BOOJUM!

IF we were talking about November 5th and the Gunpowder Plot, except we're not. No, I was inspired, at least partially, by a participation wargame put on by S.O.T.C.W. stalwart Neil And His Purple Dice Of Doom, which had the tasteless yet accurate title of 'Cape Bon Fires'. You'll see.

As the preamble to this Intro, I am going to whiz back in history to the early Spring of 1943, when the Second Unpleasantness was raging in North Africa. Art!

The Axis bridgehead in Tunisia lacked strategic depth, was being attacked from both east and west, and had no local military supplies worth mentioning. Lots of wild flowers and agricultural land, but those aren't exactly apt for sustaining a modern mechanised army. Thus they relied on being supplied by sea and air. Art!

The sharper-eyed amongst you will notice the convergence of these supply routes off the north-west Sicilian coast, which if Art will put down his bowl of coal -

- is Cap San Vito. Bear in mind that the naval convoys to and from the Axis bridgehead were constrained in movement by the minefields they and the Allies had laid. The counterpart in their domain was Cap Bon, and if once again Art can doff his coke bowl -

Thus began Operation Flax and Operation Retribution, which were intended to destroy the Axis air bridge and naval convoys. I'm going to precis the British Official History of "The Mediterranean and Middle East" which goes into granular detail about Axis naval losses to Allied air power. Three Italian freighters carrying fuel and ammunition were sunk by South Canadian bombers on 7th March 1943, just off Cap Bon, totalling 10,000 tons lost. On 13th March the Brylkreem Boys in Beaufighters torpedoed and sunk an Italian tanker, taking 4,000 tons of fuel to the seabed. On 22nd March South Canadian bombers sunk a 4,300 ton freighter and set ablaze the 'Ombrina', which got into harbour at Bizerta and promptly blew up. The South Canadians also bombed an ammunition freighter in Palermo harbour, which not only blew up and destroyed itself, it took seven other ships totalling 11,500 tons with it. Art!

Ships thrown ashore by the blast. Ships weighing thousands of tons.

On 31st March two more freighters and four MTBs were sunk in a raid on Cagliari.

Meanwhile the Senior Service was not idle. Submarines of the Royal Navy's 8th and 10th Flotillas sank seven large Italian freighters, including a tanker, totalling 22,000 tons, during March. Four more Italian freighters were sunk off the west coast of Italy.
Thanks to the naval Operation Retribution, the Axis were forced to use aircraft to resupply Tunisia, averaging about 200 aircraft per day, ranging from the workhorse 'Tante Ju' or Ju-52, up to the enormous Me 323. Art!

Me 323 disgorging a Marder tank-destroyer*.

On 5th April, 15 Ju-5s were shot down over Cap Bon as they flew in as part of a 75-plane resupply and reinforcement lift. On the same day more South Canadian bombers hit and destroyed 27 Axis aircraft on Sicily as they refulled for onward flight. Later, during 10th April to the 18th the South Canadians and RAF shot down 54 (mostly Teuton) transport aircraft, an insupportable loss. Art!

A 'Gigant' gets a malleting

On 22nd April came the inspiration for Neil: 16 Me-323s were intercepted and shot down from a flight of 21, all of which were carrying fuel and which consequently shone brightly as they fell into the Med. Göring, in a fit of rage, ordered that supply flights to Tunisia be cancelled.

Okay, why am I yarking on about the events of 83 years ago? O I thought you'd never ask! Because this Intro's intro shows exactly how control of the air, what you might call air supremacy, affects matters both on the ground, at sea and - you may be ahead of me here - in the air. The Allied chokehold on Tunisia grew gradually over time, unlike the example I'm going to place before you now. Art!

Two days ago

Today.

For the current running total -

There's been an additional tanker hit since then.

What's going on here? Well, the Ukrainians are using their Firepoint 1 and 2 drones to hit these Ruffian riverine tankers, usually in the bridge, head on, causing immense destruction to the superstructure, the bridge itself and also the squishy meatbags manning the bridge. 60 kilos of high explosive will do that. Art!

The 'Favori' looking very much the worse for wear

The 'Favorit' is actually in better condition that a lot of other vessels and could conceivably be salvaged, except that would require tugboats, which the Kozaky are also sinking. Here's a shadow fleet ship in even worse condition. Art!

