"Wings" BBC Series

I just finished watching the first season of Wings.  It is a 1977-78 BBC produced series focused on a British 17 year old who wants to fly in the Royal Flying Corps in 1915.  His family are involved in a smithery.  I stumbled upon this series while doing research on the British B.E. 2c aircraft.  It turns out this plane is basically the only British plane featured, but the plane and action looked great in the episodes.

 

 

 

A blog I read recommended watching the series, so I started watching it.  Each episode is about 47 minutes.  It is completely available on YouTube.  Each episode spends about half the time featuring events with his family or love interest at home and the other half with his squadron.  I also recommend watching this series.  I was pleasantly surprised.  The blog that recommended it also recommended not watching the second season, so I'll pass on that.

 

I actually recognized some of the actors in the series.  I think the one that stands out the most is Michael Cochrane.  I watched him play a General in the Sir Henry Simmerson in the BBC Sharpe Series.  You can't miss him in Wings.  Just a wee bit younger.

 

Attack on Berber Campaign Game

Last month I played in a fun Colonial Sudan campaign game.  It was just a small engagement, British vs. Dervishes.  I was on the British side trying to take a town, with some help of a gunboat.  Dan (who is running the campaign) played the Dervishes.  The battle rules for the campaign are The Sword and the Flame.  Everyone knows these rules so I won't go into description about them.  What I will say is I got into historical miniature wargaming 29 years ago because of these rules.  I think I got burnt out on them awhile back, but this campaign is fun and the rules are not that bad.  The subtle changes/additions to the rules have improved things.  Also, Dan always puts on fun games.

Photo from Dan's blog.

Here is the link to the recap of the battle (on Dan's blog):

Attack on Berber

Working WWII Soviet Tanks on YouTube

Sometimes you can go off on a tangent in YouTube just following links.  I discovered these cool videos of working WWII Soviet tanks.  Makes me want to get back to wargaming WWII Eastern Front.

Video's with red highlight are dubbed in English.

T-37A Light amphibious tank (wiki entry)

This is a fun video.

MS-1 (wiki entry)

 

T-60 (wiki entry)

 

T-70 (wiki entry)

Lots of mud/water to drive in for this video.

BT-7 (wiki entry)

The driver has to remove the steering wheel before entering/exiting (shown in video). Crazy!

 

KV-2 (wiki entry)

 

 

T-34 (wiki entry)

 

T-34/85 (wiki entry)

 

KV-85 (wiki entry)

Doesn't start rolling until 8 min into video.

 

ISU-152 (wiki entry)

 Another video LINK

SU-100 (wiki entry)

 

JS-2 or IS-2 (wiki entry)

Pretty cool to see inside this tank.

 

T-44 (wiki entry)

Late war WWII training tank, only used on the Far East front.

Ignore the German tank at the beginning.



There are other videos of Soviet trucks and other videos from this same driver:
link