Illuminating Rounds 43: When I Call Roll

Von Kar

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With regard to the Poles at Arnhem - Sosabowski told it like it was and the British officers got upset. They got back at him by blaming him for the failure of the operation. Some of that might have carried over into the film? In reality the Poles took 40% casualties.

What we did to Sosabowski was inexcusable ...
“God Bless Montgomery” is a great documentary from the Dutch NPO on the rehabilitation of Sosabowski and the Poles : https://www.2doc.nl/speel~WO_EO_682267~god-bless-montgomery-npo-doc-exclusief~.html

You’ll need to brush up on your knowledge of Dutch to enjoy it in full, but even without, you’ll surely get the most of it.
 

applecatcher4

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I would recommend that VASL be continued. You gents provide a very polished program.

Not a big fan of most of the Russian movies but Siege of Sevastopol was not bad. T-34 and White Tiger were definitely sub-par.

As for team play,... it would probably be best not to have communications between players during a turn. A quick 'staff conference' between turns would be ok.

Cross of Iron was written by Willi Heinrich,.... movie was directed by Sam Pekinpah (1977), the master of slow motion death. Fun movie. "Bridge at Remagen" is a keeper as well.

Battle of the Bulge,.. arrrggghhh!!! Total dreck, not even remotely connected to the actual events. Might as well have been on Mars (sorry Martin ;)).
Lovely memories of watching B of the B as a boy with my grandfather who had been a Royal Marine and remembered, as a Brit, having to move in response to the battle.
 

applecatcher4

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If we had been playing as a team, I would have voted to press on with that first LC through the tetrahedrons instead of tacking to starboard.

But yeah, I don't think playing by committee would be fun. Too much forced cooperation on every decision. I'd rather do what Gerry said (with teammates alternating who actually plays during that turn) or just do it the classic way and I'll take the left flank while you take the right. Or in a 2-person team play tournament, each team plays both sides in separate playings of a scenario, to help balance out some part of scenario imbalance.

No love for Kelly's Heroes?
I have never seen Kelly's Heroes! Just never fancied it bit it is getting so much love, I will have to watch it this month.
 

The Purist

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A Bridge Too Far is an excellent movie but the script was based largely on Ryan's book dating back into the 60s and 70s. Unfortunately, Ryan did not really delve into the failure of the 82nd Airborne to move on the Nijmegen bridge immediately. Gavin decided to secure the heights east of the city first before moving on the bridge later that evening. Unfortunately the SS got their first, having moved south from Arnhem before Frost's 2nd Battalion to the north end of the Rhine bridge.

One wonders how different the battle would have been had 'Guards Armoured ' been able to roll over the bridge immediately and head for Arnhem while Frost's troops still had the bridge. Instead they had to fight into the city with the US paras eventually needing to execute a river crossing.
 
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lightspeed

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Another excellent episode!

I think I prefer the VASL replays. As afar as the remaining portions, I do like seeing you
two in the same location. Would a hybrid of the two be viable?

It's good to see all of the suggestions for world war 2 movies. I guess any top five list will generate
that sort of activity...unless there are only five things in the world!

Another idea I had for a top (something): Top 5 scenes in war movies (not necessarily WW2).
A few come to mind, in no particular order.

  • Omaha Beach in SPR (of course).
  • T34 attack in Stalingrad. Heck, lotsa scenes in Stalingrad.
  • Firefight in Platoon. "I didn't fall asleep."
  • The Banzai charge in Heartbreak ridge.
You get the idea. This may not work as well as the individual scenes may not be too well known.

Keep up the excellent work!


indy
 

Gamer72

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Another excellent episode!

I think I prefer the VASL replays. As afar as the remaining portions, I do like seeing you
two in the same location. Would a hybrid of the two be viable?

It's good to see all of the suggestions for world war 2 movies. I guess any top five list will generate
that sort of activity...unless there are only five things in the world!

Another idea I had for a top (something): Top 5 scenes in war movies (not necessarily WW2).
A few come to mind, in no particular order.

  • Omaha Beach in SPR (of course).
  • T34 attack in Stalingrad. Heck, lotsa scenes in Stalingrad.
  • Firefight in Platoon. "I didn't fall asleep."
  • The Banzai charge in Heartbreak ridge.
You get the idea. This may not work as well as the individual scenes may not be too well known.

Keep up the excellent work!


indy
And another one : the repulsed Russian attack in Cross Of Iron.
 

