tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37197333437162217832024-03-14T03:14:09.480-05:00Tabakskollegium-MekelnborgDisquisitions on Early Modern Warfare and History centered especially on the Eighteenth Century, with Particulars and Observations on the Wars, Sieges and Battles, when Malplaquet 1709 was still the Big Onemekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-67099284833477845442014-03-20T20:06:00.001-05:002014-03-20T20:06:43.074-05:00The Mission, by Larry Hunter<b> Devin Hester, a great player, is off the Bears for 2014, Sad to see him go</b><br />
Well, it has been another season, and now the Bears besides letting Urlacher go at middle linebacker last year, now they have also let Devin Hester slip away. He's the guy who on special teams was tied for the most kickoff return touchdowns, ever. Those are spectacular because it is right when the other team is just starting play off by doing the kickoff to put the ball in play, and they are not expecting the first guy who touches it to come charging right back and get a touchdown. But Devin did. Just to tick off the Green Bay fans, I some time ago had my lady friend who was living in Wisconsin start wearing a Devin Hester Chicago Bears jersey, right in front of all the Packers fans. So I hope they think they know what they are doing, the Bears I mean. This happens when they don't want to pay a player a certain rate for the next year, maybe thinking he's too old now or something, even though he's half my age.<br />
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<b>Overtime</b><br />
I have actually been working steady overtime in the 50s and 60s hours a week range ever since the last post about Urlacher, that is almost a year straight, and have not had even one day off since the sogenannte polar vortex rendered my car unable to start due to extreme cold, that was back January 7. I had no choice but to not work that day, but try to get the car to start. It was something like 45 below zero wind chill factor, with an actual reading 14 below as if it were out of the wind, which it wasn't. No dice till it got to 12 below. I have no idea what that would be in Celsius, but it is colder than a ^%$# 's (*&.<br />
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<b>Accident, Their Fault</b><br />
A week earlier on New Years' morning I was going from an overnight job New Years Eve directly to the morning job in another town 16 miles away, yes that is a holiday double shift, that is my life, when some Bulgarian partiers from a New Years Eve party crashed into me, having run through a red light, while we were experiencing a blizzard which later turned out to have dropped 10-12 inches of snow on us. I managed to win the case, since they were at fault, and got thousands in repairs quite reasonably. I did not think I was particularly hurt, but with some things you can't really be sure right away, but have to wait and see. Also we now know for sure, a Smart car can defeat an SUV, and the wreck is survivable after all, at least with snow below to slide on.<br />
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<b>Civil War</b><br />
So since then, whatever I said I was doing before, I forgot about (it was Kolin) and have been reading heavily this year about the Civil War, which means that I should post on the other blog sometime soon. Trouble is I was still in the process there when I left off, of working on 1861, and what I have been reading about the most actually is for 1864. And last year the reading kick was on for 1862, even though by then it was 2013, so my 150th anniversary thing is all thrown out of gear, even though it is still now shortly before the anniversary of the final long showdown between Grant and Lee, which kicks off in May 2014.<br />
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<b>Amazon Came Back On</b><br />
After moaning and groaning for three years about how the governor had got us all kicked off Amazon, stymying my efforts to make very reasonable sales of books and so on that I talk about available here, as well as playing he-- with my <i>raison d'etre</i>. shortly before Christmas the Supreme Court ruled the governor's deal void, and we all were able to get back in after all, not that anyone was ready any more. A number of us gave up and died since then, or various other things happened. And then they finally decide it's been void all along. Very good, now ya tell us.<br />
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So I was waiting for them to reply, when the accident happened, and it turns out they let me back in three months ago, but then said if I didn't sell anything for three months, I'd get kicked out again, anyway, for that now. And by the time they mentioned that, it was almost too late. By the time I read their email, maybe it already is too late.<br />
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And in any event I can't remember if I had put Amazon.com anywhere, or was still thinking about it, in which case the amazon through skimlinks.com should still be working. I think it still is, so no wonder I hadn't sold anything, since I not only didn't tell anyone, but also hadn't even read it myself. I think I actually am still thinking about it, and had not taken any real action before forgetting about it again.<br />
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And I just read that after it may be too late, so I'll see if I can get something myself off here, and also off the other one. It always turns out to be an excellent deal and quick too, and with me I always see several other things I also could use.<br />
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<i><b>The Mission, by Larry Hunter</b>.</i><br />
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Now this past week I have been reading a novel titled The Mission, by Larry Hunter, who I have met personally, and I have had some discussions with him. He is a new reader over on the Civil War blog, Headquarters in the Saddle.blogspot.com<br />
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He wrote a novel a few years ago which is the one I have been reading. I read one page from the middle a couple weeks ago, then set it aside, but I could tell it sounded good, in fact real good, from that particular page I had opened it to, since it had the bagman run off with the money from the hotel room above Lee Harvey Oswald, shortly before the Kennedy assassination occurred.<br />
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But I have been really busy. These 65 hour weeks and 52 or 56 hour ones are partly daytime, partly nighttime, and an afternoon evening, so that for several days straight I have only eight hours to get from job A to job B, with little rest in between. That's bad enough to do that once, but I am doing it fully half the time, 3-4 times a week.<br />
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I see Larry on Sunday afternoon. We were discussing things like whether McClellan was really as bad as they say, etc, which is really more geared towards the other blog.<br />
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So finally I got started with pages one and two, and could tell he had succeeded in hooking me into the story from there. That was a good sign, but after all I had to be up to go to work like seven hours later, so I went to sleep anyway. I just finally got a chance to read yesterday, and I did not put the book down for a good six or seven hours, and again then only to sleep for work and also to save a little for later. So in that marathon session, I read from page 3 to 165.<br />
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Yes, it is good. I'm not saying he is right about everything, necessarily, but it is certainly plausible enough, and some of it happens right on my very route home from work! And like with a movie, it is the story that pulls you in with a novel, it isn't set up as a documentary.<br />
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The whole book only runs 219 pages, so I still have about 55-60 more pages to read to finish it. I have passed up the bagman part, and also now I understand what Larry's wife meant when she had asked him "Why did you do that?" about one certain part, but read on to where okay I understand. So check out his novel, The Mission, by Larry Hunter, and I think you'll enjoy it. There's plenty of action.<br />
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The shootout in Chapter II occurs about a mile from my house, in front of a church where I pass through the supposed line of fire five times a week! I have never had a shootemup action novel hit that quite close to home before, and also the author is a reader here now, so you can talk to him here. He's working on another one, this one came out in 2010 and is available through Amazon.<br />
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So anyway, I'll be finishing this book up soon, and see if any of my links will work for it or what. I'll also have to see about mentioning it on headquarters in the saddle, because I couldn't get Larry to remember Tabakskollegiummekelnborg, he just kept on asking what? What? I can't remember that, how do you speel that--what's the other one called then?<br />
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I probably would too. <br />
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* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-373887995810539502013-05-22T19:54:00.002-05:002013-05-22T19:54:26.517-05:00Chicago Bears Middle Linebacker Brian Urlacher Retires Today<b>Brian Urlacher has announced his retirement today in Chicago after 13 brilliant seasons with the Chicago Bears as the middle linebacker. His birthday is coming up this Saturday the 25th.</b><br />
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This is a great player, worthy of the many tributes going on today around here.<br />
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Photo: Off English wikipedia, q.v. (which see) Brian_Urlacher.jpg: Jauerback<br />
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<b>Jeff Joniak is interviewing everybody he can find</b><br />
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I have been listening to sound bites gathered by Jeff Joniak on WBBM radio who is running around trying to talk to everybody. At first Jeff was saying he had 11 forced fumbles, but has latterly corrected that to 12.<br />
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Charles Tillman just said he was a "great player, and a great friend,...a great leader, an awesome leader, and great guy." That's a lot of greats.<br />
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Roosevelt Colvin just said he "always went to bat, never threw anybody under the bus, class act."<br />
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Other people are saying stuff too. <br />
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Here is an excerpt from the already updated wikipedia page including a quote from Devin Hester, where Devin was talking about the 2006 game with the Arizona Cardinals with an Incredible Hulk performance, by Urlacher, after that was the Super Bowl. <br />
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I had to work the day of the Super Bowl, even though it was my day off, but some lady from New York needed to be escorted and I had to get called in to do that just when the Super Bowl was about to start. She didn't even know it was the day of the Super Bowl. With the Bears in it!!!!! It was so cold that day my moustaches froze solid, and the jets going into O'Hare sounded different in the sub-zero air, it has to be really cold to sound different like that. My truck barely started too. My day off. I blame my Civil War Correspondent for calling me in, I never should have answered the phone. Ah who cares, the TVs are better at work anyway. Je ne regrette rien.<br />
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Go to the link for more with highlights, stats and pics.<br />
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<i>"The team continued their resurgence into the 2006 season, finishing with a record of 13–3. During the season, Urlacher had one of the best performances of his professional career against the Arizona Cardinals.[32] He helped the Bears overcome a 20-point deficit by recording 25 tackles and a forced fumble that was returned for a touchdown.[32] Teammate Devin Hester commented on Urlacher's performance, stating, "We watched the film and everybody was saying that he just turned into the Incredible Hulk the last four minutes of the game, just killing people and running over and tackling whoever had the ball."[33] The Bears won the NFC Championship against the New Orleans Saints, 39–14, but lost Super Bowl XLI to the Indianapolis Colts, 29–17. Urlacher finished the season with 93 tackles and three forced fumbles. He was elected to the 2006 All-Pro Team and 2007 Pro Bowl, while also earning consideration for the League's Defensive Player of the Year award.[34]"</i><br />
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<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Urlacher">Here's the link to read more. So hit it.</a></i><br />
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And Brian himself said, among other things, "I don't regret anything I've ever said or done, I know that much."<br />
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Well I haven't forgotten about that one Friday night date with Paris Hilton, wasn't that Las Vegas, about probably eleven or twelve years ago, and then on Sunday at high noon the Bears lost that day. I haven't forgotten, but I forgave it, even that day, I understand. I wouldn't really regret either. Probably just scurrilous rumors anyway.<br />
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<i>If you want to hoot with the owls, you better be able to soar with the eagles in the morning.</i><br />
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<b>So an Era has ended...</b><br />
<b> It's a New Era Now and Time for Reflection and Renewed Resolution of Our Goals</b><br />
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That's great, he can say that along with Edith Piaf, l'incomparable. <br />
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<a href="http://www.metrolyrics.com/non-je-ne-regrette-rien-lyrics-edith-piaf.html">Here are her lyrics with English alongside</a>, I think they are worth reading. The Spanish translation transduccion en espanol is in the Uploader Comments.<br />
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I am reflecting on these past thirteen seasons, one of the main highlights has been seeing him up there in the middle of that Defense. In my world, it has mainly been thirteen years and in fact more than that basically down the toilet slaving with Gee Four Ess, which was wacky. My only goal was to survive, and so far I'll give it that, although several times that looked dicey. And to see my gf naked. So I win.<br />
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But my achievements pale in comparison to Urlacher's. Even Oprah Winfrey has his jersey along with thousands of other people around here. My gf to be different has a Devin Hester one, in an orange, authentic of course. You could get NFL jerseys from nfl.com or maybe someplace else. I think the Brent Farvra ones are still in the bargain bin, after everybody had to repurchase the Rogers ones a couple years ago.<br />
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<i> </i><br />
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<br />mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-38141852752824047022012-12-02T23:32:00.001-06:002012-12-08T17:26:04.405-06:00Austerlitz 1805 207th Anniversary Project<b> 207th Anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz 1805</b><br />
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Today is the 207th Anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, December 2. This was considered one of Napoleon's best in any list of his bloody masterpieces.<br />
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I have been working towards a new project because of the anniversary to use the small shipment of some 1500 new 3mm Napoleonic figures I ordered about a month ago, to make a very small miniature setup based on Austerlitz, as near as can be ascertained with the books I have on hand.<br />
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I don't intend to use more than about ten percent of those figures on this project, which is meant to be extremely compact, if not minimalist. <br />
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This post is only to update readers; I don't have really dramatic progress such as pics this time, for viewing, but have done the preparation research so I could start now, if I weren't writing this. To me that part is the more important part and always has been. The rest of the hobby is a good way to use the information. Other gamers I know are content to let someone else figure it all out, but I prefer to do that myself.<br />
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<b>About Those 3mm Figures</b><br />
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They are very quick to paint up. The artillery I showed last time only had a few swipes of the brush and were pretty much ready to use, in maybe three minutes' work plus modest drying time, and the same applies to the other types. After just a few colors are applied they are about as good as they are going to get, except for any obvious slop-overs.<br />
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They are kind of tricky because they are so very small, on the one hand a very quick few strokes makes them more or less ready to go, but when you look closely especially with magnification you actually can see more details, that you are then tempted to try to paint. But the trouble is your finest brush will then look like a baseball bat under the magnification and it will appear to move ten feet when you try to even make the slightest move.<br />
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And then after all sorts of delays for corrections of seemingly massive slop-over, where even 1 millimeter equals two feet on the man, it turns out that when you set them on the table 1 foot from your eyes they are so small that you can hardly tell which are blue and which are gray. You also cannot see the slopovers that seemed so bad a minute ago.<br />
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Over at the 3mm group some have started to be posted as enthusiasts have been getting their pieces painted over the past couple of weeks, and I don't think their standard is much better than mine. People so far have been skipping details such as cuffs. If there is any way to get them on, they would look better with them, so I will soon see about that. On a 6mm figure that is what makes the uniform come to life in periods when they were used, but this is rather smaller than that, and is a very tiny area. I am curious to see whether tey will be visible even if done.<br />
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Painting has not been the holdup. Rules have been. And specifically which scale of representation to commit to before painting. I was talking about using 1 figure = 312.5 men a month ago. Now I have gone even further towards the far out there scale by going to 1 figure = 500 men.<br />
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At this scale a battalion of 500 men would be just one figure, and a whole army could easily deploy on an area the size of a mousepad. The ground scale is 1:50,000, which directly corresponds with military and other topographical maps, notably those used by NATO and others.<br />
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I have talked about this sort of arrangement before. I don't think anyone actually does it but me, as far as I can tell. If anyone else does try to play at a scale like this I would love to hear about it.<br />
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<b>Talking About Austerlitz Books in This Section </b><br />
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There are two sets of rules that lend themselves to the army level of play that I have referred to here before.<br />
One is <a href="http://amazon.com/Paddy-Griffith/e/B000APPI6Q/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1"><i>Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun</i>, by Paddy Griffith</a>. <br />
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The next one is <a href="http://amazon.com/Charlie-Wesencrafts-Practical-Wargaming-Curry/dp/1409267245/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355005720&sr=1-2&keywords=Charlie+Wesencraft"><i>Charlie Wesencraft's</i> <i>Practical Wargaming</i></a>.<br />
