US machinegun platoons

Finished these last night while watching a bit of cricket. Additions to my Korean War collection, x1 HMG (Revell) x1 MMG (Imex).

I'm expanding the US elements into regimental size, and would like to include marines in the OOBs as well, eventually. The US forces in Korea enjoyed a lavish supply of machineguns compared with most other participants.

Recoilless Rifle

Scratch built 75mm recoilless rifle for my Korean War collection.

The basics are on there but I'm going to add an elevation wheel and a couple of other bits and pieces.

It will eventually be attached to an HQ unit, most likely regimental level.

I've put the primary colours on it too but plan to give those a better job when I get some more time down the track.

Update

Here are a few of the landing craft that will feature in our Inchon game. These belong to a friend and I am also borrowing a few from Paul at http://plasticwarriors.blogspot.com/

Once I get all of the assault vessels assembled I'll know exactly how many waves there needs to be in each assault, but this will be helped by the seven turn delay between waves one and two.

Here is a recently acquired Corsair which will be providing air support to the Marines, it was a nice simple little kit to assemble, but the decals proved fickle and difficult to work with.

Last one is of a couple of massive hills that I am planning to use in this demo next week. Due to unforeseen circumstances I am way behind in sand bag manufacture, which this project needs to be even close to completion, so need to get cracking.

2nd Battalion ROK

More or less finished the second battalion of my ROK regiment for 1950, though they still need tidying up.

Figures from a number of manufacturers are represented, and I think the overall look of the unit suits the state of the South Korean forces at this time.

This is the first battalion, it and the others will need weapons and mortar platoons added to match these improvements as the war progressed, but for 1950 all support weapons are grouped at the regimental level.

Here is the second battalion.

Third battalion. My figure selection choices were getting a bit low at this stage, which wasn't helped by the wholesale destruction of three or four stands (actual number unknown) by our puppies, who staged their own little offensive on these guys a couple of nights ago.

This was all that was left, oh and a couple of legs and mangled heads.

Here are the defaulters, who maintained dumb insolence when charged with conduct prejudice to the good discipline of the household. Fortunately for them this place has a few barrack lawyers on hand to argue their case; ah puppies.

Inchon Map Demo 3

Same stuff as before, so this is just a bit of an update. All of the ground scale has been done now, and there were surprisingly few adjustments required. A couple of the major hill features needed moving by a few inches and likewise with the main railway station. The NKPA figures that you can see here and there have been used to test march times to their relevant areas of reinforcement at various times during the game.

I got these T34s online, good job there was two of them because that is just how many we need. I'm not really into late-war stuff, but have the basics. In game terms they will represent two understrength tank platoons operating independently of each other, and the only armour the NKPA get for this action.

Last one is the only wheeled transport the NKPA get. I think I got this overseas, a Russian kit of some sort. There is only minor detailing left to do on the map, but that will have to wait until game day. I have to pull my trench boards out next to see if they are going to fit in with some Great War ideas that I'm playing around with, so the next pictures from Inchon that I post should be of the game; in the meantime I have to source a Pershing tank and Corsair aircraft, as well as numerous landing craft and other vessels.

Inchon Demo Map 2

The tape measures show the boat lanes and initial objectives for the assault battalions. Wol Mi Do will be garrisoned by a company with the rest of its battalion deployed in depth, and its HQ in the Asai Brewery, which is just behind Cemetery Hill in the lower right.

Downtown Inchon has been reworked, the industrial zone starts from the bottom of the picture.

The British Consulate area of the waterfront was a bit more up-market than other parts of Inchon, so I moved buildings around to better represent this. The road crossing the railway line in the center left leads to the tidal basin, where a fourth battalion of marines come ashore on about turn 8.

Last one shows the forward slopes of Observatory Hill and its emplacements. There are still numerous details to be worked out, but I have the basic ground scale and major features pretty much right. The next thing to do is mess around with the landing times and approximate troop positions.

