Operation BattleAxe - A Bag The Hun Campaign

I pulled out all of my Bag the Hun miniatures again for the first time in a long time. I took stock of my miniatures and have plenty of painted aircraft. So I pulled out my air campaigns and started to look through them. The idea would be to do a solo campaign but for four separate fighter squadrons based on the miniatures I have painted up.

The thought is that each side will get an action during the day randomly rolled on a table that will target a specific force. The sides to this will be the SAAF & RAF against the Luftwaffe & Regia Aeronautica. Each game will be played independently between the squadrons unless a force randomly rolls an opposing mission against a side that is attacking them. This way, mostly the opposing forces would be other random squadrons with the occasional opportunities for them to clash head to head. Or so is the idea.

I plan on keeping the games on the smaller side with between 4 to 8 fighters per side with a small handfuls of supporting aircraft (4 or less). This should make the games manageable and faster for solo play. Operation Battleaxe was a short operation lasting only 3 days. That gives a total of 12 games for the full campaign. Note, that the squadrons are ficticious but based on real squadrons of different numbers. Each side will have 3 characters of the 13 member squadron. This will be the Squadron Leader and two other members of the squadron - chosen randomly. Of these, at least one must be a Sprog. Each of the squadrons will have a relatively similar experience levels.

Meet the Regia Aeronautica

For the Italian forces, I am looking to run a Squadriglia of either MC.200s (In june 1941 there was only 1 in North Africa), Cr.42s (I have 4 planes painted), or G.50bis fighters. I have more MC.200s painted than any other Italian aircraft so I will likely go with them. Pulling from some of the historical formations I have made the following Squadriglia of 13 pilots.

377^a Squadriglia

They are flying the MC.200 aircraft. Apparently, these were uncommon over North Africa at this point of the war. But I have 8 of them painted up. The squadron has 12 total aircraft at the start of the battle.

No.	Pilot	Status	Kills	Notes
1	Capitano Mirocleto Gerbino	Jr Ace	5	Spanish Civil War Veteran
2	Tenente Gualtiero Titone	Veteran	1	Squadron XO
3	Sottotenente Tarso Isola	Regular	0
4	Sottotenente Urdino Peduzzi	Regular	0
5	Sottotenente Michael Mariano	Regular	0
6	Sottotenente Abramio Giacinto	Sprog	0
7	SergenteMaggiore Lavinio Lico	Veteran	2
8	Sergente Cristian Piccoli	Regular	0
9	Sergente Romano Garafalo	Regular	0
10	Sergente Rocco Botti	Regular	0
11	Sergente Rodolfo Scalese	Sprog	0
12	Sergente Neoterio Sciulli	Sprog	0
13	Sergente Girardo Rizzi	Sprog	0

These fighter aircraft will support squadrons fielding Ro.37bis and Ca.310 reconnaissance aircraft (I need to buy a few), Ba.65 aircraft (liason/observation and light bomber), SM.79 bombers and some Cr.42s fighters in a ground attack role. I own SM.79s with one nearly painted. I also own some B.65s but they are not even primed. I have three Cr.42s painted up and ready to go. I own some Br.20 bombers as well but they are also not painted. I do have some G.50s painted but they may need some decals to complete them out. I think I also own a pack of Ca.310s provided that my aircraft recognition skills are up to task.

Meet the Luftwaffe

For the Germans, I have a bunch of Bf109s painted up and ready to go. So these will be my base force. I own some Bf110s but they are unpainted. I have at least 4 Ju87s painted up as well which would make a great support. I think I have some bombers (likely Ju88s) but I didn't see them when i checked the tray. They would be unpainted if they are there. That would cover nearly all of the aircraft for the campaign. 3.II JG 28 These are flying the BF109E-7 trop aircraft. They were the most common German fighter aircrat over the western desert. I have 8 painted and another 16 that are unprimed. The squadron has 12 aircrat at the start of the battle.

No.	Pilot	Status	Kills	Notes
1	Hauptmann Magnus Hippler	Veteran	4	Kills scored in the Battle for France.
2	OberstLeutnant	Veteran	1	Squadron XO
3	Leutnant Edgar Masing	Regular	0
4	Leutnant Erik Von Braun	Regular	0
5	Feldwebel Marc Viermetz	Regular	0
6	Feldwebel Fritz Lips	Sprog	0
7	Feldwebel Jacob Staudenmaier	Veteran	2
8	Unteroffizer Stefan Kellermann	Regular	0
9	Unteroffizer Jacob Kindl	Regular	0
10	Unteroffizer Christopher Schulberg	Regular	0
11	OberFahnrich Benedict Stoltenberg	Sprog	0
12	OberFahnrich Karl Gebhardt	Sprog	0
13	OberFahnrich Claus Ehmann	Sprog	0

The fighters will support the Ju87s of a nearby squadron as well as escort the Ju88 bombers of other squadrons. Occasionally they may protect spotting aircraft (I found an unpainted pack of Hs126 that I can get going on).

