I have been nominated for the Stylish Blogger Award

To my big suprise my blog has been nominated by one of my followers, who has an impressive blog himself, for The Stylish Blogger Award.

The award has some simple rules to follow by:

1. Thank and link back to the person giving you the award
Thank you Joe for the nomination and support of my blog. Visit Joe's great blog: Lead, Paint and the General

2. Share seven things about yourself.
- The main game that I play is Flames of War
- I mostly read Fantasy books. Currently from Julian May.
- Monday 2 May 2011 I start with a new job.
- 24 January 2011 I had a brain-surgery. They removed a tumour.
- I don't consider myself a good miniature painter.
- I hardly watch any TV.
- I live in the Netherlands. (not Holland) ;-)

3. Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award
In random order.

- 15 mm paint shack. 
A great blog where he shows his awesome painting skills.
- Kages Flames of War 
A great blog to read and watch
- This ain't Living... 
A very nice blog to follow. I love the things he do.
- Sane Terrain
Everything you want to know about making terrain and making tabletop tables
- Camp Cromwell
 A blog full with battle reports.
- Cim's Warfare
 Maybe he has not many followers but do like to follow his blog.
- Bunker 3030
 A new blog but certainly needs your attention
- Scary Biscuits Studios
Great site filled with history, painting and gaming.
- Stumpy Heaven
 Just check this site out
- MiniStories
Also a great read and much to see
- Lair o the Uber Geek
What can I say you better take a look yourself. He didn't reached 50.000 hits because of nothing.
- Big Lee Miniature Adventures
Probably one of the best blogs about gaming.
- Bunker Hill
An overall good blog.

And all those others I didn't mention above, but else my list would become way to long!

There are more but most are or probably are already nominated.
Go visit the blogs mentioned above.  They all are great blogs with all their own roll for the gaming community.

4. Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award

Many are readers and will see the reward !

Thanks to all followers who read my blog.
Hein

Today in Dutch WWII History: The April-May strike of 1943

At the end of April 1943 everywhere in the Netherlands spontaneously and completely unexpected protest strikes broke out. The reason for those strikes was a recall of the German occupier: that the former Dutch soldiers had to go to prison camps in Germany. Here they to work in the Arbeiteizats (labour commitment). The April-May strikes lasted locally up to 5-6 May 1943. They were oppressed with aggressive violence. First in Hengelo, where the strikes had started.
The April-May strikes are considered as a turning point in the occupation. The Germans now knew that the Dutch couldn't be won for their cause in any possible way. From now on the Nazi's put all further afford in the warfare. Resistance increased and the "going into hiding" started.
This turning point in the occupation of the Netherlands followed on a turning point in the second world war as a whole: the German defeat at Stalingrad, to the Wolga. That defeat didn't remained a secret for long. Immediately afterwards, on 3 February 1943, the Nazi' s declared a period of three days public mourning in Germany and the occupied areas.
Suddenly on 29 April 1943 a recall of the commander in chief of the German occupancy troops in the Netherlands, general Christiansen appeared in the newspapers, directed at the almost 300,000 members of the former Dutch army. They all must go in to captivity in Germany. The occupiers saw two advantages in that measure: a) to provide workers for Germany and b) strip the Netherlands of able-bodied men who could reinforce the resistance.
The recall of Christiansen came in as a bomb. In Twente, first in Hengelo, at the machine factory of Stork, immediately protest strikes and demonstrations started. The example in Twente was imitated almost everywhere in the Netherlands. On a number of places milk stock breeders stops the supply of milk to the dairy factory, and distributed the milk for free (because of that milk aspect the April-May strikes are also called the milk strike).

