Rapid Fire! NW Europe 44/45 - 101st US Airborne - 1st artillery battalion finished

 

The Airfix US paratroopers were outclassed by the Esci and Revell already many years ago. That is really a pity as they are excellent sculpts and very realistic. The problem with this set is having a bit too small figures compared to the other two rivals. 

Like that they are joining the artillery as they are very easy conversions. Most of the figures got something like a 75mm shell and some Milliput hands after cutting out Garands and Thompsons. 

The guns are Waterloo1815. 

To the left there is a 3d resin print. This Waterloo1815 is quite generous with three guns and 12 excellent artillerymen but they will end up in another project. 

Next. Greek infantry at Crete or more Slovaks

The Slovak Fast Brigade at Lipovec 1941 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! - Part 1: Infantry, A/C and aircraft

 

I read the Blue book so many times that recently I had to place tape on many pages. Recently Masters Colin and Richard released the Blue book in digital format, so the tape problem is solved for newcomers! One of the many atractions of the book is the battle of Lipovec, 22nd July 1941 (never heard about it before the book) were I noticed the beautiful camouflage of the Slovak tanks and the blue stripe on the helmets. Probably if these two characteristics were absent I would turn the page to look for a different scenario. Another interesting fact is the Slovak organization of this Fast Brigade with a well balanced force of infantry, tanks and artillery (maybe a little scarce on infantry), including a small airforce and even bykes. 

Finding the vehicles was not a hard task as many of the trucks and cars are not easy to find, and many years ago only Raventhorpe, Fujimi and Esci had some of them. Then one day Esci was gone and the funniest tank of them all, the LT-35, became too hard to get and this brigade was forgotten. Recently the excellent First to Fight came into play and this project came to life again and this brand will be my main source of Slovak vehicles. The artillery is more problematic and I will scratchbuild most of them. If you look for 3D prints you can find also many of these. 

The sole infantry battalion of the brigade is made mainly of Esci Italian Alpini figures, with the carved out feather, of course. 

The Slovak helmet is distinctive with a straight rim. The Italian helmet has a slight ondulation at the rim and this was disguised with several coats of blue color. The SMG was converted to the captured Soviet PPSH as the Slokaks had no SMG at this time. 

The Slovak color was a Greenish Khaki that I tried to reply. 

The reenactement groups are great sources of information as these guys tend to take it very seriously. 

The Italian Breda 30 have a side charger and this was moved to the top for it to look like the ZB vz.26.

The MMGs were mostly the old Schwarzlose vz.24 together with the more modern vz.37. The Revell WWI 08s are good enough to look as vz.24s. The crew is also Revell with a few Hat. The heads of the crew are Revell US marines. 

The mortar is Matchbox with Hat crew and Revell Marines heads. 

The command stand is a mix of StreletsR Italian officer, a Japanese Airfix marching figure and an Esci Alpini with radio and a carved out helmet in order to look like a soft cap. 

The Tatra OA vz.30 is First to fight and its a little beauty. I placed an FJ Airfix torso as a commander as the helmet looks a lot with the one from the Slovak tankers. 

This Avia 534 is KP, a very old and a bit rustic model with a difficult build. But, as usual, in the end gives a good model for your Slovak Fast Brigade. 

Next: Slovak artillery or some vehicles, depending on GLS.

The IR Graf Von Matchbox for Rapid Fire! in 20mm

I wanted to do this for a long time. I already have plenty of early and late German WW2 infantry but none for the mid-war, that is German figures in full field gray uniform and tall boots.  They are necessary for some of the projects on the way, Crete (were they will be Gebirgsjäger, the same uniform with a different patch on the shoulder); Greece and the Balkans; Dieppe and the first two years of Barbarossa. The rifle+MP40 figures and the battalion command figures are all Matchbox in this regiment. For the future I may add a second regiment made mostly of Esci (IR Graf Von Esci) figures and a third of Airfix copies (IR Graf Von AirfixCopies :). 

The full regiment of three infantry battalions. 

Each battalion has rifle and command stands made of Matchbox old but lovely figures, Esci 50mm mortar and LMGs; AB copies MMGs, and Zvezda 81mm mortar.