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Griffith has Army level rules in that book among other sets of rules, and Wesencraft has what he calls the Army Corps in Action rules. These last ones predate and resemble the systems of DBA closely.<br />
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Both of these books have been recently republished by John Curry, who is at <a href="http://johncurryevents.co.uk/">johncurryevents.co.uk </a><br />
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The problem I am having with these is that they are element-based, where the elements are all of some uniform size, so as to compare with one another one-on-one, whereas I am making units of the correct size, within the nearest 500 at least.So I can't just say a brigade is 2000 men; some may be but many are not. Uniform elements are not good enough for me, they'd seem a ghastly abstraction.<br />
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So I am probably going to see what I can use from these rules, once the figures are painted up, but at the same time I am about halfway through just making my own rules anyway, since the scale is radically different from what we normally see. At 1:50,000 scale, 20mm is 1000 meters. The huge expanse of Leipzig would be only about 20 inches of battlefield, and other battles would be smaller still.<br />
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But Austerlitz takes up a wide expanse, if one includes Brno (Bruenn) the nearby fortress town, and the map I am looking at takes in 24 km by 18 km, which is a pretty large area. That translates to about 14 by 19 inches, a foot to a foot and a half, and could easily be played on a coffee table sized area.<br />
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Also the armies are quite small at this scale, only around 150 figures or so on each side. They could all be assembled on the same mouse pad. So I think they will be ready soon, sometime this season. I have been figuring out how many to use, <br />
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Then another influence is the famous game with the greats of British and American wargaming who did Borodino at 1 figure = 500 men. That can be read about on the Vintage Wargaming blog (see Blogroll.)<br />
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So far I have been reading in <a href="http://amazon.com/1805-Austerlitz-Napoleon-Destruction-Coalition/dp/B000E6UWBW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355006227&sr=1-1&keywords=Robert+Goetz+Austerlitz">Robert Goetz, 1805 Austerlitz: </a>Napoleon and the Destruction of the Third Coalition, Greenhill Books, 2005. This book came out after the earlier <a href="http://amazon.com/Napoleon-Austerlitz-Armies-Napoleonic-Research/dp/0962665576/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355006692&sr=1-5&keywords=Scott+Bowden">Scott Bowden book on Austerlitz,</a> that there was some controversy over because some critics were accusing Bowden of making citations he had not really researched properly. The consensus IIRC among the critics, if there was any consensus that is, was that he did read the French sources, and analyzed well from them, but probably not the Austrian and Russian ones, even though he cited them, so that was the basis of the criticism.<br />
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You could find these type arguments at TMP and at Amazon reviews, and maybe some of the other specifically Napoleonic sites, if you wanted to follow up on that.<br />
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And the Goetz book came out later, with another adjustment to the OB, which Bowden himself had been correcting in his book, from the received wisdom one quoted in <a href="http://amazon.com/Austerlitz-1805-Christopher-Duffy/dp/020801702X/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355007603&sr=1-5">Christopher Duffy's <i>Austerlitz 1805</i></a> book much earlier, that one came out in 1977. Goetz comes up with about 82,000. <br />
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The idea is that Napoleon's Bulletin lied like a bulletin, and exaggerated the Allied army to 90,000, and did this to make the victory look even more amazing and great than it was, for propaganda value. So the modern revisionist might doubt that they were all present, and say there were many less than we thought, due to attrition, etc, and surely so many less that it is easier to see why they would lose. But Goetz seems not quite so ready as some others to take away all the strength of the Allies, and gives some back, in a process of applying what is known and projected and guessed at. <br />
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I find this kind of adjustment to the OB fascinating to follow through different authors and books.<br />
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There is also an Osprey title, Campaign 101, by<a href="http://amazon.com/Austerlitz-1805-Empires-Illustrated-Military/dp/0275986195/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355007936&sr=1-1&keywords=Ian+Castle+Austerlitz+1805"> Ian Castle, Austerlitz 1805: The Fate of Empires</a>, 2002, which I have been using. That one has some parts written by David Chandler. Now this is a replacement at Osprey for an earlier number actually written by<a href="http://amazon.com/Campaigns-Napoleon-David-Chandler/dp/0297813676/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355008372&sr=1-5&keywords=David+Chandler"> David Chandler</a>, which I would like to get, even if some parts of the analysis may seem to be dated.<br />
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Another book I have here is a thicker one, not just on the battle but the whole war situation of 1805, in 700 pages, talking about the overall situation for 500 pages before arriving at the battle of Austerlitz. This one is by <a href="http://amazon.com/End-Old-Order-Napoleon-1801-1805/dp/0306815451/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355008765&sr=1-1&keywords=Frederick+W.+Kagan%2C+The+End+of+the+Old+Order%3A+Napoleon+and+Europe+1801-1805">Frederick W. Kagan, The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe 1801-1805</a>. So it takes in a wider picture and isn't only about the battle and military aspects. It puts a perspective on the situation though. There are readers' impressions of these books at TMP as well as at places like Amazon reviews.<br />
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Kagan has several unflattering footnotes aimed at Bowden and some at Duffy.<br />
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<b>Trying Out Skimlinks on the Blog</b><br />
Besides the fact that I have been using these books to come up with a painting plan, I am trying to do something completely different at the same time by citing their titles. With the Christmas season well underway I am trying to launch skimlinks on the blog as a belated replacement for amazon links, which I used to have here.<br />
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The governor of this state made a highly misguided tax deal (extreme increase) that caused all 9,000 amazon associates in Illinois to be kicked out, and become unemployed, over a year ago, reducing our income to zero. We have been near destitute since then, eating beans and rice sometimes to eke out an existence. Even my figures are now the size of rice grains themselves.<br />
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Skimlinks is a British-based, London, UK, middleman company who themselves would serve as a non-Illinois amazon associate, that would allow me to resume the sales through them back to amazon, at least until I can get to a better state. They have a lot more than just amazon however, about 12,000 retailers, so it could be that if I mention things they may pop into links whether I planned it or not. So this post is also an experiment to see whether I can get the links working, and if not I will try making adjustments later, so the scene may change a bit, and that explains why. For example it may change much earlier links from a couple years ago. I don't know yet what it'll look like; if it gets too carried away I can reduce it.<br />
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When someone follows a link for a certain book, they are not committed to buying that or any book or other item, but can get whatever they then decide they do want after all. For instance once when I was talking about Wesencraft's book, the best customer was buying Civil War books unrelated to what I was talking about, but it was good anyway. I have also followed those links and found forty dollar books for two dollars, or even less, sometimes. It turns out to be a better deal than I could have imagined.<br />
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I might also consider adding google affiliate ads as well, the ones currently displayed off on the corners are called adsense, this would expand on that program.<br />
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******************************************<b>******</b><br />
<b>Join skimlinks here: <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://skimlinks.com%22%3ESkimlinks%3C/a%3E">skimlinks.com</a> </b> <br />
************************************************mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-1273265681343894372012-10-30T15:19:00.001-05:002012-12-05T12:10:42.603-06:003mm Napoleonics Arrived In 2 Days<b>Quick and Accurate Service From PicoArmor</b><br />
<br />
I sat around thinking about the Napoleonics for a week, and how I might use them, and then placed an order over the Internet on Saturday the 27th, so for them to arrive by noon today the 30th already was quicker than I had expected. In fact I was still thinking about how I was going to use them.<br />
<br />
It was already afternoon when I ordered on Saturday, about 72 hours ago, and I have not even checked my email yet to see if they had confirmed receiving the order. By ordering over 25 dollars' worth, domestic US, I qualified for the free shipping, which cost them $3.65, but because I am in the worst state of the Union, and so are they, being within the distance I would drive to work at the Salt Mines, I was subject to the tax which was about 25 percent more than what I saved there. No doubt the governor's cronies already spent my money last year anyway, plus everybody else's.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Look at These Babies</b><br />
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<br />
I ordered fifteen packs. Altogether with the governor getting his vigorish it just goes over $64 US for that many.<br />
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There are over 1500 between the troops and the sixty pieces of artillery. There are closer-up pictures on the links already provided, and I'll put up some more; I meant to do one particularly for the UK and Euro people last time but I'll just put it here.<br />
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The whole line so far has only ten packs, so I got one of each and a few extras in certain types strategically selected. That way I can see the entire range right here, and still expand in certain ones before ordering again.<br />
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Now when you check what the <a href="http://www.fighting15sshop.co.uk/napoleonics-806-c.asp">Fighting 15s</a> guy said, <a href="http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=284783">here</a>, you'll see he is a bit concerned he might run low on the bearskins Grenadiers first, but mine came from <a href="http://www.picoarmor.com/pages/products.php?category=new">PicoArmor</a> just that quick. Where it says 'here' leads to him talking about it on TMP, and where it says Fighting 15s it goes directly to their site, where the figures are pictured for all ten packs closer up, and priced at 3 GBP each. You can do the math, the rates change a little daily. I can't tell who's in worse shape between US and UK from such a rate, considering in the US they are $4, <i>maybe</i> free shipping. Time is a factor, though, too.<br />
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I don't know how Australia is doing for these, but they are probably coming right along, it isn't really that far anyway depending on your means of transportation. On the Fighting 15 page they have a blue flag with a circle of stars. I think that means the Euro flag, but in any event both of the sites linked take PayPal, etc, and can handle the conversions of currencies in a click.<br />
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From what I have seen so far, it looks like the bearskins could pass easily enough for an 18th Century Grenadier mitre with a different swipe of the brush. The infantry with helmets might be a better choice to do 18C fusiliers, until better ones come along. The guns could also be used earlier well enough. And the shakos themselves could possibly resemble the headgear of the Croats or Grenz troops from a generation earlier.<br />
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So we'll see whether the Napoleonic bicornes come in first before the tricornes we are waiting for. For the time being I will be using those Irregular 2mm wagons and tents I think as a substitute since no one has done them in 3mm yet. After all they are just <i>game tokens</i>, aren't they?<br />
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<b>And Another Comparable Range From Inkbiz, Getting Closer to Fruition?</b><br />
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Inkbiz has been talking about his 4mm he sculpted, and teasing us with pictures, for a few years now. He picked this week to do it again, and there's an interesting discussion about that <a href="http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=282319">here, along with pics</a> including painted.. He says he has a number of sculpts and is about to make some molds. So how compatible these would be next to the others is a very interesting question. No one has seen how much larger of smaller they will be side by side yet.<br />
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To me the frontage question is as important as the height and girth question, but there may be ways to work around whatever the result turns out to be. If he puts them closer together because some want to do 1:1 ratios, and he can by half a millimeter, then to my way of doing things there would be too many figures on a given frontage, unless something is done about it.<br />
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But let's say he does 1.5mm and the other are 2mm apart. Then the workaround is to use the narrower frontage ones for columns and that sort of thing. Also in some armies a 2- or 4-rank line is used instead of 3-ranks, and one way to express that on the table is with a different frontage for x number of troops. So whatever he does, there may be workarounds, unless they are absurdly out of scale. That remains to be seen when someone does see them.<br />
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For the moment, I am thinking about a one-meter square Leipzig 1813, where each tiny figure would be 312 men and a vivandiere, counted mathematically as a half man to even out the math. This would mean eight figures at this scale would stand for 2500 men, and small units would be divisions, half or a third of the small unit a brigade, and Corps have a few of the divisions.<br />
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This is about as far from the 1:1 idea as anything, but it does put Leipzig on a dining room table even though it is sixteen miles by thirteen and a half.<br />
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I already tried this scale for Gettysburg with the ACW, and it seemed it would work, but because the field there is only maybe six miles or less across I could see I could do that on a somewhat more intimate scale too, then was distracted by other battles, work, etc. Also I have so many more figures than that scale calls for, I thought then I would try having larger units and a larger field.<br />
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But a one meter Leipzig is now right here in my hands, and the only trouble is, these 1500 figures still won't be enough for such a massive battle. They would already come close to what I have in mind, but I will probably need more shako men. 1500 x 312.5 comes to 468,750 men, but because I wanted the whole variety that would mean some 46,000 Austrians would have helmets in 1813 unless I order more figures. So I think I will.<br />
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Also the cavalry are still limited to heavy cavalry in the French-style helmets for right now, so I look forward to fresh releases. I could make do with ACW cavalry for other types for the time being, while we are waiting.<br />
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<strong><a href="http://test.skimlinks.com/">http://test.skimlinks.com</a></strong><span> </span><br />
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* * * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-69080369358368561982012-10-21T14:57:00.001-05:002012-10-21T14:57:05.341-05:00New Oddzial Ozmy Napoleonic 3mm Now Available, 18th Century May Be Next<b>Exciting News </b><br />
The big news came out at the end of last week: the new range of 3mm Napoleonic figures have finally been made available and orders are being placed. It is okay to order now. We have been hearing since last spring that these figures would be released in September, so some fans were getting impatient, but the word is that 9 out of 10 types were ready then, and two more weeks were needed for processing the production, and now they are all ready to order. Ten out of ten are now shipping, a few weeks later. More will be released some time.<br />
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The types now out include infantry with shakos, the same but with plumes also, skirmishers, infantry with helmets close enough in this scale for either the Austrian or Bavarian or Wuerttemberg ones, heavy cavalry with French helmets such as the dragoons, cuirassiers, carabiniers, there are foot grenadiers with bearskins suitable for <i>la creme de la creme</i>, and so far 6-pounder medium guns and gunners with shakos.<br />
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So it's not a complete line, yet, but it's complete enough to get started for sure, and there will be more later. Shakos don't need to be Belgic and stovetop and bells so much in this scale 3mm, so the same sets could be French, Austrian, Russian, or others. Once they are in your hands you can make decisions what will be good enough, and what might work better. Oblong hats would suffice, and when you see them you'll see they actually do have brims, and other tiny details, smaller than your finest brush. Also details you see and try to paint turn out to be too small to actually see on table without using a jeweler's loupe.<br />
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It may not be clear to the viewer just how hard it is to get the paintbrush to pick out the details which are present. When you see them in a photo, they are enlarged considerably from the actual size. Depending on your computer, the whole figure may not be bigger than the number 8 right here on your screen.<br />
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These here in this pic are most of a pack of ACW Artillery. This isn't the new Napoleonic but I just thought the readers seem to like pictures, so here's one we took several months ago, showing four colors of paint so far I think. The 15 "pieces" for $4.00 USD consist of two cannon each piece, cast nose to nose, which you can snap apart with your fingers, so fifteen pieces means 30 cannon, for four dollars. Crews, limbers, etc sold separately, which is 75 crew for four more dollars, or 15 limbers with 30 horses, etc. Of the two guns, if you look <i>carefully</i> one is banded like a Parrott Rifle, and the other is more like a smoothbore Napoleon 12 pounder.<br />
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<b>"They Look Like Ants!"</b><br />
When I showed them to people, they said, <i>"they look like ants!"</i><br />
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There is a 3mm Yahoo Group also called 1/600, where the latest news and talk is actually going on, and then next we will hear about it in places like the forum TMP, etc. It won't be long before some people will hurry to get their pics posted to show off their paint and base jobs. It's just out since Thursday so give it a week or so, and someone will have them up somewhere.<br />
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I have not ordered any yet, but I will soon. <br />
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This year I have been collecting something above 8,000 of the ACW figures. I have pictures somewhere, taken last March, of the Civil War and also who knows how many World War Two, British, German and Russian but I can't be arsed to dig them out right now from the files, just because I happen to be talking about this. We were using one of the Nemesis' cameras since I don't have one.<br />
