jp wargaming place

This a wargaming place were you can see a growing collection of miniatures and terrain of many historical periods in 20mm (but also a few 10mm,15mm and 28mm) started when I was 10 yo. At the moment it has several tens of thousands of miniatures from foot figures to Destroyers. Occasionally there are some war movie critics and some travel to military sites. My family considers it the best wargaming site in the World even if it is the only one they know. More on @joaopeixoto5249 YouTube Channel.

Saturday, 30 November 2024

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 10) - The French anti-tank guns

The Free French at Bir hakeim had 30x 75mm guns (6x in RF! terms) in the anti-tank role with cut-out shields and truck tyres in order to make a lower and smaller silhouette. Together with those the French also had 7x 47mm and 18x 25mm anti tank guns. As I already placed 3x 25mm guns in SP mode on top of Morris trucks I just added one more.

The FtF 75mm guns had its shields cut like the one present at Les Invalides Army Museum. The 47mm and 25mm are 3d prints in resin by BPM. This brand evolved greatly from the days of the PLA plastic used initially. Unfortunately I just ordered these two hoping that its small weight and size would escape customs. To no avail. BPM dispatched the parcel in a couple of days but it took a month to reach Portugal and then customs made me pay more for it than for the original models. Brexit oblige...

The guns were crewed with old plastic figures from Airfix and Matchbox and some newer ones from StreletsR. Many of the figures had rifles and SMGs taken out and replaced with shells.

A Chad-Ubangi crewed 75mm gun. I´m not sure about this but I´ve seen a greater number of gun crews with helmets in the period pictures maybe because the artillery spots attracted plenty of artillery fire.

The extras from the FFL Strelets box of support weapons makes good artillerymen.

The usage of shells in the old Airfix and figures can be seen in several figures with the 8th Army Vickers No1 (far right making a very good anti-tank crewman.

The main problem with this batch is the usage of the original FtF wheels as I couldn´t find twelve equal truck tyres.

This is the Matchbox 1941 Cadillac I found in a supermarket used for scale in a previous post on pine tree woods. It will become the command car of an Umbau column for Holland 1944. Most surely no Cadillac reached Holland after 1940 but even so this one must not be far away from other european classy cars of the period. This one belonged to my youngest and had to be painted and based in the night shift while he was sleeping.

Next: an Angolan Brigade for Cuito Canavale or the last few walls of Bir Hakeim.