A blast from the past - Fisticuffs 2008!

A chance post from a mate on the wargames website in my thread about Tigers triggered fond memories about a Wittmann scenario we played at the Fisiticuffs show in 2008. My thread on the forum is banging on about Tigers, and that perhaps they're not quite the mechanically hopeless overrated junk that many self appointed experts maintain they are, and Rod suggested I should do the Wittman/Northants Yeomanry/Sherbrooke Fusiliers scenario. You know, the controversy over who bagged Wittman...

But of course I realised we'd done that with the Royal Signals Blandford Garrison wargaming club back in the day. Colin, Steve, and a few 'army brats' Steve had taken under his wing as part of his resettlement training as a teacher are shown here, along with yours truly who still hasn't recovered from putting up the table and scenery in record time after a breaking the land speed record with a drive from Plymouth to Weymouth of 2.5 hours! ( I'm allowed to say 'army brats', I was one, and believe me its a term of endearment - these lads put up with a lot, moved around all the time, dad's away deployed most of the time, bad housing...so people tend to pitch in if there's something on they might find interesting.) Whilst these lads don't look too hp at the moment they soon cheered up and had a great time, whizzing around looking at all the games and stands...They even rolled dice with us now and then!

Fisiticuffs has always been a great show, and has gone from strength to strength, so that these days, to put into perspective for my Aussie mates, its about the same size as MOAB in South Sydney. Martin Goddard and the Weymouth Levellers work hard to put on a friendly but interesting weekend, so, if you get the chance when in the UK, go along and say hi to Martin from me!

I can't remember too much about the scenario, obviously we wanted to represent all the protagonists claiming Wittman's scalp, the Sherbrookes;

RAF Tiffies;

And of course the Northants Yeomanry, of which Firefly gunner Sergeant Joe Ekins was officially credited with the kill.

Sadly no longer with us, Joe's final words on the debate sum up the bloke:

"It doesn't matter who got him, the important thing was he is dead"

Of course the tankies were supported by, or supporting, infantry.

Anyhow, for a game organised between soldiers returning from operational deployments and with me at sea, we did ok, and Martin and the judges seemed to think so too:

I honestly can't remember what the outcome was, but some of the photos suggest it was all quite bloody...

I suspect, apparently unlike in reality, it was Biggles & Co who bagged the hun...

Pip pip!