Bolt Action Unboxing: British LDV Section
July 11, 2017 by johnlyons
This week John and Gianna take a look at the British LDV Section for Bolt Action from Warlord Games.
The British Local Defence Volunteers were made up of those, such as the old and the young, who were ineligible to serve in the regular armed forces. Later known as the Home Guard, they are the inspiration for the comedy TV show "Dad's Army".
The set includes ten figures who, without their uniforms, you can tell was a force made up of local tradesmen and shopkeepers.
Are you old enough to remember Dad's Army?
A cracking and character unit that will suit Operation Sealion as well as Very British Civil War
Thanks very much for the mention, John and Gianna. 😀 Another great video!
Indeed we ran an article series on Operation Sea Lion a while back, along with the supporting thread in the History Forums.
Here is a link to the last part of the article series, which in turn has links to all the previous parts, if anyone is interested. We take Sea Lion apart pretty thoroughly, and really try to take a look at whether such an invasion could have been staged, and if so, its chances for ultimate success.
We also talked about what John was mentioning about those dreaded envelopes. People like police chiefs, magistrates, mayors, people that might know about how the resistance networks were set up or just be useful to the Germans in maintaining order in the event of occupation.
http://www.beastsofwar.com/battlegroup/operation-sea-lion-invading-england-1940-part-five/
On a lighter note:
In the forums, we had a “Para-Leader” (airborne variant of Panzer Leader) depicting a fallschirmjaeger battalion of about 450 men landing just behind Hawkinge, near 17th Infantry Division’s landing zone along the Romney Marsh near Dover.
I won’t bore everyone with all the details (the full battle report is in the thread) – but suffice it to say the Home Guard “militia” were trying to hold on to as many towns, crossroads, improved positions, etc., until a column of motorised rifles and light armor could arrive.
Elite, superbly-equipped, extensively trained, and experienced in Norway and Holland, these German paratroopers should have been overrunning these “Dad’s Army” platoons (I use that term loosely) with near-effortless ease. And in Para-Leader, they usually did.
Then came this one moment, a “perfect storm” of odd conditions and some ridiculous dice rolling. The British were rolling well and the Germans rolling badly – I counted up the odds, the total probability came out to something like 162-1 against. But it happened, a bicycle section of Home Guard attacked and massacred a whole battalion of elite German fallschirmjaeger.
After seeing this video, I’m convinced that “blunderbuss” guy was at the head of this charge. 😀
On the “pre-staged” resistance networks, etc:
Special Opperations Executive (SOE) was the organisation that handed out the notes. They’re seperate to the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS now MI6) what was doing a lot of code breaking, Counterintelligence and propaganda. Also what John said about just doing your bit fighting for your country isn’t necessarily true because the Germans had lists of their own of people to assassinate. You can’t win.
The guy in uniform is wearing a WW1 Officers uniform and doesn’t have ranks on it. If you wanted you could paint some Lieutenant Colonel insignia on him and use him as Frank Bourne who was 90 at the time but I don’t doubt he’d be up for a fight. I love the idea of an old man putting on a uniform he was too old to be wearing in the first place going out one last time to inspire the men with his reputation.
Frank Bourne was at Rorke’s Drift as a Colour sergeant. He’s the Sergeant in the movie Zulu, eventually became an officer, retired, renlisted as a Lieutenant Colonel in WW1 and died in 1945. In fact I might pick this up just for that.
combination of ridiculous and insanely brave, the volunteers were very much there to fight and die, and hopefully take out a few of them beforehand. Locally, volunteers manned air observation positions on the tops of hills here in the Peak District, keeping watch on the bomber moving towards industrial centers like Manchester. Other volunteers were tasked with policing not just the areas around POW camps but guarding work details – my nan has a story when she was young of how the guard fell asleep, leaving an Italian prisoner of war to assault a girl who was passing by. Bizarrely, his head got kicked in by a combination of local farmers and some German POW’s who’d been horrified by what they saw. A lot of those Italians and Germans still live here tbh… We also had an LDV cavalry squadron haha, there’s a picture in the church of the volunteers, sabres drawn for a last ditch charge. For the most part, the old yeomanry veterans would have fought as they did in WW1, mounted infantry, scouting, carrying supplies, pack horses carrying bren and vickers guns so the yeomen could move ahead, guard the ravines and passes while the infantry volunteers assembled and legged it as fast as they could! Tremendously brave, and interestingly, not a new phenomenon. My dissertation was on the volunteers of the Napoleonic wars (another great invasion scare). PM expected 100,000 troops, we ended up with the largest volunteer army in Europe! Finish work, then down to the cricket club for some musket practice and some square bashing. Digging trenches, manning medieval castles and ancient defenses (even old Celtic hill forts) just as they would 140 years later in WW2. Dover castle for example, tremendous tourist attraction these days but the heart of our defenses on the south coast for centuries. Tunnels and barracks all dug out of the rock under the fortress, space for thousands of soldiers. Sad thing is, in both time periods, the position of the war office was to send thousands and thousands into the jaws of the enemy, not expecting them to come back while the regulars could be mobilised into a more effective defense/counter attack further back. Great article series btw @oriskany well worth looking at. Great unboxing! Sealion has been a tremendous expansion for Bolt Action.
Thanks , @bigdave ~
Still my favorite “Home Guard” scene, the poor Free Polish fighter pilot who is shot down during the Battle of Britain, successfully bails only to land in a British farm field, where his accent gives the local “volunteers” the wrong idea. 😀 😀 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEcL6SvjuPE
On a more serious note, I completely agree with you. The idea for many of these units wasn’t to “win” or even survive. Much more of a: “Just make sure you take at least one of the bastards with you.”
Great unboxing some really unique models. Who dosent love a handcanonen 😀
About the dark pats of the home army, I think ive heard the term to describe them as the “scaly wags” Im not sure i spelled it correctly, but they where suppose to operate as John described it. Their motto was “Terror by night”
I cant remember where I have seen it. Maybe it was QI or something .