Reviewing New Recruits (5): One More Heave..

Regular readers will know what this post is about (and possibly be bored rigid, I admit!);  I am continuing to review my recently acquired vintage Minifigs 25mm 7YW/AWI figures.  If you have only just stumbled on this, the background to it all is described here ).   We are in the home straight now,  just one more box of infantry, a box of artillery pieces and gunners, and a small box of a few more cavalry and wagons.  So let's push on and get them finished. I will then have a 'mugshot' on here for every unit in the collection, and a good idea of what they comprise and how they can be used.  OK, let's crack on.

Box no. 9  was described by the seller as 'Prussian' and 'German' infantry, and included the following: 

A unit of 'Prussian musketeers'. The blue waistcoat and breeches are interesting, and from a quick look at reference books such as Duffy's The Army of Frederick the Great, these would appear to indicate a Garrison regiment. That's a nice variation from the usual line infantry, which will be useful for any game involving a garrisoned town or fortification of some sort.    The Minifigs code number of the rank and file figures is PSW 9 - Prussian Line Musketeer Marching, which makes entire sense. 

Next, a couple of units (18 figures each) of 'German' grenadiers. Blue coats, white breeches, yellow facings. 

 They're not Prussians - the grenadier cap looks wrong for them. The Minifigs  reference number is, interestingly enough, AWI 38, British 38th Grenadier Coy. So, an interesting paint conversion by the original owner.  I'll welcome any suggestions as to what (if any) real-life unit is being represented!  There is of course always room for an entirely fictitious Germanic Duchy, hiring out their troops for the duration to boost the coffers or expand the art collection of their Duke..   

More 'German' infantry - 3 units, each of 18 figures. Blue coats and red, yellow or white facings. Each unit has  6 grenadier figures - quite a strong 'company' of the big guys. 

 

I have no further information on these, and the heavy 'polyfilla' on the bases has covered the code numbers, so no help there. But they may be good as 'generic' Germanic troops - I think they could probably sneak in at the back of the parade of the Prussian army, for example. 

 And finally, that's it for infantry! Over four posts, I think I have covered over 50 different 'units' (of various sizes)  of infantry, which is fantastic, I am ridiculously pleased to have them. 

And finally for Box. no.9, a nice bonus of a selection of  officer figures : quite nicely painted, these will be very useful! 

  Box number 10 contains guns and gunners, and some uncertain identities. First of all, this large group of artillerymen: 

 I confess the uniform colours are a bit of mystery to me! Browsing around Kronoskaf 7YW has not produced any results yet - except to rule out Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick and Sweden! The code numbers on the bases ( e.g PSW 24, PSW 25 ) indicate Prussian Horse Artillery, but Kronoskaf shows a more conventional Prussian Blue coat and buff leather breeches for that unit.  I wonder if these are the gunners of an 'imagi-nation'? Oh well , onwards and upwards. The next lot look a bit more obvious: 

It seems fairly safe to say the yellow guns cariages and the red/brown coats of their crews mark them out as Austrians. 

The next batch are in three  groups, and I think are most likely French (left and centre ) with red breeches,  and Prussian.  All  have flock etc on the bases, so no clear code numbers to be seen. 

 

Next, I suspect more Prussians (left and centre), and can those be Americans on the right? Unless they are Hessians ?  Surely not British?  There are quite a few rather similarly attired possibles, with blue coats, white waistcoat and red facings. . Perhaps that's an advantage - they can represent whomsoever I wish.. Agian, no visible code numbers, buried under thick layers of filler. 

 These, I assume, are jolly jack tars who have brought their naval guns to the shore:

   

Next a selection of 'odds and ends' that don't quite match other groups, and seem to include some officers  - I am assuming the two on the right are supposed to be Austrian, at least. 

The two gents in grey coats and red breeches have visible code numbers - AWI95, Hesse-Cassel Artillryman,  and PSW18,  Prussian Foot Artilleryman.  But both Hesse-Kassel and Prussia's artillerymen had blue coats..  

