More Armour, More Aircraft

Chain of Command is at heart a platoon level game and I often tell people who are just starting that they really don't need too much in the way of armour and other supports. Why is it then, I ask myself, that I always seem to be adding more and more to the collection? 

Frankly, I think it says a lot more about me and my completist tendencies than it does about anything else. It's a disease, I tell you, but I'm in no hurry to find the cure.

Sometimes the additions are planned and sometimes they are serendipitous. When I was visiting the Tank Museum at Bovington last year I came across a boxed set of PSC 1/72 M4A4 Shermans in the gift shop. These have been hard to track down of late and I've been eager to add more to my collection for the late war in Burma. The PSC models are sturdy gaming pieces, but that comes at a cost of chunky detail. I addressed some of that by drilling out the lifting hooks; replacing the bow MGs; drilling out the 75mm gun barrel and adding aerials.

The decision to purchase this set was partly influenced by the release of sets of decals in 20mm for Indian armoured brigades by District Miniatures. My only other Sherman for the Burma theatre made use of a few decals I could find in the spares box. 

After the initial base colours had been applied the new decals were added, before I moved on to painting details and weathering.

It has allowed me to draw on the inspiration from this book and have appropriately marked Sherman Vs for Burma.

If all that didn't make my decision easy enough, I had painted a set of AB tank crews for other vehicles in Burma and had several spare figures left over looking for suitable mounts. With the crews and stowage added, the tanks were complete.

I find I can be very productive with the airbrush when painting in batches. I've had a couple of PSC StuG III primed and waiting to be painted. As I'm playing the Old Hickory campaign at the moment I thought it wouldn't do any harm to have a few more StuGs to hand. I tried to give these quite a worn look and paid particular attention to making the side schurzen look chipped and worn.

The addition of foliage made from rubberised coconut fibre and model railway leaves gave it a particularly suitable appearance for German armour in Normandy.

When 172 Scale Miniatures had a 50% off sale I found it hard to resist the urge to fill a few gaps. It didn't help that I was playing a game in the Driving Charge campaign for Chain of Command and my opponent surprised me by taking three Type 97 Chi Ha as a support choice. I didn't have three of the early variant, I had only two of the old Airfix Chi Ha and one of the 172 Scale later model Shinhoto Chi Ha, which proxied for the missing earlier model. 

The sale at 172 Scale Miniatures was the perfect opportunity to make good this deficit. I knew the Airfix Chi Ha at 1/76 scale was unlikely to match those from 172 Scale Miniatures so I ordered three early model Chi Ha and then added another two of the Shinhoto versions to give me three of each type. Excessive? Probably, but I think it guarantees I'm covered should a similar situation arise.

Anyhow, did I mention I can be particularly productive with the airbrush when painting in batches?

The distinctive yellow lines over the Japanese camouflage was a feature of the early war and was no longer in use after 1942, so the Shinhoto versions I have painted in a late war three colour scheme. 

While I was researching the Saipan scenario for CanCon that I ran earlier this year, I discovered that quite a few Shinhoto tanks were used during the Japanese counterattack against the beachhead, so I didn't really need any convincing that this should be the subject of my scenario. Everything happens for a reason (at least that's how I convince myself all this makes any sense).

The colour scheme for the early model Chi Ha retained the yellow lines. From what I understand Japanese tanks were not repainted in the field and any tank still in service after 1942 was quite likely to retain those earlier markings, so that even if these were to appear in games set in the late war they wouldn't look out of place.

While painting those, I also completed a couple of diminutive Type 97 tankettes. These are from S-Model, plastic kits from China and a manufacturer who's products I like a lot. With two kits in a box they offer value, as well as a high degree of detail for a quick build model. 

This particular set comes with decals for the Chinese PLA which used captured versions, but I've painted them as Japanese with decals from Skytrex.

While air support does exist in Chain of Command, it is abstracted in the rules. There is no need to actually represent it on the table with models. However, that's never stopped me. Even since I built the Airfix Stuka to use in the AARs for our Many Rivers to Cross campaign I've wanted to find a way to incorporate models on the table to remind us that the effects of air support are in play. 

In the Far East I did something similar for the Zero Attack! for the Japanese.

And the Hurribomber for the British.

It goes without saying I was keen to do it for other forces. If nothing else, I find making aircraft an enjoyable diversion. While the Pacific Handbook for Chain of Command has yet to be released I find it hard to imagine the US Marines won't have access to some form of air support. I've always found the Corsair F4 an attractive looking plane, there is something quite elegant about the gull wings. With little encouragement needed I picked up an inexpensive 1/72 kit from Hasegawa. 

As I've done with the Zero I've modelled this without the propellor blades so that it doesn't look too static. I did experiment with discs of clear plastic to represent the spinning blades but they ended up looking like, well, discs of clear plastic. I think the impression of movement is just as obvious with nothing there.

