Latest Cold War Progress

Since the Autumn, i've pretty much been concentrating on the Cold War. The UK screening of Deutschland 83 helped maintain this into the new year, and so far I'm still "in the zone" with it. I've been working on both sides simultaneously; for the BAOR, I've been working on a Battlegroup Command base, for higher level games. The figures are from the ever dependable hand of Matt at Elhiem, with some subtle tweeking by yours truly (since my fictional Cold War is viewed by the rose-tinted goggles of the ARRSE forum...)

The Base consists of the CO, in obligatory Barbour jacket. No one tells the CO he's improperly dressed, though the RSM may gently hint at it... he's acompanied by the Ops Officer; no idea if this is the correct 1980s terminology, but he's represented here in all his Silvermans Trolley Dash glory- SAS Smock, Tropical Comabat Trousers and DILAC hat. Well ally. Also present is the Adjutant, wielding a map and compass (the most terrifying sight in NATO), an officer from the RAC element of the Battlegroup and the RSM, pointing out to the ruperts that Ivan is in fact that way, oh yes, and Pvt MacAuslan is on jankers again, for pissing in the stew.

The plan is to have them clustered around a table strewn with maps, Thermos flasks and fags...

Left to right- Ops Officer, RAC Officer, CO, Adjutant, RSM.

On the other side of the IGB, I finally managed to get the four remaining figures in the first Russian platoon finished. I never intended to do two platoons, but Elhiem released a flurry of new Soviet Riflemen poses, and I simply must posess all the pretty things...

Hope to get the BAOR base finished for the end of the month...

Cheers
Iain

STARLIGHT! BAOR Medical Elements

Finally got the medical elements for my BAOR force finished, ready for the deadline of The Guild's "Ambulance" Group build.

Both are old JB Models pieces, with the Saracen being converted from the APC version. I'm quite pleased with how these have come out, though I am now more convinced than ever that decals are the work of the Devil...

I should be getting on with S&S Models lovely re-mastered CET, but after last weeks Lion Rampant game (snaps of which can be seen here), I can feel myself getting drawn back towards mediaevals again...

Cheers
Iain

Behind Enemy Lines....

Further Cold Wear fun has been had in painting up some Elhiem downed pilots, as something meaningful to base a scenario round for Force on Force....

I painted these up to give the impression of 1980s RAF Germany types, rather than the more intended modern USAF flyers (not strictly accurate, but good enough for 3-foot distant).

I can forsee some sort of scenario, whereby the pilots start the game in the middle of the table (possibly moving about randomly with the aid of a scatter dice, until they enter optimum range of either side), with a NATO rescue party closing in from one side and a Soviet sweeper team from the other, with the objective of carting the luckless aviators back to their respective table edges (with the neccessary dependents penalties being enforced on whatever unit currently has custody of the fliers).

It does, however, still remain for me to get a sufficient handle on the rules to allow basic gameplay, before  get too wound up in creating fancy scenarios...

Soon to follow are some captured SAS troopers (again from the hands of the talented Mr Hingley), who will fulfil a similar role, and be covered in a future post...

Cheers
Iain

Sonderwagen 3 Von der Bundesgrenzschutze

Or Alvis Saladin in the service of the Federal German Border Guards, if you prefer!

After the unmitigated disaster that was the Sheridan, I decided to try and calm myself down by building something a bit more straight-forward (and with a far simpler paint scheme...)

On raiding the stash, my eyes lighted on a long-forgotten JB Models Saladin armoured car. Bought yonks ago for about three quid, I'd intended on doing a diorama feauring this, a Saracen APC, a Diamond-T and a civvy motor having a Mexican stand-off at a T-junction somewhere in Wales in the 50s... However, having accepted that that's never ever going to get done, I decided it would make an ideal addition to the 1970s US force in the guise of a Sonderwagen 3 of the BGS, and so I set about throwing it together.

The JB kits (now Airfix) are very simple little kits (to the point of crudity in the case of some of the earlier ones, such as this one!) but with a little care and thought, they can be made into pretty convincing little items. I the case of the Saladin, the most obvious omission are the tie-downs surrounding the turret. I fabricated some out of stretched sprue; they're horrendously over scale, but they give the impression nicely. Next up, I drilled out the barrels of the smoke dischargers (madness, but improves the look to no end) and the main armament, and added a canvas sleeve to same. The co-ax .30 was replaced with an S&S piece, and the AA .30 (which is just downright offensive) was similarly skipped and replaced with a Sgts Mess item. Intending to leave the hatched open, I duffed up some basic hatch interiors from stock and more stretched sprue, and with the addition of some stowage from various sources, I was left with this-

A nice coat of what Humbrol had sold me claiming to bronze green soon followed, (nothing like bronze green, but perfect for this scheme!), and it was starting to come together...

