Olive & Drab ~ U.S. Infantry Re-basing

The latest of my re-basing projects is finished. This time it's United States Infantry. These took me quite a while because I didn't really have many of them painted up for Chain of Command, so I needed to do a fair bit of painting to get them up to speed for O Group. The painted figures I had on hand amounted to a platoon with a section of assault pioneer/engineer, as well as heavy weapons. For some reason I had plenty of heavy weapons. 

Most of these miniatures are AB Figures with a few Simon's Soldiers in the mix. I also had a couple of sections of plastic Italeri/Esci that I started off with several years ago. I wasn't going to use these for the platoons but not because they're plastic (they are pretty nice figures) but because I didn't quite get the colour of their jacket right. When I did the metal figures I used a better colour (it's Vallejo but I don't know what it's called - I wrote "US Jacket" on the bottle so I wouldn't forget).

Despite how the photo's look, in the flesh the bases are quite sandy/gritty and not as green as they appear. This is because I wanted these guys to fit into the Mediterranean/Tunisian theatres more so than NW Europe. Unfortunately, my photographic skills are not very good so I pretty much have to go with what the camera gives me. (Photoshop manipulation can only go so far!)

I like the inclusion of pioneers/engineers. They have 4 bases so that a player can field them as demolition, mine clearance or add a flame thrower for an assault platoon. If you look you'll find that one of the plastic Italeri figures snuck into the the platoon.

The battalion commander demanded a close up. I like FOO base. I'm not sure if this is what these figures are actually supposed to represent but it's what I used them for.

The plastic figures I mentioned above were not left out. I used some of them to make patrol markers. As such they have a different role in a game of O Group so it doesn't really matter if they don't quite fit with the other figures. They still look okay and these bases look better than a flat featureless disc. 

So that's it for the US Infantry. As usual, I don't bother with much detail or things such as unit insignia. Whilst that sort of stuff looks good and I can only admire those folks who take the effort to include those details, I just don't see the point. When they're on the table nobody is going to take notice of such detail. For me a good all-round paint job that looks the part and reasonably decent bases are all that's needed.

P.S.

One other thing about my Americans: I don't have very many vehicles or armour to support them. My main focus has always been Commonwealth/German. Although I have both USSR and US which should both have massive amounts of war-making materiel, I pretty much have bugger all for both of them. What I have for both armies is stored all together in a single plastic box (which is only half full!).

Western Desert Force Re-Basing

The rebasing continues and it's taking a lot of time. The reason for this is because I found that I didn't have as many troops painted as I thought I had. And the reason for that is because I shifted from playing Battlegroup to Chain of Command and I only needed a platoon plus a few extras to play CoC so I just didn't paint as many figures.

So I've had to paint a whole bunch of figures and, in many cases buy more figures which takes time (either waiting for open days at Eureka or waiting for the post). As it is, I've now finished the basic companies for most of my Germans and all of my British. There are still gaps that I could fill and I will, at sometime in the future.

Last night I finished my Western Desert Force/8th Army. They are 100% AB figures. Some of them are the very first AB 8th Army figures sold. When they were released at Little Wars, Melbourne I had my own display game so I was able to pick them up from Nic at Eureka before the place opened for business. I took them home painted them and put them on Facebook the next day. The first ones in the world!

Heavy Weapons: 3" mortars and Boys AT Rifles. I forgot to put out the Vickers MMG's when I was taking these photos but I have two of them painted and another unpainted.

The commanders are from the AB Allied Commander set. I just desertified them a bit.

Going through their transport today I found that I have a bunch of Universal Carriers that are/were for a carrier section. I'll have to get a few more of them as well as enough figures to fill out a carrier platoon. I have a bunch of painted Esci plastic's that can stand in for the time being.

It's the Little Things That Count...

Greetings again, I've had had a bit of a quiet weekend but I have managed to finish a few odd little odds & ends.

This first one is a special Jump Off Point (JOP) for Chain of Command. I was thinking about a Too Fat Lardies' pod cast or video where the idea of a JOP was mentioned as a point where it's safe to deploy with maybe a scout or directing officer pointing the way. I thought a JOP with a military policeman directing movements might look good. So here it is. It's only good for Germans but I might make a few others (I do have a couple of NKVD officer figures doing nothing). The figure and bike are from AB. The other piece is from Simon's Soldiers.

These two are from a kit with a variety of small vehicles. The kit might be Fujimi, but I'm not sure (it's up stairs and I'm downstairs and I'm too lazy to go and check). So my fallschirmjager have a kettengrad and my G.I's have an amphibious jeep. A DUKW-ling, if you will. The figures are all from AB.

And my BEF finally get a commander. I'm not sure about Battlegroup, but in CoC they have a lieutenant and a sergeant. The command figures are from Simon's Soldiers and the signalman is from Lancer Miniatures.

Just a few little additions to keep things going. 

The blog must flow!

HG Div and Some Other Bits

I've been thinking that I'd like to make a Panzer-grenadier platoon. I've also been thinking that I'd like to paint up the Hermann Goring Division. Which one should I do?

Regular Pz-grenadiers will look pretty much the same as regular infantry figures. I know there are differences but I'm not overly concerned with those tiny details in 20mm. However, I was aware that the HG Div were organised along the same lines as regular Heer Pz-grenadiers so I opted to do them and kill two birds with one stone!

Because I'm hoping to concentrate a bit more on the Mediterranean Theater, the HG Div fit in well. They fought all through Sicily and Italy for almost of the entire campaign before being shipped to the Russian Front in the dying months of the war in 1945.

