S&S Models 122-mm howitzer D-30

Recently I completed a trio of D-30s from S&S models. D-30s are a very useful artillery piece for gaming the modern era and the S&S model is a nice representation of the weapon system.

In CD terms each one of these models represents a battery of guns, so with the addition of  vehicles and personnel stands to represent transport and supply vehicles, gun crew, forward observers, and command elements, I can table an artillery battalion.

In CD terms this could look like the following (based on the organisation in GDW's Combined Arms and several real world ORBATs):

Artillery Battalion

    Headquarters:

        1 Command stand

        1 Forward Observer stand

        2 UAZ 467 (or similar light vehicles)

    Supply Company:

        2 Heavy Ammo trucks with trailers

    3 Batteries each with:

        1 D-30 122mm Howitzer

        1 Gun crew stand

        1 Medium Truck

 

Note that the above organisation could easily be downgraded by the removal of the Forward Observer, or upgraded by adding in additional elements that increase the capability of the unit.   

In order to maximise the utility of these guns I plan to create a number of vehicles and personnel stands representing a range of different forces. This would let me field the D-30s as part of Soviet, WarPac, USSR successor state, Middle Eastern, and Imagi-nation artillery units.

By doing this I should be able to provide artillery support to a wider range of forces without having to make a large number of  model D-30s.

WIP Matchbox DAF Pontoon Carrier Trucks

A number of years back, Paul from Plastic Warriors, posted his conversion of the Airfix Thornycroft truck with Coles Crane, into the much more useful for wargaming Thornycroft pontoon truck (Click here to see it)

Matchbox Super King DAF Truck.

Inspired by this, I thought that I could steal the idea and use the Matchbox Super King DAF flatbed truck as the basis for a post war pontoon carrier. After all, bridging assets are always useful, and having a couple of pontoon trucks would make a nice addition to my wargaming 'tail' elements. The pontoons are naturally enough from the Airfix Pontoon kit, or one of the many Hong Kong clones of that set.

If I stack the pontoons this way, I will need to fill in the hollows on the bottom of the pontoons.

The DAF trucks came in a rather 1970s green colour, so I removed as much of the original paint as possible by soaking in a bath of cheap Dettol, followed by using a wire brush head on a Dremel, to remove 85% of the original paint on the first truck. This was followed by an undercoat of grey primer spray paint, followed by a coat of Vallejo Iraqi Sand, and lastly a brown wash. At this point the first truck languished as I hadn't quite decided how to attached the pontoons.

I am considering cutting up some of the pontoon decking to add to the load.

Two years later, I acquired a second truck. This one I disassembled and bunged through the dishwasher with some extra wash tablets for extra paint stripping power. This loosed up a great deal of the paint, and I wire brushed off some more, to result in a good 90% removal of all the original paint. I then spray painted it a sandy/tan/earthy colour and applied a brown wash. This was a much simpler process, and I have been subjecting the majority of Battle and Super Kings I acquire to this process in order to prepare them for repainting.

1/72 Esci/Italeri Figure for scale.

I still have a great deal of work to do before these are complete but I am happy with what progress I have made so far. The final cargo load for both trucks, and the means of securing the load still have to be determined, but I have a couple of ideas I am planning on experimenting with.

Clash in Southern Khand 2012

This is another AAR of a moderns game that has been played recently. This time, rather than use CD 3, I decided to use CD 2 as I felt it that it might offer a better game. Vehicle and equipment statistics were taken from Combined Arms, so some of the stats were very different from some of the stats from more recent products.

The large empty table. Southern Khand will never have a major tourism industry.

The aim of the game was to revisit CD 2 to see if it handled modern games better than CD 3. With this in mind, a scenario was generated that would allow for the testing of different aspects of the rules. 

Khandish Peoples' Liberation Army 

Task Force Kalid
Troop Quality: Experienced
Morale: 12

Headquarters Company with:
         1x Command stand
         1x BTR-80
   2 Motor Rifle Companies, each with:
        1x Command Mot. Rifle stand
        2x Mot. Rifle stands
   Anti Tank company, with:
        2x AT-4 teams
        1x BTR-80
   Anti Aircraft Gun company, with:
        1x Command stand
        1x Gun crew stand
        1x ZU-23-2
       1x  GAZ-66 light truck
  Tank Company, with:
       1x Command T-72
       2x T-72s 


The KPLA has long been a major faction in various conflicts in Khand. The most recent fighting has seen the KPLA grow in both strength and in confidence. The very high morale factor is reflective of the fact that this particular unit has been very successful and is very dedicated to their cause.

Journalists exit the scene after obtaining some battle footage.

 Independent Media Group

A collection of soft vehicles festooned by cameras and journalists. While broadly sympathetic to the Western Alliance, they are motivated by the hunt for fresh news from the front. This is represented by having them move to within 6 inches of any firing and staying there for one turn, in order to capture said news from the front. Once they have captured two such incidents, they will head towards the nearest friendly controlled road exit to leave. They block line of fire for Western Alliance forces, but not for KPLA units.

