Natal Mounted Rifles in Italy: Personal accounts by Douglas Baker

"Our troop of four tanks was creeping down a road along a very steep mountainside and we knew that somewhere ahead a German 88mm would be hiding waiting for us to reach a position, which the enemy would, in retreat, have noted down accurately in terms of its range. To make our survival more likely, I had volunteered to accompany the troop officer, Lieutenant Bunny Evans walking ahead of the tanks to draw fire." - Douglas Baker, WW2 People's War

The BBC "WW2 People's War" archive has a series of recollections by Natal Mounted Rifles volunteer Douglas Baker. Of particular interest are his descriptions of action at San Felice in July 1944:

Ambush at San Felice
Ambush at San Felice - Part 2

Douglas Baker (left) in 1943. © Douglas Baker. WW2 People's War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found here.

I have added the link to the Springboks in Italy reference page.

Markers

Many of the rules I play need multiple markers to track the condition of units on the table, and things can get cluttered very quickly.

Stealing the idea from some commercial laser cut MDF examples, I made some dial-type counters using a very simple recipe: each one needs two plastic 25mm bases, a pair of 2.5mm magnets, and a self-adhesive label (printed with the requisite range of numbers appropriate to your rule system). Drill a 2.5mm hole in the centre of both bases, glue in the magnets, stick a label on one disc and drill a 4-6mm hole (depending on the type size used on your labels) in the other disc and decorate to taste...

I used the lipped 25mm base from Warlord Games for the top disc, and the older, flat Warlord base for the bottom disc. (I generally use GW-style plinth bases for all my figures, so the Warlord bases would otherwise go to waste).

So far, I have kept most of the disk decoration era-neutral, as I intended the same dials to be used for Hail Ceasar and Black Powder (casualties), Saga (fatigue) and Bolt Action (pins). I have experimented with one World War 2-themed example, and will probably do a few more when the mood takes me.

I did, however, make a World War 2-themed bound/turn marker using the same approach - this one used a Privateer Press-style 50mm round-edged base for the bottom disk, and a 40mm plastic base of unknown origin (probably Gripping Beast) for the top disk. The figure is from Company B (it is meant to populate a staff car), the map table from the Warlord Games "High Command" vignette set, and the crate is from Die Waffenkamer's stowage packs.