Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 4) - The Fusiliers Marins enter the fray.

 

The Fusiler Marins battalion at Bir Hakeim was manning the anti aircraft guns of the garrison. They had old 25mm and 13,2mm guns together with some 40mm Bofors. 

A photo of a 13,2mm gun on top of a truck manned by Fusiliers Marins inspired me to make this one. I looked for a proper truck and only had at hand these giant cheap Aliexpress one-piece trucks already used for some Italian and British SP guns. The problem was that the truck is too big and would dwarf the gun so two main changes were made: the truck was cut down in some 1,5cm lenght at the back and the gun became the bigger dual 25mm AA gun. 

The gun itself was made from a leftover double-barreled Esci 20mm Flakvierling part with all other parts being scratchbuilt in plastic card. 

After some crew and symbols it looks reasonable. 

The nasty cut at the back was disguised with electric glue and some 3d resin barrels and jerricans were also added in order to trick the eye to the humble origins of the truck. 

The crew had to be made of big figures so the bodies of the Hat British support weapons figures were coupled with Valiant heads of the 1st set. Some of these soldiers at least had British equipment at Bir Hakeim so these ones also have it which made things easier. 

The figures were heavily coverted like the one sitting and manning the gun as originally the figure is kneeling. Some small tufts of milliput were placed on top of the berets for that unique looks of the French Fusiliers Marins. 

A second P-40 joined the air battle above Bir Hakeim this time a repainted Altaya, originally a fighter at the service of the Chinese air force. 

The new trench is suitable for the emplacement of a 75mm gun in the round center and two other support guns or command stands at the corners. Again I wanted it to look Bir Hakeim but being able to be used in other Mediterranean campaigns. 

The fabulous Bir Hakeim collection of terrain and figures of Stephen Tunmore inspired me to make a wooden cover for the gun emplacement. I wonder were the FFL found the wood in the middle of the Lybian desert with the best option being that it was carried on the back of trucks from far away! 

I like to place some grey/dark brown wash on the sand before drybrushing the whole set with light sand as it gives some depth to these bare pieces of terrain. 

 

Some gauze on top of the wooden structure and its done. 

The aim of this was to place the 75mm gun inside and it looks the part. The cover was made tall enough for 25 pounders or even a 88mm gun.

On regard of terrain I found on the Web this lovely and rare picture of the Turkish fort, already in German hands were you can see the bent wall and the Roman cisternes on the top right corner. 

Next: Bir Hakeim company trenches or the US 3rd PIR.

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 3) - First set of fortifications

 

Unfortunately I still don´t have a good reference book from where I can get somecomplete images of the French defences at Bir Hakeim. Fortunately, the Web gives some help and you can make Bir Hakeim  as if you are building a puzzle. My initial idea was to make larger pieces of terrain integrating trenches, walls and revetments but instead I´m making individual pieces, due to the lack of  information. Later it can be put together in a correct way when more information is available. The only good thing about not having precise information is that you have to go generic in many of the terrain features allowing it to be used in other scenarios. 

The Turkish fort was built in blue board, as most of the stuff you can see in this post. There are some nice images from Google Earth that you can use for the generic shape. I kept it on the small size for not to dwarf other terrain features. 

Small pebbles help a lot in this kind of terrain where most of the features were neglected and ruined. 

Th small wall at the top is my imagination but some sort of walls must have existed on top of it around May 1942.  

There is a set of walls around the fort and the curved one was built  specifically for it. 

This view from the fort shows what I tried to achieve. 

In this after the battle photo you can see the the Turkish Fort at the top left corner and the famous house (blockhouse?) that shows up as soon as you google "Bir Hakeim" (not the Parisian station). 

Again Blue Board for this one. The 4cm thick board was sliced into parts a bit thicker than 1cm in order to make the walls. In fact you can have this kind of size in DIY stores but I just used what I have at hand. 

After painting the house with ochre colors I applied some hypothetical diluted white paint on parts of the structure. 

This type of trench can have some 1/2 battalion inside and some eight are necessary for the entire four battalion´s defence. 

The 4 cm thick blue board was reduced to around 3 cm and divided in three parts for better and easier carving.  

After texturing the piece with a mix of cat litter and fine sand the two component paste sand bags were applied. When everything is dry the sand bags got some super glue for extra resistance. Don´t do it on the blue board directy as the blue board will melt.

This set of resin walls and sand bags was given to me by my friend Mário Laranja and will be used in many places of the Bir Hakeim compound including the Roman water cisterns. 

