Thursday 9 December 2021

The British 1st Armoured Division in France 1940 for Rapid Fire! wargames rules in 20mm size


This is a project that took some 5 years to be concluded and it was a kind of childhood wish. The information on the early British units was very scarce and no plastic models of the main brands were made in 1/72 or 1/76 when I was a teenager in the 80ies.
Recently PSC made the A9 and sparked my attention - again - for this period, and the Portuguese 3d print brand MiniGeneral made plenty of models for the Blitzkrieg period. Other models in this video are S-models, HAT, Matchbox, Esci, Lancer, Any Scale Models and Zvezda.
Some corrections: to the end of the video I mention Vickers Machine Guns instead of Lewis in the AA role and the small staff car is not an Austin Seven but and Austin Ruby. Please be free to include others in comments as it will help to improve this big unit.


2 comments:

  1. You must have probably been asked this a million times but... Could you please share some base size measures you use in Rapid Fire at 1/72?

    It's very confusing what I read everywhere and I like your basing, especially infantry and heavies.

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  2. Sure. The vehicles in RF have no mandatory basing as the aim when firing is at the closest part of the model. I like placing bases mostly because they protect the model and look good. Besides the vehicles have like this a normal height in relation to the infantry. All types of models have a standard basing size in my collection, for instance all PzIII based vehicles have 8 X 5 cm, all T-34 based vehicles have 9 X 5 cm bases, etc, its up to you. The reason for these sizes is always the bigger 1/72 scale models as the 1/76 smaller models will look Ok side by side with the bigger brothers and more "part of the group" (I never mix the two scales in the same battalion). But that main reason for size of the bases is mostly the choice of a size that allows protection of flimsier parts like exhausts and gun barrels when on the shelves as I have most of them closely packed. The infantry is always based on groups of two 2,5 cm X 3,5 cm, support weapons tend to be bigger but that has to do with the previous information on protection, for instance, a Boys AT gun may need 0,5cm extra length due to the protruding gun. Finally, all command figures or support company weapons, mostly mortars and MMGs, are based on 4 cm radius circles from those Chinese cheap sets of poker chips. Hope it helps.

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