WW2 Convoy Battle

The worst/best of the heatwave now over we moved into the shed for a much anticipated Cruel Sea battle. Having played a couple of games of Cruel seas and expanding the collection last year I had planned a ‘big’ game which would use the Boats as well as some of my 6mm aircraft collection.

The German navy and aircraft would be attacking an incoming convey, the British navy supported by the RAF would attempt to fend off the assault. I was pretty ambitious with the scale of the game rather than using the aircraft rules attached to cruel seas we would be returning to our homegrown ‘aeronautics’ rules for WW2 combat. This meant we would effectively be playing two games at once but with the chance that the aircraft and ships could interact and I had worked out a way for the rules to cross over. It turned into some madness but a lot of fun.

German E boats with the Luftwaffe approach the convoy using the coast as cover

British MTB’s leave the harbour to cut them off ?

RAF Typhoons fitted with 20mm cannons arrive to take on the E boats form the sky

The convoy arrives at the top of the picture protected by (what turned out to be) a very powerful escort of 2 Fairmile patrol boats. In the foreground the E boats sweep in to launch their torpedoes

Ouch the convoy also has a US destroyer which arrives last. Their powerful 4” guns immediately cause a problem. The Fairmiles are armed with 6 pounder guns which were highly effective, but the E boats manage to lunch off a number of Torpedoes

Madness but a lot of fun , my 13 x6 foot table , ships and planes all over the place !

The MTB’s start to engage the second squad of E boats, the two es are BF 109’s after the typhoons

At this point I should say the dice gods were squarely in the British camp this day, the Germans could hardly hit a thing, the British on the other hand were dishing out the punishment, knock the one E boats rudder out causing it to crash into the friendly boat !

After several turns and a lot of German torpedoes quickly launched in the water the Destroyer and the Fairmiles gradually sink the E boats one by one ! You don’t last long in an e boat when hit by a 4” shell !

But the convoy has been distracted by the Eboats while the JU87’s gradually make their way across

In the final turns of the game their swoop down causing a lot of damage to the convoy

But probably not enough to give the Germans the win so the Royal Navy win the day ably supported by the RAF who did manage to cause some damage to at least one of the E boats

As I said a lot of fun what ever the outcome, my only real mistake was not realising how slowly the convoy would move even at full speed I should have started them in the middle of the table but forced the support to arrive from the edge….but thats for next time.

Earlier in the week I also had another game down with George this time giving his beautiful itlaian wars collection a run out.

Beautiful stuff and a pleasure to play

The Venetians has the numbers if not the quality of troops but they just about held out for a close run win

My commander before the majority of his cavalry was wiped out !

The stars also aligned for a change so I managed to get out in the hills

Striding Edge leading up onto Helvelyn a famous scramble in these parts and a lot of fun

A view from the tops looking north, a hot day and my legs are still feeling it three days later

That’s it for this week and catching up, finally a bit of painting but nothing yet finished to share.

Thanks as always for checking out my blog

Matt ❤️

The Tirpitz sets sail…….

Those keen followers will know I picked up a bargain at the recent York wargame show. The Tirpitz in 1/350 scale, the plan was to potentially use this in the summer in some Cruel Seas games or perhaps as an objective for my WW2 aircraft game. Anyway to achieve this I had to convert the model to a waterline model, that done the model was quite easy to put together.

Then onto painting, now as a wargamer rather than a model maker the painting is a bit rough. Technically the red waterline was I think removed when they moved to the blocky camo scheme. But painted just in grey it is a bit boring. I’m also not sure about the deck colour but lots of pictures show it in the 

Light brown and I went with this as it simply looks better. Of course you don’t get a sense of the scale….

Here she is against one of my Cruel seas MTB’s !

and she dwarfs the USS Delong destroyer I made (I might go back and paint the Delong deck as well) any thoughts welcome on this ? It will probably be a while before she gets some table time unless we play a game with my WW2 aircraft.

In other news……

People might be aware Wargames Atlantic have recently brought out a range of HYW figures specifically focussed on Agincourt. The figures are 12mm, I picked up a sprue off eBay to see what the figures are like and if they were something I might like. I plan to paint these up sometime although they are clearly smaller than the Warlord Epic figures but very nicely sculpted figures.

Also off the painting table some ACW shaken markers

And a couple more Napoleonic markers

 

I have several games planned over the next few days so hopefully my health will hold up

Thanks as always for checking in…

Matt❤️

Painting progress

Real life continues to throw up some uncertainty although we now have a date for my wife’s operation in early February. I can find sanctuary in this wonderful hobby of ours and have been cracking on with some painting and have a couple of small games to post up as well.

