Panzer IVs

 I've been slowly building and painting a couple of Panzer IVs for use in either Italy (with field applied camo) or North West Europe. I didn't take any in-progress shots, but here are the finished articles. I say finished...I've been debating with myself for about the last 10 days whether to apply some weathering powder to the tracks and wheels to make them look a bit more dusty. The varnish looks a lot shinier in the photos that IRL too, so a bit of dust would help with that.

I will be starting a Wirbelwind next and have ordered a Jagdpanther and a platoon of Shermans (3 x M4A4 and a Firefly).  All Rubicon models.

Interactive online WWII maps

I thought that I would deviate a little from my standard content today and share a couple of web sites that I have stumbled upon this week, which should be fascinating to anyone who is interested in WWII.

The first looks like it has been a labour of love for its author and is written in Italian, but due to the magic of modern web browsers, gets translated into English. There is plenty of articles about the history of the Upper Tiber region of Italy, which saw plenty of fighting during WWII. Check out Fascism, War and Resistance - History Tifernate and more by Alvaro Tacchini (storiatifernate.it) 

Even better is the interactive map, which shows all sorts of useful information about the war in this region of Italy. Worth a visit!

I found out about the second mapping site from the We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast (again, an absolute must for anyone with an interest in WWII). Starting at approximately 20 minutes into episode 389 of the podcast, James and Al start talking about an interactive mapping site called Project 44, which is a highly-polished looking site created by the Canadian Research and Mapping Agency. As you might expect from the name of the organisation, it is heavily focused on the Canadian experience. You can get lost in this site for hours at a time.

Another site that I discovered from the WHWoMYT pod is Military History Visualized - Offical Homepage for the YouTube Channel. The Austrian chap behind this site dives deeply into a lot of German language history featuring topics such as German squad tactics, the German perspective of the battle for Monte Cassino, workings of a Panzerfaust and detailed analysis of German weapons and vehicles. His Youtube channel is perhaps the most accessible place to start: Military History Visualized - YouTube

Finishing off Allied vehicles

These models have been sat in my cupboard for years, so I made a start on finishing them off a few months ago (just checked and it was March!!!), and picked them up again back in October. Anyway, they now complete...apart from painting the crews for the carriers.

My British Mediterranean forces now have some armour in the form of 2 x Vickers Mk.VI and 2 x A13 Cruisers, plus 3 x carriers for moving infantry around the battlefield.

I attempted a Caunter pattern on the carriers, which looks accurate based on some photos I found of British troops in Greece, but perhaps less accurate on the A13s; I couldn't find any suitable reference photos for them, so made it up a bit.

AAR - Pikes and Panzers

A two-for-one after-action report today: a game of Pikeman's Lament followed by Iron Cross. (Scroll down for the Panzers)

Russell brought his 15mm miniatures and terrain over to the shed for a game of English Civil War using the Pikeman's Lament ruleset. PL is really easy to pick up, but provides some fun gaming as the uncertainty about passing the various activation tests means that nothing ever quite turns out as you want it to. Not knowing much about the ECW period hasn't really hampered me either: I've managed to win a couple of games out of the few that we have played over the last couple of months.

We both started with 24 points of troops, plus an officer, as per the rules, though because Russell had some "Commanded Shot" units, he had one more unit on the table than me. I had two units of Trotters (slower cavalry with guns), two units of pikes and two units of muskets, which I deployed on my table edge.

Russell advanced a lot more quickly (better dice rolling), so managed to bring his Commanded Shot into range quite quickly.

On unit of my pikes pushed forward as quickly as possible intending to have a "push of pikes", but never quite made it as far as his pikemen because of the infernal Commanded Shot.

On the other side of the table, my Trotters held off his Gallopers for a couple of turns, though after several turns of ineffectual combat, I lost one too many units (after Wavering) and my army routed from the battlefield.

Thankfully, my knowledge of WWII permits to write a more informed after-action report of a game of Iron Cross. We played the Capture scenario again, but with me taking the role of defender (Greeks) this time versus Russell as the attacker, who had a very well equipped Panzer army. 

All of my defenders started the game hidden, which caused the advancing Germans to cautiously move forward. The centre of the gaming table had a church surrounded by a stone wall, with an incomplete barbed wire fence flanked by trees and vineyards off to either flank.

I used my new terrain pieces on this board, which provided a bit of cover for the attackers.

One of the great advantages of being a hidden defender is that you get lots of dummy tokens to place around the battlefield.

As soon as some German infantry disembarked from their transport, the Greek sniper opened up from behind the church bell tower...where else are snipers supposed to go?  He successfully engaged the infantry placing down plenty of accurate shots before he was spotted. The heavy machine gun, also placed within the compound, opened up on the same units causing lots of damage.

