Prepping for 28mm Market Garden @Sept. 30, 2017 mini-con Fullerton, California

[Mad Guru]

Hey everyone,

This is the start of a thread that wil hopefully track progress for a little under a year from now until the St. Crispins Irregulars put on their 28mm operational level Market Garden game at the HMGS-PSW annual Mini-Con held this coming year over the weekend of September 29th through October 1st, 2017, at the Portolla Pavillion of California State University, Fullerton, in Orange County, California.

The Market Garden game will take place from 9:00am Saturday morning September 30th until the doors shut that night at 11:00pm or 12:00am, which should allow for at least 10 hours of active gaming.  Our hope is to get the scenario and rules simplifications sharpened via play-testing to the point where a definitive result will be reached within the allotted time.

If anyone is local to Southern California or plans to be visiting the area that Saturday, and is interested in participating as an Allied or German player, please get in touch, either here or on the blog, as we'd love to see you there!

Meantime, here's a few pics from the first few posts on the blog we created to track this project:











The blog will track all aspects of the project: the scenario, adjustments to the "Fire and Maneuver" rules set meant to further streamline and speed up game-play, work on the terrain, work on the forces, and some discussion of the historical operation Market Garden itself.

In the past we have gamed Arnhem, complete with rather elaborate parachute and glider force landing mechanisms, but this will be our first time attempting multiple airborne landing zones in a single scenario.

If interested, please visit the blog by clicking here -- http://opmktgdn.blogspot.com -- and thanks in advance for your time!

[pease1]

I love your Waco gliders. I see you went a touch under-sized to make them more playable as game pieces. May I ask what you settled on for dimensions?

[vodkafan]

I saw this once done in 1/35 scale at Salute on a huge long table. Good luck with your game.

[Mad Guru]

Pease1 and vodkadfan, thanks very much for your kind words!

@Pease1: I don't know the exact dimensions, but I passed your question along and someone will hopefully be along to give you the specs in the near future.

@vodka fan: in 35mm?!?!?!  That's completely insane, but even more amazing.  When I get a chance I will have to search the web for some pics.

Meanwhile, I am posting a link to my own blog, which is mostly devoted to gaming the 1878-1880 Second Afghan War in 28mm, but which featured a long post with a ton of pics showing the Arnhem game we played 2 years ago.

It starts out with a tutorial on how I built the Rhine river for the game, then switches over to an AAR featuring a lot of pics.

The game itself wound up focusing entirely on the British para and glider landing zones and the British effort to reach Arnhem, because by the time we got there it was too late to fight it out on the streets and over the bridge and we had to pack up and exit and go home.  It wasn't a conevention, just a monthly club game, and a very good time was had by all, but that experience is one of the reasons we are determined to play-test this new even bigger version several times prior to the event.  If interested in seeing a lot more pics, plus the tutorial for the building the river, please click on this LINK -- http://maiwandday.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-river-too-far.html -- but in the meantime here's some sample pics from that game:



 

[YPU]

I grew up smack in the middle of market garden territory, I think I can spot my old house in some of those pics.

[Mad Guru]

YPU: thanks very much for the high praise!

Pease: Here's some more detailed info on the Wacos:

The Waco gliders were based off a paper model kit that can be purchased as a PDF download as linked below.

I sent the plans to Frank (master of the quick build) and he eyed them enough and played around with the schematics but ultimately decided to "Free Form" it as it was easier (in his creative way) than following directions (Lol!) but it makes sense to make the gliders more game-able than accurate. He built a prototype for my approval, them built three more right before my very eyes.

Later, I took his rejected scraps and used them as templates (and with some Mandarin-inspired reverse engineering) built two more gliders - can you tell which are the real McCoys? I then spray painted them all in olive drab from a large can of camo paint u can get cheaply enough at Home Depot or hardware store.

Next, I proceeded to print out the paper glider PDF sheets and used their black and white striping and stars for decaling and then combed the internet for images of Waco serial numbers and painstakingly sized, printed and pasted them to the tail sections (each a unique number for manifesting the loads during a game - you know how badly that goes from our Arnhem assault in 2015). Frank (post-facto) then wired the Canopy nose section as opposed to my attempt at taping them - so they function (rather seamlessly) in the closed and or open positions.

Frank's dimensions are 12 inch wingspan. Fuselage is 9 1/2 inches. And the cargo bay is 1 1/2 inches wide by 1 1/34 inches high ( it does taper, obviously, towards the rear) but the design is merely to allow the look of vehicles and equipment to be off loaded as opposed to actually being carried - as the magnetic tipped flight stand will not hold a fully loaded glider, as you might guess.

Waco paper model link.

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/WACO-CG-4.html

[Tommy20]

Where did you source the parachutes from?

[vodkafan]

If it helps it was Salute 2008. John Landers has pics on his photobucket .http://s183.photobucket.com/user/byjohn54/library/Salute%202008?sort=3&page=1
( It came up on google so i suppose it's OK to post a link?)
It was a 72 FOOT table   with 100 vehicles and 600 figures with terrain and buildings scratchbuilt using Crossfire rules

I also found a 1/72 game done on a 40 FOOT table  on series of videos on youtube:

This looks like another Salute game from a different year

[Mad Guru]

@Tommy20:

Word is the creator is not quite 100% certain. They could be clear Frapachino coffee cup lids bought off eBay, or else they are Korean boba cup lids. He used a Pin vice to makes holes and threaded the shrouds and used fishing weights for canisters. The paratroops are custom made from smaller weights, West Wind 28mm Para heads and cardboard body cut outs. Very tedious and time consuming. Not to mention the custom made carousels.

@vodkafan: thanks for posting those links, will be checking them both out!