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.