issue of having a train of wagons and mules to evacuate, too. The challenge for Craufurd was knowing when to cut and run.

It was very close. These games are usually very close, but this one was probably the closest yet [cue rolling of eyes]. Craufurd himself spent some of the early part of the game resting (apparently) in a wood, but he manoeuvred his little army with skill, through a series of reverses. He evacuated half the wagon/mule train (the other half was destroyed by the French cavalry), he also evacuated 2 of his combat units, and he inflicted enough damage on the enemy to amass 6 VPs - at this stage the French, whose VP all came from eliminating Craufurd's units, had also got to 6 VPs.

Craufurd himself, with a battalion of the Rifles, was on the bridge at that moment, and his next turn would allow him to march them over the river to safety, to get the required 7th VP.

Didn't happen - his turn never came. The French threw in the last of all they had on their left flank, including a charge on the battered 14th Light Dragoons by the last intact battalion, the 1/66eme, led by General Ferey himself. Since the 14LD were not in good shape, and did not have room for the approved Retire & Reform ploy, the infantry won this scrap - a rare example of an attack column defeating horsemen - and the game was over, leaving Craufurd to go to discuss his day with Wellington.

General de Brigade Claude-François Ferey - probably man of the match

Excellent fun - we didn't learn too much from things that went badly, because there weren't many at all - about all I can think of was that the usual red loss counters do not show up well on camera, so we'll use white in future. One important skill in learning, I think, is to make sure you remember the things that did work - and there was plenty of scope for that.

My colleagues, of course, mucked in with their usual excellent enthusiasm and good humour, which was a massive contributor to our success. I was the umpire and general labourer, and it is quite hard work, but I had a terrific time - from time to time I felt apprehensive, because I was charging about, hyperventilating, while my guests were really only getting to watch through the keyhole, but it seems that everything was fine at their end too.

I think it proved worthwhile spending time and attention on the hardware - we had my Android tablet on a high stand - some 7 feet up in the air - as the main camera, at one end of the table, and my iPhone - also 7 feet up (and permanently connected to its charger, since Zoom will flatten a phone battery in no time at all - please take note!) - as the second camera, at the other end. The iPhone attended as a separate guest - Max Foy, in fact, who has his own Zoom account (not many of Napoleon's generals have Zoom accounts, I think). It also proved to have been a good idea to invest some time in setting up a grid reference system for the hex table, and to produce some good maps for the players.

My thanks, as ever, to Goya and Stryker for being such good chaps and making the game a success. Now that we have some experience, we are considering allowing one or two guests/observers to drop in on future games - we'll have to weigh that up, since there isn't a lot of time for chat, but it's all good so far!

One thing I was aware of was the lack of time to take decent photos, so apologies for the unbalanced set I managed to salvage - in particular the end of the game was a little frenzied, so there is a shortage of pictures of the climax! It's worth saying, I think, that playing a game by videoconference introduces a lot of obvious challenges, but it also encourages the players to be very methodical about following orderly turn sequences, for example, and this actually helped the game to run smoothly.

Points duly noted! Oh - yes - being umpire is fun but it's a bit of a work-out - I recommend a bottle of Lucozade on stand-by!

View from above the fortress of Almeida, looking along Craufurd's line towards the bridge at the far end. The little stone-wall enclosures are the remains of old vineyards. Craufurd is on the right edge of the picture, with the white edge to his base.

General view at the start from the French right flank - Ferey's brigade, who did much of the work, are at the far end. Loison, the division commander, like Craufurd, has the white base-border befitting his rank.

Ferey, with two battalions of each of 82eme and 66eme, plus a battalion of Légère, has a couple of batteries and support from the 15eme Chasseurs à Cheval (regular stand-out performers on this table). He sets about the Allied right flank.

And the first target is the 52nd Foot, on the end of the Allied line, with Sydney Beckwith attached. The 52nd suffered heavily and very quickly (something to do with being in the open), and eventually had to fall back behind their more sheltered colleagues.

