My first entry for the painting Competition this year: (as copied across from AH blog)
"Just a quick post to say I am alive and well and contributing as best as I am able...
I 'break my duck' with a couple of 15mm Flames of War German half tracked recce vehicles, the SdKfz 250/9...
A recce vehicle mounting a 2cm main gun, backed up by Co-ax MG, on a small half-tracked chassis...
I 'picked these up' about middle of last year when my son bought these 2nd hand from the bring and buy stall as a prezzy for me, at the Panzerschrek tournie in Palmy North here in NZ... he's a good lad :)
Quick and easy to paint I figured I would lash some paint on them to get some points rolling in the challenge... a meager start but at least I am still breathing...
Funnily enough it wasn't until I had undercoated and base coated the vehicles that I noticed one had lost part of its front mud guard. This was quickly painted up as battle damage as I couldn't be bothered to try and correct it then!
More ambitious things in the pipeline, so watch this space... I've got a Mumak on the go, and am half way through assembling Smaug... fingers crossed I get them done in time..."
Curt's kind response... Nicely done Scott and welcome back for this year's journey. As usual your muted camo looks fabulous. I've always had a soft spot for WWII German recce vehicles - they always looked so much more modern and nasty than most of the clunkers the Allies used. 12 points for you as we await your Mumak (the Tiger of LotR).
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!
'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.
With the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge deadline of 20th March virtually upon us, I managed to sneak one last entry in at the last minute.
I had been waiting for more ANZAC Diorama figures to do, but again there were gaps in the time-frame of the 'supply chain', allowing me to get back to some of my own stuff...
So, here's a platoon, or 'Zug', of five Panzer III Ausf M, in 15mm scale, by The Plastic Soldier Company.
I love the PSC kits, great value for money, and easy to put together.
I have painted them up in my usual three colour German camo scheme, to match my existing FoW forces... I also used GW 'Rust effect' paint on the exhausts... Decals by DOM.
The Panzer III may not be as 'sexy' as the big cats, but it was a workhorse of the mid-war period and was still seeing action later in the conflict, so this platoon will be complimenting my existing Mid and Late War forces...
The Ausf M was just about the last incarnation of the PzIII, and had seem increases in armour thickness, size of main gun to 50mm and addition of Side Armour skirts or 'Schurzen'.
In the game, it has FA6 SA3 TA1, has a range of 24" with main gun and ROF3, AT9, FP4+, plus the usual MGs. That makes it quite a useful infantry support tank, able to knock out infantry, gun teams and lighter armoured vehicles, like half-tracks and suchlike. Its still a threat to the side armour of heavier tanks and will certainly hold its own against most tanks in the MidWar setting...
This platoon has been part of my background hobby work, which has gone under the project name of 'Operation Midnight Panzer'... with me typically ending an evenings hobby work, gluing together one of these little tanks before heading to the 'woodhill'... more of those to follow in a subsequent post...
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...
More German armour... The humble StuG or Sturmgeschütz (Assault Gun) was the first boxed set of armour I got for my fledgling German forces a few years back... The BF boxed set contained 5 vehicles and looking through some of the army lists I was using at the time, I noticed an option to upgrade one StuG to a StuH or Sturmhaubitze (Assault Howitzer), per platoon of StuGs. So I did that, making 4 StuGs and One StuH...
It wasn't until I was introduced to what 'breakthrough guns' can do to infantry, at the hands of Pauls SU122s one game, that I instantly became enamored of these deadly vehicles...
However finding an option to take StuHs in numbers with my desired German forces, was not always straight forward, as they often were not a support choice for the Mechanised German forces I was favouring using...
But they have stayed on my radar, and I have always looked to see where they may fit... Whenever I had used them they were proxied by my StuGs, but I really don't like using proxies... so with many other platoon options sorted, it was time to get some StuHs done, so I ordered a box from PSC...
You just cant beat the price of the PSC kits. Yes they are more time consuming to make than the BF resin/metal kits, and don't have the same heft as the BF ones. But when you can get 5 plastic ones for about the same price 2 Resin/Metal ones, its just a no brainer...
