Plastic Soldier Company 15mm T34s

As I mentioned in my last post, I was rather inspired to take the plunge into 15mm WW2 Eastern Front  when someone turned up the the club with some PSC Russians. I have gamed the Eastern Front in 6mm for a very long time indeed, but this scale seemed ideal to run the Skirmish Campaigns 'Red Guards at Kursk' campaign, and the things I bought were with one eye towards the forces required for that. The great joy of plastic tanks in this scale is that you don't put your back out lifting the boxes up.

The PSC 15mm T34s are the 1943 version with hexagonal 76mm turret and 'flanged' (not sure what else to call them) wheels. They include both 76mm and 85mm turrets, just like the good old Airfix 1/76th scale  kit.

Two boxes of T34s make up into ten models, enough for a whole company.

They come five to a box, which is very handy for making up a company of ten at 1:1 scale. They also include crew figures, although I only chose to put these in a few turrets. They come with loose stowage boxes, lengths of track and and external fuel tanks, so these can be assembled in various permutations.

T34/76 with commander.

These were very easy to assemble with virtually no flash, although they take much longer than metal models in the same scale. After I had done all ten I had got it down to around twenty minutes each. The only thing to watch our for are the tracks which go together in one, and only one, way. Best to dry fit them before gluing. The moulded on detail is a little light in places, but the wash and drybrushing picked it out well enough. I  assembled both sets of turrets and made up a storage box t hold the 'spares'.

T34/85, same hull as above. The gun barrel is a bit thick but looks OK on the tabletop.

These have all been painted in my usual way: undercoat black, mist with white then a  heavy drybrush of Vallejo Russian Green. I inkwashed some of them but it didn't make much difference to the final result. A heavy application of mud around the running gear then a light drybrush of 'dust' and picked out the details.

Been away for a while....

Once again I have dismally failed to keep the blog up to date, so time to try again. I have been a bit jaded and uninspired with wargaming for a while, just the same old same old, and most of my energy has gone into WW2 Airsoft which I have found to be inspiring and entertaining albeit hideously expensive (shh, don't tell my wife!). In recent months some of my enthusiasm for wargaming has returned, and I also re-discovered blogging through Twitter.

So, here we go again. I think I need to keep it fairly short and to the point. I have managed to overcome my lethargy and do a few wargaming things over the last year:

• 'Ten Rounds Rapid'. The next WD Display Team (north) participation game. A 15mm WW1 game covering  the BEF in 1914, to be run in 2013, deliberately a year early for the centenary  avoid what will undoubtedly be a saturated market in 2014.
•  2mm Cold War. I've always been interested in the Cold War, having lived through it, yet the mind numbing tedium of trying to identify thirteen different kinds of T-64 has always rather put me off. After the success of my 2mm WSS project (which again, I'd put off for decades in larger scales for smilar reasons), 2mm seemed to offer the solution for my Cold War conundrum as well.
•  Command and Colours Empires. We seem to play a lot of CnC these days, and as I had grown weary of using Rifle & Kepi for  large scale late nineteenth century warfare, I had a go at doing a CnC variant for the wars of 1859, 1864, 1866 and 1870.
•  15mm WW2 Russians. I swore I would never do the Eastern Front in 15mm as I have vast armies in 6mm, however never say never. Someone turned up at the club wth some Plastic Soldier Company WW2 Soviets, and I was converted. One or two slight shopping accidents later and I seemed to have quite a few 15mm Russians.
•  Big boys toys. I have been doing a lot of WW2 Airsoft/re-enactment and my collections of  uniforms and associated toys continues to grow. I may manage a few pictures and reports occasionally.

I also seem to have taken up Fell Running as an alternative to road running. Well, there are plenty of big hills nearby and the weather has been bad enough to make it challenging...

So, plenty of stuff to talk about in a bit more detail, and maybe this time I'll stir myself to do it. People seem to like pictures in blogs, so here are a couple of tasters of my PSC Russians.

T34s, lovely little models which go together really easily. I particularly like the included crew figures.

PSC Russian infantry. A veritable horde!

Colomby, August 1870

The battle of Colomby, fought using my 'Rifle and Kepi' rules, hexes are around a kilometre, stands are regiments and formations are divisions. The view is from the French side. I played the French and Tim Gow the wicked Prussians.

Historical Situation.

Following the defeat at Spicheren, the Army of the Rhine fell back before two German armies to Metz. Marshal Bazaine planned to pass his five Corps over the Moselle before he could be encircled. The German cavalry detected the French withdrawal and the leading elements of the pursuing VIIth and 1^st Corps launched an immediate spoiling attack against the French rearguard.

Historically night fell before the Germans had time to seriously develop their attack and that was the case here. The scenario OBs, maps etc were largely taken from the Bruce Wiegles excellent '1870'.

French position facing east. Imperial Guard are in reserve under control of the Emperor. Dense vineyards clutter the landscape.

The initial Prussian assault wavers attacking the front right of the French position.

The Prussians flee in disorder despite the supporting bombardment.

Prussians attack again, this time from two different directions. French cavalry move up in support.

Prussian artillery hammers the hill as fighting rages.

The French defenders disintegrate leaving the hill empty.

Prussians move on to the next position behind an artillery barrage as the French cavalry counterattack.

The next French divison collpases and the cavalry are blown, but night falls as the Prussians bludeon their way to a phyrric victory.

Airsoft

As readers of Tim Gows blog will no doubt be aware, a vaguely wargaming related hobby I've been involved for five years now is Airsoft. This is somewhat similar to paintball, but using airsoft weapons firing little plastic 0.2g balls rather than great big painful plastic balls full paint. It is primarily an excuse to dress up in military uniforms and run around the woods playing with toy guns, something I use to enjoy doing when I was a kid. As a 'sport' it is surprisingly popular, there are dozens of Airsoft sites all around the country and thousands of players. Perhaps it meets the modern need for experience based leisure activities, or something.