The exception is the curved  wall on top that will be part of the Turkish Fort complex. 

Next: More Bir Hakeim or the 3rd US PIR for the 1944 campaigns.

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 2) - The infantry for the Free French 1st Brigade

Did you ever think why the Free French didn´t have any tanks at Bir Hakeim? I mean, the position was avoiding the encirclement of the full 8th army from the south and having no tanks looks strange. Well, I will tell you the story I found: 

In fact there was a M-3 Lee tank attached to the Free French. With its two guns and reasonable protection it woud have been a formidable opponent to the Axis armour at Bir Hakeim. The problem is that it was spotted by an old Italian Breda BA-65 on its way to the Italian Aviation Museum in Rome. It was still carrying some of its bombs and one fell just on top of the Lee blowing it to bits. Fortunately, the crew was out of the tanks as they had eaten a full meal of Couscous that somehow made them feel bad (some say it was the water...) and they were all behind a wadi discharging their intestinal content. 

Of course all this story is rubbish. I found last week the Altaya Lee and the Rare Plane Vacuform (older than me) at the nice Leirimodel exhibition in Leiria some 60km from Coimbra. After finishing them I decided to go to round two of my Free French making the necessary infantry. Round one can be seen here: http://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.com/search?q=tanake

My idea is to have the full Free French  for RF!  and all the defensive positions as I have already the Ariete Division and the DAK so there will be a few more posts on the subject. 

I was eager to get to the white kepis of the FFL as the two Strelets boxes - infantry and support weapons - makes them justice. The 13e demi-brigade had two battalions that can be seen here. A big thanks to Don McHugh for showing me the OB of the Free French for Rapid Fire!

Clearly taken in the fog-of-war this picture shows the support weapons box that gives you what you need for the entire two demi-brigades and still some figures that can be used elsewhere. 

The battaillon de marche No2, coming from nowadays Central African Republique, was made from converted Strelets leftovers and a few Airfix and Revell. The Strelets figures had its kepi peak taken out in order to look like the Chechia and the British helmets of the other figures were cut out until looking like a Chechia.

                    

The pith helmets of the Strelets figures went all to the BM2 as I saw pictures of this unit using this headgear. For the Bataillon du Pacifique I will use British figures already made as this battalion has many pictures with the Brodie helmet. 

The Command stand can be for Brigade or for any of the demi-brigades. The 75mm is Minigeneral coupled with some ugly printed wheels I had around as the originals were spoked. 

The Altaya Lee got extra stowage and the usual black wash followed by some sand drybrushing. Now I have 10 of these (Lee/Grant)in British desert camouflage and this is the number I wanted acording to my calculations for the maximum number of models in a British armoured division in a 1 to 5 ratio.  

This old Vacuform Rare Plane BA-65 got new wing MGs made of plastic and a carved bay where an Airfix gunner and MG was inserted as this model didn´t have this option that is far more interesting. This plastic is easily cut but becomes extremely light in the end. The model had already lost the windshield and only the fuselage support was left to be painted. 

Next: Bir Hakeim fortifications. 

Rapid Fire! Poland 1939 in 20mm - Long awaited reinforcements for an endangered front

 

This post complements the last video were these latest Polish reinforcements can be seen. The Polish army of 1939 is a big temptation thanks to FirstToFight (FtF) models who is always teasing you with very beautiful and unexpected models almost on a monthly basis. 

The second battalion is done. Figures are the usual Hat. 

The bicycle platoon uses slightly converted Hat figures with Hat German bycicles. 

The 40mm AA Bofors is Airfix with FtF crew. 

A Tatra T-18 from MiniGeneral 3D is a now a close company to my made up Smialy armored train. 

These are the FtF cavalry limbers for the 37mm Bofors AT guns. 

These are the FtF Biedkas to carry the WZ30 machine guns. Whatever FTF produces they are always great kits filled with details (and sometimes some irritating small parts many of them photo-etched). 

The FtF 155mm 1917 gun was coupled with Hat figures and also with a scratch-built Bolinder -Munktell AK tractor 1939. Most of these guns were horse towed but some of them had these experimental tractors pulling them. At least you get something not as ecological but different for sure. 

Next: re-starting the Bir-Hakeim project. 

