Conker Soldier Battles !! On getting home from work today I found that my wife and son had been painting up a bunch of conkers for an unconventional battle tonight ! My son has a small army of silver sprayed ones (conker droids) that were to attack my small army of local misfits conkers. Apparently his had guns and stuff where as mine could only engage in close combat !! Suffice to say my misfits didn't do very well ! LOL !
These are two quite interesting links about the huge hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold that has been found in the UK. - Slide Show about the hoard. Link - The Dark Ages? Why Anglo-Saxon gold find means we must reassess period. Link -
I remember watching the original series when I was a kid, being completely glued to the TV with my father. The opening sequence although looking dated now is still a classic. -
In pictures: Arnhem Commemoration This is a link to a small picture show commemerating Arnhem. - Biggest Viking find for 150 years The biggest find of Viking treasures for 150 years is to go on display in York, then at the British Museum in London. The items, including jewellery, coins and everyday household objects, were discovered in the Vale of York two years ago. Link -
For fans of the set of rules called Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) I've been pointed in the direction of forum dedicated to discussions around WAB. Link. Well worth checking out.
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The weather was so good today (sunny and warm with little wind) Alex and I decided to fire off our small reusable rocket from the field beside our house :) The movie was too large to upload unchanged, so I had to use Windows Movie Maker to make it more manageable. A bit of quality has been lost sadly, but you can still make most of it out. :) -
At the Huntingdon club tonight I introduced one of the other members (Chris Lowe) to Space Hulk. Over a three hour period we managed to get four games in, and had a great time. For the first time I was using a Sgt with a Thunder Hammer and Shield. On both occasions he did rubbish, so even though he's meant to be a close combat specialist, in future I'll keep him out of the action for as long as possible ! -
This is worth checking out... - Underwater robot wars University teams battled it out to become underwater robot champions at an event this week. It was held at Europe's largest freshwater tank in Gosport, Hampshire - a facility normally used by the Ministry of Defence for ship and submarine trials. Link - Five consumer laws you really ought to know (if you live in the UK)To mark National Consumer Week, here are five laws the canny shopper should be using in their battle to get stuff that actually works. There is a war being fought between customers and many of the firms they have to deal with. It is an asymmetric conflict - the little man versus the faceless, bad customer service monoliths. On the little man's side there are only newspaper consumer pages and a rather handy selection of laws. Link -
Following a link on the TMP I visited this little web site called 'Panzer Eight' where some quite interesting 2 page play rules for the following periods are hosted: 1939-45 1950-69 1935-65 Air Air Pocket Sci-Fi Pocket Sci-Fi Skirmish - Well worth a check out. -
The Victor bomber has long been retired from service, but one is kept in Bluntingthorpe aerodrome in running condition by a group of enthusiasts. A couple of times a year they fire it up and it does fast taxi runs up and down the runway. It is not considered flight worthy and as such is not cleared to fly by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). However in May this year....
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Bob Prothero, a retired RAF group captain from Portsmouth, was on the flight deck, with an engineer as co-pilot. As the aircraft gathered speed, Mr Prothero instructed the co-pilot to slow the aircraft, but instead he increased the throttle — and then froze.
The 75-tonne V-bomber rapidly reached take-off speed and began to climb. As it lumbered into the air, reaching 150ft, it veered to the left — heading towards a housing estate.
Mr Prothero, who last flew a Victor in the 1980s and whose flying licence had long since expired, was faced with a split-second decision: “I was petrified. Everything was pure instinct,” he said.
“I was shouting at the co-pilot to pull the throttle back. I saw the nose rise into the air. I thought, ‘Oh God here we go, how are we going to get out of this one?’.”
Mr Prothero could try to land the aircraft immediately — but risked missing the runway and crashing. Or he could fly the heavy aircraft around before landing. “I had to make a snap decision. I pointed the nose down and noticed we were well and truly airborne, but because of the crosswind we were not over the runway. Thankfully, I managed to pitch the aircraft back towards the runway and away from any spectators.”
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Mr Prothero landed the aircraft — named Teasin’ Tina — without a scratch. He described the event as the “most terrifying nine seconds of my life”.
“My only concern was getting the plane down as quickly and safely as possible,” he said.
A video on YouTube shows the Victor leaping up, lurching left, then touching down in a cloud of dust.
One onlooker is heard asking, “Should it be doing that?” while others are heard shrieking in disbelief.
The aircraft is designed to use a drag parachute as a brake, but Mr Prothero had no time to deploy it.
He said: “Although I touched down on the grass I still managed to keep it under control. All that was left to do was get out and kiss the ground.
