Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen - Part Two

 A second work trip to Remagen has given me the opportunity to take a look around the Museum in the western towers.

Nice aerial view of the collapsed bridge and two pontoons built alongside

Lt. Karl Timmermann who first spotted the bridge was still standing from a  nearby church

The view he got is recreated here.

Several emotive paintings are displayed as part of the museum's collection

The museum opens 10-5 every day in the main holiday seasons, but less frequently out of season and charges 5.50€ entrance fee.

The five scapegoats who were tried and sentenced to death between 9-13th March 1945 for failure to destroy the bridge. Only one escaped his sentence to become an American POW.

V2's were launched from the Netherlands in an effort to destroy the bridge. Several fell on civilian areas the closest to the bridge fell just 250m short. Here are pieces of V2 debris from the attack.

Personal German Infantry equipment - mess tins, pouches etc. found in the area.

There are a nice selection of artifacts dating from the time of the battle as well as some displays that high-light the sufferings in the town of Remagen itself - which was largely destroyed.

Engineers with their sign 1945

The original sign welcoming US Army bridge users

A contemporary painting of the Western towers as they are today

There was a fascinating display based around the 1960's movie and how the film's use of surplus US Chaffee tanks in the former Czechoslovakia may have helped Moscow justify the 1968 invasion!

Stills from the movie set

Promotional material from the movie

If you get an opportunity to visit I would recommend you give it a go.

Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen - Part One

 Recently I was visiting one of my sites for work which just happens to be in the town of Remagen, in Germany.

View from the Western bank. The railway line went through a tunnel in the mountain on the left of the picture

The history of the bridge is well publicised and a good summary can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Remagen

Looking from the towpath back inland

Today the bridge towers on both West & East banks (all that remain of the original bridge) have been turned into museums. Sadly the museum on the West bank doesn't open until March so I was unable to visit. 

Looking from the viewing point on the flood dam, back towards the river. The eastern towers just visible in the centre of the picture

As the Bridge was never replaced, it is something like an 80Km round trip to drive to the Eastern towers, but there is a foot ferry you can use to get across if you wished. The Rhine at this point is probably 500 or so metres wide!

Another very good account of the battle for the bridges can be watched on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdy1IAJvCNM

I'll leave you with the other pictures I took.

A piece of the original bridge, dredged up several km downstream from the collapse

Loser Shed Make-Over

 After talking about it for probably 5 years, I have finally got around to getting a new laminate floor laid in the loser shed. Together with a space-age insulation underlay, I'm hoping this will make things a little more warm through the winter.

Tilly the terrier seems to approve!

 I've also treated the Loser Shed to some posh draught excluder around the door and a super-efficient ceramic fan heater which allegedly only costs 15pence an hour to run ..... we will see.

All this has led to a delay in progress with the 15mm pirates and their ships. All the figures are now finished, but there's still a bunch of cannon to paint and four resin ships.

The ship at the very rear was picked up at a Bristol Bring & buy some years ago and in storage until now. The two in the centre are Peter Pig ships bought at the IPMS show and the painted example is Colin's ship from those original starter sets.

Here's my original ship bought from Peter Pig many years ago.

The remaining ships require the addition of the small metal details that came with them (Cannon sticking out of gun-ports, ships-wheels and the like) before I prime them and finish them with speed paints of one type or another.

15mm Peter Pig Pirates

 About 20-25 years ago, my late friend, Colin, and I put on a demo game at the Shrewsbury Wargames club show. Whilst we were there, we were fascinated by a new manufacturer who was selling his 15mm Pirate figures range. 

The last batch on the bench - painted exclusively with Contrast Paints

Not only did he have 15mm pirates he also had resin pirate ships to match (I later discovered these were made for them by another manufacturer. Originally "SDD Models" and then latterly, "Stronghold Miniatures" neither of whom I believe are still trading?). These were lovely models with customisable white metal parts (ship's wheel, cannons, balustrades etc) and had soldered steel masts with optional vacuum formed sails.

As a show special, they were offering a small pirate force, matching ship & a set of the first issue of "Pieces of Eight" rules for £10 (I think).

3D printed base designed to protect the oars

We were smitten and bought a set each together with an additional rowing boat + crew and some spare cannons!

The bases were then textured with artists acrylic paste before painting

Roll on a couple of decades - My figures were painted (badly) and in a box. We never got around to playing the game with them for all the usual reasons and when Colin passed away, I inherited his equally badly painted figures and ship!

Finished figures in their magnetised RUBs

Then along came the IPMS show at Thornbury and what did I see on the B&B stall? A box with two Peter Pig pirate galleons & 10 packs of figures for £25.

Needless to say I had no cash and they didn't take cards😏 So a quick bit of wheeler dealing with the guys on the door (repaying my wife and I's entry with a card in return for some cash) and I was back to the stall. It was meant to be, it was still there and off I went into the sunset with a very nostalgic package!

Some experimental 3D printed furled sails in the box as there were no vacuum formed ones with these

Over the last few weeks I've been painting these up (together with repainting our original figures) and basing them on 15mm diameter bases. Some were on MDF, others on 3D printed ones that would accommodate a self-adhesive 12.5mm magnet so I could store them in magnetised  Really Useful Boxes.

I'm not sure exactly, but I think there are around 150 figures + 30 or so cannon. I now have 4 galleons in total and will paint these up next. What rules to use I'm not sure....maybe home-written? We'll see.

Afrika Korps 28mm and other dalliances....

Can't remember when I last picked up a paint brush, so when I saw these Artizan figures at Attack! I decided I'd try and get back into the habit.

I'd built a few 28mm Afrika Korp figures from a free Warlord sprue mixed with some early war Germans. These came out well when painted using Contrast paints, so I decided I'd get some heavy support to build a small Bolt Action force.

As an aside, it's interesting how many figure manufacturers think the MG34/42 belts feed from the right? I'm sure the gun no.2 is supposed to be facing forwards!

So I bought an 81mm and an MG34SF team. The bases for which I 3D printed to match some mdf ones I'd used with previous heavy weapon teams. These allow two figures to be removed as casualties.

I also found some 28mm para command and a Winston Churchill figure that I thought might fit well with a 02 Hundred Hours game.

All were painted entirely using Contrast and other speed paints before varnishing. To be honest, they're not of the standard I'd really like to be painting, but I simply don't have the spare time. So this is my compromise. They look just fine on the table so what's not to like?

I'm trying the same approach with the 15mm Pirates I've bought and so far I've completed 20 figures over three evenings work, so I'm pretty pleased!

IPMS Show Avon - Thornbury Leisure Centre

 My wife and I took a trip out to England to visit the annual IPMS show near Bristol. 

This show seems to be going from strength to strength, with an ever increasing wargame content - including competition games.

The traders are mainly modelling specialists but there's plenty to interest the wargamer too. There's also a healthy bring & buy run by the Lincombe Barn club from Bristol. 

I weakened here and bought myself some old (un-painted) Peter Pig 15mm Pirates & two matching resin ships!

There were demo & participation games as well as static displayed models on tables, across three halls in the leisure centre. It took a good two hours just to walk around once!

About 60/40 mix of aircraft to AFV models so plenty to interest me.

A great day out, looking forwards to next year.

Dedicated models of the mulberry harbour at Arromanches

DBA Competition

1/16th Scale....impressive

1/32nd Scale ..... Impressive!

1/35th Scale Normandy street

I'm in the process of building this 1/56th Rubicon kit. Like the display!