More passengers

 Along with the Horch cars, I also wanted to add some passengers for some of my Zvezda Opel Blitz trucks to mark when they are in use as troop transports.

My collection of Zvezda Opels in panzer grey.

Now, when I assembled these, I very stupidly glued the tilts down, even though they are designed to be removable. The first job was therefore to unglue them again, which involved a craft knife, razor saw and a lot of cursing.

I got them off in one piece eventually. I added bits of cut up matchstick to the insides of the tilts so I could just push them back into place if needed. I also painted the interior of the trucks grey, and touched up the damaged paint on the truck bodies.

Having got the tilts off I can now actually put cargo in them, like my resin ammo boxes, fuel drums, or figures.  

My original plan was to make rows of seated figures on removeable bases which would live under the tilts when stored. It turned out I'd run out of seated figures, so as a stopgap, I made up some bases of standing figures instead. In theory you can get 30 blokes in the back of a 3 tonner, but it is standing room only.

These are some spare PSC early war German infantry I had left in the spares box. I could have done three figures per lorry, but two was enough for now. These are just done in standard early war grey uniforms with jackboots. I did the base grey to blend in with the truck bed.

That turned out to be easy enough to do. When I get some more seated figures I'll make up some new bases and just repurpose these as a couple of extra rifle stands for my early war German infantry.

I've also got some metal trucks with glued on tilts who ideally need the same treatment. I suspect getting the tilts off those will be a lot harder, so a job for another day.

 

Himeimat, August 1942

 I originally started doing a version of this scenario based on the one in the Rapid Fire 'Montys Eighth Army' book as I was very taken with the idea of using four(!) German/Italian recce battalions together, and I also wanted to trial my minefield rules for OHW WW2. The real battle featured 4th (Light) Armoured Brigade screening the southern half of the Alamein position vs assorted Axis recce units while most of DAK charged to its doom at Alam Halfa.

I realised fairly quickly that the battle described in the scenario book bore a very strong resemblance to OHW scenario 20, 'Fighting Retreat', but instead of a stream it had a minefield with a couple of gaps, the various woods became soft depressions, and I kept the big hill on the baseline as the objective (Mount Himeimat). As the OHW victory conditions were more interesting than the RF ones, I modelled the game on the OHW scenario, but transposed the named terrain features onto my new desertified-version.

Battlefield from the south. The Quattara Depression is just south of here, El Alamein 20 miles or so to the northeast. The N-S track is the so called 'Barrel Track' and the first British minefield is off to the left. The second minefield is offtable to the right, the gaps dominated by Mt Himeimat, the big hill on the mid right.

The mighty Germans!

In the lead we have the 3rd, 33rd and 580th Recce battalions, from 15th Panzer, 21st Panzer and 164th Afrika Divisions. These boys are all Heavy Recce units and all rated as veterans.

And we also have the Italian RECAM with the Novara and Nissorio Lancers riding in AB41s and L6 Light Tanks, plus a wandering Pz III battalion from 8th Panzer Regiment which will rock up later. Some 105s in support, and a single logistic column as the Afrika Korps was desperately short of supplies in August 1942.

Tim and Russell commanded the Germans, with Pete taking over from Russell on Wednesday.

Part of 4th (Light) Armoured Brigade, L-R, a company of 44th Recce Regt in carriers, 4/8th Hussars in Stuarts, 1st KRRC supported by Portee 6pdrs, a battery of 25pdrs (3 RHA?) in support and two logistic columns. In the original RF scenario both the Hussars and KRRC had dropped a company, but I beefed them up to battalion equivalents again as all the German units in the scenario were quite weak.

John and Simon commanded the British.

The Axis and Allied airforces also put in an appearance. This bodged up 'SM79' with two missions and the rather nice RAF B26 Marauder with three missions.

The Allies had to start with two units west of the minefields, but ultimately the game would be decided by who controlled Mt Himeimat.

Simon went for a very upfront defence in the north! The Hussars parked in the minefield gap and 1 KRRC dug in just behind it.

In the south the gap was screened by 44th Recce (light recce) in their carriers.

And the 25pdrs dug in on the edge of the depression SW of Mt Himeimat.

The Axis piled on in strength in the south. The British called in artillery fire and the carriers fell back. All the recce units made use of their ability to shoot/move or move/shoot and various hits were inflicted.