Meet the RAF

For the RAF, I settled on a unit equipped with the P-40. I currently have eight of these aircraft painted up. There were still unit equipped with this fighter deployed in North Africa by June 1941. As supports, i own some Blenheim Is and IVs, none of which are painted. I also have a pack of Martin Maryland bombers as well that need paint.

No.	Pilot	Status	Kills	Notes
1	Squadron Leader Troy Holmes	Veteran	1	Kills scored in the Great War.
2	Flight Lieutenant Caleb Carter	Veteran	1	Squadron XO Kill Score in France
3	Flying Officer Toby Hunt	Regular	0
4	Flying Officer Deacon Carr	Regular	0
5	Pilot Officer Wyatt Moss	Regular	0
6	Pilot Officer Bertie Morgan	Sprog	0
7	Pilot Officer Ernest Khan	Veteran	2
8	Pilot Officer Thomas Cole	Regular	0
9	Pilot Officer Gabriel Read	Regular	0
10	George Foster Douglas	Regular	0
11	Flight Sergeant Elliott Harper	Sprog	0
12	Sergeant Stanley Pearce	Sprog	0
13	Sergeant Adam George	Sprog	0

I have started the clen up process for some Blenheim Is and primed some Martin Marylands to give these fellows something to escort. I need some form of observation aircraft. The fighters themselves may be pressed into a ground attack role. I don't think it will take long to get the support aircraft ready.

Meet the SAAF

For an allied contingent for this campaign, I added a squadron of SAAF flying Hawker Hurricanes. They will use the same support aircraft as the RAF. The paint schemes are more or less the same between the RAF and SAAF. So what gets painted for one, is done for the other.

No.	Pilot	Status	Kills	Notes
1	Major Zayden de Beer	Veteran	1	Kills scored in the Great War.
2	Captain Rudi Pietersen	Veteran	1	Squadron XO Kill in East Africa
3	Captain Adiel Hertzog	Regular	0
4	Lieutenant Androw FitzSimmons	Regular	0
5	Lieutenant Francois van Wyk	Regular	0
6	Lieutenant Bertie Morgan	Sprog	0
7	Lieutenant Wincuf Pinckney	Veteran	2
8	Lieutenant Jonah Parker	Regular	0
9	Lieutenant Luca Hanekom	Regular	0
10	Lieutenant Archie McKenzie	Regular	0
11	Lieutenant Josh O'Brien	Sprog	0
12	Lieutenant Dexter Hill	Sprog	0
13	Lieutenant Stephen Reynolds	Sprog	0

I have 8 Hawker Hurricanes ready to go. In addition to the Blenheim Is and Martin Marylands that I have, I also found a pack of Blenheim IVs to paint up. I also have a pack of Spitfires but they may not end up in this campaign. I also think I might have a single pack of Gloster Gladiators languishing unpainted. They might be interesting to have make an appearance.

I have already played the first game but this post is long enough.

Revisiting The Cold War

I broke out the figures that I had and did a little cleaning up. I still have a tiny bit of work to do to round out this force. The one item that i want the most is Israeli M203 gunners. I think I can make it work with a 3dBreed Vietname M203 gunner. I would like 4 of them and 3dBreed sells them in a 4 pack. Amazingly, I found a business card with the notes on how I painted them. I have some additional Galil armed infantry with a few extras that are painted as well.

The next thing I need is some .30 cal MGs to add to the last M113. they just have to be glued and painted. I also wish to 3d Print a Merkava II and another Magach 6. I also have the Peter Pig model of Nagma Shot. It is only undercoated and needs to be painted. Lastly, I have three jeeps. I have one mounted with a machine gun but it needs to be painted. I would like to buy the Peter Pig recoiless rifle pack as it mentions that it can be vehicle mounted. This should give me plenty of support troops and enough to get in a game of What a Tanker with them as well.

My Syrians are not as far along as I thought. I have a full Motor Rifle platoon minus the designated marksmen with a Dragunov. I am not finding any miniatures for them at the moment. Definitely a nice to have rather that a must have. I have a QRF Sagger team that is undercoated. It is lacking a crew member but I will just add a kneeling infantryman with it. The bases are not yet painted but that should be simple enough. I do need to paint up an additional RPG-7 gunner.

