Yuzhnaya Ozereika landings 1943 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! rules

This Landings at Ozereika project started 5 years ago and is now completed. Most of the models are scratchbuilt, like the case of all boats, but the infantry, tanks, artillery and aircraft are from the usual plastic brands. This is a very heroic action of the Soviet naval infantry which cost them dearly without results, exceptuating fixing many Axis reserves which allowed the "Little Land" diversion to become a sucess that is still celebrated in Russia as one of the biggest Soviet exploits of WW2.

If you want to see the eight part construction of this project go to https://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.com/ and write "ozereika" on the search bar. I also advise everyone to visit the amazing site https://www.o5m6.de/redarmy/index.php were you can have great information on many aspects of WW2 including most of the material that was used at Ozereika.

Rapid Fire! Eastern Front in 20mm - The South Ozereika landings (part 7); the last bits for the Soviet Shock Force

 

This post concludes the missing equipment for the Soviet Naval Infantry shock force that attacked by sea the Germans and Romanians at Ozereika beach in February 1943. There are three DB pr.165 that carried the artillery (45mm AT and 76,2mm IG) and the towing Jeeps (US made Willys jeeps). 

As usual I used the Pegasus figures to make crews for all these weapons and machines. Included here is a AA Maxim gun mounted on a tripod (left). 

The guns were all scratchbuilt. The 45mm AT guns were made from old Pak 36s that used to be on the top of some Sdkfz 251 until I found many years ago that they were not there in the 1939/40 campaigns. As the Soviet and German are very similar the Pak 36 makes a very reasonable 45mm gun. My only doubt is if the Soviet marines didn´t use the long barreled  M42 model at Ozereika which makes these ones a bit out of date. 

The wheels are 3D printed and the 76,2mm IG came from an assortment of plastics which includes the usual plastic broom bristles. 

The guns and crews in action. 

These kind of models are heavily influenced by the range of Really Useful Guns by Irregular Miniatures which used EverGreen plastics as matrix for many parts.

 The Pegasus figures have several parts and are small kits on its own. As they have detached arms they suit artillery crews very well since you only need to make news arms from Milliput and place some shells in some of them. 

The Maxim AA gun must have been somthing like this as apparently only had one tube. 

The base of the tripod is from FtF as well as the gun. You only need to make a longer support for the gun and some ammunition and box. This tripod is the Finnish M/21 design which I think some may have got through to the Red Army. 

The Willys jeeps are 4D models from China, sturdy and very accurate models. I didn´t use the trailer in the kits as I think they were not used in this action (were they even sent in the Lend and Lease program?). 

The small landing craft were possible to make thanks to the excellent

https://www.o5m6.de/redarmy/db.php 

article in the Engines of the Red Army site which has very good drawings and period photos of this small boat. I made it a bit shorter as I did with the rest of the fleet. 

This boat could be used for a variety of usages but at ozereika it was used with wooden ramps in order to land jeeps and light artillery. 

The DB pr.165 boats were made from carved to shape blue board, pieces of wood, EverGreen and card. 

The drivers are cut down Pegasus figures.

All these boats,including the Bolinder, a Destroyer, the MO-4s, in a total of 10 different boats, are out of the scope of the article in the blue book. Our Masters start the Ozereika scenario with the naval brigade and support already landed, and with discounted casualties in the process. I will change a bit this and start the action with the full Soviet order of battle including all ships. This will force me to built a 3rd Naval infantry battalion in the future, which will be an obvious pleasure. Besides if the Soviets don´t have a third Naval Infantry battalion they will stand little chances against the defenders heavily armed with artillery, as it happened historically. 

Next: the German Gebirsjäger at Ozereika 1943. 

Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War armies in 20mm

Still far from finished - this one is one of those that will never be finished - you can see here a few models that are enough for some battallion sized RF games on the SCW theme. Together wilth my usual conversions based on Revell, Airfix, Esci and Zvezda there are plenty of proper Irregular Miniatures and some BUM figures. Tanks, artillery and armored cars came from FtF, Minairons, Panzer Garage, Irregular Miniatures and Pegasus. The aircraft are Special Hobby, KP, Azur, Valom, Super Model, Italeri, SMER, Heller and Airfix.

Great War Spearhead II in 20mm. The support weapons of the French Infantry Corps in WWI

Many years ago I built a number of armies for WW1. They were painted in a simple block painting and glued to some fragile 6cmX2cm rectangles. Recently I started to change the basing to GWSH style and trying to have a full corps of every main belligerent of this conflict. For that I´m in the process of adding a number of stands to each miniature army and thus returning to the block painting style to go along with the many miniatures painted in the past. On the down side they don´t become so flashy but on the other hand you speed up painting really quick which is particularly helpful when you need many hundred figures. 

After doing this to the Germans, which you can see in the two previous videos on this blog (or on the You Tube to be able to see it bigger), I went to the French. The rifle companies of the six regiments made up to the moment are not shown as they are simple Revell, Airfix and Pegasus figures with nothing special to say about them, instead you can see here a number of conversions that I hope can be useful to anyone modelling French WW1 in 20mm. For the full French corps there is a another video being prepared were you can see everything altogether. 

 

The group already converted and ready to be painted. Everything was primed with PVA glue. 

For each infantry regiment you need a 37mm TIR gun. These guns were used to take away MG nests and the sort and there was also a wheeled version. The gun tube comes from the HAT US WW1 box and needs a proper support as the one offered in the box suits only the Hotchkiss 8mm MG (there are a total of four different guns per sprue but only one type of support). With some styrene you can have a simple and effective support as shown in this picture. Don´t bother too much with detail as the figures lying on top of the support will hide most of it.  

