Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British beaches (part 9) - Characters and small bits.

 

 

 

Here we have the famous beachmaster of Juno fame (Cpt Douglas Maud in reality) on the 1962 D-Day movie. His true dog was a German Shepard but as Pluskatt already had one the movie directors chose 'Winston' the Bulldog instead. Britannia figures including the LCA.

 

 

The happy mayor of Colleville-sur-mer running to meet the liberators with its bottle of champagne. Also a Britannia figure.

 

 

 

Josef 'Pips' Priller on board of its FW190 looking for his 100th victory over the British beaches (which he would achieve on the 15th June). Airfix model.

 

 

The supporting Centaur of the RM Commando. A Revell model with a scratchbuilt 95mm gun and Britannia commander.

 

 

Next: probably the return wether to Iran-Iraq war or France 1940.

 

 

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British Beaches (part 8) - Britannia German trawler

 

The Britannia German (ex-French) trawler is always a possibility to show up close to any beach of D-Day or even close to Pegasus bridge and disturb the allied landings. In reality I don't think it would harm that much in any wargame. The reason for the sucess of the Britannia trawler is that its an absolutely gorgeous piece of modelling for wargames. After all I think most of us start an OB with this kind of interest more than 'I'm sure I'll win with this one!'.

 

 

I started my German Navy with the nice Airfix S-7 Schnellboot that you can see here

 

http://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.pt/2014/04/rapid-fire-20mm-d-day-normandy-44.html

 

but the German trawler can go down into rivers and even catch some fish and improve the strained German supplies.

 

 

 

Who could resist to those new figures and guns? So, defenceless, instead of surrendering I bought it.

 

 

 

 

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British beaches- (part 7) Sword Seawall

The Seawall for Sword  Beach is already finished. Everything is made out of blue board. I textured the beach side with sand and the interior side with paint to look like concrete. All Tobruks have a rear door as you can see on the middle right model. On the left another open emplacement for the 50mm guns is made again in blue board.

With a total of 1,20 meters of seawall I hope to have enough for all three British Beaches. According to the RF! D-Day supplement this amount of seawall looks enough but there was plenty more in other places as Colin was probably worried with playability of the scenarios. Probably the same reason for not including anti-tank ditches on the maps in spite of them being shown in the pictures of the book.

I used some plastic circles from the DIY shop for the Mg holes.

 German side view with a Britannia figure.

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British Beaches - (Part 6) A few more Sword bits.

For the WN18 I already finished the observation tower and the Casino strongpoint. The true casino was levelled by the Germans and this building was built on top of it dominating a good part of the beach. The only place were I found some proper information was in 'D-Day Then and now ' books.

The first layer of the strongpoint is hard styrofoam which includes the barrel of the casemated 75mm French gun.

The second layer is a resin model of the standard AA type bunker from an unknown manufacturer.

Maybe I make a full WN18 in the future the problem being that this one will be pretty large and not easy to store.

In the mortar Tobruk there is an Italeri 81mm mortar. The sandbagged position can be useful for an extra Mg but doesn't make part of the original. 

The observation tower became a bit crude in the end of painting and I could have added some more details. Maybe I'll do it when WN18 is made as a whole piece.

The Britannia 20mm Flak gun was added to the roof. 

Two torsos of German figures were added for a "Sie Kommen" effect. 

A little bit inland of Sword beach on the western sector stood a 'chateau' from which I couldn't find much information. I made this one in heavy card inspired by the one from Raventhorpe.

The roof can be lifted as well as the 1st floor and plenty of figures can be placed inside. 

These Tobruks  are useful for several of the British beaches. Some will end by being integrated in one piece WN's. 

Some have Italeri machine gunners. 

Others have French tank turrets. 

Next: probably the last battalion of the British 6th Tank Brigade. 

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British Beaches - (Part 5), LCT's 4

 

 

The LCT- 4 are some of the most elegant boats of WWII. You need quite a lot of them for the British beach assaults as they were carrying the famous Hobart's funnies. I built them in balsa wood one at a time. Even when I found that some of the measurements were not entirely correct I kept on using them so all boats were exactly the same. These things turned out really big with 70 cm lenght.

