My kid sister, who has taught the second grade for more years than she cares to admit, recently had a new classroom experience. One of her cute little reprobates threw his shoe at her and hit her in the back of the head. She took the little punk to the principal for this feat (pun intended). Was this brat disciplined? Did they call his parents? Was he expelled out of hand? Was he shot at dawn? If you answered, "None of the above," you understand our modern educational system. After determining that the dear lad had been aiming at someone else and hitting the teacher was an unfortunate accident, the powers that be sent him back to class after a mild scolding. One mustn’t shatter that fragile self-esteem.

When Unca Craig was a callow and troubled youth, we feared the teachers more than they feared us. Believe me; we had to rely on our wits to avoid corporal punishment and our self-esteem somehow survived. In one incident during the Fourth Grade, I was caught during one of my more dastardly deeds (don’t ask) and told to spend my recesses in the wood shop making a thick, high grade paddle for my much-deserved punishment, for such was the way of the elementary school world in those far-distant, unenlightened, frontier days. Fortunately, I was the most inept wood shop student in the school’s history and construction lagged and dragged on for several weeks as I used a wood plane to manufacture industrial quantities of toothpicks and sawdust. I finally finished said paddle (I painted it red, I did, and it was sanded really smooth to avoid splinters) and presented it to the teacher for punishment detail the next day. The next day, as I heard later, the teacher asked where I was and was informed, as I had neglected to tell him, that I had left the country. My father had been transferred to Morocco and the family had followed in what I considered the nick of time. I know, I know, but I just had to share.

S. Craig Taylor, Jr.
Lost Battalion Games Publisher and
Cher Ami Newsletter Editor

COMING SOON!

We have so few people doing so many different things that we don’t like to announce new releases before we can hold the finished product in our hot little hands. If you promise not to pester us for more details, we will use this new feature to let you know what is being worked on down in the bunker and what should see the light of day in the next few months.

BATTLELINES®: Stalingrad Campaign: You wouldn’t believe the troubles we have had trying to get this back into print. Losing finished artwork in a computer crash was just one of several major problems. We hope all of that is behind us and all five sets should be available again soon.

GALACTIC EXPANSE™: STARSHIP BATTLES: This will be our first excursion into Science Fiction in a card game that started out as BATTLEGROUP IN SPACE but then just sort of mutated in strange ways and developed its own, unique, alien muscles from there. The artwork, with all those star systems, nebulas and starships, is looking good. In space, no one can hear the exclamations of glee as you feast your sore eyepods on these cards!

ENEMY IN SIGHT™: This will be a reprint of Neal Schlaffer’s classic Avalon Hill card game. We aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel and this version will play pretty much the same as the original but now with gorgeous full color artwork by Rick Drennan and our high quality cards.

PANZER® PaK 4: The new cards are for allied lend-lease tanks sent to the Soviet Union and the booklet adds lots of new scenarios to the ever-expanding PANZER Miniature Rules line.

SERGEANTS!™ – Scenarios Book 2: James Meldrum did the basic design for all the scenarios found in this one, which includes scenarios involving the British, French, Germans, Italians, Soviets and United States armies and vehicles and markers from the SERGEANTS! – Expansion.

SERGEANTS!™ – In Miniature: New sets of the excellent MiniFigs "N" gauge miniatures will be added for American and French soldiers plus vehicle/antitank gun sets for the British, French, Germans, Italians, Soviets and United States. Each set also includes the bases for mounting the lead.

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NEW!

TASK FORCES AT WAR

RECOMMENDED FOR DADS AND LADS

INTRODUCED AT NASHCON

TASK FORCES AT WAR™ is a 64-card, diceless, two-player introductory card game designed to be both easy to learn and quick to play. It is an excellent game for a parent to use to introduce children to the fascinating hobby of war games or to expose an unsuspecting friend to the joys of historical gaming. The game is based on World War Two (1939 – 1945) naval combat, when fleets combined battleship firepower with bombing strikes from aircraft carriers. It looks great; using the same full-color pictures of American, British, French, German, Italian and Japanese capital ships of the Second World War that were used in BATTLEGROUP™, and is backed up by the same informative Ships of BATTLEGROUP™ articles at our website. The game system allows players to deploy "task forces" of warships from their hands. Comparisons of the ships deployed in the opposing task forces determine if they will engage in a carrier battle, a surface battle or an air-surface battle. One player commands the Axis fleet, one player commands the Allied fleet and the side that scores the most victory points by "sinking" enemy vessels wins a hand. Win two hands and you win the game, although this is easier said than done! Every playing is different and playing time for a game is easily under one hour. Components include an Allied Ship Deck, an Axis Ship Deck, and the rules. The game retails for only $9.95.

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REAL PEOPLE IN BRAWLING BATTLESHIPS™ STEEL

BRAWLING BATTLESHIPS™ STEEL is Lost Battalion’s classic beer-and-pretzels card game of luck and strategy that is based on World War One (1914–1918) surface naval combat, a period when all the great powers had mighty fleets of new steel ships with enormous guns which they were reluctant to risk. Two to six players each command a squadron of "dreadnought" battleships and battlecruisers individually or in teams. The victor is the player or side that scores the most victory points in three sorties by "sinking" enemy vessels. It is $34.95 and worth every penny, by golly!