Some WWII panzer crewmen in field caps were sourced from Foundry (conveniently also featuring winter parkas on some of the sculpts. Might see about doing another one of these!) Some git came up with the great idea of doing Sumpfmuster in 20mm...

Et viola. One finished BGS Sonderwagen 3. Looks totally out of place in it's bright green paint scheme against the snowbound base, but suitably eye-catching on the table...! The registration plate came out far too large, despite careful measuring. This will probably be replaced at some point, but will be left in place for now.

Cheers
Iain

A Hazy Shade of Winter- 1970s US Army in Europe

Somewhat belatedly, I suppose I’d better post up the pics of what I was working on at the time of the last post, i.e. Christmas….!

My BAOR and GSFG armies are set in the mid 80’s and in a standard, temperate, theme; this being the sort of “archetypal” appearance of both these forces. However, I’m usually on the lookout for doing something a bit different, and I always quite fancied doing an earlier US force, pre- Abrams and Bradley era.

So with this in mind I decided to start putting together a 1970s US army, since this would allow me to field the ever characterful M60, as well as all sorts of crazy shit like Sheridans, Kaiser Jeeps, Gama Goats and so on.  As an added bonus, I would get to paint them in MERDC schemes, which I’ve always found really attractive and striking. There are 6 MERDC schemes, and I decided to go for a winter theme, since I’m a sucker for snowy armies, and of the two “snow” MERDC schemes, picked the less common, brown based, scheme for open terrain (It ain’t called the Fulda Gap for nothin’!)

At the moment, there is something of a dearth of suitable figures; I despise the “burly midget” look of many of the “classic” wargames figure producers, so prefer to stick with Elhiem if at all possible, and at the time of starting there were only two suitable packs available- a fireteam set of four GIs, and a slightly “Hollywood” set of Special Forces in parkas- though this latter set would suit my purpose admirably! As far as vehicles go, the situation is much better, and as always, a trawl through Kingkit always turns up some a) bargains and b)  weird, esoteric shit that’s gonna look awesome in snowy MERDC!  So without further ado I set to raising the troops

First to be tackled were the LRRPS, the Elhiem SF pack with some ALICE packs added to confirm their SF status. I deliberately went for  quite a “blue” tinge for the parkas, based on photos I’d seen, although didn’t quite mean them to go this far, but I figure they look alright when all’s said and done…

Then it was onto the infantry. I made a few modifications to the basic sculpts- I filed off the pockets on the trousers to backdate them to the old OG-1-7s instead of BDUs, and added hoods to the jackets to “winterise” them slightly. Then it was onto the fun part, painting! I decided to do the helmets in the reversed autumn/winter side of the Mitchell cover; I have no idea how accurate this is for the time period, but I have seen it in photos of roughly this era, and thought it would match nicely the MERDC scheme on the vehicles and the groundwork on the bases. Pretty successful if I do say so myself…

Then it was onto the vehicles, and this is where it all started to go horribly wrong. I started off with an S-Models Sheridan. I can’t recommend this company’s products highly enough; crisp, clean mouldings, good instructions, excellent fit of parts, PE and decals included, and best of all you get two kits on each box! Winner! Anyway, this went together in jig time, with some stowage added from the bits box, and the fragile, kit-supplied .50 replaced with a metal one from Elhiem, and the commander’s hatch left open to take a crew figure (yes, I realise for the time frame this should have the cereal bowl armoured cupola; but in my fictional cold war the fighting’s been raging for a while now, and replacements are being sent out from old, depot stock in the US…)

Then it was onto painting. It all started well enough, the MERDC was looking shweeet, and then I hit it with gloss varnish and it all went to rat shit. Despite a successful trial run on an old kit, the acrylic spray varnish had an argument with the Humbrol enamels used to do the camouflage pattern, resulting in a crackled, rough texture on parts of the hull and turret (bizarrely, the running gear survived intact…). It looks way worse in the hand than what shows up in the pictures, so I ragequit the whole thing and fired it onto the “to do” shelf until I could decide how I was going to fix it.

And there it has lain ever since, sadly. However, since we’re now into Autumn, I reckon I’ll break out the fine grade sandpaper ad just smooth back the affected areas as best I can and re-touch them in situ, rather than starting again from scratch, ready to restart come the winter…

Cheers

Iain