"The First Battle of Bishenpur, Imphal 1944" Topic

Here's a photo album/AAR of our recent demo game at Bovington:

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Wow – sounds like quite a game – great report

Wow !!!!!!!!! Just great stuff !!!!

Very nice…..I coudn't see the tennis court though ;-)

Cheers lads.

M, yeah, funny that… It's strange, because everyone knows that the only fighting in Burma took place across a tennis court! ;o)

Brilliant.

I particularly like this one of Gary Loosen being stalked by a Tiger…

Wonderful game and report. Nice to see Burma getting some due credit. Had to be a terrible place to be stationed.

Wow !!!! That looks like a JagdTiger !!!

21e Regt,

Yes, Bovington is the absolute pits to be stationed, but not as bad as Cranwell, Benbecula or Saxa Vord…

Legion 4,

It certainly is. It's not too shabby as gaming room ornaments go…

Note also the rather unusual Pzkpfw IV D/H – an Ausf D upgraded to H standard and captured from 21. PD in Normandy.

Panning round, we've also got a Tetrarch CS in what's left of a Hamilcar, plus a Sherman Crab and an M5 halftrack:

Then there's a Chaffee and note the Tiger II (Porsche turret) at the end of the row. There's also a Tiger II (Henschel turret) lurking behind the halftrack:

Very, very cool !!! Hey which bloke are you R Mark ? And did Andy ever recover his Punjabis ?!?!

Ah, that would be telling… Let's put it this way; there's a heck of a lot more of me to find than there was in the 2006 team photo :o(

And no, Andy's Punjabis are mine! Mine! Mine!

Good to know !!! I understand the need for Operational Security !! And I'm glad the Punjabis found a good home !! LOL !!!

OK you've got me. I'm the one at the front in the dark blue, stripy t-shirt. I was in disguise…

Looks a little young …

Why, thank you. :)

That is a beautifully presented game. A great credit to your group.

Cheers Mal. Did you spot your 3.7s? :o)

Brilliant…though no-one except Pat (my wife) and me were interested in the war in Asia…love the terrain.

How do you make those fab trees?

Thank you (and Pat!). There are more of us Jungle Green types than you might think!

The trees are straightforward, commercial do-it-yourself trees by Woodland Scenics. They're very cheap and easy to do – you buy the trunk/branch sections, fluffy-stuff and flock as separate packs.

The trunk/branch sections come flat-packed on sprue, like any model kit. You cut them off the sprue and then bend into a three-dimensional tree shape. You can paint them, but they're already grey-brown, so it's up to you.

Next step is to tear off a section ofthe green fluffy-stuff. Brush PVA glue onto the branches and then tease the fluff-stuff over the branches. You can use the branch-tips to impale the fluffy-stuff, thereby obtaining a more secure bon.

Finally brush the tree with PVA and sprinkle with flock. The Woodland Scenics flock is ground sponge and comes in various grades. We use the coarser grades for this job.

Instead of fluffy-stuff, you can use Woodland Scenics' 'Foliage Clusters', which are like compressed lumps of their ground-sponge flock. Again, you break these up and tease them out over the branches. There are some trees done using this method in the photos, though I prefer the fluffy trees.

Finally, we based some of the trees, but a proportion had a needle (heated in a candle flame), inserted eye-first up the plastic trunk. If hot enough, the needle melts its way easily into the plastic. The needle then allows the tree to be 'stabbed' into polystyrene terrain boards. this causes absolutely no damage to the terrain boards and does away with having to use bases. This is very handy on sloping and/or uneven terrain.

Now I'm at a computer which will let me look at the pictures, I see that we actually used mainly the 'foliage cluster' trees for this game, with the fluffy trees playing second fiddle.

Bill Slavin also had a go at one of my Bishenpur scenarios (the Gurkha assault on Ningthoukong, 25th April 1944). He certainly does put on good-looking games!

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