A battery of guns on distinctive blue carriages - perhaps Prussian?  I notice the mystery blue uniformed-gunners in the first picture are 24 strong, which would give 6 crews of 4 each  for these 6 guns..

 and three on more neutral grey carriages: 

 and finally two one in a sort of olive green (left) and one grey,  of which the latter one looks  to be  a howitzer.. 

That makes a total of 14 guns - and over 100 gunners!  

Box no.11 contained a quantity of cavalry, and I've shown them in an earlier post. So we just have one more, Box no.12 with  a some more cavalry and some wagons.  First up, this small unit of cavalry 

 

Well, this has me stumped rather. The headgear might be some sort of Dragoon or Light Dragoon - perhaps AWI Continentals?  Interesting brown coat, green facings with some yellow trimmings. Any guesses welcome.. 

Another rather Dragoon-ish looking unit with green coats and red facings: 

 Could it perhaps be the American Continental 4th Light Dragoons ?  Again, opinions welcome! 

Last of the cavalry, this small group of red-uniformed horsemen:

Hmmm.. the uniform ( all red, blue saddlecloth ) could be Russian Hussars such as Moldavskiy (Moldavian) Hussars - but the model troopers have their right hands 'drilled out' to hold a lance. I finally thought of looking at the current Minifigs (sold by Matchlock Figurines, in turn under Caliver Books, it seems) catalogue - it has very few photos of the figures, but one of them is the (Prussian) Bosniak Lancer, code PSWC12 which looks about right. Eventually I remembered to  look at my Osprey book on Frederick the Great's Cavalry, and there of course is a lovely Prussian Bosniak Lancer, dressed in red just like these figures are - bingo! Rather a curious little unit, though - an officer, two trumpeters, and just two troopers, both of whom have mislaid their lances! All this has involved quite a lot of searching the internet, for the sake of a couple of dozen figures - the words 'rabbit hole' spring to mind..

And finally, finally - plodding along at the rear of the parade comes the supply column, of three wagons.   

Wagons are always useful.  I already have a few (plus a couple of plastic kits waiting to be built), so I think there's plenty of scope for 'supply convoy ambush' scenarios. One of them needs some running repairs as the wagon body has come loose from the chassis, but that's easily enough done. 

And that, at last, is pretty much all I have.  Over a thousand figures, all but a very few painted. As stated above, about 50 infantry units of various sizes, plus 11 units of cavalry,  14 guns ( with a surplus of gunners ) , a nice selection of senior officers and three wagons.   Not a bad collection!  Having  had a look at them all and made some attempt at identification (with very valuable help from several commentors on this blog - thanks everyone!),  the next step is to look at how they can be assigned to various armies for Seven Years War and/or AWI, and see what strength those armies can have, when combined with my existing small   'Portable 7YW Wargame' forces. I also need to work out a decent storage system, in place of the motley collection of carboard boxes and biscuit tins they arrived in! And of course, let's not forget actually gaming with them. At the moment I am thinking of small AWI actions  using Rebels and Patriots rules,  plus possible larger 7YW battles, for which several candidate rule sets are available - Keith Flint's Honours of War and Warlord Games Black Powder spring to mind.  In true 'old school' style, it would be fun to set up as big a game as possible and play it with Young and Lawford's Charge! rules, just for the hell of it! 

I reckon the next step is to put units together into potential contingents/armies, in which case I will show the resulting 'parades' here.  Then maybe we can think about some games.. I hope you've been interested and/or amused to see all these nice vintage figures in all their variety of styles - I have certainly enjoyed sorting through them and seeing what I've got.  Now let's get them into 'action'... Look out for that in future posts. Until then, keep well, everyone. 

Reviewing New Recruits (4) : Infantry, part 3

In this post I'll show yet more of my recently acquired vintage Minifigs 25mm 7YW/AWI figures. .I hope regular readers aren't getting too bored with this!  This is almost the last of the infantry, just two boxes to go but quite a few units so I'll just do one of the boxes now! . I'll mention 'bots' and Partizan later, but for now, let's get on with the figures. 