Catching up first with completed painting.........

Expanding my Cold War Soviets some BTR 80’s troop carriers, for some reason I thought these came without guns but hey ho, very simple Cold War green with some numbers to add detail

A small squad of T72’s to boost the 62’s I already have I am also working on a couple of Helicopters for fun

One of my Christmas presents were a set of 10 mm buildings here is the first comlpeted the rest aren’t far behind

28 mm Norman’s these guys were picked up very cheap and make a nice unit

I had some more Norman infantry which needed finishing off, and rather than waste them I used some spare shield transfers I had, bit more colourful than I might like but .......this was the last of the plastic Norman’s I had, they are ok but I prefer the metal Gripping Beast or Crusader figures so any new infantry units will be them.

Finally this guy had been sat half finished for ages so I sorted his shield out, he promptly died in his first battle 😀

I will hopefully blog a battle soon, thanks for your patience 🙂

Cold War on the Edge of Europe : Cold War Commander

We have had a small European Cold War project running in the background and managed to get two small forces on the battlefield last weekend. Early days so not part of a larger campaign or with any specific historical context. But a small Soviet strike force has broken across the border, a strong British tank force has been sent to counter this aggressive action.

 A squad of Soviet T62’s push across into the security zone

With them are Soviet mobile artillery 2s1’s

In the distance BMP’s carry infantry towards the small village and more T62’s fan our on the right flank

But the advance has not gone unnoticed and British Centurions have already gained the high ground

It seems too easy for them to pick of the Russian tanks which appear slightly outdated !

Worse still for the Soviet commander on the ground a cloud of dust heralds the arrival of a Squadron of Chieftain Mk5’s whilst they come under fire they seem impervious to the Soviet tanks !!

Using the town as cover the Soviets on the right flank push forward towards the copse on the small hill

Following up the Chieftains are British infantry but they are foolishly out in the open and the Soviets call in an artillery strike

Out in the open the infantry are decimated in front of their commanders eyes 😱

Overview of the battlefield, smoke can be seen rising from isolated Soviet tanks which are burning 

Centurions in the Wood continue to exchange fire with the Soviet tanks in the fields below them

Period shot

The Soviets have now made it to the edge of the woods

But they are soon picked off by the Chieftains now in the village

The remaining T62’s duel with British AT rocket launchers but generally get the worst of it

Having been pinned down the Soviet infantry rushes forward into the village

Whilst Soviet long range Spandrel ATGW takes on the centurions at long range

The BMP’s redeploy to support the tanks assaulting through the woods.

At this point the British failed a rally test, due to the lucky strike form their artillery they had already reached their break point. It was pretty much a draw  as the Soviets didn’t have an answer to the british heavy tanks. This was pretty much a test game as we haven’t played much Cold War Commander we got a few things wrong and didn’t really utilise the long range forces correctly, the challenge seems to be using long range weapons but this is tough when line of sight is blocked. I have ordered a few more bits to supplement this little Soviet force and I will then have enough to take on my Americans !

SYW and Cold War everything has gone small in the Dungeon !

Everything seems to have gone really small in the dungeon....it must be just a phase. So first up I completed my first SYW unit. A Prussian Infantry Regiment, this was really a test to see how they painted up, how long and what technique works best for me at 10 mm.

Here they are on their single unit base, thirty figures in two ranks. As to be expected I have brightened the colours considerably with Prussian blue becoming a French blue, but when viewed from normal standing height you can still only tell they are slightly blue.

The unit was actually pretty quick to paint and were completed on Sunday, but I was waiting for the scatter to arrive from ebay before taking a photo. My guess would be it took about 5 or 6 hours to complete the unit, I am looking to simplify the bases and am pretty happy with the overall effect. The trees in the background are 6mm scale and I need a few more larger options to create some height. At 10 mm the sculpting isn’t perfect but my normal slapdash painting techniques seem to work ok at this scale. My only gripe at this stage is the standard who carries his hat over the centre of the flag which is a bit annoying.

While I was waiting for the scatter to arrive I needed to rebase these little babies for a small Cold War project. I picked these up from Martin a while ago but haven’t used them, but they are the star of a small 1980’s Cold War Soviet Army. I have ordered a few more bits to add variety as you do.

A mixture of T62’s, BMP1’s some 122mm Artillery and some Command bases, they were already painted, not fantastically but good enough for this small project, I do have quite a lot of 6 mm Americans so might get a few of these done some time.

Finally an amusing shot of the diminutive Prussians next to some more Iron Brigade who are being painted this week 😀