The Luftwaffe for Rapid Fire! rules and in 20mm size

This collection tried to get the basics of the German Luftwaffe for all WW2 periods. There are all major brands like Airfix (some from the 1957 originals) , Revell, Matchbox and several of the newer Altaya and Luppa die-casts. The darker Me262 is a Frog model from 1972 that I forgot to mention.

Rapid Fire! - Wargaming pine trees from Christmas decorations

 

For long I was trying to find pine trees in a good quantity, reasonable price and in good size for 12mm up to 25mm scale. The main goal was the Ardennes and for these trees to be used for Rapid Fire 20mm games, even if these ones can be useful a bit all over the world. 

Well, Santa was generous and at the local Action warehouse I found eleven of these bags, each with 10 trees (four small at around 5cm height; three medium sized around 8cm and three others around 11 cm). At 2 euros each you can have 110 trees total while spending around 20 euros. Not only they are cheap but they are reasonable depictions of miniature pine trees. All trees had an exaggerated sized piece of plastic to keep them standing but that could be solved with texture and flocking. 

Another place was visited for the bases, a very nice downtown Chinese shop specialized in handycraft. I brought all kind of round bases I could find and the trees got stuck with electric glue together with some pebbles of different size and shape. 

The bases were then textured and flocked with the same style as most of my basing. The 1/72 Matchbox car is from my youngest kid and is here just for scale. As I´m feeling attached to it this one will soon become a command car for a German Umbau column from the Market Garden period. 

Again for scale with  two Matchbox figures.

Bird´s view. 

All bases were made taking into account the accomodation of a varied number of Rapid Fire stands from my regular 3,5 X 2,5cm infantry stands to some larger AT gun stands. 

Next: More Ottoman Sipahi. 

Soviet ZTZ-5 Tractors in German service in 20mm size for Rapid Fire! rules

 

For many years already I wanted to build a second "winter" Volksgrenadier division as two are necessary for the actions of the 5th Panzer army around St.Vith in late 1944 (18. and 62. VGD). They were small units compared to the German infantry division and not very difficult to build. The 105mm artillery was generally pulled by RSO but I had these six 3d resin prints ZTZ-5 offered by my friend Mário Laranja sitting in a box that can replace the RSO (well sort of..). In fact the RSO came after the Germans found the ZTZ-5 from the beginning of Barbarossa. The main difference was the larger track set and different wheels on the RSO. 

Frankly I couldn't find any evidence of the usage of the ZTZ-5 by the VGD in the Ardennes offensive just a similarity between the Russian original and the German copy. For sure, camouflaged like these in white, they can be used in the winter of 1943 and 1944 at the eastern front. 

Mário´s model is a beauty of detail. The tri-color camouflage was first applied and then some white was splashed on for a winterized look. The snow is simply fine sand mixed with acrylic white and a bit of wood glue, everything applied with brush. 

Different stowage also offered by Mário was spread all over together with my own stowage and gauze camouflage nets. 

Next: 'What If ' French for 1941. 

Rapid Fire! in 20mm. Filling gaps in WW2 - part 5

No, not  a fan of Christmas. Of course we had the family reunions, the gifts for the younger and older ones and never ending food. Love to be with my people but frankly hate Christmas and I´m always dying for it to pass. One day if the Christmas message extends into the full year with visible results of world wide happiness and all kids have the one toy they want,  maybe I´ll start to like it.  

 Last few days after meetings allowed me to paint these amazing Sdkfz 10 designed by Mário Laranja and printed in resin. Also added were two die-cast German aircraft. 

One of them went to the Blitzkrieg/Barbarossa period to be coupled with a number of the from BPM. Once again one piece vehicles which are a pleasure to paint as they are crammed with detail. 

More fine detail to the rear. 

How hooks, tools, mirrors, etc are made in one piece is for me a mystery but the end result is something great. 

These four are joining the DAK. No specific unit so they can be used by several of them. Most of the figures are PSC heads on top of Milliput torsos. 

Another group was painted with late war colors and crewed with the excellent Simon Soldiers figures winter passengers. 

One more Luppa aircraft came out in 1/72 scale, this time a ME 110 NachtJäger. 

This one is an Altaya model that lived its last few years inside the transparent plastic, an Henschel HS 129. In both aircraft the usual and simple painting of the canopy interior makes it ready for action. 

Next: The 7th infantry battalion for the French 1940 DI/DIM. 

26. Volksgrenadier Division in 20mm, Ardennes 1944, for Rapid Fire! rules

The 26.VGD became famous when it encircled the 101st US Airborne during one week at Bastogne in one of the most famous sieges of WW2, the one with  a "nuts" in the middle. 

Rapid Fire! Normandy 1944 in 20mm - Panzer Lehr grenadiers from Simon´s Soldiers

The personnel of the two battalions of the 901st Panzergrenadier regiment, plus two companies of the Aufklärungs battalion of the Panzer Lehr, gathers at the Forêt de Jean-Pierre Papin (don`t remember if I said this one or not...) to be briefed by Generalleutnant Fritz- Bayerlein himself. 

In my Mortain series I placed FJ soldiers together with the Panzer Lehr vehicles. This was true as Panzer Lehr was under II FJ corps control by August 1944 but the true reason for no grenadiers with Pz Lehr was simply because I was out of Grenadier battalions  having spent all my 12 1944 German infantry battalions, both Heer and SS, with other divisons (even so not the 16 necessary to play Op. Luttich from the German side). 

Panzer Lehr Division is a very visually distinctive unit in Normandy: all four Panzergrenadier battalions rode in Sdkfz 251 half-tracks and the number of tanks was also very high and even included three Tiger I and five Tiger II in the Funklenk unit (even if the Kingtigers were of the first design and left behind at Chateudun, close to Orleans due to malfunction). Another point of interest of Panzer Lehr was the uniform of the Panzergrenadiers which sported the same jacket as the Assault Gun battalion crews and this is the main reason for this post.