The 1939 Polish army in 20mm and for Rapid Fire! rules

Still on the Hastings battlefield, it´s time to show you my Polish army for the 1939 campaign. This one was possible when Hat industries released its infantry and artillery and FirstToFight started the job of producing in a very comprehensive way the vehicles and artillery of the Blitzkrieg period. There is also the help of 3D prints and the usual scratchbuilding, particularly the Smialy armored train. Lastly, the Polish air force is also covered as you can find in plastic virtually everything Poland had in 1939.

AOE (Age Of Eagles rules) The infantry regiments of the Russo-German Legion in 28mm at Waterloo 1815

The Russo-German Legion is one of those Prussian units that breaks the "dull Prussian army all-clad-in- dark-blue" myth. Together whith blue infantry and Landwehr, white Berg infantry, black Freikorps, grey reservists and green skirmishers this is another unit that adds color to the Prussian army of 1815. The uniforms were Russian (paid by England) and the personnel were mostly German as the previous Belgian, Dutch and other POW from the Russian 1812 campaign were already dismissed. In this shape, without colors that only arrived in late 1815, the two regiments - 30 and 31- can block Grouchy at the Wavre under Thielmann's command. 

The hard plastic figures used were mostly Hat Prussians with a few Perry in the marching IR No30. 

Once again the Perry can be placed along the Hat miniatures and form very reasonably looking stands. The shako should be the Russian Kiwer but the Prussian with the oil cloth cover making a front peak is a close thing. The Prussian uniform of these days was also heavily influenced by the Russian one which makes Prussian figures a good model for the Russo-German regiments. 

There were no more drums from the command box so I converted some hornists with new arms and drums from Victrix and Perry. 

The Perry figure maching close to the right in the front rank had his head switched to a Hat one and the result is reasonable. 

Next: most probably a return to Poland 1939. 

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.

Rapid Fire! rules in 20mm - The Germans manning the WNs at Omaha

 

For some time I wanted to have some "proper" Germans for the Normandy beaches. By "proper" I mean late uniform and equipment, without camouflage smocks or helmets and, specially, without any grass on the bases. The period photos of the troops manning D-Day WN´s show them in pretty standard uniform and equipment. 

With the authorisation of Masters Colin and Richard you can see the number of figures needed for the biggest scenario of D-Day, Omaha beach, of course, belonging to both 352 and 716. Infantry Divisions. A total of 60 figures small arms equipped, 5 figures with PzFaust and 12 MMGs. As I have 7 pairs of the latter from Britannia (with surcoats but very nice figures) 5 more were added. Some of the MMGs are inside bunkers with no figures, like the ones in WN 71 and73, but maybe one day I´ll change those pieces of terrain so I can place the models inside of it. 

All figures are 1st type Valiant figures. For the MMG´s I used the figure manning the HMG but used the MG42 of the standing figure that fits nicely into this figure armpit . All the figures got some extra height to reach the level of my model trenches. 

The No 2 is the Valiant radio figure (with headphones cut out)  and, with some Extra Tech photo-etched ammo, it became a decent ammo provider. The stands were also cut at the front so the MMG can poke from the trench. 

Many of the riflemen got new arms and weapons from the Valiant Normandy set and they fit very well. 

By using different arms  from both sets you can get a lot of different figures. 

The Pzfausts got the same treatment and they also have a rifle for double usage. 

I will use the reinforcements from my other German infantry battalions as they eventually got a bit more time for some camouflage and the grass on the base will not look strange. The WN you see on the previous pictures is WN 72 with the famous 88mm and 50mm PAK guns on the western part of the beach. The Sentry model is a great piece of resin (which I copied here in styrofoam), unfortunately the distance between both casemates is too small (in fact it was some 150 meters) and Sentry used a small wall to connect both casemates when there should be a trench. I did the same with my copy as you don´t have too much space to portray accurately the German WN´s and the whole Omaha beach, that is over 7 km long. 

I made a few changes in my WN 72 based on the excellent work of Michael Akkerman. This guy is probably the leading expert on Omaha and also a talented painter. You can find his work on the Web, and particularly on the fabulous WW2 TV YouTube channel. 

Like this I painted  a bit more accurately the broken fence on the hotel next to the R667 casemate...

... and placed some stones and grass around the 50mm casemate. 

Related to 352.ID you can add a  Lorraine OP to the PzJäger Abt. of the division. This diagram came in an extensive 40 pages article on the PzJäger Abt. 352 in No38 of the excellent Normandie 1944 French magazine. So one more unit were you can have these funny vehicles instead of only the 21.PD. artillery.

In the top picture you can see one of the two in the top right corner. 

Next: a video on the Polish 1939 army, on Omaha or on the SCW.