"Military Odyssey" Topic

Hi all

Spent Bank Holiday Monday at this event yesterday: I have to confess I'm not a reenactor in any shape or form so I'm not sure how it compares to other events but it was certainly an interesting day.

military-odyssey.com

Highlights for my son and I were a series of staged skirmishes including Napoleonic, ACW, Wars of the Roses and the finale which was a WW2 engagement including a Tiger, assorted half tracks and a 'spotter plane' calling in artillery. The assorted encampments and talks were interesting and mostly well done: the Hoplite Association were particularly friendly.

Most entertaining [I thought] was a well acted [and funny] account of a WW1 aerial observation mission in a Nieuport 12 with lots of swaying from side to side to simulate banking… a different way to present it and drew a large crowd.

I have to confess I've always felt reenactors were people that wargamers could regard as even sadder than we are and I'm still not totally convinced otherwise [just managed to alienate half the members here I guess!] but it was a fun day out. My son has now decided he'd like to turn to the dark side and take up reenacting when he's older and over the course of the day converted from wanting to do 'Anglo-Saxon hitting people with swords' to 'pointing things that go bang' groups…sigh…

There wasn't too much evidence of the dodgy right-wing elements that have been hinted at in the past although there were some Hitler mugs and t-shirts on sale that were fairly offensive. We did consider going along to the assorted SS encampments to boo them but decided otherwise [even if some of them have obviously not been living on wartime diets there were more of them than us!! ].

I hope the Wars of the Roses man at arms that took an arrow in the [unarmoured] face makes a speedy recovery!!!

I was there yesterday, this show is now a must on my calendar. The Flight simulation in the Nieuport 12 was fantastic, we caught the last show of the day, I particularly enjoyed the 'Red Baron' on a stick. The WW1 battle was fun to watch. For the final battle, WW2, we were standing right next to the MG42 when it opened up, really loud!

This show covers a lot of history from Ancient Greeks up to modern periods. The atmosphere is friendly and there were a few traders elling my particular weakness 1/72nd plastics. I stocked up on more Vikings and Saxons.

I managed to resist buying any more figures from the assorted traders…I'm trying hard to clear some of the backlog of unpainted figures but I'm pretty sure I'll weaken soon!

I spotted a Wings of War game going on in the indoor traders area and some kind of Napoleoic naval game but the participants all had there heads down playing so there wasn't much interaction with the public [at least not when I passed].

I would have thought this would make a good event for some display/participation games to promote the hobby.

Sounds like a fun day out!

How old is your son, MitD?

When I saw the naval game a rather red-faced player was remonstrating with, what appeared to be a member of the public, they were trying to teach to play the game. I stood and listened for a while, but walked away in disbelief. Not a good example of public relations.

My son is 10 [going on 18…he's rapidly turning into a stroppy teenager at times ]. He has a real passion for history so this event was right up his street.

He can happily beat me at DBA and has a better grading than me at archery so all in all he's doing ok!!

10 – bet that is a fun age! Sounds like he's picking up a fair number of your interests.

Sad…isn't it!!!