Muddling along...200th post

Sadly not a lot to report for the 200th post. It has been a case of cat-like herding of various projects into productive activity at weekends recently...

Enthusiasm and mojo has flitted between various things to do, and heavily influenced by lack of energy and poor weather. I have variously fiddled with WW2, Arab-Israeli but eventually managed to get another Soldier King contingent cleaned up, washed, converted and primed and managed to dodge showers enough to get them spray undercoated black.

This is for Estavia; another infantry brigade of 4 regiments + combined Grenadiers, a Dragoon Brigade and a regiment of Grenzer LI.

After this, there are some additions to the Electoral forces and some rebels / civilian militia. There are also a handful of Fimo personality figures, mostly female. I have acquired some more Rospak horses which I used for my original personality figures, so may add more.

Reading has seen me finish the two volumes of Robert Forczyk's desert war books:

Desert Armour: Tank Warfare in North Africa: Beda Fomm to Operation Crusader, 1940–41

Desert Armour: Tank Warfare in North Africa: Gazala to Tunisia, 1942–43

This covers from 1940 v Italians through to the end in Tunisia. Forcyzk is a US ex-armour (armor) officer and is extremely critical of just about everybody! He starts with known doctrine and works chronologically through the campaigns, providing lots of detail and first hand accounts as well as technological information.

My only criticism is that he (IMHO) contradicts himself somewhat by his criticism of "aggressive" generals such as O'Connor and Rommel, while simultaneously being critical of passive or defensive minded commanders; he is correct that both O'Connor and Rommel neglected supply considerations in favour of keeping the pressure on the enemy, but seems less impressed with the significant psychological advantages that the aggressive approach  gained. I suspect this is the orthodox armor commander in him with all that training on supply.....

Definitely recommended for anyone interested in WW2 in the desert.  

Other reading has been two new books on Pavia 1525 in the hope it will inspire me to finish off the flats that are sitting there undercoated.

The books are The Battle of Pavia 24 February 1525 by Luigi Casali and Marco Galandra a slim 112 paperback in the Italian Battlefield series no 31. This is the English translation and is very expensive for what you get. However it is packed with information - sadly not always referenced, but the extensive bibliography is impressive and pictures. It does suffer from some errors where clearly they mean one side but refer to the other - it's not clear if this is due to translation.

The other is The Battle of Pavia by Massimo Predonzani from Helion. This is his second book on the battle and somewhat confusingly has changed his mind on where the Imperialists broke into the park. He now favours the northern entrance but TBH so far has provided very little evidence for why. He has failed to explain how they accessed the inner dividing wall without first breaking into the surrounding wall. So far he has only mentioned lots of modern authors favouring this approach and that it was more convenient to reach Mirabello. He does however provide various contemporary accounts of various events leading up to the battle and the divergent numbers of troops and casualties. I am only about to read his account of the battle, so will look forward to see if he can provide an more convincing interpretation. The northern gate entry creates a very different battle.  One downside is that the narrative frequently makes references to places which don't appear on the maps provided which makes it difficult to follow sometimes. Again lots of illustrations.

The first book favours the entry via the Due Porte gate and even refers to the same Italian book I have with it's contemporary chronicler.  Having tried to reconcile the various contemporary accounts, It's my view the eastern approach to the park is the only one which makes sense of the various conflicting accounts. However, I will see if Predonzani can persuade me but from his narrative so far I'm far from convinced as he relies on secondary sources such as Jean Giorno who it appears accepted modern names of places at face value without any examination of historical information - the Pescarina Gate for example being derived from reasons other than the marquis de Pescara.

Martin Rapier's report of the SOA conference and in particular the military / political campaign on the internal struggles of the Seleucids within the context of wider Hellenistic struggles between Ptolemies, Seleucids and Antigonids has got me looking at ancients again.....

With leave coming up shortly, I;m hoping to get a lot more painted, so watch this space!