Last Saturday Tom (and the class of 2019) was formally accepted into the United States Corps of Cadets at West Point. This gave us a chance to spend a few hours with him before the academic year started. We had a VERY nice visit.
Class of 2019 March Back
Sunday and Monday, I participated as an “Old Grad” in the Beast Barracks march back. Cadet basic training, or Beast Barracks, ends at Camp Buckner on the West Point reservation and culminates with a 12.2 mile ruck sack road march over steep and rocky hills to the West Point main campus. This has been going on since time immemorial; although, Beast when i was a cadet ended at Lake Frederick, nearby, rather than Camp Buckner. What is relatively new is that the Academy encourages a bunch of Old Grads to participate each year to strengthen the new cadet’s connection to the “Long Gray Line.”
For the “Old Grads,” the march back began with a briefing by the Commandant of Cadets and the senior summer cadet leadership about all of cadet summer training. I will admit that when I heard about Cadet Field Training (the summer between Plebe and Yearling years) being shortened, I thought that was a mistake. During the briefing, however, the told us that in fact those missing three weeks have been replaced with a different three week Cadet Leader Development Training, which is a three-week, Ranger school-like tactical leadership course between Cow and Firstie summers. I think it was a good trade, and cadet summer military training is strong.
We Old Grads slept in Barth Hall at Camp Buckner on cots. Lights out was 2200, and wake up was 0300.
The night before the march back, the new cadets got to relax a bit with a talent show and the unveiling of their class motto. The talent show included a new cadet playing the bagpipes while another new cadet engaged in River Dance style dancing, a new cadet doing tricks on his yo-yo, several singers and musicians, and even a Best Barracks rap act. During the summer, the new cadets in the class of 2018 had nominated and voted on their class motto. At the end of the show, the final result was unveiled, and while it doesn’t rhyme, it is quite good: “So Freedom Will Reign.”
The march back begin Monday at 0230 for the new cadets and at 0300 for the old grads. We linked up at the parade ground at Camp Buckner with the companies to which we had been assigned. My son was in G Company, so I was able to march with his platoon. That was doubly good, because not only did I get to march with him, but since his company was determined to be the best at Beast Barracks, his platoon was first in the order of march. We reached the half way rest stop before the last company stepped off from the starting point.
A relatively new tradition is to honor a recently fallen West Point graduate by naming the new cadet regiment as Task Force ___. The class of 2019 was Task Force del Castillo, named after a recent graduate killed in Afghanistan. Widow del Castillo marched with our platoon — several months pregnant — and Tommy had a chance to talk to her.
The ski slope marked the final rest point before the march onto post where the rest of the corps and a strong of spectators awaited our arrival. The chaplain’s office provided ice pops to the cadets and new cadets.
Except for a little more illumination during the first — and hardest — three miles of the march, we couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. It was 63 degrees with moderate humidity. Despite arthritis and a recent knee surgery, my knees held up fine for the march.
This was an excellent event. I am very glad I was able to participate in this with Tom. We had a chance to talk a little on the march and a little more during the rest at the ski slope to wait for all the companies to arrive before the final two miles to West Point. He is doing well and seems it really good spirits.
See this little movie of Tom’s company marching onto West Point.
Another G.A.M.E.R. Play Test
Any readers of this blog will know that I have been working on a set of WWII skirmish rueles for over two years. I ran another game this weekend to test out the rules. I had intended to test out a new system for morale, but after just a few turns it was clear that the new system was no better than the old one, and the players didn’t like to have to do math (two additions and a subtraction), so I went back to the original system.
I had been toying with changing one aspect of the rules, and after Saturday’s game, I decide to pull the trigger on the change. I have been keeping up with counting grenades and rifle grenades for units in the game. One of the results when shooting is “out of ammunition.” I am going to change this so that when an “out of ammunition” result is drawn on the cards that:
- For small arms, the weapon is out of ammunition, jammed, or something. This can be reloaded, “cleared,” or whatever with one action in a subsequent turn.
- For anti-tank guns or tank guns, the weapon is out of ammunition, jammed, or something. This can be reloaded, “cleared,” or whatever with one action in a subsequent turn.
- For shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons, hand grenades, rifle grenades, flame throwers, etc. the squad has run out of that munition or weapon. This cannot be corrected during a game. The squad has no more hand grenades, for instance.
- For single-shot weapons, like panzerfausts, the round was a dud or misfired. Since this is a one-shot weapon, it cannot be fired again during the game.
That required a change to the unit record sheet.
Now the game master just puts a check in the “yes” box if the squad begins the game with that type of weapon and checks the “no” box otherwise.
