Fort aan de Buursteeg

 On May 5th the Spring meeting of the Dutch Foundation for Model Figures (in Dutch the NSM; de Nederlandse Stichting voor Modelfiguren) took place at the "Fort aan de Buursteeg" at which place is situated the Visitors Centre for the Grebbelinie. 

For those who don't know the Grebbelinie; this was one of the defense lines of the Dutch army against the invading German army in WW2.
But, although this is the most known period of the Grebbelinie, it already existed some centuries before.

The "Fort aan de Buursteeg" was build in 1786 as a defense against a possible Austrian invasion of the Seven Provinces. As that invasion never happened, the first real invasion came in 1794/1795 when French revolutionary armies crossed the frozen rivers, the allied British and Austrian armies pulled back their forces to Germany and the United Provinces came to its end in 1795 just to emerge as the Batavian Republic, a satellite state of France.

The fortress itself was never threatened by an enemy but was occupied by Dutch, British and later French troops.
The fort was in 1846 split in half as an east-west railroad was built right through the fort and effectively split the fortress in a northern and a southern part.

Underneath are some pictures of the fort whose earthen defenses were made in 1786, but these defenses were added with modern bunkers, artillery position etc just before WW2 by Dutch troops but also in the later WW2 by German troops.

Starting with a drawing of the fort which shows the situation when the railroad was made and now crossed through the fort. The top of the drawing is the facing to the east

What is to see on this moment:
Firstly there is the nice Visitors Centre of the Grebbelinie which is situated in the centre of the northern part of the fort.  A picture of an earlier visit:

a picture of the northern part of the fort with the visitors centre on the left side.

A modern drawing of the fort with the railroad splitting the fort and in red the visitors centre in the northern part of the fort. The top of the drawing is North.

Some pictures fo walking through the terrain of the fort.  

way up to the bastion

bastion from outside

German bunker which was camouflaged/painted as a house build at the backside of the fort. An 88mm gun was placed in the bunker. The fort was then part of the socalle "Panther stellung"

bastion from the inside

an undamaged 1940 Dutch S3 bunker

A Dutch 1940 anti tank position.
We missed it at our visit so this is from the site of the Visitors Centre whose site you can find at: 

https://grebbeliniebezoekerscentrum.nl/ 

As said earlier, we were asked to put on a game connected to the fortress so we took our French Revolutionary miniatures and Peter built a part of the fort so our "what-if" game was connected to this great site. 

So underneath are some pictures of the game.

Jan explaining the game to visitors of the centre and fort. 

The fortress in Dutch hands

 

The wargame in full glory

advancing French

the battlefield

Part of our 1793 bakery inside the fortress

Some remarks; as peter took the pictures, sadly only Jan is visible.
Miniatures used were Eureka (French and Austrians) and Emperor Toad (Dutch). Terrain is mostly handmade by ourselves.

Rules used:  Shadow of the Eagles

And thanks to the NSM for inviting us and also many thanks to the Visitors Centre for having us. It was a splended day. 

The early medieval tower revisited

As Jan had made an early medieval tower, it make sense to build further a motte and bailey although this last one couldn't be big as it should be fitted on our wargames table.
The total space should be max 60*90cm as we use 60*60cm sheets for the table so the castle would fit in.

So first some gluing of sheets (one 60*50cm and one 60*40cm), making a low motte and low wall for the bailey and then carve out the dry moats around both.

The motte received a palisade (Jans wife is now missing a lot of cocktail prickers (is the an English expression?).

As it is nice to have a gate on the motte which can be opened, this was handmaid with some balsa wood and two ex Northstar pikes trimmed so that it fitted between the balsa as doorposts. 

And lastly as the bailey get no palisade but a simple wattle fence (to enhance the early medieval character) posts are glued to the bailey wall; on the picture are the first ones, the amount is now tripled.
Some bridges are built to cross the moats but again no sophisticated drawbridges; this is early stuff.

And the last step until now is gluing sand on all the terrain as base for painting.

Hope you enjoy!

An early medieval donjon (at least it should look like it!)

Jan thought about making the first castle tower of the Kessel castle (called Keverberg) in the south-easter part of the Netherlands were we live of which a picture is underneath of around 1100.

As only parts of the lowest part of the tower was found no one knows for sure how it really looked and by a second glance it looks a little bit dull. So he looked further for some more examples of early castles/donjons or something else. These were found:

Motte Lütjenburg in Germany

Bachritterburg Germany 

Herne Germany

reconstruction motte Eindhoven 

So it was decided to build one himself without knowing how; just knowing that it would be partly stone and partly wood. As it wasn't know how it would be used; eg for skirmish game (so figures had to be put inside or just as decoration on the side), building started out of mostly balsa wood and a base of polystereen on a plastic base and by try and error it became this.

A, yet unpainted, figure just for letting see the scale on the second picture on the left
 

 Of course the wooden part plus the roof comes off; it has three detachable floors and some shooting slits in the stone basement. This can be seen by the two pictures underneath.

This is the first part as the tower will become part of some sort of a motte and bailey casttle but that will be part two.

Open Monumentendag/Nationale Figurendag

In the Weekend of September 8th was the so called "Open Monumentsday " in the Netherlands in which a lot of historical buildings are open to the public.

On the same day was held the National Tin Figures day at the fortress of Vechten in which also the Dutch Waterline Museum has opened its doors some years back.
The Open day was partly in the exhibition rooms, partly in other rooms of the fortress. Some (older) pictures of the fortress of an earlier visit.

We, with another group (who were demoing 1940; the bridge of Rotterdam), were asked to give a wargames demonstration on the figures day on Saturday but we were also invited to give a wargames  demonstration  to some groups of schoolchildren who also got a tour through the fortress and museum on Friday.
We had our 1692 game with us, made up some easy rules for the kids and after giving first a short intro, let them play. We, and hopefully the children also, had a great time.

Saturday, the figures day, was a succes. A lot of people came and for the first time saw tin figures and also our wargames. Maybe we convert some to our hobbies.

Some pictures of Friday. Please don't think we played with criminals but the s.....d privacy rules forced us to block the childrens faces; what a shame.
A big thanks to Yvon, Anne-Marieke en Terry for all their work before and on this day.

And pictures from saturday

Of the pictures of the Rotterdam bridges only one was suitable to show. But don't hesitate; come to Crisis  Antwerp -first weekend of November 2018, have a look at their demo which will be bigger again, and buy May 1940 figures which are the only correct 1940 Dutch 28mm figures around.