Rocketman (wargaming blog)

EXTREMIS

2008-07-13T05:53:00.000-07:00

1936. Bombay, India.

General Sir Michael Keating, head of the Imperial Afghanistan Operations Department sits at his desk, reading a report with a heavy frown on his face. One hand smoothes his moustache obsessively as his eyes dart back and forth from the papers before him, to a large map of India and Afghanistan pinned to the wall.
There is a knock at the door and the General raises sad and weary eyes. ”Come in”. The door is opened by his young secretary Gladys who looks noticeably flushed.
”There is a gentleman to see you Sir.” She announces.
Before the General can ask who, a tall and well built man enters the room and upon seeing the old army officer strides forward and extends his hand. ”General Keating Sir! It’s been a long while!”
Keating stares at the hand in astonishment, but only for a second. Standing abruptly he lets out a exclamation of surprise. ”Great Scott! Young Mansfield! ...but what the deuce are you doing here?”
Mansfield smiles broadly as they shake hands vigorously (the General wincing slightly). ”Orders sir. Sir Hugh sent us a wire and told us to report to you at the first possible opportunity, seems you’re having problems with our old friend Korsakov.”
The Generals eyes flicker to the report lying upon his desk and come alive.
”My God!” he cries out suddenly. ”You don’t mean to tell me you’re the secret agent Sinclair promised me!”
”The very same!” Mansfield chuckles.
”You’re the rocket man?”
”Yes, but...” Mansfield glances over his shoulder theatrically,”It’s all a bit hush hush you know.”
General Keating nods gravely. ”Of course, of course. I didn’t mean to burst out like that, but I didn’t have the first notion of what Sinclair meant when he wired he was sending a ‘rocket man’, some sort of dashed code word I assumed, I certainly didn’t expect to see you walking into my office as proud as Punch.”
Mansfield walks over to the map of Afghanistan and after offering a cigarette to the General, lights a Pall Mall.
”So what’s afoot Sir?”
”Well, you may know more about the business than I do seeing as you’ve apparently had dealings with this fellow before!”
”Korsakov?”
”Yes indeed. It seems this damned Bolshevik’s taken up residence in Northern Afghanistan and he’s making a big stink with King Shah and some of the northern tribes. Our man in Afghanistan, Cartwright, has sent me this report and I’ve been turning the whole thing over and over in my mind and I can’t for the life of me make head or tail of it. It’s a rum business d’you see? ...and London wants it dealt with in double quick time.”
”Why doesn’t the King just chase him out then?”
The General sighs and passes a sheet of paper to Mansfield. ”Look at the numbers. This Korsakov fellow has his own private army, with tanks, armoured cars and even a bally armoured train!”
”No aircraft though?”
”No... Not that we know of but our information is sketchy. Here’s what we know so far; some time earlier this year Korsakov came down south through Uzbekistan to the Afghan border on an armoured train. None of the locals had ever seen such an item and it naturally got around. Our man in Kabul decided to go north and find out more but he had no luck. He returned to Kabul only to find that in his absence the King had learned that Alim Khan had...”
“Alim Khan?”
”The old ruler of Bukhara, he was ousted by the Bolsheviks in 1920 and he’s been living in Kabul ever since. I understand he’s something of a thorn in the Kings side, but too rich and influential with the northern tribes to risk alienating. According to Cartwright, Alim Khan is some how involved with Korsakov, but we don’t know exactly how. We think Korsakov may be getting ready to take over Afghanistan and use Alim Khan as a proxy ruler, but we can’t be sure. Alim Khan is a cunning devil and he could simply be milking the Russian for funding, selling him favours with the Northern Tribes.”
”Who are the northern tribes?”
”There are quite a few, mostly Turcoman, but with a few Pashtun scattered amongst them. We’re not sure where Korsakov is, but he seems to be operating some where in the Kunduz region.”
The two men regard the map doubtfully.
”It’s a quite a distance from Bombay” Mansfield notes.
”Quite, and I haven’t got the first idea what to do about it. If Korsakov is as well armed as he appears to be, then he may very well upset the balance of power in Afghanistan and things could get a bit sticky for all of us. The Communists won’t allow Afghanistan to become a threat to their southern border, and I’ve no doubt they’ll attack and take the whole country for themselves.”
”That could be what Korsakov is counting on” Mansfield replies. The General glances at the younger man sharply.
”What do you mean? Who is this Korsakov fellow anyway? The only thing Hugh Sinclair’s told me is that he used to be head of some kind of special experimental military project called ONB7. I’ll be blessed if I know what that is”
”He’s a dangerous character” Mansfield replies as he shakes his head ruefully. ”He had an entire army at his disposal in Kazakhstan, light and heavy armour units, special guards, aircraft, and some kind of death ray he was preparing to use against Moscow:”
”A death ray?”
”Yes. Thankfully we put an end to it, but Heaven only knows what else the man has up his sleeve. He was impossible to kill you know. He was wearing a suit of bullet proof armour would you believe!?”.
”A what?”
”Like a sort of motorized knight in plate armour”
”The Devil you say!” General Keating pours himself a stiff glass of whiskey and settles down behind his desk. ”That settles it. You’ll have to go up there and deal with him again, but I won’t send you alone. As it happens, Sir John Napier is in Lahore with his special operations boys. They’ve been dealing with a nasty Thuggee cult but I gather that’s all done with now. I’ll drop him a line and let him know your own your way.”
”Excellent” Mansfield stubs out his cigarette. ”I’ll gather my lot and we’ll fly up there at once”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, let me get this straight...” Mitchell aims a finger at Mansfield as they recline on padded seats in the back of a chartered de Havilland Dragon. “...that damned Bolshie jumped on a train with a load of tanks n’ men, and headed south to another secret base, in Afghanistan?” Mansfield nods as he lights a Pall Mall.
“Correct”
“And now we’re being asked to stop him, again?” George interjects from his seat behind Mitchell.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Mansfield smiles slowly. “Oh, I’m sure we can think of something. This chap we’re to meet, Sir John Napier, has a few resources up his sleeve I believe. We won’t be going in alone and we won’t have to rely on a few Russian soldiers this time either.”
“What’s he got, that’s so special this here Napier fellah?”
Mansfield turns to grin at the big Texan.
“Tanks”
“Tanks?”
“Tanks. Four of them to be precise. Vickers, Mark II’s. They’re not the latest thing, but they’re better than anything the Afghans have and they’ll give Korsakov a run for his money if we use them right.”
“Tanks is good” Mitchell concedes, “But we need troops as well.”
“We’ll have them. Napier runs some kind of local operations group and they specialise at solving awkward situations along the frontier. They’re going in as our main force. The tanks are their support.”
“British soldiers?” George asks
“Locals from Lahore, but with a few specialists too. Colonials mostly I expect.”

Twelve hours later the Dragon lands on a dusty airstrip just north of Peshawar. Mansfield peers out of the window at as the plane taxis towards a hanger. A tall fair haired man in a colonial uniform is standing on the turret of a Rolls Royce armoured car watching with one hand shading his eyes from the setting sun.
“We there?” Mitchell mutters opening his eyes and peering about.
Mansfield leaves his friends gathering the baggage and as the Dragons engines splutter into silence, he strides across the dusty airfield. The fair haired man hops down fro his vantage point and saunters closer.
“Captain Mansfield?” he asks in a clearly British accent.
“The same” Mansfield shakes the offered hand.
“Pleased to meet you” the other man is taller and stands with the causal air of the English gentry abroad. “I’m Gerald Leftbridge-Smythe, but usually every one just calls me Lefty”.
Mansfield nods, noting the polished lieutenant’s pips on Leftbridge-Smythe’s shoulders. “It’s been a while since I was addressed as Captain” he smiles.
“Those were days eh?” Leftbridge-Smythe smiles thinly as he watches the plane being unloaded. “Tell you what. Why don’t you let my chaps help yours and I’ll give you a ride back to the camp?”
Mansfield glances over at the Rolls Royce and Leftbridge-Smythe catches his eye. “Oh, not in the Roller. We have a slightly more comfortable conveyance for officers, what d’you say?” Mansfield smiles as he notes a dull grey touring car parked beside a nearby hanger. “Certainly. I’m sure George and Mitchell can manage without me”
“That’s the spirit. So tell me, where did they call you Captain then?”

Leftbridge-Smythe drives the anonymous car across the airfield to where a small military camp has been set up amongst a grove of tall trees. Daniel Mansfield, having dozed for the last few hours feels the tiredness growing upon him again regardless but just as he begins to yearn for a comfortable bed, his fatigue evaporates as four Vickers Mk II tanks come abruptly into view, he is about to comment on the sight when his eye catches three smaller tanks beyond them. Noting the abrupt change in his companion’s posture, Leftbridge-Smythe smirks well naturedly. “Warms the heart eh?”
Mansfield nods and the car suddenly swerves to halt before a large tent with a heavy set man in a khaki uniform standing before it.
“Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Napier” Leftbridge-Smythe introduces the man who lifts his hat to Mansfield revealing close cropped iron grey hair above a kindly face.
“Captain Daniel Mansfield, former fighter pilot in France and later Iraq and now... how shall we say it? A specialist working for her Majesty?” Napier opens the flap of his tent to reveal comfortable seats and a table of food.
Mansfield shrugs and enters the tent. “Perhaps Sir we shouldn’t mention it?”
Napier laughs as he follows the younger men into the tent. “Perhaps your right. I’m sure Keating wasn’t exaggerating when he said we might need you, and I understand you’ve had dealings with this Korsakov fellow before?”
“You could say that. He kidnapped my fiancé so I destroyed his death ray and scuppered his plan to obliterate Moscow.”
Mansfield sits at the table as a small Indian man-servant begins to open and proffer various exotic dishes. Napier and Leftbridge-Smythe glance at each other in astonishment.

Later, after Mitchell and George have arrived, Sir John gathers his most trusted men about him to go over the mission.
“Gentlemen, tomorrow we begin a most hazardous endeavour. Our orders are to enter Afghanistan and make our way to Kabul. There we will rendezvous with a local regiment of the Kings guards, and together we will make our way to Kunduz. Once in Kunduz we will conduct operations against a renegade Bolshevik named Korsakov, and his private army... Yes Rogers?”
At the back of the tent, a short, dark haired man with a stumpy beard stands up.
“Pardon me sir, but will we driving north or taking a train?”
“We shall have to drive north I’m afraid. Once we’re in Afghanistan we have to be as inconspicuous as possible, so no trains or major roads. Not that there are any. It’s going to be hard slog but with luck we should be able to reach Kabul quickly.”

Starting

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Player One; Rasmus

Command
Rocketman
George Macarthur & ’Mad Dog’ Mitchell
One Morris C4 15-CWT Light Truck
5 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers & Royal Afghan Army
One Vickers Mk VIc light tank.
Two Rolls-Royce Fordson Armoured cars (RAA).

Player Two; Palle

Command
Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Napier
Mister James Cartwright (Civilian Advisor)
One Staff Car
One Signals vehicle (RCS)
1 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Two Vickers Mk II medium tanks.
One Vickers Mk VI light tank.
A Company; 17/21st Lancers;
1st Platoon (Mechanised).
1st Section. (7 Rifles & 1 LMG)
2nd Section. (7 Rifles & 1 LMG)
3rd Section (7 Rifles & 1 LMG)
Three Crossley Light Trucks
C Company; Royal Army Service Corps
One Support Vehicle; Crossley Light Truck (Ammunition)
One Support Vehicles; Crossley Light Truck (Provisions)
D Company; 8th Royal Dragoon Guards;
Engineering Section;
One Heavy Recovery Vehicle

Player Three; Jan

Command
Lt. Leftbridge-Smythe
2 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Two Vickers Mk II medium tanks.
One Vickers Mk VI light tank.
B Company; 3rd Lahore Division;
1st Platoon.
1st Section. (10 Rifles)
2nd Section. (10 Rifles)
3rd Section. (10 Rifles)
4th Section (1 HMG & 2 Mules)

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Player Four; Goeg

Command
Comrade Sgt Nagovitsin
1st Company; 122nd Guards Rifle Red Banner Order of Termez Regiment;
1st Squad;
Fire Team A (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team B (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team C (1 HMG)

Player Five; Oleg

Command
Comrade Major Kapustin
Comrade Captain Yankov; Radio Signals Officer
Comrade Sgt Timorov; Sniper
6th Company; ONB-7 Independent Special-Purpose Rifle Corps;
1st Platoon.
1st Section. (10 Rifles & 1 LMG)
2nd Section. (10 Rifles & 1 LMG)
3rd Section (1 HMG)
1st Battery; ONB-7 Independent Artillery Battalion;
Two 76.2mm M1902 guns
2nd Battery; ONB-7 Independent Artillery Battalion;
Two 76.2mm M1902 guns (Off Table)
3rd Battery; ONB-7 Independent Artillery Battalion;
Two 76.2mm M1902 guns (Off Table)

Player Six; Tracey

Command
Olga (Uighur Bandit Queen & unscrupulous arms dealer)
Bandits & Anarchists
Nikolai Dargomyzhsky; Anarchist Hero
Silent Wu; Explosives expert
Ten Uighur Bandits (Rifles)
Four Anarchists (Rifles)

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Map

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Victory conditions

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Special notes

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Vehicles

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Starting

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Player one; Rasmus

Command;
Rocketman
George Macarthur
’Mad Dog’ Mitchell
One Morris C4 15-CWT Light Truck
5 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers & RAA
One Vickers Mk VIc Light Tank.
Two Rolls-Royce Fordson Armoured Cars (RAA).

Players two; Palle

Command;
Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Napier
Mister James Cartwright (Civilian Advisor)
One Staff Car
3 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Two Vickers Mk II Medium Tanks.
One Vickers Mk VI Light Tank.
A Company; 17/21st Lancers;
2nd Platoon (Mechanised).
1st Section. (7 Rifles & 1 LMG)
2nd Section. (7 Rifles & 1 LMG)
3rd Section (7 Rifles & 1 LMG)
Three Crossley Light Trucks
3rd Platoon (Mechanised). (Off table).
1st Section. (7 Rifles & 1 LMG) (Off table)
2nd Section. (7 Rifles & 1 LMG) (Off table)
3rd Section (7 Rifles & 1 LMG) (Off table)
Three Crossley Light Trucks (Off table)
C Company; Royal Army Service Corps
One Support Vehicle (Ammunition) (Off table)
One Support Vehicles (Provisions) (Off table)
D Company; 8th Royal Dragoon Guards;
Engineering Section;
One Heavy Recovery Vehicle (Off table)

Player Three; Jan

Command;
Lt. Leftbridge-Smythe
4 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Two Vickers Mk II Medium Tanks.
One Vickers Mk VI Light Tank.
B Company; 3rd Lahore Division;
2nd Platoon.
1st Section. (10 Rifles)
2nd Section. (10 Rifles)
3rd Section. (10 Rifles)
4th Section (1 HMG & 2 Mules)
3rd Platoon. (Off table)
1st Section. (10 Rifles) (Off table)
2nd Section. (10 Rifles) (Off table)
3rd Section. (10 Rifles) (Off table)
4th Section (1 HMG & 2 Mules) (Off table)

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Player four; Goeg

Command
Comrade Sgt Legenko
Sergei Babakov (Political officer)
1st Company; 122nd Guards Rifle Red Banner Order of Termez Regiment;
3rd Squad;
Fire Team A (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team B (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team C (1 HMG)
One Renault FT17 Light Tank.

Player five; Oleg

Command
Comrade Polkovnik 'Yuri'
Comrade Captain Glinka; Radio Signals Officer
ONB-7 Independent Guards Tank Battalion
12th Squadron
Two K4 Heavy Tanks
One RK16 ’Motor Tachanka’, Reconnaissance Vehicle
6th Company; ONB-7 Independent Special-Purpose Rifle Corps;
5th Platoon.
1st Section. (10 Rifles & 1 LMG)
2nd Section. (10 Rifles & 1 LMG)
3rd Section. (2 Scout Snipers & 1 HMG)
17th Battery; ONB-7 Independent Artillery Battalion;
Two 76.2mm M1902 guns

Player Six; Tracey

Command
Dimtriy Ostrowski (Anarchist Hero)
Anarchists
Leon Stetsenko; Anarchist Machine Gunner.
Mykola Glazunov; Anarchist Sniper.
Henri Stolz; Anarchist Engineer.
Ten Anarchists (Rifles)
One Austin Putilov Series III Armoured Car.

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Map

1. Market plaza. This is the starting point for the Black guards and their allies.
2. The bridge.
3. Ruined mosque.
4. Ruined houses. This is the starting point for Lt Col Sir John Napier
5. The mountain pass. This is the starting point for Lt Leftbridge

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Victory conditions

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Special notes

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Vehicles

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Starting

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Player one; Rasmus

Command
Rocketman
George Macarthur
’Mad Dog’ Mitchell
One Morris C4 15-CWT Light Truck
5 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers & RAA
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 2

Players two; Palle

Command
Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Napier
Mister James Cartwright (Civilian Advisor)
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 2
3 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 2
A Company; 17/21st Lancers;
3rd Platoon (Mechanised).
1st Section. (7 Rifles & 1 LMG)
2nd Section. (7 Rifles & 1 LMG)
3rd Section (7 Rifles & 1 LMG)
C Company; Royal Army Service Corps;
One Support Vehicle (Ammunition)
One Support Vehicles (Provisions)
D Company; 8th Royal Dragoon Guards;
Engineering Section;
One Heavy Recovery Vehicle

Player Three; Jan

Command
Lt. Leftbridge-Smythe
4 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 2
B Company; 3rd Lahore Division;
3rd Platoon.
1st Section. (10 Rifles)
2nd Section. (10 Rifles)
3rd Section. (10 Rifles)
4th Section (1 HMG & 2 Mules)

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Player four; Goeg

Command
Comrade Sgt Dargomyzhsky
1st Company; 122nd Guards Rifle Red Banner Order of Termez Regiment
6th Squad;
Fire Team A (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team B (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team C (1 HMG)
One Renault FT17 Light Tank.

Player five; Oleg

Command
Comrade Polkovnik ’Yuri’
Comrade Captain Glinka; Radio Signals Officer
ONB-7 Independent Guards Tank Battalion
10th Squadron
Two K4 Heavy Tanks
One RK16 ’Motor Tachanka’, Reconnaissance Vehicle
6th Company; ONB-7 Independent Special-Purpose Rifle Corps;
4th Platoon.
1st Section. (10 Rifles & 1 LMG)
2nd Section. (10 Rifles & 1 LMG)
3rd Section. (2 Scout Snipers & 1 HMG)

Player Six; Tracey

Command
Dimtriy Ostrowski (Anarchist Hero)
Anarchists
Leon Stetsenko; Anarchist Machine Gunner
Mykola Glazunov; Anarchist Sniper
Henri Stolz; Anarchist Engineer
Ten Anarchists (Rifles)
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 2.

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Map

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Victory conditions

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Special notes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vehicles

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting

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Player one; Rasmus

Command
Rocketman
George Macarthur
’Mad Dog’ Mitchell
One Morris C4 15-CWT Light Truck
5 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers & RAA;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 3

Players two; Palle

Command
Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Napier
Mister James Cartwright (Civilian Advisor)
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 3
3 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 3
A Company; 17/21st Lancers;
3rd Platoon (Mechanised)
Any troops which survived Chapt 3
C Company; Royal Army Service Corps;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 3
D Company; 8th Royal Dragoon Guards;
Engineering Section;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 3

Player Three; Jan

Command
Lt. Leftbridge-Smythe
4 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 3
B Company; 3rd Lahore Division;
3rd Platoon;
Any troops which survived Chapt 3

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Player four; Goeg

Command
Comrade Sgt Nagovitsin
1st Company; 122nd Guards Rifle Red Banner Order of Termez Regiment;
2nd Squad;
Fire Team A (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team B (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team C (1 HMG)

Player five; Oleg

Command
Comrade Major Kapustin
Comrade Captain Yankov; Radio Signals Officer
Comrade Sgt Timorov; Sniper
6th Company; ONB-7 Independent Special-Purpose Rifle Corps;
Any troops which survived Chapt 1
ONB-7 Armoured Train ’Destroyer’
One Armoured Locomotive (No weapons)
Two Gun Carriages (4 76.2mm guns & 4 HMGs)
One Unarmoured Passenger Carriage (No weapons)

Player Six; Tracey

Command
Olga (Uighur Bandit Queen & unscrupulous weapons dealer)
Bandits & Anarchists
Nikolai Dargomyzhsky; Anarchist Hero
Silent Wu; Explosives expert
Any troops which survived Chapt 1

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Map

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Victory conditions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Special notes

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Vehicles

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting

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Player one; Rasmus

Command
Rocketman
George Macarthur
’Mad Dog’ Mitchell
One Morris C4 15-CWT Light Truck
5 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers & RAA;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 4

Players two; Palle

Command
Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Napier
Mister James Cartwright (Civilian Advisor)
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 4
3 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 4
A Company; 17/21st Lancers;
3rd Platoon (Mechanised).
Any troopss which survived Chapt 4
C Company; Royal Army Service Corps;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 4
D Company; 8th Royal Dragoon Guards;
Engineering Section;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 4
ONB-7 Armoured Train ’Destroyer’
Any Carriages which survived Chapt 4

Player Three; Jan

Command
Lt. Leftbridge-Smythe
4 Squadron; 17/21st Lancers;
Any vehicles which survived Chapt 4
B Company; 3rd Lahore Division;
3rd Platoon.
Any troopss which survived Chapt 4

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Player four; Goeg

Command
Comrade Major Borodin
Comrade Sgt Dargomyzhsky
1st Company; 122nd Guards Rifle Red Banner Order of Termez Regiment;
4th Squad;
Fire Team A (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team B (5 rifles & 1 LMG)
Fire Team C (1 HMG)
One Renault FT17 Light Tank.

Player five; Oleg

Command
Comrade First Secretary Viktor Korsakov
Comrade Polkovnik ’Yuri’ Commanding
Comrade Captain Glinka; Radio Signals Officer
ONB-7 Independent Guards Tank Battalion;
1st Squadron;
Two K4 Heavy Tanks
One RK16 ’Motor Tachanka’, Reconnaissance Vehicle
1st Company; ONB-7 Independent Special-Purpose Rifle Corps;
1st Platoon;
1st Section. (10 Rifles & 1 LMG)
2nd Section. (10 Rifles & 1 LMG)
3rd Section. (2 Scout Snipers & 1 HMG)

Player Six; Tracey

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Map

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Victory conditions

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Special notes

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Vehicles

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THE TERROR OF OYSTER BAY

2008-07-13T05:45:00.001-07:00

A British scientist goes missing when his aeroplane crashes in the Everglades. Rocketman and his friends investigate the disapearance but find more than just alligators!

2008-07-13T05:23:00.001-07:00

Weaponry, equipment & vehicles

from the period 1839 to 1939.

