Two 15mm Sherman Calliope T34 Tanks

These are two 3D-printed 15mm Sherman Calliope tanks. I needed something to track available artillery missions for my O-Group Americans and these seemed the treat for that purpose. 

The files were free from a 1:200 scale armor pack which required I scale the models up, but they still look fantastic at 15mm (1:100). 

Turrets are magnetized. Decals are by Battlefront Miniatures. 

Not much else to say. 15mm vehicles in OD green go pretty fast on the painting table. These took longer to print than they did to paint. I'm loving my 3D printer for filling in such gaps in my collection as needed. Nothing like 'always available' inventory when you need it.

15mm 3D-Printed Greyhound M-8 Armored Cars

Last Thursday I realized that I needed an M8 Armored car for my American force in an 'O' Group game I was hosting the following night. On my lunch hour I started the 3D printer on these three. An hour at the painting table after work finished them up. Liquid at noon, table ready after dinner. Bob's your uncle!

Three 15mm figures to this year's totals.

 

15mm WWII Americans for 'O' Group

I purchased these figures on Ebay recently to complete my US infantry for 'O' Group.  My collection is primarily based, and was originally intended for Flames of War. In Flames of War a US platoon is the force shown: seven infantry stands and a small base bazooka team. For 'O' group this is two three-stand platoons, an extra infantry team and a bazooka support section, usually deployed in two or three section teams. 

 

These came fairly well painted. I did some touch-ups due to damage in shipping, added some additional details to the helmets and webbing and gave the bases a spruce up with static grass to hide some questionable basing choices. 

 

 

I'll count these only as 'purchased 15mm figures'. The touch-up work wasn't significant enough to warrant credit on my annual totals. 

AWI Units Re-Based Courtesy of My Brave Fusiliers! Blog

My good friend Mark from the My Brave Fusiliers! blog offered me the opportunity to purchase two of his superbly painted AWI American units. Mark wanted to fund a new project and offered me some of his figures. I still have a few units in my American force that I bought pre-painted that aren't quite up to the standards of the units I've painted myself. Mark's figures definitely are much better than those and will replace some of those units in my army. Mark paints at least as well as I do, and better in terms of style and historical accuracy. 

Mark had these labeled as Pennsylvanians, which I'm sure is accurate. Mark's units each had 30 figures in them. This matches up perfectly with my preferred basing of two six-figure stands and a three-figure skirmish stand. Each of Mark's units will create two separate units in my basing system, but can also be used en masse as a single larger unit as shown in the first photo above. To the left here is the typical way I'll use them when in open order. In line formation the center stand is removed to close up ranks. 

This unit in hunting shirts is very flexible in how I can use it. The flags give away the units identity to the extremely knowledgeable, but the popularity of the hunting shirt means I'm happy to substitute this unit for many others. 

A look at the back of the figures showing off Marks' excellent brushwork.  I'll be counting these units as twelve stands re-based in my annual painting totals. Thanks for the figures Mark!

15mm WWII Recent Acquisitions

 I'm still fleshing out my 15mm American WWII force for Blitzkrieg Commander 4. Here you see some recent purchases. These include some American Ranger infantry and heavy weapons, two M-16 Motor gun carriage halftracks, five Shermans and four German Stug assault guns.

These figures took a real beating in shipping. The infantry probably was the best off with only a gun here or there broken off. I did some touch up painting on some of the heavy weapons and added grass flock to the barren brown bases. This was a planned 'to-do' when I bought them. My intention was to get them to more closely match my other American infantry.

The Rangers came complete with bazooka teams, command, 80mm mortars and .30-cal air-cooled MG teams. A nice complete force.

The M-16 motor gun carriage halftracks took the most damage of any of the vehicles. Both gun assemblies including crew were broken off. Fenders were irreparably broken and there was chipped paint everywhere. I repaired and re-painted what I could and left the irreparable portions broken and painted them up as bare metal 'battle damage'. The save makes them tabletop ready. Nothing to be super proud of, but serviceable.