Box no. 8 contains units painted or labelled  as Prussians, Hessians, Brunswickers and other 'Germans', as follows: 

One battalion of  Prussians, labelled 41st Regt Wied Zu NuWied Fusiliers  :

 According to Kronoskaf Seven Years War the standard looks right, and the facings should be 'light carmine red' - these look more purple to me, but perhaps it has faded with the passage of 30 or even 40 years since painting!  The Minifigs code number on the base of the rank and file figures is AWI 53 Hesse-Kassel Regt. Fusilier Advancing  (that's according to the Minifigs 1975 catalogue, available on-line for those who might like a little more nostalgia) .   

This highlights a big feature of the whole collection, in that there are some fairly 'interesting' choices of figures being used!  Why use an AWI Hesse-Kassel figure for Prussian Seven Years War?   I can only assume that a bulk order was placed for AWI, perhaps at the start of a club project, maybe the project perhaps morphed into SYW over time ( 'mission creep' at its best..), and it seemed a shame not to use the figures?   Or perhaps there was some opportunity for discounts on a large order? Or it was just a case of 'keep it simple', ordering as small a range of different figures as possible?  I will never know, but it's ineresting to look into what figures are lurking under the paintwork of the finished units! 

Next up, labelled as Prussian 35th Regiment, Prinz Heinrich von Preußen Fusiliers:

    

These look right according to Kronoskaf , and the rank and file figures are AWI 53 Hesse-Kassell Fusilier, as above. 

Another Prussian unit - 42nd Regt Markgraf von Brandenburg-Schwedt  

  - with orange facings. And again, the basic fusilier figures are serial no. AWI 53. 

 

Now, on to various other Germanic types.  First up,  a unit labelled   Hesse-Kassel : Musketeers Von Trumbach  (8th Regt) 

von Trumbach is the name carried at the time of  the regiment's service in the AWI - in the Seven Years War it was the Mansbach regiment.  I do like the exotic drummer! That might be a specifically 'American' feature, but  with a little wargamer's license I will be happy using these for either AWI or 7YW games - as an aside, it seems that this regiment was also present at Culloden in 1746.   The rank-and-file figures have serial number  AWI 56 : Hesse-Hanau Regt - Musketeer Advancing -  from the catalogue, I can see there was no Musketeer figure for Hesse-Kassell, so I can understand the seeming eccentricity of this choice.

 This next unit are labelled  Hesse-Kassell Grenadiers von Rall  and they boast rather splendid trousers!

 I'm not sure that colourful legwear can be really accurate, but it's certainly distinctive. [Update: many thanks to Neil Patterson and Jon Freitag for confirming that they are indeed authentic. representing  'ticking' material from which new leggings were improvised, which was indeed striped, being intended for mattresses!].

This is clearly an AWI unit,  as shown on a Uniforms of the American Revolution website, but  I have not yet tried to trace whether or not they existed in the 7YW.    The serial number on the grenadier figures is  AWI 55  Hesse-Kassell Regt Grenadiers,  quite sensibly. 

Pressing on, to Brunswick : first up, Regiment Prince Ludwig 

These are unusual - it seems that they were actually a Dragoon regiment, sent to America in British employment in the AWI, but without horses, and thus obliged to serve on foot!  The figures are mostly serial number AWI 87, which the catalogue describes as 'Brunswick Dragoon' , so they are correct, it seems, if pretty unusual.      

Next,  Regiment von Riedesel :   also serial number AWI 87,  I like the colour scheme of these Brunswickers.  [ Update: my US correspondent and AWI expert Jon Freitag suggests that these look like they might actually represent von Retz regiment..]   

 and Royal Deux-Ponts regiment : even more interesting, it seems these were indeed in America, but  were in the service of France, fighting against the British!  Once again, serial no.  AWI 87. 

And finally,  three more small units which were only described to me as 'Germans'. Hmmm.. 

