Stalingrad - Bolt Action Campaign in 1/72 scale - Workers' Village Scenario

A few pictures of a game some months ago with three good gaming buddies, Alex, Carlos and Juan where we gamed a trial scenario out from the Warlord Games Stalingrad Campaign book using Bolt Action rules.  

We played the game on the sand table and used a playing area according to the scenario of 4x4 foot.

The German objective is to clear the Workers' Village of Soviet Defenders. There's a dense collection of homes, fences, gardens, craters and rubble, making the advance extremely difficult for the German armoured kampfgruppen

The scenario called for a 5 turn game. 3 objectives on the Russian side of the table that the Germans have to control and allocates points that the players use to decide on the forces available before the game.

 There are Soviet tank-hunters potentially lurking behind every corner....

Carlos acted as umpire and chose the forces for both the Soviets and Germans.  

1 x T34, AT Team and 3 squads for the Soviet forces, and for the Germans 1 x StuG III, 1 x Pz IV Ausf B, 2 x Half-tracks and Panzergrenadiers, + Pak 38

Germans enter the village

Soviet defenders lurk in the ruins and burnt out cabins

Germans have it very difficult and Soviets halt the advance.

Vehicles burn as the Germans take more casualties

The game ended quickly, the Germans took a lot of casualties and faltered. Once they lost the StuG and the Panzergrenadiers it was practically impossible to achieve their objective, but being part of a campaign you need to know that some scenarios will be very difficult. 

The game was enjoyable and we're not too competitive so we had a good afternoon gaming. If the Germans had concentrated their attack from one entry-point instead of entering the table from various places they could have done better, but hindsight is always a wonderful thing.

Cheers, John

Ersatz Luftwaffe WW2 Afrika Korps Refueling Tankers

To start off 2024 an update on something just finished.

These are a couple of repainted 3 euro toy trucks from "Ale-Hop" that we thought could vaguely pass for German airfield fuel trucks for a 1/72 scale WW2 North Africa wargame scenario with an LRDG raiding party

There are quite a few different models and it's not the first time we've used some of these in the past for other generic 1930`s - 40´s era trucks.

https://www.oneseventytwoscale.com/2020/05/ale-hop-toy-trucks-for-ww2.html

We do actually have a far superior Academy Opel Blitz kit that my mate Carlos has built and is awaiting a paintjob to join them as an objective for the SAS, but I still can't help feeling that these toy conversions have a particular charm of their own and won't look too out of place on the battlefield.

Happy New year to all, and will try to update the site with work in progress and games played on a more regular basis this year.

Cheers, John.

Grey Panzers On the workbench

Pictures of some work-in-progress WW2 German panzers, nearly finished. 

A mixed bag of brands, an Altaya Panzer IV top left, two Trumpeter StuG IVs, an Armourfast StuIG33, PSC Panzer IV top left, two Altaya die-cast Panzer IIIs and a very old repaired and repainted veteran Panzer IV middle right.

All painted with Vallejo Model Color Dark Grey Blue followed by a dark wash and some weathering.  I've run out of Balkenkreuz decals now, so I'll have to try doing them by hand.

"Ersatz" Opel Blitz

There was a time 20+ years ago, when it was impossible to get your hands on a 20mm Opel Blitz and inspired by a post on Will's Wargames Blog I thought I'd share a couple of photos of two British vehicles that made their way into the miniature WW2 German arsenal.

This rehashed old Airfix Austin K6 was a solution, and the vehicle is still in my collection today from back then

Nowadays of course you don't need to go to such a ridiculous end as there are so many kits and ready-made options available.

Another "Ersatz" vehicle was this Opel Blitz ambulance bus below. This was a more recent concoction, using a die-cast Bedford OB Utility bus.  There are kits of the Opel Blitz bus available but at the time I thought that from a distance this could make the grade. 

Happy New Year to all you fellow modellers, gamers and toy collectors out there !

Battle of Berlin – Stretcher Bearers Conversions

Repeating here some photos from an old post that was wiped out when the site was hacked a few years ago.

The stretcher bearers are old Esci WW2 French in greatcoats with headswaps, the “Frau Medic” is a hard plastic lady from Dapol, the two walking guys are Airfix WW1 French, the surrendering figure is a Revell Engineer with a headswap and the old guys in caps carrying the stretcher are WW1 Airfix Germans

Ersatz M10 - Work in Progress

A quick update on some work in progress.

I'd wanted this Dragon kit for some time, and I think Dragon first put this kit out about 10 years back, maybe even longer. 

I was put off by the high price of the kit and was glad when I saw one online at a reasonable price. The box was a little dog-eared but the contents were complete.