This prompted something of a mad dash south by the Hussars and KRRC.

The carriers took a bit of a pasting, became disorganised, and fell back. The British artillery and air pounded the gap. Even if they didn't hit anything, it would slow movement through the barrage. 

Meanwhile the sneaky Italians were driving for the northern minefield gap, prompting the Hussars to halt.

German artillery and air pounded the Stuarts as the Italians pushed into the gap, covered by 33rd Recce.

The rest of the Germans pushed cautiously through the gap in the south, under fire all the way. 1 KRRC arrived to support the carriers, who reorganised.

Hard pounding in the north! Recce units aren't very good against tanks, even Stuarts.

John noticed that the aircraft were casting photogenic shadows, so I took a photo. 

The Desert Airforce joined in the battle for the northern gap. 

But the Stuarts fell back disorganised and the Axis pushed through the northern gap. As the Italians edged forward, the Stuarts reorganised.

In the south, the 44th carriers fell back as the Panzers arrived, and then finally disintegrated and the survivors retreated offtable back through the second minefield. That left the Royal Artillery to hold the line. 

Then it was the KRRC turn to get hammered. The 6pdrs took a heavy toll of the Panzers.

The Panzer assault was repulsed, but it left the KRRC shaken and disorganised.

The intervention of the Desert Airforce wasn't enough to save them, and concentrated German fire sent them packing back to the Delta.

By now the 25pdrs were firing over open sights and more Panzers were destroyed. 

And three German/Italian battalions rushed the hill. The Hussars became disorganised again, but RECAM took such heavy losses they had to reorg,

The Royal Artillery stuck to their guns!

The Desert Airforce intervened again in an attempt to hold off the Axis. 

But it was all too little, too late and the 580th overran the disorganised Hussars. The remaining Stuarts withdrew to the rear.

The gunners were down to their last hit, so we called it a day at that point.

Well, that was a bit of a wipeout. I can't help thinking the Allies tried to defend everything rather than concentrating on smashing one Axis unit at a time, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Another good scenario which warrants a replay at some point, and once again, it was interesting how well the original RF scenario mapped onto a OHW one. 

The minefields seemed to be suitably scary as everyone avoided them, and I was pleased with the way the Heavy and Light Recce units worked. The supply/logistics system seems to work well too. I've got another scenario with minefields, so we'll try that in a few weeks/months and see how we get on.

 

15mm WW2 Desert British - Stage Three

 Yet more Brits for the desert! I found the first batch really hard going, but by now I have a system worked out and this lot were much easier.  I actually did these a while ago, but the post has been sat in my backlog. 

Not a huge load of stuff this time, I'm at the stage of doing more manageable sized chunks of toys for the Brits.

Another CD/Rapid Fire Infantry battalion was the main element, 12 more bases of infantry in various poses. The usual arrangement of one LMG group, one Rifle Group and one Rifle/Command group per company. I managed to paint these far faster than the first lot as I've figured out the colour scheme. 

And some more support weapons. More Vickers, 3" mortars, a couple more carriers and a 6pdr. I'll need more 6pdrs if I'm moving into 1942, but one is fine for now and all I need for a very specific scenario I have in mind.

And just because I love these old clunkers, a trio of early Cruisers, Marks I, III and IV. At some point I'll get a Mark II, but not today. These will do for 7th Armoured Brigade in the Crusader battles, as well as Operation Compass stuff. 

I'll feature the new models in the ongoing series of modelling posts.

I have been to.... Japan

 We've recently returned from a 3 week trip to Japan, which I have to say was absolutely amazing. We arrived in mid March, and travelled to the very tip of Honshu and (briefly) to Kyushu, although most of the places we visited were in the centre of the country. Everything from blizzards, through howling gales, rain and blazing sunshine.

Anyway, as ever I'll put up a few pictures of historical/military interest. First up though, a few touristy pictures.

Tokyo Tower. Mt Fuji dimly visible in the distance in the morning sun (this was actually the view from our hotel in Tokyo, Park Hotel in Shiodome, highly recommended).

The frozen north! This is near Akita iirc.

Cherry blossoms in the centre/South and the traditional picnics underneath them.

