Russians!

The 198 ID project plus Chris generously donating some pieces that would make an ideal HQ for the operation against Rostov (completed in the last update) has given a distinctly Axis flavour to the blog – but there are Russians on the workdesk too.

With a refurb to some of these motorcyclists, I have added a couple of extra machines and resolved how I want to depict the unit .

It’ll be just like the other motorised soldiers … a big base (with the others, it’s a truck or carrier base) which is the unit in transit mode … to which you add a machinegun/leader base when the unit is fully deployed for action …

So, as shown here, between two scout units … all three of these units would just be depicted by the big base when e.g. transiting along a road out of action – add the extra base and it becomes fully deployed: ‘combat base plus supports’.

The m/c combo is a Piggie BMW, converted to M72 with DP …

(you just need to reshape the sidecar and replace the MG)

From the TofOandEs, some of the Motorcycle Battalions were all combinations, some mixed combos and solos (most of these are M72s, but I’ve slipped a Tiz 600 in there for a bit of variety – converted from the Piggie WWI bike)

The ‘wheelie’ is because I imagine the terrain to be bumpy. There is a good image of some motorcycle troops negotiating a very dusty ‘road’ in the Kuban …

In the b&w picture, there’s also one of those little supply trucks like the ones I put in the infantry HQs. It’s a Zvezda Zis, but I cut the plastic out to give them open windscreens. For a simple/speedy conversion, I cut out the complete piece, then add the door pillars back in from card (rather than try to take the window out without damaging the pillars – which is a nicer technique but requires a bit more finesse) ..

They also have a reduced carrying area (which in this case included a metal tilt from the spares box which will give it a nice, weightier, feel on the table). Anything to make these pickups a bit different from the bigger workhorses.

After a little flurry of blogs, I have some medieval things to attend to – so there might be a little pause.

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PANJE WAGONS

Back to more from the work desk … this could be ‘German horsedrawn (Part 3)’ or ‘Russian Horsedrawn (Part 1) or ‘198 ID (Part 2)’ … the panje wagon was pretty universal on the Eastern Front, so I did sveral together.

They are basically light, open 4-wheeled wagons, typically pulled by just one or two horses and were used to carry almost anything. I’ve been waiting to add one to each of my Russian Divisions (or brigades, depending on the scale adopted), and needed one for the Germans (so the pioneers in 198 ID had something to tow their kit around in).

(OK, I added another kettenkrad .. Chris’s NQM article on them persuaded me I needed more)

And while I was doing them, I completed the welfare stands allocated to the Russian HQs by providing the Concert Party with a cart …

I should probably find out the correct nomenclature for these fellows (from Peter Pig’s ‘dancing Rusians’ pack): early in the war years, the Red Army had propaganda units and political officers attached to ensure the men embodied the right values … as the war progressed, they appreciated that visits from famous ballerinas, and musicians giving the troops a good sing-along worked much better.

The welfare stands are ‘the other bit’ of the tail: medical units, padres, field kitchens and the like. Where appropriate (and, as always, it all depends on scale), these make ideal rallying points behind the lines. They could all be fields hospitals and ambulances, but I wanted a bit more variety.

They complete all the planned components in the Russian Rifle Division/Corps HQ units box

I reckon almost anything you need to support the infantry units can be pulled from this box now. It has three matching ‘HQs’ (across the top of the picture) plus (bottom left) the combined/overall HQ and (bottom right) some artillery and AA attachments.

Here’s 3 lots of ‘log, transport and welfare’:

The wagons are general, open cargo wagons from Museum Miniatures which I have slimmed down (narrowed by cutting a section out down the centres) and I have replaced the wheels with smaller ones (mostly spare Peter Pig ones).

The trucks are converted Zvezda ones, and pretty much all the figures are Peter Pig (as is the Kettenkrad).

To be continued.

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198th ID Staff

(15mm Piggies against a Ukraininan landscape by Arkhip Kuindzhi)

Just diverting from the horsedrawn theme to tidy up the staff component for 198 ID.

The commander at the start of Blau was Albert Buck, whom we met in the last episode. Here’s a bit more:

The command figure is a Piggie Russian with reprofiled cap and jacket. He almost seems to be giving a Nazi salute, although this was clearly not the designer’s intention. I also can’t claim this to be portraiture … we are adding a generic General to represent the man who commanded the division. Of course, given what happened, even at Operational Level, it seems appropriate to have a figure for the man himself, and the unarmoured staff car he would have been driven around in …

The car is an adapted resin Franklin Olympic from Peter Pig’d Spanish Civil War range … I have chopped it about a bit to make it look a little more like it belongs to the Wehrmacht on the Russian Front. It is quite generic, but based on the type 320 (with a touch of Hogan’s Heroes, maybe)

I painted it that greasy green colour, rather than Panzer Grey because of those ‘Operation Barbarosa’ colour photos we used to see a lot of in the 1970s, in which a lot of the vehicles looked quite green – whether this was because of the colour filters used, or was early colourization by technicians who didn’t know the real colours, I am unsure. But it looks right to me.

