Assembling Maggie's Army

I'm too young to have any real opinion about Margaret Thatcher as a Prime Minister, and judging from the fierce opinions on both sides of the debate, I'm happy to not poke at the subject too much, lest I unleash a torrent of heat, unaccompanied by light upon myself.

However, the British Army of the Rhine was her army, sort of. I eschew definitive statements generally, because we live in an infinite universe, but "Maggie's Army" had a ring to it, and so I went with it. I suppose had things not been terribly different, it might have been "Neil's Army". Probably never "Roy and David's Army".

Anyhoo. I decided to more or less base the force I'd field in FFT3 after the 7th Armoured Brigade, descendants of the immortal "Desert Rats", one of my favorite World War II-era British formations. I have an odd penchant for small, inoffensive-looking mammals, and you can't do much better than the noble jerboa for that. If there had been a British formation with a hedgehog theme, I'dve gone that way, but no such luck.

Since our gaming will be set around mid-1985 (shortly before Gorbachev's accession to power, but after nifty toys like the T-80BV and Challenger began to appear), I'm basing my army around the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, which joined the brigade in May of 1985 along with their powerful and brand-spanking-new Challenger 1 tanks. They're supported by the 3rd Battalion (The Royal Sussex) of The Queen's Regiment, now amalgamated out of existence into the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment, which was the mechanized infantry component of the brigade until the start of 1986.

Because I know Josh intends to bring some Hind gunships to the fight, I'm supporting my infantry and tanks with the Tracked Rapiers of 11 Air Defence Battery, 22 Air Defence Regiment, Royal Artillery. I'm also bringing some helicopters of my own, though they're relative lightweights: ITOW-firing Lynx AH.1s of 651 Squadron, Army Air Corps, the British Army's "teeny-weeny airways". Lastly, I'll be supported by a battery of off-board 155mm SP guns of the 40th Regiment, Royal Artillery.

I won't lie, I had a lot of fun figuring out which units made up my force. Regimental history and loyalty are strong parts of the British Army's tradition, and I like the idea of repping specific actual regiments on the tabletop. I can't promise I'll do them much justice, given my poor tactics, however.