Tomahawks Completed

I finished the last four Tomahawks this week. They look OK but the paint scheme is slightly darker than the originals. But I will just assume those are replacement aircraft that have not started to bleach out in the sun. I painted the markings on them again. Would rather use decals but I wanted them done.

That leaves the three Blenheim IVs, four Hurricanes and eight Gladiators to complete out my British forces. That will complete my current desert forces. Very excited to see this come this close to being done.

Weekend Roundup: Battlefield Walk and Painting

It was a good weekend. I was able to get out to the Kettle Creek battlefield over the weekend. The DAR has done a fantastic job of taking care of the battlefield. It is now listed as an archeological site and a graveyard. They have found 29 bodies buried on the property. There is a really nice trail that goes around "war hill" where little of the fighting took place. The trails leading to where Clarke, Pickens and Dooley advanced on Boyd's position are overgrown. I learned a bunch about the topography of the battlefield to the point, I want to redo the scenarios. Much of the land was pasture in 1779. Now, most of the property is wooded with new growth timber. You can still get a good idea of how the battle took place. Also, it was good to get a perspective on how deep Kettle Creek is and was with the research that has been done on the site.

When I wrote "This Land Divided," the battlefield was not very accessible. People knew where it was and amatuer archeologists with metal detectors had dug up a number of artifacts including some cannon balls for a small caliber gun. Now that is prohibited on the site. It is part of the national battlefield trust. Archeology is carefully handled now. I am looking forward to going back.

I did get some painting done over the weekend. The last of the British are all lined up. The bellies and topcoats are done for the Tomahawks, Hurricanes and Blenheim IVs. I still have to glue the magnets to the Gladiators before moving forward on them. I also managed to base coat my East Front Germans. I won't move on those until the Gladiators are finished.

It was a pleasant weekend.

More Painting Progress - Blenheim Is and Cr.32s

The Blenheims Is came out OK. The British camo paterns are not very difficult but I think these are darker than my original aircraft that I did. I probably have a more European scheme than desert. But it is close enough.

The Cr.32s I had in a different base coat to start. I didn't like it and went with a different one based on the recommendation of my app. I like how these turned out enough. One day, I may get decals for these planes instead of painting them but for now this is enough.

I also managed to glue magnets to the four Hurricanes, the four Tomahawks and the three Blenheim Ivs. I also have the eight Gladiators ready to go. My thought with the gladiators was to give them an earlier paint scheme where the bottom of the aircraft is half black and half white. I think that the Gladiators in Greece may have had that but it has been a while since I looked that up. So that is just 19 more aircraft for the Western Desert. I think I have enough painted to finish the campaign. I had bought some flak emplacements. I started to paint one and stopped. I would like to get a couple of those done at some point. I want to reaquaint myself with the bombing rules again over the weekend. I want that to be part of the next day's missions for Operation Battleaxe.

MC.200s Complete

With the last 3 MC.200s painted, the Squadrillia is now complete.

I now have 12 of these ready to go. While working on them, I also managed to finish a Lysander. The example that I had, didn't show roundels on the top of the aircraft, only the sides. I started on the second Lysander but didn't finish it. Instead of finishing the last 3 Cr.32s, I started on the four Blenheim Is. I have the base paint on them and still need the camo, markings and windows to paint.

At this point, for the desert, I have the following to finish:

Aircraft

Number
Blenheim I	4
Blenheim IV	3
Cr.32	3
Lysander	1
Ro.37bis	2

I may or may not paint both of the Ro.37s. I am not sure how useful they would be. There are a number of bomber that I lack a full squadrilla of for the Italians and a full squadron for the British. The Germans also lack enough Bf110s and Ju88s for a full Staffel. I am not sure that I really want to flesh these out. I want to get these done and start to work on the East Front aircraft that I have bought.

Once the Blenheims are painted, they should be in my next game.

Pico Armor Order Received

Once again, Pico Armor delivered quickly. I spent the afternoon cleaning up the He111s that I received. I now have 8 of them. In addition, I got my pack of I-16s bringing that total up to 18 of them and a pack of SB bombers. I think I now have 12 SB bombers. This gives me a good mix of aircraft for the work I am doing on the Ustilug supplement. I have some painting to do. I have all of the German aircraft prepped and ready to prime.

For the End of my Operation Battleaxe campaign, I have one more game for the current day and then I need to roll up the second day. I should have the Mc.200s completed this week. I also should be able to get my Blenheims and Lysanders as well. The Hurricanes and Tomahawks need magnets glued to them. Hopefully, I can get to those as well. In total, I can really see my desert collection coming together. The pictures I took were off center not worth posting. Hopefully, I can get these knocked out and get some good pictures of the aircraft.