Anyway, good on general Buck … commanding from (at least near) the front, where wargamers put their generals – and getting killed in an ambush by grenades being lobbed at an unarmoured staff car. If you now more about the attack on Buck’s staff car (and, indeed, more about the car), please add somecomments below.

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Ostfront Nebeltruppen

German rocket launchers, basically … ‘smoke troops’, but offering lethal HE support from their towed, six barrel, Nebelwerfer 41s …

Surprisingly, my miniature Germans have not previously had this equipment.

The models and figures are by Peter Pig, assembled without and fiddling or adaptation.

(Peter Pig 15mm Nebelwerfers)

The crew are for reloading … the launchers were fully loaded, then remotely fired with a ripple salvo of all 6 barrels.  They would then often need to be moved as their firing location was visible for miles from the smoke trails …

So, in reality, you would be unlikely to have seen men with ammo standing around a nebelwerfer.  But PP do a nice pack of crew figures, and I will use them as ‘deployed’ markers in Operational Games.

(Nebelwerfer battery assembled and painted by Yesthatphil)

The rocket rounds I have seen seem to be a white-ish alloy colour (although internet searches do show variations) – anyway, I’ve gone with what I’ve seen.

The waffenfarbe for Nebeltruppen was ‘bordeaux’ apparently (a variation on the burgundy/murrey/wine colour?) and I will add some epaulette piping in due course.

(German rocket artillery on P.B.Eye-Candy)

The launchers are towed by a half track (Sdkfz 11, modified) and a captured Gaz 6-wheeler, both by Skytrex.  Depending on the game scale, there is a Zvezda Opel Blitz available for additional logistics.

(Skytrex, Zvezda, Skytrex)

 

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A Lot More Wargaming

(What a Tanker: a bullish T34 closes on its prey)

This blog is a picture set entitled ‘we also played’ …

It is getting towards the end of the year and I have blogged mostly about my own projects and about the big games and shows.

There’s a lot more to wargaming in Middle England than the big stuff – I wargame mid-week 3 times a month … a lot of that isn’t modern … and a lot of the modern stuff goes otherwise unreported: so here’s a look at what else we did.

(Classic AK47: Peter Pig T55s … one already wrecked)

AK47 by RFCM/Peter Pig.  In addition to my ‘Minus 47’ arctic game, we played a ‘straight’ version because it is still immensely entertaining (and because one of our newcomers had never played it – needless to say he ‘got it’)

(AK47 Classic: Panhards move in … figures and vehicles by Peter Pig from Trebian’s collection)

Richard’s Russian Ripping Yarns …

We also enjoyed another of Richard’s occasional series of ripping yarns set in Revolutionary Russia (with spies, Rolls Royces, damsels in distress and secret missions) … this time climaxing with heroes and villains leaping into moving cars …

(Ripping Yarns)

(… this one was notionally about a bridge)

Bayonets and Ideology

(BAIT … RFCM’s Spanish Civil War variant of the PBI style game – more of Trebian’s toys)

Cod Wars … a first time at this odd post war North Atlantic sideshow.

(Cod Wars … a group of trawlers peacefully going about their business)

(HMS Leander to the rescue)

As a youngster I had an Airfix Leander but no game that it fitted into.  No wonder I liked this game.

NQM … a perennial favourite … I often only blog about the big games rather than the stocking fillers.  Inevitably, of course, a lot of the smaller games are test runs ahead of the grand Operational Games …

(regular Monday Night NQM … a trial run at landing Fallshirmjaeger on Crete)

What a Tanker

It was good to have a go at this currently highly thought-of TFL game.  Individual tamk combat.  I likened it to ‘Saga for tanks’.  It has lots of nice things in it.  It has other things in it that I would have fixed if it was my game idea.

Good game but I had expected to be more impressed than I was.

(What a Tanker by Two Fat Lardies: driving past the wreck of that bullish T34)

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The 2019 Great Russian Truck Off

I have finally completed the long-heralded review of 15mm Russian trucks.

Of course, mid-war onwards, the most common Red Army truck might well have been the Studebaker (over 70,000 of these) … but I still enjoy that wargamer conceit of liking Russian trucks, Gaz, Zis, Yag and so forth for the Soviets, German for the Wehrmacht (although they used thousands of captured vehicles) and Italian for Italians etc.

