Terrain Coming Along Nicely

I have gotten in some good days of painting lately. This has felt really good to have gotten stuff done. First up is the last of the Red Vectors buildings.

Next up is the Things From the Basement Shed and Blacksmith shop. I really like these buildings. They are more delicate than the Red Vectors but have more personality to me. I don't think my paint job is up to the quality of the models. I have several more houses to do and their fences. I hope to make more progress next week. Its going well.

Next up is the insanely small 15mm chicken coop from Things from the Basement. It was a tough build and I have two more to do. I loved it so much, I had to paint some livestock as well. I managed 4 pigs and three chickens. I think the livestock is from Donnington Miniatures but could be wrong. I need more chickens. A big thank you to all who helped me paint the pigs. Apparently, it is hard to go wrong. I googled Ukrainian pigs and found some gray pigs with black spots and went with that.

This brings me to show off the pigs in their new home, my previously painted sty. They seem rather content.

Next up on the bench is some more Things From the Basement Houses, fences, and some older fences that I never bothered to paint yet. Once that is all done, I plan on working up my tables for Second Kharkov. I am getting close.

New Book

I have been looking for a good background for a Chain of Command campaign. I wanted to do something on the Eastern Front in 1941. I have plenty of material to do one for the Italians in August/September but I wanted something much earlier. A little bit of Google-ing had me find the Battle of Brody in the first Month of the war. It was a huge battle that ranged over a 1800 square mile area. Within this space were some 650 German tanks and 180 Assault Guns against some 1500 Soviet tanks. The battle was a triangle between the towns of Lutsk, Dubno and Brody.< P> This is way too big an area to even try to fool with for Chain of Command. But surely there are lots of accounts of the fights that took place there, right? Honestly I have no idea. But thanks to ABEBooks.com, I have gotten the book The Bloody Triangle: The Defeat of Soviet Armor in the Ukraine, June 1941 by Victor J Kamenir. Since it just arrived, I have nothing really to say about it. It is probably at too high of a detail but I am hoping it will give me pointers to what I really need to look at.

Anyone have any recommendations for Regimental Histories or the like for this battle?

A lonely chapel

I managed to get some painting done this week. It is the lovely Iron Clad Miniatures chapel. This is a small chapel that could not hold more than a few people inside. Something that might be found in a remote farming community. I tried to paint it so that it looks like an abandoned building that has not been used since 1929.

Other than it being tiny, I really like this chapel. It turned out better than I thought it would. Ideally I would like a larger church building for my east front games. But this should do with the existing rural buildings that I have.

CSIR Scenario Pack - Progress at last

I had hit a wall with this. I looked for any excuse to work on something else. Anything. But finally I am in a mindset to resume work. Reading through what I had written about the Stalino Campaign of October 1941, I realized that I had skimmed over too much.

Most of the work today has been translating elements of e operazioni delle unita italiane al fronte russo (1941 - 1943) (3rd Edition - 2000). It is a great general reference for the actions of the CSIR. Tomorrow, I hope to go back through my notes from the regimental history of the 80th Roma Regiment. If things go well, I should have the text finished in another week. More importantly, I will have nothing left to work on but the scenarios.

I need to work on a couple of good maps for each of the sections showing the distances that the troops covered largely on foot as they advanced across the Ukraine.

Anyway, it feels good to make progress on a project that has been in progress for 5 years now.

Italians in the East: Pokrowskoje

I stumbled across a very interesting site: http://www.wwii-photos-maps.com. This has both Soviet and Pre-War German maps of Eastern Europe. I was able to find a 1:50,000 scale maps of the first two battles fought by the Italians in Russia.

