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.