Western Alliance Armour.

Western Alliance Forces

Combat Team Smith
Troop Quality: Veteran
Morale: 9

Headquarters Company with:
         1x Command stand
         1x M2 Bradley
   Motorised Infantry Company, with:
        1x Command stand
        4x Mot. Infantry stands
    Cavalry Squadron, with:
       1x Command stand
       3x M3 Bradleys
       1x M1A1
    Engineer Troop with:
       1xM1A1 with Mine plough and towed MICLIC
           

Early in 2012 a token expeditionary force was dispatched to Khand in order to safe guard the interests of the various governments that make up the Western Alliance, and to also attempt to prevent some of the worse excesses of the ongoing conflict in Khand.

KPLA AA Company deploys near an are of light scrub land.

One of the things I remembered very quickly about CD 2 (compared to CD 3) was the sheer amount of firing that can take place during a turn. In CD 3 an element can only fire once per turn, whereas in CD 2, and element can potentially fire up to three times. This gives defending forces a great deal of opportunity to shoot the hell out of an advancing force.

A bad day for Western Alliance armour.

As the Western Alliance forces were doing the advancing.... They attracted a great deal of fire, and the KPLA rolled some great dice.

The engineers are halted, while the Motorised infantry keep moving.

The scenario did given a great deal of advantage to the KPLA with their initial deployment. I had hoped that the better stats of the M1A1s would compensate for that, but looking back on it, probably not as much as I'd planned.

It was a very bad day for Western Alliance armour, but not an entirely good one for the KLPA either.

KLPA AT-4 teams lurk on the edge of the scrub.

However, the main point was to see if CD 2 would be a better basis for Moderns games than CD 3. After playing this game, and ruminating on it for some time, I keep coming back to thinking that an amalgam of the best bits of both would work best.

And an air attack takes out a troop of T-80s.

The major weak point of CD 2 for Moderns is the lack of decent stats for quite a few modern weapon systems. The biggest gap is with aircraft. I have started to stat out some aircraft using data from various CPQs, Combined Arms, Harpoon, and some other GDW games, which I am then comparing to the 'real world' information available on aircraft. This is something I will need to do regardless of what version of CD I use.

The scrub offers some cover to KPLA armour.

CD 3 has much simpler mechanisms for determining quite a number of things (spotting, range bands, etc) but in my opinion handles aircraft badly, and I've never fully liked the reduction of firing phases for a number of reasons. However, the simpler mechanisms do make the game quicker.

Close up of the "I can't believe it's not a GAZ 66" Soviet era toy diecast truck I've been using as the tow vehicle for the ZU-23-2. 

Clearly I still have a great deal of thinking to do as I continue to paint things and be slack about making blog postings!

KPLA recon reports in on the Western Alliance movements.

Making M-113s Part One

I've been quite busy making a variety of bits of pieces of late, but have been rather slack in actually posting anything. A while back, I started work on some cardboard M-113s  (click here if you want to know more)

A mixture of Bravo Team ready mades (at rear), Esci (unpainted front left), and cardboard model M-113s

The Esci kit was missing a few key pieces that I replaced using the usual methods of bodging out of plastic card, or finding something about right in the bits box.

One of those road wheels is not like the others.....

A wheel and tire from a jeep or light truck is given a outer ring of plastic card in order to make a new road wheel.

The green hatch is a spare from the Airfix M-113 Fire Support Vehicle kit.

I still have three more of the Esci kits to build, and I plan to build them as the straight APC version without any additional stowage. With the cardboard models, I have tried to add clutter and stowage to the vehicles in order to try and disguise any shortcomings in the models, and to see if I could pass them off as vehicles used by support elements, rather than teeth elements, while still maintaining flexibility to use them as such as needed.

Esci vs. Cardboard.

I don't think I have really succeeded in doing this - at best I have made three M-113s that have a certain air of clutter to them. I suspect I need to put more stowage on them, and/or items of auxiliary equipment that will earmark the vehicle into a support role.

Needs more stowage.....

And the tracks aren't quite right....

I could have put more effort into the rear doors, but I figured this was good enough...

On the cardboard front I have benefited from the generosity of Paul from Plastic Warriors sending me three rather nice scratch-built APCs (click here for details)

Esci vs Cardboard part II.

Now for my purposes, these M-113s from Paul being a little large is not a problem, as an imagination background allows for the creation of plausible back stories that can explain away a number of sins.

The fact that there existed earlier APCs, such as the M-75 and the M-44 (click here for details). that were somewhat larger than the M-113, makes it easier to declare these to be a hitherto unknown vehicle of a similar ilk.

Spot the Esci!

That, or field them in force with no other M-113s!