The figures are all Simon Soldiers and really beautiful they are. The detail is first class and you have a lot of different poses to man all sort of weapons in a Lehr Panzergrenadier unit. At first I looked to the Valiant Normandy Germans but only 2/3 poses can really be Lehr Grenadiers so I turned to Simon´s Soldiers from Australia. 

The detail encouraged me to paint even the smaller details of the uniform. But that is an easy task as the detail is crisp and easy on the brush. 

The same two poses from above. Both figures act together with the firer carrying the MG42 and the ammo box and the other carrying the accessory box.

Two figures from the Aufklärungs Abt. with an elegant officer and a figure with a PSC Panzerfaust on its back. 

More figures for the Aufklärungs Abt. with the same solution for extra Panzerfaust.

Due to some bad maths I ordered too many figures with rifles (hence the Aufklärungs figures) and too little with LMG´s and Panzerfausts so some also got a MG42 from the PSC stowage set. This one was placed on the back of  two of them in Rambo style.

The individual stowage of each figure is nicely and realistic built. 

Another pose provided for the MG42. 

Some poses also sport the camouflaged helmet cover. 

One of the two types of Panzerfaust figures. 

This time I even placed the chevrons of the Unteroffizier is the figures with the MP40. 

The MMG group. Four of them are necessary for the two RF! battalions... 

...and two of these 81mm mortar stands. 

Panzerschreck team. 

Battalion HQ stand. Plenty of action and details in a small 4cm diameter base. Here the plastic antennas were drilled into the metal of the radios.

While looking for information on the Panzer Lehr I read that each of the Sdkfz 251 carried a Panzerschreck. With the order to Australia already on and Simon Ford speadily sending the parcel it was too late to order two extra Pzschreck and so I converted these four figures from PSC by cutting the M42 jacket in the waist area and adding some lapels with GreenStuff in two of the figures. Like this there are two of these stands in each battalion instead of one as Masters Colin and Richard say in the Normandy Battlegroups. Not sure if my option is correct but if the story of one Pzschreck per Half-track is true, even two will not be enough. In fact many places indicate an unusual  high number of AT portable weapons provided to the Lehr grenadiers. 

Next: more Germans for OMG or the Tigers for Panzer Lehr. 

Rapid Fire! NW Europe 44/45 - 101st US Airborne - 2nd battalion done and some more air support and transport to go along

To go along the release of the new RF Market Garden supplement here comes  the 2nd battalion of the Screaming Eagles and some aircraft to celebrate. 

The second Battalion of the 501st PIR, 101st Airborne division is more of the same with Revell, Esci and SHQ and one lonely Airfix. 

For the command, mortars and bazooka stands I used a few more normal GI with new trousers pockets and changed helmets with the help of GW GreenStuff.

The three Browning stands had bipod changed MGs, something I made wrong in the previous battalion as pointed out by Alan McCoubrey. I used parts of the tripod to make the correct version of the 30 cal. A small Evergreen triangle was added as the MG wooden butt and glued to the firer's shoulder.

The 30 cal. stands are not easy to stay correctly inside the 4cm round bases so the boots and weapons that stayed out were brushed with a thick layer of gloss varnish for extra resistance before aplying the black primer coat. 

The figures are Esci but the guns are Revell as the original ones ended up somewhere in tanks or jeeps.

The bazooka teams used changed Esci GIs again. The loader is the Revell figure firing the M1 carbine and now is a bazooka loader with a Hasegawa rocket. 

The 81mm mortar stand is made of a SHQ figure and two Esci transformed GIs. The 60mm stand is the same and the tube itself is the old Airfix Stokes mortar cut in half with a new support (a left over of the 30 cal. Greta Thunberg will be happy with all this recycling).  

The command stands have one more officer recruited from the infantry (left, from the Revell infantry box with GreenStuff added details), a SHQ figure with a Thompson, and in the right stand the venerable and smaller radioman from Airfix paras in 1/76th scale. Well, no one is forced to be Revell-tall !

A company of US paratroopers from this new battalion based on Esci, Revell and SHQ figures. No not yet the "Easy company" of Spielberg's fame, for that you will have to wait for the 506th Regiment still many posts away.

This Revell DC-3 Dakota was painted years ago but only now is getting famous. I have another from Airfix, maybe some 40 years old, that will soon make company to this one. 

All markings were painted by hand as I wanted one for D-Day. Sugar Babe itself became a bit chunkier but I´m sure she will find pretenders in those guys who like "things bigger than the size of hand". 

The reason for the Airfix model is still not built has to do with not knowing which damn Green colour I used on the Revell model. To make things worse all I remember is using a mix of colours!

Number 2 of the Luppa collection already came out and its this nice Mustang P-51B, the correct version for ground attack in 1944. Unfortunately the bombers of this collection are 1/144 or 1/200 scale as I suspected.  So only a few more fighters will be acquired as at 10 euros the deal is not that good. 

Lastly, for a bit of nostalgia, I found these almost 40 years old photographs of my first solo wargame: defending Bastogne you can see some blue-grey clad (?) US paratroopers with a very old M-36 Jackson from Fujimi (what???). The card houses are long gone but the plastic ones are still alive. 

The first wave of probing attackers are Matchbox Pumas and Esci 250s with ghost infantry from an unknown origin. Coming along are those strange models from Atlantic: an oversized Kettenkraftrad towing a weird AA bathtub with wheels... I was thinking in those days everything was pretty accurate if made in a factory. No more pictures of this game unfortunatly as probably I got too excited for that.

Next: More Dieppe.