Completely burned out from bridge to stern with no crew and no way to steer it, yet still afloat and thus a hazard to other marine traffic. The orcs will probably sink it; bombing it from an aircraft as sending a naval vessel would be not only sticking their head in the lion's mouth but giving it a good slap as well.
What happened here was that a very large convoy of small riverine tankers were despatched to Krim in order to resupply the peninsula with fuel. HOWEVER - ah that word again! - given the minimal surviving port facilities for offloading fuel, these ships would have been loitering off the coast for days, had not the Kozaky seized their opportunity.

The surviving ships are hoofing it for the Black Sea and marine transport into the Sea Of Azov has now been suspended, which will affect Ruffian grain exports. As will the loss of 75% of their riverine tanker fleet.

I'd hate to be the one who drew the short straw and had to tell Putinpot about this.

So, the Ukrainians now have fire-control over the Sea Of Azov, a flat factual statement that would have had people looking at you and considering the asylum as an option in 2022.

With all that contemporary internecine content I think we'll skip more details of WW1 hex-and-counter wargames. Too much of a good thing and all that.

Aha! Sally and Tom have arrived to collect our old freezer. See you anon.

One From Left Field

Conrad did not see this one coming. Art!

You may not be aware of this, as the events go back a good fifty years, to the Turkish invasion of what had been purely Greek Cyprus, which has led to an island permanently divided in two, occupied by the Greeks and Turks with a DMZ administered by the UN. Which is also infested by packs of wild dogs that will, and have, eat anyone trespassing in their domain.

Sorting it out now? One wonders what has prompted this turn of events, as Turkey had not been remotely bothered about changing the island's status. Access to the EU? Shortage of loukum ingredients? Ingress of sharks into coastal waters due to global warming?

We shall see. Art!

BINFACE! BINFACE! BINFACE!

Count Binface, that is. You know, the opposition candidate in the Clacton by-election, whom is standing against The Nasty Little Man, Nigel Farrago. Art!

Given the British passion for accommodating fringe candidates in elections that has endured for at least 80 years - Screaming Lord Sutch and the Monster Raving Loony Party anyone? - one wonders what the final polling figures will be. Farrago needs to win by a landslide to be able to claim 'the people are with me!'

We shall see. Art?

O apparently I was a bit hasty, the Ruffian ship total is now up to 90. Art!

Going for the ton?

Edna The Wonderhund

As in, she's wondering what's going on, since Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom are in attendance to spirit away our old freezer for Olly. Normally she bounds up the stairs like the Crust-hunting Cavalry, darting into my room to lick the porridge bowl clean. Not today. She would not be baited or tempted into the Sekrit Layr, so Conrad needed to physically carry her up, and she's been whining ever since. Art!

Pining for treats!

* THIS IS NOT A TANK!

Saturday, 11 July 2026

It's All About The Hex Which

No! This Is Not About Wanda Maximoff

Nor her cousin, Wanda Minimoff - sorry, couldn't resist - and her Marvel comic persona, the 'Hex Witch', an illo of which I can now put up thanks to having mentioned it. Art!

Don't blame me if they depict her in a bathing suit as it's still SFW, although I've never seen the television series and so cannot comment on whether she looks like the sleaziest hen night entrant ever.

ANYWAY the real Intro here is about as far as you can get from magic and costumes, because Your Humble Scribe has been pondering - always a dangerous thing - about World War 1 boardgames. Specifically ones where the Hex is the basic geographical unit, as well as counters. Hex and counters, being a hex which is the board arbiter of choice. Art!

A prime example of the genre, this is 'Tannenberg', one of a five-game set that reproduced the First Unpleasantness on the Eastern Front. As is my wont, I've blu-tacked all the counters to sheets of A4, organised under what kind of unit or effect they have. This is what I'm looking for: a hex map, a long set of rules and scenarios, hundreds of unit and effect counters, various charts and a set of dice.

Shout out to 'The Dice Treasures' on Youtube, whom assembled a list of 20 WW1 boardgames that were the top of the field, in their opinion, and as I've not played any of them, we shall defer to their experience. Art!

Their title illo. Not quite what I'm after, as will be detailed in the list below. So, in the order TDT arranged them, I shall begin with Number 20.

20) "Clash of Giants II: Ypres and Galicia 1914" By GMT Games

Art!

I'll bet only 1 per 1,000 people reading this know of the battles around Ypres in 1914, and 1 per 100,000 about the battles in Galicia in 1914.