From what I can tell by looking up some uniform info is that they wore a greenish camouflage tunic with their Luftwaffe grey/blue pants. So that's how I painted them. They may not be perfect to many purists but they look good enough for me.

I did give them green collar tabs!!!

I made the panzerschreck and his #2 out of existing figures from the Plastic Soldier Company German, boxed set. The #1 was a rifleman and #2 was a medic. The weapon came from another PSC kit. I'm unsure but I think it might have been the SdKfz 251 box. I just trimmed it and carved it to fit the figure's contours.

I also made the platoon commander out of a PSC signalman by adding a helmeted head and a doing bit of conversion on an SMG arm from the same box. The sig figure also had a holstered pistol which works well. I like him... Having a puff of his cigarette whilst plotting his next decisive move.

I also took another pic of the HG pioneer section and MMG that I did a few weeks back just so that they're here in the correct context. This pic is the most accurate as far as the paint job is concerned. I don't have a good enough light source to capture the detail in many cases, but this one came out pretty accurate.

For the upcoming Blitzkrieg I have another SdKfz 321. This one is a "Funkspahwagen" or Radio Car.
So calling in those, all important, Stuka strikes on time will be made all the more easier for the glorious Wehrmacht!

And the US get some reinforcements: A Ranger section. At least I think they're Rangers. I'm not sure how the US name thier pioneers/engineers... ?
Anyway, these are mainly AB with a few Simon's Soldiers. I also have some mine detection/clearance teams to go with these but I forgot to photograph them. There're quite a few BAR's and SMG's in this mix & I don't know why. My only guess is that they're keen to get close and personal. They're friendly little fellows!

Medic!

Just a quick one...

I got this little guy a couple of days back when I visited Eureka. I was looking through the AB Brits for some gun crew and came across this chap. I really like this figure. I was smitten as soon as I saw him. So he went straight onto the painting bench and now he's ready to give aid and succor to his fellow countrymen as the face the fearsome foe.

Everyone Loves New DAK

I've been wanting to paint up another DAK platoon so I took advantage of the opening sale of Simon's Soldiers and bought a few packs of figures to fill out the odds & ends that I had sitting around. This platoon is mainly made up of SS's but there are also a couple of AB figures as well as a few plastic Italeri in the mix.

All the figures fit well with each other so I have no issues with any of them looking a bit out of place. As far as I'm concerned they all look good together.

HG and 25pdr's

I've been thinking of making something a little different than regular German Infantry. I'm not keen to make SS for various reasons, so I looked for something else and decided to make the Hermann Goring Division.

This seems like a good choice because I do prefer the Mediterranean Theater and the HG were pretty active in this area. It also means I can also sub my DAK figures as stand-in's in some instances (Sicily, early Italy). So I decided to paint up some figures to see how they worked out. These figures are a bit of a mix of AB  and plastic PSC. They're actually an assault pioneer section and tripod MG34. Never mind, this was a test and they look okay. I have a box of PSC German Infantry waiting for paint so they'll end up as HG Div.

I also got another PSC box - This time a 25pdr gun kit. Not bad, it has two guns, two Quads and two regular crews & two tropical crews. They're nice models but the crew figures are a bit lack luster. However,they are serviceable & I've seen (and used) worse figures. I'll most likely use the tropical crews most of the time, but the regular crew will be good for other gun crew that I might need.

I had some spare wheels from another kit which I put onto the ammo trailers and used the wheels in the kit to make up two sets of guns - So I ended up with two howitzers & two pheasant guns out of one kit. Gotta be happy with that!

And yes... I know the pheasant guns are limited but the 25's are very versatile. I painted them all for Mediterranean so I can use them from Africa to Greece, to Crete, to Italy, to Dodecanese (yes, I'm looking at this interesting little campaign).

Towing the pheasant guns.

 25pdr's with crews. The tropical crews are still being painted. 

More Brits and Luftwaffe Assets

I've had a week or more that was busy with family issues that took up much of my time. Still, I did manage to get some pieces done here and there.

I got some armour and some carriers done for the desert. I tried to select a camouflage scheme that will fit multiple theaters. So I opted for a dark sand & very dark brown thinking that this can pretty much cover later desert, Tunisia, Sicily and maybe even early Italy. It's a matter of trying to maximise the usefulness one cammo pattern and to save me needing multiples of multiples of the same models all with different paint schemes.

These Crusaders, I picked up cheap. Little did I realise at the time that two of them were Mk III's and one of them a Mk II. No bother. One day I might get 2 more II's and another III to fix up this problem.

The Luftwaffe got some more hitting power in the shape of a Fw-190 - Again painted for maximum usage over the Mediterranean campaigns.

And this next one is a test - Once again it's something for the Luftwaffe: Early Fallschirmjager for Crete and the Greek/Balkan campaigns. These figures are AB but I'm not sure if they will be the best figures to use for this situation as the AB figures tend to be equipped for latter in the war. At this stage I'm unsure who makes appropriate early 20mm FJ. I'll paint up a few more and see how they come out.

Anyway, this was mainly a test to see if my colour pallet was any good. I'm happy with it. I think the basing will also work pretty good for the Med.

U.S. Heavy Weapons

I made some more heavy weapons for my GI's as well as an engineer squad.

Two bases of 81mm mortars and two of 60mm mortars. All the figures are AB miniatures. Plastic Italeri will be doing stand in duty for any additional crew required.

I also had another 0.30 cal MG, so I did that at the same time.