This first unit (above) has blue coats and yellow facings, and a possible clue is the serial number - AWI 56 Hesse Hanau Regt - Musketeer Advancing.  However,   Hesse-Hanau's contribution to the British army in America was its Erbprinz regiment  - who seem to have had red facings and buff or yellow breeches. So for the moment I am indeed chalking these up as generic 'Germans'. With a bit more research, maybe I can assign them a name - suggestions welcome!  I confess I don't have any reference books for British/Hessian units in the AWI - I clearly need to do some reading, and probably should acquire the appropriate Osprey book..    [ Update - Jon Frietag suggests these may be more likely to represent  von Riedesel regiment..many thanks, Jon ] 

Another unit, also  code AWI 56,  but this time with green coats, and clearly the work of a different painter ( and note those rather over-engineered alumium bases, which I've mentioned before). 

 I note that it seems there was a unit of Hesse-Hanau Jagers (Jäger-Corps von Creuzbourg) in Ameirca, but have not yet found any uniform details on-line. Might they have worn green coats? It seems a goodish bet.. 

And finally, yes finally, another small unit which I think are serial no. AWI 57 Hesse-Hanau Regt. Firing :     

Now those, I suspect, might represent the actual Hesse-Hanau Erbprinz regiment - or a small part of it at least.  [ Update - Jon Freitag suggests these may in fact be von Specht regiment - thanks again, Jon!]

I think that will do for now - eleven units of various sizes,  out of just one box, phew! Some of uncertain identity, but all full of period flavour and can be happily used in games, be it AWI or 7YW. There would seem to be scope for a decently sized army made  up of units from various German states (a sort of imaginary Reichsarmee perhaps?)  to oppose or be allied with my French, Prussian and/or  Austrian forces. One more box of infantry  to go, but I'll spare you that ordeal now. I hope this has been a fun,  interesting and possibly quite nostalgic read for you. It has certainly got me trawling the internet for possible IDs! 

That's enough for now except for a couple of quick points : 

(a) The bots have gone, it seems! the crazily high volume of recent pageviews dropped back to 'normal' on about 2nd October, and I see others have reported the same.     They have thoroughly messed up my viewing counts and 'top 10 views' list, but never mind.  Presumably silicon valley's brief obsession with old-school wargaming has passed - maybe they've gone on to model railways. You need to get out more, guys.. 

(b) Partizan! Or to be correct,  The Other Partizan - is on this Sunday at Newark, and I am planning to go along.  I am going with absolutely no plan of games to see or traders to patronise [ though I should clearly be  looking for an Osprey book on AWI British and Hessians!] , just winging it.  But of course it will be good, anyway. Meeting old buddy Dave 'St Cyr' so we can do our usual 'Waldorf and Stadtler' routine around the hall,   and hoping to run into one or two others - a couple of book exhanges on the cards.  Happy to chat to anyone that knows me - and if you don't know what I look like,  I am a late-middle-aged, badly-dressed, bald, white guy, so I'll be easy to tell apart from everyone else there... 

As usual, I will try to take some pictures of the games, and show them in a post on this blog sometime next week, so watch this space.. Until then keep well, eveyone. 

Minifigs, Sir - hundreds of 'em!

I have recently made an interesting acquisition, which I am very pleased with - and here is a picture of it (or rather, them). 

 

What we have here is a selection of vintage Minifigs 25mm figures, painted as units of various nations from the Seven Years War and American War of Independence (or Revolution, if you prefer) periods.  How I came about them is a story that began at the recent Broadside show at Gillingham last month. One of the 'flea market' stalls there was run by the Whitehall Warlords club, and I noticed a box of figures on their table - Minifigs 25mm, painted as Bavarians of the War of Austrian Succession, I was told ( see below, but  note, they seem to have fictitious French regimental colours ) 

 

I admit I was interested, especially when the chap  (Bob Walker) doing the selling  said 'if you like those, we've got loads more we want to dispose of, 7YW and AWI mostly'.  After a bit of chat we swapped phone numbers, and over the course of a few days Bob sorted them out and 'Whatsapped'  me a series of pictures of several boxes and tins full of vintage Minifigs. - French, British, Americans, Germans, Austrians, Prussians, Russians.. The range of different nations was quite a selling point, for me - not just big contingents  of one or two armies, but manageable numbers of various nations, so loads of scope for campaigning with multiple or coalition forces,  perhaps?  Or perhaps  a sort of 'Imagi-nations' approach? All ready-painted, in a nice old-school style and easily as good as I would be able to achieve myself,  they would go perfectly with the 'mostly Minifigs' 7YW period figures I already have.

