Monday 18 March 2024

Great War Spearhead II - Gallipoli 1915 in 20mm (part 10): Australian infantry

 


The Australian WW1 infantry from Hat that showed up in 2003 was a nice addition to their WW1 range. The figures are beautifully modelled and very elegant. Before this box being produced I was thinking to use some Airfix Australians (with slight changes in the ammunition pouches)  and Airfix WW1 British infantry with Aussie heads instead. A small group of these were included in this brigade. 


The Airfix Australian figures are smaller than the Hat ones but go along with them reasonably. The Airfix officer had its scabbard taken out and the sword melted and cut to the shape of a pistol. 


The three types of figures side by side. As you can see in the rear left figure (Airfix Australian) you need a few cuts in the 1937 ammo pouches in order to turn it into the P08 WW1 model. This figure also got a bayonet stuck into the rifle. 


One Emhar officer also entred the ranks due to its position favouring the company of other marching figures. 


The Vickers MMGs are WW2 British Hat with Aussie heads from Airfix. The Airfix range is in fact a good source of heads as when they were made the idea was mostly diorama building and not wargaming. Thus you have plenty of useless figures (for wargamers at least) that can donate parts of their bodies to science, sorry, to wargaming. 


Before painting. In fact you have the same type of position in the WW1 Hat Anzac support box but these were just hanging around without much prospect of ever being used (and they are cheaper this way). 



The brigade command stand is all Hat but the left figure is in fact a WW2 Polish officer with an Airfix head. 

Next: Anzac beach, Gallipoli 1915


Saturday 16 March 2024

Great War Spearhead II - Gallipoli 1915 in heerr... 1/1 scale (part 9):X beach (Implacable beach) on the 25th of April




X beach was another landing spot that became problematic not only due to the small beach (180m X 20m maximum at its centre) but also due to the shoal water, reefs and winds which did not allowed for an easy traffic. Even so it was the landing point for the 2/ Royal Fusiliers that only faced, initially, 12 turkish soldiers. This beach was also a good spot to unite with other beaches at Cape Helles area. Later this bridgehead was counterattacked by the Turkish several times and those actions make some interesting wargames scenarios. 


The beach was used as logistical area and field hospital with a cemetery close by.  


In this sketch by Cpt Lockyer you can see the reef, the shoal waters and the narrowness of the beach.  


One of the stars of this beach was HMS Implacable which was essential to the landing by carrying the Fusiliers and supporting them with its fire and to fend off several Turkish counterattacks both at X and Y beaches on the next few days. Another reason I'm posting this picture is to see if I gain courage to scratch build the thing... 


The shoal waters are clearly visible from the top of the cliff and this was one of the reasons why X beach was discarded as an evacuation point in january 1916. 


On top of the beach you can read the Turkish side of the story with a natural emphasis on the Turkish feats of arms, which in fact were something in this campaign. 


On top of the cliff there are still some remains of what looks to me as probably British trenches. 


The southern side of the beach is even more complicated with some non boat-friendly reefs. Modelling this beach must be quite challenging 

Next: an  Australian brigade for Gallipoli 1915. 

Thursday 14 March 2024

Great War Spearhead II - Gallipoli 1915 in 20mm (part 8): British infantry with Service Dress Cap


The majority of British and Anzac infantry at the Gallipoli landings of the 25th of April had the Service Dress Cap with no Brodie helmets arriving, apparently, during the campaign. For many decades the only source of early British infantry was Airfix. Not bad figures but with several relatively useless figures for wargaming, that at least can be a good source of heads. In recent days Hat released a small box with 32 beautiful early British infantry figures and all these were mixed together with conversions from the Emhar late war figures . 


Airfix (olive green), Hat (bottle green) and Emhar (grey) are all very different both in design as in size (Hat are large 1/72 while others are closer to normal 1/72). The surplus Airfix figures gave heads to the Emhar figures and backpacks to the Hat ones. 


In order to create a certain uniformity the Airfix figures got bayonets from stiff fibers taken from a plasticbroom stick . They were glued with superglue, then primed like the rest of the models with black acrylic and PVA glue and, finally varnished which made a strong bond between the the two types of plastic. 


The Airfix charging figure got the company of an Hat Anzac officer and two Hat figures. 


The Emhar Vickers MMG No1 crewman got an Airfix head. The two other are Airfix without any change. 

