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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 12:02 pm 
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Arnold wrote:
There are three quotes of his on page 3 of today's Private Eye. Two dated 3rd March and 6th April said how hard it would be to get rid of Gaddafi. The third dated 24th August was a complete about face, as he claimed he never had any doubts about his overthrow and was surprised it took so long.


Well it's excusable, hao could Max have known?
Airfix don't make Libyan Armies in either 1/72 or 1/32.


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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 12:15 pm 
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Pfffft! A box of Bedouin Arabs and a few Matchbox pick-up trucks and you're away!

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:47 pm 
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The Red Arrow wrote:
Pfffft! A box of Bedouin Arabs and a few Matchbox pick-up trucks and you're away!


Mind you it'd be a fiddly job converting all those Lee-Enfields (and Mausers?) to AK47s and L1A1 SLRs

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:58 pm 
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And leave you with a dilemma - what to do about the camels?

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:46 pm 
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A) Get creative with unbent paperclips, moulded blue-tac and superglue (the blu-tac goes rock hard when coated).

B) They'll come in for the storming of gaddafi's private zoo scenario

C) It's all moot. The Afrika Korps set would own anything set against it 'cos any fule no that WWII Germans are the rootin' tootinest hardest bestest infantrymen ever. It was just weight of numbers that did for them and anyway if I'd been Monty we'd have been in Berlin a few weeks after D-Day 'cos I've read Max's book on what to do 60 years after the event.

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 4:02 pm 
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The Red Arrow wrote:
A) Get creative with unbent paperclips, moulded blue-tac and superglue (the blu-tac goes rock hard when coated).

B) They'll come in for the storming of gaddafi's private zoo scenario

C) It's all moot. The Afrika Korps set would own anything set against it 'cos any fule no that WWII Germans are the rootin' tootinest hardest bestest infantrymen ever. It was just weight of numbers that did for them and anyway if I'd been Monty we'd have been in Berlin a few weeks after D-Day 'cos I've read Max's book on what to do 60 years after the event.


I'm reading"Roads to Falaise" by Ken Tout (a tank commander in Normandy) at the moment. He quotes a joke popular amongst American troops in the summer of 1944, "By Christmas the Russians would be in Berlin, the Yanks in Paris and the Brits in Caen".

If only Max had been in charge, they'd have been laughing on the other side of their faces.

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 4:12 pm 
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I didn't know the blu-tak and superglue trick. In my day we used plasticine and banananananana oil.

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 4:36 pm 
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Malcolm Armsteen wrote:
I didn't know the blu-tak and superglue trick. In my day we used plasticine and banananananana oil.


I used plasticine with a glaze of Humbrol liquid cement.

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:45 am 
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oboogie wrote:
The Red Arrow wrote:
A) Get creative with unbent paperclips, moulded blue-tac and superglue (the blu-tac goes rock hard when coated).

B) They'll come in for the storming of gaddafi's private zoo scenario

C) It's all moot. The Afrika Korps set would own anything set against it 'cos any fule no that WWII Germans are the rootin' tootinest hardest bestest infantrymen ever. It was just weight of numbers that did for them and anyway if I'd been Monty we'd have been in Berlin a few weeks after D-Day 'cos I've read Max's book on what to do 60 years after the event.


I'm reading"Roads to Falaise" by Ken Tout (a tank commander in Normandy) at the moment. He quotes a joke popular amongst American troops in the summer of 1944, "By Christmas the Russians would be in Berlin, the Yanks in Paris and the Brits in Caen".

If only Max had been in charge, they'd have been laughing on the other side of their faces.


I've got to be fair and say that Max's 'Bomber Command' is very well done - required reading for anyone with more than a passing interest. 'Armageddon' is well worth a read, but does suffer from 'what Max would have done' and the old stand-by beloved of self-appointed military experts 'what about those brilliant Germans, eh?' Not that I'm a Montgomery fan by any stretch of the imagination, but hindsight is a marvelous gift. I've yet to give Max's 'The Korean War' a good going over, but from first dippings-in, it seems reminiscent of Stephen Ambrose. Maybe I should reserve judgement.

As an aside, the most infuriating WWII tome I've read recently was Chris Bellamy's 'Absolute War' - in which the author does a tremendous job in conveying the sheer size and scope of the Russian front only to undo much good work by constant and irrelevant comparisons to the Gulf war.

Oh, 'Flamethrower' by Andrew Wilson is an interesting and thought provoking read (He crewed a Churchill Crocodile). You might well have come across that one with your interest.

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 10:06 am 
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oboogie wrote:
The Red Arrow wrote:
Pfffft! A box of Bedouin Arabs and a few Matchbox pick-up trucks and you're away!


Mind you it'd be a fiddly job converting all those Lee-Enfields (and Mausers?) to AK47s and L1A1 SLRs


They look a bit "Hejaz railway era" to me http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=34


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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 10:07 am 
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Malcolm Armsteen wrote:
I didn't know the blu-tak and superglue trick. In my day we used plasticine and banananananana oil.


Hands up - who got a Donald Featherstone book from the local library.
Hands up - who's still got a local library.


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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 10:27 am 
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We've still got a library. Just. It's going to be amalgamated with the swimming baths (I know, you couldn't make it up).

Featherstone, no. I did wargame as a youth (ACW - I lost) and my son does Warhammer, but in both our cases it seems to be more about painting very small things.
I can't do it very well any more, and I can't maintain enthusiasm as it's hard work when your eyes go long vision and the results aren't as good as you would like. I also became disenchanted with the whole idea of soldiers, and tried moving to fantasy and civilian subjects. So I have a sizeable grey army, including an ambitious project to create a 54mm Luttrell Psalter from Historex academy figures. Which is about 2% finished...

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 11:20 am 
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Wasn't Montgomerie actually good at war, Red Arrow?

I avoid armchair generalship by just assuming those who won were probably quite good.


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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:00 pm 
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He got the job done, but at a painfully slow rate. I can appreciate an unwillingness to take any more casualties than neccessary, but in my humble opinion, Monty was an up his own arse egomniac who claimed much credit when things went well (winning the war) l and blamed everybody except himself when they didn't (Caen, Arnhem, etc) - I suppose many generals share the same traits. At the risk of sounding like Max, was there a competant alternative? We'll never know. I think it's worth repeating the bit about sharing traits with other generals - Monty certainly didn't have a monopoly on self-publicity and self-congratulation.

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 Post subject: Re: Max Hastings
PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:52 pm 
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The testosterone level on this thread is stunning.


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