Posties Rejects WW1 Naval Game Report and Pictures.

The Rejects met up on Saturday for a WW1 Naval Game hosted by John and played in Posties shed (man cave), the rejects were Richard, Smithy, Ray, John, Postie, Lee and myself, the game was already prepared and we were using John's home made rules.

Myself, Richard and Smithy were playing the British fleet, I started off with 4 capital ships, the Tiger, Warspite, Inflexible, Indomitable and the destroyer Pettard.

Ray and his 4 german capital ships steam towards me.

A closer view of the lovely models used.

Ray http://onelover-ray.blogspot.com/ laughing like a hyena with Richard in the background.

Smithy and John (umpire), apologies to John for the pits picture but it was bloody hot in that shed.

Contractual and obligatory Postie shot hard at work doing paperwork which was a big factor in this game.

If your ship had 28 knots in speed that meant you could travel at 7" as 4 knots equalled 1" but you could increase your speed by 8 knots (2") per turn or decrase per 4 knots per turn (1"), this caused problems for everybody.

Capital ships could change their direction by 45 degrees by turn as long as it was written down but destroyers could change direction by 90 degrees.

At the end of your movement and everybody moved at the same time, you could then write down the target you wanted to fire at, capital ships had to wait a turn to switch to another target with their main arnament unlike destroyers who could target anything within range.

Things are getting close and interesting, the closer the better for capital ships but especially destroyers as they had little chance against capital ships except for their torpedoes.

The charts every player had to keep track of their speed, damage and targets. 

The water explosion markers were used to show what ships are been fired at, they are just the tops of cotton buds on a counter (brilliantly done and very visually effective).

You will notice in the top of the picture a little bit of ramming between destroyers which was another effective way of destroying ships and this time it worked but resulted in a lot of damage to the rammer but the object of the ramming was sunk.

Lee http://bigleesminipaintingblog.blogspot.com/ who was overall german commander surveys the battle from a safe distance, he and smithy spent the game exchanging fire at great distances until the end when they got into better range.

The oil slick markers bear testament to the damage being done at the other end of the table.

Another oil slick marker bears testament that destroyers should not try to ram capital ships because the outcome was a sunken destroyer and the capital ship only lost 4 knots of speed in damage.The destroyers were lethal when they got into torpedo range though.

A better view of one of the excellent water spray markers, the game ended after twelve turns with the british fleet victorious with 5 german ships sunk (3 to me, 2 to Richard) including the only capital ship sunk to only 2 british ships sunk, there were a lot more ships in trouble and would have difficulty reaching dry dock but I had never played these rules or period before and I thoroughly enjoyed the game and the day except for the bloody heat in that shed and my suggestion to Postie about an air conditioning unit was met with abject derision and scorn.  

Angry Movie Lurker Review 35: Monsters.(3 STARS)

Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life form began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures"...... Our story begins when a US journalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.

Watched this and don't know what to think other than it appears to be a road/jungle/river movie with a love story blossoming and a lot of really large aliens thrown in, now I was expecting a lot of pitched battles and military interventions but there is a lot of hardware on show constantly, jets, helicopters, tanks etc... but very little action actually seen apart from jets constantly buzzing across the screen, explosions from bombing missions (which is probably the main reason the aliens attack) and the calls of the alien creatures.

This movie is more about the relationship between the 2 main stars, ice cold and a little hostile at the beginning but develops into something more as the movie progresses, it's a low budget movie but doesn't really look it, the aliens when you see them are quite well done, the movie doesn't explain much about them, you are left a lot to form your own conclusions, which to me are the armies of Mexico and the US trying to contain the creatures in the infected zone but not having a lot of luck, this is no District 9 but it was worth a watch.

Two points to be made, this movie was said to have one of the best sex scenes ever, I didn't realise they meant alien sex (best alien sex scene my arse, have they not seen Species) and the end and the beginning of the movies are mixed up, you won't mind having watched this movie but I think it's the type of movie you would only watch once.

Fatherland Novel by Robert Harris, WW2 Operation Sealion 20mm Project Research.

 Just finished reading this book because I never had before and for what if reasons the author gives for their being a third reich in 1964, it's also been a movie and all in all it's not a bad read.


The story begins in Nazi Germany, the Third Reich in April 1964, in the week leading up to Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday. The plot follows detective Xavier March, an investigator working for the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo), as he investigates the suspicious death of a high-ranking Nazi, Josef Bühler, in the Havel, on the outskirts of Berlin. As March uncovers more details he realises that he is caught up in a political scandal involving senior Nazi party officials, who are apparently being systematically murdered under staged circumstances. In fact, as soon as the body is identified, the Gestapo claims jurisdiction and orders the Kripo to close its investigation.


March meets with Charlie Maguire, a female American journalist who
works for The New York Times, who is also determined to investigate the case. They both travel to Zürich to investigate the private Swiss bank account of one of the murdered officials. Ultimately, the two uncover the horrific truth behind the staged murders. The Gestapo is eliminating the remaining officials who planned the Holocaust (of which the German people are not generally aware) at the Wannsee Conference of 1942. This is being done in order to safeguard an upcoming meeting of Hitler and President Joseph P. Kennedy by ensuring that the crimes of the Nazi regime are not revealed. Maguire heads for neutral Switzerland with the evidence, hoping to publish it in The New York Times. March, however, is denounced by his ten-year-old son and apprehended by the Gestapo.

I've omitted the ending as not to totally ruin the book if you haven't read it but you have it pretty much covered by the book description, the book was a good read and it gives me a basis and some far fetched but plausible reasons for why the third reich is still hanging around in 1964 including why England is an ally?

Alternative History WW2
 Throughout the novel, Harris gradually explains the fictional historical developments that allowed Germany to prevail in World War II. The earliest point of divergence mentioned is that Reinhard Heydrich survives the 1942 assassination attempt in Prague which actually killed him. Shortly afterward, Germany embarks on a series of decisive victories.


The German armies on the Eastern Front are stopped at the gates of Moscow at the end of 1941, as in our history. However, the second major offensive into the Caucasus proves far more successful than it was in reality, cutting the flow of oil to the Red Army. With his armies immobilised for want of fuel, Joseph Stalin is forced to flee to the east and a rump Soviet government surrenders in 1943.

Around the same time, German intelligence (in a way never explained) learns the British have cracked the Enigma code, which is leading to the sinking of German submarines. They withdraw their submarines from the Atlantic temporarily and send false intelligence to lure the British fleet to destruction. The U-Boat campaign against the United Kingdom resumes, starving Britain into accepting a humiliating armistice in 1944. King George VI makes Canada his predominant country of residence and prominent British officials, such as Winston Churchill, follow him there in exile. Edward VIII regains the British throne at the helm of a pro-German puppet government and Wallis Simpson is his queen.

Germany tests its first atom bomb in 1946, and fires an unarmed "V-3" missile that explodes above New York City, to demonstrate Germany's ability to attack the continental United States with long-range missiles. Following this demonstration of power, the United States signs a peace treaty with Germany. This results in the Third Reich being one of the two superpowers of the world, along with the US, which defeats Japan in 1946 (a year later than in reality).

As I said far fetched but plausible (it's the beauty of a What If? campaigns), now just need to see the movie adaption and I have just started reading SS-GB by Len Deighton.