Hark the herald.................

This trumpeter comes from a set of Winged Hussars, not surprisingly made in Poland, and invariably attributed to the manufacturer PZG.  The figure has been gilded and was originally mounted on a plinth to be sold as an ornament or tourist item.  It's part of a range that I assume was inspired by the Siege of Vienna as it includes a personality figure of King Jan Sobieski, Winged Hussar, Dragoon, Standard Bearer, Kettle Drummer and Trumpeter.

PZG is the Polski Zwiazek Gluchych (Polish Associaton of the Deaf) which ran workshops producing all manner of goods to provide employment for people with hearing disability.  Founded in 1946, the Association is still going strong today and during the Communist era produced various ranges of toy soldiers.  These days collectors tend to label all Polish made plastic figures as PZG, even though very few are actually marked as such, due to the dearth of information on who manufactured them.
                                                                                                      

The elegantly sculpted horse has damage to a couple of his legs from where he was prised off the original plinth, another project in the queue is to repair, rebase and repaint him, perhaps I'll actually get around to doing it next year.  To get an idea of what he should look like when painted up take a look at Eric's Blog here.

King & Country at the toy soldier show

The team from King & Country were over for the recent London show and this rather magnificent new Vietnam diorama was the centrepiece of their stand.  The post WW2 era has never really appealed to me but I know a lot of people collect this stuff and the standard of terrain modelling on K&C dioramas is always inspiring.

I think K&C only attend the December show these days, trawling back through old photos I noticed that I never got around to posting the pics I took of their display last year, I'll remedy that over the next few days.  In the meantime let me wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas.

Wargame at the London Toy Soldier Show

The internet blurb for the December show in London said it would feature a wargame arranged by James Opie and Replica Metal Soldiers & Models so I thought I'd take a look (well I was going there anyway for a Christmas get together with the lads)

The table was laid out for the Battle of Tell el Kebir, a good choice for a display game as it needs very little terrain (important if you're the one transporting the stuff) and the two sides are easily identifiable, Egyptians are in white, Brits are not.  I don't know the purpose of the bits of paper dotted all over the place but this sort of clutter on the table is a pet hate of mine.

Nice to see that I'm not the only person who resorts to mounting toy soldiers on 2p pieces!  Cavalry are mounted on lengths of transparent Perspex which are all but invisible, I was very impressed with the table mat which appeared to be just hand painted cloth but executed so much better than my own efforts.

I was told that the rules being used had been written by James Opie, based on Wells' Little Wars but with some modern twists (no matchstick firing cannon!).  It's nice to see a display wargame returning to the London Show but I do still miss the old Skirmish Wargames Group games.

James Opie was on hand at the nearby stand for C&T Auctions and was joined by Luigi Toiati who was promoting his new book "The History of Toy Soldiers".  Regulars at the London Show in the late 1980's and early 90's will remember the affable Luigi as the man behind Garibaldi Toy Soldiers, I've had his book for a while now but haven't had time to read through it (pictures look nice though) so a review will have to wait a bit longer.

In the meantime James and Luigi were promoting another new book "La dinastia degli Antonini a Roma" which is a privately printed history of three generations of  the Antonini family who have been making toy soldiers in Rome, their FIGIR composition figures are well known but not their lead creations so I've written to Santa for a copy, but as my emails to Rome haven't been acknowledged I'm not confident it will get here by Christmas!

Stuart Asquith's Big Wars - Battle of Tanga 1914

Across the blogosphere collectors and wargamers are running games in memoriam to Stuart Asquith who sadly passed away recently, I hadn't cleared up after our recent game set in North Africa so decided to play a solo game using the Big Wars rules written by Stuart and Jack Alexander.  Big Wars covers the period 1880 to 1914 so I thought the Battle of Tanga fought during the WW1 campaign in German East Africa would squeeze under the wire.  I had to take a few liberties historically but here's how it went:

In November 1914 Britain sent an Indian Expeditionary Force of about 8,000 men to invade German East Africa, the plan was to make an amphibious landing at the port of Tanga then advance north to meet up with troops marching south from British East Africa, trapping the German "Schutztruppe" in a giant pincer movement.  A simple plan, what could go wrong?  Er….. plenty apparently.

There was an unofficial Coastal Truce agreement under which the Royal Navy were required to give the Germans 24 hours notice of any intended attack (I kid you not!).  On 2nd November 1914 the Navy demanded unconditional surrender of the town and port, this was ignored and next day the IEF began landing, no resistance was expected from the token garrison.  However, on receipt of the demand the German commander had called for reinforcements and started digging in (well you would wouldn't you)

Tanga was the coastal terminus of the Northern Railway and the Germans began rushing troops by train, around the clock, to the port.  The initial IEF landing on 3rd November was supported by salvos from the supporting naval escort, it had little effect.  Above, the German Askaris were armed with the obsolete model 1871 rifle which fired black powder rounds, clouding them in smoke with every volley.  

Here the IEF debark from their landing barges.  I played the game on an area of about 5' x 5' which I found from previous experience is fine for Big Wars, movement distances are quite short and casualties from firing fairly light until you get to quite close range, so you really need to get troops into melee to get a decisive result.

