Hello 2021...already some good and some bad. As I write this, our country has survived a severe test yesterday. My emotions are all over the place over many different things. I've been out of a work now for a full month and for the first time since 1987, I have had four weeks of vacation in a row. But I'm not digging it. I need to work and I am hopeful that things will work out to put me back to work sooner than later. My other main irritation is the non-arrival of my copy of For King & Country. I never purchased it back in the day and so was eagerly anticipating some new British counters and an SK style Board 15 map. Board 15 is the only one that I still have to use my old GI Anvil of Victory board. According to MMP, my copy dispatched on 12/11. 27 days is a long time to ship something from Maryland to Illinois. Next time...maybe I'll just go and pick it up. It is of course not MMP's fault, but that is little consolation.
One of the bright spots in my otherwise gloomy existence has been watching my DVD copies of the Gallant Men TV show. The show aired in the 1962-63 Season and was around 26 episodes. The Pilot episode showed the men wearing 36th Infantry Patches. But the regular series episodes had all the men wearing the 5th Army shoulder patch. This may have allowed more veterans to identify with the men on the show. As I was born in 1965, the show was long gone, but the time I was 8 or 9 and really shifting into high gear with my wargame efforts. In those days, my battles were fought primarily on my hardwood bedroom floor with my Marx Americans and Germans. Every now and then I would catch a rerun episode of the show and watch it in the dining room on a little RCA black and white TV we had. Mom and Dad controlled the family room color TV. This show really energized my imagination for recreating WWII battles set in Italy. And in fact, I came to the conclusion that Italy was the primary theater of operations. So I would sally forth into the backyard with my wooden Springfield rifle with my WWII web belt, canteen and my great Uncle's WW2 Helmet Liner (he was stationed in Panama). Once I was back in the house, Lincoln Log bunkers and my brothers Little People buildings would be used to stage various Italian battlefields. The joyous days of our boyhoods passed too quickly. I try to tap into that old spirit every now and then and watching these shows once again, has been comforting during some tough days recently.
This month's scenario is GJ091 Bella Rosa. In an episode entitle "The Bridge", the Gallant Men send a company along with Italian Partisans to destroy a bridge over the Bella Rosa river. I found some historical similarity with a short passage about the 36th Infantry Division following the fall of Monte Cassino. On May 30th, two regiments of the division had found a small gap in the German Caesar Line near Villetri. With an ample helping of creative license, I replaced this gap with the imaginary bridge over the Bella Rosa. So this month's scenario is purely hypothetical. Not even sure there is a Bella Rosa river in Italy, but it's in the Gallant Men...so maybe!!!
If you have never seen the Gallant Men, I would certainly recommend it. It's pretty good for the time period that it was produced. There is perhaps an over abundance of M1 Carbines in use, but it was probably preferred by the actors as opposed to lugging around the heavier M1 Rifle all day. Plus, there larger number of rounds allows for longer shooting scenes. You never hear the ejection of M1 clips and rarely see them ever reload their weapons. It's definitely not the Band of Brothers, but the addition of stock footage from the Italian campaign can be interesting at times. The Germans suffer a bit from having to wear 1930 Stahlhelms as opposed to 1942 versions...so there's that.
GJ091 is also a Deluxe ASL scenario. Some folks will hate that, but a few others may enjoy it. I used maps d3 and d5 from Le Franc Tireur's outstanding Deluxe Pack 1. These are truly some wonderful maps. DASL games are of course very different from standard ASL. Ranges and distances really compress. This scenario is 7 turns long and allows both sides to take their time and make smart moves. The ability to exit exists every turn. So keep that in mind when playing this scenario. Let the compressed battlefield work for you and not against you.
Here now is the January scenario. Please note that PDF's are still unavailable. I'm working on this, but have not yet resolved this problem. So my apologies.
As always these monthly "Basement Quality" Scenarios are offered for fun only and as a thank you to the readers of this blog.
Remember to open pictures in a new window in order to maximize the size.
And as always, these scenarios can be downloaded from The ASL Scenario Archive
(just search on Grumble Jones).
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