Now that the required advertising plug is out of the way, what we will do here is examine the backgrounds of the game’s four playing cards which are based on real people.

The identical illustrations on the two "Secret Agent" cards are based on the most famous and most inept spy of the Great War, Mata Hari (the stage name for Margarete Gertrude Zelle – 1876 – 1917). A native of the Netherlands and a "dancer" by trade, she had a parade of lovers drawn from high military and government leaders on both sides. A zaftig (look it up) example of what rich and powerful men desired back at the turn of the last century, the French shot her at dawn mainly because they could. It was a sad end but it made her a legend.

The "Great Leader!" card (you can just tell this is a good card to have by the exclamation point) displays a picture of United States Admiral George Dewey (1837 – 1917), the hero of the 1898 Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War. Although he played no part in the First World War, we selected him for the illustration because he has a great moustache and displays great panache in his admiral’s uniform.

The sinister-looking bearded fellow on the "Second Rate Leader" card is a portrait of the game’s designer, Bruce Kohrn (a spoilsport who refuses to disclose his birth and death dates) with his disembodied head set on a picture of the uniform of Admiral Reinhard Scheer (1863 – 1928), who was commander of the German High Seas Fleet at the indecisive Battle of Jutland in 1916. Now impress your friends with your erudition next time you play!

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THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE - PART 2

This issue of the Cher Ami Newsletter continues our series of articles about the "Battle of the Bulge".

Reserves assembled to the rear of the German front lines consisted of the newly-organized German Sixth Panzer Army, under General Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, which included four powerful SS panzer divisions. Its companion German Fifth Panzer Army, under General Hasso von Manteuffel, included four army panzer divisions. As part of the German reorganization in preparation for the attack, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, an old, competent and much respected commander (already relieved of command twice by Hitler) was again appointed to command the Western Front. Early accounts of the Battle of the Bulge often referred to it as the "Rundstedt Offensive" but he was merely a figurehead in the Fuhrer’s lofty schemes. The old Field Marshal was a ploy – his prestige was used to rally other German generals to the plan.

The German offensive would fall in the thinly-held Ardennes and would use the four armies in Army Group B. Every effort was bent to assemble maximum forces and to achieve surprise. The north flank would be held by the Fifteenth Army, whose infantry was to advance to cover the right flank of the Sixth Panzer Army but, in the event, took only a small part in the offensive. The main German effort was to be made by the Sixth Panzer Army, with the Fifth Panzer Army advancing parallel to it and covering its left flank. The Seventh Army, which originally held most of the front, was to cover the left flank of the Fifth Panzer Army in a more limited infantry advance.

German plans called for the oversized SS panzer divisions of Sixth Panzer Army to reach the Meuse River in 48 hours, establish a bridgehead near Liege and then wheel north to capture Antwerp. In a parallel advance to the south, Fifth Panzer Army was to cross the Meuse River near Namur and then capture Brussels. The attacking divisions got first call on Germany’s decreasing manpower reserves, vehicle production, airpower support and all available ammunition and gasoline. Despite their efforts, the Germans were so short of gasoline that their plans required capturing large stocks of Allied petroleum during the offensive. By single-mindedly concentrating on one object, more strength was concentrated in the Ardennes than the Allies believed possible. Hitler’s plan was intended to totally change the course of the war on the Western Front. Seizing Antwerp would disrupt Allied supply lines and cut off some 37 Allied divisions. If all went well, the planned success would allow resources to be shifted to more neglected fronts once the offensive was over.

Contrary to the Fuhrer’s plans, his generals’ more conventional military minds agreed that his reach exceeded his grasp and they proposed a less ambitious offensive to "spoil" the coming Allied offensive by cutting off and destroying the salient already created by American attacks north of the Ardennes. After barely surviving a coup attempt by the officer corps on July 20, Hitler refused to listen to their "defeatist" ideas and insisted that his plans be implemented. The German forces were massed under an effective cover plan. Although the Germans did not realize it, their use of land lines (the German telephone network) eliminated the super-secret "Ultra" radio interceptions that had served Allied intelligence so well in the past. Radio messages used by the German military were used to simulate defensive preparations. As a further deception, the code name for the offensive was the defensive sounding "Wacht am Rhine" ("Watch on the Rhine"). Troops and vehicles were moved up from their hidden reserve positions only at the last minute. Finally, at 0530 hours on December 16, a brief but violent artillery barrage started falling on the American lines and the offensive began.

Continued Next Month...

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Panzer® Fact #4

The British 2-pdr.—Solid Shot Fire Power and HE

by James M. Day

The elegant British 40mm 2-pdr. was designed between the two wars as a replacement for the less-capable 47mm 3-pdr. tank weapon. Entering service in 1936, the anti-tank gun version included features unheard for the time: an optical sight, semi-automatic breech, two-speed traversing gear, and a two-wheeled carriage with three trail legs. When its wheels were raised from the ground, it could be quickly traversed through 360⁰.

A little known fact is that an HE shell was developed for the 2-pdr., but for some unexplained reasons it was never put into general service. That meant both tank and anti-tank fire was limited to just solid-shot AP rounds; HE fire power coming from machineguns or 'close-support' tanks armed with 3.7 inch breech-loading mortars or 3 inch howitzers – two vehicles required to do the job of one.

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