Friday 27 June 2014

USN Decals for F-4 Phantoms

For those inclined to try their hand at 1/600th aircraft this is a PDF of some of the F-4 Decals that I made up.  Give it a try and let me know how you get on.  The PDF isn't as good a quality as I would like but it was the only way that I could get the decals out to a wider population without use of overlays. JPEG and PNG file types weren't very good and you couldn't see any of the necessary detail.

The link will give you something like




Download USN F-4 Phantom decals




WWII - BG Kursk - 5 July - DR Attack (Part 1)

The attack in the DR section was led by Rgt.Deutschland commanded by SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Harmel.  

III./Rgt. Deutschland (SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Wisliceny) and II./Rgt. Deutschland (SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Bissinger) were to lead the attack with attachments from 16./Komp/Rgt.Deutschland.  I./Rgt. Deutschland (SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Weidinger) was in reserve.  Due to the poor going in the area the support provided by the Tiger company and the Sturmgeschutzabteilung didn't materialise so the attack is only supported by Regimental assets.

Nipe indicates that the Russians were deployed in an arc around 3 sides of the town of Jachnotow (Iakhontov).  Glantz & House show the position as being a platoon sized forward outpost and not the main defensive line. Nipe goes on to state that the main position in the village was ringed by Minefields and a deep tank ditch.



From the map you can see Iakhontov almost in the centre of the map south west of Beresov and the road that takes you upto the main cross road.

The accounts do seem to indicate that there were forward positions but not how far out they were.  

The first stage of the attack into the village sees 3./Kompanie SS-Pioniere-Bataillon (SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Arnold) clearing paths for the assault teams into the village under heavy mortar and artillery fire.  Once they have cleared the paths they then start breaching the ditch and the assault battalions pass through.

The Assault battalion attacks the forward bunkers and then advance deeper into the village under increasing fire. At 0230hrs SS-Sturmbahnfuhrer Wisliceny reports by radio that the village was in german hands.  45 minutes later the division's artillery begins shelling the russian main defences at Beresoff (Berezov).  

Lucas (p.104) has a line that by 0300 III./Rgt Deutschland has become involved in bitter fighting after moving off.  The objectives of this subsequent attack were the line of trenches in front of yet another tank ditch and then the village of Beresov (Berezov, Beresoff).

So this scenario will end when the SS battalions have reached their intended jump off positions for the main attack.

Tuesday 24 June 2014

WWII - BG Kursk - Scenario 1 (Preliminary Moves - Part 1)

BACKGROUND
The SS Panzer Korps operations during Operation Citadel occurred later than their Army counterparts.  The German operational art involved preliminary attacks as part of any operation to dislocate the defender and place the attacking forces on a strong footing.

The Plan for the preliminary attacks was for a night assault on the Soviet outpost line.  Starting at 2300hrs the German assault units drawn from II./SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt 2 with attached Pioneer units began infiltrating towards the soviet outpost line.

GENERAL IDEA For this scenario I am looking at the operations of this single battalion from the LAH.  A similar attack by III./SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt 1 found abandoned positions and they then occupied the positions until first light. So will be trying out some ideas for the II./SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt 2 attack.

What do I know about the II./SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt 2 attack then?

The objective was the outpost on Hill 228.6.  George Nipes 'Blood, Steel & Myth; Page 56' describes the objective as  "The hill was located adjacent to a main road that extended seven kilometers north to the town of Bykowka (Bykov)".  Glantz and House 'The Battle of Kursk' has a good map (Map 5) which shows the village of Bykov (Bykowka) and measuring back the 7km would put the hill approximately where 2Bty/1008ATR strongpoint is, however forward of that is another hill which is where I think 228.6 is and even further forward is a platoon forward post but no defensive positions are shown on where I thought 228.6 was in the immediate vicinity.  I may be mistaken but it appears that the scale ruler at the bottom isn't correct.  The distance between this attack on the one on Jachontow (Iakhontov) is about 1km but the rule seems to put this a huge distance apart.  if I use the mile ruler and measure it puts 228.6 where I think it is.  I have since downloaded the Kursk Map for Google earth and using the measuring tool does indeed show that the Glantz map scale of Page 5 is wrong.  The soviet map overlays are from 1942 and use 2km grid squares and you can now see the area in its glorious colour.