 

 

Each of them carries the same load: a Churchill Bridgelayer, a Churchill Fascine, a Bulldozer D7 and a Sherman Flail.

 

 

The construction is a bit crude as balsa wood is not exactly my favourite material, but with many plastic details and the animation provided by the figures  and AA guns the final result is Ok.

 

 

The figures are from Airfix and Revell with some conversions.

 

 

The funnels were leftovers from the Matchbox Flower Corvette and the Oerlikons are scratch built.

 

 

The D7 Bulldozer are built in plastic card with altered Atlantic tracks from those strange and out-of-scale vehicles of their 1/72nd scale range. Not 100% accurate but close.

 

 

Flail at work! Airfix model.

 

 

 

Flail at rest! Brittania models.

 

 

Converted Matchbox Churchill to Fascine. The wood bundle is a real wood bundle!

 

 

Another at work.

 

 

The Churchills Bridgelayers are Britannia  and Matchbox. Somewhere I read that the bridges themselves were painted white and so they were.

 

Next: quick return to moderns. In fact I served in the military in the modern days not WWII! Well... really I never served in the military but I sure do like them !!!

 

 

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British Beaches - (Part 4), Pegasus bridge

 

Not directly to do with D-Day British beaches in Normandy but close. The Bénouville bridge, famously known thereafter as 'Pegasus' bridge, was one of the main objectives of the 6th Airborne Division. It had to be captured to stop German reinforcements, mainly the nearby 21PD from rushing to the British beachhead.

 

 

I made the famous Café Gondrée from card. It was tricky to build as it suffered a number of transformations since 1944. Some very old B/W photos helped a lot for its lay out, publicity posters  and front 'esplanade'.

 

 

 Besides ordinary card I used some brick card for some walls and chimneys.

 

 

The bridge was made with my lawful Evergreen plastic card. Plenty was used on all possible shapes and all info came from the internet where you can find hundreds of useful pictures.

 

 

The roof of the control house is big enough for a MG stand.

 

 

The Evergreen beams and other structures for architecture were particularly useful.

 

 

Horsa view.

 

 

 Detail of the lifting stucture of the brigde. These French bascule bridges were some of the first in the world and marvelled everyone in the 30's.

 

 

Defending the northern aproach to the bridge lay a 50mm Pak gun. Models and emplacement from Britannia.

 

If you want to see my British Airborne Division (the 1st from Arnhem not the 6th of D-Day fame, but they are almost the same) here it is:

 

http://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.pt/2014/09/rapid-fire-20mm-british-1st-airborne.html

 

Next: the Ouistreham Casino, or something else as I'm afraid of going to hell for not fulfilling my oaths as a good christian.

 

 

 

 

 

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British Beaches - (Part 3), Commando and Royal Marine Commando LCI(S).

 

According to Rapid Fire! D-Day supplement you need two LCI(S), one for Gold and another for Sword Beach to transport the Royal Marine Commando and Commando units on the day.

 

 

I made them in plywood mostly with many plastic parts added.

 

 

The Oerlikons are Britannia metal parts with plastic crewmen.

 

 

The funnels are pieces of Evergreen tubing heated to shape. As usual I made the masts extra large for more security.

 

 

I left plenty of room vacant for the 35 figures each boat has to carry.

 

 

These two were a fun to built and most of the inspiration came from the Sentry models that RLBPS is kind enough to show on its site.

 

Next; The Ouistreham Casino.

 

 

 

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British Beaches - (Part 2) WN16 ('Morris Strongpoint') gun casemate.

 

Smacked in the middle of Sword beach, on high ground stood the WN16 with its casemates with 100mm Skoda guns. The fire of these guns was controlled by the nearby WN17 (the 'Hillman' strongpoint).   The delay in taking the bunker complex has been cited as a reason for the Allies not completing their major D-Day objective of taking Caen.

 

 

 

The casemates for the guns was of the 669 type.

 

 

The 100mm Czech gun was made from the HAT WWI 77mm Feldkanone 16. I just added the covers for the wheels for the gun to look its part.

 

 

Next: more on the issue...