Mt Fuji looking pretty good across the bay.

OK, enough of that, lets have some Samurai stuff.

We visited a few Samurai houses, this was the largest, but they all had a similar layout essentially being a walled building complex. This one was big enough to host a number of farm buildings and various crops and animal enclosures.

Inside was much as you'd expect  - lots of wood and paper sliding doors etc and tatami mats on the floor.

This was a much smaller house, albeit still with a decent walled garden. This one featured its own moat!

Nice set of armour.

And a couple of Katana blades. They looked absolutely razor sharp.

One of the internal gardens. I gather there are six desirable characteristics of Japanese gardens which include water, plants, a vista and some other things I can't recall.

Tokugawa Armour (reproduction!). This was at the Tokagawa Shrine and tomb beneath Mount Fuji. 

This fine chap is outside the Imperial Palace and was one of the 13th Century Emperors most loyal retainers. Now he is on permanent guard outside the remains of Edo Castle. 

Speaking of castles, we also visited several of these, although they were all built towards the end of the Sengoku period and saw very little (or no) actual use in warfare. They all had a similar construction, but some were (much) bigger than others.

This is the main keep of Matsue Castle, one of only 12 surviving original castles, the rest having been destroyed accidentally or deliberately, although many have been rebuilt in modern times. Unlike Medieval European castles, they aren't designed to be permanently occupied.

The interior construction is very similar to an eighteenth century Man of War! The whole wooden structure rests on a massive stone base.

Outside the main keep is a system of moats, walls and smaller towers. This is a watchtower at Kanazawa Castle, the construction is similar to the main keep but much smaller.

And there are usually secondary moats inside the defensive works too.

This bridge leads to the island with the main keep on it. You can also see how sturdy the walls are, and how imposing the moats are.

The final castle we visited was Edo Castle in Tokyo, now the Imperial Palace. Compared to the others, it is absolutely vast. This is one of the huge secondary moats and a watch tower.

One of the inner fortifications. The amount of stonework in general was very impressive.

And this is the remaining base of the keep at Edo which was four times the size of any others we saw.

Along with castles there were various nautical encounters.

A Coastguard ship, we saw quite a few of these in various sizes but no proper Japanese Navy ships.

I rather liked this tugboat with its dayglo mast. This was in Aomori at the very tip of Honshu. The snow covered mountains of Hokkaido were just visible on the horizon.

Also in Aomori was this excellent museum ship covering the old rail ferries which ran from Aomori to Hokkaido. The rails are mounted on a sort of retractable crane thing so they move up and down with the tide. 

Now there is an undersea tunnel(!) going to Hokkaido, one of the longest in the world, which has reduced the demand for ferry services.

The preserved ferry from the side. Aomori was attacked in August 1945 by B29s and all six of the original wartime ferries were sunk or damaged by US carrier planes in various attacks.

Another Coastguard ship moored near the ferry.

Even more coastguard ships. These were on the Sea of Japan, I can't recall exactly where.

Shipping on the the strait between Honshu and Kyushu. It was incredibly busy, as the strait links the Pacific with the Sea of Japan and all those busy factories on Korea and China. At the narrowest section (just visible) there is a road bridge and tunnel. 

There was at least one traditional Japanese ship doing pleasure cruises.

This tug boat, named "Yamato" apparently has ideas above its station! I later discovered that Yamato is actually quite a common name for things in Japan.

It wouldn't be a trip to Japan without a trip to Hiroshima.

The famous nuclear dome building. Ground zero was 150m east of here, so I'm astonished it is still standing.

The cenotaph, memorial park and eternal flame were all very well done.

We did visit the museum, but it was very busy. The 'human shadow' steps have bene moved inside here now. I didn't take any photos inside apart form this one as it seemed rather distasteful. 

Under this dome are the ashes of 70,000 people, which is rather sobering.

This shrine is to the memorialise the school students who were in the city at the time.

Three of the original tramcars survived the atomic attack and are still running. We were fortunate enough to see one. The rest of the trams are much more modern.

That was a great trip, very enjoyable, with everything from BladeRunner to Japanese social realist cinema and taking in a big dollop of Shogun and The Last Samurai on the way. Great stuff and highly recommended for a visit. Even if you don't speak Japanese, Google Translate is very helpful!