[Sticky] after battle reports.

Yes thanks Chris & Martin and the rest of the fireball team, great fun day. The Gebirgs squad not only looked awsome but fought together like a real squad well done everyone medals will be awarded and those that did not have the right wipping on their ropes will be forgiven Great to see so many make the effort to go especially the lads down sarf who had a fair journey.
The end was a bit like an Alex Furgason United game though

Edit: Cheers for lunch Gordon, fantastic effort

well i am too knackered to type to much , so for now just wanted to say Thanks!

Many thanks to everyone that came today and helped the game go so well , but for one thing i am overruling everyone next time and swapping hqs looooool

But on a serious note big thanks to you all and those that came from so far away

also thanks to those that helped set up everything and then helped bring it all back in

and thanks for so many things i will have forgotten to thank folks for

soon as i have chance will put up the game debrief, when i have chance to see how things went etc , i barely know what my squad did

and will get the photos up asap as well

ok will post more tomorrow after i have rested , but to recap

THANKS !

oh while it in my head MG42s suck

and mortar shells in the wrong way

Well done everybody involved ,superb game ,perfectly played by everybody involved .I thoroughly enjoyed it ,very well organized ,yummy treats in the goody box's .too tired to say more now except thank you.

A great day out, although as forewarned, the site was physically tough, so I am aching, knackered and all my gear is soaked in sweat! Thanks to Chris and the 34th guys for organising it all.

The British section played as a group extremely well, particular thanks to Paz and Wattsy for their sensible route choices. We only got completely wiped out once, which was pretty good going and attacking over the river, around the minefield and uphill was particularly heroic. The Americans only managed to shoot us up twice, which was a bonus

Cheers
Martin

Wunderbar!

Thanks to all. Had a great day. Everyone played fantastically.

Didn't get to use any of the German phases I've been trying to remember, maybe next time

Was good meeting a few new faces and greeting the regulars

Meine Uniform wird emeditally sortiert warden, Herr Leutnant

My first game in almost a year, well worth the journey, great game with good objectives, top enemy action and lots of old faces and new players to meet, thoroughly enjoyed it!!
Many thanks

Thanks chris and Martin for all your hard work in the writing & organising the game
I can honestly say I've never been so tired at storm force and I've played there quite a few times, but this was the most worn out I've ever been. I think it was a mixture between going out there twice before the game to set up and where our HQ was, I second you on the position of our HQ next time chris

The game play was spot on everyone stuck to their missions even when there was a fire fight going on close by, or they seen the enemy they just carried on completing their mission
The Germans was very well organised and put up a good fight every time we came across them, we only nearly got totally wiped out the once, and that came with a little help from Ged blowing 5 of us up by the church

One of my bad parts of the day was when I forgot the mortar back at HQ, so I had to take Clive and snippy all the way back with me to fetch it

But I had a fantastic day and boy does my body know about it today

Big thanks to Chris for organising this (and for lunch! Where were you when i needed packed lunches as a kid? )
Thanks to everyone that helped out during the day too.
I had a great day and thoroughly enjoyed playing alongside my fellow Gebirgsjager under Tim's command. Some excellent co-ordinated assaults and defences and i have to say i loved using the Mg42 alongside Lutz; I even managed to get a couple of kills with his '98 while he manned the MG

Got to thank the players too, they make running and playing WW2 airsoft games a pleasure. Airsoft at its best!

The site was amazing and was my first game there despite only being 10 mins from home. Legs and back are protesting today.

Champion day! Really loved the missions, gave us all a bit of purpose and I do like a purpose. Really good stuff. Cheers.

Right I feel more human and can reflect a bit . The high point of the day for me was the last actions of defending our base , I feel that was when Zug 2 shone the brightest , the Americans were coming in from the church and we were holding them on a ridge between the church and our base ,very close fighting ,neither side backing off or giving an inch ,we repelled the initial assault but the Americans re grouped and drove most of us off leaving only a fragment holding the reverse side of the ridge ,we counter attacked and despite taking serious casualty's from a shower of grenades however our medic (who deserves the iron cross ) was swiftly in action despite huge risks to himself ,then we got our brake when an American grenade was poorly thrown and killed critical parts of their forward unit , we took full advantage and moved in, Rhys and myself were already very close and during the confusion took out the remaining 3 American gi's ,shortly after this we were called in back to base where unknown to us there was a furious battle ,we filled gap's in the defences and gave medical aid as best we could but overwhelming numbers of allied soldiers were closing from all directions and despite a desperate last stand we were over run.