 

The Sherman tanks are well painted. Three had their barrels broken off in shipping. I glued then back on and that was about it.

The Stug III tanks were by far the most well painted. Three of the four barrels were broken. Two at the 'snout' and one mid barrel. The former were relatively easy to repair with minimal visual impact. The latter, not so much. I did my best. 

These Stugs pretty much finish up my German force for Blitzkrieg commander.

My entire American force in 15mm.

15mm WWII American 57mm Anti-Tank Guns

Recently our club has become re-interested in 15mm due to the recent printing of the Blitzkrieg Commander 4. I had a significant collection from my Flames of War days, but a much smaller American force. I was able to pick up some needed units from Ebay. One glaring empty spot in my collection was American anti-tank guns. Ebay provided me no relief, so I ended up having to purchase this pack from battlefront miniatures and paint it up myself.

I haven't painted 15mm figures in a long time. Since then my eyes have become a lot older. I think I did an acceptable job on these, but I wouldn't say that I enjoyed painting them as much as I enjoy painting 28mm these days. Twelve 15mm to the painting totals for the year.

Blitzkrieg Commander - American Figures - Ebay Purchases and Re-basing

With my previous post showing the new German infantry in my collection, here are some Americans I also recently purchased from Ebay. This group required re-basing and also in some cases repair and re-painting.  Included are two 105mm artillery guns, two .50 cal heavy machine guns, a platoon of infantry with a commander and a command jeep. 

The /50 cal machine guns were based in the same brown gravel as some of the Germans from the previous post. The 'bushes' were just clumps of railroad ballast glued into strange clumps, painted black and dry brushed white. I GUESS they were supposed to be rock walls? I painted them dark green, then flocked them with blended turf. Now they look like proper foliage. The bases re-turfed with static grass.  After all this work I ended up having too many .50 cal guns so these were gifted to my friend Phil.

The 105mm artillery guns are both broken off the stands and the infantry was poorly painted. The guns were painted in a single color. I gave them a black wash and some highlighting. I gave the crews some touch ups, re-terrained the bases with static grass, tufts and foliage clumps and permanently attached the guns. I'm not sure that I 'needed' these, but the came with the rest of the figures, so I am happy to have them. 

The infantry and Jeep just needed to have their basses grassed and tufts added. The uniforms are a bit too vivid, but that's not something I'm willing to address. They're perfectly fine for my table!

These infantry I purchased in a separate lot and they're good to go out of the box. Included are infantry, command stands, bazooka stands and four .50 cal machine guns. The latter are why I gave the other two .50 cal MGs to my friend Phil.  This group contains a single 57mm anti-tank gun. I'd like to get another one or two to round out the force.

I'm also short on infantry compared to my Germans. I'll be keeping my eye out for a couple more platoons of GIs, or maybe even some airborne.

Also purchased with this group, four .30-cal machine gun teams, another command stand and another bazooka team.

Finally vehicles included with these 'lots' and one group of tank-destroyers purchased separately. I haven't touched these yet. They need some minor repairs and weathering, but are pretty close to tabletop ready. They include plenty of half tracks to mount up the infantry as armored infantry. That might also explain the copious amount of .50 caliber MGs. 

About the only thing that's missing here would be some sort of half-track anti-aircraft vehicle.

The Battle of Gloucester Point, October 17th, 1781

Friday we got together in my basement to play test a scenario I'm working on that I plan to host at our club's May game night. Several of my friends and a few new players volunteered to help me play test it.

During the siege of Yorktown, across the narrows of the Chasapeake bay, a small force lead by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was penned in by a larger force comprised of Americans and French including the Lauzun's Legion Hussars commanded by Brigadier Marquis de Choisy. During this short time one of the few cavalry on cavalry conflicts of the war occurred when over 300 French Hussars of Lauzun's Legion clashed with a similar number of horsement from the Light Dragoons of Tarleton's legion. This action resulted in the unhorsing and wounding of Tarleton but only a few other casualties. Beyond this cavalry action the British were kept mostly in check behind their own defenses until the surrender of Yorktown. The day before the surrender, on the evening of October 16th, Cornwallis attempted an evacuation of Yorktown to Gloucester point by small boats. This evacuation ended up in failure when the boats were scattered during an overnight storm after only shuttling a few British soldiers across from the Light and Grenadier brigades.