There's a reason why 5 of these games concentrate on 1914. The period between August 1914 and December 1914 represented a time when movement was most fluid, before trench warfare got established and when there was still the possibility of making a decisive breakthrough. Even if that remained improbable, thanks to the enormous size of the armies involved.

Ypres covers the desperate defence by the British and French of that city against the marauding hordes of Huns, just barely scraping by as a victory. Galicia sees the Imperial armies of Austria-Hungary and Russia vying for control of what is now part of Poland and Ukraine.
Frankly, this sounds exactly like the kind of game I'm after. So it's probably long out of print and unavailable. Art!

19) "Axis And Allies" By Renegade Games

Art!

Conrad rather snittily dismissed this in my notes as 'Miniatures on a board', definitely not what I'm looking for, and a variant of the Second Unpleasantness 'Axis and Allies'. Mind you, it's probably easy to pick up the rules and play out in an hour or two.

18) "The Grizzled" By Sweet Games

Art!

Card-based. NEXT!

17) "To The Last Man" By Nuts! Publishing

Art!

Central theme is the Great War in the West, and it's unusual to see triangular counters on a board, which displays regions rather than a hex-based map. Probably not what I'm after, although the legend 'Web published' did pique my curiosity. Digging a little further reveals that it is 'card-driven' and focusses more on doctrine and logistics than mere firepower. Interestingly can be played via the on-line VASSAL game engine.

16) "1914 Glory's End" By GMT Games
Ha! Another hex-and-counter model. Art!

What did I tell you about 1914? This one covers the first three months on the Western Front, whilst strategic movement was still possible. Looking a bit closer at the GMT website, it appears to consist of 2 games - "1914 Glory's End" and "When Eagles Fight", which, sounds like the Eastern Front. Especially as the map that TDT shows above displays Austria-Hungary, not France or Belgium. Art!

Conrad vindicated

As I expected, the publisher's website boldly announced 'OUT OF STOCK' so probably only available via e-bay or similar.

15) "Versailles 1919" By GMT Games

Art!

In case you were unaware, the negotiations at Versailles laid down the conditions for the Teutons moving from an Armistice to a Peace Treaty, and one they considered to be a swingeing humiliation imposed at a time of weakness. If the game is realistic it will include the ongoing Royal Navy blockade and the genesis of the Teuton 'Dolchstoss' myth - which alleged that Germany had never been defeated on the battlefield, it was all the fault of the jews and Bolsheviks. TDT mentions four players but not which nations they represent - a little digging later I can reveal these are the South Canadians, GREAT Britain*, Italy and France.

We're only a quarter of the way through the list so I shall call a pause there and return at a later date. One thing Conrad has noticed is that the enormous attritional battles of mid-war onwards are not represented individually in this list, rather being subsumed into the whole 1914 - 1918 subset of games that cover the whole war. I bet you can hardly wait for Part 2!

The Haul

As part of the Semi-Stupid Schedule, Conrad didn't start work until 12:00 yesteryon, which compelled me to get something of worth done in the 4 hours after I unstuck myself from my sweaty mattress. So! I went to Sainsbo's in order to stock up on loose leaf Darjeeling, crossing my fingers that they didn't have empty shelves. Art!

I think there may have been a couple of packets left at the back, which were so deep I couldn't reach them. Still, 9 packets ought to keep me in tea until August at least. Speaking of which, time for the second pot of the day.

Long Time No See

Way back in the Nineties, the Ruffians had a small fleet of A-50 'Mainstay' AWACS aircraft, to the number of 12. Art!

These airframes were horribly complex and costly, being $300 million per unit, and they have lacked the ability to create any new ones for decades. Two were sold to India; two (at least) were shot down and destroyed by the Kozaky; two have been pictured on an apron, missing engines as they'd been cannibalised for parts. That leaves 6, of which two are suspected of being, once again, cannibalised for parts, leaving only 4 at the most. Lack of spare parts and trained crews is keeping these remaining airframes from flying regularly, and the last sortie was over Omsk, to try and detect incoming Ukrainian drones, which they signally failed to do, even when backed up by an Su-57. Ooops. They seem to have given up trying to do anything about the hundreds of mid- and long-range drones that surge across the borders of Mordorvia every night, metal fatigue being what it is.