I have mainly been drawn towards equipment and uniforms from the Cold War, perhaps because it loomed so large in my childhood and early adult years. I've got various sets uniforms and webbing (or loadouts in Airsloft parlance) including a number of different British Army ones, both modern temperate and desert as well as 1970s/80s era, along with West and East German (Bundeswehr and National Volksarmee). In the eighteen months I've taken an increasing interest in WW2 Airsoft, which is something of a crossover activity between re-enactment and conventional airsoft and I have WW2 British, Soviet and German uniforms. Taking part in this hobby is in no way to condone particular political systems or ideologies, for me it is more like collecting Action Man outfits in 1:1 scale.

1970s/80s British. DPM, 58 pattern webbing and SLR.

1980s Bundeswehr. Flecktarn and G3

Cold War National Volksarmee. Strichtarn and AK47s, also looking a bit like Dads Army in this one....

WW2 German, in this case Luftwaffe Field Division uniform plus MP40 on a rather snowy day in Nottinghamshire in a classic 'Airfix figure' pose.

British Tommy. Battle Dress and Lee Enfield No. 4 with a distinctly un-lethal rubber bayonet.

Along with wargaming posts I'll be posting airsoft stuff too as it seems to absorbed a lot more of my time and energy recently than tabletop wargaming.

Disaster in the snow

Tragic news from Vulgaria. As our forces returned from counter-terrorist operations in Forbodia, unseasonally heavy snowfalls seriously hampered the march. Logistics have always been a weak spot for the Vulgarians, and in the frozen wasteland the horses were unable to graze and supplies of fodder soon ran out, leaving the horses to starve in the snow.

Vulgarian officers on foot led the retreat through the frozen wastes.

Gunners manhandled the lighter pieces.

Limbers and heavy pieces were abandoned in the snow.

Jagers covered the withdrawal from positions in the snow.

Horses lay frozen in the snow.

Small groups of survivors stuggled on behind their standards.

 

It is to be hoped our forces make a safe and speedy return. At least the snow will impede Forbodian terrorists from crossing the border.

Rasienie

This game was run at Sheffield Wargames Club in June 2011 and covered the Soviet counterattack on 6th Panzer Division at Rasienie in Lithuania in the opening days of Barbarossa.

6th Panzer Div recce battalion holds the river crossing.

Rifle Regiment around Rasienei.

Hordes of Soviet tanks! Some 250 of them in the real battle, lurking in the woods north of the river.

Soviet armour moves to attack the bridgehead behind an artillery barrage.

Soviets attack 6th recce Bn and cross the river to the north and south.

Things are looking a bit sticky for the recce troops.

Advanced tank units move to attack the Rifle Regiment.

6th Panzer Regiment races to the rescue while losses mount among the recce troops.

The German infantry start to waver.

Some Soviet tank units also start to falter, although some German infantry have been overrun.

The panzers engage the Soviet tanks while fighting rages around the bridge.

Heavy artillery and 88s arrive from the rear.

The recce battalion finally breaks and runs for cover, but the panzers continue to mop up.

The Soviet attack falters as the panzers start to cross the river.

The Soviet attack finally grinds to a halt. A result pretty much in line with the historical one.

Been a while....

Not doing very well with this blogging thing am I? Rest assured that I am still playing some games etc., just not getting around to writing about it.

Further to my last post about COW, I helped run a few sessions but also put on another big one of my own, in this case alos covering WW1, but simulating a Corps level trench warfare assault. Sadly there was some command and control confusion about when/where/if the session was actually taking place and I didn't have many punters. In the event the handful which turned up managed to come up with a brilliant plan:

Lots of boundaries, phase lines etc. It particularly helped that the wily Corps and divisonal commanders managed to obtain enough heavy artillery and ammunition to utterly flatten the German positions, although this completely tore up the already waterlogged ground.

Just to add insult to injury, the assault was preceded by a heavy gas attack along the entire front.

On the ground it ended up looking like this, as waves of British infantry pushed thruogh the shattered defences. Here the leading troops are passing through the German battlezone against scattered resistance from enemy reserves occupying strongpionts centered on villages to the rear.

To everyones astonishment the tanks lumbered right through to the end, making it as far as the German field artillery positions.

In other gaming news from July/August, we went on a family holiday to the USA. Along with swimming in the Pacific, driving across the desert, having an entertaining encounter with the US medical system via an emergency appendectomy in Las Vegas (seriously!) and riding the cable cars in San Francisco I managed to fit in a visit to a firing range in Nevada with daughter number 2. No restrictions on weapons in Nevada, so she got the 'Coalition Package' - M9, M16 and m249, whereas I went for a G3, M249 and a Sten.

G3 was fun to fire, very similar to an SLR (which I've already fired) and a very satisfying 7.62mm kick. Reasonable grouping and tore the target to shreds.

The M249 was a joy to shoot, really tight grouping, very stable and accurate, although I suspect the bipod and laser sight helped quite a bit.

Sten was....interesting. The range master was a bit nervous about it as he'd had an MP40 explode on him, but in the event it was fine. Very noisy, suprisingly high rate of fire and made nice big 9mm holes in the target. Main thing was it pulled up and left to an extreme degree so even with a three round burst the shots went all over the place. Once you'd got used to it, it was better and you could keep short bursts roughly in the same place. This was the gun I started with and I thought I was the worst shot in the world, but I was heartened to find some holes in the target from an adjacent lane, so at least I really wasn't the worst.

Worth the trip just for that I think.