Air Strike!!

I have a large collection of 1/48 aircraft that I use as air support in my games. I thought I would share some pictures of them.

Bf-109 in North Africa camouflage 

Experimental Ju-87 Stuka with wing mounted cannons. Also in North Africa camouflage, These planes only flew on the Russian front but I liked it so much I thought I could get away with stretching historical accuracy.

A P-40 armed with bombs. This aircraft carries the fuselage insignia of the Torch landings but the wing insignia have been field modified with the white bars of 1943 used in the Italian Campaign. Truly a veteran aircraft.

P-51D painted in the colors of the Air Commando's. This unit actually flew P-51A's in this scheme but I like olive drab better than the bare aluminum they used on their P-51D's. Armed with rockets and napalm, this is a devastating asset on the table.

A rocket armed spitfire in Far East Command colors.

A P-40 Flying Tiger.

An early navy F4U-1 Corsair but in a late war scheme.

An F4U-5 in 1950's colors. Equipped with napalm, this bird makes its presence known in my early  Cold War games.

The life saving H-13 of MASH fame. I have attached the stretcher carriers with magnets and they can be swapped with gun pods to create the lesser known gunship version. 

Med Evac from Besieged Outpost

I wanted to test my helicopter rules as well as a scenario a friend and I had created a few years ago but never had the means to try it. Please ignore the mismatched terrain and the fact that the enemy "insurgents" are clearly Germans from the Second World War. This scenario could be one of the first helicopter rescues in Burma, an evacuation in the French-Indochina Conflict, or with some tweaking take place in Korea or Vietnam.

The armored relief column and the helicopter start on one side of the field. 

The allied recon station sat at the other end. Having been ambushed the previous evening, one man of the radio team lies wounded.  The American radio operator coordinated airstrikes against the enemy while Commonwealth Paratroopers airdropped in the night provide assistance in the ground battle. This entire operation is to save the wounded man. 

The helicopter hovers over the outpost. The medic perched on the stretcher might be eligible for a Section 8. 

A very tight LZ.

Air support caused no casualties to the enemy.

But did break their ranks and cause them to flee. 

Escaping with the casualty on board

Thank you for ignoring the plethora of historical inaccuracies in this battle. After all we play games using toy soldiers so we are already good at using our imaginations. I am discovering the joy of playing fully painted armies. Hopefully this will propel me to actually paint more.

Update!

Sorry for the unexpected break from posting! Life has a way of throwing curves. I am swinging with all my might and occasionally putting the bat on the ball. I am sorry to say that although I ran and photographed both the Five Men Battle in Sicily and the solo moose hunting game, I do not remember them enough to post the reports.  However I have been steadily building and painting!

I took advantage of the snow cover to show off my Korean War air support, including my freshly completed Bell H-13. The stretchers are magnetic and can be switched with a pair of .30 caliber machine-guns.

 Continuing the Cold War theme ( couldn't resist the pun) Here's the first tank kit I ever built, the Tamiya M-41 Walker Bulldog. I never had the nerve to paint it until recently. 

Finally I took a commission to paint some pieces for the Imperial Assault board game. These are much smaller than anything I've painted before so I struggled with the details. The client liked them which really is all that matters. 

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I have a scheduled game day with a friend in the first few weeks of January. We plan to run a WW2 skirmish using Fistful of Lead, which I purchased from Wiley Games recently. It is exactly what I have been looking for to run squad vs squad actions. I will stick to my modified rules for solo gaming, but FFOL looks like a wonderful club/game day rule set for all my eras.

First Snow of the Year

The first snow of the year here at Empire headquarters is on the ground. Took this snapshot of a Northeast Tribesman stalking a moose in the early morning light.  The last game of Five Men in Sicily is in the books and I am working on that blog post now. Do not fear! The men of  C Troop have been earmarked for the invasion of the Italian Peninsula even with their less than stellar performance in Sicily. As always I will follow them through their journeys.  Before I post that final battle though, I ran a solo moose hunting game in honor of the winter weather, so expect that soon!

More than Five Men in Sicily

With all of the reconnaissance and infiltration complete, I decided to try to break my home brew rules. I played through the armor column passing through the town and being ambushed by heavy German resistance. It seems that multiple loud infiltrations draws a lot of attention. 

Vehicles became bogged down in the streets and it was left to the infantry to slog through bitter house to house fighting.

It became apparent that I need to rework both my vehicle rules and my antitank launcher rules. Vehicles were given a number of actions per turn, but I found this led to either long sprints or stationary sitting while the turret rotated to aim. I will be scratching my head over that one. A German grenadier ambushed my Sherman in a tight alley with a Panzerfaust..... except the scatter die placed it at his feet and collapsed a building on him. I need to rethink using scatter die and blast radius for missed launcher shots.

On the painting table are small scale WW2 aircraft for my hex-grid based combat system. Not 54mm but I couldn't help but feature them.

Airfix Strongpoint

 Finally created a stand alone base for my Airfix Strongpoint. My terrain isn't always Lincoln Logs! I struggle for storage space, so the building comes off the base, can be dissembled, and stores relatively flat. My Airfix Desert Outpost should receive a similar treatment soon.

Five Men in Sicily part 3

July 1943,

Led an infiltration of the village again. Sgt. Cox brought along a radio to be in communication with the air support we had been assigned.  