My European troops are looking a fair bit better. I have plenty of Soviets to fill out a BMP mounted platoon. I have a box of BMPs from Team Yankee that need to be assembled. Not sure I even remember buying these. But the thought is to assemble three as BMP-2s and two as BMP-1s (to give to the Syrians). I have three painted and ready BMP-1s that are metal. Not really sure of the make at this point. Old Glory maybe? I also have a painted T-72 and a painted T-64 for my Soviet force. I also have a box of T-72s from Team Yankee. This is where my painted T-72 came from. The plan is to paint at least two of these for the Syrians above and the rest for the Soviets. I have an additional 3 unpainted T64s in metal as well. Possibly QRF or Old Glory, just not sure. For supports, I have a painted automatic grenade launcher and a heavy machinegun team. If I want to go with a later era force, I have six painted Soviets with under barrel grenade launchers.

Lastly, my Amerian force is doing pretty good. I have four M113s. Three are complete with MERDEC camo. The fourth has the base coat for the MERDEC that I never finished. I have a complete platoon of mechanized infantry ready to go. I do need to paint some additional riflemen but the force is largely complete. I also have a single painted M1 Abrams. It is not in MERDEC. I regret not painting it in the camo as the M113s came out really well. I do have the remainder of the Team Yankee box to assemble and paint as well.

I do know that I have a Cold War British platoon. I just couldn't find it. Somewhere in my games room are the miniatures that I got for Christmas several years ago. But I plan on getting some STL files for their FV432s and printing some up. I am not sure if I will get any British tanks to go with that force or not. Probably will get something that I will 3D print.

The only other force that I have is a contingent of 8 PLO militia men. With my current interest being actions of the IDF against the Syrians, I am not sure that any additional troops will be added here. Since the PLO wore a wide variety of uniform, adding in a few PLO militia into a Syrian platoon wouldn't really be totally out of place if I wanted to game some of the actions in Beirut.

All in all, these troops are in pretty good shape. I am happy with where they are and it was nice to work on miniatures again. It has been a while.

Just a reminder, since it is October, I am running my Annual Birthday sale. PLease stop by https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen and use coupon code Birthday2023 to get 50% off anything in the store.

Weekend Painting - AWI Again

I managed to finish off some more figures and get a good running start at some more.

First up is an eight man group of the Delancey Brigade. I started painting these up way back when I wrote This Land Divided. I had them at a 25% complete state since then and just finished them off this week. I did find that the thinner styrene sheeting that I used for my Sabot base did not work as well as the thicker sheeting did. The figures are not in as securely. I have another three incomplete sabot bases that i will probably abandon until I can get thicker styrene for.

The picture came out darker than I had expected it to. I need to figure out what I am doing wrong. May have to try to take some outside during the day sometime.

The next piece up is an outhouse. For the terrain that I am working on for my Marion campaign book, I needed a few out buildings as well as some larger pieces. I managed to paint the tiniest piece of terrain that I could and still say I did something. It is an old JR Miniatures cast. I found that I have another four of them in my drawer. Once that I started on has a big chip out of the side and will have to be thrown out. The others remain languishing with most of my other terrain.

Then lastly, I painted up and ink washed some British Legion Cavalry. They still need some matt varnish and basing but they are painted. They have only been on painting sticks now since Peter Pig launched their AWI line. They will be a great support element whenever I can finally get in a game.

I was not done with painting with these. I am also working on some old Blue Moon FIW buildings. I have a two story log cabin that I am putting together. I am trying something different. I did a black undercoating. Then I sprayed it with some brown camo paint that I had in the garage. The idea is that I can try to save a step with the spray. We will see how that goes. This building will represent a tavern that will appear in one of the scenarios.

That is it for this time. Hopefully, I will have more to show shortly.

Sharp Practice 2 and New Napoleonics Figures

Early in the month, I was cruising through eBay looking for a way to quickly update my Napoleonic troops. I was looking for some painted miniatures and came across a company from China. They are selling painted miniatures. They were selling some rather nice looking troops. I thought about getting some riflemen but decided on regular line infantry to fill out the ranks that I already have. Well for about $30, I picked up 24 very nicely painted miniatures. They arrived way quicker than the promised turn around time on eBay.

So I have eight fellows painted up to be in a center company. Six fellows who look to be grenadier company men and four guys in the light company. then there are two fellows in strange hats that I don't recognize yet. Any ideas out there? I could not find them on google but I honestly did not look that hard. My go to site: http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/ let me down.

