Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 6) - The Morris CS8 w/25mm AT gun at Les Mamelles

 

A "Jock" column makes a reconnaissance mission around the Bir Hakeim perimeter on the night of 25th May, 1942. In order to get some inspiration for the fight they know its coming  the group stop at Les Mamelles (the breasts) with some of them remembering the delights of the Moulin Rouge while others get into dirty talking. 

The Airfix six-wheeled Morris is, unfortunately, only good to tow the Bofors 40mm AA gun. I searched other usages but found nothing. On the contrary the gun itself can be used by many armies which is something that I´ve been doing but with different tows (Poland 39 with CP2; FFL with Ford/Dodge, etc) . After making a few combinations of tow and Bofors gun for the British, the pile of Morris CDSW was good only for conversion to its older and smaller brother, the Morris CS8. 

There were 18 25mm AT guns with the Free French at Bir hakeim. I suppose most of them were of the naval type with a larger shield than the infantry version. I don´t know how many of them were of the naval type or on SP mode like these ones but like this the FFL gets some interesting and rather unique vehicles. 

All figures are converted Hat with one Matchbox figure. 

The Morris CDSW got all the rear part changed with only one set of wheels (glued at the middle of the two sets of the original model version) and the construction of a new and shorter cargo bed. 

The gun itself is made from two types of hard plastic. I only mesure the lenght of the guns and work from within until the majority of the details are there. 

All trucks got a French FM 24/29, in fact 3d printed Bren but a close one. 

The windshields are again pieces of EverGreen plastic. 

Les Mamelles were carved from thick 10cm blocks of BlueBoard.  Frankly I don´t know the correct shape of Les Mamelles around summer 1942 as I can´t find proper images on the Web, books, or magazines. When you google it three big water cisternes shows up and connected to Bir Hakeim: 

I think this has nothing to do with Bir Hakeim but even so gives a reasonable idea of the Arab cisternes of the region. 

"No one will take from us les Mamelles"

Next: a few weeks off and then in late August more Bir Hakeim and the last of the three battalions of the late1944 US PIR. 

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 5) - Company trenches

 

Essential for any defensive position are company trenches. Once again they were made for Bir Hakeim but with an eye on other scenarios. In fact I can´t find many defensive positions in Bir Hakeim protected with sand bags as they probably could be targeted more easily due to their  recognisable shape. 

The idea is to make trenches with a rear dugout protected by some wooden plaks and enough space at least for eight figures (  four bases each 2,5cm X 3,5cm).  

Once again carved RoofMate was used glued to plywood. 

One of the trenches got a Vauban shape...

...while the other four are straight with the usual dugout. 

The small stones around the trench helps to shape the piece and also gives some weight helping not to deform it. 

Next: Les Mamelles of Bir Hakeim

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 4) - The Fusiliers Marins enter the fray.

 

The Fusiler Marins battalion at Bir Hakeim was manning the anti aircraft guns of the garrison. They had old 25mm and 13,2mm guns together with some 40mm Bofors. 

A photo of a 13,2mm gun on top of a truck manned by Fusiliers Marins inspired me to make this one. I looked for a proper truck and only had at hand these giant cheap Aliexpress one-piece trucks already used for some Italian and British SP guns. The problem was that the truck is too big and would dwarf the gun so two main changes were made: the truck was cut down in some 1,5cm lenght at the back and the gun became the bigger dual 25mm AA gun. 

The gun itself was made from a leftover double-barreled Esci 20mm Flakvierling part with all other parts being scratchbuilt in plastic card. 

After some crew and symbols it looks reasonable. 

The nasty cut at the back was disguised with electric glue and some 3d resin barrels and jerricans were also added in order to trick the eye to the humble origins of the truck. 

The crew had to be made of big figures so the bodies of the Hat British support weapons figures were coupled with Valiant heads of the 1st set. Some of these soldiers at least had British equipment at Bir Hakeim so these ones also have it which made things easier. 

The figures were heavily coverted like the one sitting and manning the gun as originally the figure is kneeling. Some small tufts of milliput were placed on top of the berets for that unique looks of the French Fusiliers Marins. 

A second P-40 joined the air battle above Bir Hakeim this time a repainted Altaya, originally a fighter at the service of the Chinese air force. 

The new trench is suitable for the emplacement of a 75mm gun in the round center and two other support guns or command stands at the corners. Again I wanted it to look Bir Hakeim but being able to be used in other Mediterranean campaigns. 

The fabulous Bir Hakeim collection of terrain and figures of Stephen Tunmore inspired me to make a wooden cover for the gun emplacement. I wonder were the FFL found the wood in the middle of the Lybian desert with the best option being that it was carried on the back of trucks from far away! 

I like to place some grey/dark brown wash on the sand before drybrushing the whole set with light sand as it gives some depth to these bare pieces of terrain. 

 

Some gauze on top of the wooden structure and its done. 

The aim of this was to place the 75mm gun inside and it looks the part. The cover was made tall enough for 25 pounders or even a 88mm gun.

On regard of terrain I found on the Web this lovely and rare picture of the Turkish fort, already in German hands were you can see the bent wall and the Roman cisternes on the top right corner. 

