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Liri Valley
The Liri Valley campaign actually took place in Italy, but we reenact the battles around Cassino every January in Ocala, Florida. The site is an old limestone quarry which is now a motorcycle park. It isn't a half bad approximation of Italy except for the occasional palmetto which I highly doubt can be found in Italy. It is a pretty fun gig every year and here are the pictures to prove it.
(Warning! Blatant crib from previous 43rd website.) For this photo, we need to focus on Rocky's load. That's right, I want to stare directly at Rocky's load for a few seconds. Rocky's load here is exemplary. You may even want to refer back to Rocky's load in this picture while you are working on your own load. I of course am referring to the load of equipment on Rocky's back. (You poo-poo head. What did you think I meant?) You can see that Rocky is carrying his assault frame very much in keeping with period photographs and utilitarian needs of the battlefield. His cookpot is on top, followed by: his tent stakes; zeltbahn; assault bag with weapon cleaning equipment; gas mask canister and gas cape bag; and finally his bread bag with water bottle. He has his bayonet over his shovel carrier. Now some of you smart-aleck types are probably asking "Well if he's such an exemplary soldier where is his small shovel, huh?" Howsabout you zip it, ass-clown? It is obvious where his shovel is. He buried it so deeply in an American during hand-to-hand combat that he was unable to get it out again. Nyah!
Liri is usually a pretty big gig for the group and we use the gathering of Sturmpioniers for our yearly meeting and awards ceremony. You can check out the awards page to see some of the awards our members have won thus far. These photos show us in our 'service dress' impressions which is basically for something like a dress formation but with one step lower for the uniform. The 'service dress' impression that we have put together is your normal uniform, but cleaned, polished, and buttoned with your waist belt and sidearm along with your soft cap. These photos here were also from a few years ago which means you can see what some of these uniforms looked like when they actually fit us.
Below you can see the Rock winning some award. I forget which one it was that day, but I figured that since Rocky gave me all these photos for the website I would include a few "Rocky's Glory" pics as a little 'thank you' to him.
This photo gives you some idea of the terrain of Italy that old Ocala mines apparently are good at imitating. There are lots of abrupt hills and deep valleys. Actually Mediterranean Europe is full of these landforms as Greece and Spain are replete with rocks and hills like these too. Moreover, this terrain is fun to fight in as it allows us real pieces of terrain to attack or defend. This is hard to find in Florida since our state is basically a big sandbar. I don't know why I have so many pictures of Kurt properly using terrain for cover and concealment. I guess as an attorney he is used to finding places to hide. Also note the highly accurate Italian palmetto in the left foreground. Sigh, no place is perfect.
This photo shows so much to the trained eye. Here you can see Brian and I resting after a difficult morning of Sturming up and down the hills of the Liri tactical. The position seen here allowed us to ambush troops on the road below us and also maintain control of the top road where the camera is. You will also notice that Brian is the erstwhile officer & I am his loyal toady, er, assisting NCO, attending his every whim. You can see my G-43 pouches from this angle and the fact that I only carry one set. Lots of guys carry two, but I think that is incorrect. The original photos I have seen only show one set of pouches since the mags allow for quick loading, but only hold ten rounds each for a total of 20. In the other set of ammo pouches I can carry 45 rounds. I imagine that is due to the fact that the magazines were for reloading during the thick of fighting but you will also notice the the G-43 has a top-loading slot for stripper clips. This must be for "topping off" the weapon during sporadic firing, increasing the number of rounds a soldier could carry. Finally, when I first saw this picture and looked at the guy on the right I thought to myself "Wow, Richard sure has lost a lot of hair!" Then I realized, "Richard isn't a big fat guy!" That's when I realized how much hair I had lost. Jeez, put your helmet on, Jay.