“Nobody could really believe what had happened. There were people slapping me on the back and congratulating me on not crashing the thing and ruining the day.”
Yesterday the Civil Aviation Authority, which held an inquiry into the incident at the Cold War Jets day at Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome in May, said that it would take no action. Its report said: “The problem arose as a result of the engineer ‘freezing’ at a time of high stress.”
David Walton, the managing director of the aerodrome, said: “It was a brilliant piece of airmanship from Bob. If the aircraft had stalled, the day could have ended in tragedy.”
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The British-built Handley Page Victor was part of the nation’s V-Bomber nuclear deterrent during the Cold War and also served in the Falklands and the Gulf War.
Bruntingthorpe-based Teasin’ Tina, along with Lusty Lindy, are the only two Victor bombers that remain in working condition.
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My copy of Space Hulk arrived yesterday. There are far better reviews than I could write of the product on The Miniatures Page (TMP). Suffice to say, the game is of excellent production quality and I am very pleased with it. My only word of caution is on two accounts. 1. You need to be careful geteting the models off the sprues. A good set of clippers is a necessity. 2. The models are quite fragile and will need to be casefully stored if damage is to be avoided. - -
Two weeks back my son and I visited Castle Rising. For those gamers who have played the classic game 'Kingmaker', you may be familiar with the name as its on the playing board and is also noted on card 48 'Peasant Revolt' which says 'Mowbray to Castle Rising'. - - Castle Rising is one of the most famous 12th Century castles in England. - - The stone keep, built in around 1140ad, is amongst the finest surviving examples of its kind anywhere in the country and, together with the massive surrounding earthworks, ensures that Rising is a castle of national importance. In its time Rising has served as a hunting lodge, royal residence, and for a brief time in the 18th century even housed a mental patient. The most famous period in its history was when it came to the mother of Edward III, Queen Isabella, following her part in the murder of her husband Edward II. The castle passed to the Howard family in 1544 and it remains in their hands, the current owner being a descendant of William D'Albini II, the Norman baron who raised the castle. - -
I know I keep banging on about what a good game this is, well it just got a lot cheaper to buy the original and the two expansions (Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor). An Anthology has been released, and in the UK you can get from Play.com for £ 15.00 which is excellent value for money. - An old friend of mine Steve Hammond has directed to me a mod done by some enthusiasts called the 'Blitzkiek Mod'. This adds extra vehicles and infantry plus lots of tweaks. I intend to download this myself today. -
Finally succumbed to the buzz about the re-released Space Hulk and went on-line to order a copy direct from GW. I was amazed to find them out of stock, so I ended up ordering from a small company called Stafford Games. Just waiting for it to arrive now... Provided work commitments don't get in the way I hope to have a game at my local club with it next week. Talking of the Huntingdon club, I went down on Thursday night and found it was the start night of a new Blood Bowl league. 18 teams have been entered which should make for a great tournament. I would love to have joined in myself, but with work and family at the moment I sadly can't guarantee regular enough attendance to make the kind of commitment required. There was a very tidy game of 25mm WW2 underway using the Crossfire rules, which I watched for a while. Here's a couple of photos. - - -
Been away for a few days up in Yorkshire (gods own county) staying with the out-laws. Whilst there my son and I took a look round Knaresborough Castle. Situation high above the River Nidd this castle has had an interesting history, it being a favoured haunt of many monarchs who appreciated the fine hunting in the local forests. Besieged and taken twice the castle also has a rich military history, which came to an end when Parliament ordered it to be reduced to a ruin after the English Civil War. - - The view from the castle looking down into the Nidd Gorge and across to the Railway Viaduct is just an excellent location for photography. In the photo below you can see the front of the preserved steam locomotive 'Oliver Cromwell' just leaving Knaresborough station. - -
I find myself very deeply effected by the sacrifice that our are armed forces are making in this conflict, and as father myself was I very moved by this BBC Audio slideshow about a Soldier and Son. - Trooper Jack Sadler was killed in December 2007, when a land mine exploded underneath his army Land Rover in the desert of southern Afghanistan. Jack was Ian Sadler's only child. Here, he pays a moving tribute to his son. Link -
Just stumbled across the fact that GW are releasing Blood Bowl for the PC. The trailer looks amazing, as does the detail about the game. I can't wait until its released on 18th Oct !!! -
- Blood Bowl is the video game adaptation of Games Workshop's famous board game of the same name.
A brutal team sport unfolding in a parallel fantasy world based on Warhammer and American football, Blood Bowl invites gamers to form a team of players from such races as Orcs, Wood Elves, Humans, Dwarfs and many other fantasy creatures, and launch themselves into battle in the bloodiest of arenas. This strategy sports game combines a fine balance of tactics and bonecrunching action!
