More Marines

Here are the last of the Marine stands I've been working on. Some serious touching up to do on these lads before they are officially added to the collection, however.

The water can fell over as the glue was drying, so will have to make some effort at fixing that.

The next troop I do will be wearing helmets, but it looks like it's going to be difficult acquiring the necessary donor items to work with, Matchbox figures seem to be as difficult to find as the better of the two Airfix ones; especially as I only need a dozen or so.

This is all that is left of the donor figures, plus a few arms, etc. I think I really made good use of my very limited resources for this project; how Marine like.

Diedersdorf 1945

Here is the other game we played over the holidays, it is meant to have six players but we only had the three of us; one for all you tread-heads out there! 18 April 1945. This action occurred after the German line at Seelow was broken. The Germans forces were short on everything yet still contained some powerful units. We spent a lot of time getting the map accurate on this, and eventually got it right, representing an area of action 7.5x5.5 kilometers. The jigsaw roads counted as hard, and the rubber ones formed but rough.

Looking towards Diedersdorf down Reichstrasse 1

The defences at Worrin on the extreme left, a reasonable force but without infantry support were limited in what they could do, in this instance.

In the background 373rd SU Regiment moves through Golsdorf towards the small but tactically important village of Muncheberg.

Russian recon units did a lot of work early on as neither side's air force turned up for the first few turns.

This is a mixed recon/armoured infantry force which didn't have a lot of teeth but was fast, and it played quite a good role throughout the whole game. Its actual historical designation was Pz AufK abt Kurmark.

T34/85s on the Reichstrasse. We had a total of ten of these between us, but the game actually required twenty one, so the remainder were T34/43s.

Elements of the 74th Guards Regiment on a back-road moving towards Worrin. The Germans (me) didn't pay them much attention as they were unsupported - bad move!

Half of the infantry and the recon carrier continued towards Worrin, but the other half spent two tuns crossing the river and close-assaulting some of my field artillery; which I elected to have 'on-table' in the hope that the Soviet air force would attack these units instead of my armour.

German Tiger Is moving up to confront the SU regiment, good tanks but the Soviets enjoyed a considerably higher morale value, and there were way more of them.

Three turns later, the SU regiment had forced the Tigers off the board and were within one or two moves of securing Muncheberg, which would put them in position to enfilade German positions at the top of the Reichstrasse. The Tigers had not performed to expectation, and Dave had no hesitation in detaching his IS2s to assist in the assault on Worrin (extreme German left), which had been without armoured assistance up until this point.

Panzergrenadier platoons got to Muncheberg before the SU regiment, supported by a single Panther platoon. The Germans held this position for the remainder of the game.

This is about turn six. These PIVs were sent from Worrin to attack the SU regiment around Muncheberg. The units at Worrin had performed very well and this became one of the few that the Germans were able to keep mobile, moving short distances to cover problems in one place then another.

Still on turn six. The Russians finally move on the Reichstrasse with massive numbers.

The lead T34 platoons moved off the highway to put even more pressure on the Germans at Muncheberg. The BT5 in the background stood in for the command light-tank platoon, as they did for all of the tank battalions due to our shortage of the exact vehicles.

Top of the Reichstrasse 1. German positions to the left,

and, the right.

The German far right, this move actually started turn two.

We didn't have enough Tiger IIs, so I got a reinforced company of tank destroyers instead. The Tigers took on the better part of a tank battalion, while the Jadpanthers diverted through the town of Marxdof on the extreme German right.

The Tiger unit was down to half strength the turn after it arrived at its position, and only destroyed three Soviet tank platoons. One of the German victory conditions was to maintain a 5:1 kill ratio against their opponents; they never managed better than 3:1 and ran out of ammunition in the attempt.

Abt Kurmark on a defensive line, covering one of the back roads that led to Seelow. This unit took casualties from start to finish, but remained mobile and in good morale throughout.

Part of a Russian battalion, forced to halt after a brush with Abt Kurmark.

More Soviet recon units, this detected my Jadpanther company (hidden in a wooded area) which was heavily attacked a couple of turns later by a battalion of armour from the 1st Guards Tank Brigade. The Soviet air force also added to their woes when it made one of its helpfully rare appearances.

Rear elements of the German force on the right. By turn eight they were into anti-tank mode, and the AA tractor to the left was firing at Russian infantry.

Turn eight ended up being the last. The Germans had lost 3/4 of the armour they started the game with, the Reichstrasse position had been over-run, Marxdorf was on its knees, with only Worrin and Muncheberg still holding out, just. Most of the surviving German field artillery was firing over open sights, and only the survivors of Abt Kurmark were still mobile, oh and the Luftwaffe finally showed up, only to be shot down. The German player needed to last twelve turns, plus the 5:1 kill ratio, so that was that really. Historically the Germans did manage to slow the Soviet advance a bit, something I was not able to replicate on this occasion. A very difficult game for the Germans to win. All the kit is a mixture of mine and Daves. Thanks to Bob McKenzie for an excellent scenario http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bob_mackenzie/index.html

Stu42

Nice little kit this. It has all of about ten parts, is well engineered and reasonably cheap. I actually finished this a while ago but got side-tracked converting Marines.

These are usually deployed in companies of three so I have added another box onto my list of things to buy this year. My only complaint is that it did not come with any decals, of which I am woefully short of.

Royal Marines Commandos 2

Just some minor touching up left to do on these, face lines, shoulder straps, etc. If I had more figures to choose from the poses would have been a little more 'in action' like, but I am quite happy with the final results.

This is the weapons platoon, I almost always use prone figures for my Bren Gun teams.

Engineer stand.

Finding enough different arms in 1/76 to match the basic size of the donor figures was quite difficult with several of these conversions but we got there in the end.

Here is the command platoon.

Sling added to the grenadier's Sten.

And, ammunition pouches to his webbing; standard Matchbox figure to the right.

The full company. I still have another two stands on the work bench which can be added to this unit for certain actions, which will make them a large company, +2 to morale rolls. Although they have a dedicated command platoon, all RM are in fact self-ordering, which makes them an extremely versatile unit to use in games. I'm down to my last week of holidays, so will try to do the finishing work on these before embarking on any other projects that will inevitably be interrupted by work.

Progress

A bit of time spent on these RM has produced a few close to finished. There are still some gaps to fill around the neck areas but most of the details have been done.

The weapon slings were made from the rope of the grappling hook figure from the Matchbox set, some worked out better than others.

I've also added a couple of small items to some of the figures, such as a water bottle, this one got a mine.

Here is the weapons platoon. I've actually started painting this troop, and will post the final results in the next couple of days.

Work in Progress

As we all know, you can never have enough Royal Marines Commandos, and so in line with that we have these latest conversion attempts.

I've always disliked the set this example comes from, but only have a handful of donor figures to choose from. The Airfix figures are a little shorter than their Matchbox counterparts, therefore the latter will have their bases removed, which will help a bit.

Here is the donor pile which, as can be seen, has a few more prone figures than I'd like but we'll see how we get on. I've also decided to experiment with the painting of this next troop, and may include some washes and or highlighting on the final products.

The Russell Collection 3

Recently completed SU76s from the collection of David Russell. Nice kits, that have a lot of detail, and Dave has been his usual meticulous self in their construction.

Some of his scenic ruins in the background.

Dave has quite a large mid to late war Soviet army, in fact almost a complete tank brigade for 1944-45 and probably close to a tank regiment for 43-44. Now all he has to do now is paint a regiment of infantry to go with them.