On the Allied left, in front of the fortress, Col Robert Barclay has Rifles and the 43rd Foot, plus Ross's Troop RHA

A couple of gaps in the Allied right - some of Anson's light cavalry arrive, to help out

A more general view, around the same time - the battered 52nd Foot, identifiable by the stack of red markers, were not impressed by Col Beckwith's speech-making, and took little further part in the fighting, though eventually they were safely evacuated over the bridge. 

Bitter fighting near the bridge - Ferey brings up the 82eme - the black square means that - that's right, good guess! - the unit is in square; no time in a game of this sort to arrange the bases in a nice square, though it could be done in a more leisurely context.

Baron Ferey had a really exciting day - as a succession of units to which he was attached were eliminated, he would move on to someone else - at various times he was briefly attached to the foot artillery, the 82eme and the 66eme, and here he personally brings up the 15eme Chasseurs à Cheval - that's him with label #14 on his base - if he doesn't get made a Count for this then he should. No staff casualties on either side this day, by the way.

The chasseurs were repelled by the KGL Hussars, here seen with Gen George Anson, but they reappeared subsequently to help out with the final scrap. The last of the wagons is heading for the bridge and safety - it may seem unimportant, but that's another half a VP, and these things are hard-won.

Craufurd has now appeared in the battle line, as he prepares for his final stand. Though it was a struggle, Stryker handled the retreat over the bridge and the rearguard action with considerable skill.

Not much remaining on the French left by this stage - the 15eme Chasseurs are out of picture, getting their breath back and being egged on by General Ferey, but this is about it, though there is a flank attack coming in on the Allies from some of General Gardanne's dragoons.

Meanwhile, the French right, mostly General Simon's brigade of infantry, has hardly moved. There may be some awkward silences at dinner tonight.

Suddenly, very quickly, 6-all becomes 7-6 to the French, as Ferey, with the 1/66eme in column attack, manages to rout the British 14th Light Dragoons. The game is over - still within the 3-hour Zoom session. Stryker estimates we played out 14 turns in the 3 hours, which is not bad going at all in the circumstances. Well done, everyone!

Here you go - it's official - the French win 7-6. Yet another close one!

***** Late Edit *****

I received a couple of questions about the reference letters around the edges of the table - this was to make it easier to match the table up with the "official" set-up map I sent to the generals. Here's the map:

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Hooptedoodle #366 - Happy Birthday John Cruickshank

I recently put up a post about John Cruickshank, the son of a one-time neighbour of mine in Edinburgh, who flew with Coastal Command in WW2 and was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1944 when he sank a U-Boat, bringing his Catalina home safely despite being seriously wounded in the attack.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, Mr Cruickshank is still alive, and I think he lives in Aberdeen; tomorrow (20th May) will be his 100th birhday and, though I never met the man, I have left myself a diary reminder to drink a toast to him tomorrow. I'd be pleased and honoured if anyone would care to join me (figuratively speaking, of course).

Photo borrowed from The Scotsman

Every possible good wish, John - wherever you are - congratulations, and thanks for your gallant efforts all those years ago!

I found the following movie on Youtube - I'm sorry about the running numbers in the centre of the picture, but I thought it was pretty good - a dramatised documentary from 1943 about Coastal Command, with a musical score by Vaughan Williams, no less. Much use is made of real Coastal Command personnel, so the acting is fairly lumpy, but it's OK - some good shots of a Sunderland in action, and there are Catalinas and other planes later on. Some of the action shots were filmed on actual missions.

Action on the Coa - 24th July 1810 - Prep

With luck - broadband and domestic problems permitting - we should have our first Zoom-based video-conference wargame at the end of this week - probably Friday. We've chosen a Commands & Colors game, because the gridded table should be easy to work with, a small action, for obvious reasons, we'll use the house's Ramekin activation system in place of the Command Cards, because it simplifies things, the host will be the umpire and will do all the running around.

Sounds fine - as umpire and host, I am packing in the vitamins and the glucose drinks, in preparation.

