"Royal Marines in Afghanistan, Fight #7" Topic

All,

It's now 0530 on 3 July 2002, thirteen days since the last fight, and the Royal Marines are on the hunt. It's early morning twilight, still mostly dark, and soon the sun will rise, and contact is imminent.

While they believe Pasha Gul's statement that the Merchant could be of use in identifying and finding their ambushers, Sherlock and the boys were a bit reticent about the Merchant's wife claiming he was abducted by the Taliban at the same exact time the Royals were coming to pay him a visit. So the Section was doing it the hard way; lots of patrols out to meet with local informants, and to identify new ones. The constant patrolling and presence finally paid off; a local stated the Merchant had been spotted in a nearby village, and battalion was able to confirm this via SIGINT.

So the Section mounted out to the village, and thus began three days of constant patrolling, looking for the Merchant and consistently showing up five minutes after he'd just left. They tracked him through the mountains, and through Tamir Pass, but now they had him. The Section had called up support, and the rest of the platoon was brought forward. They formed a circle and began pushing in on the only area the Merchant could be; the only question was, who would find him first? The Section was sure they had him; he's pinned up against the Neral River, with only two crossings within a few kilometers. The Section split up, with Sherlock taking some Marines north to a fordable spot, and Knocker taking the res towards a small bridge. The other two Sections of the platoon were on the opposite (west) side of the river, closing in on the ford and bridge.

Knocker's team finally found them.

Overview, north is up. The river is at left (west), running north and south, while there are dirt roads crossing the bridge and running north-south. There is a small farmer's compound just east of the bridge, an orchard just across the street, and the edge of Tamir Pass can be seen at right.

Yep, those are the new roads and rivers. To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
link

The battalion will soon be ending its deployment, returning to Jolly Olde England, and the Section absolutely wishes to see off their ambushers prior to going home, to get some modicum of retribution. How they're going to do that is still a bit up in the air, however.

V/R,
Jack

Another excellent outing; as you know I haven't been around much so haven't seen your games in a while Jack but I'm beginning to think your posting someone else's table – the terrain looks fantastic with a lot of detail. The painting on the minis looks top notch too! And yes that was an insult hidden inside a compliment. You're welcome 👹

Bad Panda! Down! (Hits with rolled-up newspaper.) Jack is doing his best and is making real progress. One day we might even see believable hills!
:-) Naw, who am I fooling but myself. Better hills is too much of an ask!
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Thanks guys.

Sort of ;)

V/R,
Jack

Rod, we all have failings, weaknesses and faults. After ten years of marriage my good wife recently mentioned that she once thought she noticed a slight fault in my character (this of course was later found to be a mistake on her part but you get my point)

We both know that Jack's failures and failings are all to numerous to list here. But what I have grown to realize and what I hope to highlight here is that Jack has no idea what a hill actually is. When you realize he's well into his 60's (he maintains a he's 42 but anyone who has seen photographic evidence knows this simply isn't the case) this seems inexcusable but perhaps this inability to appreciate a hill can be associated with a particular phobia of Jack's – I know if I was Jack's size and weight I'd be afraid of hills too

On the other hand us Gael's have the been inspired by owning some of the most beautiful examples of hills in the world. In fact quite a number of Scots still live in them I believe

BTW Jack, the last Taliban that legged it across the bridge after seeing the merchant down- was that a failure of a morale test or was it a reaction to his completed objective?

My first reading I thought the merchant was only grazed (scarred) but after reading the very end I see he actually croaked it!

Panda,

Sorry man, not sure how I missed this. You'll probably not return, but I may as well…

"…he maintains a he's 42 but anyone who has seen photographic evidence knows this simply isn't the case…)
These old looks were come by the hard way.

"But what I have grown to…"
You've grown? Come on man, the last time you could say that with any integrity you were still wearing diapers.

"…the last Taliban that legged it across the bridge…"
He took off because he'd failed his mission and didn't want to get whacked too. Not a rules mechanism, I just figured, with the Merchant dead, he wouldn't want to hang around.

V/R,
Jack

From the pictures I've seen of Asscrackistan, the valley bottoms are relatively flat, but the hills at their edges are nasty things.

Think "Grand Canyon" or "Hell's Canyon," if you haven't seen pictures of the place. near-vertical bluffs overlooking the valley bottoms for the most part. Then again, I live in a place chosen by the US Army for training troops headed to Astan because of the similar climate and terrain.

Der Alte Fritz on this forum made some beautiful Afghan terrain from insulation foam edged with bark chunks. I need to make some for myself.

Yeah man, I was there (Bagram and out east) from Dec 01 to May 02. If you've ever been out to Delta Corridor on 29 Palms, it looks just like the road from Bagram to Kabul.

I'll have to see if I can find DAF's stuff.

V/R,
Jack

Jack, check out DAF's Maiwand Day blog: maiwandday.blogspot.com

I think the bark chunk hills are from 2011, though check out his report of the Battle of Chariasab at Colonial Barracks V in 2016 for some pics of the bark hills in action.

Thanks Lion

V/R,
Jack