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Note, I changed my mind since writing that line, and pulled up the artillery picture from that set of pictures after all, just to have a picture of something very similar. I can show more later. <br />
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It is occurring to me too that I have a set of Vietnam era stuff as well, in 3mm, now that I think about it. So that's what I have been working on all this time. They also have modern, meaning right up to date, and a set aimed at Yom Kippur War, which was October 1973 in the Middle East. The difference of course is the models of tanks and vehicles are different over the years.<br />
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Sometime later in the spring of 2012 there was a set of <a href="http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=266063">TMP threads here</a> about people's ACW 3mm in which Marcin, the designer of the figures, stepped in and showed a picture of the Napoleonics, and predicted September as the release time.I think that's the right thread, there were a couple of them. Yes, there it is, for Marcin's post with the first picture, which are ten shako infantry on a 2cm front (2mm frontage each file) scroll down the TMP thread to May 1, it starts with April 28. There are some very interesting ACW ideas and pics there too.<br />
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That was the first glimpse anyone outside the Yahoo Group had of the Napoleonics, and it sparked some enthusiasm. There are over 500 members in this Yahoo Group. The excitement there is palpable right now, since they are the very ones who have been waiting. The ACW line has been out for a while now, along with 20/21 century stuff.<br />
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<i><b>Even More Exciting News -- Nearly Exclusive to Here So Far</b></i>: <b>18th Century Next</b>!<br />
There was also some discussion back then when we had Marcin paying attention of some desire for 18th Century troops types, as well as wagons which are lacking so far. At that time he showed the Naps.<br />
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The latest news this weekend, even later than the Napoleonic release is that Marcin has now said<i> YES there may be Seven Years War types, maybe</i> <i>next after the Napoleonics</i>. He did not confirm nor deny a time frame of 18 months, although to be fair that was just the poster's words and not his to be accurate. He just said next, and a couple maybes, and nothing about the time frame except 'next.' That's good, because I could not wait and already did it myself, I started to look at the ACW as substitute 18th Century, but to have dedicated figures would be better.<br />
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We should get on the group and fora and press for tricornes, mitres and all that. The fact that we already did has had an effect, he did listen, this will push him over the edge.<br />
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<a href="http://www.picoarmor.com/pages/products.php?category=new"><b>PICTURES ARE HERE, and you can also order there too</b> click on title link</a><br />
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This link in the title above is John's site at PicoArmor.<br />
Okay, so there is a link to one place the figures can be ordered now, and at this same link you can see photos of all ten currently released Napoleonic packs. They are priced at $4.00 at this site and come with 150 infantry, or 45 cavalry, or 30 pieces of artillery. This shop is here near Chicago, Illinois, USA. The boss there, John, said go ahead and place orders although his site still says coming soon; they are on the way and pretty fast, this is only Sunday of the first weekend right now. Free shipping deal may apply depending where you are, see his site for his details.<br />
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I will add a link for another shop that Marcin mentioned also where they are available too. I checked it out, this is <a href="http://store.assaultpublishing.com/">Assault Publishing</a> and that is Marcin Gerkowitz' own site, which has online store, so this would be right from the horse's mouth, no wonder he recommended it. The site is in English, but he I think is in Poland, check his ordering details to see about his shipping and all that.<br />
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"which has online store," now he has me writing with Polish accent, from reading so much of it! At least I didn't put a u in color this time.<br />
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Then a third place I saw mentioned was Fighting 15's, that is someone on the Yahoo Group 3mm miniatures said they are ordering from there. Not sure where they are but some of you might know.<br />
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Just pick whichever one sounds most convenient for wherever you are. For myself I will probably go to a store down the street mostly, although they keep running out of figures right after I go there, but would go to the PicoArmor site if I have to order online, since they are right in my own vicinity.<br />
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The ACW have 120 infantry, 45 cavalry, 30 guns. Some specialized types are different as far as numbers, because he is counting it as 15 pieces either way, and the difference is how many figures are on a 'piece.' So 8 ACW infantry, ten Napoleonic infantry, three cavalry, 2 guns, all of these times 15 pieces give the varying totals.<br />
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A good way to experiment and see different types in different periods is to order the Sample Packs, as they pack in maybe three pieces of several different sets all in one, usually for around 8 dollars, instead of buying full packs of ten different items. This way you can get a few of many items all at once. The Battle of Britain Sample set for instance has Hurricanes, Spitfires, Dorniers, Heinkels and Junkers as well as Messerschmitts, just like three each or so instead of fifteen of one type.<br />
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The Yahoo Group I have been talking about is called 3mm miniatures, and there is also another one called 1/600 which specializes more in aircraft, whether World War I, World War II, or more modern types.<br />
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Tumbling Dice also carries a very nice range of compatible pieces for those.<br />
* * * * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-56523012466509504792012-10-01T19:07:00.000-05:002012-10-01T19:07:59.471-05:00A Great Time To Visit Catalonia<b> But Not For Me, Just More Overtime Work</b><br />
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One of my Kollegas went there for these past couple of weeks, visiting Barcelona in particular. Not sure what else he did yet. He is a Mexican-American by family heritage and switches from English to Spanish and back pretty easily. He thought he was going to Spain. He never even heard of Catalan, unlike the people around these blogs, who know something about the history of the places.<br />
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Just like they say, youth is wasted on the young, so too are good vacations wasted on ignoramuses sometimes, er wait is that ignorami, uhh. He had never even heard of Catalonia, nor their language, until I gave him a quick rundown on what was going on around there this past couple of weeks. While he was there.<br />
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It was a quick rundown, too, since there is only so much he was going to remember to look for, but it helps to have at least a little basic stuff in your head before it's too late to even notice it, and you're already back to the Salt Mines again.Which he now is, and it's all used up for the year. They don't let us out very much.<br />
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So I suggested he try listening to this song first, before he goes there, to help with the right attitude.<br />
He was going to be cut off from the Internet the whole time, cold turkey, and he is a big Apple fan normally.<br />
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Here is a basic version of what I think the lyrics are about, and the attitude is something like a cross between Jimmy Buffett and a Cave Man at the same time. I thought that would help him enjoy his trip to have that in mind before he got there.<br />
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A Ti A Ti, Gypsy Kings<br />
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<i>In passing along the Rampla</i><br />
<i>At the Rampla in Barcelona-o</i><br />
<i>I found a nice little chick</i><br />
<i>And I carried her to my house</i><br />
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<i>I love you, to you to you, bam bam bam</i><br />
<i>Only to you to you, bam bam bam </i><br />
<i> **************************</i><br />
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*Some of those words might not be quite right, for instance the book says it is usually spelled Las Ramblas, a good place to walk (Ramble) around and see people, a little bit like Michigan Avenue can be, but better. Better, because look who is there. I used a little license on the vem vem vem, or ven ven ven, but so did the artist, I think. They don't have vem in Mexico, but ven could fit. I like the bam for effect.<i> </i><br />
<i> </i><br />
That lucky pendejo probably didn't find any chiquita nada, since he's probably a maricon, anyway, but I am probably just jealous since I would have tried to find battlefield stuff, if only I could go there, but no vacation for me since 2004 and not any sick days either since even before that by a couple years. And then I wasn't sick, either, in April 2002, I just woke up late with a headache, and called in with a 'sick voice.' That was over 10 years ago. All I got out of this trip was to work the overtime to fill in his place.<br />
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In fact now that I look at this, I think it went to my imagination almost as much as his, and cost me less. I would still like to go some day. Maybe Almanza too.<br />
*******************************************mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-37038956983713507482012-02-27T06:16:00.003-06:002012-02-28T06:47:58.426-06:00Incoming--a Good WW2 Shooter Game<b>Incoming Review</b><br />
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This is a fun little game for WW2 shooting, that you can play right out of your browser right now.<br />
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<i>Incoming</i> just came out this month over on <a href="http://www.addictinggames.com/shooting-games/incoming-game.jsp">addicting games</a> dot com. On Thursday it had 250 plays and now has hit 62,000 just over this weekend, so I am not alone in getting hooked on this thing.<br />
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The Nemesis has been trying for years to get me to finish plugging in his old X-Box and playing some of the games but I have been fighting the temptation to become addicted to these types of games - only to succumb to this one.<br />
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And you don't need any special machines or downloads, this you can play right now in your browser by clicking on that link up above. Just be sure you don't have any appointments for the next half hour or so when you do, because you won't want to stop shooting. <br />
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You are dug in to a bunker and waves and waves of German infantry come at you. They look like 10mm figures, in motion and with sound effects. You have a .45 caliber pistol to start out with seven rounds. When you hit them you will hear a thud, see blood, and they will grunt, before they fall. If they are scared they will go prone and are somewhat harder to hit. In bunches you can throw grenades, in range, or drop mortar rounds on them if you have it.<br />
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Once you have shot down enough Germans, you get dollars to buy an M1903 Springfield rifle, and can switch weapons when those five rounds or the seven Colt ACP rounds are used up. Then you save for an M1 Garand, a BAR, Boys Anti-Tank Rifle, Mortar, Bazooka and the fifty-caliber machine gun. You can use up to four weapons at a time and the lesser ones drop away as you upgrade. <br />
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Next rounds you will try to get enough dollars to buy a Tommy gun, then some grenades. These make it a lot easier to kill Germans, in the ever-larger waves that are coming at you.<br />
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Among them there are riflemen, Machine Pistol men, and worst of all for you are those with the Panzerschreck, because when they launch their rockets at your fort they cause damage until either you lose the round or else you kill them all.<br />
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Each of these are worth the dollar points you need to keep getting better weapons, and my advice is to buy each weapon as soon as you can, because you will need them desperately as you level up. The Germans get stronger and stronger, no longer just squads but whole companies.<br />
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These companies are reinforced by a few different kinds of armoured cars, halftracks, and eventually tanks. There will be Pantera tanks, which must mean Panthers, and then there will be Tiger tanks. Each higher level of vehicle is harder and harder for you to kill, even when you get better weapons.<br />
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It is designed so that you have all you can handle, and since your weapons are constantly running out of ammo, the trick is to train your left hand fingers to efficiently switch weapons as each one is reloaded, while using the right hand to aim and squeeze the trigger.<br />
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Your eye is selecting targets while the corner of your eye tries to see when the Mortar is reloaded, or the Bazooka, or the Boys Anti-Tank Rifle, or the BAR, or ultimately the Ma Deuce, fifty-caliber machine gun.<br />
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That baby is fun to fire but when a 200-round belt needs to be changed, you need to switch back to the Mortar or the Bazooka, because it takes longer to reload than the BAR did, although it blasts even harder when it does.<br />
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At the higher levels you will have to shoot everything you can at those Tiger tanks because you have to hit them three or four times with the big stuff to bring them down, and tank guns shooting at you may be more damaging than even the pesky Panzerschreck rockets--I'm not sure because I was under too much pressure to study that at the time.<br />
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The rounds are set up as an 18-day campaign which you can finish in an hour or so, as you get better at efficiently blasting the highest priority targets at the fastest speed you can, before they overrun you and destroy you. If they do, you just continue at that level until you level up.<br />
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<b>Day 18, the Whole Panzer Division </b><br />
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On Day 18 the highest level, if you are able to destroy all the last Tiger tanks and all the hundreds of infantry, then when you see four Tigers at once followed by four more and four more, the reward comes that you see the shadows of four-engine heavy bombers coming to obliterate everything on the field. That is the sign of Victory.<br />
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Try it, it's fun. Buy the best weapons you can, and learn to switch from one to the next with hotkeys 1,2,3,4.<br />
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They have 3000 other games there too but this is the one.mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-42462616817337148412012-01-19T21:29:00.000-06:002012-01-19T21:29:04.339-06:00Okay Back Open Again<b><i> Everybody can read here again, they have backed off on the SOPA for now</i></b><br />
<br />
<b>Working Overtime </b><br />
I had to work a twelver at the Salt Mines because of the Civil War Correspondent mentioned last summer having leg and foot problems that went from bad to worse. Now it's crutches and then his gf stepped on a nail or something and had to get it removed. Meanwhile I worked my job and covered half of his.<br />
<br />
This doesn't leave much time. <br />
<br />
He was mumbling that I didn't get his Virginia pics up yet. The trouble was partly not understanding pictures, since I have not acquired a proper camera yet, and partly being overwhelmed at trying to explain actions of 1861 at the same time.<br />
<br />
At the time when that happened I was having a hard time running the computer in the 96 degree heat since it kept overheating, and photos make that problem worse.We have snow now and so it is just inertia now holding it back, but the fact it's Robert E. Lee's Birthday has raised my awareness.<br />
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<b>Site Closures, PIPA, SOPA, NDAA </b><br />
The site closures worked; over 7,000 good websites are said to have joined in, and something like 30 Senators changed their minds Wednesday alone.<br />
<br />
Plenty more where that came from.<br />
<br />
Also the President made some encouraging noises, so SOPA from the House and PIPA from the Senate have taken a big step back.They should, since they would give absurdly too much power to the wrong people in the wrong way, supposedly to protect copyright holders. I write my own articles and have spoken disparagingly of pirates a couple times, but don't want this.<br />
<br />
Counting also that time when the president called Kanye West a "Jackass" after the music awards that one time we now have a clock that has been right twice, thus proving up the old adage about broken clocks.<br />
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Don't want to be too specific there since the NDAA signed while everyone partied on New Years' Eve is still out there. Dr Paul has introduced legislation today in the House to get rid of the threatening provision of that, although the 93-7 thing makes for an uphill fight on that one. Amazingly one of my Senators was in the 7. I am still looking for the other time he was right about something, and there may be something, I just haven't noticed it, that was Senator Durbin.<br />
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Among the other 40,000 new laws we got for New Years' there was one good one I noticed, that is that in Illinois now Hunters can now harvest road kill legally, although you'd still have to show your hunting license papers are up to date with the Sheriff of Nottingham.<br />
<br />
In another hour I and the Nemesis should have our Ron Paul bumper stickers attached, I to the smart car and he to the pickup truck.They arrived today.<br />
<br />
Yesterday the five pounds of Ethiopian Yergacheffe coffee arrived, so I can set aside that nasty generic stuff for a while.<br />
<br />
Just got my 100th Win in Chess yesterday too, it was the Nemesis, who finally fell to my two Queen Checkmate after 93 grueling moves. I don't think I had beat him since April so it was very good. Our record now stands at me 16, and him 27 wins out of 43 games, so I am chipping away at his lead. Against all the rest of the world I'm in the 70.5 percentile, and with 122 losses, and three draws, the 100 wins makes for 22 under .500, but now only 11 are because of the Nemesis, and 11 the rest of the world combined.<br />
<br />
93 moves is quite a few moves for chess, it is usually over in 20-40, but I dragged him down, and so the 100th Win was even more special for being a win over him. He is on my team against the rest of the world, the Capone Outfit out of Chicago, but our in-team sparring partner matches are some of the toughest we do, for practice.mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-75242726886131793752012-01-18T07:15:00.000-06:002012-01-18T07:15:38.369-06:00Closed Today for SOPA ProtestWe are closed today in solidarity with the SOPA protest along with other great sites from the erstwhile Internet.<br />
<br />
If you don't know what that is, try <a href="http://wikipedia.com/">wikipedia.com</a> for the Cliff's Notes explanation. They are already closed, but do have an explanation posted in the English language section. Google.com has announced they will not close their entire search engine today, but will alter the search page in solidarity.<br />