American Paras with Panzerfausts
A couple weeks ago, I posted a quick discussion about how MG Gavin was so impressed with the panzerfaust that the 82nd collected up truckloads of them in Sicily. Soon after a drop, when the heavy equipment arrived, these trucks of panzerfausts would follow the troops. He even had the instructions for their use translated into English. For my 28mm WWII project I wanted to equip US paras with panzerfausts, but when I posted to TMP to see if anyone made the figures, the answer was “no.”
At Historicon last weekend I got a bag of Berlin or Bust 28mm paras with rifles from Old Glory. A couple weeks ago I ordered panzerfausts from The Assault Group. This morning, I started hacking at the figures to remove the rifles and insert the panzerfausts.
These aren’t award-winning quality conversations, but I am pretty happy with the results. I can’t wait to spring these on some unsuspecting German players in an upcoming scenario.
Miscellaneous HAWKs Room Games at Historicon 2015
In this post, I am including a mix of games hosted on Saturday by the HAWKs at Historicon 2015. They are in no particular order. Enjoy!
Zombie Shopping Mall at Historicon 2015
Several of the HAWKs and I ran our zombie shopping mall game at Historicon. This shot (above) is the calm before the storm, before the game began.
We used GASLIGHT with the free Zombies by GASLIGHT supplement.
The theater that Bill built for the game even had Dawn of the Dead playing on the screen.
Mike Miller from Texas was the winner, getting 7 points of supplies out of the mall. He controlled the A Team, but only Face made it out.
Noah’s Skirmish Sangin Game at Historicon
Noah Guibalt, one of the HAWKs, ran a popular and well-attended Skirmish Sangin game Saturday afternoon in the HAWKs room at Historicon. The following pictures are in no particular order.
Historicon 2015 HAWKs Room and Beyond
These pictures are mostly from the HAWKs room at Historicon 2015, but I did get out of there once in a while to check out other gaming. I didn’t arrive until mid afternoon on Friday, so I don’t have pictures of earlier events.
HAWKs 5th Armies for Kids Giveaway Event at Historicon 2015
On Saturday at Historicon 2015, Eric Schlegel hosted the 5th Armies for Kids Giveaway game. The event is for kids under 10 years old. Each younger gamer who participates in the event walks away with enough PAINTED figures (for both sides) to run a game at home, some terrain, some unpainted figures, some paints, etc.
This year’s event featured 40mm ACW figures, mostly Sash and Saber, through the kind donations of many folks. Maynard Creel, Ed Mohrmann, Phil Kearnan, Keven Pinder, and Eric Von Reyn provided the figures. Ed hired Phil to paint all the Confederates that Ed purchased, and Phil subsequently donated and painted the mounted officers. Chris Johnson once again provided terrain for the kids to take home. These included wooden fences and a paper bridge over which to fight. I realized after I got home that I need took any good close-up pictures of the figures that Phil painted, but they were amazing. The HAWKs held a couple of painting bees during the year to paint up all the unpainted figures that had been donated. Our figures did not look nearly as good as Phil’s.
Eric used his ACW rules he has created specifically for kids games. They flow nicely, and the kids always have good time. Eric’s rules also include his “test of history education in US schools.” When a specific card is drawn from the deck, he asks one side or the other an ACW history question. If the kids on that side get it correctly, one unit gets an extra activation. If they don’t get it correctly, the other side gets a chance to “steal” the extra action. I learned a lot from these nine year olds, like the “fact” that Grant commanded the Army of Northern Virginia and that Robert E. Lee was the president of the Confederacy.
The game involved both sides trying to capture the hill seen in the center of the picture (above). The Rebs got there first, but they were eventually driven off by the Yanks. The boy on the far left of the picture was the last Reb in the game. His single remaining figure killed five or six Ynaks before being gunned down.
This was our fifth such giveaway event.
1 – AWI 20mm plastics (Historicon 2011)
2 – 54mm ACW plastics (Historicon 2012)
3 – 15mm SYW metal (Historicon 2013)
4 – 30mm Napoleonic metal (Historicon 2014)
5 – 40mm ACW metal (Historicon 2015)
We plan to give away 20mm plastic WWII figures at Barrage 2015 (see http://www.bucksurdu.com/Buck_Surdu/Barrage.html) in October.
We hosted four games specifically targeting kids at Historicon 2015:
- The Armies for Kids Giveaway.
- Geoff’s Lego pirate game.
- Duncan’s game based on the Warriors books involving tribes of warring cats.
- A version of my Defense of Schloss Iter game tailored for kids.
Dropped Tommy off to Begin “Beast Barracks” at West Point
This morning we dropped off my son at West Point to begin Cadet Basic Training, a.k.a. “Beast Barracks.” This is a picture of him standing in line to get into Eisenhower Hall to begin his adventure. It was a bittersweet moment for all of us.
