Hell comes in threes and the mysterious number 28, M4A1 76mm Shermans

Well my Hell on Wheels army is progressing nicely! Well it could be a Spearhead company depending on if I want confident veteran (Hell on Wheels) or confident trained (Spearhead). I have painted up three of my M4A1 76mm shermans. However I am leaving the last two for later so I can paint up my standard M4A1s to create the company command and core M4A1 platoon. So lets take a look!

Here they are, parked up for sunday mass in France!

Brrrrrreeeeeee. As Scott from Scott's War-gaming and Kapiti FoW Gamers once told us, making noises is MANDATORY!

The guy on the right is the platoon command and the guy on the left is Staff Sergeant Lafayette Pool all the way from Texas! As you can see Lafayette Pool has hedgerow cutters. Which raises a question, if you have a platoon of 3 tanks and half can have hedgerow cutters, do you round down and have one or round up and have 2? I guess it probably is only one.

As you probably know by now I like add a little extra to my forces, so here is my command proudly displaying the number of German tanks his platoon has destroyed! 28 and counting. I was actually thinking of doing this for real, after each game increasing the tally, however I couldn't wait to see how it would look. 

A rear view. The guy in the back is on carrying the spare gas duty! Hopefully a well aimed shot doesn't light the barrels.

Just for comparison, the M4A1 76mm (close) next to the M4A1 (far) to show the difference. The 76mm has a larger turret and gun of course and hard to see but a slightly larger body also.

The classic ridding off into the distance shot. All in all I am happy with these guys. The only complaints would be the difference in shading, the one on the far left is slightly lighter than the other tanks. This is probably because I am a bit of a stinge and water down black paint for my wash rather than use a pre-made wash. I have got my technique down for this now meaning a tad more consistency. The other thing is they are pretty dark, however I think that also helps them look very all American, don't know why but it does! 

German Reinforcements: Panzer IVH Platoon

After prevaricating on what late war German tank platoon I should get as a support platoon to my Fallschirmjager army, Steve effectively made the decision for me.  He bought a large bundle of stuff on Trade Me (NZ's ebay) and among them was the Panzer IVH boxed set.

Like most of us wargamers, I love a good boxed set - decals, sprue and five tanks.  They had the plastic schurzen add ons as well, which were a fricken fiddly faff fest of a thing to put on.  But after getting through that (and without a super glue finger print on the side), I got around to painting them up pretty quickly, using by and large the WWPD painting guide for these guys: see here .

Aside from the schurzen, the turrets are going to need some work filing them down as they sit too high on the tank, making the gun barrel look like it is in need of a bit of viagra.  Should have done that before I painted, really as there is going to be a bit of resin dust generated from that.

Here are the guys painted up - still with some stowage to add on:

Pimp My Ride 1944 Style

As a British soldier in Normandy in the summer of 1944, what better to pick up your attractive young French date in, than a universal carrier.  Open topped, able to navigate through the ruins of the village your army has just decimated (or liberated).  You can even let her have a fiddle with your Bren gun while you drive...

Can be used also as a Carrier Platoon...

For those rainy nights, when a roof might be helpful, and perhaps some privacy, you can't go further than the good old 3-ton truck.  Be the envy of all your mates, as you cruise the countryside in this little number - complete with covered canopy out the back for well, whatever you and your French date might need it for...

Enough 3 tonnage there for two infantry platoons to get around

Not a 100% sure about the windows.

On the table at the moment is the boxed set of Panzer IV H's which I am not far off completing.  Watch this space for more thrilling painting updates...

Delivery by Recon

As soon as I finished my American armoured division recce platoon Dan came down my stairs (as we are temporary neighbours) with a delivery. My M4A1s and armoured rifle platoon arrived! The minis look pretty good so looking forward to painting them up. Next up I will order another M4A1 platoon, M4 mortar halftracks, priests and a thunderbolt. Anyway enough faf, here are some shots of my newly painted recon platoon.

Here they are, troops mounted, riding off into the sunset.

The whole platoon consists of; M4 halftrack with .50 AA MG and caries the command rifle team and bazooka team; two jeeps with optional AA MGs and a rifle team per jeep. The bazooka team and the extra jeep and rifle recon section are optional.

The bazooka team, if you look closely you can tell the guy at the back right has a distorted face... He was bullied at school and his only duty is to cary explosive ammo.

