Steve's Random Musings on Wargaming and other stuff...

Saturday, August 8

I have been to.. The Rifles Berkshire and Wiltshire Museum

Time for another update.. and I've been travelling..

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Picture courtesy visitwiltshire.co.uk

I happened to be in Salisbury this week on a dual mission, one of which involved beer, but the other of which was a long planned visit to the museum of the Wiltshire and Berkshire Regiments..

Dedicated to those two regimens and their antecedents and ~~subsequents~~ (is that even a word? 😏) succeeding, formations.

This is a cracking little museum - quite small, in fact only one floor of that magnificent house pictured (known as 'The Wardrobe' due to one of its connections, which is to the Cathedral opposite)... in fact the house has had almost as many changes of use as the regiments the museum now represents!

These two veteran county regiments, like many others in the British army to be fair, have a very tortuous and convoluted lineage.. but to try and summarise...

The Royal Berkshire Regiment was formed in 1881 (as a result of the Childers Reforms), by the amalgamation of two regiments: the 49th Regiment of Foot (which became the 1st Battalion) and the 66th Regiment of Foot (which became the 2nd Battalion) - these two single battalion regiments had been 'linked' in the earlier Cardwell reforms (the Cardwell Reforms were enacted to among other things increase efficiency by linking single battalion regiments, and assigning them to a specific geographic area so as to improve supply lines, recruitment, etc.) :

The 49th (Princess Charlotte of Wales’s) Regiment of Foot, originated in 1655 in Jamaica as a number of independent company's formed as defence during the the Anglo Spanish war after Britain had captured Jamaica ("no, she came of her own accord" 😂). Recognised as a regiment in 1743 (originally as the 66th, it became the 49th in 1751). The regiment served in all the corners of the world and in most of the British armies campaigns, including the the American War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Napoleonic Wars, the 1st Opium War, and the Crimea (where men in the regiment won three Victoria Crosses).
The 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot, raised in 1758, also saw active service across the British Empire including the Napoleonic Wars, the Anglo-Nepalese War and the 2nd Afghan War. This was also the regiment (the 2nd Battalion) that acted as Bonaparte's guard garrison on St Helena - in fact six of the regiments grenadiers were the coffin bearers.

Spot the Martini-Henry..

After it's formation, the 1st Battalion then deployed to Egypt in 1882 where the regiment got it's Royal status as a result of it's performance at Tofrek (1885), it also fought at Ginnis (1885) and Suakin (1888). The 2nd Battalion meanwhile were in South Africa and served in the Boer War.

During WW1 (where the regiment expanded by 12 battalions!), 1st and 2nd Battalions were on the western front. Now it gets a bit esoteric, as at least one company of 2nd Battalion were engaged in the Russian Civil War (!) in 1919.

Crimean War display - packed with artefacts and information..

During WW2, after 1st Battalion was evacuated from Dunkirk, both senior* Battalions served in Burma throughout (*the regiment again expanded by nine territorial battalions during the war, some of which were engaged in Sicily/Italy, and some of which were in NW Europe - 5th Battalion, for example landed at Juno Beach ).

The Wiltshire Regiment was also formed in 1881 as a result of the Childers Reforms (and were also linked in the Cardwell Reforms), this time by the amalgamation of the 62nd Regiment of Foot and the 99th Regiment of Foot.

The 62nd (Wiltshire) Regiment of Foot, was raised in 1756, and served with distinction in multiple campaigns including the 7YW, the American War of Independence, the Napoleonic Wars (where they served among many other places in Egypt!), and later, in the first Anglo-Sikh War (Battle of Ferozeshah) and the Crimea.
The 99th (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot, raised in 1824, also served widely across the British Empire including the 1st Maori War, the 2nd Opium War and the Zulu War, along with long periods of garrison duty in Australia and Mauritius.

After it's formation only 2nd Battalion saw action - in South Africa for the Boer War, for the vast majority of the time I'm guessing the regiment saw fairly typical Imperial army service - garrison duties in Burma, India and (peacetime) South Africa.

I was always going to be very interested in the Sudan displays for obvious reasons.. 😁

This all changed with WW1 of course, the two senior battalions (they also raised another 8 for war service) were on the Western Front throughout (wining 60 battle honours but losing over 5000 men)

Between the wars other than a company of the 1st Battalion that also went to serve in the Russian Civil War (that's a rabbit hole I need to explore, as I know another connection as well) most of the time they were in garrison in the likes of Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, India and Palestine.