Each of the Zvezda 81mm stands has a Matchbox figure. The 50mm mortar is made of EverGreen plastic and the figures are Esci conversions. 

The engineer company is made from a box of Zvezda and Esci figures. The Zvezda box brings a sprue of game pieces including the barbed wire which is here being cut by the figure to the right. 

These Zvezda small sets are meant for the command of three different regiments and can be used in any of the theaters of the war. 

The AB resin copies were ordered from Aliexpress. Back in 2016 I remember this being criticized as piracy but today I hope that AB has received some sort of compensation or reached a deal. The figures themselves are quite good and it looks they didn´t lost much in relation to the originals. 

Besides the 50mm mortar only the Radioman had a scratchbuilt radio...

...and some plastic pieces for the absent bipod of the Esci LMGs. 

Next: the beggining of the Slovak fast division for Lipovec 1941. 

Crete 1941 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! rules: the German paratroopers

This is another old wish, being able to have a consistent force of German Fallschirmjäger for the beggining of the war. Masters Colin and Richard released sometime ago the great supplement Crete- the Airborne assault with all the information you need for the beggining of the battle, namely the arrival of the Sturm Regiment and many of the 7th Flieger division units. Later, hopefully, we can see this extended to include the Gebirgsjäger actions, which were the true victors of the battle. This group started decades ago with the Italeri Ju-52s, a sole Frontline Wargaming DFS 230 and more recently the Preiser Pioneers. In the last few months I managed to build all the rest, with the inspiration on the book: all artillery and support weapons were scratchbuilt in Evergreen plastics (the 50/81/105mm mortars, IG75mm, PAK 36s, Do Gerat rocket launcher, 75mm Geb. G 36 and the MMGs 34. The exceptions to this were the 20mm Flak gun (3d MiniGeneral), the BMW combo(Fujimi) and the Kettenkraftrad (S-models). All figures manning the support weapons and the artillery are all converted from the Airfix and Revell Fallschimjägers. All figures in the "rifle" companies suffered no conversion. The funniest thing to do was to copy in wood and BlueFoam the Frontline wargaming DFS 230, producing like this three more gliders. An excellent article on the tricky FJ artillery for Crete can be found at: https://arnhemjim.blogspot.com/2011/0

Crete 1941 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! Part 6: The Kettenkrads, side-cars and the last containers

This is the last post for the Germans as I´m leaving Crete for now but will come back for the Tavronitis river bed, Greek infantry and other details. The Kettenkrads are S-models from China via Aliexpress that arrived with the houses at the end of the post and the side-cars are very old Fujimi. The containers are the last 14 necessary for the biggest scenario which totals 23. 

The Kettenkrad were used to pull the 75mmGeb.G 36 as you can see in this picture. 

The guns, and probably the tractors, were also camouflaged (mud or paint?). 

These two will go for the Carentan booklet scenarios. The beautiful cart is a resin 3d print that comes with the kit. 

All FJ for the Carentan scenarios are made too. 

These are for Crete and you also need one of each.

In fact only the BMW is necessary for the scenarios in the Crete booklet but a Kettenkrad is a nice addition for the artillery. 

The crews are conversions from Airfix and Revell, some with GreenStuff legs and reattached plastic feet. 

I always tend to place some Hulk kind of arms in the figures... 

The Fujimi side-car figures got Airfix heads. 

After taking the previous pictures I noticed the blue scarfs were missing but now they are done. 

I found the last Revell container after a lot of search in many boxes. I had 5 boxes of Revell FJ with a total of 10 containers so this last one had to be somewhere. The other containers are scratchbuilt and copied from the Revell in terms of size but closed as it makes its build much easier. 

The containers are made from pieces of wood from a Chinese shop, both cylindrical and cuboid shaped. The pegs are small pieces of broomstick plastic. 

The wooden 3d printed houses are two beauties of between 6 to 8 euros. The bigger house can go to Northern europe while the smallest is another addition to my Russian village. The painting is made mostly with diluted acrylics and drybrush so the nice printed detail can be seen. 

They can be open and that roof is crying to be used by Frost men at Arnhem...

These are incredible nice 1/72 models and very cheap. I only had a Dutch bridge from this Fisherman brand and I´ll surely add more to my different periods.

Next: Mid-war German infantry