Click on the links for further information from exterior sources

Handguns

Mauser C96 (Germany)

.45 Ballester Molina automatic pistol (Argentina)
8mm Roth Steyr M07 automatic pistol (Austria)
7.65mm Mannlicher M1894 automatic pistol (Austria)
7.63mm Mannlicher M1901 automatic pistol (Austria)
12mm Galand revolver (Belgium)
7.62mm Nagant M1895 revolver (Belgium/Russia)
9mm Lahti L-35 automatic pistol (Finland)
8mm M1892 ’Lebel’ revolver (France)
7.65mm MAB model D automatic pistol (France)
7.65mm M1935 automatic pistol (France)
9mm P08 Luger automatic pistol (Germany)
9mm Walther P38 automatic pistol (Germany)
7.63mm Mauser C96 ’Broom handle’ automatic pistol (Germany)
7.63mm Bergmann Nr 3 (& 5) automatic pistol (Germany)
.32 Frommer Stop automatic pistol (Hungary)
9mm Beretta M1934 automatic pistol (Italy)
8mm Nambu automatic pistol (Japan)
11mm Eibar revolver (Spain)
9mm Astra modelo 400 automatic pistol (Spain)
.442 Webley 'British Bulldog' revolver (UK)
.32 Webley revolver (UK)
.38 Webley-Mars automatic pistol (UK)
.38 Webley-Scott M1904 automatic pistol (UK)
.455 Webley Mark IV revolver (UK)
.38 Webley Mark IV revolver (UK)
9mm Welrod Mk1 silenced pistol (UK)
.44 & .12 guage LeMat twin barrelled revolver (USA)
.45 Colt Army 1873 revolver (USA)
.44 Remington M1858 revolver (USA)
.45 M1911 Colt automatic pistol (USA)
7.62mm 'Tula' Tokarev TT automatic pistol (USSR)

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Rifles

.303 Lee Enfield Mark III (UK)

Calibre, name, type, capacity, nation of origin, range & combat bonus

11mm FN Mauser M1889, Bolt action rifle, 8, Belgium, 36 LOS, 0
8mm Type 24 ’Chiang Kai-shek’, Bolt action rifle, 5, China, 36 LOS, +1
11mm Fusil Gras M1874, Bolt action rifle, 1, France, 36 LOS, 0
8mm M1886 ’Lebel’, Bolt action rifle, 8, France, 36 LOS, +1
7.92mm Mauser G98, Bolt action rifle, 5/20 Box, Germany, 36 LOS, +1
13.2mm Mauser ATR, Bolt action anti armour rifle, 1, Germany, 8/72 LOS, +4
6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano M1891, Bolt action Carbine, 6, Italy, 36 LOS, 0
6.5mm Cei-Rigotti, Automatic rifle, 25 Box, Italy, 36 LOS, +1
11mm Type 38 ’Meiji’, Bolt action Carbine, 5, Japan, 36 LOS, 0
7.7mm Type 99, Bolt action rifle, 5, Japan, 36 LOS, +1
10.15mm Jarmann M1884, Bolt action rifle, 8, Norway, 36 LOS, 0
.30 Krag-Jørgensen, Bolt action rifle, 5, Norway, 36 LOS, 0
.75 Pattern 1839 'Brown Bess', Muzzle loaded percussion gun, 1, UK, 24 LOS, 0
.704 Brunswick, Muzzle loaded percussion gun, 1, UK, 24 LOS, 0
.12-gauge Double barrelled shotgun, 2, UK, 8, LOS, 0
.577 Martini Henry, Bolt action rifle, 5, UK, 36 LOS, 0
.276 Pattern 1913, Bolt action rifle, 5, UK, 36 LOS, +1
.303 Lee Metford, Bolt action rifle, 10 Box, UK, 36 LOS, +1
.303 Lee Enfield Mark III/V, Bolt action rifle, 10 Box, UK, 36 LOS, +1
.303 Farquhar-Hill, Automatic rifle, 20 Drum, UK, 36 LOS, +1
.303 Nr 4. Snipers rifle, Bolt action rifle, 10 Box, UK, 72 LOS, +1
.55 Boys, Bolt action anti armour rifle, 5, UK, 8/72 LOS, +4
12-gauge Winchester M1897, Pump action shotgun, 5, USA, 8 LOS, 0
12-gauge Ithaca 37, Pump action shotgun, 5, USA, 8, LOS, 0
20-gauge Browning Auto-5, Automatic shotgun, 5, USA, 8 LOS, 0
10.75mm Berdan, Bolt action rifle, 1, USA, 36 LOS, 0
.30 Springfield, Bolt action rifle, 5, USA, 36 LOS, +1
.30 BAR, Automatic rifle, 20 Box, USA, 36 LOS, +1
7.62mm Mosin Nagant, Bolt action rifle, 5, USSR, 36 LOS, +1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Submachine guns

ZK383 (Czechoslovakia)

9mm ZK 383, Heavy submachine gun, 30 Box, Czechoslovakia, 18 LOS, +2
7.65mm MAS-38, Submachine gun, 32 Box, France, 8 LOS , +2
9mm Suomi KP 31 , Submachine gun , 20 or 40 box/50 or 70 Drum , Finland, 8 LOS, +2
7.63mm M712 Mauser 'Schnellfeuer', Fully automatic pistol, 20 Box, Germany, 8 LOS, +2 Video
9mm Luger Reihenfeuerpistole, Fully automatic pistol , 32 Snail, Germany, 8 LOS,+2
9mm Bergman MP18/28/35, Submachine gun, 20 Box/32 Snail, Germany , 8 LOS, +2
9mm MP38/40 , Submachine gun, 32 Box , Germany, 8 LOS, +2
9mm Steyr-Solothurn S100, Submachine gun, 32 Box, Germany, 8, LOS +2
9mm Villar Perosa, Twin barrel aircraft gun, ? Twin box, Italy , 8 LOS , +2
9mm Beretta M1918, Submachine gun, 25 Box, Italy, 8 LOS , +2
9mm Beretta M38A , Submachine gun, 40 Box, Italy , 8 LOS, +2
.45 Reising M50, Submachine gun, 20 Box, USA, 8 LOS , +2
.45 Thompson M1928/M1A1, Submachine gun, 20 Box/50 Drum, USA, 8 LOS, +2
7.62 PPD 34/38/40, Submachine gun, 25 Box/71 Drum, USSR, 8 LOS, +2

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Machine guns

.303 Lewis gun (USA/UK)

8mm Schwarzlose MG model 07/12, Machine gun, Belt, Austria Hungary, 36 LOS, +4
8mm Madsen, Light machine gun, 30 box, Denmark, 36 LOS, +3
7.5mm Chatelleraut M1924-9, Light machine gun, 25 box, France, 36 LOS, +3
8mm Hotchkiss M1914, Machine gun, Strip, France, 36 LOS, +4
7.92mm Maxim MG08, Machine gun, Belt, Germany, 36 LOS, +4
7.92mm Mauser MG34, Light machine gun, 50/Belt, Germany, 36 LOS, +3
6.5mm Breda M30, Light machine gun, 20 Box, Italy, 36 LOS, +3
8mm Breda M37, Machine gun, Strip, Italy, 36 LOS, +4
6.5mm Type 11 ’Nambu’, Light machine gun, 30 Box, Japan, 36 LOS, +3
7.7mm Type 92 ’Woodpecker’, Machine gun, 30 Box, Japan, 36 LOS, +4
.577/450 Bira gun, Twin barrelled machine gun, Drum, Nepal, 36 LOS, +4
.303 Lewis, Light machine gun, 47 drum, UK, 36 LOS, +3
.303 BREN, Light machine gun, 30 Box, UK, 36 LOS, +3
.303 Hotchkiss Mk 1 ‘Cavalry’, Light machine gun, 30 Strip, UK, 36 LOS, +3
.303 Vickers/Vickers Maxim, Machine gun, Belt, UK, 36 LOS, +4
.303 Nordenfelt gun, Multi barrelled machine gun, Hopper, UK/Sweden, 36 LOS, +4
.45 Gardner Model 1875, Twin barrelled machine gun, Hopper, USA, 36 LOS, +4
.30 Browning M1919A4, Machine gun Belt, USA, 36, LOS, +4
.50 Browning M2, Heavy Machine gun Belt, USA, 48, LOS, +4
7.62mm DP Light machine gun, 47 drum, USSR, 36 LOS, +3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heavy weapons

3.7 inch Mountan Howitzer

Twin .50 M2 HMG's with a 37mm anti aircraft gun mounted on an M3E1 carriage

20mm Madsen M38/M40 (Denmark) 2
25mm Hotchkiss anti tank gun (France)
37mm Bofors anti tank gun (Sweden)
40mm QF2 anti tank gun (UK)
40mm QF2 'Pom pom', naval anti aircraft gun (UK)
40mm Bofors gun (Sweden)
88mm FlaK 18, FlaK 36 & FlaK 37 anti aircraft guns (Germany)
QF 3.7 Inch/94mm mountain howitzer (UK) 2
128mm FlaK 40 anti aircraft gun (Germany)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vehicles

Motorbikes

Nimbus MC w/20mm MG

Nimbus MC w/20mm MG (Denmark)
BMW R32 (Germany)
BMW R35 (Germany)
Victoria KR1, KR2, KR3, KR6, KR7, KR8, KR9 'Fahrmeister', KR50, V99 Fix (Germany)
Simms Motor Scout (UK)
BSA Blue Star (UK)
BSA M20 (UK)
BSA Full list of models (UK)
Indian 101 Scout (USA)
Excelsior Super X (USA)
Harley-Davidson Model 7D (USA)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Armoured Cars

Rolls Royce (UK)

Rolls Royce armoured car (UK)
Top speed: 96 km/h
Range: 240 km
Crew: 3 or 4
Length: 5 m
Width: 1.9 m
Weight: 3.4 t
Turret: Yes
Armaments: 1 x .303 MG
Power plant: 40/50hp Rolls Royce
Armour: 9 mm
Info: Introduced in 1915, phased out of service in 1922, though some continued in India.
Modern video from tank festival (poor audio)

Arsenal Crossley (Estonia)
Landsverk L180, L181 and L182 (Sweden)
Pansarbil m/39 (Sweden)
39M Csaba (Hungary)
Steyr AGDZ/M35 Mittlere Panzerwagen (Austria)
Charron-Girardot-Voigt 1902 (France)
Laffly 80M (France)
Panhard 178 (France) 2
Panhard 165/175 (France) 2
Sd.Kfz.222 (Germany) 2
Sd.Kfz.231 (Germany) 2 3 4
Ehrhardt EV-4 (Germany) Video
Büssing A5P (Germany)
Simms Motor War Car (UK)
Austin/Austin-Putilov (UK/USSR) 2 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trucks

Crossley (UK)

Renault (France)

Crossley & Renault light trucks
Top speed: 40 km/h
Range: 200 km
Crew: 1
Length: 6 m
Width: 2 m
Weight: Under five tons
Turret: No
Armaments: No fixed armaments
Power plant: Under 50 hp
Armour: None

Morris C 4 (UK)

Morris C4/C8 15 CWT light truck/gun tractor (UK)
Top speed: 80 km/h
Range: 257 km
Crew: 1+5
Length: 4.5 m
Width: 2 m
Weight: 2.8 t
Turret: No
Armaments: No fixed armaments
Power plant: 4 cylinder, petrol engine 70 hp
Armour: None
Notes: Introduced in 1934

Morris C8 FAT Gun Tractor. (UK)
Morris C8 GS Medium truck. (UK)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Half Tracks

Citröen-Kégresse (France)

Citröen-Kégresse Half Track (France)
Top speed: circa 40 km/h, on road, depending on variant
Range: circa 150 Km
Crew: 1/3
Length: circa 4½ m, depending on variant
Width: 1.7 m
Weight: 1.8 t depending on variant
Turret: Optional. Some Citröen-Kérgresse half tracks were built as armoured cars.
Armaments: Depending on variant, some Citröen-Kérgresse armoured cars were armed with either a 37mm gun or a Hotchkiss 7.92mm MG
Power plant: 20/42hp, 4/6 cylinder Citröen petrol engine
Armour: Circa 9mm on armoured variants
Info: Was built in several diffierent variants, most notably, used as a gun tractor, armoured car or staff car. Civilian variants were also sold. A Kérgresse half track uses a rubber belt instead of a linked metal belt. This variation was invented by Adolphe Kérgresse for the Russian Czar, subsequently many Kérgresse vehicles saw service in Russia, and Poland. The US later used the Citröen-Kérgresse concept for the White M2 half track.
Original footage from 1933 (poor quality with classical music and French audio)
Original footage from Africa in the 1930's (poor quality with Dutch audio)
Video of restored vehicle (with Spanish audio)
Modern video of Danish vehicle (Good quality, no music)

French half-track page

AMC Shneider P16 (France)
Unic P107 (France)
Orion wagon (Germany)
Sd.Kfz.6 Zgkw. 5t (Germany)
Sd.Kfz. 10 (Germany) 2 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tankettes

Carden-Loyd tankette towing 3.7inch howitzer

Carden Loyd
Top speed: 40 km/h
Range: 144 km
Crew: 2
Length: 2.46 m
Width: 1.75 m
Weight: 1.5 t
Turret: No
Armaments: .303 inch Vickers machine gun
Power plant: Ford Model T petrol 4 cylinder 40 hp
Armour: 6 - 9mm
Info: The Carden Loyd became a classic tankette design worldwide, was license-built by several countries and became the basis of several designs produced in several different countries. It was not so much a light tank as a tracked machine gun carrier.

AMR33 (France)
AMR35 (France)
Renault UE Chenillette (France)
Carro Veloce CV-33 (Italy)
Carro Veloce CV-35 (Italy)
WD Schlepper 25PS (Germany)
TK-3/TKS (Poland)
Tančík vz. 33 (Czechoslovakia)
AH-IV (Czechoslovakia)
Type 92 'Jyu-Sokosha' (Japan) 2 3
Type 94 'Te-Ke' (Japan)
Type 97 'Te-Ke' (Japan)
Universal Carrier (UK)
T27 (USSR)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Light tanks

Vickers Mk IV (UK)

Vickers Mk VI light tank (UK) 2
Top speed: 45 km/h
Range: 210 km
Crew: 3
Length: 4 m
Width: 2 m
Weight: 4.8 t
Turret: Yes
Armaments: .50 Vickers HMG & .303 Vickers MG
Power plant: Meadows 88hp Six cylinder petrol engine
Armour: 4 - 14mm
Info: Circa 1,000 were built from 1935 onwards (Earlier variants from 1933 saw service in India). Many Mk IV's saw action in North Africa and in the early European campaigns of the Second World War where they were outclassed.
1940's newsreel on You Tube (with original audio)
Original footage from WW2 (Silent)
Desert footage (Silent)

Renault FT 17 (France)

Renault FT 17 light tank (France) 2
Top speed: 8 km/h
Range: 35 km (65 km on road)
Crew: 2
Length: 5 m
Width: 1.6 m
Weight: 6.7 t
Turret: Yes
Armaments: 37mm gun or 8mm Hotchkiss MG
Power plant: 35hp Renault four cylinder
Armour: 16mm
Info: The first tank to have a fully revolving turret. Introduced in 1918.
Video Video Video Video

Schneider CA1 (France)
St Chamond (France)
Hotchkiss H35 (France) 2
Hotchkiss H39 (France)
Renault AMR33 (France) 2
Renault AMR 35 (France)
Renault R35 (France) 2
Renault R40 (France) 2
FCM 36 (France) 2
Fiat 3000 (Italian FT17 variant) Video
7TP (Poland)
Kleiner Panzerbefehlswagen I (Germany)
LK1 (Germany)
LK2 (Germany)
Panzer I (Germany) 2 3
Panzer II (Germany) 2 3 4
Light tank V4 (Hungary)
38M 'Toldi' (Hungary)
Lt vz.34 (Czechoslovakia)
Lt vz.35/Panzer 35(t) (Czechoslovakia)
Panzer 38(t) (Czechoslovakia) 2
Stridsvagn m/21-29 (Sweden)
Stridsvagn L-5 (Sweden)
Stridsvagn m/37 (Sweden)
Stridsvagn L-60 (Sweden)
Landsverk L-100 (Sweden)
Type 95 'Ha-Go' (Japan) 2
Light Tank Mk II-V (UK)
Vickers 6 ton tank (UK)
Matilda Mk I (UK)
M1 Combat car (USA)
M2 Light tank (USA)
T18 (USSR)
T26 (USSR) 2 3 4
T37 (USSR)
T38 (USSR)
BT7 (USSR) 2 Video

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Medium and cruiser tanks

Rock Island T1 (USA)

Vickers Medium Mk II (UK)

Vickers Medium Mk II (UK)

Top speed: 21 km/h
Range: 193 km
Crew: 5
Length: 5.33 m
Width: 2.78 m
Weight: 12 t
Turret: Yes
Armaments: 47mm gun. 4 x HMG. 2 x LMG
Power plant: Armstromg Siddley V8, 90hp
Armour: 8 mm
Info: Brought into service in 1925. Phased out in 1939.
Modern video from tank festival (Poor quality)

Char D1 (France)
Char D2 (France)
Somua S35 (France) 2
Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien 'Dominatrix' (Germany)
Grosstraktor I, II & III (Germany) 2
Panzer III (Germany) 2 3 4
Fiat-Ansaldo Carro Armato M11/39 2
40M Turan-1 (Hungary)
Type 97 'Chi-Ha' (Japan) 2
'Little Willie' (UK)
Medium Mark A 'Whippet' (UK)
Medium Mark B (UK)
Medium Mark C (UK)
Medium Mark D (UK) Video
Vickers Medium Mk 1 (UK)
Vickers Medium Mark III (UK)
Cruiser Mk I/A9 (UK) 2
Cruiser Mk II/A10 (UK)
Cruiser Mk III/A13 (UK)
Cruiser Mk IV/A13MkII (UK) 2
Rock Island T1 (USA)
T19 (USSR)
T24 (USSR)
T28 (USSR) 2 Video

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heavy tanks

Char 2c (France)

Char 2C Heavy Tank (France)
Top speed: 15 km/h
Range: 150 km
Crew: 12
Length: 10.27 m
Width: 3 m
Weight: 69 t
Turret: Yes
Armaments: 75mm gun. 4 x HMG.
Power plant: 2 x 250hp
Armour: 45 mm
Info: The largest tank ever put into service. Only ten were built, and they never saw action.
Video, mostly stills

International 'Liberty' Mark VIII (UK/USA)

Converted International Mark VIII ‘Liberty’ heavy tank (UK/US)
Top speed: 10 km/h
Range: 68 km
Crew: 10
Length: 10.36 m
Width: 3.65 m
Weight: 43.5 t
Turret: Yes
Armaments: 3 x 60mm guns. 2 x HMG. 1 LMG
Power plant: V12, 338hp
Armour: 70 – 190 mm
Info: 100 were built in the USA, and 12 in Britain. Korsakov's tanks are made at a secret factory in Siberia and based on stolen blue prints
Original footage and modern musem video (silent)

Char 1 bis (France) 2
Fiat 2000 (Italy) 2
A7V 'Monster' (Germany) Video
A7V-U (Germany)
K Panzerkampfwagen (Germany)
PzKpfw 'Neubaufahrzeug' V & VI (German)
Mark I (UK)
'The Flying Elephant' (UK)
Vickers A1E1 Independent (UK) Video
TOG1 (UK)
Holt gas electric tank (USA)
'The Steam tank' (USA)
Tsar Tank (USSR)
SMK (USSR)
T100 (USSR)
T35 (USSR) Video Video

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aircraft

Fighters

Heinkel HE51D (Germany)

Heinkel HE 51D Seaplane fighter (Germany)

Top speed: 330 km/h
Range: 570 km
Crew: 1
Length: 8.4 m
Wingspan: 11 m
Weight (max loaded): 1,900 kg
Turret: No
Armaments: 2 x MG. 60kg bomb load.
Power plant: BMW V12 750hp
Armour: None
Info: Developed in 1931 for the Luftwaffe, 700 were eventually built. Many saw action in the Spanish civil war.
Original footage of HE 51's (Silent)
Original footage of HE 51's flying low (Silent)

Bristol F.2B (UK)

Bristol F.2B 'Brisfit' (UK)
Top speed: 198 km/h
Range: 593 km
Crew: 2
Length: 7.87 m
Wingspan: 11.96 m
Weight (max loaded): 1,474 kg
Turret: 1 rear gunner
Armaments: 2 or3 x MG. 110kg bomb load.
Power plant: Rolls Royce V12 275hp
Armour: None
Info: 5, 329 were built. Used extensively in the mid war period.
Modern footage of F.2 in flight (with soft music)
F.2 in museum (with soft music)

Dewoitine D.27 (France)
MB-150 Bloch (France)
Dewoitine D.500 (France)
Morane-Saulnier M.S. 406 (France)
Potez 630 (France)
Heinkel HE100 (Germany)
Messerschmitt BF 109 (Germany)
Heinkell HE 112 (Germany)
Macchi C.200 'Saetta' (Italy)
PZL P.11 (Poland)
Svenska Aero J6 ’Jagtfalken’ (Sweden)
Type 121 Vickers Wibault (UK)
Bristol F2 (UK)
Bristol MK 1/2 Bulldog (UK)
Mk II Gloster Gamecock (UK)

Hawker Hurricane (UK)
Supermarine Spitfire (UK)
PW-9 Boeing M15 (USA)
O-1 Curtis Falcon (USA)
P-1 Curtis ’Hawk’ (USA)
P-12 Boeing (USA)
P-36 Curtis ’Mohawk’ (USA)
P-40 Curtis ’Warhawk’ (USA)

Tupolev I-4 (USSR)
Polikarpov I-16 (USSR)
Rogozarski IK-3 (Yugoslavia)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bombers

Witteman-Lewis, "Barling Bomber" (USA)

Ilyushin DB-3 (USR)

Ilyushin DB-3 long range bomber (USSR)
Top speed: 439 km/h
Range: 3,800 km
Crew: 3
Length: 14.2 m
Wingspan: 21.4 m
Weight (max loaded): 9,450 kg
Turret: 1 rear gunner
Armaments: 3x MG. 2,500kg bomb load.
Power plant: 2× Nazarov 950hp engines
Armour: None
Info: 1,528 were eventually built. Most saw action in the Second World War.

Amiot 120 (France)
143M Amiot, (France)
Breguet 19, (France)
F222 Farman, (France)
Heinkel HE 50, (Germany)
Heinkel HE 111, (Germany)
Heinkel HE 119, (Germany)
Heinkel HE 177 & 277 'Greif', (Germany)
PZL 37 ’Moose’, (Poland)
Boulton Paul P.29 Sidestrand, (UK)
Handley Page Hinaidi, (UK)
XB-1 Huff-Daland, (USA)
B2 Curtis ’Condor’, (USA)
B-6 Keystone, (USA)
Brewster SBA, (USA)
A-17 Northrop ’Gamma’, (USA)
B-10 Martin, (USA)
T3M Martin, (USA)
XNBL-1 ’Barling Bomber’, (USA)
Y1B-7 Douglas, (USA)
XB-15 Boeing M294, (USA)
B-18 Douglas ’Bolo’, (USA)
Y1B-20 Boeing, (USA)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Other aircraft types

USS Shenandoah (USA)

C.630 Caudron Simoun Postal aircraft (France)
Caudron C.59 multi-role aircraft (France)
Arado AR 196, recon seaplane (Germany)
Heinkel HE 42, seaplane trainer (Germany)
Heinkel HE 46, recon plane (Germany)
Heinkel HE 60, recon seaplane (Germany)
Heinkel HE 70 'Blitz', mail plane (Germany)
Heinkel HE 116, transport aircraft (Germany)
Heinkel HE 115, general purpose seaplane (Germany)
Heinkel HE 176 & 178, experimental rocket plane (Germany)
Junkers JU 52, transport plane (Germany)
LZ 129 Hindenburg, rigid dirigible airliner(Germany)
PZL 44 ’Strong wind’, airliner (Poland)
de Havilland DH61 ‘Giant Moth’, airliner (UK)
de Havilland Hercules, airliner (UK)
Handley Page HP42/45, airliner (UK)
S.8 Short Calcutta, flying boat (UK)
S 8.8 Short Rangoon, flying boat (UK)
S.19 Short Singapore, flying boat (UK)
C Class Short Empire, flying boat (UK)
GA-1 Boeing M10, Armoured tri-plane (USA)
L-10 Lockheed 'Electra', Cargo/airliner (USA)
L-14 Lockheed ’Super Electra’, cargo/airliner 1937 - USA
Boeing 247, airliner (USA)
DC-2 Douglas, airliner (USA)
DC-3 Douglas ’Dakota’ cargo/airliner (USA)
USS Shenandoah, experimental rigid dirigible (USA)
USS Akron Rigid dirigible, airborne aircraft carrier (USA)
Tupolev TB1 ’Zveno’ Airborne aircraft carrier 1931 5 MG’s, 2 fighters USSR
Tupolev TB3 ’Zveno’ Airborne aircraft carrier 1935 5 MG’s, 2-5 fighters USSR
Tupolev SPB ’Zveno 6’ Airborne aircraft carrier 1938 5 MG’s, 3 fighters USSR

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE ISLAND OF PERDITION-

2008-07-13T05:54:00.000-07:00

It is late 1936 and Sir Hugh Sinclair studies a typed dispatch with a puzzled frown. ”This can’t be right” he mutters to himself. Striding across his plush office floor he pulls open a concealed door to reveal several young secretary’s all busily typing and one young man waiting in a corner with owl like glasses perched on a long slender nose.
”Cartwright. Get in here and explain the meaning of this!”

Harold Cartwright is a young, slender man with pale skin and poor eyesight. For the past several months, Sir Hugh has had him working down in the basement, listening to intercepted radio transmissions, specifically transmissions of a non national nature. Broadcasts whose sources are obscure, whose messages are clandestine and which almost certainly originate from international criminal organisations.
Sinclair holds up the most recent Brazilian dispatch.
”An explanation if you please.”
Cartwright swallows nervously, he knows full well how unlikely his conclusion will sound but he is duty bound to do his utmost.
”Sir, I believe the recipient is in possession of a submarine called the Bremen, a German U boat to be specific.”
”A U boat?”
”Yes sir.”
”Your telling me that some one in Brazil, who isn’t a German naval commander, has a fully operational German U boat?”
”I’m afraid that is my conclusion based on the evidence sir”
Sinclair examines the paper in his hand for a few moments then sits behind his desk and reaches for a bright red telephone.
”Records? This is number one, put me through to Fanshaw...Thank you Cartwright, that will be all”.
Harold Cartwright breathes a sigh of relief and leaves, it seems as if his outlandish theory might not have been so far fetched after all.
Sir Hugh lights his pipe whilst he waits for the connection to go through. He is not surprised to learn that Baron von Schöenberg might be in possession of a submarine. An elderly voice cuts through the crackling line.
”This is Fanshaw speaking...”
”Fanshaw. What do we have on German U Boats?”
”A lot sir” The voice replies.
”I’m specifically interested in a boat called the Bremen. Ring any bells?”
”Just a second sir and I’ll look her up...”
The voice is replaced by shuffling footsteps, a hollow cough and a creaking floor board, then, after a few minutes of the old archivist muttering to himself, Sir Hugh finds himself listening to pure gold.
”The Bremen. Yes, here we are. Built in 1917 by the Deutsche Ozean-Reederei, a subsidiary company of the North German Lloyd shipping company as a merchant U boat at the Atlas werke in Bremen, she went missing on her maiden voyage, presumed lost to mines some where along the Northern Passage.”
”North German Lloyd shipping company? Are they any relation to our Lloyds of London?”
”Oh yes, very much so sir, let me see... The idea for building a submarine merchant ship is said to have emanated from one Alfred Lohmann, the then President of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce we don’t know too much about him I’m afraid. A company was formed under the name of Deutsche Ozean Rhederei G. M. B. H., and the Germaniawerft at Kiel, was awarded the job of building both the Bremen and her sister ship Deutschland. The German national bank provided a share of the costs”.
”Very interesting indeed.” Sir Hugh murmurs. ”What do we know about her capabilities?”
”Well, the U 151 class to which she appears to have belonged were originally built with merchant trading in mind though they later became war ships of course. Officially they could sail upwards of twenty five thousand nautical miles and carry some seven hundred tons of cargo. The remaining boats were all converted to cruiser type U boats and armed with two one hundred and five millimetre main guns, two eighty eight millimetre guns and carried eighteen torpedo’s. According to what it says here Bremen was probably not armed for she went missing before the refitting. She never even received a U number.”
”There’s no chance the Germans have built a new submarine called Bremen?”
”I doubt it, Germany has begun rebuilding U boats on the sly, but there has been nothing to suggest they’ve built anything similar to the original Bremen and she’s the only such submarine listed here under that name.”
”What happened to the Deutschland?”
”Ummm... she was surrendered and we scrapped her in ’21”
”Thank you Fanshaw”. Sir Hugh puts down the receiver of the red phone and gazes into the middle distance, after a while he picks up the phone again.
”Brazil again Margret. Yes, same number as last time”

”A U Boat?”
”That's what he said.”
Dan Mansfield sips his whiskey and waits as Marcel Messnier digests this latest news.
“It must be hidden some where along the river. Maybe we could take a few boats out and look for it?” Arthur suggests.
Messnier shakes his head.
“The river is too big. We could search for weeks and never find it. No, I think I must ask around amongst the native tribes. They are the only people who might have seen such a thing were it truly hidden on the river. Give me a few days and we’ll see what they say.”
“It has to be the Baron” Mansfield muses.
“Von Schöenberg?” Arthur replies. “What makes you so sure? It could be that the Nazi’s are after the Golden Anaconda too”.
“Perhaps, but I have a feeling our paths are going to cross soon. I’m almost certain that blond woman was at the air field.”
Messnier sitting in a rocking chair, nods slowly. He’d also heard the unmistakable chatter of an automatic Mauser interspersed with the heavier roar of a Bergman.
“Not many blond German women running around the jungle toting a pair of machine guns eh? still we could be mistaken. How long are we going to wait in this mosquito infested country anyway?”
“I don’t know. Until we find the Golden Anaconda maybe or until Sir Hugh tells us to go some where else”
Arthur nods wearily. So far Brazil has been a disappointment to him. Hot, humid and full of the most amazing insects, he catches Marcel's eye and they both sigh in resignation.