For The Art Afficionados Amongst You

No! Not our resident troglodyte, art with a small 'a'. Art!

They used poetic licence as there are no queues of static cars and angry orcs.

Radio Silence

A year ago, 'Vatnik Soup' put up a Tweet about the orcs and their summer offensive, such as it was. Art!

Well, I, too, bookmarked it in order to return to the Tweet. A few days ago I sent a reply to 'Deleted Account', to utter silence. When I tried to access their Twitter account I got -

Clicking on their Twitter handle resulted in:

@De1e1edAccoun1

is named "Deleted Account (ウー)" and uses its bio to promote the Solana memecoin $woo (ウー), featuring the pump.fun token address

The account has 391 followers and maintains a minimal profile with no visible public posts or threads.

So they seem to have deleted their account - O the irony! - and effectively run away from any further contact.

THEREFORE VATNIK SOUP AND CONRAD WIN!

Not that I'm gloating or anything. Much.

* This sends Lavrov into a frothing rage, which is hilarious to see.

"By the pricking of my thumbs, I like to exercise my gums!"

Thursday, 9 July 2026

Mythic Malleting Mayhem

We're Going To Look Backwards Before We Look Forwards

CAUTION! SINGLE TOPIC BLOG. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

To the days of the Second Unpleasantness, in fact, and even when we return to the present, there will still be a bit of a sternward gaze involved. Okay, Art!

The Handley Page 'Hampden', with a fuselage only 3 feet wide

The Brylkreem Bomber Boys of the RAF began the war with only 280 aircraft and 15,000 personnel. By the time hostilities ceased in 1945 they had over 1,500 aircraft, of immeasurably greater quality, and 250,000 personnel. Art!

Lannies being giant flying mallets

Conrad himself remembers seeing the first orc film of a single Kozaky drone on it's way to hit a Ruffian refinery, when it was treated with amused contempt at the idea of such a novel concept, waaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2023.

Now that we've introduced the concept of technological progress over time, I'm going to move on and review a few vlogs that I've been annotating since the end of May as they concern the Ukrainian drone campaign against Mordorvia. Most of these are from 'Professor Gerdes Explains', him being a Professor at Charleston Southern University with a full time job alongside his several vlogs per day in support of Ukraine. Art!

Yes he likes books as much as I do

Okay, in his vlog 'Ruffian Officials Are Starting To Say The Quiet Part Out Loud', published 25/05/2026, he notes that Urals crude is retailing at $87 per barrel, or about twice what it was selling for before Trump's war with Iran, yet about a third down from peak price. I checked and it's now down to around $55 per barrel, meaning it's heading for the $40 early 026 total, where the orcs lost money on every barrel they sold. $87 per barrel seems like a fever dream now. The city of Tver is now rationing petrol - big news at the time - whilst Duma Chairman Valery Gartung warned of the current ₽11 trillion deficit and that inflation was likely to rise to ruinous levels. Art!

BENZIN NYET

Overall, Ruffian refineries fuel production was down by 10%, allegedly, and the orcs were importing petrol from Belarus.

Critically, the price of vodka had increased by 15% at this date. Some smart alecs are suggesting that the Kozaky target Ruffian distilleries to deprive orcs of their favourite liquid, which would indeed bring the government down overnight if managed strategically.

In the next vlog of 01/06/2026, "Daily Ruffian Casualties Remain High", the Prof remarks about Pantsir AA systems being helicoptered onto rooftops near the Kremlin. Art!

Furthermore, Ruffian industry is now obliged to arm itself for defence against drones, meaning that the Kremlin is unable and unwilling to do so and, in classic Putinpot style, is passing the buck. Ruffian ships in the occupied port of Berdiansk were attacked again. Art!

The other target was a tugboat. Not very sexy but essential for port operations.

Prof G also mentioned the big Ruffian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine, 265 drones being launched, 228 being downed. If we assume those are Geran drones, then they use at least 40 gallons of petrol each, meaning the orcs expended over 10,000 gallons in a single night. How howlingly ironic that seems six weeks later!

Also, another metric to bear in mind, if the orcs lose more than 1,120 casualties per day, then they cannot replace them, as this total exceeds their daily recruitment tally. No mention of mobilisation in early June at this juncture.

The Logistics Lockdown has begun - in the space of 2 days the orcs lost over 1,000 trucks and tankers. Art!

