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Tuesday 8 March 2022

Hello Hello --- this is Nighthawk Calling

Hello Hello --- this is Nighthawk Calling

After Dunkirk most of the German Army continued to advance into France but a Division of specially trained troops had followed the British Army across the sea from Dunkirk. In the confusion of the evacuation they had been able to cross the English Channel without being detected by the Royal Navy, and had sailed north landing in the Felixstowe area of Suffolk. Operating under strict security they had moved out swiftly from their landing area, and now all of East Anglia was under their control.

The object of this incursion was to destroy the extensive network of airfields in the area and in addition, to open a second front against the British with the aim of bringing about an early end to the war in the west.

The British had been prepared in a very ad hoc way for an invasion along the south coast but not in the flat lands of East Anglia. As usual with British planning there were a number of hare-brained schemes for local defence but they were totally uncoordinated and very local.

In the countryside around Much Piddling in the March for example the local landowner, Lord Snapcase (on the right in this picture), was in charge of the defence of the three villages of Much Piddling in the Marsh, Little Piddling and Bigger Piddling on Tap. The River Tap was an insubstantial river that drained the marshes around the Piddling villages and provided a small barrier to the advancing German troops.

Rather than cross the river at Bigger Piddling on Tap the German troops had gone 5 miles down stream and crossed by the bridge at Upper Piddling, they had continued their lightning advance to the market town of Thetford and consolidated their position around that town.

The rest of the defence of the Piddling’s was borne by Sir George Douglas D’Emfour (The grumpy looking one on the left) and Snapcase’s Gamekeeper, the son of Old Scrotum, the aged Family Retainer.

The Germans were well aware that during the advance they had left behind many small pockets of resistance, indeed this had been their plan all along. Their only worry was that if these isolated pockets of resistance could be coordinated into something larger, then there might be trouble. To deal with that problem they had brought over a small number of radio tracking vehicles and 3 of these had pinpointed radio signals emanating from Little Piddling.

Meinhard Wenke and Rachael Weiss with a small body of crack troops were despatched to Little Piddling immediately with orders to find and destroy the radio and eliminate the potential resistance from these amateurs.

This is an aerial reconnaissance view of Little Piddling and the cunning Germans have decided to split their forces and advance from both east and west of the village and trap the Radio Operator between them.

The small green dots with lentils stuck on them represent potential events, things such as the radio, a rabid dog or even a bag of rancid mushrooms, but you will get the gist as we go along, as usual each marker means drawing a card from a shuffled deck and depending on the card drawn as to what the event might be. Once an event had been decided then there were usually a series of possible options for it. For example the Rabid Dog could run away, or look aggressive or attack the nearest person. 

Nothing too complex!

This is just a close up to show the markers and the fact that I failed to design the buildings with removable roofs for internal access.

The view is from the west of the village, the direction that Meinhard Wenke is advancing.

He issues instructions to his small force and they hurry to obey. Everyone hurries to obey the Gestapo.

On the far side of the village Rachael Weiss is advancing from the east.

A slightly elevated view but suffices to show her view of the village and like Wenke she issues her orders with precision.

She decides to stay clear of the pig pens herself but they must be searched and she designates this task to one of her underlings. She will stay on the road, in the centre of her command to coordinate the search.

Of course the real reason, is so that she doesn’t get her highly polished jack boots muddy in this dreadfully dirty countryside.

Wenkes team spread out, searching the crates on the right of the road and also the first house on the left, but they don’t find anything. They have made rather a lot of noise which might not have been so wise.

Looking like a lost sheep, Torsten searches the cart but discovers nothing there either.

Searching the pig pen the underling finds an enraged dog, or maybe the enraged dog finds the underling because without any other warning it attacks him, the pigs remain neutral perhaps expecting supper to be provided by one or other of the protagonists.

Rachael ignores her underling’s plight as Dietmar finds an Arms Cache in the truck across the road. Whilst this is indicative of a Resistance Cell in the area it’s not really what they are looking for and so they continue towards the centre of the small hamlet.

