Knock out the Radar......

Not far from Freezingham-by-the-Sea, along the coast is a chain home low radar station. 

The Germans plan to make a raid to disable the station and take some key components for analysis. A squad of paratroopers is being sent; their extraction point is on the beach below....

---oXo---

The radar installation.....

Home guard cliff patrol and observation post

---oXo---

Early in the morning, a couple of hours before the dawn..the German paratroop drop went without a hitch and they were approaching the coast and the radar installation

The German paratroops move up by a deserted pillbox...

and the across the rough fields towards the radar installation

Home guard cliff watch patrols and the radar installation sentries are wandering about

Also searching for sighted parachutists  a small detachment of regular British troops...

The paratroopers have reached the installation

two men start to cut a hole in the fence and make a noise... the sentry moves their way..

sees nothing and wanders away again... meanwhile a small group of paratroopers work their way round towards the sea to secure the extraction zone.. a sentry in the installation peers into the gloom but does not see them....

The paratroopers enter the installation compound....

One paratrooper tries to take out a sentry,

 while three have sneaked round to get into the equipment building ..

Another sentry hearing scuffles runs up towards the noise..

The charges explode in the equipment hut, the generators are out and the diesel oil is ablaze...the glow of the fire spreads a pallid glow across the area as dawn approaches...

The paratroops by the coast make their move and attack the home guard observation post...

The paratroopers enter the control room building and deal with a sentry ....

The British regulars head towards the source of the explosion guided by the light of the fire...

Two sentries deal with a lone German paratrooper...

The Germans have secured the control room building...

The operators are led off to the air-raid shelter 

The paratroopers have secured the home guard observation post and the inflatables from the submarine offshore are on their way in ...

The regulars reach the radar installation compound....

The surviving paratroopers move off and cut through the wire to get to the extraction point...

The charges in the radar control building and at the base of the tower go off....

The landing party, home guard and paratroops exchange fire

The British regulars move up at the double....

The germans fall back to cliff and then onto the beach .... losing men as they withdraw...

The paratroopers with the radar parts are taken out to the submarine, some of the landing party are left behind

The three landing party larea eft on the beach - eventually they surrender to the British.

 A successful raid by the Germans...

---oXo---

Notes:

• The German raid was a success, CHL installation knocked out and radar parts taken back for analysis.
• The Germans however they lost 2/3rds of the paratroops killed (8) and 3 men from the landing party captured.
• British losses 2 home guard, 3 sentries and 2 regulars.

Making an Air Raid Shelter

To use up oddment bits in the box of cardboard and foamboard, I decided to make an air raid shelter ...

Basic core of the structure  made with foamboard on a cardboard base...

adjusted height a bit and tried to cut a sloped edge ....

Brick paper added, and some concrete flooring paper added as well

Supports for the earth covering sloped sides...

sides added ...

wood filler used to smooth over the top....

ground surface added, using an off-cut of green cloth and scatter added as needed ... a couple of close ups...

fits in nicely with the radar installation setup...

Radar Installation ... completed..

The radar finished off,  with a nissan hut and a small building makes up a nice setup..

now I have to work out the details of the game scenario which it'll feature...

Radar Installation (WIP) ... finishing off the construction

     The base has been painted, will add some grass scatter later on. The radar's top half made and married up to the supporting structure, have put a wire pivot in so it can rotate...

close in look at the construction - made from wire, cocktail sticks and cardboard

some extra detail added using some thin waxed twine....

bearing in mind 'less is more', thats the build done. Final coat of paint and fitting to the base to do.

Radar Installation (WIP)

 Currently making up a list of games for WW2, one idea is a German raid on a British radar installation..

Rather than chain home with its very tall towers I wanted something more table friendly, a bit of research yielded information about chain home low... example below

I had a spare plastic watchtower from a toy soldier set, which I thought would make a good starting point 

Initial work for the lower part of the structure, I will base the whole thing on an old coaster for stability.

Buildings

Checking on what suitable buildings I had stashed away for WW2; 

enough for most scenarios I can think of...

A game setup with my fixed layout town board(s)..

To get some more variable town layouts I tried out using some old table mats as town blocks...

the scheme has possibilities and is more flexible than my fixed layout scheme. 

A message Received. From "Somewhere in France"

 Captain Martin Fairweather, controller Zone Delta (North West France) read the message from Group Pappa, 

       Not for the first time he wondered if the two groups in the Nouvion sector would ever co-operate with each other.  

    Nothing had been heard from group Charlie since the truncated message about the heavy gun location. verified by photo recon. He wondered what had become of Agent Clara Rose, was she still alive? now this message from Group P.

    He looked up at the clock, 2200 hours just gone, by now the first wave of bombers would be in the air en route to the identified Gun position. Hopefully it would catch this second gun as well.

     Only events "Somewhere in France " would tell