They also came with an officer, a drummer, an ensign and a line sergeant. Very useful stuff here. They normally shipped based but I want to change up my existing basing to sabot basing with an 8 spot sabot and the figures mounted on small washers. A quick note on checkout and they showed up unbased. I could have probably told them buff facings too. Anyway, I will see how well they mix with my existing fellows. I know mine had buff facings and these guys are yellow so there will be some touch up.

I am very happy with my purchase and would be glad to buy from them again.

Other Stuff

I finished the first scenario for the new AWI scenario book. It is coming along quite nicely. Spent some miniature money on books for research. Been enjoying reading up on Marion and his battles. What I need are 2 playtesters who can run the scenarios and give me feedback. I am doing my testing in 15mm. I need to know if they will work as well in 28mm or 15mm from someone who does not have the ideas in his head and is reading too much between the lines that is not explicitly stated. Any takers? I just finished the battle at Great Savannah and am starting on the skirmish at Kingstree next.

Reassessing My Figures for Sharp Practice

As Sharp Practice 2 gets closer to being released, I decided to head over to the shelves and see what was lurking inside. I started with my Napoleonics. It has been forever since these have seen the light of day. Honestly, I was in better shape than I realized. I had purchased a slew of figures over time looking to do something impossible, make a 1 to 1 Battalion for both my British and my French. I remember painting night after night in an attempt to make it happen. I did not even come close. But, I have a good set of troops that are ready to go.

French Legere Battalion

I probably have the most figures painted for the French than anyone else. A historical unit at paper strength has:
4x Chasseur Companies of 70 to 140 men.

1x Voltigeur Company of 70 to 140 men.

1x Carabinier Company of 70 to 140 men.

Each company was composed of a Captain, 2 Lieutenants, a Sergeant-major, 4 Sergeants, a Furrier, 8 Corporals, 2 or 3 Drummers and 121 privates. On top of this was a color party of an eagle bearer, two sergeants with halbeards and 6 to 9 Sappeurs. It was commanded by a Chef d'bataillon (mounted), an Adjudant-Major (rank of captain), a Sous-Adjudant-Major ( rank of lieutenant), a Adjudant Sous-officer (a senior NCO), and a Drum Corporal.

So, what do I have ready? Well I have a full company of Chasseurs (the line company of the Legere (light) battalion. I have 72 men, four sergeants (two with fannions), two drummers, a trumpeter, two lieutenants and a captain.

I will apologize in advance for the pictures. I am working at night and am trying not to wake my family while I play with my toys. Thus, the lighting is terrible.

You can just make out the fannions in the picture. But that is only one company out of four. Well, I have the makings of more. I found two more painted officers waiting to be based. I also have fourteen men on painting sticks and two sergeants there as well. I also have a bugler among the waiting to be painted. I have a ziploc full of more miniatures to paint. I just might have enough to finish out two more companies if I get to it.

So for my grand plan of an entire battalion, well, that has fallen a bit short. I only have a single group of Carabiniers. There are nine of these brave men who are lead by a sergeant (the fellow next to the large rock). But I do have more of these fellows. Apparently, I had bought a big bag of them from Old Glory at some point. There has to be atleast 50 left in the bag. At the moment, I have 22 of them on Painting sticks. I also found a painting stick with two painted drummers and an officer for them. So if I ever break out the brushes, the Caribiners are sorted.

What about Voltigeurs? Well, they are not even basecoated. I have a whole 8 voltigeurs, plus two officers and a pair of drummers. Time to go back to AB miniatures and shop it seems.

What about the command staff. Well, I have one mounted officer painted and ready to go. I have a second mounted officer on a painting stick with a fellow that looks like an ADC. I also have my eagle bearer and sergeants all painted up.

The figures are better than my sorry photograph shows. These will be joined by three sappers that I have on a painting stick along with a drum major. These have not even been undercoated. But since I only have one company painted, it really does not matter.

But what Rich has mentioned is the supports that your base force can obtain. Well, I have a bit of kit. First I have a cannon with a four man crew. Yikes, this picture is awful.

But what about cavalry? Yes, I have some. I have 22 Chasseurs with a trumpeter, an officer and a standard bearer. They are complete but need their bases finished. Very nice minis that can be table ready in about an hours work plus drying time.

Given Rich's article, I am assuming that a base force is six groups of figures. Five groups of "line" troops (8 figures) and one of skirmishers (6 figures). Based on this, I have what I need for my French. What I don't have is my troops based very well for this. The French are too spread out. I can't really make groups of eight out of them as they are three to a base. It does work well to have them in groups of 9 as I can do their formations properly. Plenty of choices of big men are available. I will just have to work around this for the time being. I would love sabot bases but I would have to make them and rebase everyone. Yuck!