While I was in the model shop I spotted a Mustang P51A, the earlier version before the bubble canopy was introduced. This kit from Italeri came with decals for the 1st Air Commando of the 10th Air Force, a unit that flew close support missions for the Chindits in Burma. That was just too tempting. I have written a campaign for the Chindits that exists in draft form, it may be that I need to revise that to introduce an element of air support now that I have a suitable aircraft.

Are any of these likely to see the table top in the near future? Quite possibly, but then I'm also a modeller at heart so I never need much of an excuse to add something new, even if there is no immediate need for it right now. 

Far East casualty figures

I've come very close to finishing off my 20mm British/Commonwealth platoon for the early part of the war against Japan. The miniatures themselves have come from various 8th army and western desert ranges as they have the right tropical uniforms for that stage of the war. I haven't been able to find all the figures and poses that I've needed and I remembered that I had a set of the old 1/76 Matchbox 8th Army plastic figures that had been stored away. I dug them out in the hope I could find some inspiration.

I was short of figures to represent leaders with pistols and thought this could be the solution, but found that the figures were not a comparable size with the AB Figures miniatures that make up the bulk of my units.

I put those aside, but did wonder if I might be able to make up some casualty figures, something I had been unable to find. I've found casualty figures a tricky thing. Not from a painting point of view, but more as a matter of how to do it reasonably tastefully without skirting around the fact that what is represented on the table top is violent injury and death. The main reason for wanting to include casualties is for the photographs for my AARs. If the loss of a senior leader has dire consequences for his force it seems a bit lacklustre to record his departure with a photograph of the empty space his figure formerly occupied. It's all about the narrative I keep telling myself.

In the first scenario of our current campaign 29, Let's Go! a team of American scouts were caught in the open as they pushed forward towards a German jump-off-point. They were wiped out and the casualty figures helped to tell that story dramatically. I wanted something that could fill that role for the Far East platoon.

The good thing about plastic figures is that they are very easy to convert and so I tried to see what could be done with some of the prone 8th army figures.

I found the lower half of the figures would work well using them either face down or face up, however the upper bodies didn't quite work despite a few attempts.

In the end I used the upper bodies from a figure throwing a grenade and one of a leader waving his men forward.

The resulting figures covered a greater area than the normal 20mm round bases I use for individual figures. They also have a slight awkwardness to their poses but overall I think they work well enough.

In the end I decided to base one on a 20x40mm rectangle that I use for my senior leaders, given that of any casualty, the loss of a senior leader is one that I'd consider most important to represent. Painting was kept simple and, as I've done with all my casualty figures, I avoided any gore. I think they tell the story as they are and puddles of blood won't make it any more effective.

Making Paddy Fields

Starting the Chain of Command Malaya 1942 campaign had made me realise that one of the terrain pieces I hadn't yet considered recreating for the Far East was paddy fields. My focus up until now had been on more pieces suitable for Pacific island and New Guinea, like palm groves, village huts and jungle, but to play scenarios set in Burma, Malaya or China then I was certainly going to need paddies.

Paddies come in two forms - dry and out-of-season, and, wet and in-season. I wanted variety so I decided to make both. A paddy is essential a flooded field and the water is contained in each field by an earth bank, so it's fairly straightforward to construct. In-season paddies present a few more challenges than out-of-season as they need to appear flooded with water.

My first attempt was a dry paddy. This was based on a piece of MDF with the banks cut out of insulating foam and then textured with household filler. The banks were given added texture by sprinkling sand over a layer of PVA glue.

The whole piece was then given a base coat of Dulux household acrylic paint, in this case Deep Bamboo. This was followed by a dry brush in a lighter shade (Arava).

An out-of-season paddy is essentially a drained, fallow field where wild grass will grow. To get that effect I made up a mix of static grass including some longer pieces of wild grass as well as my more usual shorter green mix. The banks had a coat of Noch scatter, which is the base I use before applying my normal grass mix. As the paddy banks are used as paths between the fields I have left the tops looking worn like a footpath.

Finally, the banks themselves received a layer of my normal grass mix for static grass and with that the paddy field was finished.

It's completion was perfectly timed for use in the second scenario in the Malaya 1942 campaign. Here it is on the table with a Japanese squad making good use of the hard cover offered by the paddy bank.

The in-season paddies would require a bit more work to create the wet look and feature a flourishing rice crop. The basic MDF base and insulating foam banks were constructed exactly as for the out-of-season field. This time I changed the shape slightly. If you look at pictures of paddy fields you will see that they are rarely all of a regular shape and so I wanted to reflect this with mine.

In the case of these in-season paddies I left the ground in the field untextured and painted it with a green/blue acrylic to match the water colour I use in my streams and drainage ditches. To make it look like water I gave it a few generous coats of Mod Podge varnish which makes for an effective water effect.

The next stage was to decide how best to represent the rice crop, which is normally planted in regular rows with individual rice plants. While a little time consuming, my favoured method was to spot glue in lines and then add static grass. I found it easier to do this in stages before the glue started to dry.

I think the end result was well worth the effort. Once all the rice plants were finished, I then added static grass to the banks as I had done for the out-of-season fields.

This gives them a distinctively different appearance to the dried out paddy field. Here they are in a simple setting.