The underling’s sense of self preservation is strong or maybe he’s just well trained because with a quick burst from his smg he lays low the enraged dog – Boo Hiss.

It looks like the pigs are going to have a smaller and less tender supper than they would have wished for, but supper is supper. That’s an old piggy proverb that you might not have heard before.

Rachael moves towards the corner of the field and fails to see a small cache of papers hidden in the wall. If she had looked more carefully she would have found the Radio Operators Code Book, it would have been a bit of an Enigma to her.

Another of her underlings moves warily to a brown truck and looking carefully under the cover he sees a Radio. He climbs into the back of the truck and reaches out for the Radio thinking that he might get promoted for this.

Unfortunately he didn’t look closely enough and failed to see that the radio was booby trapped. There’s a loud explosion and he doesn’t worry about promotion anymore.

Meinhard’s men are moving into the heart of the hamlet, if 4 houses and a pigpen can have a heart.

One of them goes into the area behind the houses but does a poor job of searching it before re-joining his comrades in the main road.

He catches up with the rest of the team just as they enter the remaining two houses. After a thorough search the right hand house reveals nothing but on the left hand side things are more exciting…. come on … wake up in the back

Badeker kicks in the door of the large house on the left and is just in time to see and hear movement.

It’s the Radio Operator and she legs it out of the back door, she had been watching the German team move through the Hamlet and was well aware they were coming, they should have been quieter. She was lucky in that the dope that searched the area behind the houses had only done a perfunctory job of it before leaving and she had a clear escape path.

Chasing after her, Oswald the Afrika Korps soldier was just too off balance to fire and she was running like a gazelle for the fence and freedom, anyway he might have one more opportunity to open fire.

….. but vaulting the fence like an Olympian she escaped, leaving him to report failure to Wenke of the Gestapo. That's not going to be a happy conversation.

Meanwhile Rachael Weiss having learned a very valuable lesson decides not to climb into the back of this truck but instead stands back a little and gets another of her expendable underlings to examine it first. After duly rolling a few dice George Douglas decides that while Home Defence is a worthy cause, so is staying alive and he climbs out of the truck but plays dumb and doesn’t disclose any information about the Radio and its Operator.

Of course he may well be aware that both have been discovered and he’d rather not be implicated in any reprisals that might be forthcoming.

A wise man our George.

At this point there’s a loud braying sound as Lord Snapcase clears his throat and bellows “What are you chaps doing on my land” “Don’t you know it’s duck shooting season and I won’t have anyone disturbing my duck’s” He stands, hands on hips glaring at them malevolently.

With barely a pause he roars like a lion, “Young Scrotum, see them off.” “Quickly man” and Young Scrotum raises his side by side nervously but while he’s pretty nifty shooting squirrels shooting a man is different.

They shoot back.

The men from the Afrika Korps are not used to being bellowed at and have no idea what duck shooting is and level their weapons at the Mad Lord and then everything slows down.

The Germans are veterans from the North Africa campaign, confident in their ability to deal with this old mad man and his Gamekeeper but Snapcase saw action as a Trench Raider in the first World War and has served in countless Colonial actions since that time.

A man with a short temper and a fast right hand he pulls his redoubtable Webley revolver and opens fire. Damn…he misses and receives a hail of fire in return. A lesser man would have dived for cover behind the stone wall but Snapcase stands his ground and returns the hail of fire, bang bang, click. Both shots missed and now he’s out of ammunition but worst of all, he realises he’s wearing his reading glasses. Blast and damnation.

Before he can duck down behind the wall the rifleman fires but he misses as well, the adrenaline is making everyone jumpy.

Before young Scrotum can bring his shotgun to bear he takes half a magazine of sub machine gun bullets to the chest and falls like a sack of potatoes. The Officer firing the smg kept his finger on the trigger too long and has also run out of ammunition.

George Douglas wants to intervene but the sight of Rachael Weiss’s Luger pointed steadily at his left eye has a calming effect and he stands and fumes impotently.