I used conversions of the  relatively useless Revell laying down figures shooting the Lebel rifle for artillery men together with some Pegasus extras and even some old rifleman from Airfix with new arms.  

The painted lot, one 37mm TIR for each infantry regiment. If you don`t want to bother making these gun conversions you can use the StreletsR Colonial Foreign Legion ones which, for obvious reasons,  are not very easy to find today. 

The corps needs a total of 18 (or 24 if you want divisons with four regiments) Hotchkiss 8mm HMGs. The majority are Revell which have two per box but after using plenty of them for WW2 I had to made up the last five. I used HAT MGs from the US WW1 and the WW2 Foreign Legion boxes with converted firers from the wounded Airfix WW1 British (with GreenStuff arms) and Chauchat firers from Revell. 

The laying down Revell figures are also useful top make binoculars observers and loaders after cutting the rifle and applying some heat to the arms. 

So all these figures ended doing something that they were not designed for. 

The French used a number of different trench mortars including the British Stokes but I wanted something different as these 86mm Boileau- Debladis compressed air mortars. I used the Newton 6 inch included in the HAT US WW1 box as a start and added a number of plastic parts to make it reasonably close to the Boileau-Debladis mortar. The compressed air container is made from a WW2 or modern aircraft bomb. 

No, the mortar bombs are not Italian but just the colors I found in the web for these, even if  not 100% sure about that. The figures are from the WW2 French artillery set by HAT. 

A picture of the real thing for extra detail. 

To the left you see the Corps command stand and to the right the 2nd division command stand. 

The radios are made from pieces of styrene and the radiomen are Airfix figures with new GreenStuff arms and are intended to portray some rough examples of the TSF posts. 

The officer figures comes from the HAT WW2 French artillery, WW2 Pegasus and WW1 Revell sets. 

All my HAT WW1 cavalrymen were sucked into the 5e DLC for 1940 so I had to improvise for the six stands of cavalry necessary for the infantry corps. The horsemen of the HAT WW2 French artillery were used for the effect with lances made out of broom sticks. The horses are Napoleonic Italeri with some GreenStuff extras used to conceal the pistols. 

The cavalry rifles came from a number of WW2 plastic sets and need to be on the back of the cavalrymen. 

The figures were also helpful as the right arm can help to hold the lance with the help of a piece of leather as originally. 

The Cavalry MG is another scratch-built thing with Italeri Napoleonic horses, Esci wheels and styrene and metal tubing carriage and gun. 

I found this one in the invaluable GBM magazine (of course...). 

The Hotchkiss MG started as a 12,7mm Browning and after cuts and additions got closer to the intended gun. 

The majority of my WW1 artillery is Irregular Miniatures but these 75mm 1897 guns are 3d prints from MiniGeneral with FtF wheels. 

The artillerymen are Hat WW2 artillery figures and conversions from Airfix and Pegasus with Greenstuff arms. 

Next: a video on the French Infantry WW1 corps.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - The 9th French Infantry Battalion of the DI/DIM and the last few 25mm AT guns

 

Finally finished! The 1940 DI/DIM is complete after many years of collecting, modelling and painting this one. Its a particularly tricky division as it involves 9 infantry battalions, lots of horse tows and plenty of conversions. 

Once again I used the brilliant Pegasus figures and also plenty of conversions for the support weapons and 25mm AT Hotchkiss crews. The green pieces you see are the usual arms made from GreenStuff. 

The command stand has three conversions. The officer torso was placed on top of HAT officer´s legs (whose torso went on top of a vehicle). 

The radio man had a new right arm and headphones made from GreenStuff and the usual EverGreen was used for the radio. The third figure was originally firing but with some twists it became more like on the watch. 

The last six Simon´s Soldiers metal figures were also used in this battalion. If I wasn't for my primeval fear of White Sharks and Crocodiles I would move to Australia and all my French would be Simon´s Soldiers !!

The missing 25mm AT gun for the GRDI was made from MiniGeneral 3d prints and the crew are converted HAT artillery figures. 

The figures had Greenstuff modelled on the helmet, both for the padded front and goggles and also on the trousers for them to become baggier. 

The last five 25mm guns of the division are MiniGeneral and the figures are Pegasus conversions. 

The Pegasus figures are ideal for these conversions as most of the arms are separate and can be discarded and replaced by GreenStuff arms. 

The (9th) 81mm mortar was made from and old Airfix one. The versatility of the Pegasus figures can be seen here, all arms are GreenStuff and can be easily adapted to a new task. 

The 60mm mortar stand has and old Revell figure too. The mortar is made out of EverGreen plastic card. 

Last week I was at Les Invalides Military Museum and these pictures gave me the Élan to finish the DI/DIM. This nice cavalryman shows the equipment for the DLC trooper very well.

Here a very good Chasseur Porté for the infantry of the DCR. 

The equipment of a regular infantryman. Note that the gourde (canteen) is uniform colour and the bayonet scabbard is black. 

The APX 1937 25mm AT gun. Guns are obviously very simplified in our scale but here you have it if you want more details. 

The Puteaux 1918 37mm gun used in many of the French tanks. Even the S-Models version is very simplified...

This is me waiting for the driver of my FT-17, which is busy taking the picture. Used in the last month of the 1940 war the FT-17 and derivatives became one of the many "desperate measures" of the French trying to stop the Germans. 

Next: a video on the DI/DIM of 1940