‘Mad Dog’ Mitchell stumbles out onto the veranda. “What’s that I heard about a U boat?”
“London thinks there might be one hiding some where up the Amazon”
Mitchell helps himself to a whiskey and soda.
“Is that so? Well I dare say we’ll be asked to go and put her out of business”
“It’s a funny thing though” George interrupts.
“What’s so funny old man?” Mansfield asks.
George shrugs. “I’m no expert, but it’s been almost twenty years since the U boat menace. Where did he get one?”
“Who?” Mitchell looks blankly from George to Mansfield.
“The Baron of course” George replies
“The Baron?” Mitchell gapes. “Why I was sure we’d seen the last of that Kraut varmint. You mean to tell me he’s here in Brazil too?”
Daniel Mansfield stands up and straightens his jacket over his muscular frame as a car pulls up and Sancho Gutiérrez steps out wearing a happy smile.
“I think that’s we’re about to find out old boy. Sancho...?”
"Good news my friends" the Brazilian accepts a whiskey and soda from George. "Capitano Ortiz and his men found the Golden Anaconda in a bush and I have your missing papers here in my car..."
"That's jolly good news old boy" Mansfield puts a conspiratorial arm about Sancho Gutiérrez's shoulders, "...but now we're interested in something a little larger."
"Larger?" Gutiérrez looks from face to face.
"Much larger"
Gutiérrez sighs with resignation.
"Very well, what is it?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The submarine is here..." Captain Ortiz points at a large map of the Amazon pinned to the wall.
Two days have passed and Mansfield and his friends are gathered in Sancho Gutiérrez's house. In a room cluttered with weapons and ammunition they listen as the Captain explains how local tribesmen reported the submarine earlier in the week, but no one took their tales seriously.
"...and as far as we can tell, the vessel is still moored in this tributary to the main river channel."
Ortiz glances about the attentive faces. "Gentlemen, it is but five hours sailing from here.
"Five hours?" Mitchell exclaims, "why then, what are we waiting for?"
Daniel Mansfield stands up and turns to Captain Ortiz.
"Can you get us there faster?"
Ortiz thinks for a second but shakes his head doubtfully.
"If you leave now, yes, but then I won't have time to gather my men..."
"Never mind that, I have a feeling that speed is of the essence here. Any delay and the U boat may slip away. We must strike now. That U boat is a key to the Barons entire operation!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting

Rocketman and his companions, approaching the Bremen from upstream, start at the north western corner of the game table (see map) in Government patrol boat Nr 17. Anticipating trouble Rocketman and the soldiers are below deck or concealed.

Despite observing the approaching vessel as soon as it comes into view, the U boat crew do not anticipate trouble as they have been approached by several similar vessels in the past few days, all proving to be river traders intent on selling merchandise. Since the Bremen is currently being stocked with local foods for a long journey, the crew are lulled into a false sense of security which directly translates to a -2 penalty on any percpetion rolls against the approaching boat.

Kapitan Bruch and his men are inside the Bremen, clustered around the command compartment.

Hauptman Fernando and his men are on the hull deck.

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Player One

Rocketman (SMG & grenades)
George Macarthur (Handgun & explosive charge x 2)
’Mad Dog’ Mitchell (LMG)
Marcel Messnier (Rifle)
Sancho Gutiérrez (Handgun & explosive charge)

Player Two

Captain Ortiz (Handgun & explosive charge)
6 x militia infantry (Rifles & grenades)

Player Three

Captain Armando (Handgun)
Marcel the river pilot (Handgun)
4 x River police officers (Rifles & grenades)

Player Four

Kapitan Bruch (Handgun)
5 x German sailers (5 rifles & grenades + 1 LMG)

+ 6 Schwarztepfeile reinforcements (Rifles & grenades)

Player Five

Hauptman Franz Fernando (Handgun)
5 x German sailers (5 rifles & grenades)
2 x Schwarztepfeile guard (SMG)

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Map

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Victory conditions

Either side wins by defeating two thirds of the opposing force. The German reinforcements do not count until they are on the table.

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Special notes

Once firing starts, six members of the U boat crew who are nearby loading food onto the ships boat are alerted. They immediately grab their rifles and make for the submarine. They arrive on the south eastern corner of the game table in the tenth round after firing has begun.

The U-boat’s internal bulkheads are very strong, but if the water tight doors are locked and must be breached, then explosives must be employed. This gives rise to a serious risk of breaching the inner hull. If this happens, the U-boat will begin to sink. A maximum die roll against the hatches will result in a hull breach. From that point onwards the U-boat will begin to take on water. A die roll (1d6+3) determines how many rounds remain until the apartment adjacent to the rupture, and any subsequent exposed apartments are flooded.
To destroy the lock on a hatch, one must employ an explosive device and roll against 12.

There are two large native fishing boats moored along side the Bremen. These have been used by the crew for loading cargo but are currently not in use. They give +1 in protection.

The river runs from south to north, this means Boat Nr 17 is moving against the current (rough) when the game begins.

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Vehicles

'Bremen'
An un-armoured merchant submarine that can provide +1 when used as effective cover and +2 to any occupant of the conning tower. There are two large native fishing boats moored along side the Bremen. These have been used by the crew for loading cargo but are currently not in use. They give +1 in protection and have the same movement stats as the ships boat.
Top speed: 15 knots (7 knots submerged).
Range: 20,330km
Crew: 26
Length: 65m
Width:8.9m
Disp:2,272 2.8t
Turret: No
Armaments: None
Power plant: 800 hp
Armour: None

Boat Nr 17
An un-armoured military vessel that can provide +1 to occupants if used as effective cover.
Top speed: 9 knots. Boat Nr 17 cannot be sunk by grenades. It is simply too big and absorbs the damage.
Range: 600km
Crew: 2
Length: 22m
Width: 5.2m
Displacement: 21t
Turret: No
Armaments: None
Power plant: 120 hp Diesel
Armour: None
Speed is Good 12
Rough 8
Difficult 4

Ships boat
An un-armoured military vehicle that can provide +1 to occupants if used as effective cover. The ships boat can be sunk by grenades.
Top speed: n/a
Range: n/a
Capacity:6
Length: 3.4m
Width: 1.2m
Weight: 0.2t
Turret: No
Armaments: None
Power plant: n/a.
Armour: None
Speed is Good 4
Rough 2
Difficult 1

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Conclusion

The players, sans Oleg who played paparazzi

It felt good to get back into the Rocketman vibe, and what better way to start than with ships? Earlier campaigns have featured gun fights on merchant ship deck plans, but RM5 takes this a step further with combined models and deck plans to further enhance the visual ambience of the game.

'Bremen on the Amazon', was rather imbalanced, and though the imbalance was a deliberate factor in the game, with two players facing three, a real problem lay in the rules for hand grenades which I had misunderstood, and which were more powerful than I'd realised. This didn't hasten the pace of the game however. I'd expected the game to take about two hours and instead it took three hours and forty minutes. As it was Goeg's first time, there was some hesitation and explanation along the way, but nothing that dragged the flow of the game down.

We began with Rocketman & his companions (Rasmus) , Captain Ortiz (Oleg) and Captain Armando (Goeg) approaching the submarine in Government patrol boat Nr 17, but their pretence at being innocent traders was blown when the U boat captain made a successful perception roll and the Germans (Palle and myself) opened fire from the conning tower. The Brazilians returned fire, with Oleg using the first of his grenades to successfully supress the Germans. This opening salvo set the tone for the rest of the game, as I'd not given the Germans any grenades (they being relaxed, caught by surprise and not having any weapons to hand but their immediate hand guns).

With the Germans in the conning tower taking grenades, the Brazilian boat could come along side almost unopposed. Once this happened, the Germans attempted to withdraw into and secure the submarine.

Rocketman lends a hand

The Bremen had five hatches which had to be secured, but the Germans failed to secure one of the rear hatches, with Captain Ortiz firing down into the hatchway to suppress the crew member who attempted to reach up and shut the hatch door. More Brazilians leapt onto the U boat and the remaining Germans took up positions inside the sub. At this point I was reminded of the opening scene of Star Wars where the Rebels wait for the Imperial Storm Troopers to breach their hull. It didn't take long for a grenade to drop down into the submarine, killing the two Germans who were directly below, and quickly followed by the macho Captain Ortiz.

On the surface, a rowing boat of six German reinforcements was approaching the submarine, and as these came onto the table, Rocketman's engineer side kick, George Macarthur, set a demolition charge to crack opn one of the forward hatches. The fire fight inside the submarine continued with more Brazilians following Capt Ortiz into the submarine.

New models included the 'leather U boat', the cardboard river boat and a new improved Rocketman, and Rocketman-in-flight

Rocketman took to the air (see image above) and George Macarthur blew open the hatch. The Germans in their rowing boat began to take fire and return it, failing to down Rocketman who was hovering in the air above the submarine. There was some contention regarding Rocketman's ability to fire a submachine gun, whilst firing, the question being whether or not the recoil from his weapon would spin him around. It probably would, but such niggling details ring hollow once you've already accepted the premise of a man wearing a rocketpack...

Gov Health Warning; Grenades in confined spaces are bad for your health

Rocketman survived intact and dropped back down in to the comming tower and the fight continued with the Germans gradually being cut to pieces. In the end it was something of a blood bath, 14-3 to the heroes.

Given this game was originally designed for three players, and had been 'adapted' in order to allow for continuity, and a new player, then it was okay. The Germans couldn't really have won, but this was as much due to accident as design. On the whole I enjoyed it imbalanced though it was.

Aging disgracefully

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

”Take a seat” Sir Hugh Sinclair motions towards a plush armchair and Daniel Mansfield eases his tired body into its welcome embrace. The older man smiles sympathetically. ”How was your flight?”
Mansfield casts his mind back over the last three days. ”Strenuous” he replies.
Sir Hugh nods, then pulling out a thin brown folder, his face takes on a serious demeanour. He pulls out a map and places it on the low table between them. Mansfield picks it up and regards it.
”Farquhar Island” Sir Hugh says. ”One of our islands in the Southern Seychelles group. It features prominently in the log you recovered from Brazil.”
”Do we know why?”
Sir Hugh shakes his head. ”No. The island is controlled by a British corporation called Imperial Sea Foods. It maintains a large sea food farm on the island, along with an extensive research facility”
Mansfield looks up sharply. ”Researching what?”
”Officially, sea food. Unofficially, who knows?”
“I doubt the Brotherhood of the Black Cross are interested in sea food”
Sir Hugh shrugs then slides a second sheet of paper across the table. This is Imperial Sea Foods... As you can see, it’s connected right up to the very top. Two MP’s, one a former minister, and Lord Shaftsbury“
“The King’s cousin?”
“The same.”
“Do you suppose they are in league with Baron Schöenberg?”
“Probably not, at least not directly, but we must consider it a possibility and act accordingly. Any official investigation of the island will be noticed... and sending the Royal Navy in, which I would love to do mind you, is very much out of the question at this stage.”
Daniel Mansfield grins and Sir Hugh nods.
“Exactly. You will have to investigate using unconventional means.”
Mansfield ponders the problem for a long moment as he regards the map.
“What do we know about the island? How many people live on it?”
“There are no updated records, but we know it has seen considerable development in the last twenty years. Imperial have built a small harbour facility and a large research station on top of this peak. It’s possible the island contains several hundred people... perhaps even an armed force.”
Mansfield stretches his legs and yawns.
“If I feel I need to use force of arms...?”
“Then do so.”

Fourteen days later, Daniel Mansfield steps out of the fuselage of a Boeing 247 and regards the small sun baked airport of Port Victoria. Behind him, ‘Mad Dog’ Mitchell fusses with a long heavy case.
“Can you see him?” Marcel Messnier asks from within the plane. The Frenchman pushes past his American companion and hops lightly onto the concrete. He gazes about; shading his eyes, and then gives a short Gallic exclamation of satisfaction.
“There he is!”
Mansfield follows Messnier’s gaze and sees a tall European man in a white shirt approaching them, flanking him are two hard faced Africans in gaudy clothes.
“Monsieur Lavarre I presume?” Messnier steps forward to meet the European. “Who are your friends?”
“Ship mates” the other replies with an unmistakable French accent. “You are Messnier?”
“Oui, and this is Mister Mansfield.”
“Mad Dog?” one of the Africans suddenly exclaims in a thick voice.
“Eh?” Mitchell looks down from the fuselage door. “Jo Jo Bouché? Is that you? Goddamn boy, where’s your Pa?”
“Do you know every one?” Mansfield asks the burly Texan
“Every cut throat, gun runner and smuggler from Athens to Jo’burg” Mitchell grins as he steps down from the plane. ”I’ve known Jo Jo’s old man since about 1927 or so. Haven’t seen this kid since he was fourteen, but I’d recognise that smile any where”
Daniel Mansfield regards the scarred face of the African, his chipped front teeth and the slightly manic gleam in his eyes and decides to remain silent”
“Papa is on the boat” Jo Jo grins. “He’ll be mighty pleased to see you again I bet”
The Frenchman, Lavarre, looks from face to face sneering slightly. “So we’re all good friends eh... Perhaps we can go some where and talk some business?”
“Time is a factor for us; perhaps we should go straight to your ship and look her over?”
“Certainly Monsieur, I shall arrange a car for you whilst you retrieve your luggage”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Le Mollusc is an old French tramp steamer, long since fallen into decay and disrepute. Abandoned by her original owners in Indochine, then bought, sold and gambled from owner to owner she has come into the hands of a motley band of disreputable characters under the leadership of an aging Kenyan Captain named Wangai. Described by some as mere pirates, the gang have used their ship to great effect, usually to move weapons and supplies for many a local warlord or regional government, but just as often to engage other seaborne or coastal targets. Wangai himself is an ambiguous character, frowned upon by the British authorities and effectively banished from Kenya but still tolerated in the Seychelles.
“What a rust bucket” George Macarthur mutters to himself as he regards the ancient ship.
“You got that right” Mitchell says as he casts an eye over the bows. “What do you suppose that big wooden box is for?”
Jo Jo leans closer. “thats the big gun boss” he whispers as he widens his eyes theatrically.
“Oh?” Mitchell’s interest is immediately peaked. “What ya got under there?”
Dominique Lavarre turns with a frown, glancing disapprovingly at Jo Jo who ignores him. “A Schneider” he says in a low voice.
“A French 75mm gun” Mitchell tells George Macarthur who nods sagely.
A tall dark faced man appears at the gangway and nods to Dominique Lavarre.
“Captain Wangai” the Frenchman introduces the man with a broad hand gesture as the man steps from his ship.
“Pleased to meet you Sir” Daniel Mansfield says with an outstretched hand. “I’m Daniel Mansfield.”
“Greetings Mr Manfield. Welcome to our ship. I understand you are in need of some assistance. Come aboard and tell me all about it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What do you know about Farquhar Island?”
Wangai and Lavarre exchange a glance.
“It has... a reputation” The Frenchman replies. “Fishing boats from here and Madagascar have... disappeared while fishing in its vicinity. The locals here have taken to calling it accursed.”
“That is interesting” Mansfield says. “I’d like to take a closer look”
“Why?” Captain Wangai asks abruptly.
Mansfield hesitates only slightly before replying, but the hesitation is enough to convey a sense of absolute caution.
“I believe the island is being used by a secret German organisation, an organisation which has high level connections in many countries, including in the United Kingdom.”
Captain Wangai’s eyes regard the Englishman’s face. He nods slowly then pulls out a cigar and then lights it.
“And you are an Englishman, investigating this mysterious German organisation... very well. It is none of our business, and we do not like the German, not after his misdeeds in Africa these last many years. You have your ship”.
“How large is your crew?”
Wangai looks to Lavarre who frowns before answering “...half a dozen. Why?”
“I need more than passage. I need to get on that island and possibly seize control of it.”
“Now wait a minute!” Lavarre begins, but when Wangai raises his hand he falls silent.
“If you want to land on the island, then yes, we can do that too Mr Mansfield... but we will need more men, a lot more, and the price will be higher, much higher.”
“How many men can you get by tonight?” Mansfield asks. The mercenaries’ eyes widen in surprise and Wangai laughs suddenly. “By tonight, I can have thirty men, maybe forty or so if Iron fist Chung is available.”
“I have myself and these three men” Mansfield indicates his companions, Mad Dog Mitchell, George Macarthur and Marcel Messnier.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three days later, le Mollusc reaches her destination. Having carefully planned his approach, Captain Wangai has cunningly approached the island during the hours of darkness, and the small merchant ship slips into the northern lagoon as the first light of dawn touches the horizon.
On the bridge, Daniel Mansfield scans the early morning darkness through a pair of binoculars.
“I see an aircraft on the water” he reports.
“Where?” Wangai lifts his own glasses.
“Two points off the starboard bow” Mansfield replies. “A biplane... looks like a fighter, I suppose that explains the missing fishing boats...”
“There is a building just by” Wangai turns to Juan Luis Ortega who stands near by. “Ready a line. We’re going as close as we can”
“I see movement” Mansfield says. “Several men... “
Mitchell enters the bridge holding his Browning automatic rifle in one hand, and strange contraption of tubes and nozzles in the other. “Are you ready? They’re putting the boats over the side.”
“I’ll be right with you... Captain Wangai. Good luck sir. I think today you may see something you’ve never seen before.”
He grins happily then leaves the bridge leaving Captain Wangai to wonder what he meant...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Klaus Kreusser sits in his watch tower, shivering slightly. The dawn is the coolest part of the day on the island and after a long shift on guard duty he feels ready for a cup of coffee and then to his bed. Below him he can hear the sounds of early risers. Laughing voices, the unmistakable rattle of a safety razor in a cup of water, some one in the communications bunker fiddling with a wireless. Best of all comes that blessed aroma of coffee wafting faintly in the still air.
“Klaus!” the voice of Hauptman Krebs reaches him. “Come on down now. Scherber will be ready in a few minutes.”
Kreusser stands up and stretches his legs. He takes one last look about the lagoon before he turns to towards the ladder, then freezes and looks back. To the west of him, coming around the island is a smudge of smoke and below it a large dark shape. A ship is coming into the lagoon! For a moment he stares at it, amazed and uncertain, then his training takes over and he grabs the alarm handle and pulls it down hard.

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Starting

The Germans are caught completely off guard. Having approached by night, le Mollusc is able to get as close as the lagoon allows before they are even in position. The game begins with le Mollusc to the north of the beach with both her boats in the water, sheltered behind her (these are not shown on the map as they are not static elements).
All elements of players one, two and three begin on le Mollusc or in the boats behind her.

Kampfgruppen Rot of the Schattentroppen are in position, in and around the bunker and along the beach. The two pilots are in their hut.

Kampfgruppen Gelb of the Schattentroppen begins off map. Unaware of the approach of the ship, they are caught by surprise and come running to reinforce Kampfgruppen Rot. They enter the game in small groups of three, beginning in round two.

Both sides want the aeroplane. The object of the game is to capture and hold it. In order to do this, at least one element should be in base contact with the end of the jetty at the end of the game. Alternatively a pilot could take possession of the aeroplane, start it up and taxi off map. In order to do this, the two mooring lines must be cut.

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Player One

Rocketman (SMG)
George Macarthur (Handgun)
'Mad Dog' Mitchell (LMG)
Marcel Messnier (Rifle)
plus one group from le Mollusc

Players two & three

Divide the remaining four groups from le Mollusc between them.
See below for character details

Player Four: Kampfgruppen Rot

Hauptman Krebs (Handgun)
11 x Schattensoldater (5 x rifles, 2 x grenades, 2 x SMG, 1 LMG & 1 flamethrower)
Luftschutzobertruppmann Schultz (Handgun)
Luftschutztruppmann Klengel (Handgun)

Player Five: Kampfgruppen Gelb

Hauptman Seitz (Handgun)
11 x Schattensoldater (5 x rifles, 2 x grenades, 2 x SMG, 1 LMG & 1 flamethrower)

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Map

Note. The three boats in the game are not included on the map

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Victory conditions

Either side wins by holding the sea plane at the end of the game, or by default if defeating two thirds of the opposing force. If one side should destroy the seaplane, the other side wins automatically.

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Special notes

The seaplane is cold but fuelled and ready to go. It takes six rounds to start up the engine and a further three rounds to rev up sufficiently to taxi off map. The mooring lines which secure the plane to the jetty run from fore and aft of the land side pontoon and must be cut. Cutting these takes a single round.
Unmooring and starting the speedboat takes two rounds.

Rocketman has six hero points in this game

The beach path and the pier are Good. The beach itself is Rough and the breakwater is Rough. Inside the buildings, boats and on board the ship is Rough. The sea is calm and there is very little surf. The sea is good going for boats and impassable for all other elements. The surf is Difficult for all elements.

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Characters

The crew of Le Mollusc

First group

Captain Wangai. A well built Kenyan approximately fifty five years old. Wangai was once a rebel of some notoriety who eventually left Kenya after several run ins with the British authorities who regarded him as little better than a terrorist. Inspired to sail for Europe, Wangai signed on to a Portuguese merchant ship but after a great many years roaming the high sea’s and never reaching his destination, Wangai gave up his dreams and concentrated on his own advancement. He was eventually made an officer on a French ship, but soon troubles in Indochine, saw him forced to take up arms again and fight to defend his shipmates. After this return to violence, Wangai turned to mercenary work, hiring himself out, at first to the French, but later to any one who could afford his services. He became Captain of Le Mollusc when he took the ship with his men during a coastal skirmish in 1931. Since then he has worked for a number of employers providing services which no government can be seen to touch. By 1937 he is based in the Seychelles and operating along the western coast of Africa, mostly in the pay of private British interests. In combat Captain Wangai is cool, cautious and calculating. He never takes unecessary risks being the perfect mercenary. Wangai means ‘Child of God’ in the Kikuyu language of Kenya.
Edith Flavien. A French woman who fell in love with Captain Wangai in Shangai and now sails as his lover. A hot headed woman who gets ‘excited’ when the bullets start to fly.
Murphy. An Irish engineer and former terrorist. Murphy is an expert on explosives, but due to years of opium and cheap whiskey he is also utterly mad. Murphy tends the engines on the ship, and is possesive of them.
Lester. A former Australian soldier who never managed to find his way home and who is drunk most of the time. Lester is the ships cook.
Fernando D’Alessio. A Spanish communist forced to flee Spain after the defeat of the civil war. D’Allesio is a fearless ideolog who regards men like Baron Schöenberg as imperialist swine who must be destroyed forthwith. He is probably the most fervent of all the crew and this shows in his desperate actions.
Juan Luis Ortega. A Brazillian communist who fled Spain with Fernado D’Alessio. Something of an alcoholic, he is less enthusiastic about his ideals, but due to his being drunk all the time he is more or less fearless.Ortega has no dreams nor hopes and he regards communism as merely the best cause to die for.
Ivan Kopylov. A huge Russian who cannot speak a word of English. Kopylov was a sailor who got left behind in the Seychelles by accident and who now works as a hired thug for local criminal gangs because he is a alcohol fuelled murdering machine who shrugs off bullet wounds. Kopylov can speak some of the local pidgin but not much.
Pierre San Uté. A French criminal who escaped frm prison and who has drifted about the harbours and ports of Asia ever since, drinking, gambling and longing to return to France.
Zoë. A French woman with attitude. Pierre San Uté’s lover. Nothing much is known about her except that she has a Chinese mark branded into her shoulder

Second group

Dominique Lavarre. Second in command of the ship, Lavarre is a former Gendarme from Morocco who was forced to flee the law after he seduced the wife of his superior and was charged with rape. After several years in the West African underworld, he sought new pastures and found himself in Hong Kong where he worked for a while as a bar tender. Eventually he grew bored with the passive life and began peddling drugs. This put him in the way of the Golden Dragon Tong who chased him out of town. Lavarre left, but only after he murdered one of the leaders of the Tong to assist his lover Vixen. In battle Lavarre is brave, perhaps even foolhardy, but never stupid. He always takes good care of his men.
Jean-Francois Laguna. A Frenchman who fled Indochine when he murdered another man over a local girl.
Ganz. A South African mercenary, born in Germany. Ganz is a despicable criminal whose hard life of villainy and misfortune has left him with a hook instead of a right hand. A true pirate at heart, Ganz is a murderer and rapist with a reward on his head. He fights hard and gives no mercy.
Vixen & Vesper. Twin sisters, born in Rhodesia, their father a British diplomat they grew up in South East Asia and studied Eastern mystic arts. When their parents were killed by a Chinese gangster family in Hong Kong, they took revenge and became outlaws. Both are deadly in close combat.
Coxley. A Rhodesian mercenary who just happened to be in a bar drinking his last shilling away when he heard a job was going down.
Boston. An American adventurer who gets into trouble every where he goes in his never ending quest to find some treasure and get rich.
Jack Marley. Boston’s partner in recent years, Marley is amongst other things, an explosives expert.
Maputo Diogo. A Mozambiquan Adventurer who has recently been in several scrapes along side Boston and Jack marley.