The British

My British are a generic light company. I have 60 men painted that are based in twos. I have another four that are at 80% complete. I have three sergeants for them and two officers. I'll do photos of them another night.

In terms of additional troops for the British, well they are out of luck. I have about half of a line company on painting sticks (36 men, 7 sergeants, two drummers and two sappers). I also have four officers, two drummers and a sergeant painted as well. For battalion staff, I have a mounted officer and a pair of standard bearers. I need to do some shopping. I have earmarked some British troops for my next pass through ebay.

What I lack is support option. I don't have any artillery for the British nor any cavalry. In terms of a base force, I have that with my light infantry company. I really would like to have some center company troops and then rebase some light company fellows to be individually based for skirmishing. But at this point, it works.

Conclusions

One thing I don't have yet is carts and baggage animals. I want a mule team. I think I have a generic cart somewhere that I can use. All I know is this, Sharp Practice is distracting me from finishing my terrain that I need to get done.

Planning Stages - Cold War gone Hot

Having received my Secret Santa present, my mind is whirring on what to do with it. I have three full squads of Cold War era Brits based on the TO&E that I found online. I need a few more packs for the Platoon Command section and four vehicles (FV432) to round out the base platoon. But what supports do they need or would likely have available? I am really unsure of what to get or even what would be reasonable.

For the Soviets, I have started expanding their forces. My order just came in from Eureka USA. I have a tripod mounted HGM and one of those automatic grenade launchers. Both only have a crew of 2 at this point, but a couple more guys with AKs would round them out. Both of those would be battalion level support elements. I am not sure what other support I should get them. Any ideas?

I also picked up their models with the Soviet equivalent of the M203 strapped under an AK. Not sure when those went into use with the Soviets. It may not be appropriate for an early 1980s force. Eventually I will buy some more armor for them. I want three T-62s and three T-72s for the armor. Enough that there is a platoon each. At the moment, I just have a single Syrian T-55 to proxy in.

My US force is coming together. I have ordered the miniatures for the infantry and am still waiting on them to arrive. I received my IrishSerb M113s. What I lack is armor and support weapons. What would be useful for troops based in Europe in 1982 or so?

Painting Accomplished

Last night I managed to finish off some more Desert Brits. I have an ATR team, a light mortar team, 2 weapon crew men, and a MMG team. I am also just a coat of matt varnish away from finishing a Bren Carrier as well.

The ATR team has a Peter Pig figure holding the Boys while the rifleman next to him is a QRF figure. The QRF figure is quite bland but blends well.

My impromptu survey yesterday gave mixed results so I went ahead and got some Zulus painted. I finished painting about 5 of them and have a good start on another 10. They painted up quite quickly. I really enjoyed painting them. I will post some pictures probably tomorrow when I have a chance to finish a few more. I will think about basing them later. I need to come to some decisions about that.

Finished Desert Platoon

The last of my desert British Squads are now complete. Here we have the platoon sergeant and the 8 man squad.

I also did some work on a Vickers MMG team and a Boys ATR team for the platoon as support elements. I am nearly done with this force.

I have only a few items left:
1) 8 Dead Desert Brits
2) 2" Mortar Team
3) Medic
4) 4 additional crewmen (2 for the 2-pounder and 2 for the MMG team)
5) A Bren Carrier
6) 2x A10 Cruiser Tanks
7) 2x Matilda II Infantry Tanks

Beyond this, I have a few spare figures that I am contemplating painting up as fillers for a few things. I need to buy a pack of Peter Pig 8th Army Engineers and I will just about have everything that I want. That would give me enough to field a full engineer squad.

Sorting through the Cabinet

My scattered mind was racing about last night. I did not have the patience to paint much but wanted to do something. So I started dragging drawers out of the cabinet and seeing what I had that was ready to go for a game. Much to my frustration, I tend to not finish things that I start on. So lets review what I found.

BEF Force
I started these for first IABSM then for Troops, Weapons and Tactics. I painted these up years ago. But frustratingly I never finished basing the miniatures. I have a full platoon infantry with a spare squad to boot. I have a number of vehicles including six Matilda tanks. Three each of type I and II. There are a number of Mark VI tanks and some incomplete Bren/Universal Carriers. I have no clue on how to tell the difference between the two. There there are a bunch of infantry that are still on painting sticks awaiting attention. I have enough troops to get in a game of Chain of Command at this point. I really need some engineering elements for just about all of the troops that I have.

I made an attempt at labeling the picture. It is not a great one but gives an overview. I have a 2" mortar team and a ATR Team as part of the platoon. I really only need a forward observer figure and some engineers to flesh out the force.