<br />
If you do know what that is, and you'd like to help, educational commentary is free and does not take very long.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, if you know what it is and don't want to help, then continue merrily about your way.<br />
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* * * * *<br />
<br />
This site will reopen for Robert E. Lee's Birthday. The closure is expected to last but one day at this time.mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-60830403413071418002011-12-04T22:53:00.000-06:002011-12-04T22:53:34.142-06:00Some Sample 2mm Irregular Horse and Musket Figures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI2EcDq1l0YHtAQHnIeCblJu8KPTJlA2QFecj8J0HDs1r6_aoEKBo3G-vKJlMOuHV6jkpS0x79bOV010wDQuYVCXoUwHGufGMPODPRlPMZ1ivx88wh_G6i8qUhq1qDYZHEUv0Sw3hx75ge/s1600/Picture+007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI2EcDq1l0YHtAQHnIeCblJu8KPTJlA2QFecj8J0HDs1r6_aoEKBo3G-vKJlMOuHV6jkpS0x79bOV010wDQuYVCXoUwHGufGMPODPRlPMZ1ivx88wh_G6i8qUhq1qDYZHEUv0Sw3hx75ge/s320/Picture+007.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<b>December 5 is Leuthen-Tag, ever since 1757</b><br />
<br />
It is Leuthen-Tag again Monday the 5th of December.The old video from last year with the dramatization of the speech of Frederick to his generals, the Parchwitz Address, given in German, is no longer available.<br />
<br />
The battle on 5 Dec 1757 has been traditionally remembered by the Seven Years' War Association with a game. The Alte Fritz traditionally ran a wargame at the weekend for the occasion, and he is talking about one <a href="http://altefritz.blogspot.com/2011/12/games-afoot-kleine-krieg-tomorrow.html">over on his blog now (see blogroll)</a>.<br />
<br />
<b> Smaller Scale Figures Convention in the Slick Wargames Press</b><br />
<br />
For my part, the <a href="http://www.2mmwars.kings-sleep.me.uk/2011/12/im-in-wargames-press-just-well-almost.html">2mm Blog (see also Blogroll)</a> has a link to an article about smaller figures, in the slick UK media, not sure if that would count as Fleet Street or not, but it is our equivalent for hobby purposes. I am going to talk about that, although it has nothing to do with Leuthen. It's quite unusual, even newsworthy in itself.<br />
<br />
This article is on the occasion of the Angel Barracks man's convention for the scales 10mm and less, so including 5/6mm, 3mm and 2mm and others even less frequently seen than those. There are some good pics of well-done setups in the short article, a few pages, from Wargames Illustrated. You'd have to click to the 2mm blog, then on his link, then that opens a 1.25 meg PDF with the article and the colour pics.<br />
<br />
I especially liked the ancient city of Alexandria on the sea with both land and naval elements for a 2mm game with Julius Caesar and Cleopatra and the rest, a creative terrain setup. There are some terrain pieces made for the scale, but there is plenty of room for the creative work of inspired individuals too, and off the beaten path.<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Rant</i></b><br />
<br />
<br />
I disliked the journalist spending his whole lede pretending that the magazine covers smaller scales evenly and that there is no need for enthusiasts to go and hold their own convention.<br />
<br />
The reason is that it made me see that now we have crossed a line, which upon the realization of it, is deplorable. I didn't know the slick press for the hobby really counted as Fleet Street. I was used to photocopied and amateurish publications before these slick ones came along, with higher prices too.And I liked the simpler ones.<br />
<br />
Previously I have understood that you can tell when a politician is lying, by seeing if his or her lips are moving. It is sad but true, I don't like cynicism but in a number of instances it is the only way to be accurate.<br />
<br />
And I've learned that professionals are generally spinning things a certain way in every situation, favorably to their points of view, as well as salesmen, and the mainstream media--in fact about everyone you meet in everyday life including half the amateurs too, are at least spinning if not twisting the truth, with misdirection, misinformation, and misleading spins, for whatever reason, and after a long time of doing that, they themselves may lose sight of the reason for it and just do it out of bad habit. Because it becomes normal.<br />
<br />
But now I am to believe that all those issues of WI have full, even coverage of 2mm? That must be the spin habit talking, not to call it hogwash. I think they have none whatsoever, and am annoyed that I have spent hundreds of dollars on their magazines for decades hoping just once they would.<br />
<br />
But they didn't. It's 99 percent 28mm, with an emphasis on gorilla arms, banana bunch hands, and goggle-eyes, on heads like large pumpkins. And these distortions are justified for practical reasons understood by the insiders, but they look garish to outsiders, not at all like humans. Around 1986 one could at least see a tiny picture in the classified area, way back when the Knight Designs existed, of 2mm but there was no way to make out any detail from that.<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Bright Side </i></b><br />
<br />
On the bright side it did give me something to put in the blog, plus stirred me just enough to do it. Here are a couple pics I took of some of Irregular Miniatures 2mm figures. These are from their Horse and Musket Range. They also have Ancient, which might be visible in the aforementioned PDF of the WI article.<br />
<br />
Irregular also has a Renaissance range for the pike and shot period, and by all accounts those have the better sculpting, and then there are WW2 with vehicles smaller than the familiar GHQ or Scotia microscale. They also have some nice terrain pieces, railroad trains, guns, and wagons.<br />
<br />
The board I am holding up as a base is about the size of a clipboard, and I have put in a Bic pen and some half inch (12.7 mm) cardboard boardgame counters on the side to help show the scale. The traditional coins used are actually unfamiliar across international borders, but that pen should be ubiquitous. I usually use that board under a netbook size computer, 10.1 inch, clipboard size.<br />
<br />
These figs are not completed, they are just a couple 2mm photos I have here to show what they look like in the process. There are some horse, foot and guns from the Horse and Musket range, on the one pic, and then the other shows a Logistics Pack, which includes various sizes of tents, and wagons. A few are pontoon wagons, a few covered and most uncovered. The sort of rules I favor think supplies, wagons and lines of communication matter a lot. So in this scale you can have 72 wagons pretty easily, and still not have that vast an array serve as the centerpiece, which it would have to do in any larger scale.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtN62ouinI_d13yRb2OCguUy15uPRl0YD-TUIKJKsRSHUH0sr10inVG478JdBH61PGwO8l6gcmf6FrqvWAH5pBcqwJrJn7pitUxlbv6LS4nmBymiVrl816nhnvjEW2OSMI5_oauB7pByFm/s1600/Picture+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtN62ouinI_d13yRb2OCguUy15uPRl0YD-TUIKJKsRSHUH0sr10inVG478JdBH61PGwO8l6gcmf6FrqvWAH5pBcqwJrJn7pitUxlbv6LS4nmBymiVrl816nhnvjEW2OSMI5_oauB7pByFm/s320/Picture+006.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
You can see how the infantry and to a lesser extent the cavalry are cast in blocks of various lengths. They are usually either two or three actual ranks deep, giving an appearance of mass. The smallest pieces would fit on those half inch boardgame counters, although a number of larger unit blocks are too long for that, and the limbers are too big with teams.<br />
<br />
The artillery are 8mm square, those are three guns up front right. The taller ones further back near the pen cap are cavalry, those are apart so individuals or pairs or threes could be trimmed off easily to vary the unit sizes. The infantry blocks can be cut but would leave an ugly(er) side if you did, if you wanted different sized units.<br />
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Even with the jewelers' loupe I cannot tell the split trail from the single trail guns, and in the Horse and Musket period that is the only choice. It is OK because you could not distinguish types anyway. These same figures are Civil War, Napoleonic or Seven Years' War as needed. I mean you can repaint them <i>during</i> the game, if using the quickly drying acrylics. It's just a few dabs.<br />
<br />
None of these shown here are the Renaissance, which do show more detail and several pieces are suitable for working into the Horse and Musket period.<br />
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I'll probably pick up a copy of the Wargames Illustrated at my newsagent's today, anyway, now they finally put what I wanted in it.mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-47340752717719138872011-11-11T08:51:00.000-06:002011-11-11T08:51:09.445-06:0011-11-11<b>Armistice Day later called Veterans' Day</b><br />
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In the USA we started to commemorate this day as Armistice Day in 1918 when the guns fell silent to end the Great War, which we now call either the First World War or else World War One. The reason was that the guns were scheduled to stop all across the fronts at 11:11 that day, the 11th day of the eleventh month.<br />
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Now today we even have an eleventh year to add to the numerology of it.<br />
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Meanwhile the ten million dead of that war, which they rightly thought was bad, have been outnumbered by the dead of many more wars since then. That one was hyped over here as the War to End All Wars, but it hardly worked out that way after all.<br />
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Here in the USA, the name of the day eventually was changed to Veterans' Day, but the date will always hearken us back to the Armistice of World War I.<br />
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<b>World War One Scenes Today, in Pics </b><br />
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So I have <a href="http://www.coolcrack.com/2011/11/amazing-pictures-of-landscape-still.html">here a set of about twenty-two pictures</a>, on another site, that show the landscapes in France and Belgium, Gallipoli on the European Turkish coast, and places like that from significant events of World War I and showing them as they look now.<br />
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You can still see the earth churned badly at places like Verdun. A whole village disappeared. A wall of a chapel where the British Guards fought in 1914. Take a look, it only takes a few minutes and it's well worth remembering these things. Just scroll down a couple inches from the ad on there.<br />
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We have so many war dead that we were compelled to have two days in the year for them, so at the end of May we also have Memorial Day, more specifically aimed to commemorate the dead, whereas this day also encompasses honoring the veterans still living, so I have seen several restaurants, a furniture store and the like, offering free meals or just deals for veterans alive but hungry. In some cases it can be really crass commercialism, but not always entirely.<br />
<br />
<b>WARNING </b><br />
<b>Ordinary People Stop Reading Here, the Hard-Core Read a Little More </b><br />
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The November 9 Washington Post had an article about mistreatment of the bodies of the returning veterans from 2003 to 2008, but unfortunately I cannot link to the article itself because they are already returning an error message, that it has been hidden away in the past two days apparently. They have hauled parts to landfills, this is specifically at Dover AFB in Delaware, and came out as the result of aa federal investigation. Sorry the link I intended comes up short only two days after the story appeared.<br />
<br />
Because of that, the best I can do is show you a blog talking about it, with quotes from the article, but the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/remains-of-war-dead-dumped-in-landfill/2011/11/09/gIQAz7dM6M_print.html">article itself at the Washington Post</a> is not coming up. You can try it yourself and search for further information if interested. Disgusting though it is, it is better to know than to cover up and pretend it isn't there.<br />
<br />
No, go ahead and try that, this link above did work for me, the story is by Whitlock and Jaffe. The one that says 'article itself at the Washington Post.<br />
<br />
Then<a href="http://bloviatingzeppelin.blogspot.com/2011/11/usmc-happy-birthday.html"> here's the blog</a>, he was talking about the Marine Corps Birthday Nov 9 and reacting to the story referenced.<br />
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* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-72337846432453713812011-09-28T01:03:00.000-05:002011-09-28T01:03:14.963-05:00Christmas in September<b>The Package Arrived</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnbgvZyjy0t1sJMyyn2T8XQJevUioLjdAzqtxFTw-kYIpbI3QY-WvmgUFoiqw_exEnfvjY1lvGKRoXmGUvuFeHJqSBdvGY9s_eSLTs45A6QLjC9XYf9LjsjrnIxwvZUBCXkn3BZVq3ClJu/s1600/Picture+010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnbgvZyjy0t1sJMyyn2T8XQJevUioLjdAzqtxFTw-kYIpbI3QY-WvmgUFoiqw_exEnfvjY1lvGKRoXmGUvuFeHJqSBdvGY9s_eSLTs45A6QLjC9XYf9LjsjrnIxwvZUBCXkn3BZVq3ClJu/s320/Picture+010.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Some months ago I sent some rare figures over to Peter from <a href="http://peterscave.blogspot.com/2011/09/happy-wargamer.html">Peter's Cave (see Blogroll)</a> and now he has sent a bunch of figures back my way. The package arrived today, and I have been sorting these figures out like a happy wargamer's jigsaw puzzle.<br />
<br />
There are about a hundred of them, infantry, cavalry, Nassau Grenadiers, men with Baker Rifles and sword-bayonets, Old Guard Grenadiers, the Dutch or Belgian Jaeger bugler, cuirassiers and carabiniers--it is a bunch of them. It is very enjoyable just sorting them out by their colors and characteristics to try to figure out (pun intended) what they all are.<br />
<br />
Well that pic emphasizes the bottoms of the bases, where they were cut from the sprues.<br />
<br />
So here's a view flipped around.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadEyIWXN4ZqSMQBaW9hJ3CZgsND1PrCCQ6cfi9X5ydjD_IYvsAFLW9zaQiaXvvaj3ROLvrcEakQ3_Jwr2IS5AXGS3TmLtnFFBZ0Qe3N-0kDYClxFr2FBfePCJuIa3TW2d3F58KwSiCLWj/s1600/Picture+011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadEyIWXN4ZqSMQBaW9hJ3CZgsND1PrCCQ6cfi9X5ydjD_IYvsAFLW9zaQiaXvvaj3ROLvrcEakQ3_Jwr2IS5AXGS3TmLtnFFBZ0Qe3N-0kDYClxFr2FBfePCJuIa3TW2d3F58KwSiCLWj/s320/Picture+011.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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There must be elements of between seven and ten sets here at least, and it feels like a kid at Christmas. These are figures I have never seen before in person, only in pictures, and I did not pick them out myself as I usually do, so there's a feeling of surprise and wonder that is beyond what usually happens when you open your new figs.I can recognize them, but at first glance I can only see--they are Napoleonic.<br />
<br />
There are Zvezda, Italeri, Hat, who knows what, all mixed to be sorted.<br />
<br />
To save on postage, they are cut apart, and so the sorting is based on colors, and then off clues in the uniforms, like the Baker rifles, or the shape of the shakos or other headgear, and even from counting the buttons.<br />
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<b>More Bloggers Should Try This </b><br />
<br />
This is great, and other wargamers should try this. Send some other blogger a mystery pack of figures and let them figure out what they are.<br />
<br />
The rare figures are from the American Revolution, where Imex took over a line from Accurate, and changed several figures so there would be Cavalry and a few others, and sold them for several years...but then they changed their minds and changed the figures back to the first design with no Cavalry. So now you cannot get them any more.<br />
<br />
Even if you follow Plastic Soldier Review's advice and try to know what you're getting, that won't work They forgot to change the boxes, which still say there are cavalry, but there are not. You just can't get them any more. <br />
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<br />
<i><b>"Es Suyo!"</b></i><br />
<br />
When Peter commented about them saying he hoped one day he would find them, I went into the Es Suyo mode. That is Spanish for 'It's Yours!"<br />
<br />
In some of the Latin American countries, if you pick up and/or admire an object, even in another Caballero's home, he may stun you by announcing Es Suyo, and now it is yours. The only way out is to immediately and insistently refuse in an increasingly firm voice three times at least, and even that may not work. To get out of what?<br />
<br />
<b>Dramatization of Chivalry</b><br />
<br />
I will slightly exaggerate to explain the interplay of Honour that the Host has launched here, and remember that this occurs silently, inside the recipient's conscience. He realizes all this, and then has the feeling that he must get back to an even keel. That he must now do something in return, every bit as equally dramatic, every last bit or it is still not enough to equal the original grand gesture. Unless, of course, he is a Pirate. But for the Chivalrous it is not so easy.<br />
<br />
Women never understand this, either.<br />
<br />
This gesture demonstrates silently that the object itself, regardless of its value or how precious, even one's grandfather's watch or anything, is not nearly so important as your pleasure right now. Also the tremendous magnanimity of the host, in seeing that what you said you would like, you will have and you will have it right now. Because the Host has it in his power to see to it that you shall have it, as fast as you can clap your hands twice, it is done.<br />
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Of course this doesn't usually happen in my country because it would be seen as an exaggeration, even a caricature of Honour, to a degree that regular guys do not carry it. Just get the beer next time, they would say, or else Don't worry about it.<br />
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That was why I said at the time, along with the Es Suyo, that all I need back is that Peter paint the figures that I sent him, and let me use the picture as a Header picture for this blog, since I don't have one. Most of the good pictures out there are copyrighted to someone else, unless you make your own, so I thought that was good enough compensation. Anyway he would paint them better than I would.<br />
<br />
That would be completely satisfactory. <br />
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But I recognize the interplay of the Es Suyo thing, since it has happened to me many times in other situations, and that Conscience and Honour demand something dramatic, so I have added some imitation Belgian Lace to the backdrop.<br />
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When I let my brother stay in my place, I refused to charge him rent, and he almost went crazy from it. But what's even worse is that when it happens to me, I almost can go crazy from it too, so I have had to eliminate most of my social life except with confirmed and known cheapskates, just to be able to keep up. It's a crazy thing, the Es Suyo thing. Be careful with it; it can cause madness when carried to extremes.<br />
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* * *<br />
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There used to be another Imex figure considered rare, that is no longer rare. This was the General George Armstrong Custer figure. He was added to the ACW Union Cavalry but sold only in a large boxed set of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. There was no other way to get it, and regular US Cavalry sets did not have the special figure. But then when people were scrambling around trying to get the rare figure, they changed it so now all the<br />
US Cavalry sets have one, so now every eleventh figure is a Custer. I have a bunch of them.<br />
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We never know when the American Revolution Dragoons may reappear like that.<br />
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Many thanks to Peter, and do go check out his <a href="http://peterscave.blogspot.com/2011/09/happy-wargamer.html">'Happy Wargamer' post</a>.<br />
