Wot I bawt at the Bring-n-buy.

Every year, the War Games section arranges a bring and buy weekend at the Woolston Club.  This year it was limited to one day, and delayed a couple of months on account of the Alert Level 2 still in force in this town (Christchurch, New Zealand).  Every year I manage to spend some money - as a rule, not very much.  This year perhaps a little above average, especially if I add in the enormous lunch...

I went in with a couple of 'will-buy-if-I-see- 'em' notions, but, not seeing 'em, I didn't buy 'em. Pity.  Never mind.  What follows were some serendipitous finds.

So, here's the damage:

Here, some playing pieces for Memoir '44.  I can't think why I bought the Panthers, except forgetting that the Panther was the standard German playing piece.  For the rest: Tigers (for an elite unit), and StuGs (for a pair of mobile anti-tank units).  

Seeing these brought me to mind my Blackland Wars and Chromatic Wars projects.  These struck me as vaguely suitable as mountain or light field pieces in the service of one or more of my armies.  As there are 4 guns to the box, but 32 artillery crew figures in the other box, I opted from the Austrian crew figures, but they won't end up as Austrian, but as other things.  It so happens that some of the figures are horse teams or limber riders.  That is no bad thing, so some of my 'spare' limbers will now get actual riders.

A couple of Deport guns assembled.  Although both types, Deports (French) and Skoda (Austrian Emire) came into service in World War One, they have to my mind the look plausibly of earlier provenance.

Now, a couple of books with a naval theme.

Richard Woodman's The Battle of the River Plate, published 2008, turns out to be an account of the whole voyage of the panzerschiff, Admiral Graf Spee, and the hunt to end her commerce raiding.  Apart from the overall narrative, there are biographical snippets of the main characters (including the three British cruisers) and quite nice sketches of the merchant vessels involved in the story, most of which were taken and sunk by the raider. The battle itself occupies just 32 pages of the 150-odd page account, and the only map of the battle is of the Graf Spee's late afternoon run for Montevideo and the pursuit by HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles.  It's an engaging read, though it seems to me unclear what is (or was) the 'grand delusion'.  On the other hand there's a good deal in the story that I had never before heard of.  

It is my belief that Kapitan zur See Langsdorff knew very well before the battle was over that his ship would never make it back to Germany. Graf Spee had the better of the morning's battle, effectively halving the firepower ranged against it. But the ammo stocks for his main battery had been more than halved, and, apart from the battle damage taken, some of Graf Spee's machinery was compromised even before the battle. Langsdorff might have fought it out with the two light cruisers once HMS Exeter, reduced to little more than a smoking wreck, crawled out of the battle, but perhaps he was indeed as humanitarian as his reputation suggested - and declined in the event to put his young crew, and the prisoners he was carrying, to any further hazard. Further, had he sunk the the other cruisers, he might have incurred greater hostility on along the South American coast than he in the end did. It's possible - even to my mind plausible - that figuring that honour had been served, he thought it time to call quits.  

The other volume, quite slender, is a Time-Life publication dating from 1979. The Dreadnoughts, part of a Seafarers series, I gather, is a brief account of the dreadnoughts leading up to and including an account of the Battle of Jutland. It really is a nice book, with a handsome hardcover binding. At five bucks, a bargain.  I've added a photo of the front end papers, and one of the artist impressions of the Jutland action.  This one shows the fate of HMS Warrior, which, attempting to find its way home during the night, blundered into the German High Seas Fleet battle line.

Finally, one last pass around the room unearthed these five items, in a small box, going for $5 the lot.  Done!  They go straight into my Army Men project.  They are 3D prints, the Centurion being in one piece, the others two or more.  I think maybe there is a piece missing from one of the APCs but I'm not complaining.  Although my Army Men gig supposes a technology of c.1943, a few slight anachronisms aren't going to worry me.  It's an imaginary world anyhow.  I'm not sure why these were going so cheaply - maybe the vendor was dissatisfied with their quality, though they looked fine to me.  

The Patton tank is very nearly the same size of the two toy tanks I already have. A whisker larger, maybe, but quite unnoticeable. On the other hand, as I suspected it would be, the Centurion is a deal bigger than my others of the same type. But among the four the scales weren't consistent anyhow. So these will form a small, composite battalion of Cougar tanks, ranging from Mark I (light medium armour, medium anti-tank) through to the Mark VI (extra heavy armour and anti-tank)

Altogether, a satisfactory morning of hunting and gathering...