Archive for the ‘ reenactment ’ Category

Military market in Piana delle Orme

In the past I lost a lot of opportunities to visit military markets in my local area. Instead this time I went up to Latina, during a freezing raining day.

Among flat fields near Latina there is a private museum inside agriculture warehouses. It is about military vehicles and other collections regrouped by a hobbyist like us, but with some money more in his pockets. We collect models, he bought the original items. They are transport vehicles at most. They are a lot and ready to be put on road. This place is called Piana delle Orme.

Every 4 months they organise a military market in a small empty pavilion. You can find WWII items in real scale. Almost all is original. We are near the Anzio front so something is even recently dug up from those places.

If you need an helmet this is the right place. Some were at bargain prices as 20/30 euro. But these people are professionals so generally prices were not so low.

Collectors are always strange people. Everyone is looking for something, from helmet rivets to complete machine-guns. I was not so interested about finding something to add to my reenactment equipment. Principally because I only need weapons and they are at high prices.

In these days I’m thinking about a Beretta MAB 38a. In the photo you can view it among other weapons. It costs 900 euro. Another time, if I cannot satisfied myself with another thing that I’m trying to buy in these days.

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Lucca C&G 2012: computer fever

In Lucca Games there was the Miniature Island. Yes, we were on an island in the sea of Lucca Comics & Games (and Cosplay, remember). We were only an island in Lucca Games pavilion too. Boardgames had a larger space and importance because in Italy we have various publishers on the market. This means that more money is involved in this sector than wargames one. Roleplay games are another sector and it has a respectable market. Live roleplay is an obscure sector to me and it was located in another pavilion. But the videogames market rules upon us all.

To celebrate the release of the new chapter of the Assassin’s Creed saga, the third one, an entire pavilion was dedicated to it. A polite statement to say that Ubisoft bought it. They have got the money to do it.

Around the city you could see some projections of this videogame advertisements on the walls. More revealing was the reenactment event of the Saturday, the simulation of Bunker Hill battle (1775). Almost 200 reenactors and lots of gunpowder were involved. We play wargame battles with miniatures, videogame industries play wargame battles with real men. Money makes a difference.

Another money matter. Videogame stands were huge and customised. I forgot to take a picture of the new Nintendo console and its gorgeous girls stand assistants. Among these game giants I took a photo of a wrestling videogame with the straight edge wrestler guy. Weird. Minor Threat – the band who came up in the eighties with the “straight edge” term – didn’t think about this evolution.

Just Dance is the exhibitionists videogame of the fair. Every year a new edition, every year wild girls try to hypnotise men with their rhythmic movements controlled by a game console with video camera. Some stand assistants lead the game. Here at the end of a day. I saw them in the morning, before the open of the gates, dancing without public: they were so crazy for dance to do it for fun! After 4 days in Lucca I was dead tired. And these girls?

An alternative way to utilise your old CRT computer screen: using it as a stage for miniatures.

In Lucca there is always a little modding section. This one was kitsch for sure, a gun with inside and outside various bad taste things, as Smurfs and model cars. Ugly looking.

Something better. But not so practical with that finger-eat fan. Glamorous but too much “open” to be a computer case.

A great machine! Water cooled case. Clean design, neon lights, blue-black-white colours. What can I say? It is sexy.

Paolo from Switzerland came to Lucca by train. Here while he is wearing his new computer headphones. Saturday night we walk together to a place outside Lucca where were relegated the computer geeks. They organised an all night long videogames lan party. Someone fell asleep on the floor, indeed. Instead Paolo, our hero, killed millions of aliens and took the train the morning after at 7 to the watches country.

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Lucca C&G 2012: cosplay

Lucca Comics & Games has a wrong name, a better statement would be Lucca Cosplay, Comics & Games. This is the Italian biggest event for cosplayers. This year I was more involved with the Ganesha Games table so I dedicated only few time to take cosplayers photos. Sorry.

These two girls remained all the time on the wall posing for photos. Every day (4) they changed the dresses. They have got a video blog where they speak about their daily experiences in Lucca.

The walk on the bastions are the traditional place for show your cosplay and your legs to people and photographers hordes.

A huge sword and a slight corpse. Yes, the sword isn’t made of steel.

A girl in bikini. A common view in Lucca those days. Look at the girl on the right: a little more heavy as dresses. On the left another girl with an open umbrella. Maybe it wasn’t summer time.

Monsters from famous flicks. It was fun to walk with a bed or a well!

Steampunk, a new subculture that I like. The next year Osprey will publish a book with steampunk wargame rules.

This paunchy chap was just come from a human female abattoir. Or had he devastate a mannikin deposit?

Anime heroes gone bad. This chap impersonate a pop singer from Love Me Knight (“Kiss me Licia” in Italy) anime. Time goes by for us all. And a big belly can be the result. These film producers are specialised in parodies.

A miracle in the parking! A pirate patch was discovered by us on the ground. We suppose that a cosplay recovered sight! Lucca works miracles.