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* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-69702295197672661062011-09-21T20:41:00.000-05:002011-09-21T20:41:43.362-05:00Saxon Artillery in the 18th Century<b> Link Over to Scheck's Blog (or See Blogroll)</b><br />
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Anyone interested in the Saxon artillery of the 18th Century should probably go have a look <a href="http://scheckssyw.blogspot.com/2011/09/saxon-artillery-repainted-templates.html">at the post on Scheck's blog.</a> He has repainted his Saxon artillery on the basis of what he found in the book, published in the old DDR about the Army of Augustus the Strong, he of the 365 children including Marshal Saxe.It is in German and the pictures are multilingual.<br />
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Too bad they do not sell it here, since this is where their customer is, but maybe there is a way after all.<br />
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He found the book at the fair in Kulmbach that I was trying to find some months ago when I was posting about the tremendous battle at Kesselsdorf just before Christmas of 1745, which was also just before Frederick, about to be called 'the Great,' went to the Opera in Dresden to see the performance by the <a href="http://tabakskollegiummekelnborg.blogspot.com/2010/12/faustina-bordoni-by-rosalba-carrera.html">incomparable Faustina Bordoni</a>.<br />
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If I remember correctly in <a href="http://tabakskollegiummekelnborg.blogspot.com/2010/12/kesselsdorf-1745-order-of-battle.html">my articles on that subject</a> mostly December 2010 I also link out to some other Saxon uniform pictures, and other information such as OB and narratives, for infantry and cavalry also. <br />
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The Saxon artillery was responsible for blasting apart the pre-planned combined arms divisional attack that started the winter battle, and Frederick was not present. The remarkable attack, which was blasted by this artillery, was set up by the Alte Dessauer, and the king showed up after it was over.<br />
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We do not know exactly how much he ate his impatient words from the week before, trying to rush the AD, nor how jealous he was, when he saw what happened before he could get there in person.<br />
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* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-88148405896427576542011-09-06T21:37:00.001-05:002011-09-07T00:00:50.475-05:00Pounding a Pirate<b>I Win More as Black Than as White</b><br />
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<i><b>Actually I lose more than I win by about seven percent</b></i> but those are left over from several crazy-risky Danish Gambits I had the nerve to try against the Nemesis, and I am still trying to make up the difference against the good players of the world. He put me below .500 as mentioned in February or March, and since he is hiding, I am having a hard time making up for it.<br />
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</b><br />
<b><i>It's not easy, because I give myself a disadvantage almost every time by using one Gambit or another</i>.</b><br />
<b> </b><br />
The reason for that is because most players use the e4 move to start, that is to advance the King's Pawn two steps, the classic way. I think the late great Bobby Fischer did it all but one game famously. Some go first with the Queen's Pawn, and some hate when they do as it slows the game and makes it more intricate generally.<br />
<br />
I do that usually if I have White, leading off with a Queen's Gambit most times, unless they show fianchetto immediately. It's as much from familiarity as anything else.<br />
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<b> And Here is Why--the Icelandic Gambit--it throws them off</b><br />
<br />
But the reason I win more with Black, bucking the statistical trend of maybe 5 to 8 percent better results for White from that first-move advantage, is because when I have Black, and they do the King Pawn first, which is most of the time, I go into an Icelandic Gambit and many opponents are surprised and cannot cope with it.<br />
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It doesn't always work. There are ways to screw it up from both sides, and for it to really be an Icelandic Gambit, the other side would have to follow a natural script for four whole moves, and they often don't, so it doesn't always even occur because they can do whatever they want. All openings end up that way eventually, some fall off script quickly and others follow one a long time. If you don't want or like that, then you avoid it.<br />
<br />
<br />
You can't always get an Icelandic Gambit, since only so many guys will follow the steps laid out for as many as four moves, so it may just be a Scandinavian Gambit if they only follow the script part way. But if they take all four steps as desired, it is the Icelandic Gambit.<br />
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<b>A Gambit is a Gamble, a Gambiteer is a Gambler</b><br />
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All Gambits are risky, what it is is you let the guy take a piece or two hoping you can turn that to your advantage somehow, either off the little time it gives while he's busy cutting off your leg, or else the space opening behind his sword arm while he's whacking at you elsewhere.<br />
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But it is a way even a nerd can demonstrate King Kong Cojones. <br />
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Figuratively it is a little bit like when Beowulf was fighting the Monster's Mother, and the little opening let him get at her heart, but he took a lot of damage in order to get there. I mean in the Neil Gaiman version of Beowulf.<br />
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You give him your pawn or piece or even two pawns like here and try to beat him anyway. It only appeals to a certain kind of player, and the majority frown on it and think you're crazy, and so it is taught that if you find yourself playing a gambiteer, just take it, and chances are he cannot pull it off anyway.<br />
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That Danish Gambit I mentioned is really crazy because you give up three and maybe even four pawns, it is the Gambiteer's craziest gambit of all and often doesn't work. <br />
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I haven't got time to figure out how to put up chessboard diagrams although there is bound to be some way to do it that I haven't seen.<br />
<br />
If I just nicked the one off the site, that'd probably be copyrighted to them, but the moves are mine. There must be someone who could read the algebraic notation, this is almost international language but not quite, because the letters are based on English piece names. There are ways to do this notation understood in all countries, but this is easier for me and pretty well-known anyway.<br />
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So I'll put the moves of my 41st win here, as it is an almost perfect result and has really ticked off a pirate type player more than 250 rating points above me and utterly crushed his ego, humiliating him tremendously and I will bet he even considered breaking his computer or quitting--it happened five hours ago. This guy beat me in the previous game just when I thought I had him.<br />
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<b>Ego Destruction Worse Than Regular Sports</b><br />
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Chess is uniquely able to affect the person's ego more than other games, because it is seen as intellectual, so to lose is to be proven a stupid dolt, unless they have better emotional preparation than most actually do. This can result in temper tantrums, and I remember I mentioned how I quit for four years after the Nemesis beat me four and a half years ago.<br />
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<b>Excuses Always Are Great to Hear Because of the Ego Thing and the Cover-Ups </b><br />
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By the way, the Nemesis quit in July and says it was 'distracting him from his work too much.'<br />
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<b>Tuerckenkriege on Two Fronts</b><br />
I've been in a tournament that started in August with ten games, and then another one started on schedule the first of September with as many more, plus I already had a few private ones going, and I have been pretty busy fighting it out.<br />
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There are three days per move allowed, but you can move immediately if the other guy is online, wherever he or she may be in the world, so I have been fighting two simultaneous Tuerckenkriege at all hours of the day and night, among others, as there is one Turkish guy in each of my two tournaments. One of them is a fast mover, so we are almost done already with that set.<br />
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Normally in the tournament there are a certain number of players in a group, it could be four, six, ten, or whatever, who play each other one game as White, one game as Black, as statistics show whoever has White has a first-move advantage. So you do one each as Black and White.<br />
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But this September tournament has both games at the same time, instead of back-to-back, so it is a lot of games.<br />
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Luckily a week into it I see there are a bunch of fast guys here, so it'll be over probably before the first one is.<br />
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In that August one I have moved up to fourth place out of ten for the time being, above several guys better rated.<br />
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</b><br />
<b>Break Out Your Chess Sets and Follow Along</b><br />
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This shows a bloody pirate getting humiliated in a bare fourteen moves. He falls from 1705 to 1658 rating, and I move up from 1443 to 1473. He is furious about this, believe me. The first four moves define the Icelandic Gambit because each one he did what I hoped for, and then in just ten more moves he resigned this afternoon while I was sleeping.<br />
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Pirate 1705-1658 v. mekelnborg 1443-1473<br />
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1. e4 d5<br />
2. exd5 Nf6<br />
3.c4 e6<br />
4.dxe6 Bxe6 there is the Icelandic Gambit, the rest will vary<br />
5.Nc3 Nc6<br />
6.d3 Bb4<br />
7. Nf3 Qe7<br />
8. d4 0-0-0<br />
9. Bd2 Nxd4<br />
10. Be2 Bxc4<br />
11. Be3 Nxf3+<br />
12. Bxf3 Rxd1+<br />
13. Rxd1 Rxd8+ ouch that was the Queen!<br />
14. b3 Bxe3+<br />
White (pirate) resigned. Kicks dog repeatedly, falls 50 rating points.<br />
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* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-18157499906239298932011-08-26T20:49:00.001-05:002011-08-26T21:04:03.806-05:00"You're a Good Shooter"<b>"With Practice, You Could Be Great"</b><br />
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<b><i>That is quite a compliment coming from Chuck. He does not give them out that easily.</i></b><br />
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In the very small world of legal Chicago pistol shooting and training the name Chuck is well enough known not to need any other introduction.<br />
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And likewise Chuck knows the name Haggerty who was my instructor, and can go on at length as to his style and the problems under which he operated.<br />
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I just had to requalify because one of my shooting cards is coming up for renewal, on a worknight after a worknight, coming off the midnight shift, and the range where Chuck operates is at 142nd and Western, over forty miles from where I live. Through heavy traffic from the Northwest suburbs to the South Side.<br />
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At five pm on a Friday evening. That's commonly called "Rush Hour," which is kind of a quaint phrase from some time back in the twenties when some of the other hours must not have also been rush hour, but it is still the worst hour for traffic, that and the other one right after it, which I was just in.<br />
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So I did 81 miles of that plus fired on the range, and absorbed useful pointers about trigger pull, sight picture, when to not shoot, two-handed grip, up to the butt--yes there is one--and talked intelligently about how pistol training was done back in the day, and got back in time to get ready for work in two hours and 45 minutes, and still haven't calculated as to whether that could be mathematically legal or not. I think it is mathematically possible.<br />
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Unless you take out nine minutes for the Mickey Dees at the Hinsdale Oasis on the Tri-State. These roads are famously shown in the movie The Blues Brothers, and I think they even stopped at that Oasis.<br />
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With all these millions of people driving around, I still can't get over that I found the one guy who can still talk knowledgably about the legendary Haggerty. That class must have been twenty years ago, as I look back now on what must have happened which year and because of what.<br />
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I still remember Haggerty had a reloading station set up in his living room so he could watch TV while he did reloads.<br />
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I got a 95, and my glasses are several years past their prescription date. One round went two inches to the right of the target's chest, and would have probably got his arm anyway.<br />
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That's nothing, one time in the army I had broken glasses, so broken that there was no lens on my usual right-handed shooting eye side, and I had to make do with only a left lens, while the right side swung free in the open air. But unfortunately for me, the left side had no crossbar from the frame to the left ear, so I had to attach a suitable twig off the ground with a piece of duct tape. That is Double Broke.<br />
<br />
That was using an M-16A1 which would drop hot brass down your shirt front left-handed, without a left-handed brass deflector, and being right-handed most of the time I didn't think to get one, so that did happen a couple times. Still, I am proud that I shot Expert under those conditions, left-handed. They really should lower the price of glasses for us poor folks so we can get them more often.<br />
<br />
Anyway I have noticed I seem to shoot at billiards better left-handed too. It's a useful skill sometimes.<br />
<br />
What I shot tonight was a Smith and Wesson Model 67 .38 Special, which is a six-shot double-action revolver, I think a J-frame, and a four -inch barrel, which might have been a bull barrel but I didn't really look that closely. Don't even ask what was in the rounds, it was whatever Chuck provided.<br />
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If I get new glasses too then look out. I gone tink abou getting some.<br />
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mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-11480098999023677072011-08-15T09:23:00.001-05:002011-08-15T09:40:02.790-05:00More on Scale-Changing for Leipzig: Empire, Napoleon's Battles, DBA<b>Empire, the Grand Tactical game </b><br />
Empire by Scott Bowden was the Grand Tactical Napoleonic game popular in the 80's with 1 figure = 60 men, and 1 gun = 2 guns.<br />
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So battalions could be 6, 8, 10, 12, maybe up to 18 at most figures, and batteries each needed 3, 4, or 6 models.<br />
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So to do Leipzig with that you'd need almost 1,100 cannon and howitzer models on the table, and about 8,300 figures, not counting thousands of gunners necessarily in that total.<br />
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There have been several iterations of Empire, besides derivatives, and the current version is called Revolution and Empire. There are still people playing it, including more or less as written. <br />
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Please <a href="http://isttexas.blogspot.com/">click here and look at this guys photos</a>, they show us what 12,000 painted Napoleonic figures looks like all in rows. It's pretty awesome but a lot of painting. This has been in my blogroll for several months but I don't think I ever called attention to it. Amazing work.<br />
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<b>Reaction Against Empire</b><br />
Then the community reacted against Empire, after maybe ten years of its ascendancy in the eighties, on the grounds it's too fiddly, time-consuming, trying too hard to be a simulation versus a game, and gives too many +2 to the French even though it's +1 to the British, etc. <br />
<br />
Plus people didn't like being stuck with the generals named and shamed as incompetent as they were many times. And also, Empire had the nerve to have the figures in a line stand only one rank of figures deep, instead of two, even though there were still deeper formations for the column anyway. There are still people overreacting against that.<br />
<br />
Me, I just didn't like the percentile dice, that's all, even though they probably are better. It could have been a little simpler and been all right. Actually it isn't really that difficult anyway, to me. But it still needs too many guns, at the 1:2 ratio.Who has 1,000 limbers painted up?<br />
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<b><br />
The Vocal Community's Solutions</b><br />
So the solution of the community, and it may really only be a very vocal minority, is to reject all that and go to big battalions of at least 48 figs, which would point to 1:10 men, or 12, even though they often use one gun, with or without limber, as a battery.<br />
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The trend is to much simpler and quicker games, which may be further back towards game from simulation on the continuum.<br />
<br />
<br />
But not only can they not do Leipzig, but they can't even do one tenth of Leipzig either, with rules like that. They could do Bunker Hill, but not Leipzig.<br />
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The result is Leipzig would require only 300 model guns, if at 8, but also 41,666 or some odd figures, if at 12. Distance who knows but few have that many tables nor could reach across it, yet this battle is only two or three times the size of Waterloo really.<br />
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<b>The Obvious Solution</b><br />
The obvious solution is to change the scale.<br />
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Even with all this having been said, there always have been a minority who saw these problems ahead of time and so we find in Charles Grant the Elder's The War Game, around 1972 or '73, a mention of a figure:troop ratio of 1:100 as a possibility, that some were using.<br />
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And in Ned Zuparko's Vive l'Empereur, again 1:100. That was 1982.<br />
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<br />
When Avalon Hill joined the trend set by GDW System 7 for board wargame companies to have a Napoleonic cardboard/miniatures hybrid system, their Napoleon's Battles went with 1:120 men, but still compromised to the two figure ranks deep line, saying that it was for a satisfactory appearance of depth, just for the visual aspect, while acknowledging it is a great distortion of depth at least for a line.<br />
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Napoleon's Battles had a far superior graphic presentation over any miniatures rules and most boardgames too for that matter, as they were in a position to produce top-end components. These are the same company who did Squad Leader.<br />
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Then there is DBA, De Bellis Antiquitatis, which divided an army into 12 parts, and called them elements, and covered many thousands of years' history with one coherent system, Barkerese notwithstanding.<br />
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If the French army of let's say 180,000 at Leipzig were in 12 roughly comparable parts they'd need to be around 15,000 men each, and if so then each element would need to be a corps d'armee.<br />
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And if 360,000 Allies had to only be in 12 elements, theirs would have to be around 30,000 men each.<br />
