Bolt action armoured medley

I have been assembling two Bolt Action forces now for a few months, both US and German, and have greatly enjoyed assembling and painting their plastic vehicle kits. 

This first one is the German StuH 42, assault howitzer. A birthday present from my family 😀. 

Fitted with a casement mounted medium howitzer, it can really hurt enemy infantry. 

But it's not terribly good against enemy armour as the HE round doesn't have the greatest penetration, but can at least pin down the armour.

Next up is the Hetzer. A tank hunter fitted with a heavy AT gun. 

It does however have weak side armour so you really need to watch it's flanks.

It also has remotely operated MG with 360• field of fire. 

Next up is the Hanomag. I've done this one before but this time have toned down the decals with a brown wash as Millsy suggested.

An armoured personnel carrier, good for getting your troops into the table with a degree of protection from small arms fire. 

Capable of carrying 12 men and fitted with an MG for supporting fire. But you need some in it as passengers to fire. 

Next up is Panzer IV H. Again shown before, and again decals toned down. 

Fitted with a heavy antitank gun and two machine guns, it can hurt enemy armour, and infantry. 

Schurzen side armour gives some protection against bazookas to its flanks. 

The Puma is up next. An armoured reconnaissance vehicle, fitted with a medium AT Gun and MG. 

Equipped with dual steering positions it can reverse as quickly as it advances making it get out of trouble fast.

But that big gun tempts you to be bold with it so you have to remember it's not armoured like a tank! 

All the German armoured arrayed below.

Next up, the yanks...

First up the M10 tank destroyer. Fitted with a heavy AT gun, it can deal to enemy panzers very well. 

It also has a pintel mounted HMG, so can hurt infantry too. 

But it is lghtly armoured for a tank and is open topped so small arms fire can pin it.

Next one of my faves, the M3 half track. 

Bristling with MGs it can spit out fire from its passengers.

An armoured personnel carrier capable of carrying 12 guys. 

I can't help thinking of Kelly's Heroes when I see it. 😀

An HMG covers the front fire arc.

Next, the classic M4 Sherman tank. 

A medium AT gun with a nifty HE rule, and two MGs and an HMG. It can really bring the hurt to enemy infantry.

But it's prone to catching fire if hit... Leading to the nickname ' Ronson' after the lighter... It always lights first time...

For some yank armoured recce  we have the M8 armoured car.

A fast wheeled reconnaissance vehicle fitted with a light AT gun, MG and pintel HMG ... They stick 50cals on everything!

And finally all the tank armour arrayed.

I have been steadily working on the infantry side of these forces and will detail these in future posts. 

In the meantime, I'm really enjoying the game.

Bolt Action - Panzer IV H, and Hanomag Sd Kfz 251/1 D

Now that my folks visit has come to an end, and they have continued their holiday trip on to Australia, before heading back to ol' Blighty, ... and that things have calmed down a bit at work after Audit issues were attended to... I have found a little time to pick up the paint brushes again... though saying that, there was much intervening time, assembling new plastic kits - WWII stuff for Bolt Action. It's now all assembled and I have steadily started painting my way through it... which allowed me to get another entry in for the painting challenge... as submitted below...

"Well the plan to paint loads of LOTR figures has become slightly derailed with the arrival at Chez Bowman of the Bolt Action starter set, and a pair of tanks; a Panzer IV H, and a M4 Sherman.

So far I have them all assembled and have been trying out the rules with my son Chris.  It certainly seems a lot of fun, and its 28mm WWII after all - so what's not to like?! ;-) And Chris is really enjoying it too, and doesn't need much coaxing away from his 'devices' to play a game with his ol' man...

Thus far I have painted up the Panzer and Hanomag Armoured carrier for the Germans...

I am going with my soft tri-colour camo pattern as I have done before with my FoW stuff, but I have this time tried to accentuate some of the details and tried to include some weathering of the paintwork along the raised edges of the vehicles.

I thought about buying chipping fluid and weathering pigments, but in the end I just wanted to get them done and played with, so just did everything by hand with regular acrylics.

First time I have painted such vehicles at this scale, other than 40K stuff many many years ago...

A selection of pictures for your enjoyment... I hope you like them...

The 15mm scale bocage hedges I made for FoW, works nicely for regular to large hedges for 28mm...

... complete with sheep, and cows - out of picture!

Nice number plates decals as part of the set... front and rear...

For those not in the know; the German tank numbering system went; company, platoon, tank... so this wee beastie is the 3rd tank of first platoon, of 4th Company...

Divisional markings for Panzer Lehr...

The Lehr Division was one of the better fighting formations the Wehrmacht had, typically with a high level of material and resources for a non-SS formation... Formed in '43 from elite troops who had seen action on many fronts, they subsequently saw action in the west, facing the western allies...

To speed up painting - I'll have to admit, I didn't do the eyes... my own eyes are getting a bit tired now, so this might be a stretch to far... I haven't varnished the vehicles so I might got back and do them later - but probably wont!  ;-p

Right off to paint 12 German Grenadiers..."

