Current Gaming Projects

Friday, June 24, 2016

Can you hear the Congo drums?

NUTS!!!  I am going to be spending some money this weekend...

I just saw this on Shapeways.  It is a 15mm Swedish KP-bil m/42 armored personnel carrier and I have been wanting a model of one for many, many years.  They were used by the UN forces during the 1960's Congo crisis.  I have always had a fascination with this conflict, probably because I watched "The Dark of the Sun" one too many times a kid.  So it looks like I need to start up my 15mm Congo War project again!   I think I am going to have to listen to "Mad" Mike Hoare self-narrate his audio-books again too!

be seeing you

Sapper

Whimsical Wednesday...er, Friday

How could I have missed this article until now?

So God co-piloted a plane for Robert Scott, but Noah doesn't even get him to be a harbor pilot? 

Noah's Ark crashes into a Coast Guard boat!!!! 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/13/its-an-awful-dream-noahs-ark-crashes-into-norwegian-coast-guard-patrol-boat/

Monday, June 13, 2016

Wisdom tooth and New England Outline

OK, first with the really bad news, I have an wisdom tooth infection right now and I am in a lot of pain!  I spoke to my dentist at his emergency phone number and got a prescription of antibiotics, but they are not lasting their full length of time and I just took another waiting for the pain to subside some so I can get some sleep (couldn't sleep at all yesterday.)  I will not be able to see him until Tuesday and I might have to miss work today if I can't sleep again.  I am definitely having both of my wisdom teeth pulled as soon as possible after this!  

Anyways, I was typing up my New England trip outline for myself to get the pictures in order, but since I can't sleep because of my tooth right now, I might as well post it here with a few pics for now.  Below is a listing of the locations I visited during my New England trip.  For an idea on how much ground that I really covered, I had a rental car that I picked up in New York City and in sixteen days drove over 4000 miles (6400 km), including walking an average of five miles (8 km) every day.  
My companion for sixteen days with the adeptly name, Jeep Patriot
Now for the other bad news shoe to drop...I discovered that I lost one of my camera’s memory cards, so I lost about 1/3 of my pictures from my trip…sigh.  

I have some general notes also behind some of the locations for significance or general information.

NY: 
NYC Spent most of my day with a college friend of mine who lives in Manhattan, so the locations for NYC was visited with him
NYC Stanton Island Ferry and took photos of Ellis Island & Statue of Liberty
NYC Wall Street - The Bull Statue, Federal Hall National Memorial, and dined at Fraunce’s Tavern
 NYC Village – Visited the Slaughter Lamb Tavern but took no pictures
Sleepy Hollow - Missing most of my pictures, but visited the Headless Horseman Bridge, Old Dutch Church, and Washington Irving’s grave
Stony Point AWI Battlefield - Missing most of my pictures
Fort William Henry F&I Battlefield - Missing all of my pictures
Saratoga AWI Battlefield - Missing all of my pictures
Fort Ticonderoga F&IW & AWI Battlefield

CT:
Groton US Submarine Museum & the USS Nautilus
Hartford State Capitol
Hartford Old State House
Hartford State History Museum
Hartford Soldiers Memorial

RI:
Providence H.P. Lovecraft’s tour of College Hill (many of the buildings that mentioned in his stories) and his gravesite
 Newport Old Stone Mill & Touro Park

VT:
Bennington AWI Memorial - Missing all of my pictures
Townshend Post Office - From HP Lovecraft’s story, “Whisperer in the Darkness”
Townshend Cover Bridge - Missing all of my pictures
Brattleboro Railroad Station - From HP Lovecraft’s story, “Whisperer in the Darkness”
Brattleboro Cover Bridge - Missing all of my pictures
Brattleboro Dark Mountain – From HP Lovecraft’s story, “Whisperer in the Darkness”
St Albans – Site of Confederate raid during the US Civil War
 Sheldon – No pictures due to not being able to safely get to the road side markers, but site of a Confederate raid during the US Civil War

MA:
Whately Schoolhouse, Post Office, & Town Hall – Possible location of HP Lovecraft’s Dunwich, from the story “The Dunwich Horror”
Stockbridge/Great Barrington: Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Tour and a speculated location of the scene of the crime!
Fall River Battleship Cove - Missing all of my pictures
Fall River Historical Society Museum – No pictures allowed, but site of many Lizzie Borden artifacts
Fall River Lizzie Borden’s Bed & Breakfast
Provincetown Pilgrim Monument / Museum & Pilgrim’s First Landing spot - Missing almost all of my pictures
Cape Cod – Missing all of my pictures
Salem Shipyards
Salem House of the Seven Gables & Nathaniel Hawthorne’s house
Salem National Guard Armory
Salem The Witch House
Salem Charter Street Old Burial Ground & the Pickman’s House and the white house which was inspired in HP Lovecraft’s story, “The Unnamable” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “Dr Grimshawe”
Salem Bewitched Monument
Salem Witch Trial’s Monument
Salem Clue House – the house used in the US version of Clue
Salem Yellow House – From HP Lovecraft’s story, “The Thing at the Door”,
Salem Night Tour
 Salem St Paul’s
Salem Town Hall – Used in the movie, “Hocus Pocus”
Salem Witch Museum
Danvers Witch Trials Monument
Danvers Rebecca Nurse Home – No pictures allowed
Rowley Town Hall – From HP Lovecraft’s story, “The Shadow Over Innmouth”
Ispwich Town Hall – From HP Lovecraft’s story, “The Shadow Over Innmouth”
Lexington & Concord Minute Man Park and Lexington Battle Green
 Boston Bunker Hill Monument
Boston USS Constitution
Glouscester American Legion Hall – From HP Lovecraft’s story, “The Shadow Over Innmouth”
Haverhill Bedford University – From HP Lovecraft’s vision for what Miskatonic University would look like