I decided to make 3 StuHs and 2 StuG Gs, with the Saukopf (Pigs head) styled main gun. This gun shape was better at deflecting incoming rounds, and would also help distinguish these newer vehicles from my existing BF StuGs...
More detailed info on the StuG and its variants here, thanks to wikipedia.
PSC 15mm StuGs and StuHs
3 x StuH 42
2 x StuG with Saukopf mantlet
Rear views...
Adding the BF vehicles, I can put out a platoon of 4 StuHs, the BF will be the command vehicle...
StuHs, plus the BF one to right as command vehicle
My BF boxed set was painted long ago and in a slightly differing paint style, but they still seem to match in well enough, though I may give the BF ones another coat of matt varnish to dull them down better to match in... size-wise there is very little difference...
BF StuG to left, and PSC StuGs
And adding in the StuGs, I can field 2 platoons of three StuGs, the Saukopf mantlets identifying the command vehicles
4 x StuH , & 2 x 3 StuGs
So I guess I now have the option to field a StuG Battery, another German force variety...
There's more to this story however... During the making of the PSC kits, I noticed that there was damage to the top hull, in the same places on all the sprues, ... It looked like some kind of damage had occurred as the sprues were taken from the mould? I let Will at PSC know my concerns, and despite still being able to make the kits, with a little greenstuff repair work to each, Will sent me a replacement box free of charge!
Now that's excellent customer service!
So I'll shortly have another 5 vehicles to add - I'll most likely add more StuHs, as I have finally come across a force which combines my 'beloved' half track force, with StuHs - The Fuhrer Begleit forces, currently a pdf armylist from BF website... looking forward to trying it out at some point in the future. I just need to order some Begleit tank riders from BF for the StuHs... watch this space for more...
In my ongoing quest to find a German list that actually works, I have been playing about with more army list options, more drama on this topic can be read here.
One of these involved a change from my regular Panzergrenadiers, to the SS variety, who have an option to upgrade a number of teams from the platoon to being Panzerfaust equipped.
Rather than buy a whole new packs of Grens to do this I decided to just add the Panzerfaust teams, via rare earth magnets...
So I took an existing base of 4 guys;
Standard base awaiting conversion
... and carefully removed them from their base. I prep'd the Panzerfaust guy and drilled out his base from the underside, and superglued a magnet into place.
I then drilled out a hole in the original base and glued a magnet into the hole, getting it flush fit with greenstuff from the underside. Then I put the original 4 guys back on the bases and re-did the flocking. Panzerfaust guy was painted up, and hey presto, he sticks nicely into place. So no having to guess or remember which stand is the panzerfaust...
Magnets in place and original figures rearranged...
So I didn't get mixed up with magnet polarity, I marked this base H for helmet for the panzerfaust guy, as the other was wearing a cap (I did two bases at the same time)
Magnets drilled and glued into position
Hey presto, Panzerfaust MG team.
And of course when being used as a regular MG team, the panzerfaust guy comes off, and a magnetized twig from the garden works as a fallen log to fill the gap...
MG team with 'fallen tree trunk.'
You could of course get really clever, with the 'gap fillers', but the twig had to do quickly as I had a game that night...
Two MG/Panzerfaust teams
Two MG/'log' teams
I really wanted to do this right as its damned annoying when someone is using proxy teams and you get up close and personal only to find out, "...oh, that's the panzerfaust team, didn't I tell you?".... yeah right...
An impulse purchase, from Macks Track, yet one I had been considering for some time, and a perfect accompaniment to my half track horde, especially since I recently completed a pioneer platoon; the "Stuka zu Fuss" half track.
So named, and translating roughly as 'Stukas on foot', as the impact of this rocket launching system was equivalent to the ground troops half tracks having their own stuka on call with them...
The half track was fitted with 6 launch tubes each containing a 28cm diameter rocket. Where ever these landed would cause extreme devastation...
stuka zu fuss
In the game, the vehicle gets a one shot artillery barrage, but with 6 chances to range in... so the sooner you range in, the more rockets have hit their mark and the greater the impact...
