Finished: 15mm CMP Oerlikon SPAA

Hi folks,

I've continued to work on the bits and bobs of my lead mountain that have sat untended and grey for many years - completing some of the units that seemed like a good idea but that I've never gotten round to. 

Back at the end of 3rd Ed Flames of War Battlefront had a sale, and I picked up a set of four 15mm scale Battlefront resin and metal "20mm Oerlikon Self-propelled Anti-Aircraft Gun (BR181)". Mainly because I liked the models and also as I was planning a foray into more D-day related stuff. 

These vehicles seem to have been far more common in the initial months in Normandy than you would expect. Prior allied invasions in Sicily and the likes had shown that the Luftwaffe would respond strongly to any invasion, and a massive aerial response was expected for the landings in France. When planning for Operation Overlord was being done (late 1943 - early 1944) the Luftwaffe remained a strong and dangerous opponent. The fall in strength from late 1943 until the landings was unexpected and a result of concentrated effort by various allied bomber offensives. 

As such, the AA component of the landings was planned to be far higher than you might think. British and Commonwealth anti-air units were pretty massive, and adding to this size was the late spring 1944 addition of extra batteries of SPAA 20mm guns. If you look at the air defences for the British Mulberry harbour as an example, hundreds of 40mm Bofors guns and whole regiments of 3.7" guns were deployed. 

Different units seem to have incorporated these 20mm additions in different ways, and they were gone from around August 1944. The 20mm AA was unpopular due to it's limited impact on enemy aircraft and crucially it's limited deployability in the packed Normandy beachhead. The 20mm rounds would not self destruct, and as what goes up must come down, they posed a threat to other surrounding units and ships. This meant that they could only really be used in positions where there was no risk of friendly fire due to AA fire returning to the ground - with such places being lacking in the beachhead. 

Having looked at some of the Canadian AA units war diaries, it seems like the 40mm Bofors guns far outperformed these smaller autocannons, however the 'heavy' AA units (with 3.7" guns) appear to have been most effective at shooting down enemy aircraft. 

As the campaign progressed and the feared Luftwaffe presence did not appear, the AA units were reduced in size - from 54 to 36 guns. 'Gunners in Normandy' states that this reorganisation freed up 234 officers and 6,660 other ranks for retraining as infantry or replacements for other artillery units. 

Anyway - onto the models. These kits were nice and simple to build, and look pretty cool in my opinion. Two crew per vehicle, and I avoided stowage as places to place it seemed limited. 

As usual, decals are a mix of Doms Decals, Skytrex and Battlefront. These vehicles are marked up as being part of 4th Canadian Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment (from 3rd Canadian Infantry Division). 

Stay tuned for more (likely pointless) allied AA units!

Gunuary - Week 4 - Guns DONE!

Hi folks,

Week 4 and the last week of my themed month. This past week has been focused on getting the guns finished. I'm glad to say that the guns are all done and I spent some time today getting the Auster ready to finish and sorting out what bases I need to sort for spotters and command, etc.

This work today has revealed some gaps in my line up - with me being short a jeep and three trucks to fill out the staff HQ transport of my 3rd 25 pdr battery and my command and staff HQ of my 5.5" gun battery.

I ended up unpacking all my guns and sorting them into units. This resulted in a long list of things I need to do as follow up for the themed month. Including highlights on my original battery, updating basing, adding aerials, etc.

Anyway, back to this weeks work. First up the last 2 guns of my Bofors 40mm Light Anti Aircraft Platoon. These guys are part of 40th Light Anti Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery. This battery is now done other than transport being required for the guns.

Some odd bits of static grass sitting on them, but otherwise happy with them.

Next up I finished off the supply vehicle for my Battlegroup Overlord rules. Also useful as scenery in Flames of War. This is a truck of C Squadron Admin Troop, 144RAC. There is one slightly converted tank crewman on the base along with an officer from an unknown source. He came in a bag of gun crew I purchased on ebay.

Then we have 8 x 25 Pounders of 128th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery. These four are on standard bases and will form one battery. I have the transport for this unit still to finish along with some of the command and OP figures being based and updated.

Then the other 4 guns, which are on Battlefront Resin bases.

I hadn't been too keen on the resin bases, but seeing them painted up and based to the same standard as the rest of my figures they are quire smart. Again, a little bit of static grass still sitting on the models, but that should just blow or be brushed off. You can see from the more zoomed out pics that the painting style looks better at a little bit of a distance.

Then we have the two 5.5" guns from a currently unknown Medium Regiment. This will be from one of the AGRAs that supported the Totalize offensive.

I'll worry more about what unit these two are from when (if) my November order from Battlefront ever arrives as it contains the transport and command vehicles for these guys. Decals will be an issue, as no one makes 15mm AGRA decals...

Then the jeep transport for my AA Battery commander. 

Nothing special with this one, but I decided to put the roof on, just for a change.

I'll hopefully get the Auster done tonight and then on to looking at basing the various infantry teams I need for command and OP teams. After that, I'll move on to updating the painting and basing on the original battery. I managed to get one gun and crew updated and they look a lot better, so the others will get the same treatment.

So that's Gunuary done, but with some more stuff added to the shopping list and more work to be done on models I had finished (years ago now!). Thankfully the bulk of my outstanding guns are done. I'm quite pleased with my progress, although I still have a lot to do.

Gunuary Progress - Happy New Year

Hi folks,

A bit of a delay since the last blog entry. I hope everyone had a great time over the festive period and wish you all a fantastic 2016. As a friend text me, may your paint never chip!

