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!

 

Phaffing Around

 Micheal was very keen to play NATO Brigade Commander as intended - in a Cold War setting (what I tend to think of as 'modern'!), so Tim kindly put on a game. We've been doing a cold war gone hot set in 1981 for many years now, I tend to do the Central Front, while Tim does the more peripheral theatres.

This weeks excursion featured Czech forces invading Austria, always a bit of a side show in SPIs mighty 'Next War' as I recall. 

Here we are near the town of Phaffing in deepest Austria. The River Inn is off to the left (west) and Czech columns with masses of bridging material are heading west down the Autobahn.

Micheal and I took the Czechs, with their OT64 APCs and interesting collection of T55s and wheeled artillery. John (later joined by Pete) took the Austrians. I recall first seeing Tims 6mm Austrians at the old Polish Club where we used to meet, so that was a very long time ago indeed.

Micheal and I each had a Motor Rifle Regiment, and I was also notionally the division commander. My MRR was a long way down the motorway, so I was mainly there to provide guidance and support to Micheals regiment, as it was his first game. We also had the divisional T72 battalion, a battalion of 152mm howitzers and an entire brigade of bridging engineers. Our aim was to get the engineers safely off the map to the west. 

The terrain was extremely poor for wheeled APCs, with lots of steep hills and heavy forests, so the road network was going to be key.

The opening moves saw the 1st MRR recce company driving down the motorway to the outskirts of Phaffing. Amazingly it was unoccupied. We'd been very concerned about the bottleneck there. 

The recce pressed on as the main body of 1st MRR arrived. Standard Warpac march order, so a MRB in the lead, with the Tank Battalion behind. We'd opted to bring the engineer brigade in straight after 1st MRR, as I had a plan...

The recce had meanwhile spotted some AFVs on the far ridge overlooking the motorway (dimly visible in the distance). These loosed off a some shots at the recce company, knocking out some BRDMs. They were Austrian Kuirassier SP tank destroyers! Tim had converted them by attaching an AMX13 turret to an M48 hull, and very convincing they looked too. 

The TDs had got the motorway firmly locked down, hull down on the ridge and with a big ZOC over it too.

Well, there wasn't much we could do about it for now. The lead MRB occupied Phaffing just as the Kuirassiers finished off the BRDMs before they could scoot. The T72s also showed off, roaring across country towards the tree line (they are visible just right of the motorway). 

It was a good job we'd occupied the town as now a large Austrian Panzergrenadier Battalion came roaring up the motorway, and split into two groups. One set up in front of the Kuirassiers, while other splashed through a marsh, heading for Phaffing.

Micheal now began  to deploy more of the column, and is it broke up into its constituent battalions, the inevitable friction of card activation resulted in various traffic jams. 

We had at least managed ot get our tank battalions into (and beyond) the tree line, along with the Regimental mortars, AA and AT companies. Another MRB and the Regimental engineers filtered along the tree line south of the town.

We were very fortunate in that the Austrian Panzergrenadiers attempted a hasty assault into Phaffing, but failed their morale test and were now pinned down in the marsh taking increased casualties from the defenders. We were less fortunate in that an entire battalion of Austrian M60A1s had turned up, and now AP shells and missiles flew back and forth down the valley.

The rest of 1st MRR now rolled on, including the Regimental artillery battalion, which would be very helpful. Austrian artillery now hammered Phaffing, but our MRB hung on despite taking heavy losses. Our T55s weren't doing so well against the Austrian armour however, and a number were now burning. The T72s were fine though and blasting away happily at the M60s.

The Engineer Brigade finally arrived. I parked them down this very handy side road, to await an opportunity to advance and free up the motorway for 2nd MRR (mine).

We broke for the evening at that point.

Close view of the battle for Phaffing. We've got two MRBs and the Engineers up now, although the Engineers are disorganised. The Austrians are still disorganised and shot up in the marsh, you can also see we've got a couple of hits on the M60s. 

1st MRR is virtually fully deployed for battle now (finally) despite the difficult terrain so hopefully we can stop just being targets in the Austrian shooting gallery. Our T55 battalion has been completely destroyed, the T72s have taken some hits and one MRB is down to half a company(!).

The main Austrian position. M60s top right, Kuirassiers and AA on the central hill, and remaining Panzergrenadiers bottom right. The Austrian Regimental HQ is on the road at the bottom.

Next evening, the Divisional 152mm battalion comes rolling on, followed by 2nd MRR. I have a cunning plan! The artillery is going to deploy each side of the highway, and the MRR column heads northwest cross-country - I'm aiming to reach that valley in the centre right and form the entire Regiment up their prior to assaulting the Austrian position. There is no point trying to conduct a passage of lines with 1st MRR, it would just be chaos.

Suddenly, things start to go our way. So suddenly I only took one photo in fact. A flurry of Czech airstrikes arrive, called in by our numerous artillery HQs, as does a storm of mortar and artillery fire, backed up by direct fire from the T72s and Sagger company.

Under the massive volume of firepower, the Austrians melt away. The Austrian RHQ and half the panzergrenadiers are destroyed, the Kuirassiers and M60s take more hits and almost all the survivors fail their numerous morale tests (152mm stonks are scary! airstrikes are more scary!!), only the M60s hang on.

With the Austrians in disarray my plan for 2nd MRR is hastily revised. My lead MRB and Tank battalion are already in the tree line, so they form up into a powerful tank/mechanised Forward Detachment. The rest of the column just plans to bash on right up the motorway and overrun the disorganised Austrians.

There is no need however, with their HQ gone and all other units with heavy casualties, the Austrians pull back.

The Bridging Engineers are completely unscathed - I hadn't realised the Austrian objective was to damage (or ideally destroy) them. Parking up in the side road was the best decision we made.

That was really good fun, and re-kindled my interest in WW3 again. This was the period NBC was written for, and it just works so well. I've already dug out my notes on the existing campaign, I hadn't realised we'd already done a dozen games on the hypothetical 1981 war.