JoeArthur

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Also just got round to watching this documentary which I would recommend:


A German Life: Goebbels's Secretary Remembers

Storyville

A Storyville documentary. The extraordinary story of Brunhilde Pomsel, secretary and stenographer to the Nazi proganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

What got me was two things:
  • Given all the harrowing pictures of the holocaust (some of which you will see in this documentary) how can anyone be a holocaust denier?
  • She knew that if she stood up to the Nazi's she was dead. Yet she states that she thought the jews were being "resettled". But then again why would a 103 year old lie?
 

hayman

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In regards to the discussion about the Russian ASL group & team play:

From observing cooperative games with multiple players on each side (such as roleplay, miniatures and multi-player boardgames), the 'usual' way of stopping the alpha gamer controlling the other participants is to disallow tactical discussions between players on the same team whilst any player in the team is 'active' (i.e. it's your turn).

Pre-game strategy is discussed and planned beforehand, then, during the game, discussion between two players on the same team can only take place if their playing pieces are together on the board/playing surface.

As an ASL example: if one player controls the infantry on one team and a second player controls the armour, then the only time a tactical discussion between the players can occur whilst the scenario is being played is if the the ranking infantry 9-2 leader is in the same location as the ranking 8-1 armour leader (CE), with all the inherent risks of placing your 2 best leader counters on the board in the same location. Otherwise, the two players move their units as they see fit during the scenario.

The players, from both teams, can still converse with each other, and talk about rules interpretations, trash talk eachother, etc. But strategy/tactics is not allowed.
 

skarper

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Also just got round to watching this documentary which I would recommend:


A German Life: Goebbels's Secretary Remembers

Storyville

A Storyville documentary. The extraordinary story of Brunhilde Pomsel, secretary and stenographer to the Nazi proganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

What got me was two things:
  • Given all the harrowing pictures of the holocaust (some of which you will see in this documentary) how can anyone be a holocaust denier?
  • She knew that if she stood up to the Nazi's she was dead. Yet she states that she thought the jews were being "resettled". But then again why would a 103 year old lie?
Hmmn. It is in our nature to deny our sins. Holocaust denial is pretty extreme, but in the UK few acknowledge the crimes of the British Empire and the average US citizen is totally ignorant of their own country's dark side. And let's not start on Japan....

When people get old they live more and more in their own minds. They also know time is running out and may start to wonder if their will be divine judgement. Hence lying to themselves and others is explicable if not forgivable.

My belief is that many within Germany did not have certain knowledge Jews [and others] were being murdered on a massive scale. In our more open societies, we have to dig pretty hard to discover what our governments are doing in our name behind our backs. How much harder would this be inside Nazi Germany?

I accept this woman may have not known for certain. But she had to have suspected.
 

skarper

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In regards to the discussion about the Russian ASL group & team play:

From observing cooperative games with multiple players on each side (such as roleplay, miniatures and multi-player boardgames), the 'usual' way of stopping the alpha gamer controlling the other participants is to disallow tactical discussions between players on the same team whilst any player in the team is 'active' (i.e. it's your turn).

Pre-game strategy is discussed and planned beforehand, then, during the game, discussion between two players on the same team can only take place if their playing pieces are together on the board/playing surface.

As an ASL example: if one player controls the infantry on one team and a second player controls the armour, then the only time a tactical discussion between the players can occur whilst the scenario is being played is if the the ranking infantry 9-2 leader is in the same location as the ranking 8-1 armour leader (CE), with all the inherent risks of placing your 2 best leader counters on the board in the same location. Otherwise, the two players move their units as they see fit during the scenario.

The players, from both teams, can still converse with each other, and talk about rules interpretations, trash talk eachother, etc. But strategy/tactics is not allowed.
VASL would be a great way to enforce this. Have a 5-10 minute tactical talk session on ZOOM before the turn starts in breakout rooms maybe - then once the dice start rolling put everyone except the active player on mute?

I played in one game that was team play and ended up being quite fun. It was n Aliens rip off sci-fi thing. We defended the base and the Aliens were run by the GM. I was in charge of the players but not in control of any figures. My 2-3 subordinates moved their own guys around and I just gave them orders. Usually they did as I said but if they had other ideas all I could do was tell them off...we won anyway but it was rather Pyrrhic.
 

hayman

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A couple of low key WWII movies: Die Brucke (German 1959); a good anti war film
A Midnight Clear (US 1992); quirky story involving a 1/2 squad of Intelligence personnel.

- a nitpick on Martin regarding "A Bridge Too Far", he mentioned the bravery of 2 or 3 nations (supposing to mean Brit, Yanks & Poles).
Two other nations participated in the battle: the Dutch and the Germans. The Dutch underground help the Allied troops considerably in various parts of the battle, especially the US forces in Nijmegen. And I'm pretty sure the German forces (not all SS) fought bravely as well (I certainly would not like to come up against Red Berets or US Airborne!).
 
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