And to be honest I'm glad I found this cheap because when I took it out of the box, I noticed the flexible tracks were in a little plastic bag which was full of a kind of sticky oil. 

Very strange I thought.

Then a kind of  "Quatermass and the Pit" event happened as I took them out of the bag - after their years of being preserved in there, they crumbled and cracked into little pieces ! 

So now I've got myself a lovely Ersatz M10 with no tracks.

I've gone the quick route to solving this and susbstituted the whole track and bogie assembly with a one-piece set taken off an old CC-Lee Panther kit I had in the stash that I never got around to building.

Now undercoated on the painting table waiting for a little free time over the weekend to try and finish it off.

So, a lesson learned with regard to this Dragon kit and its old flexible tracks - over the years they leach oil and fall to bits.

In spite of the track problem, I've got a vehicle I've wanted for quite some time.

1/72 Scale German Panzer Crews – Airfix Figure Conversions

Some photos below of an attempt made a few years back at to get a set of “fighting” bailed-out Panzer Crewmen.



Figures are a mixture of Airfix Luftwaffe Ground Crew, USAAF Personnel and Afrika Korps with new arms sliced off figures from other German 20mm sets.

The uniforms don’t stand up to close inspection, but on the table they look the part and hopefully make them identifiable as Panzer Crewmen.

Figure Conversions . WW2 Elderly Berlin Policemen with Shakos

A couple of the scenarios in the Berlin campaign that our wargame group gamed some time ago needed some squads of "elderly policemen", many of whom had to be armed with just handguns.








These are figures from various sets of Germans - Revell, Airfix, Caesar, HaT, and even some of Orion's sets of cops-n-robbers and gave them heads with shakos taken from the HaT Industrie 1/72 scale WWI German Jaegers.

Doug Iovinelli - Pz.Sfl. II in 1/72 scale.

I was sent this article by Doug Iovinelli, a friend and smallscale enthusiast who's recently been experimenting with 1/72 scale 3D printing.

Doug's contribution below :

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I recently bought some 3D printed pieces of unusual subjects from Shapeways.

The first item is the Pz.Sfl. II in 1/72 scale.



The subject is a rare conversion used by the Afrika Korps. (From Wikipedia): Two prototypes were completed in 1941 and they were organized into a platoon for troop trials with Panzerjäger-Abteilung ("Anti-Tank Battalion") 605 of the Afrika Korps. Sent for trials to North Afrika, neither survived the experience.



The subject is interesting and the photographs provide an opportunity to add a lesser known vehicle to our wargames.







Next update, to paint the item and share the detail. It will need to be washed and dried with water as there is a little bit of residual powder from the printing process that will “cake” up the paint if it is not removed.

The link to the designer and the item: https://www.shapeways.com/product/K3TC6NQ6B/

German officer with greatcoat and scissor binoculars

German officer with greatcoat and scissor binoculars mounted on a tripod. An iconic figure from the Revel Panzergrenadier set.

 He’s accompanied here by a Zvezda infantryman and Imex radiomain with a portable backpack mounted radio.




Vehicles are 1/72 MAC Distribution Opel Blitz 3t Radio Car Kfz. 305, Airfix / Heller 1/76 scale Opel Blitz & and old Academy 1/72 Kubelwagen.

Matchbox 7.5cm Pak 40

This Matchbox German Pak-40 75mm anti-tank gun is one of the oldest surviving bits of kit in my collection. I’ve had it for around 30 years, could maybe even be older.



It was painted back in it’s day with Humbrol paint, desert yellow I seem to remember, but since then it’s been drybrushed and given a wash and a little weathering to bring it up to date.



The gun in the picture is crewed by more modern mix of Preiser, Revell and Pegasus figures.

Repaints - grey early war 1/72 & 1/76

These are for an early war campaign that our wargame group has been planning for some time.

All are repaints....

There's a good mix of manufacturers here, vehicles spanning over a decade. 

The Panzer 38(t) at the front is a recent model, a repainted and weathered Altaya 1/72, as is the Panzer II on the left just behind it (Altaya), both donated to the cause by my mate Carlos

The Pz 38(t) on the right is an old 1/72 UM model and the one at the back is a heavy 1/76 scale lead SHQ model, that were given to me by a friend, Iván about 12 years ago and have been lying in "storage" ever since. 

The Pz II on the left at the back is a Matchbox 1/76 kit, given to me by Iván back about the same time, which I gave to Carlos about 5 years ago.... and he gave it back to me a few months ago. And I should also add it's been repainted about 4 times now  

All very interesting stuff, right ? :-)

Happy modelling.

John