well after a greats night sleep , i am now a lot better

The 109th engineers started the day taking control of the farm with a unit of brits, while they filled sandbags and made it a bit more defensible , we raised the flag and set up the barbed wire perimeter , and guards were posted , after the brits had finished on the sandbags they returned to HQ for further orders, leaving us defending the base. Not long after we were engaged from the high ground by a german zug we believe to have been Gebirgsjager. Pinned down from a MG42 we returned fire , but having no heavy firepower (6 rifles and 2 smg ,1 which died after 3 shots) we were heavily pinned down but holding our own, but the gods of war were not with us, a second zug appeared on the high ground coming back from another mission and joined in , now things were starting to get desperate as ammo was getting low , we managed to get a brief restock from the cp point but the Gebirgsjager had managed to fight down the hill as the FJ covered them , once again ammo was starting to get low. Then the grenades started flying in taking out one side of our defensive positions and couple more myself included fell to some accurate shooting, the rest of my squad fought well but with some running out of ammo and no way out all fell to well placed german grenades, with the squad all dead or wounded the Germans had their victory and moved off.

By the time we were back up and running and at full strength it was 12.15 and we had defended the base for over 1hour 30min, and was recalled to HQ , we then set off on a Hit and Run patrol , and headed to the church where we saw a unit of the 34th engaged with 2 zugs, we engaged the one holding church , after a slow push up the hill under cover of smoke , we managed to get to the top, but the Zug had withdrawn , after attending to our wounded we moved towards the other zug, but within seconds myself and a rifleman were laying in a heap on the floor (wounded before any comments ) the rest of the squad engaged and our medic managed to get us both patched up and we withdrew back to HQ.

After a quick lunch Hq had us back in the field, this time on a mission to blow the german dam sky high, the down side was this was very close to the German garrison, we moved towards the dam , managing to avoid a german patrol and planted charges, we were helped in our mission due to the american 3rd infantry in combat with the garrison troops. Apart from a few odd shots we managed to plant our charges around the side of the dam drop back to a safe distance and blow them (turns out a mk7 and mk9 were quite loud ) once the ringing in our ears stopped , we moved back to Hq managing to avoid any contact.

After letting the battle weary squad have a brief rest we managed to commandeer a squad of british troops to help us on a next mission, which once again was taking us close to the german garrison, this time to remove a enemy minefield to help prepare for the upcoming big push on Avellino. we managed to make it to the minefield undetected, but the minute a unarmed private glun and myself started to clear it we came under heavy fire
and a huge firefight broke out with the two of us still trying to clear the minefield, after 3 attempts and a long firefight we managed to retreat with the mine field cleared (side note we managed to clear 8 of 9 mines using a ww2 mine detector)

As we got back to our Hq we regrouped with the other 2 squads all looking tired but after a brief rest and a bit of chow all 4 squads set off to join the big push on Avellino and the surrounding areas, the 109th drew the short straw and got the frontal attack up the main path on the German garrison , but on route we were engaged at distance by a german zug and and the damn pesky Buzz saw, we returned fire and tried to dislodge them with our mortar, all i can say on this matter is it did not go to plan (and we move on lol) getting past the german zug took us further around than hoped and we moved through church to the main road to engage the German Garrison , which was already under fire from both flanks, we managed to get half way up the road before germans dug into machine guns nests had us pinned down , this time the mortar did its job raining death down on the germans (ok maybe 3 kills and 2 smokes dropped on them ) having used up all my mortars rounds and grenades and having no functioning weapons i was recalled to Hq to help prepare the HQ to be moved further inland

My first Fireball game and I loved it, thanks to the organisers who put it all together. Stormforce is a great little site and I hope to play there again. Thanks Gordon for leading our Zug so well and thanks to everyone who played for a great days WW2. Well worth the trip from down sarf!

What a day, went by really quickly! Glad the weather held. I was totally whacked by the evening, probably not taking out full pack next time!