Third group

‘Butcher’ Bouché. A former French soldier from Senegal who left his home to fight in France in 1914. Unable to cope with returning to Senegal after the slaughter of WW1, Bouché eventually became a mercenary. He is an experienced machine gunner, professional and calm when under fire.
Jo Jo. The son of Bouché by a Maseille prostitute. Jo Jo is a popular member of the crew for his happy go lucky nature, and lewd stories. Following his fathers example he appears unconcerned by danger in combat.
10 x East African riflemen. Captain Wangai's gang.

Fourth group

Mehmet Ilchet. A middle aged Turkish engineer. Mehmet was formerly a gun running smuggler who left his homeland to seek his fortune, but ended up on Le Mollusc instead. A practical man, he maintains the ship, though he doesn’t touch the engines which are Murphy’s pride and joy
Mustapha . Mehmet Ilchet’s older cousin. Mustapha is a studious man who studied medicine with the intention of becoming a surgeon. An unfortunate incident involving the daughter of a village elder forced him to flee Turkey and join his cousin .
Ali. A young Turk with stars in his eyes. Ali ran away from home because he was the youngest son of seven and faced dim prospects. Saved by Mehmet Ilchet, he now plays the part of side kick.
Zebedee. A Malawian healer, much loved by the crew for his potent remedies, who took it upon himself to see the world and who ended up n board le Mollusc.
Usama Ibn Fadel. A Saudi gentlemen of some means, apparently from a high standing family. Forced to flee his home after murdering a cleric over a religious dispute.
Mohammed Al Jar. A Yemeni mule trader who was forced by a family feud to leave his country. A dark and passionate soul who takes his revenge on the world at large, Mohammed is prone to murder but a reluctant soldier.
‘Mad’ Abdul. A Palestinian Arab, Abdul was raised in a wealthy family with western tendencies. He went to school in Paris and learned to fly. He returned to Egypt in 1932 and was employed for a time as a pilot in the service of the Ottomans, After an unsuccessful uprising amongst the officer corps, Abdul fled to south and met Captain Wangai in Ethiopia. Wangai recognised Abdul’s potential and persuaded him to join the crew. In combat Abdul is as cool as ice. His nick name is the result of the crew’s misapprehensions regarding human flight.
Ali Al Zebid. An Arabian Beduin. A devout Muslim, Ali became a pirate after his sister brought shame upon his house and he was forced to kill her. Alas the damage was irrecersable and his clan ousted him. Ali accepted his fate and feels no remorse about his life. He refuses to kill Muslims but will happily slaughter infidels.

Fifth group

‘Iron fist’ Chung. A large, heavily muscled Chinese man, Chung is the leader of the ‘Asian group’.
Soo Suk Wang. Iron fist Chung’s Korean girlfriend.
10 x South east Asian riflemen. 'Iron fist' Chung's gang.

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Vehicles

Boat
An un-armoured military vehicle that can provide +1 to occupants if used as effective cover. The boat can be sunk by grenades.
Top speed: n/a
Range: n/a
Capacity:6
Length: 3.4m
Width: 1.2m
Weight: 0.2t
Turret: No
Armaments: None
Power plant: n/a. Armour: None
Speed is Good 4
Rough 2
Difficult 1

Ships motor boats
An un-armoured military vehicle that can provide +1 to occupants if used as effective cover. The ships motor boats can be sunk by grenades.
Top speed: 24km/h
Range: 40km
Capacity:8
Length: 4.4m
Width: 1.4m
Weight: 0.36t
Turret: No
Armaments: None
Power plant: 70hp.
Armour: None
Speed is Good 12
Rough 8
Difficult 4

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite being let down by Rasmus, 'Beach Assault' was quite a success, though no actual beach assault took place, unless you count Goeg's heroic effort to bring his HMG closer. Both sides had moments of glory and bloodshed and in the end, the result was satisfactory.

The players, sans Rasmus who never turned up

The game began with the Germans scrambling to get into position whilst the good guys, who were dubbed 'the pirates' for convenience, brought their two ships boats into position. Both sides used their long range weapons to engage, but found rifles to be at a distinct disadvantage and smaller weapons were useless. The range from the bunker to the ships bow was exactly 72 inches, and a rifle has an effective range of 36 inches in our rules.

Rocketman took one look at the Heinkel and decided to grab it. He flew off table to avoid being an airborne target (Which he is allowed to do, given the nature of his rocket pack) then flew back on to land on the jetty. The Germans immediately opened fire and suppressed him, but he was about to cut the tethers any way due to being crouched on the seaplane's pontoons. Meanwhile Oleg brought his ships boat, loaded with pirates closer in order to tow the Heinkel away and thus win the game. I have to admit, I didn't see this possibility. For a long time this game was designed as a straight up battle and the winning criteria were very different. I changed the nature of the game to save time (as we only have four hours or so) and because the plot cannot depend on one side winning. A consequence of this was I hadn't given too much thought to the jetty. Ah well, c'est la guerre.

Le Mollusc under fire.

Whilst Oleg was performing small miracle's, Goeg was still learning. Having lined up his pirates on Le Mollusc's superstructure (see image above), he had the most perfect firing squad I've ever seen. Unfortunately he was out of range, so his men were firing with a -3 and -4 penalty for the whole game). Given that my Germans were chemically enhanced (thanks to mad Dr Meztger), and out of range, the best he could hope for was to keep them pinned down. Goeg also had his African MG crew, with their Vickers Maxim. A dangerous weapon, but old and some what unreliable. In our rule system, its classed as a Machine Gun (as opposed to a heavy machine gun like a .50) which means it has a 36 inch range equivalent to a rifle, or an LMG. It does however do slightly more damage if it hits.

Goeg stuck his Vickers Maxim gun in the second ships boat and used the boat like a sort of seaborne 'technical', chugging closer in an attempt to do more damage. Unfortunately what happened was he became a priority target and spent most of his time suppressed (the MG gunners cowering for cover on a wooden boat). What Goeg, and Oleg didn't know, is that the Germans had some secrets up their sleeves. Palle had a second Heinkel, returning from patrol and able to attack with twin MG-17's and six 10 kilo bombs, and I had a sniper with an anti-materiel rifle; a 13.2mm M1918 Mauser.

Once Rocketman had secured the biplane, the game was nearing its end, but it hadn't ended yet. I couldn't see how the Germans could grab the plane back unless the German pilots risked a dash to grab the speed boat (which can be seen moored to the jetty in the image above). A risky move, but better than not doing anything. Palle however had other idea's. The second Heinkel came down from the north and hardly any one noticed it until it was strafing Le Mollusc's deck, clearing away pirates like a broom. At the same time, I used my sniper against Geog's commanding officer (Iron Fist Chung) and he then stopped commanding. I also used my grenade launcher (A non historical weapon developed exlusively by the Schattentroppen's gunsmith) to put Goeg's seaborne MG out of commission.

The Field of Mars.
In the foreground the Germans, watch in disbelief as Rocketman and his allies steal the Heinkel

For a moment, I thought we might have a chance, especially as the next round would see the second Heinkel deploy its bombs. Alas, I had counted my velociraptors before they were hatched, and Oleg put Rocketman into the air and used his rocket plumes (and 4 hero points) as a flame thrower to set fire to the speedng fighter as it passed below him (hence the title image). The burning aircraft hurtled over head and crashed behind the German line, probably landing on their camp.

Oleg was definately 'Man of the Match'. He was forced to contend with twice as many elements as usual, and they were all named characters (meaning a set of individual stats for about forty elements), he played Rocketman to perfection, bringing down the second Heinkel and he won the game by using Rocketman to quickly secure the first Heinkel whilst a boat chugged out to tow it away. A well deserved win.

Faced with such unbelievable heroism, the Germans fell back to better positions, and to salvage what they could from their burning camp.

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“Danke, danke mein damer und herrer...

I thank you for this honour from the bottom of mein heart. I cannot tell you how much it means to a scientist, to have his work recognized... to have my work recognized! You must understand the brilliance of my work, to appreciate what I have done. What I have done!

So few people appreciate my work, understand what I have tried to do, where I have succeeded. The sacrifices I have had to make. Mein Gott! The things I have had to do in the name of our glorious quest! ...I must thank the Baron, for though he has only a limited understanding of my work, he has ensured its success with his support... if only he would see the limitless potential... The potential for a New World Order! A Higher World Order! A world where my work is not hidden away in the shadows but understood and appreciated... It is I who should win the Nobel, not this man Otto Loewi and his acetylcholine. What is acetylcholine compared to the mysteries of life itself?

It is I who has defeated death, I who have Mastered the Very Secret of Life Itself. I Alone Who Have Done What Other Men only Dare To Dream About! It Is I who.... Ja?”
A knock at the door interrupts Herr Doktor Metzger in mid sentence, and scowling he turns to admit the intruder to the washroom.
“What is it?” he demands in a sullen voice.
Oberst Doktor Holst stands in the door, towering above the short deformed body of his civilian superior.
“Who were you talking to?” Holst looks about the room suspiciously. His inquisitive eyes rest upon the mirror over the sink at which Metzger is standing.
“No one... I was rehearsing a speech” Metzger mutters.
Holst drops the matter.
“The Island is under attack.”
“What?” Metzger convulses with a start, then pushes past Holst, begins to limp rapidly along the corridor before coming to halt. He turns to look back at the taller man.
“The British?”
Holst shrugs. “Reports indicate an armed ship full of Africans, possibly some Chinese and Europeans too. I do not know who they are yet”
“It is him! It is Mansfield!”
“How do you know?”
“Do You Question Me?”
Holst takes a deep breath and follows Metzger to the operations room, where the staff nervously move aside and Metzger glares at a map of the island.
“Where have they landed?”
“Here at the northern anchorage”
“Ach so....” Metzger examines at the map, his nose mere inches from it. A bead of sweat drips from his forehead and lands conspicuously on the paper.
“They will either take the road, or attempt to push inland” he decides. Have the road blocked, and then activate Johan!”
“Johan? ...ahh, is that prudent?”
“Do Not Presume To Question Me!
I Am The Ultimate Authority On This Island!
You Will Obey My Orders!”

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Starting

Players one, two and three begin at the northern end of the table, on the northern bank of the ‘lagoon’.

Player four begins in secret positions upon the table (see secret notes)

Player five begins on the southern edge of the table.

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Player One

Rocketman (SMG & grenades)
George Macarthur (Handgun & grenades)
'Mad Dog' Mitchell (LMG & grenades)
Marcel Messnier (Rifle & grenades)

Players two & three

Each of the players takes one pirate group of their choice (see list above) but Captain Wangai and his group stay with the ship.
Note. No non named characters who were defeated in the previous game participate in this game.

Player Four: Johan's garden

Johan (Flamethrower)
Spore field
Flesh eating plants
Mutant bee’s

Player Five: Kampfgruppen Grün

Oberst Doktor Holst (Handgun)
4 x Schattensoldater (Rifles and grenades)
2 x Schattensoldater scharfenshutzen (Rifles with telescopic sights)

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Map

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Victory conditions

Players one, two and three win by moving two thirds of their surviving elements across the table.

Players four and five win by preventing players one, two and three.

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Special notes

All terrain is Rough, except the waterways which are Difficult and the rocky area’s which are impassable. The tree’s, rocks and bushes give the usual defence bonuses. The mushrooms offer little protection, but the large clusters (those bigger than two mushrooms per base) offer enough cover to conceal any one hiding behind them (equal to 2 inches of ordinary bushes). Shooting the mushrooms makes no difference to the spore cloud.

The lagoon is loaded with large leeches; up to several inches in length and any one crossing it must roll a die. A roll of 1 results in a serious leech attack, roll against a CF of 2. Any defeated elements stagger from the lagoon cursing and retching and find themselves incapacitated on the shore as downed elements.

A roll of 2 results in a lesser attack, but the element must pause for 2 rounds once they reach the far back, to remove leeches.

The hut is very solid and cannot be destroyed by grenades. It offers standard protection.

The aeroplane fuselage offers +1 protection, regardless of direction.

Rocketman has two hero points in this game.

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Secret notes

Crossing the game table is very difficult and most probably cannot be done in under four hours. In order for Rocketman to reach his destination in the event of the game bogging down, only the the six foremost elements of players two and three survive to participate in chapter 5.
All of Player One's elements survive regardless of whether or not they've been defeated in this chapter.

Johan is an old experiment which has been turned loose by Metzger, an amalgamation of reanimated dead body parts; he lives in the wooden hut. He has no free will as such, but is capable of picking his targets carefully once he has been ‘activated’ by a chemical compound released into his blood stream. Johan has multiple back up organs and armoured skin. This makes him very hard to kill, especially since he is technically already dead. A curious by product of his life support system is a highly flammable urine which is siphoned into a flame thrower unit that has been grafted onto his left arm. Johan’s right arm and legs are incredibly strong and his endurance is far beyond that of a normal human being. Johan is not intelligent enough to adapt quickly to new weapons.

The spore field extends three inches from any given mushroom

The flesh eating plants are concealed amongst the other tubular vegetation. They have a one inch range.

The mutant bee’s have a ten inch range, but will only attack one element at a time, and only that element which is closest to their hive.

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Conclusion

wearing my oldest 'gaming t shirt' to look the part
I bought it in 1988 and it shows

This game took a very long time to 'incubate', I've been fiddling it since 2007 and the map turns up quite a few times in older sketch books, usually as a consequence of having watched an episode of 'Lost'.

The game began with a few notable changes due to Rasmus having cancelled and so the leeches got removed and I shortened the map by 20 inches or so. Even this didn't make it possible for Oleg and Goeg to fulfill their winning critieria, but this didn't matter too much as the emphasis of the game was surviving the strange and terrible dangers left lying around as a consequence of Dokter Metzger's diabolical experiments.

Rocketman and his allies set off up into the forested sides of the Islands extinct volcano, atop which is the curious building assumed to be a research station. In order to reach the building before nightfall, the group had to press on with all haste, but the Germans were aware of their approach and had activated a local asset; Johan. Oleg played Rocketman and the second group from Le Mollusc under the command of Dominique Lavarre. Goeg played the fifth group from Le Mollusc under the command of 'Iron fist' Chung. The remaining groups from the mercenary ship remained to guard the vessel from any possible German counter attack.

The red det marks the location of the game

One day, if I ever get a room I can devote to wargaming,
I'll build regular 3d table tops with better scenary and vegetation!

Rocketman, his friends and the mercenaries, crossed the lagoon and began to climb onto the far bank, but as they did so, they disturbed the first of the islands many surprises, a swarm of mutant killer bee's, each insect as long as three inches and with a terrible sting. Rocketman immediately tried to use his rockets to blast the bee's, but only partly succeeded. Curiously, he then used his machine pistol and the bee's fled in disarray, presumably having had enough of the commotion and disturbed by the weapons shock wave. What ever the reason, the hero's pleasure was short lived as the mutant plants which were growing on the northern bank of the lagoon, revealed another surprise. Some of the plants had mutated to the point where they were both carniverous and had flexible truncks which were activatd by pressure on the roots. Since the plants were all over the northern bank, it was impossible to spot the dangerous ones and the threat was only revealed when a Chinese rifleman suddenly had his head bitten off.

Chaos ensued.

Whilst the invaders were floundering in disarray, the Germans were quietly taking positions further up the slope. Due to the nature of our table top skirmish games, building a sloping battleground in my living room is a no no, so we make do with contour lines and fevered imagination (thankfully we have enough of the latter to compensate for any mistakes I might make drawing the contour lines).

I used my scratch built triffids for the carniverous plants

Oberst Dokter Holst and his small team of sharp shooters took up their positions around the crashed aeroplane, where exotic mushrooms had grown suspiciously tall and deadly. Fortunately for the Germans, they had gasmasks and could not be effected by the dangerous psychodelic spores which floated gradually from the underside of the mushrooms. Had any element not wearing a gas mask approached the mushrooms they would have suffered a chemical/biological attack and if defeated they would have gone mad; player four would then be in control of that element, allowing the mad person to be used against their own side. Alas, Rocketman and his friends never got that far up the table as once the snipers opened fire, the emphasis of the game changed from moving to surviving.

Johan makes his warm and lovable personality felt

Survival became all the more difficult when Johan sneaked down the gully to the lagoon and snuck up under the surface of the murky water. At the last moment, his presence was detected but by then it was already too late and the great mutant zombie arose from the water with his flamethrower arm spouting a great plume of fire towards Vesper and Ganz who were guarding the rear. Amazingly they survived this encounter but only by fleeing (see image above). Johann then turned his attention to a nearby group of four mercenaries and incinerated the lot.

The carnage wrought by Johann and Kampfgruppen Grün

We ran out of time not long after this and the game was a victory for the German side. Of Rocketman and his allies, only the fore most six of each side make it up hill to fight in chapter five.

These include;
Player one; Rocketman, George Macarthur, 'Mad Dog' Mitchell, Marcel Messnier
Player two; Dominique Lavarre, Jean-Francois Laguna and Vixen,
Player three; 'Iron Fist' Chung, Soo Suk Wang and three generic Chinese riflemen.

(All the photo's were taken by Oleg as usual)

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As the day passes into twilight, Captain Wangai moves his ship out into the lagoon. He’d prefer to be away for he knows full well the Germans, having put up such a fight on the beach, will be back sooner rather than later. The sea is calm and the first stars are coming out. The sporadic crackle of gunfire from the Island’s interior has stopped now, but no red flare has been launched to warn le Mollusc to flee, so the mercenary ship must stay and wait out the night. Edith Flavien steps onto the bridge holding a steaming mug of tea. He thanks her and she stands close.
“Is it not dangerous to stay here?” she whispers.
“Very” he nods, “But our people need us to wait, so we must wait. I shall tell the others to expect an attack, but hopefully the Germans will be preoccupied with the others”
Edith nods vaguely.
Ivan Kopylov looms from the inky shadows and Captain Wangai regards the mute Russian. Since they cannot speak a word to each other, he merely points to the top of the ship, to the anti aircraft gun battery that sits atop the bridge.
“Da.” Kopylov grunts. He climbs the rusty stairs and disappears leaving only the strong smell of cheap alcohol and stale sweat behind him.
“Don’t worry” Wangai tells Edith.

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Out on the open sea, two large boats cut through the water like knives. The first has the appearance of a fishing boat, but its speed and the throaty roar of its engine belay that impression. On her after deck, several men in rubber suits prepare weaponry. The second boat is different entirely, almost invisible in its dark colours, its fore deck boasts a 20mm auto-cannon and cluttered behind a forward cabin are more guns, and men in dark uniforms. A light flickers from its bridge, and the first boat veers off onto a separate course. Her Captain turns to his superior and salutes briskly.
“We are approaching the Northern Lagoon now My Lord”
Baron Von Schöenberg nods briefly, his attention on the dark silhouette of Farquhar Island. Like its demented master, it served a purpose, useful for a while, but now obsolete, a dead end. Metzger’s promises of superiority came to nothing but horrendous monsters and freaks. If mankind’s supreme form is to be found, then the search must continue along other avenues. He shakes his head sadly, aware now that the great discovery will probably not happen in his life time as he’d once hoped. Now he must prepare for the future. He turns to the communications officer.
“Inform Helga we will return to Neu-Prußen as soon as we have taken the enemy ship.”
“Jawohl!”

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Starting

Le Mollusc is at anchor in the middle of the Northern Lagoon (see red dot on image above). Several hours of darkness have passed before the Germans mount their counter attack, and the mercenary ship has been lulled into a sense of near complacency. Only Ivan Kopylov and Captain Wangai are still suspicious. Both remain at their posts, despite the late hour. Two other sentries have also been posted. Unfortunately for the mercenaries, the Germans have employed a team of divers, and these approach the ship, unseen.

Captain Wangai begins on the bridge with one other member of the crew to be chosen by player one. Ivan Kopylov is alone on the Observation deck and wide awake, note he can only look in one direction (perception) per round and he is hampered by ignorance of divers. This counters his attention, but does not affect his perception roll. Player one may specify two other sentries, to be placed any where on the ship; however these suffer a -1 penalty for boredom and inattention.

Players two and three begin the game in their cabins, mostly asleep. They may begin to deploy, one element at a time once the alarm bell rings or loud firing begins.

Player four begins off table. Once firing begins, the patrol boat moves to board the ship. The patrol boat can engage with its 20mm auto-cannon from off table any time it wishes to do so, but Le Mollusc’s twin .50’s can match the gun boat for range and destructive capability. The gun boat takes 4 rounds to get on table once it starts up its engines.

The game begins when player five’s divers reach the ships side. The rest of player fives elements begin off table, waiting to board the ship from a different direction. As it is not dark hulled, the dive boat is further away. It will therefore take longer for it to arrive on table.

Note. This chapter takes place simultaneously as chapter five

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Player one

Captain Wangai (pistol)
& group one from Le Mollusc

Players two & three:

Each of the players takes one of the remaining groups from Le Mollusc (see list above)

Player four:

Baron Von Schöenberg (Handgun)
Kapitan Michael Lerner (Handgun)
2 x Crew
8 x Schattentroppen assault team (6 rifles & 2 SMG’s & grenades)

Player five:

Kapitan Hans Orff (Handgun)
2 x Crew
(Diver commander) Hauptman Horst Steinhof (SMG & grenades)
4 x Kampfschwimmer (SMG & grenades)
8 x Schattentroppen assault team (6 rifles & 2 SMG’s & grenades)

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Map

1. Foredeck, with 75mm gun.
2. Main deck, with a hatch, down
3. Command cabin
4. Common room (currently being used to bunk Iron Fist Chung's gang)
5. Stairwell, up and down.
6. Captain Wangai's cabin.
7. Afterdeck, with stair well, up and down.
8. Bridge.
9. Stairwell, down.
10. Upper deck, stairs up and down.
11. Observation deck, with twin .50 AA gun, stairs down.

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Victory conditions

Players four and five win by taking control of the ship. They can do this by fulfilling two of three criteria; capture the radio communications equipment on the bridge and hold it by the end of the game, defeat Captain Wangai and/or defeat two thirds of the enemy force.

Players one, two and three win the game by preventing players four and five from fulfilling two of their victory criteria.
Note. Removing Captain Wangai from the game, hiding him in the hull for example, counts as a defeat.

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Starting

All exterior areas of Le Mollusc are rough. All interior areas of Le Mollusc are difficult.

All areas on the smaller vessels count as difficult. The sea is impaasable except for the divers, for whom it is difficult.

Climbing the ships sides requires a rope with grapnel (all the divers each have such an article). To attach the rope and grapnel, a stealth roll must be passed. To climb aboard requires the diver rolls above 7 on a d6 + H/H. If a sentry is within 6 inches of the rope and grapnel when the diver attempts to climb aboard, a further stealth skill must be passed against discovery. Once a grapnel has been attached it is imossible to dislodge it from the sea.

The Heinkel He-51 which was captured in Chapter two is moored along the starboard side of Le Mollusc in preperation for being winched aboard at first light. Tethered on either side of it are the two ships boats. Due to cables attached to the aircraft, it cannot be movd during the game. It can however be used for cover (+1) and destroyed (roll against 4)

This game takes place during the night so all visibility below 12 inches is impared so perception skills suffer by -1 and stealth benefits by +1.

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Vehicles

Patrol boat Hela
Top speed: 32 knots/ 60km/h.
Range: 1,600km.
Crew: 10.
Length: 24m.
Width: 5.8m.
Displacement: 38t.
Turret: No.
Armaments: 20mm MG FF auto-cannon & 7.92mm MG34.
Power plant: 2x Daimler Benz twenty-cylinder diesel engines; 2,200 hp.
Armour: None.

Dive boat Arcona
Top speed: 14 knots/ 26km/h.
Range: 1,200km.
Crew: 3+4.
Length: 22m.
Width: 5.2m.
Displacement: 21t.
Turret: No.
Armaments: None
Power plant: MAN twelve-cylinder diesel engine 400 hp.
Armour: None.

