To borrow from one the UK's more illustrious magazines I've had a interest in going back to some of the sites of the CiA games, the youngest of which was now 10 years ago and taking some "then & now " pictures...although how many really old folks who remember the games will see them I'm not sure .
A couple of years ago I managed to walk around Glyn Ceriog ( scene of "Churchill Revenge: in July 2007 and Operation Jedburgh July 2010) and also take a drive around Ceri Forest near Clun ( scene of Bryansk May 2008 and Schaulen July 2011) both of who are quite different to he sun soaked valleys of yesteryear !
Here is a to the drive around Ceri, which is completely changed in the intervening years due to forestry work .
Hopefully the links work CW !
Hals und Beinbruch
Alte
Also Gratis for Free n Otherwise , a link to my online album of pics taken from those events , sadly in somewhat of a random order , but I guess if you were there they will make sense !
https://postimg.cc/gallery/gmC6WL2
Heh, if there any others who wish to wander down memory lane here is a link to all the CiA events (some pages carry photo albums): Previous events | Comrades in Arms (comrades-in-arms.co.uk)
And a few videos:
D-Day, The Battle for Normandy – November 2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_glXemNxrw
The Visit of Hauptmann Horn, April 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQme4EByHOQ
The Boryszyn Loop, January 2010
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvFJVfihzuI&t=1s
Projekt Wotan – October 2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2XDpe3ec3E>
Churchill’s Revenge – 30th June/1st July 2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpxp-4R2anw&t=2s
A Clash of Eagles - December 2006
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbcXKiXOmkM
Arnhem, A Bridge Too Far - April 2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFmlkquZ6Ow&t=30s
Wow they had colour film back then ??
Well, I think it must have been hand tinted. 😉
I think I might have recognised a bit of Ceri, with the 'bridge' over the gulley - but I can't be sure.
Yes the "bridge" is still there and also the woods deep in the end of the valley where the road loops around - often a base camp and where we played the single shot game at Brysank .
Most of the rest along the hillsides are gone , all the way down from where you'd enter the site at the top , various camps and back tracks all gone , which is the part I'm driving at the start of the video . Pete Dunn told me it was devastated a few years back he wasn't wrong .
I didn't take many pix when I went to both a couple of years ago , I was in a rush just passing by, and didn't have any "then" pictures to line up with ...and then the lockdown .
Glynn Ceriog is equally odd, virtually everything that was woods is now scrub and everything that was scrub is now woods.
Makes you realise that those old boys explaining how "jerry was over there behind those woods" even 20 years after the war could get it totally wrong .
Ceri certainly looks different although I do recognise parts of it. The bend at 1:30 being the Soviet base camp from Bryansk (Edit- No it was Schaulen I think)? I think I remember stopping the germans night time drive there too. interesting game picks too, not sure I have seen most of them before. A younger looking me doing my best impression of a 'Tommy' in captured uniform no less!
What a great trip down memory lane! Even after all of these years, still some of the best milsim I've ever done and, some of the best people as well. I'm still trying to hold the CiA values dear now, with the more modern stuff I'm involved in. I hope everyone who's still here from those halcyon days is doing well.
When I want your opinion - I'll tell you what it is!
Speshul days , speshul peoples , cracking dits !!
