Shilo's Battle of the Bulge

Well here it is on Tuesday afternoon, and even 36 hours after the match I am still worn out. We had 11 teams, and saw a lot of great historic weapons. Russ must be starting to get the DTs, cause his trigger finger was moving so fast on his 1919 semi that I thought it had gone to full auto.
The photo of my team with the smoke grenade in front of us does not do the situation justice. Within a minute of the start of the match, team Hipwell had a smoke grenade dropped in front of us, and with a slight change in the wind we could neither see our targets nor breath. Derk was especially pissed as for the first time ever he did not have his respirator in the gas mask bag. Even with the couple minutes delay the smoke cost us, we still caught up to within 2 targets of team Hipwell. As they say, all is fair in Love and War. I hope John realises that this gives me carte blanc for our next meeting.
By the way, it was F-n cold. Morning temp was -30, and I'm not so sure we ever got to the forecast high of -17. On our first match, I couldn't even release the mag on my 4T, and had to de-glove the left hand. My fingers are still tingling on the right hand.

A new twist to the match was near the finals. We still had to run the A and the B divisions for the finals, when range control called and let us know that some fairly intense snow squalls were moving in. So I had an A and a B join taems against the other A and B teams, which made for 6 man teams. The firepower was quite impressive, but a procedural error resulted in 3 casualties to the leading team. It was still a very close match.

Winner of the doorprize AIA no4mk4 was Laun B from Justice MB. He seemed quite pleased.

I'll be posting more photos once they get forwarded to me, likely next weekend. Lastly, thanks to all who braved the Manitoba elements and made the match a success.
 
Rob, I glad you enjoyed the smoke! Remember we were down wind from you, I think the smoke was intended for my team. Any way thanks for the warning, I will be sure we come "well prepared" next year!

It was a great day, I haven't enjoyed a match as much for a long time, cold but not to cold, we have had it worse in the past.

Thanks for setting up a great course, the sniper target in the Church tower was an excellent touch. A hard target for those of us with iron sights but very good.
 
mtallman said:
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The AT section...two Boyes and one (correct me if I'm wrong) PTRD.
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Anti Tank section...?

Are the gun laws different in Manitobah?

I hope we get even a few people who dress up here in Wainhole
 
Klunk said:
Anti Tank section...?

Are the gun laws different in Manitobah?
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You'll have to explain that statement. All three of these rifles were non-restricted. We just had to make sure we applied for the appropriate trace for this match.
Funny thing was we could shoot 50 cal, with an allowance for the .55 and 14.5, but we weren't cleared to shoot a .338 Lapua. One of the guys was going to demo his timberwolf, but it requires a 7 mile safety zone, which we had not applied for.

For this demonstration we shot at a piece of armour plate from the front of a Bren carrier hull. We only had it 105 yds away. At 20-30 a round for the Boys and the PTRS, you hate to miss.
 
Gunasauras: RE Procedural errors Match rules were explained at the start of the match. If the instructions had been followed you could possibly have won. Who is the Boob, the three/six people on the team who didnt follow the range instructions or RSO who called them on a match safety point? That penalty was exactly the same as given to others including a person on the winning team for exactly the same error. If you have a ##### with a match procedure the time to complain is immeadiately after the match to the club executive. Every one else followed the rules why should you be special?
I was there, and I was the RSO
Wyle1
 
wyle1 said:
Gunasauras: RE Procedural errors Match rules were explained at the start of the match. If the instructions had been followed you could possibly have won. Who is the Boob, the three/six people on the team who didnt follow the range instructions or RSO who called them on a match safety point? That penalty was exactly the same as given to others including a person on the winning team for exactly the same error. If you have a ##### with a match procedure the time to complain is immeadiately after the match to the club executive. Every one else followed the rules why should you be special?
I was there, and I was the RSO
Wyle1
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Taking this to PM...no need to continue it here....
 