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So the one silliness is to force every army of all history into a 12-part mold, no matter what, and count the commander as one of them--but then they define one element as being what, 300 paces across? That means all of them in one line would be 9000 feet, 3000 yards, no matter what, and thus would make a French Napoleonic army no more than 13500 men, and that's all you get. Then ranges and moves and time and all else scaled accordingly.<br />
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So it's double silly, yet popular and fulfills a need in the community.<br />
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To me it is a challenge to make something sort of like that, but more like the idea of the dream of what the potential of DBA seems like the first time you look at page one and start to realize what they are doing, but before you completely figure out what they are doing, which pretty much spoils it.<br />
<br />
The obvious solution is to change the scale.<br />
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<b>Boardgamers Don't Ever Deal With This </b><i>they don't need to</i><br />
Boardgame companies think nothing of adjusting the scale drastically from each publication to the next, they have gladiator fights and they have all of World War One, and Two, and Three, all on the same physical size of maps, plus many with more than one map to adjust the scale as needed. They have one ship on one ship duels and they have all of outer space in the future Galacticas and all that.<br />
<br />
So the miniatures community seems kind of hidebound and overly conservative and even to the point of being "reactionary," the way it looks to me. Except in World War Two miniatures, so there I see a glimpse of light.<br />
<br />
In the period of World War Two, even though there are many skirmish-level games and small-unit games, there are also a healthy range of games at what they call the Operational level, which is the one above Grand Tactical, but below Strategic.<br />
<br />
Thee are games where one stand is a squad, or a platoon, or a company--and there are several games out where 1 stand is a whole battalion or in one case a Regiment/Brigade.<br />
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<b>Horse and Musket Does Think About It Sometimes</b><br />
There are also Snappy Nappy, and One Brain Cell games, and that is for both Napoleonic and Seven Years' War, that do put some thought into this level. I know what people say about the names, but these are closer to what I am looking for.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Attention Deficit Disorder?</b><br />
So headed in this direction, now I am busy thinking about how to convert some of the WW2 operational miniature games to the Korean War, so again the ADD strikes again, but I think there is a connecting thread.<br />
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mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-60156254586934562352011-08-12T20:50:00.000-05:002011-08-12T20:50:59.955-05:00Maybe I Won't Do Leipzig First After All<b>Leipzig Needs 500,000 Men and Well Over 2,000 Cannon</b><br />
Having second thoughts about the advisability of actually trying to do the great Battle of Nations as the first Napoleonic battle for the budding 1/72 plastic Napoleonic collection, but it still may be the best way to have started thinking anyway. Having the British Horse Artillery, British Infantry, and British Light Cavalry at the outset could easily have sent me down the path to the Peninsula so commonly seen in English, and diverted me away from the big continental campaigns. Still might anyway, but there is some balance.<br />
<br />
Everything else must needs be smaller and easier, than Leipzig. I have small armies shaping up for the British, Austrians, Russians, Prussians, French, and ready to add some of their friends once the great powers are all represented. As it stands so far I would have to have something like a ratio of 1250 men per figure or some such ratio to make a small collection serve for Leipzig. That part is okay, but what about all that artillery? That's what makes it crazy to do this one first. It's like someone planning their first job out of school to be winning the big lottery. Not really an entirely bad idea.<br />
<br />
Not really opposed to that ratio on the face of it, but in this scale and actually even in 2mm or any other scale, the proportions of the figures' bases greatly exaggerate the frontage and depth most especially for artillery and cavalry. This same issue continues even at much lower ratios.<br />
<br />
Most wargames I have seen vastly exaggerate the actual size of a square and always have done so. These squares are not as big as your kitchen inside many times; it is necessary to do some mathematics to figure it out. It has often been depicted with the same figures from the line arranged in a square, but that makes the square way too big. It should be very tight and compact, only a small number of horses even could make contact if they would, notwithstanding the fact that they wouldn't anyway except by accident.<br />
<br />
There are some maps in the Adkin book, The Waterloo Companion, which is a large coffee-table size of book, and in these maps the ground scale is only one millimeter different from the tabletop ground scale I had arrived at for doing Leipzig on my table, at least if it was the dining room table. Placing actual 1/72 figures on the map right in the open book itself then gives an approximation of what should fit, because it did fit in reality. But the depth of the bases of the figures makes them not fit the actual formations. The worst is the reserve formation of the Imperial Guard standing in the French rear in a very tight formation in closed columns close together.<br />
<br />
They would be quite vulnerable to artillery, but luckily for the French they were using the reverse slope.<br />
<br />
Of course Waterloo is a very small field for having 200,000 men jammed in, only 5500 meters side to side, so the British for example used mostly column or square with few lines formed, and even then not so much their famous two-rank line, but the four rank line. That means most of the well-worn stereotypes are in fact false impressions.<br />
<br />
Wellington thought when he arrived that he would use the same reverse slope (in reverse) as the French ended up using on the 18th, but no, his assistant had selected the next one north.<br />
<br />
So we have the French using that reverse slope. The British deployed in column. If in line it is a four rank line, while the French still have the thinner three rank line, should they deign to use it. And we even have the French attacking in square, not even allowed in many rules but there it is in reality.<br />
<br />
Many of the most influential pioneers in English-language miniature gaming and indeed in figure-making too were oriented towards the most popular aspects in their own country of these wars, so thus the Waterloo figures were mainly for the painting of the Scots Highland square receiving the French Cuirassiers, plus Mercer's horse artillery on the side, but there was a lot more to the 25-year period of constant warfare than just that scene.<br />
<br />
For example Mercer was really next to the Brunswickers wasn't he? I remember that I did paint some of my French in black to make Brunswickers, but today there are more than one dedicated set for that purpose, so you don't need to use the French any more just because they have shakos.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The Prices are Too High</b><br />
So back then when I was in my formative years we had no choice but to raise vast armies of the same few sets and use paint and what not to differentiate and make anything else. Today there are a vast number of different sets available and the price is much higher, even taking account of inflation they cost a lot more than they used to cost, in the seventies.<br />
<br />
It was 69 cents, and then due to inflation even then they raised it to 89 cents a box, when I was starting my collection. Now they range around 10-14-even 20 dollars a box and that is far in excess of inflation.<br />
<br />
It is more than just that. Certainly I wish my income had increased by that proportion. Do the math and it is shocking, these plastic figures are now a dollar and more each depending on how you do it, at least if the man sits on a horse. And there has been no improvement at all in those Airfix Cuirassiers who still can't hold together at all, as bad as they ever were in that regard.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Here is What is Good About It</b><br />
On the other hand, even if it is money-grubbing on their part four or five times and more above inflation, all that money in their hands does give them the motivation to vastly increase the ranges from the choices there were in the past. So now there are a couple hundred different Napoleonic sets, instead of five or six.<br />
<br />
But this means one has to be selective and not try to get one or more of each type all the way down the line, as that would now require thousands of dollars as well as take many months to catch up with the painting.<br />
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<b>Underground Music Award</b><br />
Teri aka Lyric thanks anyone who helped with the voting for her Underground Music Award nomination for Song of the Year 2011. The voting has now closed; it had to be before midnight last night of the 11th. Now they will use the next ten days to figure out what they are going to do, and then on the 21st of August in the Bronx they will have their awards ceremonies and announce who won.<br />
<br />
The Bronx is one of the boroughs of New York City. So in about ten days we will see the results.<br />
<br />
<b>Banquet Tables</b><br />
I have two matching folding banquet tables with wheels, quite convenient for a temporary and mobile wargame setup. They are each five feet by 28 inches, so side by side they give a few inches short of five feet square. There is also a roughly comparable wooden table that could be next to those, without even diverting the dining table. If I were to use all four at once, it would allow the Leipzig rules to be like the Waterloo rules as far as scales are concerned, but would certainly dominate my wargame room for as long as it stayed set up. It would perhaps allow ten inch miles instead of three or four inches, for the scale.mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-42126556730636773302011-07-16T09:50:00.001-05:002011-07-16T11:10:42.226-05:00Underground Music Awards UMAs Song of the Year Vote<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIyi_4vFLya-voMg-gO7psCIh5hNf5hl7GyZ6M6zyN0rbtQe44KXde0zO2oPSrHR7TWU4xzKUbXjO9R494dlWNUhZf80pi4LlLiX4YwHb4Z51n1lKeTQvoImPU_QiaR1WISgfpuPJZRolp/s1600/LyricsJourney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIyi_4vFLya-voMg-gO7psCIh5hNf5hl7GyZ6M6zyN0rbtQe44KXde0zO2oPSrHR7TWU4xzKUbXjO9R494dlWNUhZf80pi4LlLiX4YwHb4Z51n1lKeTQvoImPU_QiaR1WISgfpuPJZRolp/s400/LyricsJourney.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> LYRIC, Can't Back Down ft Anna</span></b><br />
<br />
<b>...and now for something completely different... </b><br />
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<b> You Can Help--<i>BIG time</i></b><br />
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You can help this lady 'Lyric' win the 2011 Underground Music Award on August 21 by voting for her song for the Song of the Year. Her handle on youtube is LyricsJourney and on the song she is going by 'Lyric.'<br />
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Probably some shmoe already took her name before she got there, on the youtube site. That has happened to me too, look at what I ended up with.<br />
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The song is up against two other songs for Song of the Year at the 9th Annual UMAs in the Bronx on August 21.<br />
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What it needs is not just to listen to it and look at it but go to the site and vote, like yeah, this is the winner.<br />
<br />
That way you are a winner too.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Vote Early and Often</b><br />
<br />
I had pizza with her last night (from Sarpino's) about six hours ago, so I said I would try to help by enlisting some voters. <i>You are already registered, you just need to know how to do it and remember to keep on doing it again.</i><br />
<br />
In Chicago we are used to the concept that if you vote early and often, you can help your candidate win better. And it's legal. You can vote every day.<br />
<br />
It doesn't matter if urban music is to your taste or not. You still get a vote, not only today right now but every day from now until August 11, then the winner comes out on August 21. And your votes count!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Here's What You Get: </b><br />
<br />
<i>That means you don't just get a vote, you get all the rest of July plus August up to the 11th, which is like --</i><br />
<i> 26 votes per computer. </i><br />
<br />
<i> Plus you get the quick gratification of seeing you, me and her which is us WIN on August 21, which is not that far in the future to have a chance to forget.</i><br />
<br />
In fact it would be BETTER if you don't like it generally because then you won't mind voting against those other two guys, the one attacking the pope among other things and the other one, I forget what he was supposed to be talking about.<br />
<br />
You can vote even if you're in Siberia or Russia or Norway or Senegal or even somewhere where they don't even HAVE votes, because this is different. You can vote again every day, and the more you do, the more likely it is that you, me, and her all win this UMA together.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I know her from the Salt Mines where we work together. That was how that happened. We consult on blog work all the time. Besides music she can also be kind of computer geeky too, that's her other passion, that and writing poetry which she is then turning into music. With the computer stuff she might show me how to do simple stuff sometimes. Like how to vote for her for the UMA.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>OK--BUT HOW DO YOU DO IT </b><br />
<br />
<b><i> So here's How To Do It</i></b><br />
<br />
You can go to the <a href="http://www.undergroundmusicawards.com/">UMA site here</a>, scroll down All The Way To The Bottom Of The Page until you find 'Click Here To Vote For The UMA Song Of The Year' and there's a place where it says Vote. Then click to vote, a window opens and you pick Lyric, Can't Back Down.<br />
<br />
Just ignore those two other choices, those are the Wrong Answer. Forget a and b.<br />
You want answer c. Lyric, Can't Back Down <br />
<br />
<br />
It's that simple. But if you try it again right away, it'll say sorry we already counted your vote--by your IP, (which means they just think you are that computer at that time).<br />
<br />
It's OK to vote again tomorrow, and the next day, right on up to August 11.Winner announced on the 21st.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Lyric's Web Site </b><br />
<br />
This link will take you to her website: <a href="http://www.lyricsjourney.com/">http://www.lyricsjourney.com/</a><br />
<br />
Since that site changes all the time I can't say if at any moment it has her poetry books on it or what, but right now there's a kind Anita Baker-sounding song on it when it first opens up. She keeps changing it because she is heavily into computers and likes to mess around with the code. It has been three or four different ways in the past year or so.<br />
<br />
I can't do all that fancy CSS and what not, I can only guess at HTML if I think I see it. I do usually guess okay, though.<br />
<br />
But this I figured out: You're looking at a trash can in an alley in the picture as it opens, so take your scrollbar and scroll over to the right to open up to the street in that alley, and then you see some ways to Enter the site.<br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Ninety-Nine Cent Downloads</b><br />
<br />
Check with her there about trying to get downloads, it would be legal and good to do it right, and it would be illegal and bad to do it wrong.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>BUT Where's The Song?</b><br />
<br />
I said it doesn't matter, the main point was vote anyway.<br />
<br />
But it's on youtube, or else you could probably dig around her site for the better versions. What's up on youtube right now is two songs, and two sets of audition vids. That's four vids, but it could grow, like I say she's changing stuff all the time, you never know.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtKgtxMk1HM&feature=related">Can't Back Down ft Anna </a>one that is up for the award shows a pic that looks like it could be an album cover, and then this other song has a fully developed video. The other one is called '<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfaJ4rzK7jo">Death of a Poet</a>,' and in fact I was thinking I liked that one better from last week, but the one that is up for the award is growing on me too since then.<br />
<br />
I didn't understand it is about women being abused, that's the point behind the lyrics of this one. She usually has meaning in her lyrics, seeing as how she's a poet on that end first. <br />
<br />
I voted for it anyway, like I say it doesn't matter if you like the other one better, because this is the one that's up for the song of the year.<br />
<br />
Thanks, everybody, keep going! Let's win this.<br />
<br />
* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-62477380212977212892011-07-11T10:08:00.000-05:002011-07-11T10:08:52.136-05:00Getting Started in Imex 1/72 Napoleonics<b>Imex Does Not Have Napoleonics</b><br />
<br />
<b><i>They have about five sets planned, between Waterloo and the War of 1812, but I am not going to sit around and wait for them. </i></b><br />
<br />
<b><i>I'm going to use what they do have. </i></b><br />
<b> </b><br />
Webmasters get a report of the varous search terms people have used to find their blog, to help with planning.<br />
<br />
Someone was searching for information about how to paint Imex figures, and wound up looking at my posts earlier in June about the Revell Prussians and the Imex British redcoats that I had converted to serve as Austrians for the Seven Years War.<br />
<br />
So, I don't know, I do think that people should be encouraged in getting started out whether in wargaming itself, a new period, or in a new line of figures. But the person did not make a Comment, so I don't know how to really answer that.<br />
<br />
It is common enough to be getting started with something though, it happens all the time.<br />
<br />
It could be a new scale, or a new material such as plastic versus metal or vice versa, for someone who already has some other kind such as World War Two models and wants to try something else.<br />
<br />
Earlier this spring I was bit by a plastic 1/72 bug so I have been painting and collecting them since about February. I already had some, a few hundred, left over from what must have been thousands I used to have but that were victims of the vicissitudes of my life.<br />
<br />
So in that sense, I am also getting started again, and relearning several familiar old lessons in the process as I go.<br />
<br />
From the 1970's I had a large collection of most of the output of a company called Airfix, from the UK. They had figures from the Romans against the Ancient Britons, on up through Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, to more familiar periods such as the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. They even had a set of spacemen based on the Americans going to the moon, with lunar rovers, if I remember correctly.<br />
<br />
Most of them are lost, but some are still in my possession. I also had from the 1980's a few more boxes but they were harder to find then, and I was focusing on other things, so there were not so many. I had ancient Egyptians that were from Atlantic, and I still have a Soviet heavy machinegun by itself in the bitz bag. And those Revell Prussians I finally just painted a few weeks ago.<br />
<br />
Nowadays there are hundreds more sets more or less available from many manufacturers.<br />
<br />
It used to be we had seven or eight that were supposed to be Napoleonic, and some others from other periods that could be somewhat plausibly substituted in for various purposes. Everyone did it that way, including the big and famous names in wargaming from that era.<br />
<br />
When the French Imperial Guard set finally came out I did not get them, because for me it was too late, and I had been using British 1776 Grenadiers for that purpose for years already. They had bearskin hats and muskets and the coats were close enough.<br />