And a nice response from Millsy; one of Curt's Co-Admins for us southern hemisphere guys...

"Wow Scott, that's quite a wonderful result considering they're your first 28mm vehicles in a long time AND that they have a most convincing tri-colour camo scheme to boot! Having painted this scheme myself a few times I can attest to just how hard it is to execute so kudos for doing such a wonderful job. Please so varnish them though, I'd hate to see that effort ruined by handling...
30 points seems a mean return for the effort so I'm throwing in another 5 for the camo. Good too see you back on the tools mate! Cheers, Millsy."

Must admit I am rather excited by this whole Bolt Action thing - like I said, it's 28mm and WWII - whats not to like? I've always preferred painting 28mm to 15mm anyway... and sadly the way things have gone with Flames of War after the company's 'global re-shuffle' and the largely pathetic effect this has had and continues to have for the supply chain... many players seem to be looking to take their WWII interest elsewhere - and Bolt Action seems to be grabbing a lot of players interest and attention...

I attended ValleyCon a couple of weekends ago and found several of FoW players were choosing not to partake in the FoW Tournie there (Early war setting may also have had something to do with that), but were actually playing Bolt Action... I also dropped down to our local wargames club; KWC, discussed the game there with the guys, found some were already interested and/or already had armies, ...and there already seems quite a groundswell of interest after that first chat, with half a dozen or so players looking to play and/or buy armies - or indeed have already started purchasing troops...

Since this post I have got the German troops about half done and started blocking in some colours on the yanks. Having not painted yanks before I had to order in some colours for them...

So this year looks like it will see a lot of Bolt Action, and I foresee my German and American forces from the starter set I got, steadily increasing... terrain building options offer lots of opportunities too!

Panzer IV's, Mobelwagons... and the 'Panzer Bums!'

The last weekend's long holiday in remembrance of ANZAC day here in NZ, allowed me some time off, to finish off, a project I have had on the the go for several months now...

The first part of which was completing another box of PSC panzer IV's...

I made 4 in the Ausf H variety, to complete the missing platoon command and platoons tanks, by turret numbering, giving sufficent for an HQ and 3 combat platoons of 4 tanks each...

Panzer IV Ausf H

The remaining Panzer from the boxed set of 5  I turned out an Ausf G... no side Schurzen armour for this fellow... but still a nice big gun, which in the MidWar setting he is destined for, should be ample...

Panzer IV Ausf G

Back to the core project and I needed 4 Mobelwagons... These are Battlefront resin and metal...and were a bit of a sod to put together! The worst part was the gun mount,  which once assembled then sits off centre on the mounting point, and wouldnt rotate properly without hitting the hull sides... Darm it! I was going to drill and pin it so it could rotate... but after buggering about for a while I gave up, cut off the mounting lug from the base of the gun and just glued them into position so they sat centrally and glued the base of the front gun shield to the hull front side for extra strength and stability...

Mobelwagons

I glued the side walls in the lowest position as I hope these will be shooting up ground targets as well as their original AAA role! I have added decals to the hull sides but you cant really see as they are hidden under the lowered side panels.

So this completed the require platoons for me to field... "The Panzer Bums!"

"Here come the Panzer Bums" (hummed to the tune of Men In Black...) ;-)

I read a battle rep a few months back on the WWPD site where they described a force of Reluctant Trained panzers from the Blood Guts and Glory book as the 'Panzer Bums'. Intrigued I read the report and laughed it off...Reluctant Trained was a little out of my comfort zone, being more used to the Confident Veteran German troops... but then a little comment in the report said that while they typically take horrendous casualties, theres frequently still enough left to get the job done and the list had proved to be quite successful on the whole...

The 'Panzer Bums'...

...that got me thinking... and playing about on EasyArmy... and sure enough... at ~1750points you get a ton of armour... 20 medium tanks, 4 AAA and 14 halftracks and two platoons of MG/faust infantry. Thats a shit load of firepower! Even if half of it gets destroyed there's always going to be something to fire back...

So there we have it, the Panzer Bums ready to rock and roll in Lorraine... the only fly in the aspic is no recce... so ambushes are no doubt going to hurt... but with 14 halftracks zooming ahead they could be the forced 'recce' of the main tank force... whatever pops up in ambush is probably going to catch a ton of return fire... oh and no artillery...so no smoke either!

The Panzers in the above list are admittedly Ausf J's... which just means they also have slow traverse on the turrents, but I dont think anyone is going to mind too much me proxying them with the Ausf H.

I recall a mate telling me that Trained armies are usually 'shooty armies' ... well yep I think that's certainly the case here... and since this force is Auto-Attack you'll always have all the guns on the table...

PanzerKompanie from Blood, Guts and Glory

Of course, being Reluctant Trained...its going to hurt!... So I also made a whole load of burning tank markers recently too - gulp!

Wish me luck!

Go Go German Sherman!

