Battle of the Hills, 21 January 1943
Image via Wikipedia This is a short article about the advance of the 51st Highland Division in Tunisia in the follow up from El Alamein. I wrote this to be played as a tabletop wargame using Command Decision. Ground The coast road between Homs & Corradini in Tunisia. On the right (from the perspective of the British advance) is the sea. The coast road lies a few miles inland at places. There is a steep coastal ridge on the left flank of the battle area with desert to the south. Within all this there are a large number of steep sided, but small, wadis running from the hills to the sea. There are also one or two significant hills that sit astride or on the road. To quote Captain Watt (OC B Company 5th Seaforths). “At the Assembly Area we…
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Making A Killing, James Ashcroft
Making a Killing: The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq The author is a former British Infantry officer who subsequently became a private security contractor and worked in Iraq for eighteen months from the end of 2003 to the beginning of 2005. It was co-written with a professional author. Synopsis An insider's account of life as a private security contractor in Iraq. In September 2003 the author arrived in Iraq at the start of an 18-month journey into chaos. In "Making a Killing", Ashcroft provides a first-hand view of the world of private security where ex-soldiers employed to protect US and British interests can make up to $1000 a day. But he also reveals a new kind of warfare where the rules are still being written. Although hostilities are officially over, the fighting goes on. Scores of US…
Book Review – Field of Fire: Diary of a Gunner Officer by Jack Swaab
Field of Fire: Diary of a Gunner Officer by Jack Swaab My rating: 5 of 5 stars I read the hardback version very shortly after it came out. I collect first hand accounts of the WW2 and unit histories of the 51st Highland Division in particular, so this one was a must buy. That said it is one of the best first hand accounts that I have read, and certainly the best from a gunner (it comparies favourably to George Blackburn's Guns of War series - he was also a Forward Observation Officer). You can have no doubt about the hardships of war, what the conditions were like for both the gunners on the gun line and the infantry on the front line. The book is very descriptive without becoming flowery and it avoids glossing over some of the less…
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The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
subtitle: The Impact of the Highly Improbable I heard the author on Radio 4 and was intrigued with his central premise that there are wholly unpredictable random events which throw a spaner in the works and about how we often infer things that we ought not to. So I bought the book. The author has a website where you can find out more about him if you are interested. Synopsis This book is all about Black Swans: the random events that underly our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they're nearly impossible to predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalise them. A rallying cry to ignore the 'experts', the Black Swan shows us how to stop trying to predict everything and take advantage of uncertainty. ISBN 9780141034591 Related articles A Conversation with Nassim Taleb
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Peas & Onions
Alexander and I spent some time in the garden on Saturday, for the first time in weeks it hasn't been either raining or frosty. We pottered around a bit, mostly playing with his little house and some time in the potting shed. Saturday Planting In the potting shed we took the eight chilli seedlings and put them in separate pots. Two went into a pot outside (the weakest two, I don't expect them to survive but thought that they ought to have some chance. They are in a pot with some broad beans planted in it (although no sign of the broad beans yet, the frost and snow has probably delayed them coming up). Two of the others, including the biggest one, were put into pots and then into a propagator in the potting shed. The weather forecast is pretty…