So, after a little time to think it over, I decided to buy the whole lot - the price was very reasonable, I thought - so earlier this week, on a very warm afternoon,  I took a trip to Basildon to collect and pay for my new/old recruits. In the course of looking through them and a pleasant conversation about them, I have learned their 'back-story', which itself is of some interest to me.  

As stated earlier,  these figures were being sold by the Whitehall Warlords club, and it turns out that they are from the collections of several of their members - in particular the sadly now deceased Seamus Bradley, Phil Hoare and George Warren,  and (very much alive)  current member Andrew Maxfield. It so happens that for a short period in the late 1980s I was a member of the same club - they met in the Civil Service staff sports/leisure club at Marsham Street, Victoria, and I worked nearby.  As I've mentioned before, I remember Seamus very well, and I can recall Phil and George too. I'm not sure I wiould have been involved in games with these figures ( in my memory they were having a Marlburian phase at the time ),  but all the same I think that acquiring them  is a nice connection with a piece of my wargaming past.  It's also, I hope, great  to be able to offer a 'good home' to this collection, lovingly painted long ago, and be able to make use of them and give them a new lease of life.  And from a purely practical point of view, at a stroke I have quite large forces available, for much bigger games and campaigns than I have been able to put on before - it would have taken many years to acquire and paint anywhere near this sort of collection!              

For now, of course I have the mother of all 'sorting out' jobs to do, going through them box by box and identifying nations and units - I should here give many thanks to Bob, who has given me quite a lot of information and organised the boxes and tins sensibly.  One of my early favourites is this box - Russians! 

 

I do like the green and red colour scheme, and especially the grenadiers, and these will be a great opponent for my existing  Prussian forces.    

There are some interesting features of the collection which are worth mentioning; as you may have noticed from the pictures infantry predominate, but there is a good number of assorted cavalry, and at least a dozen guns and crews of various nations.  There are indeed AWI/Revolution forces - a box of various Americans including some Native Americans, and British, French  and Hessian units. So I can have a go at refighting that conflct, while also using many of the figures for Seven Years War in Europe games - I'm not that fussy about absolute uniform accuracy! In the course of discussions with Bob we recalled how Charles Grant in The War Game etc would happily use historical French, Austrian and Prussian regiments in his fictitious  'VFS' and 'Duchy of Lorraine' armies, as well as for re-fighting hostorical battles, and that approach has some appeal for me, too. Another feature is that there are several alternative command stands with different regimental colours and standards, so the original owners were clearly going for multi-purpose forces themselves. Indeed, it seems that from Bob's inspection of the Minifigs  code numbers engraved on the figure bases, quite a large proportion  are from the AWI range, simply painted as different nations  - I wonder if some bulk buying was done, or were the AWI figures the only ones available at first, perhaps the specific 7YW ranges came later? A question for the real Minifigs nerds out there  ( it seems likely that some of  thesefigures may date from the 1970s).

All in all, I am very happy indeed to have these chaps in my collection, and look forward to putting them together on the table with my existing troops ( many of which were  from another  deceased veteran wargamer, Eric Knowles, so there is a common theme emerging - 'legacy armies'?).  I'm quite tempted to just try to put on a large and entirely fictitious  game with some old school rules, as simple as possible - the basic rules in Young and Lawford's Charge! would seem ideal - simply to enjoy the spectacle!  I'm also thinking about a multi-nation  7YW campaign, probably going back to the Soldier King boardgame  that I used a couple of years ago.  For dipping a toe into AWI, I have treated myself to a copy of  Osprey's  Rebels and Patriots rules, and I had a fortuitous find in my local Oxfam shop the other day too - a nice vintage Osprey 'Men at Arms', published 1972 and written by none other than Brigadier Peter Young.  

So that's my update - quite a big update, as it turns out!  Many thanks once again to Bob Walker and the Whitehall Warlords, very nice doing business with you!   I'm very much looking forward to 'sorting out' and organising the new troops (and I have to work out a storage solution too..) and getting them into action. As I do that, I will post updates showing what I've got, so watch this space.  