<br />
I am now still operating from that same mindset, although I am not sure everyone else is, these days.It is a built-in part of my mentality when it comes to these plastic figures, to use them in the Old School way.<br />
<br />
It would take four or five pages to print out just a list of all the Napoleonic sets that have now been put out on the market. It didn't used to be that way. People are spoiled nowadays.<br />
<br />
So as I have been buying up the sets available around my town before resorting to mail order, I have a mix of different periods. It's not just the 18th century. But there are only a limited choice around town, and that is what I have been stocking up on and painting furiously day after day. Eventually I will exhaust their stock, and then see what's out there from outside companies, but right now I'll support the local guys at least until they have nothing else I can use.<br />
<br />
Part of it is Napoleonic. I have got one good box of British Infantry for Waterloo in 1815 from A Call To Arms, with 32 men. One box was all they had at the store.<br />
<br />
Then five boxes of both Esci and Italeri British Light Dragoons (Hussars). There are three boxes each of French Cuirassiers and French Artillery, and a British Royal Horse Artillery.<br />
<br />
The French artillery and Cuirassiers are Accurate, but they are actually the same old figures from Airfix in a newer box under a different label. That means that besides the three guns each, they also include eight marching infantrymen, so I have 24 French infantry to face those 32 British infantry from A Call To Arms.<br />
<br />
I've also got two or three more sets of these left over from earlier phases of life. <br />
<br />
Well that is not very much and it is kind of heavy on the supporting arms, especially cavalry. Not even five dozen infantry. They must not be glamorous enough, or else somebody else already bought all of them up.<br />
<br />
But I also have those Mexicans for the Alamo. They are rather disappointing, to others, <a href="http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=184">in their review at PSR</a><br />
they explain the reasons well enough. But they do carry the Brown Bess musket and wear a shako. And as you look through there at the hundred-plus sets now available, from many companies, set after set have certain flaws anyway. That means the 'right' ones aren't always quite right either.<br />
<br />
I am going to convert the Mexicans with paint to serve as generic Napoleonic infantry to hold me over until I can collect more from all these other guys. There are lots of these available in my town, whenever I am ready, and at half or less the price they charge by mail order.<br />
<br />
The reason I turn to this expedient is that one box of A Call To Arms British already completely exhausted the supply of Napoleonic infantry on sale in my town. That was the only box there was. From here I cannot expand in Napoleonics locally unless I want a bunch of the British Royal Horse Artillery, because there are still a few of those left in the store.<br />
<br />
The Alamo sets are still plentiful though, and by using the Mexicans to represent almost any army with shakos, for the time being, I can form up some better-balanced forces quickly and locally before I gradually replace them later with the more correct counterparts as and when I can. So far then I have over a hundred French, some Swedes and some Prussians.<br />
<br />
Also I can use some of the Alamo defenders set and the US Infantry for the Mexican War for the Prussian Landwehr, even though they don't wear the litewka coats. Some of the real Landwehr didn't get those either, and the hats are close enough until I can get some of the right ones to replace them.<br />
<br />
In this way I have my sights set on using Imex 'Napoleonics,' which don't actually exist yet except in their planning stage, to do the great battle of Leipzig in 1813. I've done it before, but not in this scale.<br />
<br />
I'll apply the same sort of thinking to other periods as I expand my range.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>How To Paint Them</b><br />
<br />
As to how to paint them, I would recommend you put them in hot water with dishwashing soap at least to soak, and if you can be careful use a toothbrush to scrub a little. This is to remove oils or greases from the factory to hopefully take the paint better.<br />
<br />
Next a primer. I have been using either an acrylic gesso from an art supply shop, or just ordinary acrylic paint. It does not seem to make much difference either way. The plastics are not the same from one set to another, but most will reject the paint at first. I just go over it again and assume it will need a few coats. The first one will not be complete usually, but even if it only halfway sticks, it gives you something to stick the paint to later on a second and third coat. The artists call this aspect having some 'tooth,' something for the paint to catch on and stick to, and that is what gesso is meant to do for their canvas or paper too.<br />
<br />
Then there are several types of paint, and for that I would use acrylic. The enamels I originally used in the 70's worked, but had usually been sitting in the store way too long and were often dried out, which did not help. Some of the acrylics are that way too, but I have had better luck and better results with them.<br />
<br />
* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-22135763494190802202011-07-04T21:13:00.001-05:002011-07-04T21:20:01.006-05:00Declaration of Independence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkytgvsRAYbLlnceCLWDUVADOfsubkaXZmp-pi_jIGSY2nsdme1hDyR6qwt_FvCjnYH46jnKEJ6qD0Nd2s8CuKsXJ5pIYOTEVXLaHOo3fg3sbDEJ_RohMvjGDkyejrXmB6AK145oXBtE70/s1600/449px-Writing_the_Declaration_of_Independence_1776_cph.3g09904.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkytgvsRAYbLlnceCLWDUVADOfsubkaXZmp-pi_jIGSY2nsdme1hDyR6qwt_FvCjnYH46jnKEJ6qD0Nd2s8CuKsXJ5pIYOTEVXLaHOo3fg3sbDEJ_RohMvjGDkyejrXmB6AK145oXBtE70/s320/449px-Writing_the_Declaration_of_Independence_1776_cph.3g09904.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>Images: PD US Wikipedia: Jean Leon Jerome Ferris, Writing the Declaration of Independence<br />
<br />
Thomas Jefferson wrote the document. Here we see Benjamin Franklin and John Adams helping with the initial and relatively minor editing. They were the committee to draft it. There were also two others who did not make any changes, at all, to what Jefferson wrote.<br />
<br />
This is at Jefferson's house in Philadelphia. As you can see he was a naval wargame collector and used large ship models. (see top)<br />
<br />
These men fully expected to be hanged for treason and that is exactly what the British were trying to do. Of the 56 Signers, many did suffer, and so did some of their wives and much of their property. Several were caught and mistreated in prison including the prison hulk ship out in the harbor at New York. That's another story of its own.<br />
<br />
<br />
When they were satisfied they put the document before the rest of the Congress Assembled and there were major changes made before they agreed on it. The document as signed and published, after the changes, has 1337 words and as such it is not that difficult to read it. I recommend that you do read the text itself, rather than only what someone tells you about it or what it means.<br />
<br />
I will continue to tell you just that a little bit though, for the sake of completeness. And I have another link to make it a lot easier for the visually-oriented.<br />
<br />
The major changes largely had to do with slavery--and around 500 words were cut out before they all agreed on what's left of it. It would be very interesting to see those words too, but I have to hurry to the Salt Mines through the holiday crowds.<br />
<br />
By the way, fireworks are illegal in this state, and they are exploding all over the place every few seconds. D---the King. <br />
<br />
The important point for this article is that these words were in there from the start, but had to be cut out to get agreement. For them the main point at hand was to set out reasons to dissolve all ties to Great Britain.<br />
<br />
selah<br />
<br />
Also some northern seaport states found anti-slavery language objectionable on grounds that it would be bad for their business, not so much their need of having slaves themselves. They had Irish and other indentured servants and cheap labor available generally in those parts, then as now. I fall in the last category myself.<br />
<br />
So those parts were objectionable to southern states generally, and in particular South Carolina and Georgia objected to those parts. Jefferson himself was the number two man from Virginia, behind Richard Henry Lee. It is interesting to note he not only had slaves, but is widely believed to have a very large family of descendants through them. That is why it would be interesting to see those other 500 words, and important to know they were originally there.<br />
<br />
Speaking of Richard Henry Lee ( as in the later Robert E. Lee) Adams thought July 2nd would be remembered by posterity, because that was the day Lee proposed the resolution, and this document only put it into a writing. But the date on the document is what caught on, because of the proclivity people have to appearances and style over substance generally, then as now.<br />
<br />
So then at 1337 words it was signed and published. When published in the newspapers it was typeset instead of handwritten.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTiY7IMPcMWxwslCZLdOV8dxqvg36_IemOFF5Gdnyx5tmCePP5J-EK4QZV9PUtuxVb6rgK2Txc5jzYJ_sC4B6jM5z3zDhtJCc8RPpTyhE8uK1nxnFvFi5vStiIL7JWmkM-uIeLFy2EXWmu/s1600/505px-Us_declaration_independence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTiY7IMPcMWxwslCZLdOV8dxqvg36_IemOFF5Gdnyx5tmCePP5J-EK4QZV9PUtuxVb6rgK2Txc5jzYJ_sC4B6jM5z3zDhtJCc8RPpTyhE8uK1nxnFvFi5vStiIL7JWmkM-uIeLFy2EXWmu/s320/505px-Us_declaration_independence.jpg" width="269" /></a></div><br />
<br />
There were 56 Signers. John Hancock put his extra big, front and center because he wanted to make sure King George could see it without his spectacles. We still refer to signing a document as 'put your John Hancock on there.'<br />
<br />
Here is how it looked in the newspapers.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMXqpAj0Hc9eNQJH-mx2aNhFR-bb6SbTLnmCvV_x3HRZTW-k0SJsBWoRJI7eU3zHdVwETSyef9mHQt8-0wURCjlL1osUQiqviJigoIP3eCaKEEagLLrz2y_CYqgPyPuZgDHJRI0y6UQ2Pp/s1600/Yale_Dunlap_Broadside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMXqpAj0Hc9eNQJH-mx2aNhFR-bb6SbTLnmCvV_x3HRZTW-k0SJsBWoRJI7eU3zHdVwETSyef9mHQt8-0wURCjlL1osUQiqviJigoIP3eCaKEEagLLrz2y_CYqgPyPuZgDHJRI0y6UQ2Pp/s320/Yale_Dunlap_Broadside.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>would a click embiggen?<br />
<br />
At the time these men were meeting to sort out legal details and documents, the British army and navy had pulled out of Boston in March, leaving lots of good stuff behind, and sailed up to Halifax, Nova Scotia to do some regrouping, training and wait for fresh reinforcements from Europe. The trip across the Atlantic could take more or less six or eight weeks and depended on weather, tides and currents.<br />
<br />
There were Hessian and other German troops in the contingent that came to join up, and this whole vast combined fleet was already anchored off New York even as these scenes were happening. The next military steps would be the Long Island and New York campaigns.<br />
<br />
Inside New York, where the British had not yet landed for their main invasion, people heard about the Declaration and here is what they did:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixV9QBLI9Lrnd4RAw-KRbkbHMgbUQ_gN0381y9oZ0fuSKOqGp-kpDZYxB116abgHNExYulcZGwSnm7olI93dT1itU7C9OP-GSQ_A96kY9cbzufKLU7bnFQFx2QMkOE4Phw5KwqYeLEBxSg/s1600/776px-Johannes_Adam_Simon_Oertel_Pulling_Down_the_Statue_of_King_George_III%252C_N.Y.C._ca._1859.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixV9QBLI9Lrnd4RAw-KRbkbHMgbUQ_gN0381y9oZ0fuSKOqGp-kpDZYxB116abgHNExYulcZGwSnm7olI93dT1itU7C9OP-GSQ_A96kY9cbzufKLU7bnFQFx2QMkOE4Phw5KwqYeLEBxSg/s320/776px-Johannes_Adam_Simon_Oertel_Pulling_Down_the_Statue_of_King_George_III%252C_N.Y.C._ca._1859.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Johannes Adam Simon Oertel, Pulling Down the Statue of King George<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
You can read about it more <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence">here</a>.<br />
<br />
And as promised for those who are visually-oriented or also audio, here is<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYyttEu_NLU"> Morgan Freeman and his friends</a> performing it, which he will explain is how it ought to be done. This is a vid for 14:26 and is in solid Hollywood style, with many famous faces and voices at the Congress Room in Philadelphia.<br />
<br />
And remember the British fleet with 30,000 men is already riding at anchor not too far away, looking for their heads.<br />
<br />
<br />
Another interesting assignment for your next vacation to Washington, DC is to make a careful note exactly which key phrases do NOT appear in the granite and marble edifice the Jefferson Memorial, even though it appears to have these ringing phrases. Some are not there. <br />
<br />
<br />
MEKELNBORG<br />
<br />
* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-49640026775483448362011-06-27T20:37:00.000-05:002011-06-27T20:37:13.789-05:00Imex 1/72 Austrians Paint Conversion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPwH4DIim-kajxNb27WY7NN24SRu1hh4YXAXeC5wrR0RZlrL7SOJhx8fCEM7f_LLS7BBqLLG3eAZAm3UXY3DWy59I6L2QD7X6-a9Uz9xSM5HjDTf6sjFmwXaQFgnXpPx2gQlfII__0bQVI/s1600/Picture+008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPwH4DIim-kajxNb27WY7NN24SRu1hh4YXAXeC5wrR0RZlrL7SOJhx8fCEM7f_LLS7BBqLLG3eAZAm3UXY3DWy59I6L2QD7X6-a9Uz9xSM5HjDTf6sjFmwXaQFgnXpPx2gQlfII__0bQVI/s320/Picture+008.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In this picture, the Revell Prussians have surprised the new Imex Austrians (converted British Redcoats) while they were in the middle of a fashion show to see their facings, while General Lacy (top right of center) looks on. Meanwhile General Loudon tries to thrust his sword into a Prussian Grenadier-Garde, Alt 6 man's head.<br />
<br />
He would turn around to see what's holding up Lacy's reinforcements if he had time. Just like that time at Liegnitz in 1760. (Legnica)<br />
<br />
<br />
Imex does not have Austrians for the SYW, Revell does, or at least they did. It's hard to keep up with the changes in the plastic 1/72 producers. <a href="http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.aspx">Plastic Soldier Review</a> can help sort most of it out. Some are out of production, some are not yet available but in the pipeline, and others have changed names two or three times.<br />
<br />
So the ones on <a href="http://peterscave.blogspot.com/2011/06/revell-awi-british-infantry.html">Peter's Cave</a> the other day (see blogroll) are the exact same figures, and rather better painted than mine, but instead of calling them Imex he is calling them Revell, and before both of them the same figures were Accurate. Since I have a supply of both Accurate and Imex, and they are almost identical, I'd have to think but this particular set was sold as Imex when I got them in late 2003.<br />
<br />
I don't have the patience to track down the proper Austrians to go with those Prussians I found last week, but I had a set of what are supposed to be Imex British Redcoats for the American Revolution. I'll try to get the right ones later if I can, but I need Austrians now. I have already waited too long.<br />
<br />
Back in 2003 I picked up some of these Imex for the Revolution but had not finished painting them. This set was going to be the French regulars and were halfway done in white uniforms. Another one actually are British redcoats, and there are blue ones and other types too.<br />
<br />
I probably still will use these for French of the Revolution come to think about it, until I add some proper ones later. Even then, these could probably be used for the pre-79 uniform ones well enough. <br />
<br />
<br />
There is a French set out there by somebody else, but they are in the post-1779 issue uniforms. The French who came to fight in North America are believed to have worn both the older and the newer uniforms depending which force they are. So those too, I'll keep an eye out for them for later.<br />
<br />
I kind of don't care about the differences that much. This whole plastic project started with a nostalgia for the days when we only had a few troops types to use, two for the Revolution and I can think of about seven types to cover the whole Napoleonic Wars. So we'd use the 1815 Highlanders to storm Fort Ticonderoga in 1758 if that's what we wanted to do that day. The muskets were basically the same, but their hats were different.<br />
<br />
It was considered cool then to do conversions, lopping off heads of one kind to make another, but I had two problems with that. I never thought I had enough troops to waste like that, and once you did you couldn't use the other ones any more, unless by some miracle the hats were appropriate for the donors.<br />
<br />
I finally did make some English Civil War figures from Napoleonics and American Civil War types, but it really made me ill to have to do that out of desperation. It ruined the original figures for the periods they came from, and within a couple weeks I would regret it.<br />
<br />
I did not feel so badly about the simpler 'paint conversion,' since it is theoretically reversible when you change your mind back. These coats could go back to red, or blue, pretty quickly, if I ever wanted that.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKPGKhN4F8SmopC4oGWbcrmXZudrYcSs98yXUCR9KJQjgmyd7s9iEJS7ftdGdm0DKO1ADCaYVzadLMy4T2Ua05e1f2apRnWMx8tLDr8r6FmwtCzgAzF63Qsl5b5I4ZCfmobYsuhKkFHfFm/s1600/Picture+009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKPGKhN4F8SmopC4oGWbcrmXZudrYcSs98yXUCR9KJQjgmyd7s9iEJS7ftdGdm0DKO1ADCaYVzadLMy4T2Ua05e1f2apRnWMx8tLDr8r6FmwtCzgAzF63Qsl5b5I4ZCfmobYsuhKkFHfFm/s320/Picture+009.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
So I have a long history fortified by nostalgia for the dilemmas caused by too limited a line in plastics. There are a lot more choices nowadays, but still not enough.<br />
<br />
There are dragoons available nowadays, and there were always hussars if you will rob the Waterloo collection, plus now there are proper hussars with mirliton hats. But cuirassiers with tricorne (robbing Waterloo again) would call for conversions. I could get tricornes from certain American militia types.<br />
<br />
<b>And then the Worst Thing Happened</b><br />
<br />
While I was thinking about all that, I started looking at my Napoleonic British and French, a rebudding little collection, and started to think about not wanting to rob them, because I will want to use them and regret it later. Why not leave their hats alone and just use French 1815 Cuirassiers as SYW cuirassiers, nobody has to know...then they can still go back to Napoleon later, no commitment, no strings...I can ignore the hats, and maybe the colors, just till I get the right ones...<br />
<br />
The bane of the wargamer is to be distracted to a different project, before getting the other one done. <br />
<br />
And then my thoughts started to drift to the vast half million man Voelkerschlacht, the biggest bloodiest battle of the 19th Century before World War I broke all records:<br />
<br />
Leipzig, 1813! The Battle of Nations.<br />
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* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-58165762602820163102011-06-22T21:18:00.000-05:002011-06-22T21:18:19.781-05:00Tornado Hit Us, Not Too BadlyWe got hit by some tornadoes last night. It broke up one of those runs of days that are too hot, like I had mentioned a while back.<br />
<br />
Suddenly a storm blows in and once the rain and winds are gone, it brings fresher cooler air from aloft leading in a cold front.<br />
<br />
<br />
But although the relief from the heat is very nice, there may be violent storms at the edge of this sort of change, and that is what happened.<br />
<br />
<br />
Since I was languishing in the 88 degree heat, I was standing at the window trying to enjoy as much cooler air from the wind as I could while not getting too wet from the rain that is in the wind. At some point it becomes too violent, and then you lock down the hatches.<br />
<br />
So the rotation in the wind formed a tornado, as it went over me, and bore down right on the Salt Mines to where I was working for our War Correspondent RJK last week, where it was close to the ground and violently ripped a crab apple tree near the front door right up out of the ground by the roots.<br />