(Studebaker … fully loaded, Soviet style)

That said, some 200,000 Gaz trucks were produced, and the Zis factory alone added over 80,000 of the Zis-5 model (which was also built in other locations).  You can also argue that neither of these is really a Russian truck (the Gaz being a Ford copy, the Zis an Autocar design) .  I digress.

(wartime Gaz truck … designated MM – note the wooden cab and simple bent metal mudguards)

So what is available and which is the best?    See the top of the page article on the Reviews page.

 

 

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Shifting sand … another French ‘funny’

I planned to do this for Chris’s NQM Alamein game but when I got the orbat for the French it was evident that I needed to focus on some core armour rather than worry about bulldozing sand.  So the parts (basically a Piggie FT17 hull) have sat around waiting for me to finish the job.

It’s a wonderfully quirky little beast and I have no idea whether any found their way to North Africa but I’ve ‘what-if’ed it there so it can up the Free French or Vichy engineering capability.

(Renault FT17 bulldozer)

There are a few pictures of the construction on the Modelling Page

(a 1:100/15mm build based around a Peter Pig model)

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CoW 2019

The 2019 Conference of Wargamers at Knuston Hall, Northamptonshire.

My life has become so busy that it is a long time since I was able to head off to CoW for the entire weekend and just lose myself in the opportunities it presents.  This year was no different.

CoW, of course is a multi-period, multi-genre event, but I will post my photo report here as I have done previously.  I had three major involvements this year plus I sat in on a number of illuminating sessions.

(Airstrike available in AK minus 47 … my 20th century contribution to CoW 2019)

I enjoyed sitting in on Trebian’s Va t’en Ecosse, a wargame of the ’45 played with (mostly old Airfix) 20mm soldiers.

Elsewhere

My main contribution on the Saturday was to present and run our model of the battle of Edgcote (not in this blog’s period so I’ll just give a flavour …) …

AK minus 47

Sunday morning: this was a light-hearted attempt to get out some nice toys (including my new carriers) and continue the theme of Operation Coldfeet/Ice Station CF … this time taking up the story with the failed sky-hooking of the agent (and the consequential ‘boots on the ground’ rescue/evaluation mission).  Of course, this never happened and is totally deniable.

The search mission column enters the table and some unseen defenders deployed (making the best use of the minimal landscape to avoid line-of-sight).

In the inevitable fire-fight (and as always seems to happen) the lead vehicle got taken out quite quickly while the foot groups debussed from the carriers.

(AK minus 47: Nato-ish column … VBL converted by me, carriers by BPM, troops in parkas by Khurasan)

The going got tough so the rescue mission had to call in further support.   The tactical leader chose to rope his unit out of helicopters right onto the abandoned ice station.  Although they did some good, they got shot to pieces.

At this point I should apologise for the mismatching bases.  Some of my men in parkas got left at home but I had a unit of Peter Pig Russian Scouts in a different box, so they had to make an impromptu appearance.  Needs must.

The session reminded everyone how much potential there still is in Peter Pig’s classic edition of AK 47 and with the little tweaks, it didn’t seem misplaced in Arctic conditions (indeed its randomness sort of worked) and we thought up a few more special effects as we went.

With the botched rescue attempt, however, the mission was going wrong.  I allowed the sub to turn up (shades of Ice Station Zebra, of course – but the players were demanding it) and the so far unobtained airstrike (as photo opportunities) …

(AK minus 47: flogger acquiring target)

I think there is some potential in this.

That was my CoW 2019.  Thanks to everyone who made it a wonderful distraction and an inspiring weekend.  Next year is number 40.  Expect a celebration.

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Pigs in blankets … well Winter smocks

Just a quick experiment really … I swapped on a few ushanka heads and painted some of the new Piggie scouts in snow camo …

Now mostly the Red Army’s snow suits were one-piece coveralls with the equipment under the suit (2-piece suits on the Eastern Front seem generally Finnish or German ..) … but these paras show there were variants …

(Soviet Paratroops ready for wintry conditions)

So here’s the result of the experiment, ready for Chris’s next NQM retreat from Moscow.

(Peter Pig 15mm Red Army Scouts with head swaps and white suits)

I think it works quite well and expands upon my ski troops.  Hopefully, in time, Martin will make some new packs in the more familiar voluminous coverall.  I would buy some.

The truck in the background is one of the new Piggie resin models.  Looks good I think.

I’m happy with that experiment.  The force expands.

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New additions at P.B.Eye-Candy

A page full of reviews has been added as I get round to photographing some of the recent additions to the P.B.Eye-Candy collection.

Scroll down the reviews page for …

Martin’s new Scouts range

Some thoughts on PSC vehicles …

And my recent trials of decals and markings.

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