French 1940
These are in much rougher shape than the BEF troops. I found that I actually HAVE VB launcher troops! And they are painted! When did that happen? The bases definitely need work. The armor is largely undone. There are a bunch of them from a variety of manufacturers. The only ones I really can recognize is the FT-17 and Char B1bis tanks. I have one of those Lorraine carrier things, some 45mm ATGs and a single 25mm ATG. I have not taken the time to sort these out yet. That is on the to do list.

German Infantry
For the Germans I have a bunch of miniatures. At least half of these I painted. The other half were picked up here and there. I have vehicles and infantry painted up for a motorized company with one platoon mounted in halftracks. I lack 3 vehicles for one of the platoons to complete it out. I need to grab some from Gaming Models to just be done with it.

For supports, I have to turn to another tray. I have at least two squads of motorcycle troops, a squad mounted on bicycles, some mortar teams, several MMG teams, some loose engineering units, more dead/dying and a horse drawn limber. The motorcycle troops are some of my favorites. The bicycle troops were a nifty find. I think they were an E-Bay find. About two hours worth of work and all of this mess will be ready for the table.

Now in terms of armor, I have a little bit of that for my German troops. I mostly know what everything is but I just got too lazy to label it on the picture.

This gives me enough for both IABSM and Chain of Command sized games.

In each case, this is a picture of the drawer where I store the miniatures in. It is from a discarded sheet music rack that I was given from my church. It has three columns of shelves and each column has 10 or more shelves in it. It is ideal for 15mm and smaller miniatures. I know I can fit 28mm miniatures in the drawers as I own a total of 3 28mm figures. I will sort through the cabinet some more and see what else I find.

More Progress in the Desert

I just completed out the Italian Infantry Platoon with four more infantrymen. These will complete out the LMG teams with the added two riflemen per group. The other two infantrymen round out the MMG Support team. I changed how I was basing these. I used a thicker White Glue called "Tacky Glue" and then dipped in Sharp Sand. No odd holes appeared that needed to be filled. All in all I like these better. These are all Old Glory 15mm castings.

You can see that the British also got a reinforcement in the form of a Scout Car. The scout car was from Terry's collection and got a brand new coat of paint. I think it is a Battlefront/FOW miniature. My British forces now have A Bren Carrier and a Scout Car ready to go. I have my first squad waiting some drybrushing on the base and then they would be complete.

Chain of Command Armor

I actually managed to finish something today. The last bit of matte varnish went on this morning and it was dry when I went home for lunch. I completed out a Bren Carrier for the British and an M11 and a M13 tank for the Italians.

I did not bother to add any unit identification on these. I may go back and do that later but I am happy with them as they are now. Any other suggestions for these?

I have two more bren carriers to do. I want to make some crew for them that are removable. Next on the painting list are three Mark VI tanks for the British, a A10 cruiser tank and a Matilda II tank. I will probably finish off some more infantry first though.

Chain of Command: British Desert Forces

Welcome
I can't believe how many new followers that I have picked up lately. The current welcome goes out to Sebastofig and Vladdd309 of the Too Much Free Time blog. They are the latest to sign up for this site. I could not locate Sebastofig's blog but a hearty welcome and glad your here. Let me know if you have a site and I will post a link up for you.

Desert Brits
With nearly finishing the Italians, it is off to the British. I spent some time last night and selected a single squad to paint. These are being painted from the ground up so this is not as easy as doing the Italians who were already painted. The Auburn/FSU game was on the TV and time flew by. I was able to get the painting complete on the first squad and put on the ink wash this morning. I still have to put on a coat of matt varnish before basing these fellows. All in all, they are coming along very nicely. I will post a picture once they are based.

The goal for tonight is to paint the command elements. The officer, the 2" mortar team and the ATR teams are all started but I need to finish them off.

Tanks
Yes indeed, Tanks. I managed to get some paint slapped on an M13 and an M11 recently. About to add these to my totals for the year. Very happy with this so far. January and I have actually completed something. Need to paint the treads on these and they will be ready to go. Missing Minis
Well, in going through the lead pile, I realized that I am missing some figs that I need in order to finish off some platoons to have them ready for a game. So the question out there for you is do you have any of these in your bits box that you would be willing to part with?

I need:
1) 4 French infantry with vb launchers (15mm) Not picky on the manufacturer with these.
2) 4 British NCO types with rifles rather than SMGs for the desert. (15mm again) Prefer not to have Battlefront as they are a bit bigger than my poor Peter Pig Minis.
Anyone out there with spares they would be willing to trade?

Sorting through the shelves

Welcomes
I have three new followers on the blog. Please welcome Sgt.Steiner. Actually, I thought you were a follower Sergeant.