This scenario assumes that the British were able to cross enough troops before the storm to amass a force large enough to attempt a breakout. A successful defeat of the encircling Franco-American force will allow Cornwallis to complete the evacuation of Yorktown and extend the war in America. An American victory confirms history and marks the end of major battles of the Revolutionary War.

On the left American commanders George (Danby's Legion) and Mike (Virginia Militia). On the right French commanders Mark (Lauzun's cavalry and marines) and Charlie (Lauzun's Infantry).

Here is the British contingent left to right Ed (Light Brigade), Byron (Hessian Brigade), Ralph (coaching new players), new Player Owen (grenadiers) and Rob (militia and loyalist forlorn hope).






The scenario requires that the British, with their superior quality and numbers, eliminate the blocking American force. The British plan was solid, advance with their Loyalists and Queens rangers command to screen their grenadiers from the French battery and American muskets. Once in range the Grenadiers would go in for the kill. Germans in the center would follow up the Grenadiers and the Lights and Tarleton's cavalry would occupy the French keeping them out of the fight. In the end the Grenadier charge went particularly well and the lights were able to skirmish with the French effectively enough to neutralize them before the slower marching Germans made it into action.

I have a few tweaks to make to the scenario to make the Franco-American forces a bit more durable and threatening. I don't want to change too much too quickly though because the Grenadier attack and British plan was well executed, so I don't want to make it a lot tougher to succeed in case an average plan or execution happens at game night. In that case I want the game to be an even affair.

American Continentals

This is a unit of generic American Continental infantry that I purchased from Ebay from one of my favorite sellers, 'kendobear'. They came based for another rule set, so I've re-based them for Volley & Bayonet to match my other figures. Since this was an 18 figure unit I was able to make a formed unit of two stands and two skirmish stands. The figure selection lent itself nicely to this basing as there were just enough figures in light infantry hats to make the skirmish stands look the part.

The flag is from warflag.com. I chose a generic flag for the unit to stay safe. I expect this unit to play many roles and didn't want the flag to limit the units usefulness.

Late War WWII League @ Adler Hobby (1)

Today was the second Saturday session of the late war FOW WWII league at Adler Hobby. I wasn't able to attend the first session due to being out of town. We had a great showing with 9 players playing in two Total War games. Having extra German players I offered to become a turn coat and command an American reconnaissance company lent to me by Gordon. My partner was Scot pushing American infantry. Both of the American forces had two Artillery assets giving us TONS of template fire throughout the game.

The German players had a company of Panther tanks, a company of Panzer IV tanks with AA and engineer support and a core company of three King Tiger tanks. The latter was of great concern to us and garnered most of the attention from our artillery for the majority of the game. Eventually one King Tiger was taken out by artillery, and another was eliminated by some M10 tank hunters with a lucky flank shot. The Panzer IV tanks had good success obliterating both of my recon platoons of M8 armored cars and jeeps, but a reinforcing platoon of three Shermans stabilized the right flank. On the left the Panthers and dug-in American infantry fought to a standstill and in the middle the remaining King Tiger command tank and the Panzer IV CO held the center and repulsed an American assault attempting to re-capture the center objective.

As the game concluded (bottom photos in this section) the Americans eeked out a narrow one point victory, but for all intents and purposes this was a dead-heat draw in my mind. Well played by both sides and good fun to play. It was great to see such a packed table of great models.

On the other table was a fight of American Shermans and British Cromwells facing off against a pair of German Tiger companies. This was a back and forth game with the Germans finally winning a victory, but with many wrecked Tiger tanks littering the right side of their table.