Wing and Sword: a d20 Modern military campaign [METAGAME]

[Bobitron]

Updated equipment list and posted.

 

[shadowbloodmoon]

Excellent... I changed my stuff to include the flashlight, though I was curious to see if Pyotr was allowed to keep the djellba. My post included that he did, but if not, I can change it.

 

[Bobitron]

I have never been so tempted to break the sanctity of the spoiler before.

 

[The Shaman]

Excellent... I changed my stuff to include the flashlight, though I was curious to see if Pyotr was allowed to keep the djellba. My post included that he did, but if not, I can change it.

Since you asked, yes you can.

I have never been so tempted to break the sanctity of the spoiler before.

I'm sure Pyotr will tell you whatever he wants you to know...

 

[знаток]

That is the Casbah in the background - to the right of the photo is the community of Bab-el-Oued, the 'Water Gate' of the old city, which at the time of the campaign is a working-class pieds-noirs neighbohood (one that your characters will visit on one of their adventures, as a matter of fact...!)

I think the picture was taken from the breakwater that marks the west edge of the port of Algiers. I've spent much too much time looking at the maps of the city!

Great picture!

I think you should consider posting that and possibly other pictures (as appropriate) as illustrations in the story hour, which is awesome, by the way.

And yes, as predicted, I'm a zombie this morning... :\

I wish I could pay you back for the sleep lost. The introduction is fantastic!

 

[The Shaman]

I think you should consider posting that and possibly other pictures (as appropriate) as illustrations in the story hour, which is awesome, by the way.

That's a great idea - I'll try to work more illustrations into both the story hour and the game-threads. I'm glad you like the story hour - I'll try to get another installment up this weekend.

Excellent posts, everyone - знаток, I got a little misty reading Vidal's reminiscences...

 

[Bobitron]

Whoa! The picture goldmine!

 

[Barak]

Yup.. I didn't post in here since the intro, so I'll take this time to say it was very good indeed! And I'm probably even more curious than Normand to know what's coming next..

 

[The Shaman]

Whoa!

Well-said, Keanu!

That's awesome! 6th Colonial Paras (but you probably figured that out already...) in action. Some of the captions are pretty funny - I like the "Algerian Climbing Club" and a trip to the 'beach' at Blida... The peaked cap that the men are wearing in most of the pictures is called a Bigeard cap, after Col. Marcel Bigeard - the colonel modeled it on Afrika Korps fatigue hats. All of the paras in Algeria adopted the cap except the Legion paras, who stayed with their traditional green beret.

(Speaking of, there is a small mistake in the movie The Battle of Algiers that relates to headgear: when Ali-la-Pointe is in his hiding-hole at the end, the paras outside are shown wearing Bigeard caps - in fact, it was the 1st REP that captured Ali-la-Pointe, so they should've been wearing berets. This scene is also a preview of one of your upcoming adventures... )

Take a good look at that terrain - that's where you'll be spending much of the campaign. Steep hills, dense brush, lots of cover and concealment - skill points in Spot are well-spent!

In the history section, the author recounts the actions of the 6th Colonial Paras - at the bottom it lists the casualties from Indochina and Algeria: 23 officers, 70 non-coms, and 480 paras. That's the equivalent of an entire para battalion/light regiment lost between 1948 and 1961...

Excellent link, Bobitron - thanks!

 

[Barak]

Well.. That's actually not -that- bad, although obviously any loss of life is bad. I mean, it's a 13 years span.. And counting just the paras, it comes at about 37 per year.. How many did we (fictionally) lose in our little encounter? 2 or 3 (I was sorta confused there at the end)? And while it lasted long for a PBP, that was barely a skirmish for a military campaign.