Battle of Resaca Reenactment

Resaca was a battle that happened during the Atlanta campaign on 13-15 May, 1864.  It featured about 90,000 Union and 60,000 Confederate troops.  The battle was a bit of a stalemate until Sherman's forces moved around the Confederates threatening to cut them from the railroad.

The reenactment was on a somewhat gloomy and chilly Saturday.  There were about 3,000 reenactors at the battle, so it was a small fraction of the actual battle.  One of the nice things about this reenactment is that they have it set so that most of the fighting is right in front of you, so you have a good view of the show.

The casualties at the end of the day

Star Wars fleet WIP

I have been slowly building up my Star Wars fleet, so wanted to take a moment to give some comments on the ships that I am using in case someone else wanted to do the same.

Imperial Star Destroyer.

The Imperial Star Destroyer that I am using is the Hallmark ornament.  I have 3 of these guys.

This ship is huge when compared to the rest of my ships, which I think is perfect, because Star Destroyers are huge!  It measures 13cm long which would scale to 1300 meters, and the ship should be about 1600 meters.

Mon Calmari Cruisers.

I have 2 different cruisers.  Both are from the old WOTC Star Wars line.  Now oop, but readily available on Ebay and other location.

MC80a - Winged variant

This measures 11cm long and 5cm across at the widest point.  At 1:10,000 that scales to about 1100 meters, which is fairly close.  The details are ok and it looks good with the Star Destroyer.  It is smaller, which it should be.

Viscount 

This model is huge.  It measures 17cm, so about 1700 meters at scale.  Wookipedia says that the Viscount should be 17,000 meters.  About the same size as a super star destroyer.

Odyssey Slipways ships

Odyssey Slipways (link) ships are well detailed multipart kits.  They can be a bit challenging to assemble because they have some tiny parts.  Overall, though they are well detailed.

Interdictor Star Destroyer.

This ship measures 5.5cm so 550 meters

Rebel Assault Frigate.

My favorite ship of the star wars universe!

Measures 7cm or 700meters

Nebulon B Frigate

Measures just below 4cm or 400 meters

Nebulon B2

This ship looks like a shark flying through space!

I love the look of this ship!  Measures 4cm or 400 meters

Bulk Cruiser

This is a relatively new release, and a great looking ship.  It measures 6cm or 600 meters.

Lancer Frigate

The lancer measures 2.5cm or 250 meters

Halmark Blockade Runner

This ship comes with the Star Destroyer.  It is actually too big for the scale, but it looks better with the fighters than the ones that do scale.  It measures 2.5cm or 250 meters  I also have the Odyssey Slipways one, but it looks too small beside the fighters, so I am not sure I will use it.

This fighter has seen a few too many battles!

Very small!

Fighters

These are all produced by Studio Bergstrom (link).  Obiously they don't scale to 1:10,000.  At that scale an a-wing would have to be 1mm, which would be a dot!

The whole group.

Movie - "Fury"

Went to see the movie Fury last weekend.  It was a good, but not great movie, but it does give me some good wargame ideas.

The reason that I say it was good, but not great was that it falls into that Holywood trap of "War is Bad!"  In recent years most of the war movies from Holywood has focused on how deadly war is, and war IS deadly.  However, sometimes it isn't quite as deadly as Holywood makes it out to be.  At the beginning of this movie, I could pick out all of the people that would die, and the ones that wouldn't die.

Spoiler Alert!

I knew right off the bat that all of the other tanks would be knocked out and their crews killed.  I could even pick out that the new guy would be the sole survivor.  Everyone who get shot is killed!

That isn't the case in real life.  Plenty of people that get shot survive.  They often have horrid injuries to overcome, but they live.  They are evacuated to the rear where their wounds are treated.  The ambulance isn't instantly hit as it drives away.  They even can return home without their ship being sunk, or their airplane crashing.  That was something that Band of Brothers did well.

Also, not every crew member in a tank will die when it gets hit.  I know an older lady who's brother was in a Sherman in North Africa.  His tank was hit, and all of the crew bailed out except for the assistant driver.  He went back to help the driver out, but while he was there, the ammo exploded and he as well as the other crew member were killed.

If we wen't by Holywoods ideas, then we would never have to worry about forward hospitals, because you either get a minor scratch and keep fighting, or you get killed.

The good thing about the movie is that the tanks looked authentic.  They didn't use M24 Chaffees for Shermans, and M60s for Tigers.  There were actual Sherman tanks and Tiger tanks, as well as Greyhounds and other authentic looking vehicles.  It was great to see Germans use Panzershreks and and Panzerfausts.  The fighting tactics were pretty good also.  They used fire and maneuver instead of just sitting and having a long ranged slugfest.