A Small Airfield in Germany - Part 2 - AAR

OK - On with the game

BAOR recce units move further onto the table, closing on the dug in VDV.

Landie Gunships prepare to engage:


Scimitars bounding forwards:


All the while further BAOR reinforcements arrived from the NATO table edge.

The FO team (in the Spartan) and Milan Sections (in LWB Landies) move up:


While the CO (Sultan) and Mechanised Infantry Platoon (FV432) drive on:


and on...


The last of the BAOR reserves, the Chieftain troop arrive:


Throughout the majority of this time the VDV silently waited until they were able to spring their ambush:

taking out a Scimitar section.

Under cover of the hangers, the BAOR units move forward:


The chieftains following:


Of course as the game intensified I kept forgetting to take photos!

The first VDV reinforcements arrive (a BMD-2 platoon)


Well time as on the Soviet right flank the BAOR mechanised platoon launched a somewhat ill-fated assault. You can see some burning Scimitars in the background:


Things appear to be going badly for NATO as the assault never really gets started and more Scimitars burn:


However, the Chieftains arrive:

and begin to shift the balance.





By now however, the VDV have taken out both Scimitar sections, the Recce Landie platoon and the Milan Platoon, leaving the BAOR with only two units on the board. The NATO player must keep making Company Morale Checks at the beginning of each of his turns - which he keeps doing!

The final VDV assets arrive - the ASU-85 platoon.


The VDV BRDMs and ASU-85s start to move up the airfield behind the hangars:


The BAOR player isn't too bothered as the BRDMs have no chance of scratching the paintwork of the Chieftains, while the ASU-85s must take flank shots.

The BRDMs rush out from behind the last hangar into the cover of a hedge:


and take out the Company Commander's Sultan, killing him and ending the game.




So - for once the Soviets pull out a win. Although the NATO force suffered a large amount of casualties, once the Chieftains came into play the balance began to shift back towards the BAOR as nothing the Soviets had could damage the frontal armour of the MBTs - (I'll have to revisit those stats).

The NATO player could have just waited until his Chieftains arrived and then advanced, but one of the sceanrio rules stated that he had to have at least one team over the 1/2 way mark of the table by the beginning of the Soviet turn six. This drove him forward and made the game that much more interesting.

All-in-all a great game - lots of fun and as we didn't try and fit everything we had onto the table, it was manageable, had a good outcome and was relatively balanced.

So - have fun

Richard

A Small Airfield in Germany - Part 1 - AAR

Not by John le Carre....!

Well we managed to totally complete a game for once yesterday, and it was quite a close game.

Scenario

The scenario was something like this. Some time during a cold war turned hot in the 1980s, Soviet Paratroopers have taken "A Small Airfield in Germany" (hence the name) and are attempting to consolidate their "airhead". NATO, in this case, AFVs and troops from the British Army on the Rhine are attempting to crush the airhead.

Each side has reserves and some artillery off-board.

Deployment
On one edge of the airfield a mechanised VDV platoon have debussed from their BMD-1Ps and have dug-in, awaiting the expected NATO counter-attack. They are supported by two BRDM-2s, and two ATGM teams (who are hiding in ambush).

The Soviet end of the table looks like this:



NATO is appraoching from this end of the table:



A few close ups starting from the PACT end of the table:







NATO photo reconnaissance spots the deployment of most of the VDV:







BAOR recon troops enter the arena:





Part 2 - The Game begins...

Have fun

Richard

W-I-P BAOR Part II

First up - thanks for all the nice comments to the last post. Rather than answer any questions there I thought I'd simply update the WIP with the work I completed today and answer any questions raised in this post.

So - to get into it - here is the next WIP photo



Not the greatest photo for comparison purposes - but basically all the vehicles have been drybrushed as far as I think the should be, and have a few extras like tracks, some rolls etc painted. This will probably be as good as they will get before the game on Monday as I'll be going down to Canberra for the next couple of days.

I'm liking them all a bit more now, and feel that once they have had the crew painted, all the bits and pieces done etc - they'll look fine.

Once they are totally complete, I will do one of my standard painting tutorials to show exactly what I used - but to answer the questions:

Basecoat Green - is FoW Warpaint British Armour.

The Warriors in the previous photo were from Revell - OOP now as I undersatnd it.

Mark correctly identified crewing options. Liberation Miniatures also does British AFV crews.

That's about all for now

Have fun

Richard

W-I-P BAOR AFVs

I was hoping to have something completed for this update, as I was working on 3 very old Matchbox RAF Chinooks, and whilst they have reached a certain point, it was nothing worth photographing.

And then, as a long weekend is about to hit, I organised a little game and decided to use that as motivation to knock out some British Army on the Rhine AFVs - most of which I've had for a while, but for some reason they keep going to the back of the pile.

So just the one work-in-progress photo today:



As you can see there a 4 x Britannia FV432s (carrying 1 Mechanised Infantry Platoon in the game) a Britannia Chieftain (which will be added to a couple of very well painted Airfix ones I bought off Leigh - who bought them off someone else...to make a Tank Platoon) a couple of Airfix Scimitars - and in the back ground you should be able to make out two others - again beautifully painted - not by me - and bought from Leigh. These will make either 1 four AFV close recce platoon, or I'll split them into two elements of 2 vehicles each - not sure yet.

There is also a Cromwell? Spartan and a Cromwell Sultan. The Sultan - for whatever reason I'm not exactly sure - is one of my all time favourites. I just like its lines for some reason... The Sultan will be my HQ Command Vehicle, and the Saxon will be carrying an Air Defence Team.

In the background you can probably see a few Warriors - more on that at some point in the future.