Next up is Gerhardt Vikar and Phil.

I can't seem to find a blog listing for any of you gentlemen so please let me know if I am missing one and I will post a link for you.

Update! I found Phil's blog: http://riflemens.blogspot.com. I just signed up for this one recently. He had some wonderful animations on pictures of his miniatures for the New Year.

Sorting through the Shelves
The TooFatLardies blog showing their recent North African games has made me sort through the closet looking at my East African collection. I had painted a number of miniatures in 15mm to use for my East African Campaign book "Call this a Ruddy Picnic". I ended up doing all of my play testing in 6mm for the scenario book. What I did have was several Chain of Command sized forces.

The Italians
First up is a platoon of Italian Regular army troops. I had bought the deluxe Old Glory 50 count bags of Italians. Love these figures. They have the sun helmets and just have lots of character. After years of neglect, all of the bayonets were still in place and the paint jobs had held up. I was very happy.

The second platoon to be made will be some Italian Colonial troops. I can't remember the manufacturer of these minis. They are great but limited to 2 poses. I had begun the process of rebasing them several years ago and made it as far as gluing about 18 of them to US Pennies. The rest remain on their bases. I have a standard bearer figure that I think I actually modified from something else and a bugler. I have just enough of these guys to make the rifle sections. What I lack is the LMG. Since I am doing the East African theater, I should only need one LMG for the whole platoon. They were short on automatic weapons, if I am remembering this correctly. I have spare figures from the Italian Regulars to provide the LMG team here. The rifle sections are larger but this will not be a very flexible force.

Next are some Bersaglieri figures. I was given some Bersaglieri from Terry Haney a few years before he died. These are nicely painted and based figures. They are on the FOW bases but they are the plastic ones so not that big of a problem. These will probably be the last to get changed over.

Vehicles for my Italian army are few. I have two Lancia IZM Armored cars. One is painted and the other is not. I have two M13s and three M11s, none of which are painted. Then I have five L3/33s. My absolute favorite tank. I have two versions, the 20mm AT Gun armed one and the dual MG armed one. I have one of each type painted. I only had one staff car in my collection but that went to the Eastern Front and won't see service in Africa.

Then I found the troops that I really liked but had never done anything with. A small Bande of Colonial Cavalry. I have 17 figures in total including a standard bearer, an officer and a trumpeter. These unfortunately are not painted. They are likely to languish in such a state for a while yet. I really want to paint these up though. I think a squad of cavalry would be an interesting support option for a Chain of Command platoon.

The British
Having found such excitement with the bounty of painted Italians, I rushed over to my drawer of British troops only to take a look and think, "Oh yeah. That's right, I never painted these." I have a full company of British Regulars and a company of what was to be some territorial troops such as the Kings African Rifles. None of which are painted. I put together my needs for an infantry platoon and now they are at least undercoated. Among the treasures in this box was a single bagpiper figure that someone had given me from the TooFatLardies Yahoo group. This will definitely get some paint this go round.

Then there are the vehicles. Well, I have a bunch of them. I have five Mark VI tanks, five Daimler Dingos, six Marmon Herrington IIIs, three Humber LRCIIIs and two 2lbr Portees. All of these I received from Terry Haney (minus 2 of the Marmon Harringtons which are still in the unopened package - those are mine). But none of these seem to have a desert paint job. They seem to be too dark. I remembered having some cruiser tanks somewhere as well as the above but I just can't find them. If I remember, they were assembled but unpainted.

Given the forces Great Britain had available in 1940 East Africa, I won't need them. But still I want to find out what I did with them. All in all, much worse shape with more work to do here.

Working through the first batch Breathing new life into figures that never saw a gaming table, I have been busy trying to fix several things that I did not like. One, they were all on FOW biscuit bases and I wanted them on individual bases. I was very lucky in not removing a finger or two in that operation. Using a wide bladed exacto knife, I pried them off of their bases. Fortunately some were on actual FOW plastic bases and those I could bend and get them off. Others were on wooden bases that were slightly thicker. Those took some time to remove.

I am re-basing my Italian Regulars on US Pennies first. The LMG teams will go on a small FOW plastic base with the gunner and ammo carrier. I had more then enough of these for a platoon. I even had a spare LMG team that will be used elsewhere. I opened my package of pumice gel to use to base the figures and the thing had dried completely up. Unsure of what to try next, I grabbed a container of white glue and some sharp sand and mixed them up and covered the bases. It was looking good. Then I let them dry overnight. Well, that did not work as expected. The sand/glue mixture ended up with large holes in it. In many places the sand could barely be seen. I would need to patch this up.