For now, we have something of a heatwave in the UK, and the best place to be is sat in the garden shade with a good book ( Washington's Army, perhaps? ) - I hope everyone else is keeping suitably cool.  I suspect my next post may feature Minifigs 7YW figures, inevitably! Meanwhile keep well, everyone.

Fnurban #33 : A Fine Day at Duxford

Until last week, I had never been to IWM Duxford - I'm really not sure why, given that the childhood  me was pretty much obsessed with aeroplanes, having picked up Biggles in Borneo from the mobile library that visited our village school, aged about eight. That was the first of many such books that I positively devoured in the next two or three years.. 

Recently an old friend of mine suggested visiting Duxford, and I thought 'why not' - it's only about an hour's drive from home, so an easy journey.  Well, we got there about 10:30, and were still there pretty much when the place closed at 6pm - clearly there was plenty to see!  I'll include a selection of the (probably far too many) photos that I took during the day. 

The displays are divided between several different sheds and halls, plus a number of aircraft parked outside. We visited most, but not all, areas - first up was the 'Flying Aircraft' sheds. As the name makes obvious, these are the hangars for aircraft which are in flying condition. This was very interesting, as several of the aircraft were being worked on, with engine covers etc removed - best example of this was the Gloster Gladiator:

does this bloke have a dream job, or what?

 

As I've said in a previous post, I've long been fascinated with the defence of Malta 1940-1942, so it was great to see a Gladiator - and it's clearly able to fly, so might see that one day too! 

There were no less than three of the Curtiss Hawk family : a P-36, a Curtiss 75 in French markings, and a nice  P-40C 'Tomahawk' undergoing maintenance.

 Also a P-47 Thunderbolt - it's a big brute of a machine, I'd quite like to see that flying. 

One point that really struck me about the 'flying condition' section  was the sheer number of Spitfires!  When I was a child, I remember going to an air display at Rochester airport where the star attracton was a Spitfire Mk IX  (painted as 'Johnnie' Johnson's 'J-EJ', just like the Airfix kit!)  which was thrilling to see, and I'm pretty sure was billed as either the only flying Spitfire, or one of just  two or three in the world. . Fast forward several decades, and if you'll excuse the poor  picture composition,  on a random day at Duxford you can chance upon a hangar  like this: 

 

Ok, so that's a Mustang at the back, but I can count 4 'Spits' here, and we'd already seen several in previous rooms. I suspect Duxford could now muster a squadron of them! Interesting how the restoration of vintage ( and especially WW2 ) aircraft has become a small industry - and I am told that owning one will cost you a few million.  Perhaps there was always  a demand waiting to be met, once restorers worked out that the task was practicable?   

Of course there is a 'Battle of Britain' display - appropriate as Duxford was a Fighter Command sector station at the time ( home to Douglas Bader's wing ) and was also used for filming the 1969 movie. And of course, there is a Spitfire:

  

If I recall correctly, we were told that this particular Spitfire is a Mk.1 which actually flew from Duxford, force-landed near Dunkirk and was recovered from the sea decades later and restored.

Of course there must be a Hurricane, also: 

 

and from the other team, an Me 109E - which had force-landed in England during the battle, and been subsequently put on show around the country to raise funds for the war. 

.   The next building we visited was the American Hall, which displays a collection of US military aircraft from WW1 to the present day - and it's quite something! It's a very big space, but it is absolutely packed with aircraft:

As you can see they have a B-17 Flying Fortress in there, and a B-24 Liberator - I was interested to see those,as both types operated from the air station near my home ( RAF Sudbury as it was known ), the runways of which can still be seen today.  They were impressive, but I have to say they looked a bit small compared to some of the other exhibits! In the same hall there is a B-29 Superfortress - significantly bigger - but even that is dwarfed by the B-52 Stratofortress, which is simply huge, and I suspect the Hall may have been effectively built around it!  You can see the cockpit windshield, one wing and a couple of its eight engines in the first picture, but there was just no way to get a view of the whole aircraft, it's too big! .  I rather loved the juxtaposition of the SPAD from  1917 with the F-4 Phantom and the B-52 - the development of American air power in one picture.  All sorts of other aircraft were packed in there: P-47, P-51, B-25, C-47, F-111,  F-15, A-10, to name a few, and not forgetting the SR-71 Blackbird.  Quite something to see! 