Next: Bir Hakeim company trenches or the US 3rd PIR.

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 3) - First set of fortifications

 

Unfortunately I still don´t have a good reference book from where I can get somecomplete images of the French defences at Bir Hakeim. Fortunately, the Web gives some help and you can make Bir Hakeim  as if you are building a puzzle. My initial idea was to make larger pieces of terrain integrating trenches, walls and revetments but instead I´m making individual pieces, due to the lack of  information. Later it can be put together in a correct way when more information is available. The only good thing about not having precise information is that you have to go generic in many of the terrain features allowing it to be used in other scenarios. 

The Turkish fort was built in blue board, as most of the stuff you can see in this post. There are some nice images from Google Earth that you can use for the generic shape. I kept it on the small size for not to dwarf other terrain features. 

Small pebbles help a lot in this kind of terrain where most of the features were neglected and ruined. 

Th small wall at the top is my imagination but some sort of walls must have existed on top of it around May 1942.  

There is a set of walls around the fort and the curved one was built  specifically for it. 

This view from the fort shows what I tried to achieve. 

In this after the battle photo you can see the the Turkish Fort at the top left corner and the famous house (blockhouse?) that shows up as soon as you google "Bir Hakeim" (not the Parisian station). 

Again Blue Board for this one. The 4cm thick board was sliced into parts a bit thicker than 1cm in order to make the walls. In fact you can have this kind of size in DIY stores but I just used what I have at hand. 

After painting the house with ochre colors I applied some hypothetical diluted white paint on parts of the structure. 

This type of trench can have some 1/2 battalion inside and some eight are necessary for the entire four battalion´s defence. 

The 4 cm thick blue board was reduced to around 3 cm and divided in three parts for better and easier carving.  

After texturing the piece with a mix of cat litter and fine sand the two component paste sand bags were applied. When everything is dry the sand bags got some super glue for extra resistance. Don´t do it on the blue board directy as the blue board will melt.

This set of resin walls and sand bags was given to me by my friend Mário Laranja and will be used in many places of the Bir Hakeim compound including the Roman water cisterns. 

The exception is the curved  wall on top that will be part of the Turkish Fort complex. 

Next: More Bir Hakeim or the 3rd US PIR for the 1944 campaigns.

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 2) - The infantry for the Free French 1st Brigade

Did you ever think why the Free French didn´t have any tanks at Bir Hakeim? I mean, the position was avoiding the encirclement of the full 8th army from the south and having no tanks looks strange. Well, I will tell you the story I found: 

In fact there was a M-3 Lee tank attached to the Free French. With its two guns and reasonable protection it woud have been a formidable opponent to the Axis armour at Bir Hakeim. The problem is that it was spotted by an old Italian Breda BA-65 on its way to the Italian Aviation Museum in Rome. It was still carrying some of its bombs and one fell just on top of the Lee blowing it to bits. Fortunately, the crew was out of the tanks as they had eaten a full meal of Couscous that somehow made them feel bad (some say it was the water...) and they were all behind a wadi discharging their intestinal content. 

Of course all this story is rubbish. I found last week the Altaya Lee and the Rare Plane Vacuform (older than me) at the nice Leirimodel exhibition in Leiria some 60km from Coimbra. After finishing them I decided to go to round two of my Free French making the necessary infantry. Round one can be seen here: http://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.com/search?q=tanake

My idea is to have the full Free French  for RF!  and all the defensive positions as I have already the Ariete Division and the DAK so there will be a few more posts on the subject. 

I was eager to get to the white kepis of the FFL as the two Strelets boxes - infantry and support weapons - makes them justice. The 13e demi-brigade had two battalions that can be seen here. A big thanks to Don McHugh for showing me the OB of the Free French for Rapid Fire!

Clearly taken in the fog-of-war this picture shows the support weapons box that gives you what you need for the entire two demi-brigades and still some figures that can be used elsewhere. 

The battaillon de marche No2, coming from nowadays Central African Republique, was made from converted Strelets leftovers and a few Airfix and Revell. The Strelets figures had its kepi peak taken out in order to look like the Chechia and the British helmets of the other figures were cut out until looking like a Chechia.

                    

The pith helmets of the Strelets figures went all to the BM2 as I saw pictures of this unit using this headgear. For the Bataillon du Pacifique I will use British figures already made as this battalion has many pictures with the Brodie helmet. 

The Command stand can be for Brigade or for any of the demi-brigades. The 75mm is Minigeneral coupled with some ugly printed wheels I had around as the originals were spoked. 

The Altaya Lee got extra stowage and the usual black wash followed by some sand drybrushing. Now I have 10 of these (Lee/Grant)in British desert camouflage and this is the number I wanted acording to my calculations for the maximum number of models in a British armoured division in a 1 to 5 ratio.  

This old Vacuform Rare Plane BA-65 got new wing MGs made of plastic and a carved bay where an Airfix gunner and MG was inserted as this model didn´t have this option that is far more interesting. This plastic is easily cut but becomes extremely light in the end. The model had already lost the windshield and only the fuselage support was left to be painted. 

Next: Bir Hakeim fortifications.