Dimitri said:
Sten,

How much do thouse Boys rifles go for ?? :)

Dimitri
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In this day and age if you see one for $3500, you best not think twice about it. I imported mine out of the US a couple years back, ($3800Cdn) just as things were getting stupid re exporting 50s. It came with a deactivated 55 cal barrel, and a match 50 cal barrel (non-finished). I had a fellow named Rick (who works on such Tactical type rifles in Alberta) install the Kreiger .50 cal barrel. This was my first time shooting it.
The second one shown came out of Bud Haynes auction last year: price with buyers fees and GST was just over $7K. This was Derk's first time shooting his.

The PTRDs are more affordable. I believe collectors source still has one or some at $1850 each.

If anyone thinks 50 cal ammo is hard to come by, try and find rounds for the other two.
 
Thanks for the reply Stencollector. :)

If I have the chance to buy one in the future I certianly will! Need one to complete my goal of having a Canadian WW2 rifle collection :)

Dimitri
 
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Here's what I have so far. 179 megs of video and pics to
go through.....

It was an awesome day, hovering with -28, winds at 15k
most of the day. Right up until the snow came and teardown time.

Thanks to Stencollector and crew for setting this up again,
another fine match, and well worth the drive. The
sportsmanship was impecable, except for the smoke
can, which was 100% justified, and all in good fun.

A good time had by all! Even the Germans, after being taken
by our team. We were kind enough to liberate Wittman, who
gladly choose to fight side by side with our stellar squad of Russ
and I. I think plying his spirits through chocolate helped. :)

--PM
 
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Yes I did get the 1919 rocking for a short time in our last kick at the cat....I was just trying to warm up the barrel to thaw my fingers out..:eek:

I was a little sore for a couple days....Lugging the GPMG and ammo over the course, I guess I found some new muscles....Good thing I had Brad carry most of the ammo:p

I had a great time...Slept good when I got home..
Thanks to all for setting up the match...Job well done!!!

Russ...
 
mtallman said:
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This is my attempt at a period looking photo...let me know how it looks.
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Matt:

Not sure what you did with that picture, but unfortunately it doesn't look too good, frankly ... ;)

I assume you are trying for a somewhat "sepia-toned" image - i.e. a brownish-gray tone. However, if you are trying to adjust hue/saturation/tone of the original colour image, that is likely your problem ... I've never had much success that way.

What I do is first convert to graytone (8-bit Grayscale - at least that's what it is called in the ArcSoft PhotoStudio program I usually work in) then back to colour - though at that point you still have a grayscale photo. However, having gone back to colour mode allows you to now adjust the colour tones starting from neutral grays. The following two re-works of a couple of your pictures were altered from the graytone look (after being converted back to colour format) by increasing red tones about 10% across the board (i.e. "highlights", "midtones" and "shadows"), increasing green tones about 4 or 5% (also across the board) and similarly reducing all blue tones by 1 or 2% - the latter being necessary to eliminate a slight purplish tone. These percentages can be "tweaked" a wee bit for best effect - for example I had to back off the red in the highlights by 1 or 2% to keep the snow from looking too "pinkish" ... and it looks like I could have reduced it a wee bit more. :rolleyes: Hope this helps!

(There are some imaging programs with a function which converts images to sepiatone automatically, but I don't have such a program, and thus have puzzled out the above method on my own, by trial and error ...)

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shilosepia.jpg
 
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stencollector said:
Those prices were for BSA rifles. There were Inglis made Boys as well, although most that I have seen photos of were US property marked.
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Inglis made would be great but probably out of my price range. So even a BSA would be nice. :)

But all in due time, need to get out of college into a full time job first! :runaway:

Dimitri
 
The Big Zip

PrairieMedic,

Great photos...looks like you guys had a great time.

So who took the trophy for best dressed?

Below a photo of three members of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, Apparently after being sent to Belguim to help push the Germans back during the original Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Take note of the condition of the uniforms/webbing and how worn everything appears. Lots of wear even on the Bren...As well...a Sniper in the middle...No.4 T, 1903 Sling and spotting scope under right arm.

picture_smoke_beak_1945.jpg
 
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Now that's a nice pic! The Germans swept the best dressed category,
we do feel the swimsuit round was harsh and unfair though. Poor dave
hasn't maintained his legs in years.

--PM
 
one of the guys who shot last weekend was talking about at work the other day, apparently there is a D-Day shoot in the summer. any one got any details on that one
 
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