I have set up the table - my esteemed colleagues will help decide what tweaking we need, then I'll probably put the figures out of the way until Friday. I thought I'd give a preliminary view here of what I've done so far. The scenario is not the one from the C&CN book - though obviously it has historical similarities. The whole thing will look better when the chairs are cleared out of the way and I've tidied up a bit for the (virtual) TV crew. Oh yes - I emphasise that this is a provisional set-up - we may adjust the OOBs and the starting positions before the game.

Battlefield from the southern corner, French to our right in this view.

The French, from their left flank. These are the troops Ney has sent forward to deal with Crawfurd. Loison, the division commander, has the white border; from this end, you see Ferey's brigade, then the 15e Chasseurs à Cheval, then Simon's brigade, then more cavalry. They also have 1 field battery, 1 horse battery and a small unit of élite voltigeurs - the Chasseurs de Siège - hand-picked from the whole of VI Corps.

And here are the Allies, from their right. Crawfurd is on the hill opposite, with the white border to his base, staring in dismay at the baggage train which he somehow has to evacuate over the bridge. From this end, you see Col Beckwith's brigade, Col Barclay's brigade, then George Anson's cavalry and Ross's Troop, RHA. At the far end you can see the south-west corner of the fortress of Almeida - there are some more troops in there.

And now the whole table from the other end - French on the left here (the 3eme Hussards look a bit close to the Rifles and the RHA, so that may be an early tweak). The supporting cavalry just coming onto the field on the road from Vale da Mula are Gardanne's dragoon brigade.

The French from their right - you get the idea...

...and now the Allies from their left - this is more interesting - there are Portuguese guns in the fort, which can fire on the French right wing (just about) - there are also Portuguese infantry in the fortress. We probably won't see them - they can't be fired on if they don't climb up on the walls or the covered way, and (as is only fair) they cannot themselves fire unless they expose themselves in this way. Note that there are some dry-stone enclosures, the remains of old vineyards, we are told, which will be useful for some shelter for the outnumbered Allies.

Here, hiding off the table, are the Portuguese garrison of Almeida - or all of them we get to hear about, anyway. Here you see Colonel Cox, the fortress commander (who is English, of course, though he is in the Portuguese army) with a couple of battalions - the chaps with the white flag are militia. What could go wrong? In fact, attacking the fortress itself would be a remarkably stupid thing to do, so we'll outlaw that, to be on the safe side. I have no idea whose ox-cart that is - that isn't supposed to be there.

Reading about Crawfurd's Big Adventure has been interesting - I consulted a lot of books, and found a lot of very partial reports - he may have been anything from a hero to an idiot. The version I liked best was in Donald Horward's Napoleon and Iberia, which is a great book anyway. Horward makes a lot of reference to the memoirs of Colonel Emmanuel-Frédéric Sprünglin, a Swiss national who was Ney's ADC in Spain. I got quite excited about these memoirs, and investigated getting a copy. Ouch - very expensive.

Crawfurd himself is a mystery man - it's hard to avoid the impression that he behaved rather wildly during this little mini-campaign. He's a difficult man to get a handle on anyway. We understand that Wellington was an admirer of his abilities, and used to defend him against detractors, that Black Bob was a tough disciplinarian, but very highly principled and much loved by his men, yet there is also a strong impression that no-one could stand the blighter. I shall read further, of course - perhaps everyone was jealous?

***** Late Edit - 18th May *****

As of this post - possibly started for part of the last one - Blogger seems to have evolved yet further; previously there were some users for whom I did not receive notification if they left a comment. As from now, it seems I don't get any notifications at all. Not to worry - I just have to keep myself organised and check the pending folders - the other possibility is that I remove the approval check, but I don't fancy that - I still get some very strange stuff from political sites in Bangladesh, Ukrainian porn sites and assorted crap advertising portals worldwide, so I'll keep that step in.

If I miss any comments, or am slow getting to them, please bear with me - and sincere thanks, once again, to anyone who reads my blog!

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