15mm Normandy British infantry battalion

 Hi folks,

While continuing with the current painting plan and approaching completion on my Polish M10C's, I took the opportunity of a lazy day in the house to lay out my British infantry for Flames of War. 

I had planned two layouts - 3rd Edition and 4th Edition setups - but it took so long to do the initial setup that I cut my plans short a little. I then had to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to fit the models all back into the storage boxes I'd taken them out of. 

I've come to the conclusion I need some sort of storage plan!

Anyway, the light was poor, with it being a dull November day and late in the afternoon. 

First up, I laid out the 4 rifle companies and the support company. This had the benefit of letting me see where I am short some bits:

- each company command section should have a carrier for transport. I'll need 3 more of these painted to fill that gap. 

- one company is missing the sniper teams. These are not used in v4 FoW, but the 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had a scout/sniper platoon as part of the support company, so I'm tempted to fill the gap to represent this element of the ToE. 

- Pipers are missing from 2 of the company command teams. I've one currently in the lead pile, I'll need to pick up another and sort command bases. 

- I need to make a decision on whether to stick to the v3 organisation, or use the v4 one. While the v3 organisation is marginally more historically accurate (while still missing the ammo carriers, etc), I've tended to use the v4 organisation when playing. Switching entirely to v4 org would free up the carriers needed for the company commanders.

- I need to paint the de-frocked priests in order to do a large Totalize game, which was the point of the collection and something I've yet to do. As the battalion was down to 3 rifle companies at that time, I need to paint 12 of those vehicles. The existing 6 need re-work due to fogging of the varnish. 

- I still need to decide on what I want to do to represent the battalion HQ. 

Anyway, I took a few more pictures including some of my house rule 'extras' and the infantry support options. 

Medics and Engineers also included, along with the rifle coys.

RAF Forward Air Controller along with Vickers MMG's and 4.2" Mortars from 1/7 Middlesex Regiment

This included the regimental aid post and de-frocked priests, as well as the limbered 6-pdr guns. 

I do feel that I've cheated slightly, as I bought 5 platoons of infantry from a friend. However, I'm giving myself a break as they were nicely painted and resulted in me reaching my goal far sooner than I had planned!

Now I just need to plan another game big enough to get the whole lot on the table!

Finished: 15mm British infantry platoon and dismounted carrier patrol

 Hi folks,

I had hoped to get these two units done over the weekend, but I was distracted by painting some M10s and didn't make as much progress on the infantry. 

This 'final' infantry platoon for my British infantry brings me up to a whole 12 platoons in my collection, meaning I can now field the equivalent of a whole battalion should I need to. Pictures of the whole lot to follow, when I have room to lay it out again. I've now scrapped my plans to paint an individual Polish infantry company, as that can be made up from my existing collection. 

I've still got a load of motor rifle platoons to do, and possibly a Canadian company, so not quite finished with painting these figures yet. 

This platoon was made up of both older and newer Battlefront 15mm metal models, with at least one Peter Pig radio man. I know this is the wrong type of radio for an infantry platoon, but no one does the correct radios at 15mm and I like using the figure with an aerial to mark out command teams. I did use some of the Battlefront commando figures, with some trimming done to remove daggers and tidy up backpacks, and a green stuff pompom added to the berets to make them into Tam O'shanters. This means I have a mix of helmeted and soft cover troops - which is inaccurate but adds a little flair of the veteran Jocks. 

The platoon consists of a command squad (small base), PIAT team (small base), 2" Mortar (Small Base) and 6 Rifle/Bren teams (medium bases). Two of the medium bases represents a squad, with each base being an element of the squad. There is only one Bren per 2 bases, unlike the motor platoons, who have 1 Bren per base. 

This unit fills in the first bit of green on my next painting plan:

Also on the painting desk was my final little unit from the previous painting plan - a 'dismounted carrier patrol' for my 2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry squadron. 

Only 2 medium bases and a small base for these guys, with the options to fire as Bren teams, 2" Mortar teams or PIAT teams. My own little add on, not something represented in the rules for Flames of War. This unit may have more men than it should do, but that's mainly due to the fact 3 men on a medium base in FoW represents a heavy weapon team and it would lead to confusion. 

And the final completed painting plan for this unit:

I have made progress on the M10s - the crews are painted and the work on the hulls has begun. I've a few more steps to complete, but I'm thinking I've currently got 50% of the work done. I'm hoping the Cromwell troops will be fairly quick to do, but I also know as we move into the new year things will get hectic for me. I'll keep chipping away and see what I can get done!

  

Frankenstein Monsters - Zvezda King Tigers with 'Porche' Butlers Printed Models turrets

Hi folks,

Another recent side project for me, partly driven by a new book I picked up during the 1st lockdown. I've a few of these Dennis Oliver books now and find them pretty useful. I also added the Jagdpather, Jagdpanzer and StuG titles to the collections this year. The Tiger book I primarily picked up due to my planned Tiger force based on Schwere SS-Panzerabteilung 101 for 8 August 1944. 

I will admit to being taken with the idea of having a couple of the King Tigers in my collection. 

Given the type of large, scenario style, games we enjoy playing as a group, I'm always on the lookout for bits to add which may add challenge or an interesting learning opportunity. I've read a bit about Operation Goodwood this year and with my growing collection of British armour, thought it would be fun to do a scenario game for that at some point (3 full squadrons by the time I have my Cromwells done). I also thought it would be interesting to have a couple of very big kitties in the collection. 

Unfortunately, Battlefront are not currently producing their Normandy era King Tigers, and Ebay prices are a bit mad. So I went looking for other options. Obviously, I couldn't be satisfied with using the later style turrets (although a very few of these do seem to have made it to Normandy)

I finally picked up a couple of the Zvezda 15mm King Tigers, which come with the later style 'Henschel' turrets. I know these are not the technically correct turret names, but they are the common terms, so I'm sticking to them for now. 

These kits go together pretty easily, although I recommend paying attention to some of the assembly walkthroughs on Youtube as there are a couple of bits which can trip you up. I assembled this beastie whilst playing in Dave D's recent Zoom game, and paid probably less attention that I should have - like not accounting for magnetizing the turret and hull. 

My cunning plan was then - as a trial - to pick up a couple of the earlier turrets from Butlers Printed Models (BPM). These are not the highest quality prints, with a bit of printing evidence visible on them at close range (they don't use resin printers, but FDM). At a distance though, they don't look too bad. 

Size wise, the BPM turrets are a good match, and look 'right' on the Zvezda hull. The BPM turret does come with a 'Battlefront' style turret peg (about .5 of an inch wide), which I removed with a modelling saw. As the FDM style of printing them leaves these hollow, it was easy enough to roughly add a magnet. 

Unfortunately, my haste and lack of thought in building the first hull led me to having to cut a hole in the bottom of the Zvezda turret for the magnet, and attach it in place using a length of sprue glued to the inside bottom of the turret. The hull magnet is on the outside of the hull, rather than the sensible approach of being inside the hull. The 2nd version I build will have the magnet inside the hull and turret. 

The Zvezda kits cost me about £5.25 each, while I paid £4 each for the turrets (when postage was included, which doubled the cost from the £2 price). I suspect a larger order from BPM would have made this more worthwhile. 

Missing Zimmerit on these models is a consideration, given that the early hulls would have had it from the factory, and I am tempted to try and add some myself. However, this might be a step too far modelling wise at 15mm, and remains a distant idea.