Rocketman, the battle of Saragahi and ornithopters

Rocketman is due to begin again soon, possibly on the 24th of this month or on the 8th of October and as a consequence, my head is full of all manner of things technical, techno-possible and techno-improbable.

So far I've drawn a merchant class U boat schematic, and I've got to build an upper hull for the same. I've built a number of 'concealed models', that is to say models which will be revealed only when the game is afoot. I've bought and painted British sailors & German East Africa Askaris.

I've drawn four of the six game maps for RM5 and one for RM6. I've built and partially painted the He51-b2 sea plane, and the jetty to which it will be moored in RM5 is almost finished. Most of the pirates have been finished, (just a few details left on five or six), the bunker is done, the Schattentroppen soldater are all done, as are the 'divers'. The steamer le Mollusc is finished and ready to go, though it hasn't been 'weathered' yet. The only big thing missing is the ground plan and map for RM5.5, but thats the work of an evening or two.

Then for RM6, I have a bunch of half built models to finish and paint, including the armoured train, which needs three turrets and a paint job, six British Vickers tanks (Mk VI's and II's), another 'Indy tank' with a commander, some supply and recovery trucks, a Bolshevik armoured car and two Bolshevik cannon with crew.


Then I have the biggest job of the lot, the figures. RM6 will pit British colonial troops (Brits and Sikh's) against a plethora of Bolsheviks, including the Iron Czar himself! If possible, I'd like to squeeze more ruined buildings in, but there may not be time for them as I also have to draw four more game maps, though these have already been sketched out in rough.

I'll add pictures of all these finished models when I buy a new digital camera. Freja just broke ours, for the second time and this time I think she killed it.

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Speaking of Sikh infantry, today is the anniversary of the Battle of Saragahi which Sikh military unit's celebrate every year. The Battle of Saragahi took place in 1897, when twenty-one Sikhs of the 4th Battalion, the Sikh Regiment held to the death an army post against ten thousand Afghans. The story goes, the Sikh's took out over six hundred Afghans before they were over run. You can say what you want about the Ghurka's, but the Sikh's are my favourite native troops. Those guys are hardcore and I love the turbans. Copplestone sell them in groups of ten, as they do Muslims and Ghurkas. The image is random and shows Sikh troops in France.

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Regarding ornithopters, I've been pondering a new hero character for future ROCKETMAN games, an Italian nobleman and millionaire, who has his own set of retainers and an appropriate scientist sidekick. He could function as an ally to Rocketman in some future campaign or other. His 'thing' would be an ornithopter, and his alter ego would be something angelic, or a reference to appropriate bird of prey. Because its the 1930's and he's meant to be a good, guy, he'd have to be dedicated to fighting the facists, but thats not a problem with me. The Italian facists haven't been done to death in a million movies like the Nazi's have.

Ornithopters, for any one who got this far into my geek post, and not in the know, are mechanical flying vehicles which derive their momentum from mechanically flapping wings. Here is a modern example which illustrates just how difficult to realise such a concept is. The stresses placed on the vehicle by the weight and momentum of the wings is tremendous, so they remain largely a figment of science fiction novels, such as Dune and ancient myths like Icaraus and Daedalus.

In the 1890's, a British inventor named Lawrence Hargrave is said to have built several ornithopters powered by steam and/or compressed air. I'm guessing these were largely ineffective, if not potentially lethal. The Germans had a few designs in the 1940's, including one built by Adalbert Schmidt which is said to have remained airborne for up to fifteen minutes.

No design has ever yet come close to the complexities of a birds wing.