Not BRDMs

Over the years I have found that Matchbox cars can be an excellent source of vehicles for wargaming. Sometimes all that is needed is a quick repaint, and sometimes a little more work is required to make them table ready.

More work required - the turret especially.

I got these vehicles from Frank, who was planning on adapting them for use as AFVs for his  Brotherhood of Nod army. The vehicles were from one of the new Matchbox Battle Kings packs which can provide useful vehicles, but they are generally repaints from the 1-75 car range, rather than bigger diecasts like the original Battle Kings range.

Not BRDM and a S-Model BRDM-2.

 The S-Model BRDM-2 kit comes with a number of spare parts. In fact the only difference between the 9P148 ATGM launcher version and the standard version, is the removal of one rather vital piece of sprue - the top deck for the standard version.

BRDM turret (left) and Puma turret (Right)

I had experimented with other possible turrets before deciding on the BRDM-2 turret. One of the other possible options was to use turrets from the Matchbox Puma kit. While it looks ok with the Puma turret, the BRDM-2 turret looks better.

And with the ATGM launcher.

 In converting one of the S-Models 9P148 vehicles into a standard BRDM-2, I had a spare top hull section that I figured could also work on one of the not BRDMs.

Pre and post modified vehicles.

 Of course, now that I have made these vehicles, I have to decide how I going to use them. I think they have a nice chunky tough feel to them, so I am thinking use in Dark Future style games, but potentially they could be used by a faction in Harad games - although it would be in ones set in the late 1990s (or even later).

Two notBRDMS and a Fallout style Hummer.

However, I am sure that now that I have started making them, I will be able to figure out a use for them.

Yet More Chieftains

Continuing on with my refurbishment of old Battle Kings, I have recently finished the refurbishment of another two tanks - this time with much better photos!

Trackless diecast meets plastic strapping.

 I describe the process of retracking one of the tanks in an earlier post here.

Headless tank commander meets pin and new head.

Close up of tracks.

The tank on the left is the one with the replacement parts.

Two more tanks ready to enter the fray.

Battle Kings K-116 Artillery Truck

Matchbox Battle Kings have been one of my favourite things since childhood, and I will admit that I enjoy having been able to refurbish some of my childhood toys for use in my current games. The process is quite simple, drill out rivets, replace missing heads on commanders and gunners, prime, repaint, reassemble, and wash.

Two Battle Kings Artillery Trucks.

 One of the things I have enjoyed about the refurbishment process is discovering what real world vehicles and weapon systems the Battle Kings with generic titles were based on (Such as in this post about the Battle King K-107 155mm SPG click here for details)

Haradian Artillery Prime Mover or Heavy Transport Truck?

I had thought that the Artillery truck was without any basis in the real world until I saw these pictures of International ACCO trucks (click here and here to see them). I was inspired to look for them after seeing a painting of similar trucks towing 5.5inch guns. While the grill of the Battle King is quite different from the ACCO trucks, it is very similar to a grill on a 1970s International Harvester concept vehicle (click here for the picture)  So was the Battle King Artillery Truck based on a concept truck?

Repainted and washed. Now waiting for a name, stats and purpose.

In CD terms in is at least a class IV vehicle, possibly even a class V, but I will leave the stating out the vehicle for another day.

Reworked and original model.

 The photos for this post were taken on my phone, so are even worse quality than usual, but I have used Paul's (From over at Plastic Warriors - If you haven't checked his stuff out already, you really should) trick of cropping them in paint to try and bring the models in as the centre of attention to the photo.

The current collection: 1 to keep, 1 repainted, 1 in process of being repainted.

The plan is to add two of these big behemoths to the Haradi motorpool and as I rather like the look of them, and the nice thing about an imagination is that large possible concept vehicles can occasionally find their way on to the tabletop:)

Deagostini T-72s

Recently I started to  repaint  and ink wash some of the Deagostini T-72s I got as part of the Combat Tanks Collection partwork. I wanted get some of my diecasts looking a little sharper by just giving them a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade, but  Andy  suggested that I could paint over the awful white snow camouflage with sand to create a nicer paint scheme.

The magazine is NZ$20 and comes with a rather nice tank.

 Like many of Andy's suggestions, this idea proved to be a winner! As a result the three winter camoed T-72s were changed to a more useful scheme that better matched the fourth T-72, and the BTR-80s.

Paint job in progress. The tank on the right is another Combat Tank Collection model, a T-72  in an Iraqi paint scheme.

 After the paint job, I then gave the diecasts a liberal dousing of brown wash, which I think worked out quite nicely. I have started giving the diecasts a wash in warm soapy water, followed by a rinse in warm water, and then leaving to dry, before applying  the wash. Previous to this, I had found that the wash adhered unevenly. After following this method results have improved greatly.

Four nicely washed T-72s.

Of course, now I have four T-72s finished, I want to do some more! But I should probably finish off some of the other WARPAC equipment I have first!