<br />
I found it a few hours later. There were lots of other branches on the ground from other trees, but that one completely torn out looked pretty dramatic.<br />
<br />
Then it slammed into the ground a mile away at the next town's fire department, flipping all the firemen's cars upside down in their parking lot. This is close to the main airport of Chicago, which had to close down for a couple hours when the tower people had to evacuate.<br />
<br />
They were reporting winds at 81 mph, but only later figured out it was officially a tornado. They determined two touched down, meaning hit the ground, and maybe three others up in the air around the area, without touching down necessarily. <br />
<br />
If I had known it was <i>officially</i> a tornado I would have probably taken cover, but instead I was standing there enjoying the cool breeze.<br />
<br />
There was another one heading towards the Alte Fritz's neck of the woods too, a few minutes later.<br />
<br />
Both of them have officially qualified as tornadoes now, but of the kind that only just qualify, so it wasn't really bad, except for the firemen, and the place whose roof was torn off...and the crab apple tree.<br />
<br />
I must say, on my way to the Salt Mines a half hour later, I benefitted from the lighter than usual traffic on the roads and did not have to drive at tornado speed to get to work on time for once.<br />
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<b>This Helped the Blog in its Own Way</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Due to the disaster recovery I had to work an extra half day, but that helped the blog as I was able to meet with the Correspondent RJK to coordinate the story he has from Virginia, some aspects of which will be exclusive to the headquartersinthesaddle blog, but too busy with this to have it up just yet. It will be soon.<br />
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* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-18786120415314206052011-06-20T21:11:00.001-05:002011-06-20T21:27:31.580-05:00Revell 1/72 Preussische Infanterie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgns80mh-ZmKtlagCn4ZHE5PDH5OBwCaOcNZzGapa3p80txKZJiOfLBxJgLbau8nMdykvfpWKb-lf4hjUlofO625ha09ri5pONF_yTCxVCmIIOxCSziuNGbuB58lpdRrWT_u5kKptfZFzTZ/s1600/Picture+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgns80mh-ZmKtlagCn4ZHE5PDH5OBwCaOcNZzGapa3p80txKZJiOfLBxJgLbau8nMdykvfpWKb-lf4hjUlofO625ha09ri5pONF_yTCxVCmIIOxCSziuNGbuB58lpdRrWT_u5kKptfZFzTZ/s320/Picture+001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<b>(need a shave, I guess)Prussian Infantry Set from the 90's-</b><br />
<b>I have been Working on the Plastic, and Taking Inventory </b><br />
<br />
These rather poor images are from holding a netbook computer at a certain angle, so they are not very good as pics, but they are better than nothing, like I usually have.<br />
<br />
<br />
Too bad you can't see the silver and gold braid on these.<br />
<br />
I have several different wargame figure collections, and the best old one but most neglected for some years are the plastic 1/72 that I started out with years back.<br />
<br />
I am up to around 672 Imex plus 100 or 200 Airfix figures in 1/72 plastic now, mainly for the American Revolution portion of the 18th Century.<br />
<br />
The Imex came in a box set of 284 back in 2003, then about 300 that I picked up since about February, under the influence of Charlie Wesencraft and some blogging influences, and since then as we approach summer I have another 100 militia types and 72 artillery with 12 guns.<br />
<br />
This is not counting cavalry, because only four mounted figures ar e officially from this period, plus five George Washingtons (two or three missing or amputated by the vacuum/cats)and four British Grenadier officers. <br />
<br />
It's debatable whether the hussars and cuirassiers from the Napoleonic period can be used. It depends on whether it is really the American Revolution, or if we are doing the European wars of the 18C and anything goes because almost nothing is exactly right.<br />
<br />
If I do count them, I seem to have about 10 Airfix British Hussars left, another 36 Esci and 24 Italeri. The Italeri are the crispest ones. They are the same as the Esci, but came out better. So, seventy of them. There are about twenty usable old Airfix French Cuirassiers, plus another set of 11 I picked up under the Accurate labels, but they are the same figures. So, 31 of those.<br />
<br />
That's how I always used the old plastic anyway, and it never was quite right, but I did not care, because the right figures did not exist and were not available. Nowadays there are more out there, but the lines are far from complete, so in plastic it has always been about conversions and overlooking imperfections.<br />
<br />
<br />
I like that. Let the 28mm people try to be accurate all they please. Their figures usually look like mutant Gnome-Frogs, to be honest, with bugged out eyes and bunches of bananas for hands.<br />
<br />
So some of the horde is from this year when I suddenly started to want to collect the plastic armies again, and about half or more were already in various Bitz Bags around the place, being ignored.<br />
<br />
For a few months I was looking at one gray Revell figure from an old box of Prussian Infantry for the Seven Years War, which was also called the French and Indian War in its American theater.<br />
<br />
I had found it somewhere and just had it sitting around, while I wondered what ever happened to the rest of them.<br />
<br />
So now: <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcjrdIMXTUsAVsxdHGdT4X4khtXmQHs1zC0T1tCZdLrbBNpR-y9cjeunQ65ry4pO6sOGbzEJ_KcfIUUQNMSAO6KRJ_vZDoEuKDXpuVYe2_rQFNrWs82y6PVs6tFwErrV3K9jsOMabIvry3/s1600/Picture+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcjrdIMXTUsAVsxdHGdT4X4khtXmQHs1zC0T1tCZdLrbBNpR-y9cjeunQ65ry4pO6sOGbzEJ_KcfIUUQNMSAO6KRJ_vZDoEuKDXpuVYe2_rQFNrWs82y6PVs6tFwErrV3K9jsOMabIvry3/s320/Picture+002.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> I always get my grapes at V. Sattui's Winery, whenever I'm in the Napa Valley. They are the juiciest.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY4aKehFHvygDn88RlGrmYnMHo9qSi58RcsZFxrg1ZbklgbhKG1pMlXYYNMrZZwnzEcmumdNuNvR4ymbBtLx8H0cByDHKsksQvrCmiAc9frbho8rw5IzxkwHw_1gkwEk4TBLVmlXMWjGiW/s1600/Picture+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY4aKehFHvygDn88RlGrmYnMHo9qSi58RcsZFxrg1ZbklgbhKG1pMlXYYNMrZZwnzEcmumdNuNvR4ymbBtLx8H0cByDHKsksQvrCmiAc9frbho8rw5IzxkwHw_1gkwEk4TBLVmlXMWjGiW/s320/Picture+003.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> This shows the box; this brand was made in Germany when I bought these, some time in the 90's. Still probably are. The brush points at the Frederick the Great figure.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKe96SbcW9IWBbl04MeVcg9EtNyCzhS85utwhYchin-M1ahZ7iaGGOX1Lgz59TxABjADh9KMwwwJ91s-3tqkKnSaaJodWLrecJOilBt0Sb7-RG_uRJ1tYPlD0WNNhzDlNqUYfEzx9YE_p/s1600/Picture+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKe96SbcW9IWBbl04MeVcg9EtNyCzhS85utwhYchin-M1ahZ7iaGGOX1Lgz59TxABjADh9KMwwwJ91s-3tqkKnSaaJodWLrecJOilBt0Sb7-RG_uRJ1tYPlD0WNNhzDlNqUYfEzx9YE_p/s320/Picture+004.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> This is the magnifying glass attached to a Chicago Cubs road hat. They are a very unlucky baseball team from around here. The hat holds the glass in place so you can see fine detail better.<br />
<br />
So let's see if it works:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkPMfcjPOKT8aL59VUTtYvF8mo-inIbjl50fyKXv1uL28oAHztsRTMg6swFwgc2WAfmA1zPaRvBzU7-91KUauMT6bNy34MwcMAsR8RkXMwzBaAuMOzMQa6umRx4MU839ZBDwiqWlvRxSiO/s1600/Picture+005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkPMfcjPOKT8aL59VUTtYvF8mo-inIbjl50fyKXv1uL28oAHztsRTMg6swFwgc2WAfmA1zPaRvBzU7-91KUauMT6bNy34MwcMAsR8RkXMwzBaAuMOzMQa6umRx4MU839ZBDwiqWlvRxSiO/s320/Picture+005.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Then here's an example of trying to get the glass to focus through the camera, for this pic.<br />
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<br />
<b>Then I Found Most of Them</b><br />
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And then I found a cache of them; they were in a plastic divider box in a pile next to the 10mm Civil War troops, from another neglected and largely forgotten collection. I am also wondering what brand these 10mm ACW figures are, by the way. They may be GHQ, they may be something else, and they may be a mix of a couple types. I can't remember any more, and have lost any markings from the bags. I do have some small bags, so I know some came that way.<br />
<br />
So this weekend I painted up the Revell 1/72 Preussische Infanterie, and even painted the mounted officer to resemble Frederick the Great himself. The only trouble with that is that he always thought it was too cold, and buttoned his coat up. This guy has it open.<br />
<br />
Despite all these hundreds of other tricorne-wearing figures, these 3 plus 33 men are the only official ones from the Seven Years' War. I must have got them at The Emperor's Headquarters, an erstwhile wargame emporium in Chicago, which closed before I could get the Austrians or anything to go with these.<br />
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That's why you have to get them while you can, since pretty soon, you can't.<br />
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<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>One Figure Per Battalion</b><br />
Since there are only 33. I was painting just one figure per battalion, and in this period they can't just be generic because the colors depend on which regiment they are. So to paint you have to decide--how many of which regiment. I decided, one for each regiment, and let's get it done. Plus this officer will be the King himself.<br />
<br />
So regiments will be usually two men, brigades usually four or so, etc. Near Frederick there are the Grenadier-Garde-Battalion 6, and another Grenadier for the III-Bat of Regiment Garde 15. Their comrades are among the marching figs in tricorne, along with Regt 13 Itzenplitz, the Donner-und-Blitzen regiment.<br />
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Now that these painted up nicely, I need some opponents for them.<br />
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In the pics attached to the Cubs hat is a 2xmagnifier that I picked up at a railroad shop, but I forgot what they are called. I couldn't have done the details without them, really close up. In one pic I tried to have the camera blow up the Frederick image, since otherwise you can't see the details clearly. Still can't, actually, but worth a shot. I like how this thing attaches to a Chicago Cubs hat.<br />
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Richard Prior wore one in Brewster's Millions, so maybe it's good luck<br />
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* * *.mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-74087599602923961612011-06-17T09:32:00.000-05:002011-06-17T09:32:55.375-05:00Dispatches From Our Correspondent<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS8RjTblz_BMKZx1pgYwdNZKgUt6LGBkBddddpxIr-ckhAmpww8MsAZ_fViOKsNWDabJovxJCM8Xv4zpvJxMcu2FAElIpQwv_MoT7_0-gCTBPIb_N-Uf7sA-22NMw3hKJrUh_q9wCSPqNN/s1600/800px-Surrender_of_Lord_Cornwallis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS8RjTblz_BMKZx1pgYwdNZKgUt6LGBkBddddpxIr-ckhAmpww8MsAZ_fViOKsNWDabJovxJCM8Xv4zpvJxMcu2FAElIpQwv_MoT7_0-gCTBPIb_N-Uf7sA-22NMw3hKJrUh_q9wCSPqNN/s320/800px-Surrender_of_Lord_Cornwallis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b>John Trumbull's Surrender of Lord Cornwallis </b>from the English wikipedia, with this description:<br />
<span class="description">This painting depicts the forces of British Major General Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis (1738-1805) (who was not himself present at the surrender), surrendering to French and American forces after the Siege of Yorktown (September 28 – October 19, 1781) during the American Revolutionary War. The United States government commissioned Trumbull to paint patriotic paintings, including this piece, for them in 1817, paying for the piece in 1820.</span> <div class="description fr" lang="fr" style="direction: ltr;"><span class="language fr" title="Français"><b>Français :</b></span> Ce tableau dépeint le général britannique Charles Cornwallis, 1<sup>er</sup> marquis Cornwallis (1738-1805), se rendant aux forces françaises et américaines après le siège de Yorktown (28 septembre - 10 octobre 1781) durant la guerre d'indépendance américaine. Cette peinture à l'huile sur toile fut executée par l'artiste américain John Trumbull en 1817. Il fut acheté par le gouvernement américain en 1820.</div><br />
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<b>* * * </b><br />
<br />
<b>Our New War Correspondent Is Back In Town</b><br />
<br />
Vacation is over for him and me both. I got away from my regular gig to cover for him, and now the time is up. He is back in town, driving the car that I suggested would be a good one back in '07, and he brought a stack of dispatches nearly two inches thick. Also we'll be working on a plug-in zip drive.<br />
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<br />
<b>British Surrender at Yorktown</b><br />
<br />
He has been in the area of Virginia where the British Army surrendered in October 1781, at Yorktown.<br />
<br />
As the story goes, they tried to surrender to the French General Rochambeau, but the French general refused it on the grounds of etiquette, and then they tried to surrender to General Washington. But, however, since General Cornwallis had directed his assistant O'Hara to do the surrendering, General Washington had O'Hara hand the sword over to General Lincoln--who had himself been compelled to surrender at Charleston previously, when the Southern Campaign was in its early stages.<br />
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Other highlights of the trip, from the point of view of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, will be further explored on the <a href="http://headquartersinthesaddle.blogspot.com/">headquartersinthesaddle blog</a> in due course (see also Blogroll).<br />
<br />
They include the Battle of Big Bethel 150th Anniversary, on Friday, June 10, 2011. This battle was a federal disaster and although it was quite a big deal 150 years ago at this point in the late spring of 1861, it would be eclipsed and forgotten six weeks later when the famous Bull Run catastrophe happened, at the First Battle of Manassas.<br />
<br />
In the well-known Civil War movies, they like to start the war off with the Bull Run disaster, and it's a good drama, but there were some fights before that, and Big Bethel is one of them. The basic idea of the drama is that in the early stages they were expecting the war to be over in three months or so, and did not realize how serious it was going to be later on.<br />
<br />
In 1861, the armies were organizing, and there were clashes in several places that are eclipsed by the bigger events, not only in Virginia but all the border states and the coasts. <br />
<br />
<b>Our Correspondent was there for the Anniversary of the Battle of Big Bethel</b><br />
<br />
Also being a Navy man, he paid some attention to the fight of the Monitor and the Merrimack, and was using his hands to describe how they did it when I interrupted to ask, "you mean the C.S.S. Virginia?" and he said "Exactly."<br />
<br />
The Confederates had taken possession of the USS Merrimack, in the navy yards in their state of Virginia, when they seceded from the Union, and used its hull for a secret weapon, the ironclad C.S.S. Virginia, hoping to break the US naval blockade by using warships with armor, like the French and then the British navies were doing since the Crimean War. <br />
<br />
But unfortunately with so many things to talk about, a 53-foot semi barrelling out of the dock, behind me and a low-flying airliner landing nearby, that's as far as that story got. Next we were talking about how someone at Big Bethel showed him a grave of a cook right near where he was standing.<br />
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There are some places in the world where every time you turn around it seems there was some historical event right where you're standing. Rome, Cairo, Athens, and Jerusalem come to mind, among others. Virginia is like that too.<br />
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* * *<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>I Had Some 'Splainin To Do</b><br />
<br />
If it weren't for the Correspondent, I would not even know how to access the Internet.<br />
<br />
I would say that he taught me everything I know, about computers, but that would be a slight exaggeration since I already knew about the on-off switch, installing an operating system, defragmenting the disk, watching movies and playing music. All that came from a South Indian Desi, so my music was in his language and Hindi, and I also knew that the Indian films from Bollywood would be easier to watch on the laptop, due to the format.<br />
<br />
And from a Russian guy who had sold him the computer, I knew that he had ripped off the leather bag, for his profit.<br />
<br />
From that point the Correspondent stepped in and showed me how to do plenty more, opening up the vast world of the Internet to me, also Copy-Paste, e-mail, Word and Excel and that sort of thing, and even wikipedia.<br />
<br />
He's already a great instructor, a great American patriot, and now he will be a great Photojournalist. Now if you'll excuse me, I will tell him the name of the site.<br />
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* * *mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719733343716221783.post-75944349065089226382011-06-10T11:49:00.000-05:002011-06-10T11:49:47.607-05:00War Correspondent<strong>Cameras Cost Too Much</strong><br />
I went through the store and looked at the cameras yesterday. They all look expensive, especially the good ones. And really especially the really good ones. Just any old cell phone won't cut it for 2mm especially; that cries out for a macro lens.<br />
<br />
<strong>What About Using Somebody Else's Then</strong><br />
But I also started to call in IOUs, especially from my new Correspondent in the field, who was heading down the Pennsylvania Turnpike at the time, and heading east. He'll be going south after that to Virginia, and specifically to the Peninsula area around Jamestown and Yorktown, Williamsburg and the like, where the Virginia colony had its start from 1607 onwards. Meanwhile I am stuck at the Salt Mines, and even worse than usual.<br />
<br />
This gentleman tried to steal my days off in 2007, and now here he is again robbing me of my rest because I have to cover for him while he is on vacation. But his shift is the opposite hours of the day from mine, so it requires loss of sleep for two days at each end. That doubles the misery above having the wrong days too, which costs me at least two days off, and maybe more I haven't realized yet for next week.<br />
<br />
This is because he decided to start his vacation on Thursday, unlike normal people, and furthermore he will continue to be gone while he goes to the Sexual Harassment class even when he gets back. Real men take the 6-hour class between shifts, and don't take a special day off for it. So when he does finally come back, that bumps me into further suffering to readjust and make up the hours.<br />
<br />
About a year and a half ago I kicked his -- well I beat him up, during the Riot Baton and Chemical Weapons class, when the teacher was focusing on other things, and there is still a big streak from his shoe on the door there, but that was not enough compensation. It was part of the training.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>So in Short</strong><br />
<br />
He owes me big for all these infractions.<br />
<br />
But instead I am going to advance his career and try my best to make him famous. As a publisher I am in a unique position to make him not just an ordinary photographer, but a Photojournalist.<br />
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So I have negotiated a verbal agreement to give me written permission to use his images, free of copyright entanglements for me, on the blogs respectively, depending on whether the pics are closer to the 18th Century or 19th Century.<br />
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He already has thousands of good images, and every six months or so he goes and gets more like this, now that he has grandchildren there. It's always me who replaces him, because really it should have been my job in the first place back in 2009 when he grabbed it out from under me while I was sleeping. That's all the more reason. I didn't even mention that car he sold me and all the repairs.mekelnborghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269195057608159822noreply@blogger.com6