Remembering that once upon a time, I had a milk carton of plaster in the cabinet somewhere I went on a search. Unable to find the plaster, I found some model railroad mountain making stuff. Thinking that had to be kind of like plaster, I went to work. Upon mixing it up, it had the consistency of cottage cheese. I made do and pressed this mess into the holes on the bases and left it to dry. I am dubious as to how well this would work.

As it turns out, not too bad. I definitely am not a huge fan of these bases but they are done. Pardon the photos. I took them quickly with my phone just to prove I did do something.

The Platoon leader:

The First Rifle Section:

The Second Rifle Section:

The Platoon Sergeant and LMG Groups:

Support Items:
These include an MMG Team, a 45mm Mortar team and 3 man Engineer Demolitions team.

The 45mm mortar is scratch built. It is not bad on the table but not the best job in the world. Old Glory did not have a light mortar team in any of the packs that I had purchased so I made this one up. The sharp eyed among you will spot the problem. I am lacking the four riflemen that are to accompany the LMG sections. Not sure how I managed to miss them. Also the MMG team should have two rifle men in support there as well. I will get that sorted out in short order. Hopefully I can get started on them tonight with the unpainted 65m Mountain Gun and 20mm AT Rifle team.

Coastal Patrol - Figurehead Merchantmen

The last post featured the Italian MAS boats. Now I have completed some merchantmen.

The tanker is a small coastal tanker of some 750 tons. The ship is was modeled after is the Ben Read. This must have been a hard luck ship as it ran aground twice in its career. The second time proved fatal to the tanker.

Then there are two trawlers. These to my eye looked similar to the Canadian Battle Class trawlers. So I painted them using their gray scheme.

The last of the merchantmen is a tramp steamer modeled after the Belford. This is the same length as the tanker as the original was 135' in length.

I am experimenting with adding additional waves on the base other than the bow wave and the wake. I am not sure how well this is turning out.

These should prove to be useful for coastal games. Next on to the British.

Coastal Patrol - Figurehead Miniatures

I have finished basing the MAS boats. The first 4 were the early 501 - 526 models. The pictures were taken with my cell phone and did not come out badly considering. The ships themselves are under and inch long.

I am not sure if the Italians used the candy striping on the MAS boats or not. I thought I would add it anyway.

As you can see from the pictures I have finished assembling the merchant ships as well. There are two trawlers (the two on the right), an oil tanker and a tramp steamer (far left).

Again, apologies for the picture quality. These are not much longer than the MAS boats. The masts come separately and with both the tramp and the tanker, the bridges were separate structures that had to be glued in place. The tramp came with painting instructions. For the oil tanker, I will take a few liberties with it.

My father served aboard two oil tankers as a summer job during college and again after graduation. I still have his Merchant Marine card. He served aboard the Esso Pittsburgh and Esso Providence. I also happen to have a book on the Esso tankers that served during the Second World War. I will base the painting scheme for the oil tanker from the Esso Pittsburgh.

Note that the Esso Pittsburgh and Esso Providence are both 4 to 5 times the length of the coastal tanker that I have a model for. I wonder if there is a 1/1250th model for larger tankers? At 100' to the inch, that would put the Pittsburgh at over 5" in length as a model.

In 1949, my father stood on the deck of the Esso Pittsburgh and watched columns of Egyptian troops move across the Suez Canal to invade Israel. It is fun to have a hobby where you can learn history and family at the same time.

Coastal Patrol

Well the Summer Special from the TFL has come and struck me with another diversion. Jumping into a new set of miniatures I have purchased some 1/1250th scale ships from Figurehead miniatures.

My order with Last Square arrived very quickly from the time I ordered. The ships were rather detailed for their size and painted up very quickly. I am basing these on computer motherboard material that I had laying around the garage. Because my ship recognition skills are virtually non-existent, I will be labeling the rear area of the base with the definition of what the ship is. I have painted the first 4 MAS boats and am in the middle of basing them now.

Once these are finished, I will move on to the merchantmen. The larger ships have details that need to be glued on to them. These have the potential to be a bit fiddly and look to be the more daunting of the ships. I picked up a pair of trawlers, a tanker and a tramp cargo ship. These should make for some interesting games for the Mediterranean. Convoy interception and the like.

The British ships I picked up are all small vessels like the MAS boats so they should go quickly - Harbour Defense motor launches, Vosper MKIIs and some MBG-50s.

The one disappointment is that I cannot find 1/1250th scale models of the older MAS boat types such as the MAS 200 series. These were very prevalent in the backwater regions such as East Africa.

They do have larger ships from the Figurehead line that include destroyers. Those and some Italian sailboats could prove interesting to have on the table.