Inchon Map: Demo One

This is my first attempt at a map for our Inchon game, planned for the holidays. Seems this is going to be a difficult one to get right. The first picture shows the right flank of Red Beach, looking over the causeway from Wol Mi Do island. The factory building represents the Nippon Flour Company, and the industrial area starts here and covers most of the left hand side of the map. The crude wooden blocks will eventually be painted and represent the sea wall.

Left flank of Red Beach showing the Asai Brewery and the fortified Cemetery Hill in front of it, this feature had to be taken quickly on the day as it overlooked a large part of the beach.

Another shot of the flour mill, looking towards Green Beach at Wol Mi Do.

This is the British Consulate, hemmed in by a good sized cliff face and the railway line leading to the sea wall.

This is the port's railway station, about 1000 yards from the beach, or 20 inches in our scale.

And here is the station that serves the city.

Part of the housing district. It is quite out of scale and will need substantial reworking in future attempts.

Just a bigger shot of downtown Inchon, Observatory Hill in the middle right is in about the right position, but the housing in the first block needs to be closer to it, and we'll need to put in some more dirt roads. When doing historical scenarios I always try to match the terrain as close as possible to the actual area. Researching the various OOBs is also a bit of fun too.

Korean War Stuff

Here are the latest two companies of ROK infantry, from the first finished battalion of three. They include figures from a few different manufacturers, including a couple of hard plastics, and I am quite happy with the overall look of the unit. Will probably spend some time this week messing around with board layouts from my maps. We have decided to include the landings at Inchon on our holiday gaming list for this year, and the more accurate the board as compared with actual maps, usually the better game one gets.

Mig15, a gift from my daughter, and a damn good choice too. It won't feature in the Inchon game, but certainly in others from the Korean War. The pilot needed painting and the whole airframe got a dry-brush followed by a light inking; didn't come up too bad. Now I need a Meteor and or a Sabre to match up against it.

More Work in Progress

The pictures show the ROK regiment's entire support section. It took a while for units to start receiving support weapons at the company and battalion level, and for most of 1950 regiments sported weapons companies.

Here is an MMG and an HMG platoon; roughly equal to sixty men they were expected to supply close fire support for between 2-3000 men. This seriously hampered offensive operations.

This one shows the dedicated anti-tank unit of the regiment, again only two platoons.

Lastly, the command and mortar platoons. Still not quite finished, but getting there. Once I have finished the OOB for 1950 I will start building some more support units, which will be added in actions of later years. Gradually the ROK became better equipped and trained, so eventually the rifle companies will have the same sort of fire-power that to start with was only available at the battalion level, or higher.

Work in Progress

Finally finished a company of South Korean infantry, the first of fourteen that will eventually make up the regiment by the time support elements are added. This is a company command platoon.

One of the rifle platoons here. I have tried to mix up the figures a bit to make the unit look a bit more rag-tag.

The Imex figures mix quite well with the others that I have to choose from. As this is an early war ROK unit the companies have no integral support weapons of their own, including bazookas, MMGs and mortars.

I added the odd backpack or slung weapon on a few for variety, otherwise they are all standard, nothing chopped off at the waist or anything drastic.

Still much to do, but reasonable progress thus far. Almost forgot, the Soviet ATR team featured in an earlier post is in fact by MARS. Paul Foster said something today that had me trawling through the PSR site until I found them, and in so doing I also saw a number of other figures that I have never seen before. PSR is a very useful resource indeed, cheers Paul.

More Korean War

1950s US weapons company and some rifle platoons.

Russian "Advisor" Company. The rules, of course, contain no OOB for this unit, as they didn't exist. I couldn't help adding them in, however. I worked in Korea for a while, where it was a bit of a standing joke with the older guys.

1950s PLA. One of the assault companies, and on the right a weapons company. I had to do a few head swaps on some Russians to make up the numbers but happily the sets come with several casualty figures so there's a few spare anyway.

Current Project

Amongst other things on the go at present, here are a few pictures of my Korean War Project.

First up a weapons company of British Infantry. Of course, the EM2 never made it into operational service but that doesn't matter for game purposes. Next is a NKPA Penal Battalion.

Lastly today, an NKPA Combat Team. Small in numbers though they may be, they contain a very high proportion of automatic weapons.