Cold War Commanders Battle for Hannover - 1st day action

Saturday, the battle begins.

The NATO artillery table.

The airport in my sector, garrisoned by a RAF Regt Sqdn with 2 sqdns of Chieftains over watching the runway from the nearby ridge.  I was expecting a Soviet paratrooper of heliborne infantry assault on the airport.

More Chieftains deployed as a back stop on the ridge and skulking in the nearby forest.

Major General Dennis' lead regiment from his armoured division ignores my British armour and concentrates on the Belgians to his immediate front.  In response, my lead Chieftain squadrons race forwards, with one squadron reaching as far as the ridge overlooking the advancing Soviets, with another coming up fast..

Major General Dennis' lead regiment beyond the red roofed apartment block and Lieutenant General Shawovski (overall Corps Commander) personally leading the lead regiment from another armoured division in the distance.

British reserves were also committed, with a regimental battlegroup of battalion strength, in Challengers, motoring hell for leather along the main road, which fed them directly into the rear and flank of the advancing Soviets (off the top of the photograph).

On my left flank, Lieutenant General Steve's British armoured regiments start to advance towards a VDV paradrop in regimental strength.  The blue supermarket turned out to be occupied by a Spetsnaz detachment, which also sprang an ambush on the advancing British.  My Chieftains on the ridge overlooking the airport were able to make a small contribution and snipe at extreme range at the ASU-85s in the angle of the road up and to the right of the two cooling towers, eventually knocking out two out of the three.

On the British right flank, the gallant Belgians await the oncoming Soviet storm of armour.

The first regiment of Dennis' armoured horde advancing in waves.

The VDV regiment coming under pressure from Steve's British.

Spetsnaz and British infantry slug it out down at the Netto store.

I think these are Mike's troops, initially forming a screen between the VDV and the armoured divisions advancing on the Dutch.

More of Mike's armour.

Ben's armour throws itself at top speed down the autobahn, heading for the river crossing.  Can anything stop it.  Yes, apparently concentrated artillery firing on pre-mapped coordinates (note the cluster of red suppression dice just to the right of the river crossing).

Marks Dutch lining the river.  These heros, high on something or other, are about to wade, swim and snorkel across the river and take the fight to the enemy.

The scene of the first mapped artillery strike.  Note Ben rightly able to claim that the East German armour was the first to cross the river, showing the Russians how it's done.  Unfortunately, they were living on borrowed time.

Mikes forces advancing on the Dutch flank.

The VDV regiment taking up defensive positions, but being whittled down all the time.

Dennis' lead tank battalion has advanced to the minefield bordering the river, but Chieftains line the crest line of the overlooking ridge.  Fire from these has knocked out more than half of the rear tank battalion.

Ian's troops making good use of the reverse slope, but they should be pushing up to the river at top speed.

Andy's West Germans waiting patiently.  The bridge is mined for demolition and they are feeling confident.

The Belgians, awaiting Dennis, with Nicks British advancing up to the river line from lower left.  This bridge is already blown.  Where is the Soviet bridging equipment?  Off table at the moment!

Challengers race down the highway to intercept Dennis.  They already have their eye on Ian's troops as well.

My Chieftain sqdn on the ridge is now supported by the regimental HQ with attached FV438s and a pair of Chieftains.

The Challengers now stretch across the board, pushing along the road as fast as they can.

Steve's British armour close in on the VDV, being careful to keep out of RPG range.

Ian and Dennis pour on the reserves - their part of the table begins to look like a giant tank park.

One of Steve's air strikes randomly drew a Buccaneer.  The model is one of mine and I was rather pleased with the paint job.

Another view, hopefully it contributed to erosion of the VDV.

Ian's troops close up to the river line in front of the West Germans at the close of play.  Much was made of the BMPs ability to swim, although the bridging equipment is still at the back of the pack on the edge of the table.

So, with the light fading fast and a curry calling, we closed the first day's play.  An excellent day for all, although there were some worried faces on both sides at times.  Day 2 pictures to follow.

Thanks for looking.

Cold War Commanders Battle for Hannover - the battlefield

So, Friday afternoon was set up day.  Unfortunately, by the time we had set everything up, the light was fading fast and my camera flash was simply unable to penetrate the gloom properly.