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Conclusion

The game table at the begining of the game

As Le Mollusc lay in the placid waters of the northern lagoon, five German combat divers approached her. Captain Wangai and a few of his men were keeping watch, but as the hours passed, their attention faded. Suddenly there was a muffled clang as Diver Nr 5 failed to get his grappeling hook attached quietly. Slowly he pulled himself up out of the water, but suddenly he realised there was some one on the ship peering over the side. It was a young Turk with wide eyes, and unsure what to do, Diver Nr 5 took a shot at the sentry with his silenced submachine gun. He missed, the bullets scattering wildly along the ships side, and then he dropped back into the sea. Captain Wangai peered over the side and saw the ring of disturbed water in the darkness.
"Alarm! Attack!" The young Turk cried out, and one by one the sleepy crew began to crew began to pour out onto the deck.

Far out in the darkness, Baron von Shöenberg and his men waited for a signal, the sound of gun fire perhaps, or a flare. But neither the sounds of alarm, nor the noise of the silenced weapon carried across the sea.

As the crew of the small freighter clustered about the super structure, they became aware that several divers had climbed onto the front of the ship and were attempting to turn the 75mm gun to face the bridge. They were immediatly met with a hail of gunfire as Captain Wangai looked on. The divers, under the commander of Hauptman Horst Steinhof soon found themselves pinned down and in an impossible position. Even loading the gun proved impossible as the amount of ammunition richocheting about their ears created a lethal killing zone around them. Eventually, a 75mm shell was dropped on its nose and began to hiss ominously so the three divers manning the gun paniked and jumped over board leaving Hauptman Steinhof by himself. Steinhof didn't have time to shout orders though because the hatch he was guarding suddenly opened and a fat Turk tried to emerge from within the ship.

Hauptmann Steinhof and his men attempt to seize the 75mm gun

All this gunfire had since alerted the lurking patrol boats and Kapitan Michael Lerner gave the order to attack. The patrol boat 'Hela' switched on her searchlight for a few seconds, just long enough to spot Le Mollusc and give the Heinkel a burst of gunfire from its main gun, a 20mm MG FF autocannon, firing high explosive rounds. The seaplane was destroyed but didn't catch fire, as Kapitan Lerner had hoped (his idea had been to illuminate the freighter with the burning aircraft).

Hela

Hauptman Steinhof, still fighting on the bow of Le Mollusc sent the fat Turk back down the hatch with a vicious chop to the back of his head, but even as the shame faced divers attempted to crawl back up the bows to help him, a mad Irishman wearing a fire helmet, greasy underpants and nothing else, climbed up the hatch clutching a fire axe! Hauptman Steinhof knocked him back down, but failed to kill him, and a few moments later the grinning Celt was back for a second try. This time, thanks to Diver Nr 3 having clamboured back to the bow, Hauptman Steinhof managed to make the first kill of the game and the Irish man went down for good (a post game die roll established his death).

THWACK!

Diver Nr 5 takes a pot shot at Captain Wangai

Whilst all these shenanigans were taking place, Hela was fast approaching, zig zagging to bring all her guns to bear, and spraying the rear of Le Mollusc with gun fire. The pirates weren't shy though, and returned fire with gusto. Alas, every one opened fire at extreme range so no one was doing any significant damage, though a lot of people spent their time suppressed.

Diver Nr 5 was still treading water, looking up at the ship he'd failed to climb aboard. He'd tried to climb aboard the Heinkel, but the 20mm gunfire from Hela had almost take his head off so he was left aiming his sub machine gun up at Captain Wangai* and naturally he took the shot, with a die roll of 1. Wangai noticed some one was firing at him, but didn't pay it much attention (thus passed my last decent opportunity to meet at least one victory criteria).

Time was running out and neither of the German boats was going to make it in time and when the sands ran out, we ended the game with an unsatisfatory victory for Le Mollusc and her crew. Curious to see whether they could make a dash for it, two of the divers on the bow started for the ships super-structure, only to be instantly cut down. At the same time, Ivan on the twin .50's took a tentative long range shot at the approaching dive boat and polished off a rifleman.

The game was unfortunately something of a failed attempt. The original idea had been to have a gunfight on board the ship, but what we end up with was two long range duels which took so long that we ran out of time, and as a consequence of the last few games I've come to the conclusion that narrative skirmish games can't function properly within the constraints imposed by our current system BAYONET.

Our solution will be to adapt the rules to this kind of game by increasing the length of time allocated to each round. Essentially what this means is that an unencumbered human running across good terrain will move twelve inches per round, instead of three. Oleg suggests automatic gun fire becomes more effective as a counter to the different time frame and I think this is probably a really good idea given that people will be moving much faster whilst the effective gunfire rate will be cut by a third. Its a compromise, but I can't see how else this type of game can function if each round only represents one second in game time.

Chapter Five will continue to use BAYONET, but after Christmas, RM6 will be played using BAYONET+. Oleg also has plans on putting all of our various rule systems online sometime next year, so any one curious will be able to see how the system works.

* Silenced sub machine guns were available in 1936, but I'm less sure about submachines which would function when fired from the sea... it is a historical ambiguity, I'll admit, but hardly a sticking point in a game like Rocketman.

Captain Wangai on the bridge

Edith Flavien

Le Mollusc returns fire against Hela

The dive boat, shown here prior to the game beginning, never even made it into the fight

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Miniatures gallery

2008-07-13T05:39:00.000-07:00

Miniatures and models

Audrey Summers, Rocketman & George Macarthur (Copplestone Castings)

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Helga (Copplestone Castings)

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The Colonel and his Bolsheviks (Copplestone Castings)

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Yuri and the Black Guards (Copplestone Castings)

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Olga and her gang. (Copplestone Castings)

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Crossley light trucks. (Converted from Matchbox toys, bought on e-bay)

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Rolls Royce armoured cars (Copplestone Casting)

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1/48 scale Renault FT 17 Light tank (Gaso Line)

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Converted International Mark VIII ‘Liberty’ heavy tank
(Model is actually a repainted 'Indy tank' toy bought at Disneyland in Florida by a friend)
The figure in the foreground is Korsakov (Eureka Miniatures)

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Ensemble of vehicles comparing size

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Scratch built watchtower. Click on image to remove roof

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Oberst Doktor Holst. (Copplestone Casting)

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'Schattentroppen'. (Renegade Miniatures)

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Vickers MkII medium tanks. (Copplestone Casting)
.

Ideas & Conceptual art

2008-07-14T08:32:00.002-07:00

Rocketman

This is a rough idea of Rocketman's armoured suit. The main garment is a modified, padded flight suit with an asbestos lining. Over this he wears a 'chemico' flak jacket with an attached groin shield. On his head Rocketman wears a modified paratroopers helmet with a fin. The idea is this assists in steering the rocket, though the rocket pack has its own steering system with smaller retro-jets behind each shoulder. Rocketman wears standard pilots goggles and his face and neck are covered with a silk scarf.

His lower arms are protected by steel vambraces with the left arm terminating in the rocket control mechanism (don't ask me how this works because I don't have a clue, its classified top secret). The controls for the pumps, and the master control switch for the rocket pack are located on the belt. Rocketman wears steel capped boots and steel greaves (with asbestos lining) to protect his legs.

The pistol is a .455 Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver, though this is not Rocketmans usual fire arm (that being a ZK383 heavy submachine gun).

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'Mad Dog' Mitchell

Mitchell didn't require much thought. He started off as a subsidiary character in RM1 and quickly became a staple of the game. He's inspired by every war hero actor of the 1945-1969 era, but especially George Kennedy, Humphrey Bogart and Wayne Morris. He is from Texas because thats where the meanest, toughest Americans are supposed to live, and he is a gun running, whiskey drinking, ex doughboy, safari hand and sometimes mercenary who owns a house in Egypt. He has a wide range of dubious contacts in the shady world of mercenaries and gun smugglers, and can soon find some well armed friends from Turkey to Madagascar. Quite why he is running around the world with Rocketman is not explained.

Apart from his Texan drawl the only constant detail about Mitchell is his .30 Browning Automatic Rifle and his tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.

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Helga

Helga is a mysterious character. A tall, athletic blonde woman who is second in command to Baron Von Schöenburg. She may possibly be the most dangerous woman alive in 1936. Helga is based on numerous femme fatale stereotypes from a range of sources dealing with Germanic women, such as Disney's Helga Sinclair, Helga from Allo' Allo', and Doctor Elsa Schneider from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Helga wears a practical, dull brown mountaineer's anorak, usually carries a back pack and wears old style officer's boots. She carries two fully automatic weapons , a Bergman MP28 (Helga usually employs snail drum magazines with a fifty round capacity as opposed to the regular twenty round box magazine shown in the drawing) and a Mauser M712 (holstered in the drawing) and usually has a few grenades to hand. Those in the drawing are the standard German Model 24.

More to come...

2009-07-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Rocketman blog. On this site are all the various games played thus far, with background information and various character and equipment stats. The site can be navigated by means of the index in the side bar. To return to this main page, simply click on the title image.

Rocketman is a skirmish wargame campaign using a set of simple home made rules created by Oleg Zacharov, based on, and scaled up from the fantastic DBA rule system. These rules are not available on this site, but given the information I have posted, any one ought to be able to convert Rocketman using any combat or role playing rules which deal with the twentieth century.

Rocketman is set in the latter half of the 1930's, specifically around the year 1936. The games are inspired by a wide range of sources and idea's, primarily Bulldog Drummond, Indiana Jones and Rocketeer. Most of the settings are historical, or draw on historical events, but the games tend to avoid including actual people or events. Also, I have deliberately toned down the Nazi's, for a number of reasons. Partly because I want to avoid the whole 'Nazi secret weapon' cliché, but also because the Nazi's are absent from the Bulldog Drummond books which were my initial starting point.

This site is designed to be an online resource for the players, but any one who stumbles across the site and likes what they read is welcome to use it. Most everything written on the site is of my own design and creation and as far as possible I have avoided using copyrighted imagery (there may be one or two exceptions but if any one complains then I shall simply remove the offending image).

The blog will be updated as time goes by, but in such a manner that this page will always be foremost.

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Rocketman campaigns, past, present & future

RM1

-ROCKETMAN-

Players: Oleg. Tracey. Palle. Jan.
Rocketman and companions set out to rescue professor Rosenblum from the clutches of Baron von Schöenberg. The adventure takes them from a steamer in the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt and Northern Sudan.

RM1.1 - Death on the high seas
RM1.2 - Manhunt
RM1.3 - La vallee maudite
RM1.4 - Mad dogs and Englishmen
RM1.5 - The divine light

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RM2

-ICE STATION X-

Players: Oleg. Tracey. Jan.
Rocketman goes to the North Pole to find the evil Doktor Metzger but ends up facing an enemy beyond his wildest fears.

RM2.1 - The frozen north
RM2.2 - The ice station

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RM3

-ARMOURGEDDON-

Players: Oleg. Tracey. Palle. Peter. Jan.
Rocketman journeys to Russia after the mysterious 'Iron Czar' kidnaps Audrey Summers. Events soon lead to pitched battles in Khazakhstan where the Iron Czar is about to unleash a terrifying energy weapon againt Moscow.

RM3.1 - Agent 99 and the trans-Siberian express
RM3.2 - 126 Nevksy Road
RM3.3 - Rocketman attacks!
RM3.4 - The machine man
RM3.5 - Child of war

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RM4

-RAIDERS OF THE GOLDEN ANACONDA-

Players: Oleg. Rasmus. Peter. Palle. Jan.
Rocketman is recruited by MI6 and then sent to the Amazon river to find a former agent of Baron von Schöenberg named Moros. A three sided battle ensues when the Barons agents arrive to deal with Moros first.

RM4.1 - Crossfire
RM4.2 - The lair of Moros

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RM5

-THE ISLAND OF PERDITION-

Players: Jan. Oleg. Rasmus. Palle. Goeg.
Whilst still in Brazil, Rocketman locates a commercial u-boat belonging to the Baron. Soon the game is afoot as papers on board the submarine lead Rocketman to a secret island base in the Seychelles where the Dr Metzger and the Schwartzekreutz bruderschafft have been conducting diabolical scientific experiments.

RM5.1 - Bremen on the Amazon
RM5.2 - Beach assault
RM5.3 - Denizens of the wreck
RM5.4 - The sea wolves
RM5.5 - The house of Schöenberg

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RM6

-EXTREMIS-

Players: Jan. Palle. TBA
Viktor Korsakov returns and this time he is ready for battle! Things heat up in Afghanistan, anno 1936!

RM6.1 - The Kunduz affair
RM6.2 - The battle of Wadi Suhib
RM6.3 - Revenge of the Black Guards
RM6.4 - Blood, iron and sand
RM6.5 - Inferno

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RM7

-THE TERROR OF OYSTER BAY-

Players: Jan. Palle. TBA
A British scientist goes missing when his aeroplane crashes in the Everglades. Rocketman and his friends investigate the disapearance but find more than just alligators!

RM7.1 - The mystery of flight 1091
RM7.2 - The Kingpin
RM7.3 - Wharf nr 9

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RM8

-THE LAND OF THE WITCH QUEEN-

Players: TBA
A reception in Paris goes horribly wrong when African warriors break in to kidnap noted archeologist Bertie Bambridge. What follows is a series of pitched battles as Rocketman races into the heart of the Congo to rescure his friend from certain doom!

RM8.1 - Shadows in the city of light
RM8.2 - La bête noir
RM8.3 - King of the Congo
RM8.4 - The thunder of guns
RM8.5 - Dark Heart

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RM9

-SILBERVOGEL-

Players: TBA
A grainy photograph sends Rocketman back into the Amazon jungle in a desperate attempt to stop Baron von Schöenberg from toppling the global order. Things are not what they seem however and time is running out faster than any one knows!

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RM10

-THE ETERNAL MACHINE-

Players: TBA
Facing the prospect of a catastrophic global conflict, Sir Hugh Sinclair initiates Rocketman into a secret order of the British Empire. Its time for a new beginning, but others have had the same idea...

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RM11

-THE MANCHURIAN CAMPAIGN-

Players: TBA

A new world order isn't always a good idea. Having saved the world, Rocketman must now deal with the consequences.

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Antagonists

2008-07-13T05:40:00.000-07:00

Baron Gottfried von Schöenberg

Baron von Schöenberg is a Prussian nobleman some where in his mid fifties. He is a robust and determined man whose natural leadership abilities inspire great loyalty in his men. Despite an old war wound that has left him with a slight limp, he has undergone the same parachute training as the Schwartzepfeile unit and will parachute into combat when ever the need arises.
Baron von Schöenberg is the Hochmeister of Die Schwartzekreutz Vachten. Which is to say he is the Grand Master of a Secret Teutonic order of Christian Knights called the Brotherhood of the Black Cross founded in 1410CE by twelve Brother knights of the Order of Teutonic Knights in the face of a devastating defeat at the hands of the Poles. (See below for more details). The Baron is the main antagonist in the Rocketman games.

Due to various dreams and experiences from the first world war, the Baron is a firm believer in the teachings of the Brotherhood of the Black Cross and is searching for the ‘Gift of God’ which the brotherhoods ancient texts say will one day fall from the Heavens in a blaze of golden light.

Having foreseen the destruction which will engulf Germany at the hands of Adolf Hitler the Baron has secretly been removing his assets from Germany and relocated them in various other nations. Some of these are known, othes are guessed at. They include South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, The United States of America, Canada, Norway and Great Britain. Despite having had dealings with the German government in the early 1930's, the Baron is not a Nazi, though he is still a ruthless man. As the Grand Master of the Brotherhood of the Black Cross he believes it is his responsibility to prepare mankind for the glorious Day of Judgement. To that end he has sponsored Doktor Metzger’s many diabolical medical experiments with the purpose of finding ways to enhance and improve the human condition so that when the Gift of God is received by the Brotherhood it will have the capacity to utilise it to its full extent… Unlike Metzger however, Baron von Schöenberg is not insane; he is simply a firm believer in the divine will of God.

Apart from the Black Arrows, whose loyalty is without question, the Baron only trusts Helga. The reason for this is a secret known only to the two of them.

The Official History of the Guardians of the Black Cross

The history of this mysterious secret society begins in the year of 1410CE in the aftermath of the battle of Tannenberg when the Polish forces of King Władysław Jagiełło obliterated the army of the Order of Teutonic Knights. Faced with the loss of so many Christian warriors, a small band of twelve Ritterbruder under the leadership of Maximillian von Schöenberg gathered in secret to discuss the implications of the defeat. Ancient documents recently found in the ruins of Schloss Schöenberg indicate that the twelve knights formed a secret inner order, named Die Schwartzekreutz Vachten. Other later documents found at Bern in Switzerland refer to the order as Die Scwartzekreutz Bruderschafft, and this name is also referred to in passing in some of the later Schloss Schöenberg documents (dated 1567CE) Whether or not the order was named The Guardians of the Black Cross, or the Brotherhood of the Black Cross is uncertain. It may be that the order had no official name. Certainly its existence was a well-kept secret from the rest of the Order of Teutonic Knights, and its purpose also remains clouded in mystery.
Recent papers and manuscripts indicate that the Brotherhood intends to create a pure bred Aryan master race however, American and French observers note that the earlier Schloss Schöenberg papers contradicte recent papers in that they describe a purely Christian society created to uphold and maintain Christianity until the final days when God would judge all mankind.

There is no conclusive evidence to the true purpose of the Guardians of the Black Cross, but a compilation of all known existing data, indicates a secret society that was formed for purely religious reasons in 1410CE by twelve Ritterbruder of the Order of Teutonic Knights independent of the existing Teutonic hierarchy. In one badly preserved manuscript, Maximillian von Schöenberg is described as Hochmeister of the secret order and given the find of medieval documents in the library of Schloss Schöenberg, it is safe to assume that the order was originally based there.

After the initial founding of the Guardians of the Black Cross, there is no further documentation regarding membership until the 'Red Book' of 1567CE, which appears to be a ledger of the holdings of the order as well as a history of those holdings. This book is by far, the best information we have regarding the earliest years of the order though several key pages are missing. It details a wealth of accumulated assets, including farms, breweries, mills and even inns and alehouses. The purpose of these assets to the order is unclear, but the book is a tally of resources drawn up with the apparent intention of evaluation. The massed wealth of the order indicated by the book is considerable.

The final chapter of the book deals with money lending and it seems that around 1550CE the order had come under the leadership of one Hochmeister Neuhof who’s devotion to the original Christian purposes did not prohibit him from using the orders assets to lend money to various military and scientific causes with the apparent intention of increasing the orders wealth.

The next document that sheds light on the Guardians of the Black Cross is a personal journal of Baron Mannfred Wilhelm von Schöenberg, dated from 1805 to 1807CE. This remarkable book illustrates the every day life at Schloss Schöenberg as well as the thoughts and feelings of the Baron regarding Prussia’s military adventures and ultimate defeat at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Baron follows the developments in Europe closely and offers much interesting contemporary observation that undoubtedly would be helpful to scholars of the Napoleonic era, but also reports in several scattered paragraphs to dealings he has with his ‘Brothers’. Since the Baron was an only child, it is therefore possible that he is referring to Die Scwartzekreutz Bruderschafft. At no point in the journal however does the Baron refer to himself as Hochmeister, or even mention the names of his ‘Brothers’. However, as the year 1807CE progresses, the Baron decides the ‘Brothers’ must take steps to remove the French influence from Prussia. It is unfortunately impossible to know what happened after 1807CE because the journal ends, and no other journals were recovered from Schloss Schöenberg. Baron Mannfred Wilhelm von Schöenberg however, is recorded as having died in 1817CE of old age.
At the same time (1815CE), the von Schöenberg family crest adopted the addition of a small black cross in the upper right hand quadrant.

There is no further mention of the order in the Schloss Schöenberg documents, and therefore all our further knowledge of the order comes from the archives of the Neuhof family of Bern in Switzerland. Whether or not the Neuhof family is descended from the1567CE Hochmeister of the Guardians of the Black Cross is unclear since the family refuses to comment on the matter and local records do not show from where the Neuhof family originated from, but it seems a clear likelihood that given the family’s archives this is the case.

The Neuhof archives were left to the University of Bern in 1951CE in the last will of Erik Saksen Neuhof and shed much light on certain events that took place during and immediately after the First World War. Erik Saksen Neuhof was a close personal friend of the last of the Schöenberg barons, Gottfried von Schöenberg and served together with him in Turkey from 1916 to 1918CE. The details of their service are unclear since the Imperial German military archives do not list any official military units commanded by Gottfried von Schöenberg in Turkey in this period, but experts deem Neuhof’s papers authentic none the less.

Erik Saksen Neuhof was a history student when the war broke out, studying at Berlin on a grant paid for by the then Baron of Schloss Schöenberg; Gottfried von Schöenberg’s father Mannfred Alexander von Schöenberg.
Saksen Neuhof was studying medieval history, but aside from his studies he was also being paid by the Baron to look into and compile details of the 1908CE Tunguska incident. According to Saksen Neuhof the Baron had planned an expedition to the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin but that this had been postponed by the outbreak of the First World War. For the next four years Erik Saksen Neuhof fought in Turkey and the Middle East in numerous unusual encounters under the command of the Baron’s son. Both men were decorated but returned home disillusioned at the outcome of the war. As Germany slid deep into economic collapse, the Baron died leaving Gottfried von Schöenberg as sole heir to Schloss Schöenberg and all the family’s fortune’s. Erik Saksen Neuhof remained with his friend throughout this period and from him we have the details of the amazing expedition that took place to Siberia in 1919CE.

According to Erik Saksen Neuhof, Baron Mannfred Alexander von Schöenberg had commissioned the construction of a Zeppelin in 1914, and that this airship; registered LZ119 had been built in 1915CE but had some how been kept secret from Germany’s government. According to the official records, LZ119 was the first of the L100 class, and therefore the largest design of its kind. The records however do not correspond with Saksen Neuhof’s claims as they state clearly that the LZ119 was never built.
Saksen Neuhof claims it was built, and that upon the death of his father, Baron Gottfried von Schöenberg used this airship to mount a secret expedition across Poland, Russia and Siberia to the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin from 1919 to 1920CE, arriving exactly one year before the Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik reached the area.

Erik Saksen Neuhof never states the reason for this expedition, but from his notes it is clear that Baron Gottfried von Schöenberg did not find what he was searching for. The LZ119 returned to Germany and no further mention of it is made in Neuhof’s archives.
After the expedition, Saksen Neuhof notes a change in his old friend. From being a man of relaxed yet noble patriotism it seems the Baron is consumed with some great purpose that he keeps from the world at large. He forms a militia of men with no clear purpose in 1921CE and even asks Saksen Neuhof to join him but Saksen Neuhof politely declines. Germany is rife with armed groups about this time, and rising anti Semitism finally forces Erik Saksen Neuhof to flee the country for Switzerland in 1929CE in order to protect his Jewish wife and children.
He returns only once to Germany, in 1934CE and on this occasion meets with Baron von Schöenberg at Schloss Schöenberg. This is the last time the two friends meet and in a single known letter to his wife, Saksen Neuhof describes Baron von Schöenberg as friendly and polite, but distant. He also describes meeting several Nazi party members at Schloss Schöenberg including Herman Göring and observing a demonstration of paratroopers jumping from a Junkers JU52.

At no point in the Neuhof family archives does Erik Saksen Neuhof mention the Guardians of the Black Cross and it is unclear whether or not the order still existed then. However this author speculates that the order does still exist and has indeed collaborated with the Nazi party for reasons unknown.

Baron Gottfried von Schöenberg disappeared from Germany in 1935.

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Helga

Helga is a mysterious tall, blonde woman of unknown age and background. Quite who she is, how old she is, or what her relationship with the Baron is remains unknown, but the connection between them is one of obvious loyalty and trust and Helga may be either the Barons lover or his daughter. She is Baron von Schöenberg’s second in command and usually commands his clandestine field operations. She is a fully trained parachutist and a crack shot with her trusty Mauser M712. She also carries a Bergman submachine gun.

Helga is ruthless, efficient and deadly.

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Herr Doktor Alfred Metzger

Metzger is a classic mad scientist. After his extensive education in Berlin, he broke off his university connections in 1927 when Baron Von Schöenberg offered him the resources to research the creation of the 'perfect human being'. Overwhelmed by this offer, Metzger accepted gladly and soon began horrendous experiments on human muscle tissue using condemned criminals as laboratory specimens. Eventually these horrors became so terrible that even the Gestapo recommended Metzger's work be stopped.

Metzger is not a Nazi, but is equally evil. He has convinced himself that his research is essential for the greater good of the race and must be carried out. He derives no specific pleasure from inflicting pain, only an intense satisfaction in his ‘work’.

Of late he has apparently exceeded even von Schöenberg’s mandate and is known to have conducted experiments on innocent people chosen for their physical attributes. He is an excellent surgeon and physician though clearly insane.

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Viktor Korsakov

Also known as the 'Iron Czar', 'Machine Man' or 'Archangel'. Korsakov is a Russian, bolshevik renegade from Arkhangelsk. Originally he was a party member, high in the ranks of the Politicheskoye Buro where he controlled a secret technical operations unit known as the ONB7, Osobogo Naznacheniya Brigada 7 (Special Purpose Brigade 7). This unit was unknown to the outside world until circa 1935 when London learned Korsakov had apparently broken away from Stalin and kidnapped a brilliant Russian scientist named Yuri Khalnikov. A British historian and secret agent working in southern Russia named Lady Penelope Carfax was activated by MI6 to investigate.

Korsakov's strength lies in his control over numerous technical scientific projects, most of which were hidden away so secretly that the government in Moscow does not know of their locations, or in some cases, even of their existence. Korsakov controls numerous such secret installations and paramilitary groups, especially in southern Russia, Khazakhstan and south eastern Siberia. He has been declared an enemy of the state by Moscow, but his Black Guards remain loyal as they see the authorities in Russia as tyrants and believe they are fighting a counter revolution for a better communist state.