A couple of liberties taken here for the benefit of a good game.  German naval units fought on land throughout the campaign, but not at Tanga, also the Germans had two field artillery pieces but they arrived too late to take any part in the battle.  On the British side most of the units were from Indian Regiments but I have included units of the Kings African Rifles who also fought throughout the campaign but not at Tanga.

The Askaris fall back steadily while keeping up a steady fire at close range which begins to blunt the advance.  The rules allow artillery and machine guns to move or fire, but movement rates for MGs not mounted on carriages are short so the British support units fell far behind the infantry advance.

The IEF occupy part of the town and the Ghurkas hoist the Union Jack but their success is short lived as German reinforcements continue to arrive and a counter attack throws the British back.

A fun game, quick and easy to master, and a good scenario for solo play as there isn't much scope for tactical movement.  I playtested the rules quite a bit when they first came out in 1993 and used them in a "play by email" game that I hosted a few years ago (see Big Wars link in right hand column) but apart from that they've been rather overlooked, perhaps it's time they got a bit more of a regular outing.

In 1914 the IEF outnumbered the Schutztruppe by 8 to 1 so, not unnaturally, the British Staff believed the battle would be a walkover.  The Navy were ordered not to support the attack so that the town might be taken intact for use by the occupying force, for the same reason the IEF mountain batteries were not landed.  The result was that the entire IEF was evacuated on 5th November leaving most of their equipment behind, perhaps not the most ignominious feat of British arms, but well up there.

Battle of al-Musayfirah 1925

We felt it was time to give the "One Hour Wargame" (OHW) rules by Neil Thomas another airing, Anthony and I both like the fast moving simplicity of this game system and it works well with 54mm toy soldiers.

Looking back through old copies of Wargames Illustrated for inspiration I found a scenario for the Battle of al-Musayfirah in 1925 during the Great Syrian Revolt.   After WW1 The League of Nations had given France a mandate to govern Syria and the French promptly instituted a number of measures to control the local tribes.  This inevitably lead to a nationalist uprising  by the Druze, which spread to the other tribes.

We chose scenario 15 from OHW, Fortified Defence, as it best reflected the actual battle.  Basically, a French Foreign Legion column was ambushed and badly mauled so the survivors took refuge in an old Turkish fort at Suwayda.  A relief column was prepared and an advance party sent forward to set up a defensive position at the town of al-Musayfirah as a staging post for the main column following behind.   A traditional colonial campaign in the finest traditions of P C Wren and Beau Geste, here's how it went:

On the left is the old Turkish fort at Suwayda, the town behind it in the rear centre is  al-Musayfirah, to the right of the town is a rocky area, in the OHW scenario this should be woods but rocks are more suitable for the desert so we just gave them the same terrain effect for movement and combat as woods.

We diced to see what forces each side would get, the French got 3 Inf, 2 Arty and 1 Cav, while the Druze got 3 Inf, 1 Heavy and 2 Cav.  That seemed to represent the original forces quite well, I wasn't sure what to use for the Druze heavy unit, in reality they had some artillery but I couldn't find any references to machine guns or other heavy weapons so a little imagination was called for.

The French start with one unit in the old Turkish fort at Suwayda and one in al-Musayfirah.  The Druze opened the ball with a mass attack on the garrison in the old Turkish fort.  Victory would go to whichever side occupied both the town and fort at the end of 15 turns.

The rules give the two garrisons additional firepower, which reflects the actual battle as the French had machine guns which took a terrible tole on the attackers.   To even things up the Druze have a refit rule which allows them to create a second wave with all their original units at their starting positions, rather like the Zulu wave mechanism we used in our recent Rorke’s Drift game.

The French cavalry came from the collection of veteran wargamer John Ruddle who created them from bits and pieces of old Britains hollow cast Spahis, all repaired and repainted.  Behind them the French Command are represented by Starlux mounted FFL.

The first wave of the Druze attack succeeds in overrunning the defenders in the fort and pushing back the relief column.  At this point they invoked the refit rule, leaving the fort abandoned temporarily while the second wave formed up for a renewed attack.

In the Druze second wave one unit has reoccupied the fort while the main push is directed against the garrison at al-Musayfirah.  Here the remaining infantry and Command, with heavy unit attached, use the cover of the rocky terrain to advance for a mass attack on the town.  The camel borne gun is the handiwork of Ross Macfarlane, as are the fort and town buildings.

The all out assault goes in, Druze mounted units rush the town while the foot provide covering fire from the rocks, will the beleaguered garrison hold out?

As we reached turn 15 and the end of the game, the superior firepower of the French forces carried the day.  A bombardment of the fort drove the Druze defenders out, leaving it unoccupied, while the mounted units caught in the open were wiped out by the French mountain artillery.

Anthony insisted we take a picture of the lunch, l'd like to tell you it was something suitably North African but clearly it's traditional beer and pizza.

The game played out very similar to the real battle, in 1925 the Druze suffered heavy casualties from the French machine gun strongpoints in al-Musayfirah.  They did manage to break into the town and promptly made off with all the columns horses and donkeys, but the attack through the rocks was broken up by a continuous bombardment from French aircraft.