A couple of turns into the game, the Germans started advancing on a broad front, necessitating the revealing of more hidden Greek troops. The supporting panzers were still hanging back near their starting point trading shots with a single anti-tank gun.

With the German attack stalling, Hauptman Russ ordered his scout units forward, only for them to stumble onto a hidden anti-tank rifle.

In the centre of the battleground, the Greeks, sensing victory, skirmished forward aggressively.

However, on their right flank, things started to turn sour. The Greek infantry faced panzers crashing through the barbed wire, their commander having foolishly chosen to place all his anti-tank weapons in the centre and left of the battlefield.

Back in the centre, the Greeks rapidly deployed additional units in form of some captured Italian CV-35 light tanks to start putting an increasing weight of fire onto the German infantry.

On the left flank, a couple of units of infantry and an anti-tank rifle caused more casualties to the German motorised units, who were lacking infantry support, who were in turn suffering a pounding from the resilient Greeks.

The gap in the right flank was plugged following the rapid redeployment of a mountain gun and some additional infantry units.

Late in the game, the Greeks, with their blood up, advanced incautiously and broke through the German line causing a rout.

The Greeks certainly benefited from being dug in and hidden for the first couple of turns, which enabled me to reactivate just a couple of units many times (and take several important morale checks), which slowed the German advance sufficiently. Another fun game and, unusually, one that I won!

Finishing off British forces in the Mediterranean

Some of the stuff featured in this post has been on my painting table (actually, in the cupboard) part finished for a few years. I did a little bit of work on them a few months ago, but have decided to crack on and get them finished. I've had a weekend of finishing things off, partly inspired by the new range of Greek miniatures that Great Escape Games are about to launch. I've already got a platoon of Greek Mountain Infantry, plus plenty of support weapons including a pair of CV-35 tankettes, but inevitably I'll end up with some of the new range when they become available.

I finished off basing all my Greeks, plus some Gebirgsjager and some British infantry yesterday.

The stuff from the cupboard includes 3 x Bren carriers, which are actually finished except for painting the crews, a pair of A13 Cruisers and a pair of Vickers Light Tanks MkVI. The idea is to use them for scenarios set in North Africa, Sicily, Greece and perhaps even Italy.

I tried out the Caunter camo scheme on the carriers first of all because they had fewer lumps and bumps that needed masking prior to spraying with the airbrush.

I then made a start on applying Caunter to the A13s, but then put them down again a few months ago after getting this far.

The paints are Vallejo Model Air and come from a set called British Caunter Colors. The base colour is 71.288 Portland Stone, the lighter green is 71.401 Silver Grey and the dark green is 71.012 Dark Green.

I masked off another section and applied another thick stripe of Silver Grey today. One trick that I have learnt when applying the masking tape (well, two tips) is to stick the masking tape to your trousers a few times to take a lot of the stickiness out of it, otherwise it sticks to the paint too well, which brings me onto tip #2. When removing the tape, pull it as gently as you can and go as slowly as you can, otherwise it will pull off flakes of the base coat.

This thicker light green stripe is going to have another dark green stripe painted inside it, but I need to leave this one to dry for several days, otherwise risk pulling parts of it with the next application of masking tape.

The other tanks that I will make a start on finishing(!) are a pair of Vickers Mk.VIb's. I had got as far as painting on the base colour, which I think is Vallejo Model Color Iraqi Sand. I'm not 100% sure what I am going to do with them yet, but definitely not Caunter because of the difficulty of masking all the various panels.

All of the models featured in this post are made by Blitzkrieg Miniatures.

Ambushed supply wagon, part #3

Progress on this terrain piece has been a little slow this week due to work and family stuff, but I've now finished.  However, I might add some dust effects to the bottom of the wagon to make it look a little bit more weathered.

Here are a few of the in-progress shots picking up from where I left off in the last post. After sticking everything to the base and adding sand and fine grit, I then primed the whole thing with grey car primer from Halfords.

The next step was painting the base colour using some Dulux tester pots. Whilst the brown base colour was still wet, I dripped some diluted grey paint onto the brown to create a patchy, non-uniform effect. Once the base colour had fully dried, I dry-brushed a lighter brown over the top to highlight the texture.

Next, I painted the base colours, then the highlights onto each of the models, including the wagon.

The final step was to paint on some PVA glue and scatter a mix of various flock, static grass and clump that I had pre-prepared in a tub, then leave it to dry.

Whilst I was flocking, I also went and grabbed a couple of other pieces that I have worked on recently, but not yet flocked. One of them was the destroyed Panzer III, which I have written several posts about.

The other piece that I finished basing today was a Pak36 gun and crew.