Desert Painting and Soviet Cards for Bag the Hun

I have a set of cards for Italians, British and Germans for North Africa that all share the same format. I downloaded a set of Soviet Cards from the Facebook group but they are very different from my existing cards. Also they don't have enough cards. I managed to edit the British cards that I have in the PDF and create a matching set of Soviet cards. They came out pretty good. I updated the graphics on them to show Soviet aircraft and pilots and printed them out. This is a good step closer to getting ready for some East Front games.

The Father's Day weekend gave me an opportunity to get some painting done. I managed to complete 8 Cr.42s for the Italians. I have one more that is partially painted. I would like to pick up two more of these to finis out the squadrillia. The Cr.42s are from Pico Armor and were fun to paint up. I had three previously painted ones that I touched up and matched them with the new ones. Now I have 9 aircraft complete.

Then I did some work on the G.50 aircraft that I purchased from Pico Armor. I am not happy with the paints selected by the paint matching tool for these for the base color of the upper surface. But I do not want to redo them. I am not very proud of these.

I am getting so close to completing my Italians. I have just three Cr.32s that I have started and an additional three Mc.200 that are left. I managed to get the underside and the surface paint on them. The camo, nose paint and markings are left.

While waiting on the paint to dry on those, I started on my remaining British. I got the underside painted on some Blenheim Is and the Lysanders.I need to mount magnets on the four Tomahawks, the four Hurricanes and three Blenheim IVs.

I also have been looking at Maps. Specifically maps of eastern Poland/Western Ukraine from around 1941. I am using them to locate the areas where Soviet air bases were located on the morning of June 22nd. I have a wonderful document that I found by Henry L deZeng IV. It is "Luftwaffe Airfeilds 1935-45 Russia (Incl. Ukraine, Belarus & Bessarabia). It is dated 2020. It has some coordinates for the airfields. I am able to get a pretty good idea of where they were and what they looked like. Using Google Maps, you can get an idea of the landscape they were in. Of the ones I have looked up, little remains.

The reason for this is to figure out what kinds of targets would be at the airfields. This will inpact future bombing missions. I started laying out the Germans that I have for the Eastern Front. The Ju88s that I had 3d printed look good but do not match with the three that I have painted up for the desert. I will not use any of these for the desert. But I will have 15 Ju88 aircraft for the Eastern Front. This would give me a full Staffel of bombers and a Stab element. I am looking forward to getting started on these.

I also have received my MiG-3s from Pico Armor as well. They were all metal but what is interesting, the wings and the fuselage are separate for these where the first set I received came together. Both have the same packaging and the same part numbers.

Anyway, progress has been made.

Latest Pico Armor Order

My next round of East Front reinforcements just showed up from Pico Armor. It is another pack of MiG-3 fighters. This will give me more than a squadron of fighters for the Soviets. In researching the version 2 of the Ustilug supplement, I am looking into the air campaign portion as well. Over Ustilug, the Soviets of the 14SAD didn't have any MiG-3s sadly. They were largely equipped with the I-16 and I-153 fighters and some SB bombers.

I have a single pack of I-16s (8) and a pack of SB bombers (6). I believe that I have a pack of Tumbling Dice I-15s laying around that I had ordered but are just in a drawer somewhere. I should have enough to get started for the Ustilug air campaign. May want a few more of each aircraft that I currently have. I wet ahead and placed a Pico Armor order for a pack of He111s (bringing that total to 8 aircraft, a pack of SB bombers (bringing that total to 12) and another pack of I-16s (bringing that total to 16).

While I do not have enough He111s for a full Staffel (8 of 12), it is enought to get started. I will need to play test some bombing missions. For the Soviets, I have a full squadron of 12 for the SB Bombers and more than a squadron of I-16s. This will perfectly match the aircraft of the 14 SAD.

According to http://niehorster.org/012_ussr/41_oob/kiev/air.html, the 14th SAD had the following:

As can be seen by the numbers, the strength of each unit could vary wildly at this point of the war. There was a modernizzation effort underway and it is possible that newer aircraft were coming to replace the older equipment at the start of Operation Barbarossa. On the German side, V FliegerKorps had three different groups of bombers and a single group of fighters. I have the Bf109Es but do not have any Bf109Fs. I think I will go with the E Model for now and pick up some Fs later. I have some spare Ju88s that a friend had 3d printed for me. I have 3 metal ones from Pico Armor and some upscaled 3d printed one That the original model was in 1/900 scale. If thesa match well enough with my existing models, I may look at doing some others. V FliegerKorps not only had Ju88s, they also had He111s. With the mentioned purchase above, I will have 8 total. That puts me one pack away from having a full staffel.

The next part will be how to represent bombing targets. One thought would be something drawn on felt. Use the overall shape of the hexes and cut out something that would lay on top of the mat. In Bag the Hun, it mentions ships as targets. That Nick used 1/600 scale aircraft and 1/1200 scale ships. I may try that as an option.