Next: X beach, Gallipoli 1915

Saturday 9 March 2024

Impetus Rules - Mohacs 1526, part 11 - Revell conversions for Ottoman artillery in 20mm

 


RedBox or Mars are really hard to find these days so, in order to have some artillery for my XVI century Ottoman army, I made some conversions on the figures of the Revell box of the 30YW artillery. 


These consisted on large Greenstuff trousers and sashes on many of the figures as well as several of  the obvious turban and Fez. The Fez was made by simply cutting the brim of the hat all around . As there was plenty of Balcanic influence in Ottoman artillery I left some of the figures with the original trousers and wide hats making some cuts here and there for it to look with some contemporary images.  


Here you can see (?) the GreenStuff applied on the headdress but not on the trousers and sashes as these ones were a later decision. 

Next: The British Infantry in Metropolitan uniform for Gallipoli. 

Thursday 7 March 2024

Great War Spearhead II - Gallipoli 1915 in heerr... 1/1 scale (part 7): W beach (Lancashire´s beach) on the 25th of April




“The scene on W Beach was like Dante’s Inferno; a terrible sight. Wounded were calling out for help and there were several heaps of bodies, about 20 or 30 in each heap. We lined up on the beach, but the Turks started shelling and we were troubled by shrapnel, so we made our way to a position on the slope above the beach”.




W Beach (Tekke bay for the Turks) is famous for its "six VCs before breakfast" and was an awful place of carnage for the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers, 29th infantry division, who lost 709 men killed and wounded out of 1029. This picture is taken from the Turkish trenches manned by a company of 240 men with a machine-gun (the Turkish sources deny the existence of this MG, but other sources even speak of two MGs which allowed for enfilade fire...). 


At the beach itself there are plenty of remnants of these days, particularly several boats and pieces from the two artificial piers built by the British.


The boat remnants from the previous picture is probably this one circled in red. 


The Turkish defences not only had trenches but also mines and barbed wire at water line. The casemates and pill box you can see in this picture  are from the 40s and prepared for eventual WW2  and not contemporaneous of this action. The stone structures to the right are the remnants of one of the piers. 


Aproximately from the same spot as in the previous picture there is this photo that shows how busy was X beach during the rest of 1915/beggining of 1916. In fact this beach was one of the main evacuation spots for the entire campaign when it was realized how bad things were. 


The beach has a semicircular shape and its quite high on its exits which is  ideal for defence. 


From the beach you can see the road built by the British starting at sand beach level and continuing almost to the top and then to the east. 


The second wave of assault, after seeing the dreadful casualties suffered by the first wave decided to veer a bit to the west and disembark at this spot of the beach, very close the casemates built years later. 

Next: British infantry for 1914-15 in Metropolitan uniform.

Monday 4 March 2024

Great War Spearhead II - Gallipoli 1915 in heerr... 1/1 scale (part 6): V beach on the 25th of April

This is a general view of V beach at Cape Helles, the place for the landing of the I/ Royal Dublin Fusiliers, I/ Royal Munster Fusiliers and two companies of the II/ Hampshire Regiment on the 25th of April 1915. The Turkish defenders were only around one company of 100 men. They had other companies in reserve to the rear and, specially, several Maxim HMGs placed on both the Sedd-el-Bahr fort (seen close to the horizon line in the centre) and Ertugrul fort (Western side) from were this picture was taken. In previous naval bombardments the 10 artillery pieces of the two forts were mostly silenced.  The beach is only 270 m long and very prone to HMG cross-fire. In the 1931 movie "Tell England" you can see the dreadful effect of the Turkish machine guns on the men exiting SS River Clyde through the sally ports and gangways. Years later the famous Omaha beach will have WN 61 and WN72 with their 88mm PAK guns doing the same. 

Red arrow- Barbed wire field (only noticed about it after seeing the diorama on the northern defences of V beach); nowadays occupied partially by the local Commonwealth military cemetery. 
Blue arrow - The place where SS River Clyde, turned into a sort of landing craft, disembarked its soldiers.
Green arrow - The  sandbank where many Irish and English soldiers looked for shelter (in fact the arrow should be pointing a bit more up and to the left into the darker division on the beach but I still don't know very well how this damn thing works).