A warm androgynous nude look. And a blast from a fist. Common sights in Lucca.

Another cosplay from anime world. And an easy way to keep close a girlfriend. She is almost a cat, he can remind an Arabian knight. I’m too old, I don’t know all these Japanese series. I don’t know which characters are impersonated by 80% of cosplayers…

This guy is the “reenactment part” of this post. Some people as cosplay costume wear their softair dresses. So they can walk in the streets with (softair) guns. I think that they are prohibited outside specific areas. Even a lot of metal cosplay swords are illegal, I suppose. However, lots of people in Lucca wear costumes so these weapons are saw as part of the fair colour. But there is someone who overdo! This is a Humvee, indeed! This vehicle is labelled as German but the overall aspect is American, with a forest camouflage, I believe. In Italy we don’t have Humvee. The guy wears an Italian desert “vegetata” uniform. A patchwork and another not so legal presence.

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Lucca C&G 2012: aftermath

After 5 days in Lucca Comics & Games I needed some sleep. I was among thousands of staff people and 180000 paying people. I worked heavy at the Ganesha stand but I succeeded to take almost 250 photos, so you have to wait a little to watch a full report in thematic posts on this web. However now I’m offering you some official videos to understand what is this fair. Enjoy!

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I wrote a lot of posts about this reenacment event. It was an intense experience for me and I wanted to show you that large amount of vehicles and uniforms. Mine is a replica of those of Gruppo Combattimento Folgore, the paratrooper troops of South Reign of Italy in 1944-1945. They are the English Battle Dress with Italian badges, because the old uniforms were lacerated by wear.

Here there is the same uniform but with the paratrooper suit and a more practical combat cap.

And now some images from our stop on the way to home. This is the tablet at Case Grizzano, a place, some houses on a hill, where Italian and German paratroopers found death only a few days before the end of the war, in a failed attempt to break the front in the plains from the lateral side on the mountains.

The cippus. Sad that there is nothing for the Germans.

The valley where Italians attacked.

A country cemetery, place of a German machine gun position. Now a empty cemetery.

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This event is a mobile one, it is a column made of vehicles, so you need a historical vehicle. Our little group prevently found four seats on a camion but a nice gentleman (Mario, thank you again!) offered us a passage with his jeep, a Ford GPW. It is a replica of the car of the commander (general Arturo Scattini) of the Gruppo di Combattimento Friuli, that fought during the 1944-1945 years in this area. The specific white livery is distinctive of the command role.



A little problem with the klaxon. And the possibility to view the motor.

Here a post on a forum with the official presentation of the refurbished jeep to Mario’s friends.

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We travelled to Cesena, a town near our base. We were welcomed by the mayor and an elder partisan.


After a lunch for 350 seats, we parked in Pinarella di Cervia and prepared a more choreographic entry in Cervia, with people dressed as Germans (and who speak German, they are very pro!) who waited us and after fled to the sight of tanks (two Sherman and other vehicles). I was on the jeep, at the end of the column, so I couldn’t see the action, I have to wait for the release of the official dvd of the event to understand what happened.

More videos. I saw a lot of people who took photos and films of us. The availability of mobiles with great cameras turned people in media producers. Here the entry in Pinarella di Cervia parking. You can see me while I’m using my mobile on a camion. And finding on my video who is filming me.

Half an hour after we left. And some tanks were with us.

Here we were in Cervia, in the main phase of the event, with more audience, more reenactors who reached us, another authorities speech, displays. And a lot of chatting with other people: locals and lovers of reenactment. It is not only a show with strange people dressed as military troops, but the opportunity to confront ourselves with other people, and to know more on history, personal history and passions.


Fuel of a different kind.

Heavy steel…

This one was a rattletrap used as artillery target, now reconditioned after a lot of hard work. Probably it is the only exemplar of marching AB 40/41/43. This one is the last type, the AB 43, built in North Italy under German occupation for RSI forces and also known as Panzerspähwagen AB43 201(i).



Later we reached a huge restaurant with more than 500 seats. At the end we finally fell asleep. The day after there was a long trip along the Via Emilia but we went back home, with a stop. More on a next post.

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We were 350 people dressed to war (but only for love of history) and with a lot of vehicles. We based ourselves in Cervia. A bus service collected us along the road from the hotels to concentrate in a municipal deposit. It was strange to see a bus full of people with helmets and automatic weapons. Here the start of the event in the morning. Later I’ll show you when we started to move to reach Cesena and Cervia city centres.







A column is a long strip made of vehicles and people that move at the velocity of the slowest. Often we were stopped by something but we didn’t know what. A boring thing. It is not lack of organisation, it is the reality of a large amount of troops that have to travel. As the logistic problem to find an area to park all this. And the queue to the petrol pump. I heard that to start a Sherman you must consume 20 litres. We had to collect money for the fuel, because these old cars have a high necessity of it. Moreover, when a vehicle is out of order, the first thing to do is to throw out it off road. We were not so cruel, but I saw some blocked in the rear for mechanical problems. The column march towards glory consuming itself…



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