The game offers two game modes. The first, which is fully real time, offers a spectacular gameplay. Intense battles between blocking linemen and daring displays of agility of players leaping and dodging through opponents tackle zones, while powerful spells and dirty trick special plays are unleashed across the pitch; all this creates a highly charged atmosphere.
The second game mode, an actual turn-based game, is a treat for players of the original board game because it is an exact replica of Games Workshop's tabletop masterpiece. The original rules have been faithfully reproduced, and it contains all of the devices, strategies, play and rhythm of the original game.
The single-player experience allows the player to manage a team throughout an entire season of Blood Bowl, through the Old World of Warhammer. The team will evolve over the course of victories, experience gained and awards won. With its immense depth, the game can almost be considered as a management game, from managing the popularity and sponsorship of players to the purchase and sale of players, as well as their aging, retirement and even death. In multiplayer, the player will be able to throw down a challenge to other Blood Bowl players and participate in large tournaments on the Internet in order to climb the official ranks (ladder).
Blood Bowl features:
2 radically different game modes: Turn-based for a faithful adaptation of the board game, or Real-Time for intense and spectacular matches. 8 different races, each offering its own style of play: Humans, Orcs, Skaven, Dwarfs, Wood Elves, Goblins, Lizardmen and Chaos. Magnificent graphical rendering, literally giving life to the Blood Bowl miniatures! Take part in a full Blood Bowl campaign to win the 15 championship trophies and cups while developing your own team. Export your own team from a championship and play it in One-off matches or in multiplayer. Create your own online League and challenge other player and participate to online tournaments on the internet to rise your team on the top of the official online rankings! Get started easily and progressively using the in-game tutorial and 3 levels of difficulty.
Dawn of War II - Real Life Rhino Putting the real life Space Marine Rhino to the test ! Okay, this is pretty impressive the amount of effort someone has gone to here ! -
Remains of WWI fallen identified Some 7,000 British and Australian soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner at the Battle of Fromelles in 1916, during the First World War. More than 250 bodies have been discovered in mass graves, buried behind German lines. Over the last three months, archaeologists and DNA experts have been trying to identify the remains. Link -
Five miles down the road from me is the old WW2 airfield of RAF Upwood. For those interested in its rich history this is a good link. Anyway, once a year the airfield hosts a 1940s weekend. I went along yesterday with my son to have a look at what was going on. There were re-enactors, military vehicles, stalls, marching bands, historic cars, a miniature railway + lots of other stuff. The highlight for me was getting a ride in a FV432 operated by a company called Tanks 4 A Ride. - - The thing that surprised me was the volume of heat blasted across the top hatch from the engine grills ! In addition they had an Abbot SPG and a Chieftain there as well. - -
Check out this amazing trailer for the new film AVATAR. Can't wait until its released. - - - In Cinemas Worldwide December - In the epic action adventure AVATAR, James Cameron, the director of Titanic, takes us to a spectacular new world beyond our imagination. On the distant moon Pandora, a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization. The film was first conceived by Cameron 14 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not yet exist. Now, after four years of actual production work, AVATAR delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film, disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story. -
Space Hulk - Re-Released Totally brilliant news here guys. Games Workshop have decided to release a new version of one of their all time classic games, Space Hulk !!! It can be pre-order for the release date of 5th September. Link - Villages to empty after bomb find More than 1,000 people living in two villages in North Yorkshire have left their homes to allow a World War II bomb to be detonated. Link -
Defence Spokesman I have been searching for this great clip by Bird & Fortune for some time, and accidentally stumbled across it this morning :) -
- Battle Over Salvaged Treasure Ship A Spanish treasure ship is at the centre of an ownership row more than 200 years after it sank off the coast of Portugal. The governments of Spain and Peru are pursuing rival claims to the riches of the Mercedes - a hoard of 600,000 silver and gold coins - in the US courts. Link - Minister warned over 'UK Roswell' A former head of the military told the defence secretary that a UFO sighting dubbed Britain's Roswell could be a "banana skin", official files show. In 1985 Lord Hill-Norton wrote to Michael Heseltine about the "Rendlesham incident" in 1980, when US airmen in Suffolk thought they saw an alien ship. Either a craft entered UK airspace with "impunity" or US airmen were capable of a "serious misperception", he wrote. It is among the latest MoD files on UFOs released by the National Archives. Link -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Europe in Ruins takes the fast paced, intense and surreal combat that you've come to know from Company of Heroes and combines it with persistent environment, ever changing meta-gameplay and ongoing war. The modification sees you creating and commanding your very own battalion in which you can customise with any units and upgrades you wish; Company of Heroes strategy has never had so much choice. Not only do you get to build up your battalion, but as you units battle, they will gain and retain all the experience they have earned, carrying over from battle to battle; going from green to elite! Not only do units gain veterancy, but your battalion as a whole increases in effectiveness through doctrine unlocks and other advantages. Each of these are designed so that the player can tailor their battalion to their own likes and play styles. The combinations choices are endless! Link -
James May from Top Gear U.K. takes an emotional ride to the edge of space in a U2 spy plane. Born 16 January 1963 he's a British television presenter and award-winning journalist. -
This is a very intersting little web site with all sorts of rules Mike has done, along with a Generic Campaign System, which is a computer moderated system for running wargame campaigns. Well worth a look.