The supreme police force chief in the Netherlands, SS'r Rauter, declared the politiestandrecht (sorry no english word for this). This politiestandrecht had little to do with justice. It was a terror measure, where 'suspects' immediately, without any form of process, were shot. From Groningen to Limburg strikers were arrested. There were almost two hundred deads, at arbitrary executions and shootings on the street.
In those days in Amsterdam one man, Hendrikus Hendrik was sentenced to death because of the distribution of strike recalls, but there was hardly any strike in Amsterdam. The people of Amsterdam still remembered the bloody oppression of the February strike in 1941 all to well. After the April-May strikes the rest of the country also knew what Nazi-terror implied.
Little was archived of the plan of the occupiers to imprison the Dutch soldiers; it had especially a wrong impact. Only 8,000 Dutch ex-soldiers were employed in Germany, much less than the intention was. Many soldiers obtained exemption of the labour commitment, on the basis of declarations of ' indispensable at work that is important for the warfare' (' kriegswichtig' ). Much of the ex-soldiers went into hiding.
According to the Nazi's the strikers were 'instigated' at the end of April-begin of May 1943 by the transmissions of radio Orange in London. On 13 May 1943 the Dutch were told that they had to hand in their radio's. ' After the war ' one could come back to pick up their radio. Those who kept their radio's risked a heavy sentence: the concentration camp. Still a quarter of all radio's were kept back by the citizens; a trick used was handing in a second, old radio. The radio owners continued to follow the transmissions of radio Orange (the Dutch broadcasting in London) and BBC as far as the noise of yammers that at least allowed.
The brought into line ' Hilversum' remained transmitting, although the listeners already considerably decreased in numbers.
Officially after May 1943 there were two groups of listeners: radio owners with a special license, and people with a subscription on ' radiodistributie' (cable radio). The number of illegal news-bulletins increased as from 1943 enormously, but the large hunger for news couldn't be satisfied with that.

Thanks for reading.

Progress on the Corps Armored Field Artillery Battery.

An update about the Corps Armored Field artillery Battery I am working on.
The three Priest's, the staff team and Command team are done.
As you can see at the pictures the models don't have a layer of dullcoat yet. This will be done when the rest of the models are painted. I am waiting for A M4 Sherman Observer and a Half-track that I ordered. These plus the Jeep I already have makes it complete for now. The 2nd section of Priest's will be added in the future.
Sorry for the crappy pictures.







Thanks for looking.

The last three Turning Tide army files

Well the time has finally arrived. It is done.
The last 3 army files for the Turning Tide book are uploaded and ready to be downloaded.
One for the US:
-Turning Tide - 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions Rifle Company (v1.0)
 Two for the British:
-Turning Tide - Canadian Armoured Recce Squadron (v1.0)
-Turning Tide - 7th Armoured, 4th Canadian Armoured Lorried Rifle Company (v1.0)

As usual for each file there are 3 variations: Excel 2003, Excel 2007 and OpenOffice.

With these 3 army files there is total of 21 army files to be used with the Turning Tide book.
I like to thank Les for helping me to check all 21 files on errors.

 The link to find these files.
Army Files 

Thanks for reading.

I have reached the 10.000 Visitors

It has happened. I just looked at my counter and it has hit the 10.000 Visitors.
With that I mean that my blog has been visited 10.000 times so far, and still counting, and not page views.
These 10.000 blog visiting are good for a total of  19.311 page views.
The far most visitors are from the US followed at a great distance by Great Britain and far behind that the Netherlands and Canada.
Looking at the diagram below the Returning Visits number looks low but this is because after a certain amount of  time people who come back to the blog are considered as new visitors and not returning visitors.

Summary.

Now I also like to bring something else under people's attention.
At the left side between the counter and the search my blog, you will find a new item I added sometime ago named "Follow By Email". If you fill in your email-address here then you will automatically get a mail when I have posted a new post on my blog, if I have done everything correct ;-).
 
And now up to the next 10.000.

Thanks for reading

Latest Irregular Magazine up for download

For those people who don't know yet. The new Irregular Magazine #8 can be downloaded from their website.
It is free so don't hesitate.
The theme of this issue is Beasts.
Citation from their site

This issue our theme is Beasts.
Cover artist Brynn Metheney has created a stunning cover with a real knock out beasty.
As usual we have interviews, reviews, tutorials, articles, a short story and the results of last issues painting competition plus another episode of our comic Tuk Tuk.

Go to Irregular Magazine






Thanks for reading.

What can be found on my painting area

The next project I am painting is an Armored Artillery Battery (Priest) to use with my US Paratroopers from the Turning Tide handbook. At this moment I am working on 1 section which are 3 Priest, in the future it is planned to expand it with the 2nd section. Soon a M2 Half-track, a  jeep, command team and staff team will be added.  The Sherman OP, on the right at the picture, will be replaced by an US Sherman. It is now a left over British Sherman V. The Priest at the foreground is finished. It only needs a layer of matt varnish, but this will be done when all is ready. The 2 crew members inside the Priest are not only glued but also pinned to make sure that they are well fixed to the Priest. The only surface of the mini you have to glue them to the Priest are their feet, which is not a very big surface.



I like to welcome 3 new followers to my blog. Matt Mitchell, econtutor.tmcc and grumpus

Thanks for reading