Broken Camera

Dropped and broke the camera on Friday but hopefully Dave can send me a few pictures from his collection to suffice until I get it sorted. Here is the last one of his I have on file. Dave's collection is mostly mid to late war, German, Russian and US.

The Russell Collection 4

Realised I'd missed a number when posting some of the most excellent work of David Russell, so without further adieu, we have the missing part 4.

Not sure which brands these are but they look like a fast-build variety.

David has enough US trucks to move about a regiment, in CD terms. We have used these for Korean War games as well, but their use is a lot more restricted due to the general nature of the Korean battlefield, as compared with say Europe during the Second World War, where their service is perhaps best remembered.

SU76

Completed SU76. I ended up having a few parts left over, as per usual.

The small brass parts included with this kit proved very difficult to attach successfully but I managed to use most of them.

This one shows the wretched track assembly that caused me so much grief.

Overall these are well engineered kits that have a tremendous amount of detail for their scale.

SU Progress

Tricky one this. It has those tracks which come in separate lengths, and I can never seem to get them just right.

This was after a couple of nights progress and all was going well.

And then came the tracks. Decided to try painting some of the awkward finishing areas before it was fully finished; the jury is still out on that one. I am using the last of the crew figures Paul gave me as this model will represent the command vehicle in a company of four, when I get the other three that is.

Crews

A few pictures of some gun crew and support stands that I've been working on. There are plenty of German options for us to choose from but most other nations are sadly under represented. I usually try to modify them slightly, such as the addition of a small item of kit or personal weapon. The first three in this picture are Airfix, not sure about the one on the right, couldn't find it on PSR.

This stand usually crews the 120mm mortars, Pegasus figures with rifles added.

Revell figures from the early days when I used to shade, hightlight, etc. This crew is out of the box for a touch up and re-base.

This one is more of a support stand, they don't often get used in combat roles, as they lack the necessary fire power to really achieve anything on the table top.

Same with this unit. German signals platoon, figures are Pegasus. I started work of the SU76 I scored a while ago, and will post a few pictures of that soon; a massive 107 parts, not exactly my usual choice for a wargaming model, but a few nights work plus painting should be a nice change.

RMLI

Selected platoon stands from my, Great War, Royal Marines Light Infantry battalion group. I did this unit several years ago for a large Gallipoli game we were doing, I think it might have been 2nd Krithia. I have learnt a lot about cleaning up figures and other modification techniques since, and yet see that I still managed to miss a few mould lines, etc on my latest Marine attempts, anyway....

I have already started repainting and tidying up most of this unit because they are looking a bit shabby in places.

Most of the figures are Hat WW1 British Infantry and the superb ANZACs, and there are a few Emhar ones in the mix also.

Most simply had head swaps or the odd arm repositioned.

I think the pith helmets came from a Esci set.

I've also made the ANZAC figures into trench raiders; which I've displayed in earlier posts.

If anything, the Emhar figures are slightly smaller than the others in overall proportion. This MMG platoon is not one of my better efforts because the base is a bit small for a crewed weapon.

The figure on the right is not one of my favourites but looks a bit better with repositioned arms.

One of the company command platoons.

This command platoon's figures are by Waterloo 1815. I also have LMG, trench mortar and signal platoons for later war actions. I haven't got any plans to create a new unit of these any time soon, however, HaT has plans for WW1 BEF which may inspire new conversion attempts for my growing Marines collection.

Another Project

Not sure if you'll ever see this one finished, as I have picked it up and put it down that many times before. When I first started this figure I had planned to model it on an RM from the Falklands conflict. My brother had a poster on his bedroom wall when we were kids of just such a man, and I have often wondered if it had anything to do with me enlisting when I was old enough. I think the basic uniform, this being US, might never quite fit the bill and end up never being completed, but I thought I'd show you it anyway as I wouldn't be surprised if a few of you hadn't seen that poster also.

The Russell Collection 5

Dave has sent me a few pictures of his recently completed KVs, which I assume young Daniel Russell pictured above is moving his forces to confront.

These are the excellent Pegasus varieties, which only short-coming is the lack of those horrid little things we call decals.

Dave has also been painting infantry by the look of it, which is a bit unusual as he is a tread head at heart.

The few Pegasus kits that I have are very well engineered, and these ones of Dave's look to be equally well designed, I would certainly recommend them as wargame models; fast to build and not too many sundry fiddly bits.

Last one shows the two options you get with this kit. I'm not sure but I think the only other manufacturer to do this was Airfix with their T34.

Work Bench

This is what my work bench can look like at any given moment, a frenzy of activity with several things on the go at once.

British gun crew stand from the Airfix 6pdr set.

German support stand, I've actually got a few of these on the go.

Last couple are NKVD platoons for my Russian Naval Infantry Regiment, the top one is not quite finished as I may do some more carving yet, and both of them need minor touch ups on their paint work either way.

I've got a couple of other things in progress also, but will post them later. The puppies have not yet gone to their new homes, and this time of the year is very busy for me at work

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