Here is my recon squad dismounted. I still find it hard to utilise recon, but if there was any use assaulting StuGs from behind would be awesome (it probably is a bad idea but why not)! You probably have also noted that I have given my solders the American cammo uniforms. I like these uniforms because the camo hides any mistakes and the back story. These uniforms were handed out to certain companies including the 2nd Armoured Division (Hell on Wheels), unfortunately they didn't tell any of the other Allies that these were being rolled out. It was at a time where if people were wearing cammo they were generally suspected to be Germans so there was a few to many encounters of friendly fire.

A shot of some troops in the back of a M3 halftrack which I painted up before the recce platoon to show off their cammo and the guy who has an awesome moustache in the centre.

Comparison of the two haftracks, M2 on the right. I think the M3 looks better and I like the stripy cammo. I did the cammo on my M2 with to brighter grey which I didn't like but I put the decal on overtop so didn't want to make it darker later on and have a random brighter spot under the decal.

Just a shot of the back of the jeeps and M2 halftrack.

Thats it. I have some tanks painted up but will wait till I have a whole platoon to show you. Looking forward to using these guys.

Open Fire session, FOW bat rep

Our Monday night games club sometimes gets an influx of members, last night was one of them. Because we had planned on FOW we split up into two groups and were forced into using some unpainted miniatures. Chris and I drew the short straw and played a game on a makeshift table with our semi painted Open Fire troops. I played the Germans Grenadiers with two grenadier platoons, three StuGs, and two PaK40s. Chris Played the Brits armoured company, with two platoons of Shermans and a firefly and an american paratrooper force. Because I had lent my camera to Chris' wife the pics are shoddy coming of a Huawei android phone.

We were playing free for all and the set up looked something like this:

Here it is, the grand set up. As WWII photos where black and white
I imagine they grew their grass with similar colour scheme.

The game started with Chris advancing his tanks and troops. Unfortunately he boldly sent one of his tank platoons out in the open, unsuspecting of the impact a few StuGs would have on his Shermans. On my turn I dug in my troops in the trees to keep my objective safe, shot the Americans who moved at the double with my PaKs taking out a team, and best of all... I moved my StuGs through the trees, one bogged down but I the other two, at half rate of fire hit two of his shermans, one bailed and other destroyed. After all this fuss the Brits were a bit unsettled and failed their motivation! Nice.

StuGs showing the Brits how its done. 

Chris was crestfallen, however he carried on (not the person to storm off in a fit of rage).  His turn two consisted of him moving his other Shermans and command shermans into cover as he learn't his lesson, don't put your tanks out in the open! He also moved his paratroopers behind a fence in bullet proof cover. If I remember rightly he managed to shoot one of my grenadier teams this round. Now my turn two, I moved into a building just opposite Chris' paratroopers, did some unsuccessful shooting with my troops and StuGs but pinned down his Americans! Now the question was should I assault, of course! So my troops made a bold move forgetting about his tanks nearby! Oh no, they got shot to pieces, having to fall back before making to the americans and a couple of teams lost, my 2IC sitting out in the open!

After the assault. Things looking more bleak. 

The next turn Chris took some pot shots at me, killing my troops out in the open and kept on trying to destroy my pesky StuGs who were straddling the area terrain for concealment. No success. Being cautious chris kept his tanks and troops in cover just across the road from my grenadiers. My turn involved me leaving my other platoon in the trees they started in and my PaK40s. I probably should have done something with them but was worried about his tanks. Well I shouldn't have because my StuGs managed to destroy his last tank platoon! Whoopee, just his command and Americans left.

Chris next turn was a bit hazy but I recall him leaving his Americans safety in cover and cautiously moving his command tanks into some area terrain. I then moved my StuGs up, one bogging down again and took some shots at his command, destroying his 2IC. Then I moved my grenadiers on the left at the double to try get to his objective!

Then Chris made a bold move and assaulted my StuGs from behind, unable to shoot at him I lost two Stugs as I failed to motivate for counter assault and one was bailed out from some bazooka fire during Chris' shooting phase. Luckily my last one passed their moral check. During my turn my Grenadiers moved up close enough to contest the objective leaving his 2IC the only one to defend this. However I managed to shoot him down and victory was mine!

Contesting the objective. 