I managed to take this picture of some of my buildings representing a small town to the southeast of Hildesheim.

A shot of the river line which crossed my tables in the rapidly developing gloom.

The next day I managed to take these shots of the terrain as we were deploying.  This is looking northwest towards Hannover, way off in the distance beyond the end of the tables.  Dennis is deploying part of his armoured division beyond the road running across the table, while Ian would deploy another armoured division in the space this side of the road.  Facing them would be a West German brigade and a Belgian brigade, with a brigade from British 1st Armoured, and part of a brigade from 4th British Armoured Division (my troops) in the corner where the table turns towards the northeast.

This is the hilly country where 4th Armoured deployed an armoured recce regiment with attached engineering squadron, and a single Chieftain regiment.  Just out of view on the far right is a large airport, which was garrisoned by a RAF Regt infantry squadron and an RAF Regiment Rapier squadron.  Later, a Challenger Regiment would advance down the road skirting the edge of the high ground, to take the Soviets in the flank. 

The area around Saltzgitter, with the large power station and industrial centre around docks on the canal.

Another view showing the lovely building models used for Saltzgitter

The built up area of Brunswick, soon to be the centre of some hard fought actions.

Brunswick with the heavily mined NATO side of the river.

The far end of the table layout with the autobahn crossing the river in the distance - the East Germans were to suffer heavily in this area.

So, this was the terrain to be fought over on the Saturday and Sunday.  More pictures of the action to come shortly.

Thanks for looking.

A pair of Britannia 20mm Scimitars

I bought these from a fellow club member, they are resin castings from Britannia Miniatures/Grubby Tanks.

I painted these in a light grey undercoat, followed by Iraqi Sand with NATO black splodges and gun barrel.  Tracks are German Grey dry brushed oily steel.  Petrol cans and helmets are Tamiya NATO green.  Canvas covers are khaki or German Camo Beige.  Exhaust is orange brown and vision blocks are Azure.  Faces and hands are flat flesh, goggles are English Uniform, with NATO black and oily steel lenses.  Mugs, maps and inside of hatch covers are Ivory.  Weapon barrels are dry brushed basalt grey.  Everything is washed with diluted Army Painter strong tone ink.  Final coat is matt varnish.

Nice little models.  Not too many air bubbles, although the track edges were quite irregular.  These will hopefully make it on to the table for some Force on Force games in the not too distant future.

Thanks for looking.

6mm Modern Timecast buildings finished

I managed to finish off the last of the Timecast buildings ready for the Coldwar Commanders megagame this coming weekend.  I'm going to have to pick up a few more of these as they paint up really nicely. I particularly like the detail of the brickwork, which responds well to dry brushing.

Enough industrial units for an industrial estate.

Including the IKEA themed unit.

A couple of residential blocks.

Some half timbered detached houses and  farm.

Some nice buildings and fun to paint, although some of the windows were very fiddly to get right.  Now I'm going to have to pick up some more residential blocks, some high rise for downtown and some modern German houses, plus some other bits and bobs.  Will have to see how I'm fixed for cash at the Derby/Donnington Park show.

Thanks for looking.

15mm Bravo Two Zero SAS figures



Inspired by the recent Wargames Illustrated article on the SAS planning for an attack on the Argentine mainland in 1982 (September issue), I decided to order some 20mm SAS troopers from CP Models.  While browsing their web site, I came across their 15mm moderns range and their Bravo Two Zero range of SAS for the 1991 Gulf War.  I bought a couple of packs, giving me four four-man fire teams, each comprising 2 SAW gunners and 2 with SA-80s and UGLs, plus one of the SA-80 armed figures is operating a LAW as well.

 

I have painted them in desert camo gear, with a light brown base coat, dark tone ink washed.  Bergens are olive drab dry brushed with a lighter shade of the same colour.  Uniforms are highlighted in Iraqi Sand.  Boots are English Uniform.  A couple of the sand masks and grenades are painted NATO green.

 

The photos below show the figures searching a desert village (buildings from The Baggage Train).

 

The photo below shows the 8 figure content of one of the packs, each pack containing 4 SAW gunners and 4 SA-80 riflemen with UGLs.