ME:
Fort McClary

NH:
North Salem American Stonehenge – The circle of stones that HP Lovecraft vision in his story, “The Dunwich Horror”

Canada:
Eccles Hill – Location of the 1870 Fenian Raid
Battle of the Windmill Battlefield
Fort Wellington
Ridgeway Conference & Tour of the battlefield – A literary society conference for the 150th anniversary for the Battle of Ridgeway, including many noted speakers
Derrick Warfield & the Young Wolfe Tones Concert – Part of the Ridgeway conference
Ridgeway 150th Ceremonies 

Be seeing you
Sapper

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

New England, War Plan Crimson, and Spray Paint, oh my!


This is what is going on with me lately.



New England



I am just back from my first vacation in many years.  I flew into New York City to visit a college friend that I had not seen in 12 or more years then got in a rental car and begin a two-week road trip through Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Ontario, with a minor stop in Quebec.  I have now been to 49 of the 50 states of our Union! (Alaska, you’re the last one.) This trip was mainly a historical tour, but I did do some culture things as well.  When I get so time to sort through my pictures, I will post some of them up.



War Plan Crimson



Tiny Battles Publishing has just released a board game about War Plan Crimson (the US planned invasion of Canada in 1920s-30s), with the same title.  I thought this is rather cool since this covers the same gaming project that I am working on. The links to the buy a PDF version is here, or a hard copy here. 



Spray Paint

Just before I left for vacation, I got to spray paint a prime coat on my 28mm vehicles for War Plan Crimson too! (This was actually before I found out about the new board game).  In the picture, is the bulk of my Interwar US vehicles, plus a couple extra vehicles for other things.  Starting at the top of the picture (and to the left) is five Mack AC Bulldog trucks.  This was the main truck for the US Army after WW1 and up to the mid-1930s.  These truck were used to carry the M1917 light tanks up to the jump off point for combat since the tanks were so slow and had a very short operational range for fuel. 



Directly across from the trucks are five M1917 light tanks which are based off of the FT-17 tanks.  A US light tank platoon at this time had three tanks armed with machine guns and two tanks armed with 37mm guns.  That is the ratio that I have, plus I have one extra M1917 tank (not in this picture) that I am hoping to convert to radio tank. 



Next to the bottom M1917 tank is a US T16 light tank or also known as the Marmon-Herrington CTLS-4TAY tank.  This is not for my War Plan Crimson project, but just for display.  These tanks were designed for the Dutch East Indies armed forces prior to WW2, but as the Japanese attacked before they were delivered, they were transferred to the Missouri Army National Guard’s 138th Infantry Regiment and were used during their deployment in Alaska.  Since I served in a unit with lineage to the 138th, I had to get one. 



The large tank next to it is a Mark VIII Liberty heavy tank with the US Army used during the 1920’s and early 1930s.  I doubt that this tank would have been involved in War Plan Crimson due to the mechanical failures of this tank.  If anything they would have been placed on reserve to counter possible invasion beach heads on the coast.  But I went ahead and bought one for completeness sake, even if it is expensive as all get out.



The other large looking tank in the corner of the box is the US pre-WW1 Best Tracklayer Model 75 tank, A.K.A., the Bison.  Again, this is not for War Plan Crimson but more for display.  However, I am planning to start up the US Banana Wars project next year.  While I am planning to concentrate on Nicaragua and Haiti in the 1920s, the lure of pre-WW1 Mexico is there and maybe the California National Guard decided to deploy a Bison to the border with Mexico in response to the Zimmermann Telegram.



Just in front of the Bison is the Ford 3-ton M1918 tank. The US Army made a contract for 15,000 of these with Ford Motor Company during WW1, but over time the US Army felt that the tank could not live up to requirements in Europe and with the end of the war, the contract was voided with only 15 tanks built.  In my War Plan Crimson some of these may still be around.  I only got one, but might pick up four more to outfit a full platoon.



Finally, in the very bottom corner largely cut out of the picture is the Venezuelan Tortuga armored car.  While this is a Venezuelan vehicle built in 1934 (seven in total), it is much in the vain for a Banana War’s “tank” for the insurrectionists.  This will make the US Marines a bit more humbled in a game.



Final Notes



I actually got some reading/listening done for several books since my last entry.  I am updating my 2016 updates with them, but I am going to list them here as well:



WW1 & Interwar

Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin’s Dream of an Empire in Asia, by Peter Hopkirk

The Zimmermann Telegram, by Barbara Tuchman

The Fate of Admiral Kolchak, by Peter Flemming



Fiction

Kolchak: The Nightstalker: The Black and Evil Truth, by CJ Henderson

The Assistant Murder, by Dashiell Hammett

Red Wind, by Raymond Chandler



Until later, be seeing you



Sapper