All in all a fun game, more so for me than Chris admittedly. However a learning experience. I feel we are getting more of a handle on the rules, although still having to consult the rule book every round for this and that. Assault rules seem the hardest to handle. We both learn't some lessons, Chris more than me, like don't advance your tanks out in the open Chris! Also I shouldn't have put my StuGs in a position to be assaulted from behind and perhaps tried to get the objective earlier.

From the sounds of things Dan lost his game next door to a failed stormtrooper role. I have been painting up my American 2nd (or 3rd) armoured devision. Photos to come in the next couple of days.

British Reinforcements

I have recently completed a heavy mortar platoon and half a 6 pdr.  I say half because the blister comes with two of the four needed for a platoon.  I got one of the older blisters that did not come with a command team, but that is on its way with the second blister from FOW direct.  Here's the mortar platoon:

The Whole Platoon

Command

One of the Teams

Piat and Observer

Here are the 6 pdrs.  I didn't use a wash on them, trying to achieve a bit of a cleaner look.  Not totally convinced, but all comments are welcome:

Hell on Wheels' and we have hit 10000!

Ok so it is a bit generic to do a post about hitting impressive sounding hits on a blog but here I am. I must admit hitting 10000 views feels like a pretty good achievement when we never expected anyone but our gaming buddies to read it (who are exactly the people who don't read it).

A blast from the past, our original header. 

Anyhow now on to the business! I got a pretty sweet trademe deal the other day with a lot of tanks and a lot of infantry. Here is what it said it included:

Included are... 
1x Armoured Cromwell Platoon 
1x M4A1 (76) Platoon 
1x Panzer IV H Platoon 
1x Jagdpanther 
1x German Panzer (not sure which type) 
1x Sherman Firefly VC 
1x German Halftrack (MG42) 
1x American Halftrack (.50cal) 
3x American Jeeps 
1x Hummel 
1x Ruined building 

There are also various American infantry (mortars, machine guns and riflemen) and German infantry (riflemen). All extra components included. 

Some undercoated black, the Firefly is semi painted but the rest are unpainted. 

Well it came with the above, not sure what I would do with it when it came. After a few chats with Dan I reluctantly decided to pass on the Panzers to him and less reluctantly the Cromwell's as I didn't have use for them for a small fee. I decided my grenadiers could do with heavier tanks than the Panzers as I already had some StuGs.

However what to do with the M4A1 76mm. After much uming and arring I think I have settled on a 2nd Armoured Division aka Hell on Wheels' from Turning Tide (I think it is being superseded by overlord). What attracted me to this company was; firstly, I like tanks, they cause a lot of damage but die hard, rather than pesky infantry who just stick around and make the game drag; secondly, the 2nd division has a cool nick name as mentioned above; thirdly, they painted their tanks with brown and black cammo patterns meaning I can make the tanks have a bit of intrigue; lastly, it means I will have an infantry company (grenadiers) and tank company.

To make this company this I will start by getting a M4A1 standard platoon and an Armoured Rifle Platoon probably off wayland unless there is a place anyone else can recommend? I will make a company with command section (2 tanks), M4A1 76mm platoon and standard M4A1 platoon, then I will have a recon platoon and Armoured Rifle platoon. Then after this the world is my oyster, perhaps some priests will be next. With the infantry, jeeps and halftracks in the auction I thought there would be enough to make a recon platoon but...

In the end it came with a whole bunch more infantry than expected. Not sure what to do with them all, there are some riflemen, SMGs, MG, HMGs, bazookas, mortars etc. I think I will still do the Recon platoon (Command Rifle team, half track, 2 rifle teams and 2 jeeps) but wondering what else I could do with these guys. He has made up some bazooka and mortar teams already, but I am not sure what these guys are supposed to be?

I think there supposed to be MG teams but the base is to small!
Pretty good work with the green stuff though. 

I am looking forward to whipping these guys up and taking them out for a spin, it will probably mean putting my grenadiers on hold for a bit however. I am already thinking of how to make them have a bit more intrigue like I did with my StuGs. I am thinking of making surf boards to put on the back of some of the tanks. Of course when they first landed in Normandy they were expecting to get some good all American surfing in. I was inspired by the film Apocolypse Now (all good war films seem to come from the Vietnam war). Not sure how to make these yet, maybe cut out a piece of plastic into the shape of a surf board then flesh it out with green stuff, any ideas?