I need to wrap up my current campaign first though before I paint anything for Operation Barbarossa.

Monday, June 15, 2026

Weekend Painting

It was nice to have some time this weekend to get some paint on miniatures. I focused on the Bf110Cs for the desert. I managed to get two schwarms of 4 done, which is good as that was all that I had. I only need to buy 4 more to complete the staffel.

I think I had posted this earlier but I had finished a Ju52 and three Ju88s for the desert as well.

I got some Ju88s from Wargaming3d and had a friend print off some for me. These were originally 1/900 scale that were increased to 1/600 scale. I should pick them up tomorrow. He printed way more than I had asked for. I will have more than enough to have an entire staffel for the desert and enough left over for a few for the Eastern Front.

I have been making some really good progress with my desert collection. Here is everything I have so far. There are a number that are primed but not painted yet. But that number is far less than it was.

With what I have finished, I will have my desert forces done by the end of the summer, I think. That means the fall will be back to the Eastern Front.

Friday, June 12, 2026

Operation Battleaxe - Day One Afternoon actions Game 5

Somewhere I lost my notes on who was flying what. So for Game 5, the 3 SAAF will be flying a patrol over the front. They will intercept a a flight of incoming Germans and their dive bombers. So far, the SAAF has 3 aircraft out of action. Two aircraft are damaged. Another was a total loss with the pilot killed.

Unit	Location	Aircraft
HQ	Rovno
17	Lyubitov	26x I-16; 26x I-153
46	Dubno	56x I-16 & I-15
52	Ovruch	45x SB
89	Lutsk	71x I-16
253	Rovno	14x I-153

Pilot	Status	Kills	Campaign Missions Flown	Flight
Major Zayden de Beer	Veteran	1	0	Red I
Captain Adiel Hertzog	Regular	0	0	White I
Lieutenant Androw FitzSimmons	Regular	0	0	Yellow I
Lieutenant Francois van Wyk	Regular	0	0	Red II
Lieutenant Bertie Morgan	Sprog	0	1	White II
Lieutenant Wincuf Pinckney	Veteran	2	0	Yellow II
Lieutenant Luca Hanekom	Regular	0	0	Red III
Lieutenant Archie McKenzie	Regular	0	0	White III
Lieutenant Josh O'Brien	Sprog	0	0	Yellow III
Lieutenant Stephen Reynolds	Sprog	0	0	Red IV

In the center of the table will be a British Lysander that is returning from a reconnaissance mission.

Pilot Offier Smith, Regular Pilot, Blue I

At the same time, a Staffel of German aircraft (not the player staffel) are escorting a reduced staffel of Ju87s.

Fighters:

Schwarm	Pilot Status
White I	Jr Ace
White II	Regular
White III	Sprog
White IV	Veteran
Black I	Regular
Black II	Veteran
Black III	Regular
Black IV	Sprog
Blue I	Jr Ace
Blue II	Sprog
Blue III	Sprog
Blue IV	Sprog

Dive Bombers:

Schwarm	Pilot Status
Blue I	Veteran
Blue II	Regular
Blue III	Sprog
Green I	Veteran
Green II	Regular
Green III	Sprog
Yellow I	Regular
Yellow II	Regular
Yellow III	Sprog

This will be the largest game I have run as a solo Bag the Hun game. I think I have all of the stands prepared that I will need. I have cards for these as well. I will have to take dillegent notes or i will be lost in short order. After this, there is one more game with the German Scwarm taking center stage. After that, I will have to see who is left to fly for the second day.

New Paint Sets

My wife ordered some paint sets for me for Father's Day. The Soviet Paint set came in earlier. Yesterday, she gave me two Luftwaffe sets, one for the desert and one that I can use for the Eastern Front. I broke out the paints and got to work on my remaining Germans. The "SandGelb" in the set is a bit darker than that of the previous aircraft that I had painted up. The blue for the undercarriage looked about the same. I started work on three Ju88s, a pair of Hs126s and the first two Bf110Cs. I might be able to get these knocked out over the weekend. I have some good reference pictures and it looks like I can get away withe minimal camo on these aircraft. That will probably only be for the better.

Anyway, very excited about getting these moving. Knocking out these last few Germans should be stright forward. For the Italians, I have 3x Cr32s left to paint, 8x Cr42s, 7x G.50sand the 3-6x Sm.79s. The British need a pair of Lysanders, and some Blenheim Bombers to go. I think I will also paint up my remaining Hurricanes and Tomahawks. By the end of the summer, I should have all of my desert aircraft painted (that I currently own). Having no self control, I may end up ordering more. I am trying to see if I can order some individual aircraft but I am not holding my breath.