Post 1942 German forces, Part 1: Luftwaffe Flak Batterie (schwere)

I did it, I finished them... a reinforced battalion worth of German troops. I know I am crazy what i do with such amount of 15mm Germans... well I have plenty of variations for my forces, usually for Blitzkrieg Commander, 15mm Chain of Command, and I Ain't Been Shot Mum... anyway it is time to show you the scary assembly... a unit at time.

Today we are starting with the latest addition, the Luftwaffe 88mm Pak/Flak 37/38 Batterie. It is the old Battlefront boxed set, with resin scenic bases and resin single piece vehicles (that I like quite a lot). I debated (with myself) long time how to paint them Heer, SS, or Luftwaffe, in the end I dciced Luftwaffe. They will thus work as detachment from a Flak Division or Korps, an attached battery, part of a Luftwaffe Feldt Division, or part of the HG Division. I hope you will like them. They are quite nice sculpts (some of the faces are not superb), maybe a bit overpriced, but I had them at home for years...

The resin bases are nice, but not always the hole and the round bases liked each other...

anyway pictures, pictures!

 As you can see I opted for a very simply camo scheme of green over dunkel gelb base.

Even if the sculpture of the head is not perfect I like the poses of the command group, especially the battery commander in overcoat, side cap, and field glasses.

and now... a teaser...

Major General George H. Sinclair

‘Colonel the operation was supposed to be black, how we can deny it if you requested a whole Tac air strikes on these positions? What you will do next time? Ask the army for an Armored division?’

‘Are you telling me we can ask the Army for the tanks, sir?’

**

‘Mister President, Secretary Halloran, there is a problem with the idea.’

‘It is the problem I fear General?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘General, what kind of problem there could be? It is the task of the Farmgate Command to recover high value technology for further use.’

‘We have already transferred the items you are asking about to the Selar solar System  Patrol Squadron, Secretary Halloran.’

‘What are you saying General?’

‘Mister Secretary we cannot afford to antagonize the Empire. Not now. And frankly we cannot keep secrets with Selar people in the FGC.’

‘How you have allowed those snakes inside the FGC?’

‘Well, Dick, I ordered him. They caught u red handed. We had to make a deal. Is this or learning Russian. Even the Chinese are happy with them. Maybe my predecessor  misjudged them a little. Any way they do not like to learn Russian too. We have a common ground.’

‘How much we are exposed with them Mister President?’

‘Well Dick, I had a nice chat with the empress. It has been long and enlightening. I do not want to have it again. You know the story of Cortes and Montezuma?  Well the Selar are the Spanish… but they are much less greedy. On the other hand we are much less advanced than the Aztec. We also do not have skull pyramids.’

**

 

Major General John H. Sinclair is the current head of the FarmGate Command. In his role he has to oversee the day to day activities of the FGC operational teams, coordinate with other joint commands, deal with the White House, with allies, andf with the continual meddling of the “diplomats” from the Selar Empire. On top of that he has to constantly keep an eye on the head of his operational forces, Colonel Jack Deano and his ways to circumvent orders and restrictions.

In 2005 Colonel Sinclair was looking toward retirement while assigned to a desk in the Pentagon after a stint as Commanding Officer 1^st Fighter Wing when he was handpicked for a special assignment and promoted Brigadier General. In the next 12 years he led the FGC both during the latter phases of the War on Terror, then in the days of the Meteor Swarm and afterward during the what was then called by the historians the First Unification War. 

To be continued…

15mm Modern

 Recently on my usual forum I aired a rant on the fact that 15mm Modern/Contemporary ranges are less fleshed out that it should be. Actually I said that we are just receiving bits and bobs without any real coherency.  One of the replies was that 15mm modern is not well represented in said forum, and then a lot of other stuff that had little in common with my lamentation. As much I like 28mm I think that 15mm has some advantages. Especially for vehicles and platoon/company combined arms actions.  Thus I decided to show part of my quite considerable collection here. I know i ranted about too much middle east... but the first thing is a couple of technicals from Peter Pig. They are vanilla Toyotas with  RCL added and OLP crew manning them. They represented the fire support backbone of some of my Lebanese Militias. Probably i will repaint the windows soon, I am not satisfied... and then repost them with their infantry support.