Korsakov is well armoured. He wears a prototype powered armour suit which, though slow is impervious to bullets and grenades, and has its own weaponry, including a sub machine gun in one arm and a grenade thrower on the other. There may also be other weapons as yet unrevealed.

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ONB7

Very little is known about the Osobogo Naznacheniya Brigada 7. Officially it does not exist at all, but recent reports filed in London suggest it is a paramilitary bureau coordinating and controlling secret scientific research on behalf of the Soviet Union.

Some reports suggest the ONB7 itself is a purely military unit and undertakes no actual research of its own. Instead, the ONB7 maintains clandestine operations and research facilities far from prying eyes. It also seems to operate an international network of secret agents with the aim of acquiring scientific and military secrets from other countries. Recent events demonstrate that the ONB7 is aware of Project Meteor and wishes to acquire its technology.

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Yuri

Yuri was Korsakov's second in command in the Kazakhstan campaign. He was a small rat faced, bolshevik, and former officer of the NKVD. He firmly believed in the counter revolution to restore communist control over the Soviet Union. He hated Josef Stalin and despised the NKVD. Yuri joined ONB7 at some point prior to 1934, but such is the secrecy surrounding that unit that no information about Yuri is known prior to 1935. He was killed in 1936 when Rocketman destroyed the ONB7 Death Ray.

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Olga

Olga is an Uyghur bandit leader and one of Viktor Korsakov's allies. Unlike his other forces, Olga appears to be motivated by payment alone. She is a short squat woman who often wears bulky fur coats and tends to shout a lot at her men. She appears to carry no weapons but a pistol and is known to be a deadly mistress of obscure Asian martial arts. Rumour has it, she kills her victims with her thighs.

Olga's men are a mixture of illiterate bandits from Turkestan, Khazakhstan, Afghanistan and beyond. Her true strength lies in her control over a vast gun running network that stretches from Mumbai to Manchuria.

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Moros

Very little is known about Moros. He appears to be some kind of shaman based in the Amazon rain forest who buys and 'acquires' unusual artefacts. According to rumour, he was educated as a chemist in Paris and later spent some time in the USA. In the past he has also been connected to Baron von Schöenberg via dubious arms deals, but this connection appears to be waning.

Moros is a dark skinned Hispanic, probably Mexican, who wears flying goggles and an unusual hat adorned with the feathers of tropical birds. He uses this some what eccentric costume to intimidate local Indians and create the impression that he is a demon. Moros is thought to have a secret lair some where in the Amazon.

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Sources of inspiration

2008-07-14T08:33:00.001-07:00

Books

Biggles
A long running series of novels regarding a Britsh fighter pilot of the First World War, which ran from 1932 until 1999. I have only read a few of these, and they vary greatly in quality. The character of George Macarthur is loosely based on several of Biggles's companions. 2/5

Bulldog Drummond: his four rounds with Carl Peterson.
By Sapper. Set in the 1920's, these are the first four stories in a series of novels featuring the character of Bulldog Drummond. They are some what dated now, but have a large dose of period escapism. The character of Daniel Mansfield is largely based on Hugh Drummond. 4/5

The lost world
By Arthur Conan Doyle. Set sometime in the early twentieth century, probably around 1912. This seimanl work began the 'lost world genre' of science fiction and gaming. 4/5

The thirty-nine steps
By John Buchan. Set in 1914. This novel is an iconic spy story/mystery featuring the character of Richard Hannay. 4/5

This man is dangerous
By Peter Cheyney. One of a series of novels about a private detective named Lemmy Caution and his numerous adventures against gangsters and criminals, this book is set in 1936. 2/5

The lunatic at large, again
By Joseph Storer Clouston. Set in the early twentieth century (first published in 1922), this is the second in a series of novels (I haven't read any of the others yet, though the full text of the first novel can be found here) regarding the antics of a man with mental health problems. Very funny. 4/5

Movies

20,000 leagues under the sea
Set in 1866, this is the tale of Captain Nemo and his infamous submarine, Nautilus. There are several versions and my favourite is the 1954 Disney version. A great story, and despite being set in the wrong time, still excellent inspiration for skirmish wargaming scenarios. 4/5.

55 days at Peking
Set in China in 1900. This is a film about the Boxer rebellion with numerous scenarios suitable for wargaming. Copplestone do numerous figures which seem to be based on this film. 3/5

Atlantis
Set in 1914, this is an animated feature film by Disney which follows a group adventurers seeking the lost city of Atlantis. The film features several excellent idea's for skirmish wargaming in the early twentieth century. The character of Helga was largely based on the charcter of Helga Sinclair featured in this film. 4/5

Australia
Set in Northern Australia in 1939-42. This is a film about a young English noble woman and her struggle to save her dead husbands ranch and build herself a home. The film features the Japanese air attack on Darwin in 1942. 1/5

Bonnie and Clyde
Set during the Great Depression (early 1930's). The tale of two notorious criminal lovers. 3/5

Boxcar Bertha
Set during the Great Depression. Similar to Bonnie and Clyde, but grittier, with less glamour and more nudity. 3/5

Chinatown
Set in Los Angeles in the 1930's. This detective story features many elements of the classic film-noir genre and offers some good idea's for role playing in the 1930's. 3/5

Gunga Din
Set in India in 1880, this black and white film is about the adventurs of three British soldiers and a water bearer (after whom the film is named) during a thugee rebellion. It features, elephants, a thugee temple and a pitched battle. 4/5

Heaven knows Mr Allison
Set on a Pacific island during the Second World War, this film is about a US Marine and a novice nun who are forced to survive together. 1/5

High Road to China
Set in central Asia during the 1920's, this film is about a young woman who hires an ex ace pilot to help her find her father. The film features two biplanes travelling across Asia and a climactic battle with Chinese rebels, but the overall production is pretty cheap. 2/5

Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull
Set in the Americas in 1957. This film is something of a cgi-fest, but despite the odds manages to retain some of the magic of the older Indiana Jones films. 3/5

Indiana Jones and the last crusade
Set in Europe and Arabia in 1938. This film is a sequel to Raiders of the lost arc. It contains a great many inspirational details and idea's. 4/5

Indiana Jones and the temple of doom
Set in India in 1935, this film is a prequel to Raiders of the lost arc. Not as good as the other Indiana Jones films, it is nonetheless a classic of the genre. 3/5

Khartoum
Set in Egypt and the Sudan, in 1885. This film is about General Charles Gordon and the fall of Khartoum to the Mahdi. There isn't much of interest from the perspective of Rocketman, but the film does have a few interesting details for skirmish wargamers, such as a paddle steamer attempting to run a blokade. 2/5

King kong
There are several versions of this story, but the best take place during the early 1930's. 3/5

Lawrence of Arabia
Set in Arabia in during the first world war. This film features several desert skirmishes, including an ambushed train. Personally I didn't find much inspiration in it however, and it is very long winded. 2/5

Lion of the desert
Set in Libya in the late 1920's, this is a film about the Beduin guerilla leader Omar Mukthar and his final battles before being captured by the Italian general Rodolfo Graziani. On the whole a poor film, but it has a few interesting details for a war gaming perspective and is generally historically accurate. 2/5

March or die
Set in France and Morocco just after the First World War. This is a film about a company of French foreign legionaires assigned to protect a group of archeologists from a Berber rebel leader who is loosely based on Abd-el Krim. It features examples of period weaponry and some nice imagery, but has a tired, predictable story. 2/5

Mysterious island
Set in 1868, this is a sequel to '20,000 thousand leagues under the sea'. Not as good as the original, it does however feature an island populated by giant genetically mutated creatures (animated by Harryhausen). 3/5

North western frontier
Set in Northern India (now Pakistan) in 1905. This is a film about a group of foreigners, a Hindu boy-prince and a train driver called Gupta, attempting to escape from a Muslim rebellion. Plenty of pro British bias and post Imperial angst, but excellent inspiration for skirmish wargames. 3/5

Quigley down under
Set in Australia at an unspecificied date, but presumably some time in the late 1800's. This film features a character with a long range snipers rifle and a conflict with an unscrupulous land owner. 1/5

Raiders of the lost arc
Set in 1936. This is the first Indiana Jones film, and almost certainly the best. This film, more than any other is the inspiration for Rocketman and is a must see for any aficionado of the pulp genre. 5/5

Rocketeer
Set in California, 1938, this is film is an homage to the pulp heroes of the 1930s and 1940s, in particular the original Rocketman, Commander Cody. Of all the characters in movies, Rocketeer is the closest to Rocketman. 5/5

Shout at the devil
Set in Zanzibar, 1913. This is a film about two men who take on a German battleship hiding on a river during the First World War. 3/5

Sky captain and the world of tomorrow
Set in an alternative 1939. this film is an attempt at recreating the pulp genre by using live actors against a computer generated back ground. Made by an amateur who was given a chance, it has both strengths and weaknesses, but is well worth a watch. 3/5

The good. The bad. The weird.
Set in Manchuria in the 1930's, this film features a train robbery, Manchurian bandits and numerous gun fights with period weapons. There are no set battles however. 3/5

The island of Dr Moreau
Set in 2010, this is a modern version of HG Wells classic novel. It features the same over all idea of an island populated by genetic mutants. 2/5

The sand pebbles
Set in in China in the 1920's. This film is about the crew of an American gun boat trapped on the Yangtze river during a Kuomintang uprising. 4/5

The sting
Set in the American north east, during 1936. This film features gangsters, a set up and numerous scenes of America during the depression. 3/5

The thing
Set in Antarctica in 1982, this is a film about an American research facility whose personnel discover a crash space craft, aboard which is an alien life form. This film has lots of inspirational material for role playing and skirmish war games. 4/5

The wild bunch
Set in Mexico in 1913, this is a tale about a group of American criminals who get involved in the Mexican revolution. It is gritty and blood thirsty and features several skirmish type battles. 4/5

The wind and the lion
Set in Morocco in 1904, this is a dramatized account of the 'Perdicaris Incident'. It features the usual charismatic-local-leader-against-war-mongering-colonials type plot and has a few interesting details for skirmish wargamers to find inspiration from. 2/5

Two Jakes
Set in Californina in 1948. This is the sequel to Chinatown. 1/5

Villa rides
Set in Mexico around 1912. This is a curiously sentimental film about Pancho Villas. From the gamers perspective it has much to recommend it, Mexican bandits, a bi-plane vs semi-armoured train battle and a cavalry charge across wetlands and numerous gun fights. 4/5

Young Winston
Set in late Victorian era in Northern India, England, the Sudan and South Africa, this film deals with the early life of Winston Churchill. It features several battles including one with an armoured train. 4/5

Zulu
Set in South Africa in 1879. This film deals with the battle of Roukes Drift where a small British force defeated a much larger Zulu force. The film has plenty of inspiration for skirmish wargaming. 3/5

THE MANCHURIAN CAMPAIGN

2008-07-14T08:34:00.001-07:00

A new world order isn't always a good idea. Having saved the world, Rocketman must now deal with the consequences.

SILBERVOGEL

2008-07-13T05:44:00.002-07:00

A grainy photograph sends Rocketman back into the Amazon jungle in a desperate attempt to stop Baron von Schöenberg from toppling the global order. Things are not what they seem however and time is running out faster than any one knows!

THE LAND OF THE WITCH QUEEN

2008-07-13T05:52:00.000-07:00

A reception in Paris goes horribly wrong when African warriors break in to kidnap noted archeologist Bertie Bambridge. What follows is a series of pitched battles as Rocketman races into the heart of the Congo to rescure his friend from certain doom!

RAIDERS OF THE GOLDEN ANACONDA

2008-07-13T05:55:00.001-07:00

Part One: Crossfire

After rescuing Audrey Summers from the Iron Tsar, Daniel Mansfield returns to London on the first of August, 1936 to find Project Meteor has been reactivated. He meets with Sir Hugh Sinclair, head of MI6 who informs him that the rocket built by Prof. Summers is now once again the property of the British government.
“We’re very impressed with what you did in Kazakhstan” Sir Hugh says over a glass of sherry in a wood panelled office, “and we’d like you to do it again, this time for us, if you don’t mind.”
Mansfield, never one for hesitation, swiftly replies.
“By us, I take it you mean MI6?”
Sinclair hesitates.
“Not quite... actually, espionage is rather a dirty business and you never know just who is working for whom. The thing is, we just can’t risk this invention falling into the wrong hands, do you see? We have to be absolutely sure that no one even suspects, who or what Rocketman is.”
“Rocketman?”
“Yes, rather a fetching idea don’t you think? My personal secretary Miss Jennings thought of it. This way, if any one does see you or catch wind of your exploits, we can put the word about that your some kind of phantom... a figment of the imagination rather than an actual agent of his majesty’s government”
“It sounds rather jolly when you put it that way”.
The spy master regards the handsome pilot with a raised eye brow. He’d been warned not to be fooled by Mansfield’s boyish manner and now he see’s why. His long experience with evaluating agents for dangerous missions recognizes the ruthless man of steel hidden beneath the smiling charm and old school tie. Mansfield is the perfect man for the job he realises. Too bad he’s married though...
“So what’s the game then?”
Sinclair pulls out a slim brown dossier and hands it over.
”We had this a few days ago and I’ve been mulling it over. Its a stroke of luck you returned when you did because its right up your alley. I believe you even know the man...”
Curiousity hooks Mansfield and he opens the folder to reveal a map, some type written papers and a telegram...

PACKAGE+ARRIVES+24TH+STOP+MESSNIER+NO+LONGER+NEEDED+STOP
+INITIATE+PLAN+C+STOP+LIQUIDATE+ALL+ASSETS+STOP

”Messnier?” Mansfield looks up sharply. ”Marcel Messnier?”
”The same, Sinclair replies as he lights his pipe.
”Whats the old chap got himself into now?”
”Its a curious affair really. Some time last year Messnier came back from a clandestine operation in North Africa with some kind of animal no one had ever seen before. A giant spider or so I’m led to believe. Maybe you’ve heard of this? Well anyway, he showed this thing to some boffins in Paris and it didn’t take long before the French had a secret project in the works to examine this thing. Trouble is, they weren’t the only ones who were interested. One of their science boys, a biologist called...”
Sir Hugh peers at the type written papers myopically,
”...Eduardo Lopez, a Peruvian, sold the French out to some very dubious types in south America. Its all written in this report if you care to read it, but I’ll just give you the bare facts. Lopez passed on a lot of technical information to a character known as Moros, we have a whole file on him which I’ll let you read in due course. Suffice to say we’ve had our eye on him for some time. He was recently in Paris posing as an historian. He bought a famous statuette known as the Golden Anaconda, apparently to return it to its ancient home in Brazil. We think this was when he made contact with Lopez. We can’t be sure, because Lopez was found dead not long after that, killed by an unknown toxin.”
”Moros...” Mansfield frowns, ”Doesn’t that mean something?”
”Yes, it means ’fate’, or ’doom’, depending on which historian you ask. Its obviously an alias and we don’t know who he really is. What we do know is that he has connections to a lot of strange and otherwise unrelated people, not least one of whom you’ve already had dealings with.”
”Oh?”
”Indeed. I’m informed you are familiar with a certain Prussian aristocrat?”
”Do you mean the Baron von Schöenberg?”
”The very same.”
”But it was Schöenberg who discovered the valley with the giant spiders!”
”Indeed. Clearly there is a connection, but we haven’t been able to clarify it as yet. Before he quit Germany Schöenberg used to supply weapons to Moros, but we never saw any reason why. Moros is deeply involved with local Amazonian tribal groups and may be involved in some kind of secret organisation, possibly a rebel faction which wishes to set up its own state, or something more obscure. We can’t see any possible reason why Schöenberg was supplying these people with weapons.
What we do know is that Moros has already departed France with the Golden Anaconda and is set to arrive at Macapá on the 19th. We believe that Eduardo Lopez gave him something important, soomething to do with this giant spider the French are busy studying. ”
” Macapá?”
”Its a city at the mouth of the Amazon. A mining town mostly. We have an agent there, Sancho Gutiérrez, he’ll be your contact when you arrive. He’s well connected with the people who run the Amazon, officially and unofficially.”
”What about Messnier, shouldn’t I take him along?”
”We considered it but thought it might be risky, he is after all a French agent with unscrutable connections of his own but it turns out he went missing shortly after his arrival in Paris and no one knows where he is”
Mansfield looks down at the telegram
”You don’t think...?”
Sir Hugh smiles around his pipe.
”I don’t have to. I’m sending you to find out.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, off the east coast of Africa...

At a casual glance the steamer resembles any other ship of its kind. Old, rusting gently, its age is apparent in its tall funnel and upright bow. The Santa Maria is obviously an old ship, built before the turn of the century, probably in northern Europe though she now bears a Cuban registry, ’Havana’ painted almost illegibly across her broad stern.

A closer inspection by an experienced sailor might note a few unusal aspects of the ship however. Old and rusty as she might appear to the eye, her engines sound deep and powerful, she carries more radio masts than a ship her size needs and her some what large crew, all of whom are European, walk briskly and with great purpose. Only one man appears to be taking his leisure aboard this ship. Standing at the stern and contemplating the ships wake is a tall, iron grey haired gentleman dressed in an impecable ivory suit and smoking an expensive cigarette.

Otto Lübke is the ships radio man. Sitting in his cabin to the rear of the ships bridge he listens to the incoming radio message intently ignoring the noise from the mess below where several of the ships crew are listening intently to a another radio broadcast, this one from Berlin where Adolf Hitler is opening the Olympic games. The list of numbers is long and precise and he writes down the ciphered message with care and precision on a note pad. A single error could result in a garbeld message so he requests a repeat broadcast and double checks through the list of numbers just in case. The list is intact and so he breaks radio contact. A button operates a distant bell below and not long after the message is being decyphered by Oberleutnant Weiskirchner.

Weiskirchner reads through the message and then makes his way aft to the stern where Baron Gottfried von Schöenberg having finished his cigarette is standing with his hands clasped behind him.
“Yes?”
“A message from Brazil mein Herr”
The Baron regards the message with cold hard eyes.

Moros is demanding triple original fee. He threatens to sell the formula to HH if demands not met by 25th. What are your orders?

“A renegotiation of an agreement is always possible.” The Barons words startle Oberleutnant Weiskirchner who is not used to such blatent introspection from the Baron.
”Indeed mein Herr” he manages to reply.
Von Schöenberg regards him with something akin to benevolence.
“But a threat? That we will not tolerate. Reply to the message at once. Tell Helga to execute plan E.”
“Jawohl mein Herr!”
Oberleutnant Weiskirchner returns at a brisk pace to the radio room and the Baron turns to regard the distant horizon with a cold chilling smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arriving by a specially chartered empire flying boat in Macapá Daniel Mansfield steps up onto the dock and regards the busy dockyards. Behind him Mad Dog Mitchell passes several cases up to George McArthur from the small boat which has ferried them to land.
“Well, hell, here we go again” The Texan mutters to himself. “Another mad caper in some Gawd forsaken hell hole.”
“Isn’t that why your called Mad Dog?” George replies with a broad grin.
Mitchell pauses in mid toss.
“You watch your manners boy! People gotta earn the right to call me by that name”
George laughs and catches the heavy suit case Mitchell throws at him.
“By heaven! What do you have in here? It weighs a ton.”
Just the usual” Mitchell shrugs. “Mah Browning, a few grenades, some salami... I don’ know why I keep going on these crazy missions with you limey’s anyway. I oughtta be settlin’ down back in Texas, ‘cept there’s a few folks still sore at me there ah reckon.”
“Come off it. You love every minute of it.”
Mansfield lights a cigarette and turns to his two companions.
“You chaps stay here whilst I go find this Gutiérrez fellow”
“And do what?” Mitchell replies
Mansfield notices a hotel sign.
“Take a room at the hotel there and keep an eye open for me. I’ll return as soon as I can.” He makes his way through the crowded dockside and disappears amongst the mass of busy workers. Out in the bay a ships steam whistle cuts across Mitchells reply.

Sancho Gutiérrez is a small, stocky man in a seedy brown suit with a pock marked face. At first Mansfield is sure there is some mistake, but seeing the intelligence in Gutiérrez’s eyes he quickly understands that the Brazilian is far more than meets the eye. He sits down opposite the man in a small water front tavern, unperturbed by the man’s candid gaze.
“Sir Sinclair has given me strict orders to assist you” Gutiérrez says as he holds out a packet of unfamiliar cigarettes. Mansfield waves them aside and sits at the table. Gutiérrez, his back to the wall lights his cigarette and then blows the smoke up to the ceiling.
“I was not sure I understood the message so I asked for a clarification. I think London was a bit surprised. They’re not used to agents questioning their orders I suppose but I had to be sure. The man you seek, this Moros, he is a very dangerous man and he operates far from Macapá. We will have to travel several days up the river to find him and he will probably know we are coming. His people own the river up there. It will be very dangerous.”
“Can’t you bring some men?”
“Certainly I can bring some men, but I can’t bring an army, not without drawing attention from quarters we do not wish to know what we are about.”
“How many?”
”Maybe four or five militia men, I don’t know, I’m well connected, but I’m not the army”
”Thats not enough. If we’re to face Moros on his own ground we’ll need more than that
”Ten then?”
Mansfield frowns and Gutiérrez sighs
“...and a machine gun?” he adds
”It’ll have to do. When do we leave?”
”Tomorrow morning. I shall go and see Captain Ortiz now” he drains his coffee and starts to get up but Mansfield holds his elbow, restraining the smaller man with ease.
”Captain Ortiz?”
”He is a friend of mine, don’t worry, he will cooperate, and anyway, we can’t do this without his men. You want ten men and a machine gun at such short notice, then I must meet with my friend and pay him some money to make him extra friendly”
Mansfield releases the small Brazilian and watches him leave the taverna. The job is on, can he trust Gutiérrez? He ponders this for a while, thankful that he has Mitchell and McArthur along to back him up. He sighs gently, finishes his tea and leaves a tip tucked under the plate. Seeing this, the waitress smiles at him as he tips his hat and leaves.
Its time to get the rocket out...

Player One	Player Three
Rocketman George McArthur ’Mad Dog’ Mitchell Sancho Gutiérrez Captain Ortiz 10 x militia infantry (9 rifles +1 LMG) (Marcel Messnier if freed) + 1 d6 grenades	Helga 8 x Schwartzepfele paratroopers (rifles) 2 x Schwartzepfele paratroopers (smg) +12 grenades
Player Two
Moros Angelica Marco (pistol) Ernesto (SMG) 10 x River rats 3 x Indian scouts 1 truck 2 d6 grenades

Starting

The trip up the Amazon takes several days. Mansfield, George McArthur and Mitchell travel with Captain Ortiz and his men on a small steam boat. On the fourth day as they they reach a long curving bed, the steamer cuts its power and drifts back in towards the river side where the trees conceal a small lagoon. Captain Ortiz walks to the fore deck where Dan Mansfield and Sancho Gutiérrez warily eye the great mass of trees which steam slightly in the early morning light.
“According to the information you gave us” he tells Gutiérrez, “The bandit has some kind of base just around this bend. I suggest we put into land here where the boat can be hidden and cut across. They way we can surprise him”
“Excellent idea” Mansfield interjects.
Gutiérrez nods and pulls out a .45 automatic.
“It shall be as you...”
“Capitan!” the pilot calls down from his small windowless cabin, his finger outstretched towards the lagoon. All eyes peer through the tree’s to where another river boat can now be seen.
“It looks as if some one has had a similar idea” Captain Ortiz mutters to himself. He motions to two of his men; “Pedro, Alfonso, go over and take a look!”
The two militia men make their way across the lagoon, the water coming to their chests, their rifles held high. Mitchell peers down into the water.
“Ain’t there no piranha’s in this river?”
“Yes, there are, but they are rare in this stretch. The leeches are the biggest problem here, and of course the anacondas”
Mitchell swallows audibly and fingers his automatic rifle nervously.
“Senior, the boat is empty” Pedro shouts, “but it looks like who ever left it here hasn’t been gone for too long.”
“Do you have any idea who they might be?” Captain Ortiz asks Gutiérrez.
“None, do you?” he asks Mansfield.
“No.”
Capitan! Look at this” Alfonso is holding up a small dark object. Captain Ortiz motions to him and the rifleman throws it across. Mansfield regards the object with a sudden sense of dread. It is only a water bottle, but on the cap is the unmistakable insignia of the Brotherhood of the Black Cross.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Map

Click on map to enlarge

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Victory Conditions

Rocketman and his allies win the game by recovering the Golden Anaconda.

Moros and his river rats win by defending the Golden Anaconda to the end of the game, or by defeating their opponents.

Helga and the Schwartze pfele win the game by recovering the Golden Anaconda.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Special notes

Visibility in the forest is very low, within the trees and in the swampy area the undergrowth is considerable. All going is difficult except in the compound, on the road and inside the buildings where it is rough. There is no good gooing any where on the table.

Player two decides where the Golden Anaconda and Marcel Messnier are hidden. They do mot have to be hidden in the same location. If he is freed, Messnier may pick up a rifle and join the fight for player One.

The two buildings to the east are both dilapidated and in an advanced state of decay, as such they offer only +1 in protection, no matter what the consequences. All other buildings, including the guard tower are roughly made but solid and offer the usual +2.

Helga and the Schwartze pfele arrive 1 d6 rounds after round three. They may come from any direction, excpet the river.

There are two small river boats moored at the jetty. Both are operable, and offer +1 in protection to any one aboard. Both are powered by small diesel engines.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Conclusion

We played the game as a three way skirmish, which with hindsight might have been a bit too ambitious given Peter’s lack of experience. We also started too late and we just didn’t have the time to finish the game to my satisfaction.