The map above is taken from the map L36-16C from that site. In addition to that, I have finally been able to translate some of the Regimental history that I have for the 80 Roma Regiment. The regiment was mounted using the all truck transport allotted to the Pausubio Division and the Torino Division. This enabled them to keep the timetable set for them to move from Voznesensk toward the port town of Nikolaiev. The terrain was very difficult with the roads nearly dissolved in the rain and the constant threat of a Russian attack from the rear guard troops. August 11, 1941 - The Battle for Pokrowskoje The Battle for Pokrowskoje was begun when elements of the 1st Bersaglieri Motorcycle Company was performing a reconnaissance of the town. From the descriptions that I have found of this reconnaissance, it appears that it is possible that only one rider was forward rather than the whole company. Bersaglieri Alfredo Santino Lutri and his riding partner were leading the reconnaissance element when they triggered an ambush by the Russians. Apparently, his partner (Germano Narduzzi) was hit early on in the ambush. According to his medal citation, Lutri, continued his mission and returned back to his company commander to report his findings even though he himself was wounded. He insisted that Narduzzi was seen to before he had his wounds examined. While brave, it ultimately led to his own death. His actions provided vital intelligence to the Pausubio Division as it advanced on the town of Pokrowskoje. His actions of putting his wounded partner first sealed his fate and earned the young man the first Gold Bravery Military Medal of the war in Russia. Interestingly, Lutri's remains had been buried in an Italian Military graveyard in the Ukraine for 60 years. In 2001, as part of the improving relationship with the Ukraine and Italy, many of the Italian dead have been brought back to Italy. Lutri's body was one of those returned. As part of the remembrance ceremonies, a play was written to celebrate the man's life and his selfless actions on his final day. Once the information was relayed back to the Colonel Epifanio Chiaramonti, of the 80th Roma Regiment, the 3rd Battalion of Major Minchiotti was dispatched to deal with the Russian rear guard. He was reinforced with the 75mm/27 artillery from the 3rd Battalion/8th Artillery Regiment (Pausubio Division), the battery of the 80th Regiment's 65mm/17 artillery and the Bersaglieri Motorcycle Company. The description from Armando Rati's "L'80° Fanteria. La lunga Storia Eroica di un Reggimento Mantovano Diventata Leggenda" does not mention the presence of the 141st Anti-Tank Company. Other sources do mention the presence of the 141st at this first encounter. Rati does mention that they were approached by seven Russian tanks that were driven off by the guns of Captain Caranci. It is unsure if Captain Caranci is from the 141st Anti-Tank company or the battery commander the Divisional 75mm guns. It is not likely that he is the battery commander of the 65mm guns from the Regiment as his name does not appear on the officer roll presented by Rati in his book. I need to search for this name earlier in the book to see if I can find out more. This (Rati's) is the only account of this battle where the Russian tanks are mentioned. Most record the battle of Jasnaja Poljana as where Russian tanks appear. Instead Rati mentions the presence of Russian Armored Cars at the later battle and no Tanks. One other interesting tidbit from this all to brief account of the battle, Rati mentions that the Battalion was lead by its scouts (esploratori). Some wondering of what such a unit was, I went to http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com for some answers. They list the scouts as consisting of 1 Officer and 42 men. The best guess of this unit was that it was divided into three large squads of 14 men each. It does not appear that these men had any kind of support weapons such as a light machine-gun. This presents an interesting unit to attempt to field on the table top. Rati's book contains a nice picture of Italian troops clearing the town of Pokrowskoje on page 72.

The end result of this first battle was the loss of 2 men killed and another three wounded for the Italians. As to Russian losses, this is completely unknown. Rati mentions that many corpses were found the next day and that the enemy fell back to Jasnaja Poljana, the sight of the 80th Roma's second battle. Given this, it is possible to make a guess that the unit fought on the 11th was 469th Rifle Regiment. One of the few accounts where the Russian unit that was fought has been made clear. I will be making a series of scenarios using this information. Another interesting source that I found was the diary of a medical orderly from the Pausubio Division (http://www.maserada.com/pasubio.htm). He notes that the first action of the division took place in a field of sunflowers. Rati places Jasnaja Poljana as a battle field that was between wheat and sunflower fields. The map at the top shows field boundaries. It is quite possible that both battles took place mostly outside of the towns themselves. I am trying to figure out if I will be making this into a scenario booklet through the TFL's or just releasing bits and pieces out in Specials or attempting to publish it myself.