During WW2 (and the regiment raised an addition 6 war battalions),

1st Battalion was in India and apart from a year in Burma (Arakan front) it remained there until Independence in 1947.
2nd Battalion deployed straight to France in 1939 and was evacuated from Dunkirk. In April 1942, it was part of the invasion of Madagascar (another rabbit hole! I had no idea this had happened), then the invasion of Sicily, and the campaign in Italy

Then in 1959, these two regiments were then themselves amalgamated (again) to form The Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire), the regiment served all over the world (Cyrpus and Hong Kong notably) and had six tours of duty in Northern Ireland during the troubles..

Martini Henry and Jezail - which would you rather have? 😏 Tulwar at bottom..

In 1994, as part of further army restructuring, the regiment was amalgamated (again - what's that fourth time? 😏) with the Gloucestershire Regiment to form The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, it served in Bosnia, Kosovo and again in Northern Ireland. The regiment only lasted a little over ten years before the final changes started and the regiment was renamed The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry (RGBWLI) - change of role/function.

After a spell on service in Afghanistan, that change of role (to light infantry) then fed into another amalgamation (the fifth in their history?) with the The Devonshire and Dorset Regiment in 2005. In 2007 they became 1st Battalion of The Rifles (the other battalions of this new regiment were provided by The Royal Green Jackets and The Light Infantry).

Been 19 years now - must be time for another amalgamation? 😒

...another from the Sudan display..

Amazing visit - the Museum is chock full of displays and information (as you can see from the pictures), and I learned a whole lot more as a result of the visit not only about the regiments themselves, but also about the Childers and Cardwell Reforms (as an aside, in addition to the regimental "linking" mentioned above, purchase of commissions also ended with this Reform).

..and last of all another rabbit hole to investigate - I was very much taken with the story of this guy - what first got my attention was the truly magnificent moustache, but then his name which apparently, I now learn, was a traditional boys name back in the day, only in more modern times has it become more commonly associated with girls/women. These things aside, what a life story.. and such a sad, sad ending (dementia is a bastard disease), but, Highland Road Cemetery is in Pompey - and I think I'm going to take Gertrude for a ride and go and find him to pay my respects..

Saturday, August 1

"Firing into the Brown" #104 - Mulberry, coaches and stuff...

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update.. and while still glacial, so wargaming activity has taken place

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First though - I was out on Gertrude this week and took these at the southernmost point of the journey, while slurping a flat white from the adjacent café..

..a bunch of rocks to most, but for those of us in the know [clicky], those concrete blocks are some of the remains of a WW2 Mulberry construction site - they built Phoenix (type C) caissons on this very beach - in fact I was sat on one of the anchor blocks to drink that coffee - amazing, eh?

Picture credit: Mike Beel collection

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...and look what arrived in the post this week - now what could that mean?? 😁

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Laters, as the young people are want to say...

Saturday, July 25

"Firing into the Brown" #103 - BOTS, Arromanche and stuff...

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for a long overdue update..

I kind of feel the need to apologise for the lack of updates (no idea why but you do feel beholden to your reader [singular 😁]), but it's summer - one of the hottest in the UK (officially) since the long hot summer of 1976 (and that was a belter) but that means the loft is stuffy, sweaty and hot, and errr... the boat is not... 😏

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😂

Ludicrous.. 😁 Especially noteworthy is how the activity ramped up from about January last year - just as Google (who own the Blogger platform, and must be rubbing their hands at the size of the free data lake on their doorstep) and the others were going big with their new AI tools.

(PS. My thanks to the Emperor Elector blog, though.. apparently they are still the fourth most popular way that people find this tiny little dark and dusty corner of the web! 👍)

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"I have been to"... Arromanches!

Despite the lack of any meaningful wargaming activity, the current Mrs Steve the Wargamer and I have however managed to get away for three or four days in France, Normandy to be precise. Any hopes that it might be cooler there were dashed of course; temperatures in northern France while we were there were topping 38'C - oh well - the coach and the hotel had AC! 😏

This was an organised tour, and had attractions for both of us; based in Rouen (Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake there, and it was an English garrison/stronghold during the 100 Years War), we also visited Honfleur (tick - boats!), but while the draw for the memsahib was Monet's House and Gardens (including the lily pond) the draw for me was a trip to Arromanches (some military history at last!).

More precisely Arromanches-les-Bains, the town was in the middle of Gold beach, but even more importantly was subsequently the site of the Mulberry B (British) artificial harbour..

The Museum is new, and replaces the old one, that I think I went to over 50 years ago - this one has only been open 3 or 4 years. The old one was demolished and is now gardens at the back of the current museum.

New museum left, old museum gardens behind it - if you look carefully there's a Sherman up on the hill to the right of the road..

