Battalion Organisational Changes

As mentioned in earlier posts I have now revised the structure of all Medical and Command battalions and Cavalry regiments.
 For Cavalry the change is that the number of squadrons within the regiment has been increased from three to four. With Medical battalions the main change is the restructuring of the surgical company. As far as Command battalions are concerned the changes include a reduction in the size of the Signals company and the revision of the Staff company into directorates. In addition I have introduced aides de camp for each General officer.
These changes have now been included in the organisational posts for these units. The total overall  effect is to increase the number of soldiers within the Army group by 740 giving a new authorised strength of 46,542. At the time of writing I have 44,998 soldiers in service.
Other changes are currently under consideration and these will be posted as and when they occur.

Since writing the above several other changes have been introduced including the elimination of Artillery brigades, creation of Army Command brigades and addition of Heavy Weapons companies to each Infantry battalion. This has resulted in an increase in the authorised strength of the armies to just under 52000.

Although work continues at my Mums flat I have had some  modelling time so thought I would give an update on my activities. I still can't find the time to do much blogging but I hope to get some more articles written and published in a few weeks time.

The Medical battalion has been completed and I have almost finished the Quartermaster Transport battalion which is the last battalion to complete my army at this time. I have in fact now started to implement some of the organisational changes previously referred to. The first changes to be actioned include adding an extra squadron to each of my 18 Cavalry regiments. At present there are three squadrons in each regiment. This is being increased to four and I have constructed the first batch of three new squadrons and am about to start painting these 66 new cavalrymen. I will revise the organisational post for Cavalry regiments to reflect this change shortly. In addition I have changed the structure of Command battalions to provide for each general to have a personal staff and to increase the number of staff soldiers while reducing the number of signals personnel. This revision will be made to the organisational post on Command battalions shortly but broadly speaking involves the creation of about 180 new soldiers across 19 Command battalions and repainting of about 200 existing soldiers. In terms of equipment activity I am presently building 34 new house bodied wagons to equip all command battalions with extra vehicles to facilitate the new additions to the command structures.

On other fronts, I mentioned I would take my old schoolboy stamp collections to a dealer for valuation and possible sale. I did this but found my collections quite worthless. Basically the stamps I collected,  back in the 60s, have no more value today than back then if not less, and they were cheap then otherwise I could not have afforded them.My albums are apparently classic schoolboy collections of attractive but cheap stamps, all looks but no value. They have therefore gone back into the loft for the next generation, maybe they will have better luck in 30 ( that's me being optimistic ) or so years time.

Much more pleasing is that I have sold my Peter Laing figures to a collector, in fact some of them are going to Mark at Manoftin which is good news as he is a great fan of these figures. I still have some French Napoleonic cavalry, which I thought had found a new home but not anymore. I may well put these on ebay in what would be my first foray on this medium. If I proceed I will report on my experiences.

The other thing of possible interest is that I am thinking of attending a wargaming convention next year to display some of my army. Not to actually wargame but just to show them and perhaps generate some interest in the concept of screw soldiers. If anyone has a view on this idea, or anything else of course, please do leave a comment, I would greatly value your views on all matters.

I'M BACK !!!!!!!

Well about as much back as I can be at this time. The past several weeks have been hard to say the least. Most of the paperwork resulting from my Mum's passing is now either done or ongoing. The priority at present is the heart breaking task of clearing her flat so as to be able to sell it perhaps later this year. As usual my wife is my rock and is doing the things I can't emotionally cope with like sorting clothes and bagging them for charity. Its quite extraordinary how much stuff one person can accumulate in a lifetime. Something I have realised is that no matter how much we value or even treasure items and objects, that value does not travel through the generations in a lot of cases. Of course there are things of my Mum's that will be kept both by me and my daughters but there are many things that we just really don't want to keep although I know my Mum treasured them. Even if we did choose to pack them away in my loft for the next ten or twenty years my children or grandchildren will not value them because they just don't have any attachment to them so what's the point.

This situation has made me realise it is now time to get rid of some of the stuff I have accumulated over the years. Its going to be interesting enough for my girls to inherit 45000+ screw soldiers let alone a heap of other useless stuff. That said, I recently sold my plastic models, both made and unmade, that I last worked on in the 1960s. A guy came over and to my surprise took the lot and paid me well for the privilege. Last week I took my collection of Matchbox vehicles, also from the 1950s and 60s to a local specialist old toy shop and he also bought them all at a handsome price. I plan to take my stamp albums to a dealer over the next few weeks to see if they are of interest. I also found a batch of mostly Peter Laing metal figures and am now in negotiation with a collector to move them on too.

Although I am spending a couple of days each week working at my Mum's flat, I have found some time to model. In fact it has been quite therapeutic. Since my last update I have completed the last Pioneer battalion and both Heavy Artillery battalions. I have also almost completed the last Medical battalion which leaves only a QM transport battalion  to complete the army. As I have mentioned before, I have a large number of potential organisational changes to implement that I I have dreamt up over the last year or so. Some of these are quite substantial and will involve a lot of work. I will publish details at some time in the future.

To close this update I have to mention Mark of Manoftinblog.wordpress.com with whom I have recently corresponded by e mail. Like me he takes great pleasure in using regular household items to make interesting and useful supplements for his models. I strongly recommend his blog as a source of stimulating ideas and thoughts.