After the palestinian militia is better to show something more conventional. This is my M2A1 platoon for Germany 1987, at least its vehicle components, hopefully very soon I will post some shots with also the dismounted elements. The Bradleys are from QRF. As far the M2A1 is concerned the QRF model is quite good. The TOW launcher is pose-able, the details crisp and clean. The full force (I need to show it to you soon also included a platoon of 4 M1A1 (three painted, one to be completed) and one M981 FIST vehicle to observe for artillery. I will also need to add a company command section. Still undecided if using two bradleys or two abrams. I will decide soon exploiting Geoff QRF sale.  I will not go fo a whole company. There is no point in having 3 or four platoons running on a 6x4 table with IFV and tanks. but being able to field two complete platoons and some support allow you to do some real combined arms. If you want more... do like me and build bigger things in 6mm...

Something big and different...

Ok,

after two posts covering Germans and Tigers... time to change. I am building an American platoon for Chain of Command, slowly doing it, not I have two infantry squads, part of the platoon command and this little thing...

What is it? well it is an Hobby Boss 1/48 scale plastic model kit of an M4A3 76(W) Sherman. I built it before Christmas, actually I think I did it in November... but forgot to blog about it. Building took me two morning sessions (more or less 3 hours in total) and was not too bad. It is much better than what I feared. It was quite easy and the build notice is very very clear. Of course the work is bigger than the usual PSC kit, but it was interesting. The most boring part had been the wheels assemblies and the photoetched railings... painting has been a breeze. Recommended heartily and warmly!

Day of the Tiger, Part 2

Well in my previous post i hinted at the fact that there were 4 tigers in the box and one has been painted for Tunisia. Here 'he' is:

 

Some details on this one. I did a research on the Tigers sent in Tunisia. They did not appear to be very early models so I used the rommelkiste, some had the smoke dischargers. Certainly  these features  are present on the one at Bovington, as are the Fieffel filters:

For the paint scheme I used the less common Italian green  one. Why? I have already a couple of Peter Pig tigers painted in dunkel gelb and I wanted to try something different. I also think the green tone lend itself well to my idea of the hybrid terrain in Tunisia. The eagle eyes will also notice the turret differences between this model and the later model pictured in the previous post. the PSC kit gives you the ability to represent both turrets, with differen sides, top, and mantlet. Also the fron plate of the hull is different. Again this is an exceptionally good kit, probably the best tiger you can get in 15mm. I am very pleased with it.

Day of the Tiger

Well, it is ages I do not blog anything. Rest assured that I have been very productive these months but now it is time to show you something new.  In February at Cavalier I was able to place my greedy hands on some Plastic Soldiers Tigers… a full box. As almost every wargamer that dabbles in WW2 I have scores of German tanks, scores of tigers too… but 4 more were too difficult to resist.   I was able to paint them before the end of 2013… thus quite a good record. I painted one for Tunisia and 3 for Normandy. I will use my Peter Pig ones for Sicily and eastern front now…

The models are very good. Building them was a pleasure, instructions were clear and the pieces fit together  very well, with the exception of the track halves that had some joining problem. Nothing that you cannot overcome too.  In the box there are a lot of options and probably a better information on what optional bits to use would have been nice, but there are plenty of books and good pictures over the internet to help you. Actually there are so many optional parts that having only four tanks to play with means you will not be able to try every variant and sub-variant. I am very happy with the results anyway. But I spoke even too much… let’s see the beasts.

Ok first we have a group shot of the three Normandy's tigers.

First one painted.

Looking at the trio from above

and from their business end. I like having several crewmen out on the right one.

Second one

 Parting shot!