Arnhem, Part 2

Picking up the story again, XXX Corps are up against stubborn resistance at every twist and turn with hidden German units suddenly opening fire from unexpected quarters

each bridge is a bottleneck and it is here the Germans try to cause the maximum nuisance by hitting armoured vehicles to cause a pile up

Outside Oosterbeek and Arnhem more and more German units are arriving

so the paras disperse to make the most of what cover there is

 German armour starts to winkle its way into the cramped back streets

and panzer grenadiers dismount from their half tracks to join battle

a nasty nebelwerfer battery is deployed way beyond Oosterbeek but more than able to rain down some vicious fire on the defenders

There's never enough cover

truck loads of German infantry arrive and attack the buildings 

and there's heavy stuff like this Tiger II as well

more shots of the streets in Arnhem where the hand to hand fighting takes place

with all thats going on, how come Mel has got time to watch the Six Nations Rugby on his iPad ?!!!

Here is veteran war gamer and author, Charlie Wesencraft in the background, who seemed to take great delight in plotting the downfall of my brave paras around Oosterbeek, guided by Rapid Fire! expert, John Smith

Here's Charlie addressing us at the Featherstone Memorial Dinner held on the Saturday evening. On his left, Ron Miles, who gamed with Don down at Southampton for all those years.

Another one of our characters, Paul "General Whiskers" Wisken who won an award for being the nattiest dresser.  Paul is also well known on the re-enactor circuit here in the UK and on the continent.

Here's Charlie showing he's a man of the modern age - instructing Steve Clarke on how to use an iPad !

But we digress - back to the battle ! A Para gun takes out an armoured car but has casualties amongst the gun team

plenty of activity going on around Oosterbeek too with John and Grant upsetting Brian Fish by the look of things.

I enjoyed this moment, when one of my hidden anti-tank guns

took out a Tiger II in spectacular fashion

Well done, lads !  Good dice rolling.

I'm going to bring Part 2 to a close now, hopefully Part 3 will follow this evening.

Oh, and Carlo, yes, it was played in 1/72 or 20mm and as you will gather from the text above, the rules used were Rapid Fire!