Nipe's account states that 8./II.SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt 2 is the first company into the position which is then reinforced by the rest of the battalion before being counter attacked by up to two companies of Soviet infantry who assembled in an Anti-Tank ditch.  Other accounts state it was 9.Komp which is what Karck commanded when he won the Knights Cross in August 43.

I wouldn't think that an AT Ditch would be well forward as it would be easy to breach if it wasn't covered by fire. So sort of tempted to think this is on the main defensive line in the 151 Guards Rifle Regiment area and is the one in front of Hill 220.5.  If so then it makes the game a little bit more of a contest at Company level .  Neither side are going to have any armour involved in it at this early stage.

More to follow..as usual and when i remember that I am working on WWII and not another project ;)

WWII - BG Kursk - Scenario Work - Intro

I like playing games that have meaning, in that I mean it isn't just 1500 pts a side but a reason for the engagement and also that sometimes things just aren't fair :)

BG Kursk is no different and I want to be able to try out some different ideas

I have thought about my model collection as well and while it isn't a driver to use the models I have painted it certainly helps, so I am looking at writing up the engagements that involved the LAH and DR.

The  opening of the offensive has some events that may translate to the gaming table as well as providing some flavour for some of our more standard games.  As we keep going off and playing other things it is useful sometimes to have some smaller games which just concentrate on one element of the rules at a time to refresh elements of the rules without having to work out orders of battle and objectives etc, it is nice if someone has done that work for you.

WWII - BG Kursk - Peter Pig Tiger I (Pt 2)

The Peter Pig Tiger I that joined my German forces had a refresh of paint a while ago but that was about it and even that was just to freshen the colours.  I have since, with the aid of the new airbrush, gone back and removed all the brown camouflage and lightened the model somewhat.  This will still need work to make the green areas small and more widely scattered but the new detail nozzle should be up to that task.  I have also put the antenna back on the model as well as finishing the road wheels and the tools.  The towing wires on the LH Hull side need to be picked out as well which I have only just noticed.  Ahh the joy of gaming you never finish anyth.........





WWII - BG Kursk - Back on the Steppe

BG Kursk hasn't had a lot of attention given to it in the last couple of months, but we have managed to arrange a gaming day in July so we fancied doing some WWII and as a result a tidy up has been possible.



The Germans had a quick sort through and I finished basing the Opel Blitz Trucks and the Sdkfz 251/2 Mortar vehicle

The PzIVG had a quick sort through and I need to finish off a couple of bits on theses (which you can see from the rear view below is where I didn't finish the exhausts off for some reason.  I also need to do another crewman as one of these is just in dark yellow from the airbrush


And speaking of airbrush, my old badger has given up the ghost so a Birthday prezzie from Aztek came my way.  Haven't quite gotten used to the double action but things are improving.

The Russians needed the biggest tidy up.  I had to cut a lot of new bases as I hadn't really ever finished these off

From being based in a consistent manner these are now waiting for a blast of Tamiya NATO Green to blend them together and then onto the detailing.

Modern USMC Update

I have reached the 90% mark on the AAV-7s, they are now all in NATO 3 Colour with green EAAK panels.  It means that I can use them for a couple of other ideas that I have and not just for early OIF games.



In the first picture you can see the steps I went through to add the rear antenna mounts.  As you can see from the schematic of a South Korean variant, there should be two of these on both sides but I have only modelled the one.  I have now scavenged some square plastic rod for the two square mounts which sit further forward on the hull and will get around to those as the mood takes me.



In terms of Marines, I have gone part way in getting three squads painted up.  I have done one squad in MARPAT with Coyote Brown web gear; One squad in MARPAT with Woodland body armour and green webbing and the last squad, which has been started, will have some green stuff hoods added and will be in MOPP suits.  These are just to give you an idea






Monday 2 June 2014

Modern USMC AAV7

Brian (Irishserb) sent me a set of four of his resin cast USMC AAV7s which are absolutely fab.  These are the first models I have had from Brian and I am very impressed.

A couple of early shots WIP.  Don't know if I want to do them in Tan or NATO 3 Colour so might go 50/50 and do them all NATO 3 Colour overall but mix and match on the armour plates



Two are going to have the NATO 3 Colour over the armour panels.  I might go back and only do one with the overpaint and do the other one with green panels


The last two haven't got very far yet, I just wanted to see what they come up like

Regards