Looking at the weapons stats and since it was going to be a one shot weapon, I wanted to figure out what best to shoot it at, and I think the best, or most vulnerable target is going to be either gun teams that have fired, due to their low 5+ save, or troop concentrations, even when dug in, or in buildings... open topped armoured vehicles could be good targets too...
The weapon only has a fairly low armour penetration of 3, but a huge 1+ firepower, and that last factor is what makes it deadly against dug in troops...
Once fired, the half track can still function as a mobile machine gun in support of the pioneers.
I look forward to trying it out...
In modelling terms the model was a little fiddly to put together, as all the racks had to be attached to the half track sides and the rocket cases attached to these... but it was fairly straight forward. Painting was my usual tri color camo, though the half track rocket frames have picked up the final dry brush perhaps a little excessively, giving the vehicle a slightly brighter yellowy tone than the rest of the regular half tracks... but I am happy with it. I even got decals on, simple black crosses, on vehicle sides between the rockets and one on the rear lower door panel, though they don't show on the pictures.
I finished another of my Kerr and King Western Europe buildings recently; the twin shop set, with a broken roof...
Twin shop front
...and with 15mm half track for scale.
These have their customary lift off roofs and lift out top floor, so models can be placed inside on both levels.
Must admit, this had a lot of flash to deal with ( I wonder if their mold was getting old?). Took a lot of work with the Dremel to get it in a paintable state, and the usual greenstuff use to fix missing window frames and bubble holes in roof tiles... but its work well spent and finished building paints up well.
I only have one more building from the set that I originally bought from Kerr and King, to go, the Manor house... I'm about half way done... after that I may do some more DIY Russian buildings...
... or, the Tiger, is dead, long live the King Tiger !
With the Wellington Warlords Call to Arms tournament just around the corner, I was in a bit of a quandary as to what force to take. I knew I was probably going to go with my favoured armoured half track German list, but which support elements to take?
Last year, Panthers were a good choice, as a supporting panzer... but with the release of the Market Garden publication, with its improved Allied arsenal including the upgunned 6pdr and 17pdr AT guns and the upgunned Firefly VC, that thick front armour of the panther is looking decidedly vulnerable... so what to do?
Stick with the game plan and use the panthers, and try not to get hit?,... or drop the panthers and take a whole punch of Panzer IVs for more return fire?,... or continue the arms race, and up the ante with the King Tiger?
Having recently enjoyed a demo game at the KWC, where 2 Tiger IEs in a Midwar setting proved nigh on unstoppable... I pondered trying the same idea in Late War with the King Tiger...
So in a bit of a dilemma, I decided there could be a strong chance I may favour a list featuring the King Tiger, aka; the Tiger II Ausf B.
So I put an order through to Caliver in the UK, who had the boxed set of three at a discounted price...and crossed fingers it might arrive in time... it did, last Friday to be precise... and thus its been a week of frenzied work to get these done in time. I have managed it with a fortnight to go, so might get a chance for a practice game or two in before I must submit my list to tournament organisers.
Tiger II Ausf B
In the game, they are a hell of an investment in points! If I were going with a Schwere Panzer Kompanie, I could field all three tanks for just over 1000 pts, leaving ~700pts for the rest of my force. But for my mechanised company, I will most likely just go with 2 Tiger IIs as a support platoon, though they still cost about 700 pts...
Still, with an in game range of 40", AT 16 FP 3+, they can kill any tank they hit, and with a Front Armour of 15, will be nigh on invulnerable to the front. Side armour 8 and top armour 2, like a regular Tiger I, is their weakness, so I must keep their flanks secure... and I may have to dodge about to avoid ranged in artillery, stay near woods and buildings if planes are about, and move about if I get smoke bombarded... but hey, if they are soaking up all this attention, the rest of my force will be free to operate unmolested... and if they try to ignore them, and go with the kill everything else approach, they will undoubted keep knocking stuff out turn after turn...
With division markings of the 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion
The 503rd saw action on both the Eastern and Western fronts, so this seemed a good choice to go with for my platoon.
