4% of the Sand on Omaha Beach? Fragments from D-Day.

Just ran across this interesting note about the sand composition on Omaha Beach:

"University of Texas geologist Earle McBride analyzed samples from the beach...Further testing revealed the shards to be magnetic shrapnel from the Allied invasion....He and his colleagues also identified iron and glass beads formed by the intense heat of explosions. Up to 4 percent of the sand is made up of this shrapnel, the researchers report...

D-Day Maps and Groundscale Questions

Ed: Fixed links. Not a lot has been going on in my D-Day preparations this week. My brother-in-law has been in town visiting, and I have been covered up with work. Number One Son and I managed to progress one single turn in our game, although it is still set up to be finished! Anyway, I was poking around the web looking for D-Day stuff and ran across some nicely detailed 1:7920 maps of Omaha beach. I don't anticipate doing bluffs for a while, but I made sure and saved copies of this for when I do.

Lincoln

I bet this movie will be very good! Daniel Day Lewis is an amazing actor, and I'm sorry to see somebody as distinctive as Tommy Lee Jones or even Hal Holbrook in it as well to pull me out of my suspension of disbelief. I will no doubt be hauling Son and Daughter Number Ones to the theater to watch this with me!

SITREP: D-Day

D-Day, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Got the German 10.5cm battery done. That was, I think, the worst painting experience from any Flames of War figures I've done! It came with nicely sculpted resin bases, with recesses for the crew. That sounds like a good idea, as hiding figure bases is always an issue. However, getting the gun AND the crew onto a base is a bit of an art. The recesses actually messed with that. I wasn't free to locate the figures in such a way that I could get the gun back on the base after I had completely finished painting and flocking it. So, I had to paint the figure bases separately, trim their bases so they actually fit in the recesses, glue them onto the base with the gun now in the way of everything, then go back and try to fill in and hide the gaps around the figure bases. It actually tacked on a couple of nights to the entire process and started to really irritate me.

One step forward, one step back.

P-47, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I am getting stuff painted for my D-Day game, but I don't actually seem to be getting any closer to running it! But I had a good weekend otherwise...

SITREP: D-Day

D-Day layout, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Things are coming along well for my D-Day beach landing game. I finished painting up the water and sand, and I think they look pretty good. Here it is set up on the short (five foot) end of my table-- the grass mat is rolled up on the other end, giving me room to work with my sons. There's a few more inches of water depth hanging off the end. It didn't seem necessary until I put the LCT out there!

I sat down and started reviewing the scenario and the rules, thinking about putting everything on the table. In doing so, I ran across the Overwhelming Force special rule-- "The Allied force has 75% more troops than the Axis Force." Whoops!! That's a bit of a bummer as my Germans can be used for anything, so I have lots of them. But it's the American forces that will limit the size of this game...