Reconstituted Turkish trenches maybe a bit too perfect. I´ve seen older pictures of the previous set of reconstituted trenches and it looked better than these ones. 


The view with a true (ex) Turkish soldier (by force) inside. 


On the Western side of the defences you can see a nice 1/72nd diorama of the battle. The Fort of Sedd- el-Bahr is shown after the naval bombardment with its partially destroyed walls.  


The SS River Clyde is also in the diorama but a smaller scale model was used. The two machine guns in its makeshift casemates at the bow seemed to have saved the day as they pinned down the Turkish fire or at least didn´t let it becoming even more deadly. The model is very nice and only the unfinished painted sand camouflage on the hull is not there. Also you can see the Turkish trenches and barbed wire closing the beach. The figures used were the obvious HAT Turkish infantry and Airfix British. 


With this one I tried to capture the diorama bunker ( in sand yellow) and the true bunker on the western side of the Turkish defences, part of Ertugrul fort. In its interior there were HMGs that coupled with the ones at Sedd-el-Bahr contributed to more than 2000 casualties on the British side. 



Ertugrul fort also had some large guns, like the remains of this 240mm L/35 Krupp  fortress gun, but these were apparently put out of combat by the Royal Navy before the landings at V beach.  Besides these guns were aimed at the ships not at the beach. 

For a great article on the Turkish guns at Gallipoli check: 

  https://www.navyingallipoli.com/Artillery_Heavy.asp


 This one is a Flickr and  was not taken by me but its useful to see the sandbank that stopped many Turkish bullets to reach the British infantry at the beach. In fact in period pictures you can see a dark mass of men.... 



... trying to get cover behind this sand bank made by the tides of mother nature. 

And I know I'm a truly disgusting person, but all my Gallipoli figure's bases are textured with true sand from the several Gelibolu beaches, together with some cat litter !...  

Next: 1915 British infantry in metropolitan uniform or my visit to W beach. 

Sunday 3 March 2024

Great War Spearhead II - Gallipoli 1915 in 20mm (part 5): The French 1st Provisional African Regiment

 


The 1st Provisional African Regiment ( 1e Régiment de Marche d'Afrique) was the second regiment of 1st Metropolitan Brigade (the 175e RI was the first and you can see a post on it posted some three weeks ago). Building in miniature the Corps Expéditionnaire d'Orient is a challenging task as you can´t find as much information as say, the ANZACS, as in fact this was a small business for the French compared to the huge task they had in the Western Front. 


So here is the 1st RMA with one battalion of Foreign Legion and two of Zouaves. 


The French Foreign Legion (FFL) at Gallipoli had, apparently, this uniform with the 1897 capote and pith helmet. Funnily enough, or maybe because the FFL participation was rather small with just one battalion, there aren't  many period pictures of this unit available. Some period pictures even call FFL to clearly infantry units, probably in the absence of proper pictures. 


StreletsR already has a few figures in pith helmet and capote in one of the several sets of FFL but they are hard to get these days. So, as usual I went on with some conversions using Airfix, Hat and Esci bodies with British colonial heads.  


The result is quite nice in my opinion. And, as only 19 figures were necessary, this was a quick job. 


The Hotchkiss MMG has two Hat 1914 figures with new heads. 


I painted the base of the MMG with the light blue color of 1915 equipment simply hoping to be right...


In Militaria Nº87 you can have very nice information on the 1915 Zouaves. To the left you have their parade and maneuver uniform (seen in famous picture of those day at Lemnos) and to the right the one they used in combat. 


Inside the article you have this colorized picture showing beautifully the Zouave uniform, all khaki, with an iron blue 1877 capote, covered chechia and blue puttees. 


The only thing I did was to cut the hat peak of the Airfix FFL and Hat 1914 figures and paint two battalions in the above colors. The officer is a Chinese copy of the Airfix French officer with a new right arm from Caesar. 


The same happened to the MMGs stands with the difference of the main server of the gun, and the gun itself. Can you find its origin? No?... C'mon one more chance!... That's right, and congratulations to that old sir in the last row who still has figures from the 70's ! It's exactly the Matchbox Vickers No1 server modelled with Milliputt to look like a Zouave and with the Vickers converted into an Hotchkiss. 


After a few more cuts and twists here they are looking like reasonable Zouaves. 

Next: Pictures from my visit to V beach of  SS River Clyde fame.