The 503rd emblem being a Tigers head motif, see above left front mudguard...
After a while, having spent the week assembling and painting them, they begin to seem 'normal', nothing outstanding... its not until you put them next to other similarly scaled tanks that the difference becomes apparent once more... see pics below these are all 15mm scale Battlefront models...
I have been steadily plodding away at tiling my Victorian terrace, but its mind numbing work, so I take a break from it every so often and fit in other bits of hobby work in between batches of gluing little card tiles...
Here's a few Kerr and King Resin buildings I painted up for Flames of War gaming; Western Europe buildings, two bombed out, and one a two story.
The roofs come off for figure placement and the two story building is also in two layers.
The intact building I finished a couple of weeks ago, the two bombed out ones, this weekend.
Being resin they need quite a bit of work trimming away excess resin flash, and hole filling with liquid greenstuff, but the effort is worthwhile, as the buildings turn out well once painted...
German transports drive by...
Oh well, 15mm interlude over for now, back to gluing tiles...
The dreaded '88', or to give it its more appropriate name, the FlaK 36.
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The 88 mm gun (eighty-eight) was a German anti-aircraft and anti-tankartillery gun from World War II.
It was widely used by Germany throughout the war, and was one of the
most recognized German weapons of the war. Development of the original
models led to a wide variety of guns.
The name applies to a series of guns, the first one officially called the 8,8 cm Flak 18, the improved 8,8 cm Flak 36, and later the 8,8 cm Flak 37.[N 1] Flak is a contraction of GermanFlugzeugabwehrkanone[3][N 2] meaning "aircraft-defense cannon", the original purpose of the eighty-eight. In English, "flak" became a generic term for ground anti-aircraft fire. In informal German use, the guns were universally known as the Acht-acht ("eight-eight").[N 3]
The versatile carriage allowed the eighty-eight to be fired in a limited anti-tank mode when still on wheels,[2] and to be completely emplaced in only two-and-a-half minutes.[2]
Its successful use as an improvised anti-tank gun led to the
development of a tank gun based upon it. These related guns served as
the main armament of tanks such as the Tiger I: the 8.8 cm KwK 36, with the "KwK" abbreviation standing for KampfwagenKanone (literally "battle vehicle cannon", or "tank cannon").
The 88, was easily towed, by the SdKfz7 halftrack, with boggies attached to front and rear sections of the cruciform mount, with side sections raised to either side of the gunshield whilst on the move.
The gun could still be fired, whilst on its carriage, though with limited elevation and traverse. Amazingly it could be rapidly deployed for full action, in as little as two and half minutes.
Once deployed, with its semi automatic loading mechanism, it could put out 15-20 rounds a minute.
Here you can see it deployed in anti aircraft roll, with boggies detached and the gunshield appearing to be lowered slightly...
An iconic German weapon of WWII, used throughout the war in both Anti-Aircraft and Anti-tank roles. I believe its use as an anti-tank gun, was first devised from use in the deserts of North Africa... where attacking British Armour would be drawn onto a position of 88's and rapidly destroyed. The 88 could penetrate the armour of any allied tank, at great range.
The 88 in action...
I have long wanted to add a battery of these guns to my German forces and I finally managed to do that this week. I got lucky ordering from WaylandGames when they had a free shipping deal on, and once they arrived last weekend, I rapidly set to working on them and had them assembled and painted up in a week, just in time for them to be tried out in a game on Sunday arvo...
I am glad to say they did not disgrace themselves (as is usual with the first in game use of freshly painted troops!), though they only really provided a deterrent role, but they did pick off some British pack howitzers at extreme range.
Painted up in my style of German, Late War tri colour camo pattern.
I hope to make regular use of them in both my MidWar and LateWar armies, in both Europe and Eastern Front theatres.
The boxed set also came with the detachable boggies, an interesting touch, that I will get round to painting up eventually to add to the scene, though they are not a priority... now that I have these completed, I must get back to adding the tile shingles to the roof of my Victorian Terrace building...