Rocketman and his companions (as played by Peter) approached the camp of Moros (played by Oleg) from across the swamp. Already here we got bogged down because although Peter was the only player moving, he was moving at combat speed which meant it took him almost an hour to get into position. Moros and his goons naturally opened fire and Oleg had put his three native trackers out in the forest (where they were pretty good). This meant Peter got into hot water as soon as contact was made. Helga and the Germans (played by me) arrived in round eight (just as Peter had gotten to the tree line) and immediately engaged the four guards Moros had placed in the watch tower. These were soon eliminated (one ran away, the rest were gunned down) and under a normal game this would have been the prelude to Helga’s advance into the base moving along the rear of the buildings to where I suspected Moros and the Golden Anaconda were concealed (and I was right). Unfortunately, that never happened. Moros’s trackers were almost in my path and slowed me down to a standstill as they were very difficult to kill. Rocketman and his allies were scattered all over and largely suppressed by Moro’s people hiding in the buildings. The good guys had a Machine gun and a Browning Automatic Rifle, but these were out in the open, thus drawing heavy fire and utterly useless as a consequence.
Rocketman made a desperate dash with his rockets. He flew out over the river, using the buildings and tree’s as cover when he could have been hit, and bring himself to the rear of the building where in Moros was hiding. Everything went well and Peter might have won the game if only he’d been less rushed for time. He made a classic mistake of not checking the upstairs window and Moros dropped two grenades on him as he approached the back door. Thus ended the game.

It was a short affair and some what unsatisfactory. We should have started earlier and I should have played along side Peter against Oleg. I was seduced by the thought of bringing back Helga and the game suffered as a consequence of my weakness for that character. Poor Peter never really had a chance, but he did well with what he had. If we’d had more time, and he hadn’t rushed to enter the last building, I think he might have won. Oleg had spotters covering most angles so it was impossible for Rocketman (two great jets of fire erupting from his back) to sneak up on the bad guys. Had we been playing together, I could have warned him.

I decided afterwards (and with a hint or two from Peter) that Rocketman himself isn’t quite ‘up to the job’. Looking at his stats, I have to agree. RM is the hero of the piece and thus should be better than most every one else. So I’ve upgraded him, I’m adding an armoured suit and giving him a more powerful weapon; a Czech Zk 383 Heavy SMG (instead of the fake ‘prototype Lanchester‘ he had before). This will mean RM is tougher, hits harder and can absorb more damage in future games.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part Two: The Lair

”Can you fix it?” Daniel Mansfield watches as George Macarthur examines the damaged rocket pack.
”I can, but it will take an hour” George replies.
They are standing with Marcel Messnier, Sancho Gutiérrez and Captain Ortiz in the abandoned office of Moros’s river side hide away. Gutiérrez is examining a large map of the river tacked to a wall.
“We can’t let them escape” Messnier turns to Captain Ortiz, but the captain shrugs his shoulders.
“They have a truck senior and we have a boat. To follow them inland on foot would be difficult as we have no idea where they have gone”
“Do not be so sure my friend” Sancho Gutiérrez turns from the map with a broad grin. “See here, only a few miles from where we stand now is a second camp... an old airfield.”
”By Jove! Thats got to be it!” Mansfield examines at the map. ”Look, theres no where else for them to hide. The road doesn’t even go any where else.”
”Very well” Captain Ortiz nods. ”We shall bring up the boat crew to bolster our numbers and trek out to examine this airfield. You senior, you fix your contraption and follow when you can.. and you senior Gutiérrez?”
Gutiérrez slides a fresh magazine into his.45 automatic, “I shall come with you Capitano.”
“As will I” Messnier picks up a rifle left behind by the bandits, “but what of the boche?”
Mad Dog Mitchell enters the room with a bandage wrapped about his forehead and slumps into a chair.
“They’ve bailed out. I found some tracks and it looks like they headed down that road... what’s the deal?”
Mansfield looks about the room, taking each man’s measure carefully. “We’ll go after them. Captain Ortiz, you take Sancho, Mad Dog, Marcel and your men and make your way along the road and I’ll be along as soon as George fixes the rocket. And for God’s sake, be careful of ambushes!!
“Si senior!” Captain Ortiz nods and leaves the room. He can be heard shouting at his men as the others regard each other in silence.
“Once more into the breach my friends” Mansfield smiles.
“What about me?” George protests. If you go rocketing off, I’ll be left here.”
“There’s nothing to be done about it old bean” Mansfield shrugs. “You’ll have to stay here and guard the boat.”
“And make damned sure we can get the hell outta here if things go bad” Mitchell adds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Otto Lübke listens to the wireless head phones intently. Behind him, the ships Captain lurks nervously.
“What does she say?”
“The attacked failed” Lübke replies shortly. “The British rocket man was already there, but Moros escaped. She says...“ he pauses, then asks for clarification.
“Well?” the Captain demands.
“She says she is going to mount a second attack, and she will need the assistance of the air craft”
“Very well... I shall inform the Baron.”
The Captain leaves and Lübke shuts down the radio transmitter, thankful that is not he who is to be the bearer of bad news.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Player One	Player Three
Rocketman ’Mad Dog’ Mitchell Sancho Gutiérrez Captain Ortiz Marcel Messnier 10 x militia infantry (inc 1 LMG) + 3 grenades	Helga 8 x Schwartzepfele paratroopers (rifles) 2 x Schwartzepfele paratroopers (smg) +6 grenades
Player Two
Moros Angelica Marco (pistol) Ernesto (SMG) 12 x Bandits (rifles) 1 truck 1 home made tank 2 d6 grenades

Starting

Moros and his men start in defensive positions inside their camp. The home made tank starts inside the main hanger building

Captain Ortiz and his men arrive in round one at the end of the road. They are on foot and moving in column. They can just about make out the airfield through the trees and need not follow the road to the bend in order to discover it.

Rocketman arrives in round 3 +1d6.

Helga and the Schwartzepfele start from a secret location in round one but which must be written down prior to the game beginning (I shall add this detail to the comclusion write up)

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Map

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Victory Conditions

Rocketman and his allies win the game by recovering the Golden Anaconda.

Moros and his river rats win by defending their camp to the end of the game, or by defeating their opponents.

Helga and the Schwartzepfele win the game by recovering the Golden Anaconda.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Special notes

The home made tank is actually a logging tractor with steel sheets bolted to its sides. It has only weapon, a light machine gun which can only fire forwards (45 degrees from centre line).

Booby traps are possible. Player two may roll 1 d6 + 4 to establish how many booby traps Moros and his men have laid. The location of these must be indicated on a secret map prior to round one. The booby traps are anti personnel land mines and count as grenades.

Inside the camp is good going, as is the road. The forest area is rough and the water way is difficult. The river is less than a metre deep but filled with leaches.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Renault AG /Crossley light truck
Top speed: 40 km/h
Range: 200 km
Crew: 1+7
Length: 6 metres
Width: 2 metres
Weight: Under five tons
Turret: No
Armaments: No fixed armaments
Power plant: Under 50 hp
Armour: None

Home made tank
Top speed: 10 km/h
Range: 30 km (60 km on road)
Crew: 2
Length: 5 metres
Width: 1.6 metres
Weight: 8 tons
Turret: No.
Armaments: 7.92mm Maxim LMG
Power plant: 50hp four cylinder
Armour: 10mm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Conclusion

We played this game as another three way skirmish, just to be consistent. Rasmus played Moros, defending the camp, Palle played Rocketman (now with a better weapon and an additional +1 for his armoured jacket) and I played Helga.

Rocketman won this game, largely by virtue of having to cover the distance to the camp whilst Helga and her Germans having penetrated from the rear, engaged Moros and his men in a surprise attack. This almost worked, but then Rasmus turned his home made tank on Helga and my force was wiped out. By the time Captain Ortiz and his men reached firing range, quite a significant proportion of Moros's force had been engaged, and were facing the wrong direction. Essentially Palle had to play a similar situation to Peter in the previous game, but having more experience of playing Rocketman he managed to take advantage of the chaos Helga was creating by her sneak attack.

Considering he was hemmed in, and facing two fronts, Rasmus played extremely well. Eventually the home made tank got taken out by Rocketman, but by then time was fast running out any way and he'd already blown Helga away. The Germans were completely marginalised in a hanger and their attrition rate was horrendous. I had four elements left at the end of the game. Palle played Rocketman very well, having learned from past mistakes not to land where he could be shot at by multiple elements, and even managed to role play the character some what (refusing to shoot a lady in the back)

The three way game system meant that each player fought with an advantage against one of the other players, but a disadvantage over the third. I hadn't actually realised this until Rasmus moved the tank to face Helga and she couldn't move away before it was his turn to fire.

Palle - moves
Rasmus - shoots
Jan - moves
Palle - shoots
Rasmus - moves
Jan - shoots

I doubt we'll do many three way games in the future. The additional time needed for a third player to move and shoot slows the game down too much, though having fewer elements might work better. Tonights game moved at a fairly decent pace, and we almost accomplished the game within the alloted four hours, but had we played two sides instead of three, I think we'd have finished and with time to spare.

Rocketman takes out the home made tank

THE ETERNAL MACHINE

2008-07-13T05:44:00.001-07:00

Facing the prospect of a catastrophic global conflict, Sir Hugh Sinclair initiates Rocketman into a secret order of the British Empire. Its time for a new beginning, but others have had the same idea...

-ROCKETMAN ARMOURGEDDON-

2008-07-13T05:57:00.001-07:00

It is the spring of 1936 and Dan Mansfield and Miss Audrey Summers are with friends in the Aegean enjoying a well earned holiday after the horrors of the Arctic winter. Reclining casually on the stern of Sir Percy de Havilland’s pleasure yacht Starling, they contemplate the view of the turquoise sea stretched out before them with the complacency of the wealthy. All is still, the ship barely moving in the azure tranquillity, the gentle tinkle of iced drinks emphasising the comfortable silence.
“Darling?” Audrey Summers glances across at Mansfield’s reclining form.
“Mmmm?” Dan Mansfield’s athletic body lies stretched in the shade of an awning.
“What’s that boat doing out there?”
Mansfield cracks open an eye and peers into the distance.
“Which boat?”
Out in the hazy, sunlit distance a small motor boat surges along with a line of white water churning in its wake. Several dark figures hunch against the sped of the boat.
“Joy riding?” Mansfield shrugs and settles back into his lazy contemplation of oblivion.
“I think they’re coming this way” Audrey Summers muses as she helps herself to another glass of the chilled champagne.
This observation soon proves correct as the small but powerful boat surges forward to come along side the Starling. Audrey rises to her feet and wanders to the rail to gaze down into the boat only to meet with the strange and discomforting sight of several bearded faces brandishing rifles.
“Oh my…Pirates?! She exclaims
“Pirates?” Mansfield’s eyes snap open instantly and within a second he is beside her at the rail in time to see the swarthy gang forcing their way past the steward an onto the Starling’s after deck.
“What the deuce?” he cries as a small rat faced man brandishes a pistol.
“Audrey Summers I presume?” one of the men steps forward to smirk at her. He is a slender man with pale skin and dark, almost hypnotic eyes.
“Yes?” Audrey Summers can’t but help reply.
“Who the hell are you and what do you mean by this intolerable intrusion?” Sir Percy shouts from below. There is the sound of a scuffle, a gun shot , then a female scream.
Dan Mansfield starts forward but the rat faced man raises the pistol to his face and sneers.
“Dan, don’t” Audrey pulls at his arm and the stout Englishman‘s face works with anguish and anger. The slender man chuckle’s at the sight then motions the rat faced man to step back.
“My name is Yuri,” he says as his face contorts into an unusually unpleasant attitude. “I’m afraid I must insistent you come with us… or I shall be forced to shoot your friends”
“You fiend!” Audrey gasps.
“Do you expect me to…” Mansfield lunges forward but a burly fellow standing behind him raises his rifle and clubs him in the back of the head. Audrey screams as Dan collapses into an insensible heap.
“I’ll never go with you!” she tells the slender man, but he is already walking back to the small boat and his compatriots grab her arms and hurry her away. Her last glimpse of Dan Mansfield shows him lifting his head and shaking it as the small boat speeds away from the Starling.
“DAAAAAAAAAAAAN!” she screams but her voice is drowned in the thunder of the powerful engine and the throaty voices of the laughing men around her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Several hours later, the back of his head still tender, Dan Mansfield steps from the Starling with a grim visage. Behind him the crew carries Sir Percy from the yacht on a stretcher. Around him, the port of Moudros sleeps in the midday sun but along the docks he spies George Macarthur and another familiar figure hurrying along to meet him.
“What is it?” George calls out as he and Mitchell hurry closer.
“The damned Bolsheviks have snatched Audrey!” Mansfield cries in a passion.
“Bolshevik’s?” ‘Mad Dog’ Mitchell exclaims “What would they want with Miss Summers?”
“They left this with Percy” Mansfield pulls a slip of paper from his pocket and Mitchell reads the short message in amazement.

Professor Summers. You will only see your daughter again if you bring the rocket to 126 Nevsky Road in Omsk before the summer is out. Do not attempt to notify the British government or any one else or else I must be forced to a desperate act.

“What do you make of that?” Mansfield asks. Mitchell shrugs.
“How’d they know about the rocket pack?” he replies. Neither man has an answer. Mansfield runs his hand through his hair.
“Why are you here?” he suddenly asks.
“Well, as to that, I was in the neighbourhood on business you might say and I bumped into George not more than an hour or so ago.”
“He was brawling in a bar I passed by” George mutters.
Mansfield, well knowing the sort of shady deals Mitchell might get up to simply nods.
“I’m going to need your help”
Mitchell nods.
“I’ll go and fetch mah Browning…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter One:
Agent 99 and the Trans Siberian Express

Player One	Player Three
Rocketman George Macarthur ‘Mad Dog’ Mitchell	Yuri 3 x Bolshevik henchmen
Player Two	Player Four
Ivan the Conductor 2 x Railway company guards	Agent 99 2 x NKVD henchmen

It takes twenty two days to get from Istanbul to Moscow by train, and from Moscow the Trans Siberian railway goes straight to Omsk and beyond. Upon their arrival in Istanbul however, Mansfield, Mitchell and Macarthur hurry to a local arms dealer known to Mitchell as ‘Teddy the Turk’ who has extensive contacts in the region and for a small fee agrees to smuggle them into Russia as a part of a convoy.
“But be careful” he warns ”Comrade Beria has spies every where doing Uncle Joe’s dirty work! No where is safe. My friends over there tell me that the land is full of empty villages and in the south there is famine and marauding gangs of Bolsheviks fighting tooth and nail for control.”
Mansfield and the others thank Teddy and make their way north east into the heart of Stalin’s darkness. By road through Turkey and up along the western coast of the Caspian Sea, then over land for ten days, they finally arrive at Yekaterinburg in time to catch the express train to Omsk….

Omsk is situated on the banks of the north-flowing Irtysh river, at its confluence with the Om and on both branches of the Trans-Siberian railway.
2,700 km east of Moscow, it is the cross-junction of highways in the central part of Russia. Passenger and freight boats along the Irtysh and the Ob Rivers provide connection from coal and mineral-mining towns in Kazakhstan, as well as oil, natural gas and lumber-rich northern Siberia. It is an important gateway to the east and is currently in the throes of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic’s expansion into Kazakhstan.

It is in Yekaterinburg that things begin to come together though. Standing in the train station, a Russian phrase book in one hand a Cyrillic time table in the other, George Macarthur feels Mansfield’s iron grip on his arm.
“Did you send the telegram to London?”
“Yes, I was just….”
“That’s him by God!”
“Who?” George turns to see a man in a strange green uniform far across the open station, boarding a train.
“That train!” he points to the distant engine. “What train is that?”
The myopic ticket seller replies in a babble of incomprehensible Russian and ‘Mad Dog’ Mitchell growls in frustration.
“God damn it all, that trains a fixin’ to leave already!”
“Lets go!” Mansfield rushes off leaving George at the ticket sellers booth…
“But we don’t have tickets!” George turns to the ticket seller in frustration. “Can we buy tickets on the train?”
“Da” the ticket seller shrugs.
“Da?” George looks back at the old man as Mitchell drags him away
“Come on George dammit! We’ll just bribe the conductor…”

Yuri relaxes in his cabin with a Turkish cigarette as the train pulls out of the station. On his face is a smile of satisfaction since things are going according to plan. The English lady has already been sent on her way and now he is set to meet Beria’s man, the mysterious Agent 99. Nikolai, a goon with a gun enters the apartment and sits opposite him.
“The NKVD are with us on the train Comrade.”
“Good.”
The time to make Moscow aware of their strength is finally upon them at last. After years of preparation and diligent work, the rewards are finally in sight. He stands up and buttons his uniform coat across his athletic form.
“Stay in sight” he tells his men, then passing back into the dining car he spies the man from Moscow in the middle of the wagon.

Agent 99 is a dark, swarthy man, obviously a Georgian by his heavy accent and no doubt a close confident of Stalin and Beria given his occupation.
“What is this ultimatum?” he demands before Yuri has even sat down. Yuri raises and eye brow and sits with deliberate insolence, nonchalantly lighting up another Turkish cigarette. Agent 99 is a large and powerful man with a brooding and dangerous face, easily twice as big as Yuri whose slender form lounges deceptively at ease, ignoring the Georgians insistent glare.
“Let us rather speak of Khalnikov…” he smiles.
“Khalnikov?” It is obvious only for a brief moment that the Georgian is off balanced. “What of him?”
“How long has he been missing now?”
“What do you know of Khalnikov?”
Yuri’s smile broadens.
“More than a year… nyet?”

Agent 99 sits back in his chair and fishes in his coat pocket for his own cigarettes. At either end of the carriage, guests from the rest of the train are beginning to arrive and the mood at the table lightens.
“Da, more than a year. I presume you have him and now you want to do a deal for his return?”
“Not quite”.
Agent 99 lights his cigarette and glances about the dining car. He’d like use the bayonet he has tucked into his jacket on this Russian upstart and get it over with, but there are too many witnesses and anyway, he’s curious now. Khalnikov is a scientist who went missing nineteen months ago.
A waiter approaches their table but they wave him away. Yuri speaks in a low voice that hardly contains his triumph.
“As you no doubt guess, Korsakov has Khalnikov hidden away some where very secure”
“Of course”
“..yes, but there is more. Khalnikov has been allowed to work for his keep and now the fruits of his labour are ready to be plucked… Perhaps you are not aware of the details surrounding Khalnikov’s work?”

The Georgian shrugs as if it were of no consequence, but deep inside he is troubled. There is a confidence in Yuri’s manner that indicates much below the surface. No one who understood who he was would speak to him like this unless they felt very sure of themselves and he has never felt such a chill as he does now at the sight of that diabolical smile. It is clear that a possible threat to the chairman has arisen from the depths of Kazakhstan, but he is out of his own depth here. He must speak with Comrade Beria as fast as possible. Yuri is still speaking.
“So, I suggest you return to your masters in Moscow and…”
A scuffle in the door way behind him causes Yuri to pause and look up. Agent 99 follows his gaze and see’s a tall, broad chested man standing in the doorway of the diner, others stand behind him, one of whom carries a huge machine gun.
“The Englishman!” Yuri exclaims in pale faced astonishment…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting

Rocketman and his friends start which ever end of dining car they wish. Only Rocketman starts inside the actual dining car doorway. Mitchell and George start any where in car behind Rocketman (either first or second class). First and second class have much the same lay out.

Yuri and Agent 99 are seated in the centre of the dining car. Yuri’s henchmen are in first class and Agent 99’s men are in second class. Players 3 & 4 may decide where abouts there elements stand, but they must not be within 4 inches of player 1’s elements.

Ivan the conductor and the four railway company guards are in the post car. Having been bribed by the ‘polite English gentleman’ they will defend him and his friends against what they perceive to be ‘foreign militia’s’.

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Map

Click on map to enlarge

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Victory Conditions

Either side wins by defeating all the elements of their opponents. The winner is the last man standing. As usual a named character cannot actually be killed, only ‘downed’ so that they may appear in the subsequent games.

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Special Notes

Every where on the train is rough going, except the carriage roof tops which is difficult, due to the wind. The roof tops can be reached by scaling the railings between the carriages. The train has open access between each carriage, but for the sake of the game, the engine is off limits. The post car is at the rear of the train and has no windows.
There are 1 d6 civilian passengers in each wagon except third class which contains 3 d6 passengers.

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Chapter Two: 126 Nevsky Road

Player One	Player Three
Rocketman George McArthur ’Mad Dog’ Mitchell	Yuri 4 x Iron Guard riflemen 1 Iron guard machine gunner
Player Two	Player Four
The Colonel Sgt Sternov 10 x Kazakhstani Bolshevik soldiers	Olga 10 x Kazakh tribesmen

Having finally reached Omsk, Dan Mansfield and his friends find a telegram from Professor Summers in London awaiting them at the local post office.

+++ HAVE RECEIVED YOUR REQUEST STOP PACKET IN TRANSIT STOP STRONGLY URGE YOU FIND LADY P CARFAX IN OMSK STOP WILL WIRE FUNDS ASAP STOP. +++

“Who in tarnation is Lady P Carfax?” Mitchell, his Browning wrapped in a blanket under his arm, wonders in his Texan drawl.
“That was dated nearly two weeks ago” George Macarthur points out.
“I’m blessed if I know who the old girl is, but if the Prof tells us to find her, then I suppose she must be our next port of call!” Mansfield replies. “George, how long do you suppose it will take before the package gets here?”
“I couldn’t say, but if the trains run on time here, then maybe a week or so…”
“Maybe she’s a doozie” Mitchell ponders as he gazes about the dusty street. Around them trudge weary down trodden people. “This place sure looks like the ass end of no where!”

The friends finally track down the ‘English Lady’ by asking at the local museum, where the name of Carfax produces a wide selection of toothy smiles.
“She stays with the comrade Colonel” a diminutive old soul tells them as his face lights up.
“She sure is popular in these parts!” Mitchell observes, “And this sure is a handsome fine house!”
Having followed the directions from the museum, the three adventurers find themselves standing at the door step of a grand old town house, its gables decorated with large red flags.
“Let’s hope they’re friendly!” Mansfield pulls the bell chain and almost at once the door is opened by a bullet headed man in a brown suit. He glares at them with a surly frown.
“Excuse me” Mansfield adopts his most charming and winning smile, “but do you by any chance speak English?”
“Yer, wot?” the man replies. “Course I speaks it, ain’t I from Wapping?”
“Wapping?” Mitchell asks.
“Who is it?” a delicate female voice asks from within.”
“We’re friends of Professor Summers, come from London to see Lady Carfax” Mansfield replies. The man looks down at the trio’s well worn and travel stained clothing.
“You’d better come in then” he says with a sniff.

Lady Penelope Carfax is a handsome woman in her late fifties. Slight of figure she retains the air and charm of a younger woman but her eyes betray her wisdom and she soon has the whole story from Dan Mansfield.
“Well, this is all very romantic I dare say” she says once the tale is told, but how will you rescue Miss Summers with just the three of you?”
Mitchell, his Browning still concealed by the blanket, chuckles. “Oh, we can manage I reckon”
“It will take more than a Browning Automatic Rifle to rescue young Miss Summers” Lady Carfax replies in an amused voice.
“Well, blow me down lady!” Mitchell slaps his thigh in appreciation. “You know yer guns!”
Mansfield looks up, deadly serious. “We have more than just the Browning. In about a weeks time we’ll have the help of Rocketman!”
“Rocketman?”
“It’s what the scoundrels want. A rocket pack that enables a chap to fly, but how the deuce they knew about it I have no idea!”
“Nor have I,” Lady Carfax replies, “...and who is this Rocket person exactly?”
The friends exchange worried glances and the tall English Lady smiles to her self.
“It’s just…” Mansfield begins.
“No, don’t tell me, I think I can guess.”

Later, sitting around a table consulting maps, Lady Carfax introduces a tall man in a green Bolshevik uniform with an aristocratic bearing.
“This is my good friend The Colonel. “
“Just ‘the Colonel’?” Mitchell interrupts.
“Da” the man replies removing his cap to reveal tightly cropped hair. “You do not need to know my name. Few do anyway. My rank will suffice for the mission we must undertake.”
“I’m sorry” Mansfield holds up a hand, “I’m sure a friend of Lady Cafax’s means well, but what mission are you talking about?”
The Colonel, lighting a cigar and puffing out a cloud of smoke, gazes at the stout Englishman with hooded eyes.
“Your young friend was being held at the criminal’s safe house as of nine o’clock this morning.”
“The criminal?”
“Da, The Russian dog Korsakov.”
The friends exchange surprised looks and Lady Carfax leans forward into the smoky lamp light.
“You must understand” she explains, “that Korsakov is not well liked by the Kazakhstani’s. His reign of terror in the east has not made much of an impact in the outside world but in Kazakhstan his cruelty is well known…. The Colonel is from Kazakhstan and is… shall we say, an opponent of Viktor Korsakov.”
“That’s all well and good Ma’am, but who is this Korsakov fella anyway?” Mitchell asks impatiently.
“Korsakov is the Devil in human form!” The Colonel snarls. “For the last few years he has been building a private army in Eastern Kazakhstan. They call it a Bolshevik army, but they are outcasts from Moscow, shunned by the party and the chairman. We have attempted to annihilate them but they are strong and have amazing weaponry the like of which we have never seen or heard of before.”
“What sort of weapons?” Mitchell asks with interest.
“They have armoured vehicles, tanks and superior rifles…”
Mitchell sniffs with disdain.
“…and when we tried to attack them with our own armoured cars, they were melted and destroyed by an invisible wall of heat!”
Silence follows this last statement until Mitchell, leanings forward.
“A whut?”
“From his lair, this demon from the north is able to send out invisible rays of death that burn men into ashes and cause trucks and armoured cars to explode into balls of fire. Anything that is caught by this invisible weapon is immediately destroyed. We are powerless against it. Our only consolation so far has been the weapons apparent range for it seems it is never moved.”
“A defensive weapon then” Mansfield muses.
“A fixed position?” George wonders.
“Da.” The Colonel nods, apparently satisfied to have impressed them, yet with air of a man with more to relate. Mansfield cocks his head and regards the ramrod straight officer whose steely eyes betray some inner struggle.
“What is it?”
“Korsakov himself.”
“What of him?”
“He is a machine!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting

126 Nevsky Road is a large house that stands in an over grown garden, well back from the main road. It is surrounded by a crumbling old stone wall and patrolled by armed guards. There is only one way in for a vehicle, the front gate way. To the rear of the building is a garage and parked outside it is a car and a small truck. Rocketman and his allies arrive in two trucks by the front gate where The Colonel will order the guards to admit him. Obviously Rocketman can arrive any where he pleases should he choose to use his rockets though!

