Our campaign has now entered the morning of the 18th September 1944.
The first engagement was a battalion level attack by US parachute troops against a battery of SP AA guns guarding a railway crossing to the north of a heavily wooded area.
The paras moved out before dawn but it was light before they neared the crossing.
Taking advantage of the woods, they first built improvised defences before opening up with rifles, machine guns and mortars from the south and west of the AA position.
The Germans did not even know of the existence of the enemy before they were completely wiped out.
As an exercise it was useful, but as a wargame I am not so sure. It took me ten days to prepare and 90 minutes to play, including a detailed turn-by-turn report.
And now we return to Nijmegen Bridge, where the Americans have moved up reinforcements overnight. Both sides have also recovered casualties and stragglers during the night phase.
I wish that I had taken some better overall photographs of the table when I last laid it out.
Trying to reconstruct it I first made the error of shifting the whole layout 250m to the west, and thereby the hex pattern is not quite as it was. Secondly I am unable to identify from this photograph several of the specific buildings used last time.
Many of the good Burghers of Nijmegen will be somewhat disoriented when they leave their front doors today to discover they now live in a different street!
General Whiskers' semi-historical wanderings 