I have been looking forward to this show for a couple of weeks, after I went to the previous show (War and Peace)

This show covers a lot more of wars over the ages

Wars and weapons from early Roman, Greek, Ancient Britain, even the crusades

It is about the best show you can visit, both to see the weapons and soldiers who fought at the time

I found out a lot of information at the show

At Agincourt, it was a victory over the French, but the way warfare was to be fought in the future would be changed forever, that day, a weapon that had never been used before was used that day, the French arquebus, a short-barreled firearm held at the shoulder and small enough to be handled by one man, it could only be fired once every 2 minutes, but one person that day died from a gunshot wound

Did you know the early Greeks wore a silk vest under their clothes, as it was easier to remove arrows and stone (sling shots were used a lot to great effect) the arrow would be 'unscrewed from the wound and it would be treated with honey, it was followed by many armies and even though not all wounds were by arrows and stones, it did save many lives

Honey has been used down the centuries as a healant and is well known for its healing properties

Most of early Britain's army was just labourers and farm workers and it showed with the weapons they used, mainly staffs, poles and farm implements, unlike the invading armies, like the Romans who fought in ranks, the Romans were nearly the first ‘professional' army in the world

I did enjoy the talk about Sparta and the Spartans, their training methods and how they actually fought

There was the Hoplite Association, the first re-enactment society in the world dedicated to recreating the life and experience of Classical Greek period, they were formed in 2001, and they are a very dedicated group

There were several shows on in various arenas, from the US in Vietnam, to World War One troops (but minus the trench warfare) they even had a couple of Spitfires do a fly past and as you can imagine they were show stoppers

There were cowboys and Indians from ‘Spearfish Creek’ who did their re-enactment twice

All of the ‘players’ in these are battle re-enactors, they try and get their kit as realistic as possible, in a lot of cases, genuine and not reproduction

There was a display by the 79^th Cameron Highlanders, who did a limited display of forming ‘square’

(Forming Square was constituted as a hollow square or sometimes rectangle, with each side composed of 2 or more ranks of troops armed with muskets with fixed bayonets . The unit’s colours and commander was positioned in the center along with a reserve force that could reinforce any side of the square that was weakened by attacks. A square of 500 men in 4 ranks (as seen and used by Wellingtons troops at Waterloo) the square would volley fire at approaching cavalry either by rank or file, in successful actions the infantry in the square would hold fire until the cavalry were 30 meters away, the resulting casualties and dead would form piles of dead and wounded horses and men it would impede any further attacks. The cavalry man’s dream of riding a square to red ruin seldom happened due to the discipline of the British Ranks)

There was tents from the US civil war, even down to the wives looking after ’their men’

There was various units, The Pennsylvania Volunteers, most of the women were out cooking food over camp fires, mending uniforms, some men were cleaning weapons, others just stood around talking, there was even a ‘sawbones’ with all his implements of helping injured troops and a wagon full of limbs he had removed

The German re-enactors were actually real Germans, it is still illegal to wear the German uniform there or display the swastika, they do one of the best re-enactments of the show, their informs and weapons are normally genuine, they were doing a re-enactment of Arnhem, with the British paratroops, it may have been just a small area, but they did really well with blank firing machine guns and cannons, there was even parachutes draped from trees, the sound of heavy and light machine gun fire could be heard all over the show ground

There was a group that built radio controlled tanks, and some of them were big and very realistic with engine noise and smoke coming from the exhausts, gunner’s heads moving, (there was one a good 6 feet in length, a Tiger panzer, and it was about the best in the show, very realistic

There was also the ‘Real Steel’ tanks, most of which have been seen in various films (Saving Private Ryan, Fury) it is amazing ordinary people own and maintain these monsters

In the arena the First World War soldiers gave a display of attacking German positions, there was incoming cannon fire, machine gun fire from both side (at least there was no dead in this battle re-enactment)

They had a village from the war (WW2) Trentham Park, along with all the shops you would expect to find there, they had a bombed out house and even did a rescue of a family, (including the pet dog) it may have been just a re-enactment, but this went on all over London and the home counties, over 40,000 families died during the blitz and during the V1 and V2 attacks

Even though the village was erected for the show, it was done very well, I was especially impressed with the pub, it looked great, a proper bar and fire, a real country pub (a shame it weren’t open for business)

As usual, a picture is worth a 1000 words, so have a look at what photos I took at the show