The Prof's vlog on 03/06/2026 is one we've already covered, as it was the one dealing with the Ukrainian attacks on Saint Petersbug just as attendees were arriving for the Saint Petersbug International Economic Forum. The title is pretty apt - "Putin Humiliated". The attacks were so obvious and blatant that even he had to admit that the Kozaky had hit something - 'a pile of coal' according to him. Air travel was suspended, meaning SPIEF members had to travel from airports outside Barad Duh to the meeting. O the poor dears!

Conrad noted that there was one element missing from the Ukrainian strikes - air raid sirens. Despite the attacks occurring serially, not simultaneously, no alarms were raised because - the SPIEF attendees cannot be given the wrong impression, can they? 437 trucks and tankers destroyed in one day. Art!

What you see burning and exploding here is the Ruffian navy arsenal at Bolshaya Izhora, as mentioned in the Prof's 06/06/2026 vlog 'Putin's Problems Are Multiplying Fast'. That's an alleged 5,000 tons of munitions going up in smoke, including cruise missiles for the Baltic Fleet at $4 million apiece. Ooops. The Prof, somewhat gloatingly, mentions Prez Zed informing the world that the Ukrainian strike drones flew more than 1,000 kilometres to strike Ruffia's second city, which seemed like an awfully long distance at the time. Which is all of a month ago.

In other breaking news, the Swedes detain a Ruffian grain ship. Big news at the time.

I shall now shift my annotations to 'Jake Broe' as he had returned from his Sorkland sojourn. Art!

"30 Minutes Of Ruffia Getting It's A$$ Kicked By Ukrainian Drones"

As of 13/06/2026, it's now the stated aim of Ukraine to deprive Krim of any fuel, by destroying fuel tankers, road and rail bridges. By this date they now have the M-4 highway under fire control, and have their mid-range drones patrolling to the shores of the Black Sea. 25 regions in Mordorvia now have problems with fuel supply, out of 83 total. Not good, but in three weeks that's going to look positively balmy. The total of crude being refined falls for the sixth successive month, which is an economic disaster in the making, because the refined fuels Ruffia was selling bring in at least twice what crude does. Art!

"Massive Oil Depot North Of Moscow Obliterated By Ukrainian Drones" is Jake's vlog from 18/06/026. Before we get to that, the above picture shows the two Ruffian ferro-concrete bridges at Chongar, which are now out of commission thanks to at least 5 Kozaky drone strikes upon them, thus cutting off supplies into Krim from the north-east. The orcs have put a pontoon bridge into place, which is only one lane wide and which creates a bottleneck. The Ukrainians decided to be the corkscrew. Art!

Jake's pointer is over a hole created by a previous drone. The pontoon at Chongar is now out of service. Art!

That was the macro-economic scale. Here we see the micro-economic in action. The orcs had not been forbidden to use individual cans or containers to prevent them from greedily appropriating all the fuel. Don't forget, this is 18/06/2026; if you tried this as brazenly today you'd be shot, stabbed or strangled by your fuel-less compatriots. Art!

That pointer is at the location of the Rybinsk fuel storage depot, which, if Art will put down his bowl of coal -

Ukrainian drones striking this depot need to travel at least 700 kilometres and probably over 800, since they need to avoid all the SAM systems ringing Moscow. They managed it at least three times. Art!

A brace of tanks already on fire with a third drone ready to join in the flammable fun. As a rule of thumb, each of those fires is destroying $5 million of fuel and $1 million in infrastructure. Art!

A strike 2,500 kilometres into Mordorvia by drones that now have a 3,400 kilometre range. This means nothing is beyond range. So much for the nervous clucking orcs who wanted to shift everything beyond the Urals. Art!

That's almost one every hour. That single grain ship seized by the Swedes looks a bit feeble now, doesn't it?

There you have it, an exponential expansion in the Kozaky's abilities to interdict and mallet the orcs on their doorstep, their neighbour's doorstep and the doorstep of those people three cities over. We haven't even covered how the Ukrainians used AI to help their drones to mimic the flight patterns of a flock of birds, thus allowing them to get into terminal diving distance from juicy orc targets. On the other hand, THIS IS HOW YOU GET SKYNET!

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Sunday, 12 July 2026

Seeing Sequential Sundays

Bon Fires

Saturday, 11 July 2026

It's All About The Hex Which

Thursday, 9 July 2026

Mythic Malleting Mayhem