Some enemy resistance was encountered but Sgt Cox successfully directed a Warhawk from the 9th Air Force to destroy the antitank position. 

My Second World War Americans

I hadn't featured these here before. Tamiya's sculpt quality varies but I love how easy they are to customize.

Five Men in Sicily part 2

From the personal journal of Lt. Hughes, 91st Reconnaissance Squadron,

July 1943,

We entered the village early in the morning, no sounds except the tramp of our boots and the mechanical shrieking of the steel beast sent to support us.  

The village was not large and completely deserted by civilians.  A church watched over a town square and a few buildings expanded out to either side. Allied bombardment from air and sea had destroyed a few buildings. I deployed my men in two groups. Sgt. Cox commanded a forward assault team while I led a rifle team in support of our armored friend. Sgt. Cox's fire team took point. My squad and were passing the town square when a sniper's bullet missed a mans head and pinged off the tank. We hastily took cover, searching for the location of the sniper. He was hidden on the roof of a destroyed building across the square. Cpl. Collins, with a particular hatred of snipers, fired a few round in that direction. His counter sniping was cut short by another bullet from the hidden German. 

Our armored support peppered the area with machine gun and cannon fire but with no success. Fast acting soldiers grabbed the fallen Ranger and started dragging him to safety. Pvt. Price shot from cover and silenced the sniper. His marksmanship would come to define the skirmish.

 Immediately after the sniper was dealt with, then four German soldiers rounded the corner of a building into the square only to be cut down by Pvt. Price's carbine and machine gun fire from the tank. 

                         

Our gunfire had drawn the attention of the defending forces. Sgt. Cox and his assault section were also ambushed up the road. Every man in the section was knocked down by a German machine pistol but fast action by my squad drove off the attack and took a wounded German prisoner.

Pvts. Price and Martinez made their way into the abandoned building, scouting possible German defensive positions.  

 Price took the ground floor but Martinez climbed to the roof. A German antitank gun and a machine gun were zeroed in on this position. We believe Pvt. Martinez was wounded in the hail of fire that erupted but his fate is unknown. He did not return with Pvt. Price.  

 Pvt. Price dashed back across the square towards me with the location of the antitank gun. He was cut down by German fire but I managed to get to him and drag him to cover. Our big metal friend covered our retreat as we left the village with the intelligence we had gathered. We had taken too many casualties to complete the mission fully, but another raid with fewer men might just do the trick. 

I believe this has been my wordiest post yet. The solo system gives a very interesting dynamic to the game that I am growing quite fond of. The unpredictable nature of where forces will be and what the will be composed of provides a challenge for the small skirmish games that I prefer.

Five Men in Sicily part 1

I apologize for my long absence. Life has a way of causing hobbies to take a back burner. With that said, I have been able to accomplish some things. My conversion of Nordic Weasel's Price of a Mile into a Second World War skirmish game is coming along nicely. I am play testing it currently and decided to make a campaign out of it. What better campaign rules then Nordic Weasel's Five Men in Normandy to frame such a campaign. Without further ado, I will let Lieutenant Walter Hughes of the United States Army introduce you to the small band working its way across Sicily in the summer of 1943.

July 1943 

I was assigned to the 91st Reconnaissance Squadron shortly after they had landed in Sicily. Told I was being assigned to an elite unit I felt proud of myself. When I arrived at the front, I was humbled immediately. I was to replace a Lt. Perkins who had been shot by a sniper the day after the 91st was deployed to Sicily. I expected to find a platoon to command but instead I found eight men. These eight were loosely attached to C Troop but were usually on their own in enemy territory, finding intelligence where they could and wrecking havoc on the enemy.

These men were

Sgt. William Cox, a no nonsense soldier who had fought with the 91st since the beginning of the Tunisia Campaign,

Cpl. Peter Wood, a B.A.R. gunner who had been Cox's right hand man from the start,

Cpl. Ben Collins who had deserted the 1st Ranger Division but was happy to fight along side the Cavalry Scouts,

Pvt. Joey Martinez, a somewhat dumb soldier who made up for his lack of brains with his brute strength,

Pvts. Arthur Phillips, Paul Price, Samuel Harding, and Robert Bowman who were assigned to the unit shortly before arrival in Sicily. Almost immediately after meeting my men, I received orders to infiltrate a village where there were reports of a possible antitank position. In order for our armored columns to pass through this area, it would have to be dealt with, and General Patton wanted it done now. I was told I would have support by means of an M3 Lee tank...

   

  

Don't Give Up On Me

I am currently working towards a college degree and so my hobbies have been limited. I am, however planning an alternate history campaign. Inspired by the success of previous conversions using Brickarms weapons, I decided to try my hand at doing this again. None of these are painted ( except painted weapons but that will be redone. The figures are Armies in Plastic.

I am building a squad of renegade Russians for the Afghanistan sector of my alternate history campaign. 

The sharpshooter. It seems this marksman has found a new-fangled telescopic sight for his trusty Mosin. A handy thing in those  hostile mountains.

The Officer. Sword and pistol ready for battle. 

The ever present Winchester. 

While not entirely accurate to the time period, I do enjoy using things that foreshadow the future, like this handy shotgun.

I also modified this Boer with a Brickarms K98. I haven't decided how I feel about it yet.