I wanted to share a sculpture I saw, while out this weekend celebrating mine and Amy's engagement anniversary. This is called Eleven 'O' One, and is in Seaham. The locals call it 'Tommy' and he sits beside the town war memorial (facing the memorial). It's a large sculpture (about 9 feet tall) and is very detailed. I believe he is made from segments of steel plate.

A rather chilly day, so a well wrapped up me next to the sculpture - for scale purposes!

A link to more info on this sculpture can be found here.

Over the last few weeks I have been working towards my goal of getting all my outstanding 15mm Flames of War British artillery painted (not including transport, but that may change).

So far I have made some progress. All the crew figures were added to my 4.2" Mortar Loyd Carriers, as well as my Universal Carriers. These crew figures were the ones that came with the Forged in Battle vehicles. The main issue was that what should have been a 2 minute job took hours, as none of the drivers fitted into the driving compartments on the Universal Carriers. In the end I had to cut off the front webbing pouches and trim some metal from the drivers backs, as well as trim out the seat backs from inside the vehicles. Even doing that still had some of the drivers to tight in their seats that no glue was required. This also meant repair work was required where the paint on the models had been damaged by all the work...

I also managed to finish off all the outstanding infantry and gun crews I had left over from the 6MMRPC challenge.

I also worked on the supply truck for Battlegroup, as you can see above. It looks pretty smart with the bars on and painted and I just need to finish off some figures for the base before I get the basing done. I also finished off the last few details on my AA Batteries command team jeep. It just requires basing as well.

As part of Gunuary, I opened up all the blisters for the guns I have (still no sign of my models from the BF November Sale, purchased for my Christmas). I cleaned up the metal, trimmed everything that needed trimming, discovered one tiny part missing from my 40mm Bofors guns, which I have emailed BF about. I also washed all the metal and bought some new and some bigger sticks to painting the guns on.

The next part was to get all the crew from these blisters painted, which I have made a good start on this week.

I think there are around 68 figures in all from this lot - and I am remembering how much I hate painting flesh on these guys. Hopefully I will get these guys finished this week while I am off. This includes all the infantry and crew figures from the 2nd pack of 4.2" Mortars. I'm still not sure whether to fully build and base these up, or just to use the crew figures I like for the unit I have finished. My army can only field one unit of 4.2" mortars, so the second unit would be pointless. I could always build it and sell it... but I am unsure just now what I will do.

I've been really strongly aided in all this work by a new group I have joined. Tabletop Commanders are a Wargaming Community group across various formats. They have a Blog, Facebook Group and produce Youtube Videos.

The thing that has really helped my have been the regular paint and chats - normally held on Google Hangouts (a video conference service). It's really good to be able to talk toy soldiers and military history while working on your own stuff, and has really helped to keep my motivation up and keep me painting. It's amazing how much I have managed to get done. I was also pleasantly surprised to find a couple of people talking about the 6MMRPC and wanting to participate in the next challenge - conversation unprompted by me!

Well worth checking out!

Anyway, on with my painting for the day. If anyone chooses to join in with Gunuary, even just to paint up one unit of artillery, please let me know - I would be happy to share a link to your post or video!

40mm Bofors Anti Aircraft platoon - Finished!

"Huzzah" I hear all regular readers of my rambling blog cheer.

"Thank f*ck those as done" I think to myself!

This unit has been a bit of a slog. Originally picked as I thought it would be a quick platoon to finish I rapidly found myself disliking the sculpts and struggling to make progress against my own apathy. Thankfully some support from the blogging community spurred me on to finish these off.

Now they are done, perversely, I kinda like them. Although I think the bases could be doing with more detail (spend brass, ammo crates, etc). Those may come later. 

Missing at this stage is the final 2 guns of the battery and transport. These guys are representing 40th Light AA Regiment, Royal Artillery - As usual, part of the 51st Highland Division. I am tempted to get the last two guns as the self propelled versions (BR182) - mainly because I like them and it saves me having to work on the Forged in Battle mini's again - as I wouldn't like to mix  the Battlefront ones into this platoon. But it would also give me some different models and would be nice for Battlegroup Overlord.

Guns were painted standard Russian Uniform Green (Vallejo Model Color 70.924). Wheels/tyres were just black with a Vallejo Panzer Aces Dark Rubber (306) highlight. Crew were standard Vallejo Model Color English Uniform (70.921) with Vallejo Model Color Khaki webbing  and gaiters (70.988), black boots and well... flesh coloured flesh. Helmets are Russian Uniform Green. Highlights on the crew are mainly shades of English Uniform and Khaki. Khaki was also used to highlight the guns. A coat of Dark tone Army Painter was put on before the highlights, and a matt coat of varnish after the highlights. 

One of the things I am glad I did with these models was to add my own gunsights. The Forged in Battle minis had no gunsight included and I felt the model really needed one. They are very prominent on this gun and the Battlefront model does include them. 

The crew poses are a bit strange - they could have really done with people with binoculars and some different ammo carrying poses. 

Still, as much as i have struggled with these guys they are decent models for the money. Scale wise they fit in well with Flames of War models to the extent I had no worries about mixing them on a command base. It's probably important to note that the Forged in Battle 40mm Bofors guns have no base included and models for command stands. There were a few spare crew mini's, but none that have any real command style.

Once they were based up I was much less focused on the individual models and my annoyance at the one part gun shield/crew sculpt. But I do think the guns are a weak part of the model and I have broken one already. They are also a bugger to keep straight. 

So that's it, another platoon down and time to move on. I'm going to try and pick something I want to paint this time... Certainly NOT the 4.2" Mortar platoon.