A guy goes to the supermarket and notices an attractive woman waving at him. She says hello. > He's rather taken aback because he can't place where he knows her from, so he says, "Do you know me?" > To which she replies, "I think you're the father of one of my kids". > Now his mind travels back to the only time he has ever been unfaithful to his wife and says, "My God, are you the stripper from my bachelor party that I made love to on the pool table with all my buddies watching while your partner whipped my butt with wet celery???" > She looks into his eyes and says calmly, "No, I'm your son's teacher".." ---
At last I've finished one of my latest purchases from Ground Zero Games (GZG), the command version of their 8 wheeler the V15-53A. As with the others in the range it went together no problem, and makes a nice addition to the range.
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The vehicle close up.
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The full platoon.
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I used the bristles from a washing up brush for the aerials (as do with all my 15mm vehicles now). IMHO they look okay, and you don't have the risk of causing yourself an injury like with thin wire (inadvertently stabbing yourself with it). I've continued with the arctic 'aggressor' paint scheme as I build up towards a 10 vehicle strong unit.
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Broadband Speeds. For those interesting in trying to find out what their broadband speed is (in the UK), both these sites are quite good, although they give different results ! 1. Broadband Watchdog. 2. My Broadband Speed - Top 10: Britain's best underground attractions. Link - Call for debate on killer robots. An international debate is needed on the use of autonomous military robots, a leading academic has said. Link - The Massive Ordnance Penetrator Will Be the Largest Non-Nuclear Bomb Ever. The Pentagon is trying to speed up the deployment of an ultra-large bunker-busting bomb, which would constitute the largest non-nuclear bomb the U.S. Has ever used. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, is a 30,000-pound bomb that would dive deeper than any previous bomb, and could be strapped to B-2 or B-52 bombers by July of 2010. Link -
This is the 100th posting on my blog !! As such I've made it a bigger one than normal to mark the occasion. Hopefully those of you who are regulars to my ramblings will continue to find light entertainment in this and my future postings :) - This is an excuse of course for a spot of Blackadder Bloopers :)
- On the gaming front I've been playing lots of Company Of Heroes on the PC recently. A totally top game, especially when my old friend Andy Rolf drops in for the evening and the two of us take on two computer players in skirmish mode in several games. The last one was a really hard fight which went on longer than we had planned, and ended up with us finishing at 1:45 in the morning. Suffice to say we weren't at our sharpest the following day... :) I've also been busy painting up some more 15mm sci-fi vehicles, and I'm now happy with the results. Hopefully I get a couple of photos taken either today or tomorrow. Talking of favourites here's one I took some years ago of a Chaos Terminator who had somehow got himself involved a game of Space Crusade ! :) - - Warhammer fantasy mark of chaos - Trailer I do enjoy a good film / game trailer, and these two are pretty good :) They make me feel like digging out my 28mm Orc Army and giving the 'boyz' an outing :)
- New Warhammer trailer
- - INTERNET GAME - EUROFIGHTER TYPHOON Check this site out if you want to while away 15 minutes flying the Typhoon, shooting at bad guys :) Link - - THE NEWS & LINKS - Bloodhound diary: speed record. RAF fighter pilot Andy Green intends to get behind the wheel of a car that is capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,609km/h). Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the Bloodhound car will mount an assault on the land speed record. Link - Scott 'to direct Alien prequel'. Director Sir Ridley Scott is to direct a prequel to seminal sci-fi horror film Alien, according to reports. Link. As a massive fan of the Aliens series having Scott involved in another film is great news, - Remains of Gulf War pilot found. The US military has found the remains of the last American still officially missing in action from the Gulf War. Capt Speicher's remains were found in a remote area of western Iraq. Link - Images reveal 'lost' Roman city. Aerial photographs have revealed the streetplan of a lost Roman city called Altinum, which some scholars regard as a forerunner of Venice. Link - Little David - 36 Inch Caliber Mortar. Check out the size of the crater this makes ! Link - Rise of the robot warplanes. The UK Ministry of Defence's London headquarters yesterday, Thursday 30 July 2009, hosted an exhibition of the latest Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) giving military and civilian staff a chance to gather their own intelligence on the future of military aviation. Link - Being Five.Link -