Really enjoyed my day with squad one, think we did very well on the few objectives we managed to complete, just CP location and time trecking across the site we struggled to do more and we got bogged down into protracted firefights nearly all day. Most of them were really enjoyable but did find the bottleneck at the border crossing / garrison was getting tedious in its stalemate but just as I was feeling that it broke and we managed to push in and clear the area. (it always seems to go that way whenever I've played at SF on border, so not down to the scenarios or players)

Stormforce is a great site and I really enjoyed playing there again after so long, all of the new features and buildings make it great to play across

Highlight of the day, probably flanking around the pylon/beach area through craters and across earth banks to retrieve the package (although I fell over upside down when I was shot and slid headfirst into a hole) and watching the two man mortar team firing at border, although TOTALLY ineffective it did look pretty cool

When's photos going to land?

well from toby soon , think there a few on the intel camera but i not had chance to go through any and though i carried a camera around all day i took none lol

any 1 else snap a few ?

Private Glun eh? You Git! PFC Glynn would not want to know but PFC Glun 'cough' would like to hear more about the initial mortar attack by the 109th Engineers...this Glun fellow is very nosy!
The day was easily one of my favourites. Hats off to the Krauts who played very aggressively the entire day. Considering how large the site is it seemed we were being engaged every half hour! (I swore Tin had snuck a couple of spare Zugs in down his pants...then realised it was just him and that bloody MG42!)
The first German attack on the US base was the basis for my day, out on my own on the left side of our base i came under a withering fire from said MG42 from the heights. I heard voices from the bushes outside and my heart sank into my boots as i saw a whole Zug winding up for an attack! Happily, as i popped out to engage i caught sight of two Krauts running towards my position waving grenades! After a brief second to admire such insane bravery i nailed the pair of them and screame...'cough' shouted for help...
Whilst waiting for assistance under a withering hail of MG42 fire and what i believe were fairly insulting queries on my birth in german from the wounded enemy, assistance arrived in the form of our Grenadier expert PFC Randell. One well placed grenade put paid to the enemy Zug and i was saved!
This was the first of many little 'moments' that made this day one of the best i've been to. Kudo's toi Chris and the rest for sorting the day..dAnd PFC GLUN still wants to hear about the mortar incident...he's like that...

My first game with you guys and your growing reputation (positive) is well earned! Great site, physically demanding and varied which enhanced the day for me.
I loved the individual typed missions which allowed squads to play at their own pace and style. The way forward perhaps?
Some how, I was given command of the 3rd squad and quite a sized squad it was too. We organised fairly quickly for our first mission, to plant diversionary devices at the Western farm and church. We were quietly efficient and methodically completed our objectives with out disturbing the Axis forces
After a brief respite at HQ, we were back on it, taking a wide left hooking route in order to find and engage the enemy. After clearing several building complexes, we stumbled into axis troops around the Comms centre. We quickly notched up 4 confirmed kills, suffering light casualties ourselves which our medic soon sorted. Moving on, we didn't get far before bumping another gruppe. This saw a class comedy moment when having snuck up behind a suitably distracted Kraut, I had the drop on. He turned to see me bearing down on him, grease gun aimed and primed! The look of sheer shock was funny but not as funny as the jazz hands accompanying it. At this point my greaser jammed and I was saved by my oppo, directly behind me gunning down my foe! Another 5 confirmed kills were soon racked up allowing us to fall back to HQ.
The 3rd mission, to collect supplies went as our first, with us completing it with stealth and efficiency.
The end of game battle saw some heavy fighting once we'd flanked far right, we quickly mopped up small pockets of axis at the church before moving to the right of the Germans garrison. Heavy fighting got us up to high ground with grenades and smg fire proving the difference. However, we stalled allowing the enemy space and this coupled with the worst grenade throws I've ever witnessed from one of our own, we were overrun (due to the high casualty numbers, suffering from friendly grenade shrapnel).
Big thanks to all the guys in my squad. All took my command bumbling with good grace, following my lead without question. All fought hard and with discipline, holding to task regardless of what went on round a bout.

This won't be my last game with you guys. Well done and thanks

In my defence I would like to point out that the 42 was in use by myself and my co gunner, Lutz, who was a great spotter and helped conceal our positions with foliage. In fact he had the 42 for a good while through the middle of the day and put it to very good use! We were light on 'manoeuvrable' fully auto guns though, and who knew that MP40's have an on off switch? (cough - Allenby ) so the rifles had their work cut out for them. Kudos to the rest of the Gebirgsjager too, as we worked effectively as a zug under Tim's command and apart from some frayed rope we looked very dashing doing it!