In the house, Yuri and several of his guards have met up with Korsakov’s female side kick, the hot tempered Olga whose Kazakh tribesmen guard the house. Olga is known to the Colonel as a dangerous mad woman, wanted for various murders in the southern districts. The Kazakh’s have one sandbag emplacement which they may deploy anywhere upon the table. The defenders may conceal their forces prior to the game, but Yuri, Olga and the Iron Guards must begin directly to the rear of the house.

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Map

Click on map to enlarge

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Victory conditions

This game is a regular fire fight, so either side wins by defeating two thirds of the combined elements of the opposing side. The usual points system applies. Each standard element gives 1 point and each named character gives 5 points. Rocketman gives 10 points

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Special Notes

Every where is rough going except the road, paths and the interior of the house. The surrounding wall is low and easily climbed over

For vehicle information, see the bottom of this page

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Chapter Three: Rocketman attacks!

Player One	Player Three
Rocketman George McArthur ’Mad Dog’ Mitchell Lady Carfax. Lady Carfax’s driver: Meadows 1 touring car 1 truck 1 armoured car with HMG	Yuri 10 x Iron Guard riflemen 1 Iron guard machine gunner 1 staff car 1 supply truck
Player Two	Player Four
The Colonel Sgt Sternov. 10 x Kazakhstani Bolshevik soldiers (with HMG) 1 truck 1 armoured car with HMG	Olga 10 x Kazakh tribesmen. 1 Light tank with 37mm gun

Having secured the house at 126 Nevsky Road, Dan Mansfield and his new found allies ransack the property for Miss Summers. To their dismay however, they find no sign of the girl and turn to the few surviving prisoners…
“Ask them where Audrey is” Mansfield points at the four dour faced survivors.
Sgt Sternov frowns then looks to the Colonel who merely nods as he lights yet another cigar.
“Da”
A series of sharp commands is given and each prisoner is dragged into the house by the Colonels victorious troops. Presently a scream rings out and Mansfield’s face takes on the desperate look of a man torn by indecision. He turns to George who gazes back at him sympathetically.
“Those fella’s don’ waste any time” Mitchell remarks with approval.
“Colonel, is this really necessary?” George ventures to ask. “Surely there must be a more humane way. Could we not offer them leniency in return for the information?”
The Colonel regards the two Englishmen with a cool eye.
“Nyet”

Later, at Lady Penelope Carfax’s house, Mansfield sits with a stiff G&T and regards the maps laid out on the table by the Colonel.
“This is Eastern Kazakhstan” he jabs a slender dagger like finger at the map as if it were mortal enemy. “Here is Semipalatinsk and here is Vostochno-Kazakhstanskaya.”
“Whassat?” Mitchell asks bluntly.
“The eastern Oblast of Kazakhstan. Although the Bolsheviks have long since occupied the land of Kazakh, up until now the land has remained an autonomous region under the Kyrghyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and their Chairmen of the Central Executive Committee, Kulumbetov, but this authority is challenged by the Kazakh uprising which rebels against Rusian rule. Korsakov is using this treacherous rebellion as a cover to hide his nefarious designs and some where in this wild region is where he has built his main base but its actual location is a well guarded secret. This is where they have taken Miss Audrey Summers and where we must go to root out his evil.”
“Dash it all!” Mansfield cries out
“Calm yourself my hot blooded young friend.” The Colonel regards the map with a cold eye. “Our distasteful methods of gathering information have revealed to us, a way to locate this hidden base for although we do not have its current location, we have managed to obtain… a clue to it shall we say?”
“A clue?” the three friends all look up.
“Indeed, for whilst Korsakov’s men were not aware of the location of the secret base, they did know of the road which leads to it.”
“By Jove!” George laughs. “So, if we follow the road then we will eventually come to the secret base?”
“Exactly, but I am afraid it is not so easy. The road is of course guarded. Furthermore, it is a well used road, a conduit by which Korsakov supplies his secret army from Semipalatinsk… according to our dearly departed friend, there should be a check point… here!”
Every one stares at the map where a faint dotted line meanders through an endless forest.
“It looks peaceful enough” Mitchell remarks with a smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Week Later…

“So, tell me again…” Mitchell swats a mosquito on the back of his neck. “Goddam these bugs! …tell me again, just why did we bring Lady Carfax with us?”
Sitting beside him in the back of a truck filled with tired Bolshevik riflemen, Mansfield shrugs.
“The old girl demanded to come along, said she had her reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“Something to do with this missing scientist fellow, Khalnikov”
“What about him?”
Mansfield shrugs. He stares out the back of the truck at the endless pine forests and over cast skies. Behind them a drab green armoured car brings up the rear of their small convoy.
“I think she might want to rescue him or something. Apparently he’s some big wig with a head piece that Korsakov kidnapped to make this death ray of his”
“Yeah, do you believe that shit?” Mitchell coughs up a throat full of dust and spits it out the back of the truck with the ease of practice. “A dooms day device! I mean, seriously, who does this fella think he’s a kidding anyways?”
Mansfield does not answer. Having seen the serious light in Lady Carfax’s eye he thinks back to the meeting between Yuri and the strange dark faced man on the train. Just before Yuri had seen him, he’d overheard the slender officer bragging to the stranger.
“…the fruits of his labour are ready to be plucked… Perhaps you are not aware of the details surrounding Khalnikov’s work?”
Just what were the details of Khalnikov’s work he wondered? What ever they were, it seemed Lady Penelope Carfax understood them enough to appreciate some horrendous danger they threatened and was prepared to risk her life in order to prevent it. Since it was only by Her ladyships help that he’d managed to find allies in this strange land, he’d been obliged to remain silent when she’d stated her intentions to accompany them to attack Korsakov’s lair. Now however, he regretted bringing a lady on such a dangerous mission.
“Hey” Mitchell interrupts him. “We’re stopping. Are we there?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting

Players one and two start in a convoy from the edge of the table, on the upper road, facing south and players three and four start at the check point in random order except for the light tank which is parked besides the building, covering the road. There should be at least two Kazakh tribesmen in the watch tower. Yuri and Olga begin inside the guard house.

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Map

Click on map to enlarge

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Victory Conditions

Either side wins by killing two thirds of their opponents. Furthermore, each side will suffer a penalty in future games if they lose their ‘Vulnerable Element’. For players one & two this is Lady Carfax and for players three & four it is the supply truck.

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Special Notes

Every rifleman automatically carries one grenade, though these can be shared between elements. Players one and two can exchange all items and weapons as they see fit but players three and four cannot (they have not had the time to properly co-ordinate.
Also, each of the trucks available to players one and two carries a satchel charge, but these must last for the next three games, so must be used prudently as they may be vital later on.

For vehicle information, see the bottom of this page

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Chapter Four: The Machine Man

Player One	Player Three
Rocketman George McArthur ’Mad Dog’ Mitchell Lady Carfax. Lady Carfax’s driver: Meadows 1 touring car 1 truck 1 armoured car with HMG 1 Ilyushin DB-3 bomber	Korsakov Yuri 10 x Iron Guard riflemen 2 x Iron guard machine gunner 1 staff car 1 Heavy tank with multiple weapons. (Note this element only functions if Yuri’s supply truck survived chapter three)
Player Two	Player Four
The Colonel Sgt Sternov. 10 x Kazakhstani Bolshevik soldiers (with HMG) 1 truck 1 armoured car with HMG 1 off table mortar crew (Spotter on table must be in line of sight of target)	Olga 10 x Kazakh tribesmen. 1 supply truck 1 Light tank with 37mm gun

Having discovered the hidden road to Korsakov’s secret base, Rocketman and his allies stop to take their bearings. Around them the forest is filled with the smell of cordite and smoke.
“Boy that was close!” Mitchell gasps as he heaves for breath.
“I’ll say” George nods. “I thought I ‘d bought the ticket for a while there”
Rocketman nods solemnly.
“We certainly gave them a good pasting, but I’m afraid they know we’re coming now. We’d best push on as hard as we can”
“Nyet” The Colonel approaches with a stern look. “We must call in reinforcements”
“But there isn’t time!” Rocketman interjects.
The Colonel holds up a calm hand.
“Patience my young English warrior. There must be enough time for we cannot hope to catch Korsakov by surprise now. Our only hope is to hit him as hard as we can before he has time to muster a more fitting defence and to do that we must bring on more troops”
“More troops eh?” Mitchell nods, “well, Hells teeth man, what’re we waiting for?”
Rocketman regards the iron jaw of the ex marine and nods slowly.
“I suppose your right though it goes against the grain for a chap to stand about with his hands in his pockets whilst his wife to be is in the hands of such villains”. His friends regard Mansfield with sympathy and Lady Carfax touches his shoulder.
“Rest assured Daniel, we will do all in our power to recover Audrey”

Having left the others the Colonel finds Sergeant Sternov and takes him to one side. “Find a telephone at once!”
Sternov looks around the endless trees on all sides
“Out here?”
“Da, we passed several villages along the way. Take the car and get word back to the others, tell them our location and to follow this road.”
Sternov nods and turns to leave at once
“Wait” The Colonel’s voice cracks out like a pistol shot and stops him in his tracks.
“Contact Air Marshall Petrovkski as well and tell him to send his best aircraft out here also. With luck they can hit the dogs before we attack and give us some cover.”
“Anything else?” Sternov asks with a business as usual expression.
“Da. Bring me some more cigars!”

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Starting

Players one and two begin at the western edge of the table as the aircraft attack the base, though player one’s bomber starts off table to the east. Due to the size of the airfield, the game concentrates itself around one particular gate way; a rear entrance to the tank workshops so whilst the air raid takes place off table, only one bomber is available to attack this particular part of the airfield. In the back ground, the forces of good can see a vast metal tower capped by a strange glittering dome wreathed in a lurid green glow. According to Lady Carfax this must be the secret weapon of Korsakov itself (and will be the object of the fifth chapter).
Players three and four start where ever they like, but the tanks start inside a workshop and the gate must be manned by at least four guards. Players three and four also have two sand bag emplacements. One of which is on top of the air field control tower.

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Map

Click on map to enlarge

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Victory Conditions

Either side wins by defeating two thirds of their opponent’s forces, or by defeating both their generals.

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Special Notes

Every rifleman automatically carries one grenade, though these can be shared between elements. Also, each of the trucks available to players one and two carries a satchel charge, unless these have already been used in chapter three.

The aeroplane only has enough fuel to remain on site for ten rounds. During this time it can employ multiple modes of attack. It can strafe, which takes three rounds (one to approach, one to pass over head and one to withdraw) strafing takes place immediately prior to passing over head, and bombing takes place immediately prior to withdrawing. The aeroplane can withdraw in any direction it chooses, but it must first approach in a straight line for the first two rounds. Alternatively the aeroplane can circle the table firing its rear machine gun down as it passes. By this method the aeroplane attacks from each table edge per turn as it moves around the table. This gives it the advantage of firing every round, but denies the use of bombs. The aeroplane only has enough bombs for two attacks.

The Mortar requires a spotter to be on the table in order to hit its targets. This figure has a field telephone by which he can communicate with the mortar. The line for the field telephone extends 14 inches from that point on the western edge of the table where the spotter arrives.

For vehicle information, see the bottom of this page

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Chapter Five: Child of War

Player One	Player Three
Rocketman George McArthur ’Mad Dog’ Mitchell Lady Carfax. Lady Carfax’s driver: Meadows 1 touring car (unless destroyed in game 4) 1 truck (unless destroyed in game 4) 1 armoured car with HMG (unless destroyed in game 4)	Korsakov Yuri 10 x Iron Guard riflemen 2 x Iron guard machine gunner 1 Light tank with 37mm gun
Player Two	Player Four
The Colonel Sgt Sternov. 10 x Kazakhstani Bolshevik soldiers (with HMG) 1 truck (unless destroyed in game 4) 1 armoured car with HMG (unless destroyed in game 4) 1 off table mortar crew (unless destroyed in game 4)	Olga 10 x Kazakh tribesmen. 1 supply truck 1 Heavy tank with multiple weapons. (Note this element is only functional if Olga’s men manage to roll a 6 to start its engine.)

The battle rages. Smoke billows across the aerodrome and above it all stands the eerily glowing tripod tower. About its domed top, energy crackles and snaps with ever increasing urgency.
“That thing looks like it’s about to blow” George mutters.
“It’s worse than that” Lady Carfax responds in alarm. That’s Khalnikov’s death ray and it appears to be operational!
“So that’s the dreadful secret weapon they were discussing on the train” Mansfield muses as he accepts a water canteen from Mitchell. He takes a long pull at the cool water then wipes the grease and ash from his face as examines the distant tower.
“We’ll have to stop them from using it”
The Colonel turns to Sergeant Sternov.
“How many explosives devices do we have left?”
“I’ll go and find out”
Sternov hurries away and the allies crowd about the bonnet of Lady Carfax’s car where George has spread a sheet of paper upon which is a hastily drawn map of the aerodrome.
“Look here you chaps” he sketches a map hastily. “This is the tower, and I count at least two more tank workshops up ahead. Just past the control tower and I think I spy some sort of wooden buildings.”
“It is detention centre” the Colonel adds.
“I say” Mansfield looks up with a steely glint in his eye. You don’t suppose that’s where they’ve hidden Audrey do you?”
“I would say it is highly probable” the Colonel replies. “Da. Most highly probable“
Mitchell jabs his finger at the rough map.
“They have at least one more tank up ahead; I caught a glimpse of it through the smoke!”
“Damn!” Mansfield cries. “We’ll have to knock it out as soon as we can.”

Lady Carfax pulls on her gloves purposefully.
“What are you doing my love?” The Colonel asks.
“What does it look like?” the English lady replies. “I’m going to rescue Khalnikov and don’t you dare try to stop me”
“No I don’t suppose there’s much use” the Colonel replies doubtfully as he eyes the Walther PPK in Lady Penelope’s hand

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting

Players one and two begin any where within 6 inches of the western edge of the map. Rocketman may start airborne if he so chooses.

Player three begins in which ever defensive positions he wishes, but Korsakov has ordered Yuri to take control of the death ray so Yuri starts the game on the death rays manual control platform.

Player four begins in which ever defensive positions he wishes but the heavy tank starts outside the tank workshops where it has sustained damage from the air raid. At least two engineers are working on it from outside which means these are on its back and exposed. In order to get the heavy tank started, at least one engineer must be present and a die roll of 6 is required. If both engineers are killed, others can take their place. Climbing onto the back of the tank takes one round.

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Map

Click on map to enlarge

Click here to see maps 4 &5 together

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Victory Conditions

Players one and two have three victory criteria and win by fulfilling any two of them. First: destroy the tower. Second: kill Korsakov. Third: Rescue Audrey and Khalnikov from the detention centre.

Players three and four win either by destroying two thirds of their enemy’s forces or by preventing players one and two from fulfilling their success criteria.

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Special Notes

Every rifleman automatically carries one grenade, though these can be shared between elements. Also, each of the trucks available to players one and two carries a satchel charge, unless these have already been used in chapter three.

Player two has a mortar team but these must move forwards to set up within range of the tower. This takes ten rounds, there after the mortar may commence firing unless it has been destroyed.

The death ray is being powered up as the game starts and will reach a sufficient power level to open fire at its lowest setting by round nine. There after it can sustain fire every fourth round. The death ray is so powerful that anything successfully targeted is immediately destroyed along with anything else in a three inch radius. The level of energy being unleashed is so great that the weapon vaporizes anything but named characters (who are defeated but make miraculous and highly improbable escapes). In order for the death ray to hit a target, Yuri must be in line of sight. If the death ray is used to target the off table mortar crew, Yuri must succeed in a perception roll against the mortar crew who receive a +2 bonus for being hidden.

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Vehicles

Rolls Royce armoured car
Top speed: 96 km/h
Range: 240 km
Crew: 3 or 4
Length: 5 metres
Width: 1.9 metres
Weight: 3.4 tons
Turret: Yes
Armaments: 1 x .303 MG
Power plant: 40/50hp Rolls Royce
Armour: 9 mm
Info: Introduced in 1915, phased out of service in 1922, though some continued in India.

Renault FT 17 light tank
Top speed: 8 km/h
Range: 35 km (65 km on road)
Crew: 2
Length: 5 metres
Width: 1.6 metres
Weight: 6.7 tons
Turret: Yes
Armaments: 37mm gun or 8mm Hotchkiss MG
Power plant: 35hp Renault four cylinder
Armour: 16mm
Info: The first tank ever to have a fully revolving turret. Introduced in 1918.

Converted International Mark VIII ‘Liberty’ heavy tank
Top speed: 10 km/h
Range: 68 km
Crew: 10
Length: 10.36 metres
Width: 3.65 metres
Weight: 43.5 tons
Turret: Yes
Armaments: 3 x 60mm guns. 2 x HMG. 1 LMG
Power plant: V12 1,649ci 338hp
Armour: 70 – 190 mm
Info: 100 were built in the USA, and 12 in Britain. Korsakov's tanks are made at a secret factory in Siberia and based on stolen blue prints

Renault AG /Crossley light truck
Top speed: 40 km/h
Range: 200 km
Crew: 1+7
Length: 6 metres
Width: 2 metres
Weight: Under five tons
Turret: No
Armaments: No fixed armaments
Power plant: Under 50 hp
Armour: None

Ilyushin DB-3 long range bomber
Top speed: 439 km/h
Range: 3,800 km
Crew: 3
Length: 14.2 metres
Wingspan: 21.4 metres
Weight (max loaded): 9,450 kg
Turret: No
Armaments: 3x MG. 2,500kg bomb load.
Power plant: 2× Nazarov 950hp engines
Armour: None

-ICE STATION X-

2008-07-13T05:57:00.002-07:00

Ice station X

In January 1930, Dr. Hugo Eckener of the Graf Zeppelin Company and elected head of the Arctic exploration organisation known as the International Association for Exploring the Arctic by Means of Airships (Aeroarctic) was contacted by the famed Arctic explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. Wilkins was planning to embark on a submarine expedition known as the Wilkins-Ellsworth Trans-Arctic Submarine Expedition that would see a submarine travel under the ice of the North Pole and then drill its way to the surface.
Dr Eckener had already approached the German government with the idea of a German airship expedition across the Arctic, but although Berlin had shown some interest, the fate of the Italian airship Italia two years previously meant the German government declined to forward any funding for any such attempt.
Wilkins presented to Eckener a plan for a rendezvous and exchange of mail and passengers at the North Pole between the Graf Zeppelin and Wilkins's submarine, the Nautilus which Eckener then took to American newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst who agreed to finance the expedition in return for reporting rights.

Unfortunately for Sir Hubert Wilkins, his submarine had serious mechanical failings and as 1932 progressed it became apparent that the Nautilus would never be ready in time. Wilkins was forced to pull out of the venture though his companion Lincoln Ellsworth joined the German airship crew along with the Russian arctic scientist Professor Samoilovich. A Russian icebreaker, the Malygin was commissioned to take the place of the Nautilus for the rendezvous and on the 24th of July 1932, the Graf Zeppelin departed its home base at Friedrichshafen and set course towards the North Pole via Berlin, St Petersburg and Archangel. With a 15 strong scientific crew it flew across the White Sea toward Franz Josef Land and Hooker Island where the meeting and exchange of mail with the icebreaker Malygin took place at the site of the world's northernmost weather station in Tikhaya Bay.
After the ceremonial exchange had taken place, the Graf Zeppelin turned east and flew along the 81st parallel until it reached Severnaya Zemlya where cartographical surveys indicated that Severnaya Zemlya was not one island has had been understood, but rather two.
After a brief stay at Severnaya Zemlya the Graf Zeppelin returned to Franz Josef Land to carry out one of the main objectives of the flight, the aerial survey and mapping of the island groups. It was there that they reached the northernmost point of the trip, Rudolf Island, roughly 500 miles from the North Pole. Then turning south, the Graf Zeppelin flew over the Taimyr Peninsula past Dikson Island and across Novaya Zemlya to complete a first-ever air mapping of the Russian Arctic. Eckener then set a course for Archangel, Leningrad, a brief stop in Berlin and then home.

Although the islands of Franz Josef Land were taken over by the Soviet Union in 1926, many of them are desolated and uninhabited. The year after the Graf Zeppelin expedition, a German ship arrived, unnoticed, at Rudolf Island and established a small secret base.
This installation was completed over the course of the winter and by 1934 it was a fully operational, military and scientific installation providing a secret logistical foot hold in the north for the Germans as well as encrypted weather reports.

23rd February 1936. London.
MI6’s Section VIII intercepts a strange radio transmission from the secret German base whose existance has been discovered but whose location is still a mystery. The transmission is heavily encrypted in an unusual unknown code which defies MI6 but two days later Norwegian government officials pass the information to the British Foreign Office that several suspected German agents have recently broken cover to charter passage on a Norwegian ship originally bound for Spitzbergen. At least one of these agents is known to be working for the German Abwehr and two are connected to the German Sicherheitsdienst chief Reinhard Heydrich.
MI6 immediately swings into full gear and just days before the SS Kristianna Maria is due to leave British agents have infiltrated the ships crew. During this operation two of the German agents are overheard discussing their mission and the name ‘Alfred Metzger’ is noted. MI6 learns the Germans intend to sail to the Polar ice pack and travel north to the ice bound Franz Josef Land islands by means of a special insulated ice crawler.
Back in London, this name raises some concern for it was assumed Doctor Alfred Metzger, a scientific genius of ill repute, was dead, killed in 1935 in the wastelands of northern Sudan.

29th February 1936. Tromsø.
The SS Kristianna Maria leaves Norway and heads north for the polar ice pack. On board are five German agents with numerous Norwegian conspirators and hidden amongst the crew, several British agents. It takes approx ten days to reach the Ice Station by ship and ice crawler.

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Chapter One: The Frozen North

Player One	Player Three
Dan Mansfield. Professor Summers	Sturmbannfuhrer Schröeder Karl Otto 3 x German agents
Player Two	Player Four
Audrey Summers George Macarthur	Captain Hans Olafsson + Any crew who join the German side

SS Kristianna Maria
The Kristianna Maria is a Norwegian freighter whose usual run is from Norway to Spitzbergen with supplies. Several members of her crew, including her Captain; Hans Olafsson are in the pay of the Abwehr and will fight along side the German agents. Some of the other crewmembers however, will fight against the Germans and the Norwegian collaborators if a gunfight breaks out. Most will remain puzzled by the violence and will hide from the gunfire. There are Nineteen crew members, including Captain Olafsson, they are armed with assorted pistols and hunting rifles and are distributed evenly about the ship. The Captain and 2 random crewmembers are on the bridge when the game begins.
In order to discover who will fight for whom and who will hide, roll a d6 for each crewmember encountered. Note that only a total of four crewmembers will fight for the Germans.
1. Will join on the German side, armed with a rifle.
2 - 4. Will run and hide.
5. Will join against the Germans armed with a pistol.
6. Will join against the Germans armed with a hunting rifle.

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Chapter Two: The Ice Station

Player One	Player Three
Dan Mansfield. Professor Summers	1 d6 Zombies
Player Two	Player Four
Audrey Summers George Macarthur	1 d6 Zombies

Constructed in 1933/4 the Ice Station houses twenty-four scientific personnel, eight auxiliary personnel and a compliment of twelve German Kriegsmarine soldiers under the command of Kapitänleutnant Meyer. Overall command of the Ice Station lies with Doctor Heidinger of the University of Berlin. Visiting the Ice Station are three outsiders; two Meteorologists from Berlin and Doctor Alfred Metzger. All are now dead, except for Metzger who is trapped.

12th March 1936. Rudolf Island.
The long polar night has just ended, so visibility is high, but a storm is brewing and the weather is closing in fast. After having left the ship, and arranged for it to wait ten days, the ice crawler makes its way north.
Ice Station X appears as a short squat tower rising from two small garage buildings. Everywhere appears to be deserted and covered in frozen snow. Both the garage’s doors are wide open and inside both are empty. There are several frozen dogs lying about the compound. One of them has been mutilated.
The ground floor entrance to the tower is blocked from within, but the roof hatch has been damaged and can be opened by two men. Inside the tower the power is still up and the radio transmitter has been destroyed although there are signs that some one has tried to repair it. There are other signs of violence everywhere with bullet holes in the walls and doors and dried blood stains on the floors and walls.

The guardroom at the base of the tower has been completely destroyed with burn marks indicating a fire. The doors to the outside and the lower levels of the station have been barricaded and welded shut. To gain access to the lower levels takes several hours of hammering with a fire axe, or the use of two grenades to blow open the door…