All in all I quite like these figures.  I think with the right paint job they could pass muster as cold weather troopers as well.  In the meanwhile, these will do nicely alongside my Peterpig, Battlefront and QRF figures.  Next show I attend I'm going to pick up some Old Glory Taliban.  Painting these made a nice interlude in the flow of NATO green onto my 6mm forces and the painting of Timecast buildings (which I'm still working on Richard!).

Thanks for looking!

6mm Timecast Scenics

Most of the British are finished for the Battle of Hannover at the end of the month, so I've started on some 6mm scenic items.

First up is a sea level lighthouse, purchased from Leven Miniatures at the Joy of Six show.  I wanted to create a rocky promontory to put the lighthouse on, which I made up out of some chipboard offcuts left over from flooring the new shed, scattered with some small granite gravel pieces that I picked up off a beach in the Scilly Isles about 20 years ago.  I sealed everything with dilute PVA glue, to help stick down all the bits of gravel and provide a base for the paint to cut to.  Rocks were painted black grey, then progressively lighter dry brushing with neutral grey and dark sea grey and highlighted with light sea grey.  Spoldges of Vallejo sand basing medium provide the little beachy coves, with earth basing medium to represent patches of soil on the higher parts.  Sea is dark sea blue.  The lighthouse was mounted on a platform of Vallejo plastic putty, with the base painted NATO black and the lighthouse in Ivory and a mix of dark and flat red.  Window frames and the lighthouse lamp housing were overpainted in white and the windows are azure with a gloss varnish.

  
So now I'm starting on a batch of Timecast modern European buildings that Richard Phillips sent to me almost a year ago.  First of these is an apartment block.  This particular model had been damaged in transit and arrived in two big pieces and several shards.  I managed to glue everything back together, but had to fill several big gaps, some with more success than others.  Still,  it has a knocked about look, either due to the passage of time or because there is a war going on.  I'm not happy with the roof, the ink wash stains are too patchy, so I'll try and dry brush it with the roof colour again to see if it smooths out a bit.  Need to add some clutter to the base to finish it off.

This is a rather dilapidated farm building, I'm assuming not from the modern range as it has a dog cart or similar contraption parked outside.  Again, I don't like the patchy ink stains on the roof.

A half timbered house from the Napoleonics range (I think).  I've not inked this one yet as I want to get a finish on the roof that I'm happy with.

A modern industrial unit.  This needs to be based, but I need to cut some more mdf bases - unfortunately it's raining here so I'm not about to venture out to the shed anytime soon.  The Vallejo flat yellow seems very patchy and has required three coats to get to the colour saturation in the pictures.  Yellows seem notoriously poor for coverage.

So, I'll be getting some more bases organised and I'll need to sort some small scenic items to add clutter to the bases.  Then if I can sort out the splodgy ink staining, I'll we able to churn out a few more.

Thanks for looking!

15mm Vietnam tests

I played a game with Ian and Steve at the Defenders club a couple of weeks back, of Force on Force, set in Vietnam, using Steve's collection of mainly Peterpig forces.  It inspired me to think about building a platoon scale force for the USA and possibly Australians, as well as VC and NVA.  I remembered that I had some odd Peterpig Vietnam figures that I had won in an ebay auction a couple of years ago, so thought I'd dig them out and try and paint them to see if I could get a result I'm happy with.  These are the result.

I figured I had enough for an HQ section, with an officer, medic, M79 grenadier and three M16 armed riflemen.  I read a few painting guides online and came up with these - the base uniform is Vallejo Russian Green, heavily dry brushed with Russian Green mixed with Deck Tan.  Helmets are Luftwaffe camo green with flat earth and Russian Green splodges.  Pouches are golden olive dry brushed khaki.  Boots are olive drab.  Some figures have red and white Marlborough cigarette packets taped to their helmets.

A rifle section of two 4 man fire teams, one with 2 M16 riflemen, an M60 gunner and M16 armed assistant, the other with three M16 riflemen and a LAW gunner, who also carries an M16.

The other section, organised similarly.

I also had two other figures, on the left a shotgun armed tunnel rat and on the right a downed helicopter crew man armed with a pistol.

The whole group.  A few more riflemen and there should be enough for a platoon scale action.

Thanks for looking.