Not to be outdone,  the history of  British aviation is of course represented, in the other big hall named 'Airspace'. We were running out of time by this point, but here's an idea if it: 

 Yes, that is a Concorde at the back - and the rear end of a Sunderland in the middle. Lots more to see here. Fro now, there's one more really 'big bird' to show - the Handley Page Victor 

 I gather this has been a major restoration project in recent years (though I suspect not to flying condition), and it is currrently parked in its own hall in the Airspace building - this is quite a surreal experience as one wanders into a truly huge 'room',  in which a pretty  huge aircraft only takes up a small proportion of the space. And because there's nothing else in the room,  there's nothing else to give you a sense of scale - it all feels a little unreal. Amazing to see it, though, and I wonder how it is going to be permanently displayed. 

Finally a few more gratuitous plane pics from the 'old and interesting' categories :  going back to Biggles, I was pleased to see several aircraft from 1914-1918.  A Bristol Fighter, for instance :

 ..and a Be2 : another example of decades of history in one  picture, with the Hawker Hunter and Tornado behind!

.   

And from memory, we also spotted an RE 8,  and a DH 9 - and there was a flying replica Fokker Triplane!  

Slightly more modern now : I had never seen one of these in person before.  MiG 21 'Fishbed', a surprisingly large 'plane. I think this was formerly with an Eastern European air force of the Warsaw Pact era.    

  

And not forgetting the goings-on outside the static exhibition halls - I thought the (almost constant) comings and goings of flying aircraft added an extra dimension (quite literally!) to the day. There were modern light aircraft visiting,  there were 'joy-rides' available ( I think ) from a Tiger Moth, a DH Dragon Rapide, and the two-seater Sptifire - I presume at a corresponding range of prices! Also  a varying selection of interesting aircraft tantalisingly lined-up on the grass, some of which obligingly took to the air - and it seemed to be obligatory for any vintage fighter plane to complete its flight by a low-level pass to 'beat-up' the airfield! In between halls, it was great to just stop a minute and see what was flying, and at all times the 'sound effects' were great!   Getting pictures of these - neccessarily distant and often fast-moving - proved not to be easy, but some of them stood still for the camera.

Given the local connection, it was great to see the B-17 'Memphis Belle' parked on the apron: 

 

And last but not least, with apologies for picture quality, here's a snapshot from the varying line-up of aircraft waiting their turn for a spin - nice juxtaposition of 'old enemies' now flying together :

 ( and yes, for the real nerds that is one of the ex-Spanish  Bf 109s with a Merlin engine..)

Well, now I think I may be said to have 'entertained us long enough', perhaps I'd better leave it there. As you can tell, that was a great day, and there's more to see - a whole hall of 'Land Warfare' which will no doubt be of interest(!), and all those British 'planes to have a proper look at, for example. Good job we took out annual membership... the plan is to go back fairly soon, while the weather is still good and the flying condtion aircraft are still active. So, watch this space.

In the meantime,  'in other news' so to speak, I was lucky to be invited to take part in another of Jon Freitag's remote games, this time the ECW battle of Cheriton, where I played to role of Sir Arthur Haselrige, no less. Jon will no doubt publish one of his excellent battle reports soon; in the meantime as a taster here is a picture he passed around after the game     

Cheriton 1644 : infantry contest the South Spur

 

The figures are ( I think )  30mm scale, and look lovely - and Jon was in constant danger of injuring his hand on the pikes!  I can't say Sir Arthur exaclty covered himslef in glory, but it was a great evening's gaming and sparked some good discussions. Many thanks again to Jon and the other players! 

Apart from the above I have been doing a bit of painting, slow but sure progress, and will show off the results soon.  Meanwhile, keep well everyone.