Gold Beach was in the British (and Canadian) sector (see map above) and was allocated to the 50th Northumbrian "Tyne Tees" Infantry Division - there's a couple of reminders in front of the museum.. got to love an M3 half track ever since my Airfix days.. 😁

...and of course a 25pdr with it's "TT" (Tyne Tees) divisional markings.. the second badge (44 in a red over blue square) indicates that this gun was in the third (of three) Field Artillery Regiments in the Division ..

...and so to the museum - how was it? In a word, rammed.. lots of people, but they have these excellent over the ears headsets, with a key pad allowing you to select each of the exhibits in turn, and have added information. The headphones are very good, but a bit awkward if you wear reading glasses as you have to take them on on and off with the glasses. 😏

There's a lot of information in there on the combatants of both sides, weapons , uniforms and so forth, but by far the greater focus is on the Mulberry, in fact it could probably be called the Mulberry Museum and nothing wrong with that, the subject is fascinating..

They have a huge amount of information and background on the construction and types of units that go to make up the Mulberry harbour (which I have touched on previously here [clicky] and here [clicky] as I have a local connection) but by far the most fascinating feature of the museum was a 1:72 scale model featuring all elements of the harbour.. roadway, caissons of various types (code name Phoenix) and block ships (code name Corncob) but for me the best but was showing how the Allies actually unloaded cargo..

Large transport unloading - note the wooden ramps to the Mulberry

Better view of same - in the background a floating pier head (known as Spuds) held in place by four legs that sat anchored to the sea bed

Better view of the pier head - to the left the road to the shore (code name "Whale") supported on barges (code name "Beetle") - the vehicles give an excellent idea of the scale of this damn thing - it was huge! There would have been other pier heads, floating piers and roadways either side of this one, and in the centre at least one further road to the shore..

LCT (Landing Craft Tank - one of which we have also seen previously here [clicky]) unloading directly to the pier head..

What an absolute feat of engineering - stunning!

...and this is what it would have looked like at the time...

"View of the Mulberry B harbour "Port Winston" at Arromanches in September 1944. Centre and left are "spud" pierheads with floating piers of "whales" and "beetles". At right is 2,000 ft (610 m) of "Swiss roll"." Piccie courtesy Wikipedia

"Swiss roll" by the way was the code name for a kind of lightweight flexible road/track system made of waterproofed canvas reinforced with slats and tensioned by cables - it would take up to a 7 ton truck...

A quite surprising amount of Port Winston survives despite over 80 years of Channel weather, and still visible from the beach - it was a bit breezy and hazy but the following shows the remains of the end of one of those two central roadways that services the pier heads

...and you'll have to embiggen this one (following) for a panoramic of the sweep of the harbour.. by the by.. you can also see why the Allies picked this coast for the invasion - at low tide huge sweeps of sand are revealed..

So how successful was it in in it's designed role? This Mulberry was used for ten months after D-Day, and landed over two million men, four million tons of supplies and half a million vehicles before it was fully decommissioned. Against that though the Americans (whose Mulberry was damaged beyond repair in storms) landed their supplies direct to the beaches. There is an interesting graph in the Wiki Mulberry article below that shows they were landing more on Utah beach alone than the Mulberry by DDay+30.. having said that - in the period up to then, when quick reinforcement was paramount, the Mulberry was key...

Very much recommended!

Saturday, June 6

"Firing into the Brown" #102 - D-Day, Gosport Advanced Lines photo'd by the Luftwaffe (!) and stuff...

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another (long over due) update..

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It ill behoves me on todays very special date not to make mention of what will be the 82nd Anniversary of Operation Neptune, or what is better known as D-Day

Commandos of HQ 4th Special Service Brigade, coming ashore from LCI(S) landing craft on Nan Red beach, Juno area, at St Aubin-sur-Mer, 6 June 1944. Image: IWM (B 5218)

Time to remember all those brave men and women who went ashore, aided those going ashore, flew over to protect, and landed from above on that day.. what a generation...

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Something popped up on a Farcebook feed today, and as is the way of maps and aerial pictures got my interest levels up far higher than any average normal persons would have been.. 😁

So you may remember my visits to Bastion #1 [clicky] and a couple of years ago to Battery #2 [clicky] at Stokes Bay, and that certainly after the visit to Bastion #1 I expressed an interest in tracing some of the Gosport Lines. That should be Lines plural of course, as the original lines, or fortifications, that Bastion #1 was part of, were then superseded by the Advanced Lines ('advanced' because they were further out from what they were built to protect due to advances in the artillery technology of the time) Battery #2 could be considered part of the advanced lines..

So what was it that popped up on Farcebook?? This..

