AOE 28mm Waterloo - The Plancenoit wall

 

Many years ago I bought this little church in a Chinese shop and somehow it looked like the Plancenoit church. Having the wall of the church is mandatory as it was the focus of the battle much more than the church itself. The space between the church and the wall is just enough for the 4cm width bases I use for 28mm. 

The perimeter of the wall should be small as well as the church itself as I intend to have the full Waterloo terrain on the table. 

A great piece of inspiration came from the Napoleonic Archive books on Waterloo with this fantastic Plancenoit ...

... and a trip to the place made the rest. 

While making lots of terrain for Bir Hakeim thin slices of Blue Board came out and were used for the round shape of the wall. The material bends quite well and is carved easily. 

This piece of terrain can also be used in many scales as a walled garden...

... or the center of a chateau. 

Next: Little Big Horn most probably along with more Bir Hakeim. 

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 9) - The Roman well and some barbed wire

 

Not much is left from the French fortifications or even from the ground of Bir Hakeim which makes the work of reconstitution slow and difficult. Even so with some patience and time you get a reasonable collection of features from this famous battlefield.  The Roman well was a part of the Bir Hakeim complex and in fact the item that gave existence to Bir Hakeim. Unfortunately its a tricky one to find in images both in books or the Web. But after googling in French some more information comes and the Roman well can be found. 

This photo came from a pilgrimage made to Bir Hakeim in 1955. 

This is another one from the series of photos taken by the Germans after conquering Bir Hakeim were its proximity to the Turkish fort can be seen.

I made my own Roman well in styrofoam and bits of plastic and card. 

The model well is around 16cm long. As its something small you don´t need to reduce the model and you gain another unique structure.  

Some 2,40 meters of barbed wire was made from matches glued to 16 large ice cream sticks with metal barbed wire wrapped around it. It will be used to mark the extensive minefields around Bir Hakeim. Another issue solved is the barbed wire bases for my Omaha beach as I only had 9 bases of it. 

Next: the Plancenoit wall

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 8) - The AA Bofors of the Fusiliers Marins and a few more emplacements

The Bir Hakeim series continues this time with the 40mm Bofors for the Fusiliers Marins and respective trucks and a few more different emplacements. 

The V shaped emplacements are slightly different from the previous ones due to the wooden cover being placed close to the curve instead at the corners. The straight trenches are just something different as I´m making also trenches that can be used in other scenarios. 

The the FFL Bofors were pulled by Chevrolet trucks and not by Morris CS8 4X2. These are cheap Chinese trucks bought at Ale-Hop with a part of the cargo bay cut out. The guns are Airfix. 

The idea was to get to this. 

The figures were challenging as I don´t have many more artillerymen left suitable for this task. So all are conversions with the French Fusiliers Marins bonnet. From left to right:

- the Airfix standing figure on the 6pdr set;

- the driver is a 1st edition Airfix DAK figure manning the 2,8cm Panzerbüchse;

- a Preiser civilian (I think from one of the train station sets) .... 

- the Airfix Australian carrying a box;

- another 1st edition Airfix DAK;

- a Revell figure from their WW2 Scottish set. 

Next: Barbed wire for Bir Hakeim or Plancenoit 1815. 

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 7) - New trenches and one more AA truck for the Fusiliers Marins

 

A few more company trenches, 75mm emplacements and mortar/MG pits were finished in the last few days. Also added is the famous 13,2mm DAT gun on truck. 

The total made was 2X company trenches; 4x 75mm emplacements and 4x mortar/MG pits. Now I need to place everything together on the table and see exactly what is still missing for Bir Hakeim. While on holidays I took some books and magazines on Crete 1941 and that particular bug started to bite. The way I made the Bir Hakeim complex made me happy as it can be easily adapted to Crete, other NA scenarios or even Italy. In fact as they are simple things they can go everywhere as when you dig trenches you take out all foliage which make these ones fit for almost all theaters. The drop-on solution avoids the building of more complex terrain models which, if over detailed, will be only used in a specific scenario, with the problems of storage coming next. 

The 75mm emplacements have to be like this as the Free French wanted them to have 360 degrees rotation. Note the absence of sand bags. In fact most of the trenches for this project have sand bags while the ones on Bir Hakeim can hardly be seen in most of the period photographs. This is another compromise in order to allow its usage in other scenarios. 

These L-shaped company trenches are different from the T-shaped I made previously. They look quite Vauban style and thus clearly more French :) 

The mortar/MG pits are made for my 4cm poker disks. Besides the heavy weapons the battalion CO stand can also be fitted inside. 

The Fusiliers Marins at Bir Hakeim were in charge of the AA defences and had a number of truck mounted SP guns. This is my second version of the thing, this time with a  quad 13,2mm DAT gun...

... and based on this famous photo. 

The figures are heavily converted Airfix and Atlantic copies. 

Once again the cheap plastic truck is a bit too big but with a 1,5cm cut at the back it becomes reasonable sized for the big and complex gun. 

The gun is made totally from scratch with the help of a great Britmodeller article from their website. Also, if you want to avoid all this work, 3D print Shapeways makes this gun in 1/72nd scale. 

The figure manning the gun is the old wounded Atlantic British figure being carried at the back of his closest friend. Apparently it recovered from his wounds, joined the FFL and is now defending Bir Hakeim! 

The 3d one at the Britmodeller website (is it the same at Shapeways?) that I really can´t rival. 

Next: the 3rd battalion for my US PIR; Little Big Horn; King Porus army (yes, Don McHugh has something to do with this); photos of Bodrum castle; Plancenoit church in 1815 or Crete 1941. Let´s see what comes next.