'Operation Midnight Panzer' has continued and five more hulls roll off the assembly line... they were assembled during the painting challenge,... but at the end of the evening, when I had had enough of painting for the evening, I'd spend the last 20 mins or so, of the night, assembling one of these tanks... and so on...

They are 15mm scale Panzer IV Ausf H, one of the later models of the Panzer IV with the long barrel high velocity main gun, and sporting side armour Schurzen skirts...

They are plastic kits from Plastic Soldier company, which I continue to find easy to assemble and cost effective... and once again painted in a late war 3 tone came pattern. No airbrushing, just block painted, shade wash and drybrush. A little detail work picking out tools etc. Do the tracks... a little HB pencil to denote worn parts on tracks, some drybrushed weathering, a little rust effect on the exhaust.. and finally decals.

Now I know the turret numbers are not sequential so these are not from the same platoon. This is because the first time I put turret numbers on the first PzIVs I got, I had not understood their significance and went with a mixture of assorted numbers. Thankfully I found the left over decals so have started to bulk out the original formation with the 'missing tanks'! If you get my drift?

So that's 10 Panzer IVs ready, and the plan is to complete one more box of five PzIVs, featuring a few commanders peaking out of their hatches, and that will give me three combat platoons plus the HQ panzers... enough for a horde of 'German Shermans' to confront the allies, ... perhaps in the Lorraine region...? Hmmm, wonder what list I'm looking at?  :)

German Panzer IV H: (FOW)
FA6, SA3, TA1.
Main gun, range 32", AT11, FP 3+
Co-Ax and Hull MGs
Side Armour Schurzen, and Protected Ammo.

A little panzer love...

As part of my entries to Curts Anologue Hobbies Painting Challenge, I painted up a set of 5 Plastic Soldier Company Panzer IV F1's ...

These had been destined to add an extra dimension to my Midwar Flames of War German forces... I had been waiting and waiting for PSC to do the PzIII (LM) variants as this seems to be the bees knees for MidWar Krauts but they still hadn't got round to it, so I grabbed a box of their Panzer IVs and made the Ausf F1 variant...

 I quite liked the direct fire smoke capability and the bombardment possibilities...

Finished in my typical 3 colour camo style...

Not sure when they'll see action now as I've kinda lost interest in the game...

But a sense of 'completeness' has made me paint them up anyway as I had made them for the challenge...

Panzer IV H platoon

With my WW2 interest thoroughly re-invigorated, I have set to with painting projects to get my existing forces re-inforced. You may have see the prior post to this one with my newly arrived commando section? Not to be out done, the forces of the Wehrmacht have been bolstered aswell.

Having found that the Plastic Soldier Company have released a range of hard plastic kits in 15mm scale that, from the reviews I had read, match very well with Battlefronts range of figures and vehicles, I couldnt resist the temptation to buy a pack of Panzer IV's to help my beleagured German grenadier force.

The kit comes with several variant options, allowing you to field the short barrel early varieties, aswell as the longer barrelled later variety. It was the late version 'H' that I was interested in, with the longer barrel, and side Schurzen armour plates.

The kits were very easy to make, and aimed at the gamer rather than modeller, so you can get your tank force quickly into action. Of note the tracks are the same hard plastic, and glue on easily with the same glue you make the rest of the tank with. Unlike prior Airfix kits I have had the dubious honour of making where you make the whole tank and all the dang fiddly wheels, only to find the tracks are some horrible soft plastic that no glue known to man will stick (despite asking Airfix via email drectly and getting no response, surprise surprise...)

Once assembled, each tank taking maybe 15-20 minutes, and with them being in a dark yellow (dunkelgelb?) colour, I sprayed them straight away with the new sprays from Battlefront. I didnt bother to black undercoat first. Once dry I painted the tracks and added the camo markings. Then I washed the whole tank in in my 50/50 mix of vallejo brown and black wash. Once dry they were drybrushed with 'dark yellow' - I could have used the Vallejo middlestone colour but I think I actually used a matching Foundry shade that I had. After that, I detailed the commander, and tools on the deck, redid the exhaust and air intake tubes in a dark copper colour and washed these in black. Finally added some dry-brushed on mid-brown to give a muddy appearance to the tracks and lower area of the tank.

The last bit then to do was add some decals. I had some spare from the StuGs I made a while ago, so used these. They simply show the black cross of German forces and a vehicle identification number.

Other than the decals, I have not varnished the tanks. I find that plastic figures seem less in need of it, as they are less susceptible to being chipped, and the paint adheres very well to the plastic surface.

The Panzer IV H, by Late War standards was a medium tank, and very similar in the game to the Allies Sherman, although it has a slightly better main gun, and the side Schurzen armour affords it a little extra protection against infantry fired anti-tank weapons.

The Panzer IV was widely used by the Germans, both in defending Fortress Europe from the Western Allies in Normandy and Italy, and also on the Eastern front against the Soviet threat, so no doubt my small force of Panzers will get regular use against all comers!

And just to re-iterate, these tanks are NOT contributing towards Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, which is another reason I pushed along to get them finished before the 20th December kick off!