...which comes comes courtesy of the Luftwaffe (😐) and was taken in September 1943 apparently. It is one, a stupendously clear and informative picture, and two, shows in crystal clarity the five major forts that formed the western facing Gosport Advanced Lines, way before the population and building density ramped up to current levels..

This is them today.. I've labelled them for clarity.. note the effects of 80 odd years of humans breeding and building! 😁

West at top - Solent on the left..

The forts run north to south (with Battery #2 being furthest south).. Forts Elson, Grange, and Rowner are all situated within MoD establishments so are only open to the public rarely*. Gomer was demolished in 1964 and a housing estate was built on it.

This next one is again courtesy of the Luftwaffe and taken in September '42 - it was a lovely day, clearly.. Forts Gomer (bottom), Grange and Rowner are clear, and what I think is a tree lined road running behind them..

Finally, this picture dates from just after WW2 - note the runways between Grange and Rowner, I suspect we'll come back to them at some point.. 😏

*Fingers crossed there may be an opportunity to visit Forts Grange and Rowner with the Palmerston Forts Society in August..

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Laters, as the young people are want to say... and the Remuda game will appear at some time!

Friday, May 15

"Remuda" - set up

Background:

Miguel Ángel Caballo* was kind of, and kind of not, aptly named, for while he was certainly no angel, he did have a lot of horses.

Miguel ran a cattle ranch and bred horses on land lying at the edge of the Sonoran desert on the Mexican side of the Arizona Mexico border - a dangerous place to make a living, but he had lived there all his life, had good men to help him run it, and if any damned 'Yanqui' or 'Comanche' wanted to try and help himself well they wouldn't be trying twice..

The quality of Miguel's remuda was well know in the lands either side of the border. "Old" Tex had known about it since way back in the day, as the Rangers had sometimes had cause to get remounts from Miguel, and it was that that had given Tex the idea.

Now while horse thieves were treated harshly in the States (where branding, having your ears cut off, and hanging were all common), when the thievery took place across the border nobody cared a damn... "after all, they wuz only Mex's".... and some of those prime horses could ease Tex's current problems considerably!

* Caballo is Spanish for horse.. clever, eh? 😏

Setup:

It is night time - a small remuda (horse herd) is being held in a makeshift corral near a line shack guarded by three Mexican vaqueros (cowboys). Two of the Mexicans are in the shack sleeping, the other one is on guard, armed, and sitting on a chair on the porch at the front of the shack, overlooking the corral. Tex, Zeke and Robbie (for it is they, the Jolly Boys!) enter from any table edge.

The Corral holds 15 horses (there are actually three models, but each one counts as 5)
Spooked Herd - horses are nervous so loud gunfire, or sudden movement within close range, may cause them to panic:

for any gunfire or movement within 6" of a horse(s) roll once on a D10; on a 1 or 2, they move D6 inches in a direction decided by a direction dice and are marked as Shaken (blue pin).
the horse will recover/calm on their own if there is no firing, or movement within 6" of it, for an entire turn

Roping & Driving: A figure in base contact can:

Calm a horse (one action - remove blue pin)
Put a head collar on (one action - only possible on un-shaken horses)
Lead the horse at half movement

Lead or drive 1–2 horses at a slow pace
The Line Shack is a small building with a lantern on the porch and in the windows which casts light
Ground is considered mostly good, but:

bushes/scrub and fences don't block line of sight but provide cover
rock outcrops, the cabin and the horses do block line of sight and also provide cover.

It is night so there is limited visibility :

near the shack, the lanterns provide normal visibility for a radius of 6" all around the cabin.
outside of this light, all shooting greater than 6" range is at -1.

To simulate the effects of surprise none of the Mexicans can move until either:

Any one of the Jolly Boys fires, or
Any one of the Jolly Boys get within either 6” of the cabin, or 6" of any of the Mexicans, but
there is a chance that the Jolly Boys might be heard anyway, so for each of them, each time they move roll once per turn (D10); on a 1 or 2 they are heard.

Once the Jolly Boys are discovered the alarm is triggered and they then have 15 moves to get the horses away before help arrives from the main house. They must exit from the point they entered (as that is where their own horses are tied up)

ORBAT:

The Jolly Boys:

The Vaquero's:

Winning/Losing:

At either the end of turn 15, or when all of one side are dead/escaped...

For every horse either side controls at the end of the game: 5 points
For every wound inflicted on the other side: 1 point
For each dead character (an additional): 1 point (ie. count all the wounds, and then add an additional one point if they're also dead)

Better go throw some dice and deal some cards, then! 😁

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Laters, as the young people are want to say...