Skyy John is a guy in the states, who talks about all sorts of things. He completely cracks me up :) - Fat People and Airplanes Seats Airlines are now charging obese people for an extra seat. God help the employee that has to tell someone, "You're fat and need two seats!" -
- Dunkirk: a miracle of war The failure of the Germans to overwhelm the British Expeditionary Force on its retreat to Dunkirk continues to baffle and fascinate historians. Many theories have been put forward and discarded. Here, one of our leading historians presents, for the first time, fresh evidence to explain Hitler's thinking, and why he issued the infamous ''Halt Order'' of May 24 1940. Link - WWI veteran Patch dies aged 111 The last British survivor of the World War I trenches, Harry Patch, has died at the age of 111. Link - CRB Checks For those involved in the running of Wargames Clubs, the following thread on the TMP makes intersting reading with regard to the requirement for people to be CRB checked. Link. -
Went to the Airshow last Friday, which was if I'm an honest a bit of a washout, on two accounts. The weather was very mixed, and varied from being quite hot to being a heavy thunderstorm with torrential rain, thunder and lightning. Secondly the flying programme was rubbish with little fast jet activity and the Typhoon, Vulcan and Lancaster all being 'no shows'. Got a couple of 'okay' photos of the Spitfire during its display piece and an Apache that dropped it. The Spitfire was the version fitted with the Griffin engine. It just doesn't sound as good I'm afraid as the normal Merlin, that said a beautiful plane all the same. - - -
Churchill bunker 'not bomb-proof' Winston Churchill complained he had been "sold a pup" when he discovered his underground wartime headquarters in Whitehall were not bomb-proof. Link - How Poles cracked Nazi Enigma secret. A silk scarf bearing the image of a horse race was a suitably cryptic gift for a Polish mathematician to receive from a British code-breaker. Link
Last night I got round to uploading most of the photos I took from my visit to Portsmouth last Saturday. There is a new album in my web shots area just for Ships now. Here's a slideshow of the photos: -
1. Medieval battle records go online. The new website reveals which medieval soldiers rode the furthest The detailed service records of 250,000 medieval soldiers - including archers who served with Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt - have gone online. (Link) - 2. Topic: German Casement Tanks - Leopard 3. Modern arour buffs should find this interesting (Link) -
Visited the Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth on Saturday. We were lucky enough to see the Royal Navy's newest destroyer HMS Daring on show to the public. Quite an impressive looking ship ! -
After a weeks holiday in the Isle Of Wight just got back tonight. Hopefully (time permitting) I'll post some photos tomorrow of the military hardware and sites I saw. In the meantime, here some interesting links: - 1. Oldest WWI veteran dies aged 113. Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man and one of the last surviving World War I servicemen, has died at the age of 113, his care home has said. Link - 2. Stryker Fires TOW Missile on Insurgents. Link - 3. Murtha Questions Army Camo. This is a very interesting article of personal camolflague. Here's a quote from one of the messages: " It is interesting to note that in the visual region ALL colors and patterns, at 300 meters, integrate by the human eye into a single homogeneous color…olive drab! It is also interesting to note that armor camouflage is only of value when in defilade and that when moving the motion and dust raised is as big a giveaway as jet contrails. Also, dust and oil fog layers on a vehicle surface change the IR emissivity to the point where it becomes a near black-body radiator". Link -
1. Russia 'shot down its own planes' - This makes quite interesting reading, Seems the Russian Air Force and Army didn't co-operate during the Georgia conflict, with predictable results... Link - 2. 3 JDAM's on Taliban Compound. You wouldn't want to be on the recieving end of these... - 3. Marines Battle Taliban. Firefight in Helmand Province. - 4. London Blitz Begins. Winston Churchill tells it like it is to the invading Nazi's. -
Placed an order with GZG last Thursday afternoon for one of their newest vehicles, the command version of their 8 wheelers, and a few bits and pieces for buildings. The order arrived by recorded post on Saturday morning ! Simply outstanding service ! - Here's a fascinating video clip of a high power ground run on a Chinook that went slightly wrong due to ground resonance. -
A £1bn cost over-run is threatening the future of the publicly-funded project to build Britain's biggest aircraft carriers. Oppsss, not good news. Link to the BBC web site is here.