Meanwhile Snapcase is reloading the Webley behind the wall.

Popping up from his refuge, Snapcase - snapfires and hits one of his adversaries, badly wounding the man and putting him down and out of the fight.

Cunning as a fox, Rachael has moved forward, fires in return but she is also wide of the mark but Snapcase responds by ducking back behind cover. He’s not used to shapely young women taking pot shots at his ample frame. Well not since that incident on the NW Frontier in 25, or was it 26, best not raise that here though.

The German Officer has reloaded his smg and is waiting for Snapcase to re-appear.

….Which he duly does but before he can fire again, Rachael puts a 9mm bullet right between the MC and DSO, both medals that for some reason he habitually wears on his chest. If this had been ½” to the right she would have hit the DSO middle and centre and the story might have finished differently but we’re going for gritty realism not Hollywood and Snapcase falls to the ground.

Moaning quietly about foreigners and being out for a duck.

You might be wondering why, when George Douglas was released from the immobilizing sight of Rachael’s Luger he didn’t move to help his friend.

You don’t turn your back on the Gestapo.

Meinhard Wenke took the credit for clearing out this nest of saboteurs as the Gestapo are wont to do but when the history of Much Piddling in the Marsh is finally written down, the world will know the truth.

Of course that pre-supposes that local Historian Mary Martin also the School Mistress and Radio Operator survives the war.

14 comments:

  1. A most enjoyable read John, although it doesn't look good for the people of Much Piddling at the moment !

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    1. Thanks Dave, it does look as though the people of the Piddlings have been stopped in full flow. :)

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  2. Well that was entertaining John 😊 among all the piddling you have a good story going on, I'll be interested in seeing how you Brits get out from under the heel of the jack boots 👍😊

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    1. Frank we have Pritti Patel, so obviously we never got out from under the heel of the jack boot, we were just told we had. :)

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  3. Somehow the vision of Pritti Patel in thigh length black leather boots detracts from an excellent account.George and Mary must save civilisation.

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    1. Douglas I think you're right, I'll try to obliterate her from my mind if you can do the same.
      I'm not sure that Little Piddling could be called civilized but maybe as Joe suggested a more limited adventure, with more possibility of success might be the rescue of Snapcase.
      Cheers

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  4. I was wondering throughout this excellent retelling of goings-on in Much Piddling when Mad Lord Snapcase would show his face and what a complete anti-climax it was. I reckon haivng his reading glasses on was a mistake!

    Love the set-up and the fanciful storyline, hopefuly another chapter is forthcoming when George attempts to rescue his lordship from the cluthces of the gestapo?

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    1. I imagine its a bit like taking a knife to a gun fight, finding out you have your reading glasses rather than your driving glasses, a bit of a shock!
      Thanks for the idea of a rescue, I hadn't thought of that as a follow on but I like the idea.
      Cheers

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  5. An absolute belter of a tale John! Lovely table as well 😀
    How long does it take you to run through a game of this type?

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    1. Thanks Ivor. This game was on a 3' sq table and probably took about 3 hours to play. Selecting and editing the pictures will probably take a couple of hours but the text takes me forever because I'm not very good and my initial draft will be revised and edited lots of times before I go with it.
      Cheers

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    2. It's called a labour of love John 😂😂

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  6. Personally I think the Gestapo deserves all it gets if they interview his lordship.
    On the subject of naming bases and associated record cards,do these tie to a particular set of rules?

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    1. Hi Douglas the basic rules are Chain Reaction from 2 Hour Wargames but heavily modified by me with lots of input from elsewhere. If you look at this post https://vagabondswargamingblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Bikers
      You will see some examples of the character cards I use.
      I went for overkill on the characteristics so that I wouldn't need to go back and add something else.

      Because most of my games are solo it means I can resolve most decisions that a figure would make by rolling some dice and get a plausible answer but different for each figure. I E some ars braver than others, some are intelligent some dextrous etc.
      Key in this game was searching for something hidden. They get 2 rolls against their awareness and then move on if they've not discovered anything.

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