I'm not 100% happy with how these look right now. I'm hoping I'll grow to like them more, the closer they get to completely finished - but there may be a bit of repainting in my future. With a bit more work though, they will suffice for the game on Monday.

After the game I'll try adding a few more cam nets etc to really make them pop.

Hopefully I'll be able to take a couple more WIP photos, then some completed photos and give you an AAR next week.

Thanks and have fun...

Richard

British Helicopters - Part 2 - TOW Lynx AH.1

Time for the next update - and this time something a little more shooty! Having a Gazelle in a wargame is all well and good - but what can it shoot! Everyone wants a proper anti-tank helicopter, and so did I. What I really wanted was a couple of Lynx AH.1 helos armed with 8 TOW missiles.

This one seriously cool helo, which you can find out a little more about here
Suffice to say its very, very, very fast and incredibly manoeuvrable - I beleive it was one of the first helicopter that could perform complete loops and rolls.

I had to search around for a bit for a TOW armed Lynx as the Airfix offering (almost always my first port of call) -

- is armed with 6 HOT missiles for some reason (I think they might have trialed this, but it never went into service). So I decided not to get this one...

I soon discovered that Corgi did a diecast version -

- that is absolutely beautiful, but comes with a awe inspiring price tag as well - I'll let you discover that for yourself. Again. not for me...

Then, trawling from ebay I discovered a Polish company - Plastyk - makes a few variants of the Lynx, including this one -

- at it was available on ebay for what I thought was a very reasonable price, so I thought, why not? - and grabbed one to see what it was like.

Plastyk Army Lynx AH.1 Mk.1 Review

Well what can I say about this kit. Well before I say anything bad, I will say that it wasn't bad enough to stop me buying another one - so I have two Lynx AH.1. I think you end up with a pretty reasonable model of the Lynx that will certainly stand up to wargaming. It's solid, nice and chunky and is unlikely to break if you accidently knock it over on the table. There are basically no fiddily little parts and it goes together reasonably well. I don't consider myself to be a super model maker - and I coped with it without to many problems.

On the other hand - it ain't a German Revell or even British Airfix kit. At times, such as when you have to attach the tail boom to the main cabin - get ready to do a bit of carving. The small windows below the cockpit did not fit that well and you really could not do any interior, if you wanted to. I didn't so that was not a concern for me.

My major problem though was with the TOW missile launcher and how they attached to the main body of the helo. Obviously Plastyk make this basic kit, and then add bits and peices to it in the box, plus new instructions, to make different variations. This means that the basic kit doesn't necessarily have the fittings for different attachments. Nor are the instructions what I would call excellent (although better than ACE) so when I went to attach the TOW launchers I had to use my imagination, and a drill. The first time I did this, I thought I was putting them in the right place, and then spent a few days convincing myself that it was OK - but when I made the second kit I moved them further down the back of the cabin and I am much happier. I still have no real idea where the launchers are to go exactly - but I can live with them.

The final problem was the decals. The decals were quite thick and had enormous clear surrounds. I tried to cut them into shape and it worked to some degree, but on the roundels in particular, it wasn't the greatest result.

Painting

I painted them exactly the same way as I painted the Gazelle.

So onto the pictures (please forgive their crappiness)

Here they come:


The first kit (with the launchers in the wrong place):


Let's pretend they both look like this:


or this:


or this:


Here they are back in formation:


And finally a couple shots of all three in formation:




Onto some youtube clips:







That's about it for now

Have fun

Richard

British Helicopters - Part 1 - Gazelle AH.1

For some reason the first vehicle I've completed for my British Army on the Rhine (BAOR) contingent turned out to be an Airfix Gazelle helicopter (excluding the two Harriers - which were of course RAF, not BAOR). This helo will be the first in what I envisage as being a little series of air support helo for my various forces - starting with the Brits.

I hadn't actually considered making a Gazelle at all until I read a couple of books - one I have mentioned before here on my blog the other I've not. The first discusses the Gazelle, mainly in terms of how they are used to assist TOW armed Lynx helicopters to find and strike at armoured targets.

The second is a book by Ed Macy - previously the pilot and author of "Apache" which describes one of his tours of Afghanistan flying an Apache Gunship. In his next book:



Macy talks about his training and why he originally chose to fly the Gazelle over the Lynx (before the Apache was even really being considered), the training and role of the Gazelle generally. He also describes how the Gazelle was used in Northern Ireland. Well worth a look.

More basic information abou the Gazelle can be found here at wikipedia

Airfix Gazelle - The Model

What can I say apart from this is a fairly simple kit - not the greatest model I've ever made, but certainly not the worst. It all fits together fairly well (the front canopy is a little too big) and has reasonable instructions that means you don't have to guess at anything (which is a nice change from ACE kits and some others).

Painting

Again this was fairly staright forward.

1. Undercoat - Citadel Black
2. Base coat - spray FoW Warpaint "British Armour"
3. Dark Green Bands - Vallejo Dark Green
4. Rotors and engine - Citadel Chaos Black
5. Pin Wash - pretty rough - Citadel Babab Black
6. Dry Brush - base coat green over pin washed areas - Vallejo Russian Uniform
7. Engine - Vallejo Gun Metal
8. Engine - Rotor area - Citadel Babab Black - Exhaust area - Cital Orygn Flesh
9. Perspex - Vallejo Luftwaffe Uniform
10. Perspex - brush on Citadel Gloss Varnish

I know the perspex isn't fantastic or even great, but I wanted to kept it fairly basic, and see how the Luftwaffe Uniform/Gloss varnish looked. I'll live with it.

Just in case you're wondering - I decided against the Grey/Green striped Gazelle that you often see and went with Green/Dark Green instead (obviously). I decided I wanted all my BAOR helo's to use this colour scheme instead. I'm pretty sure these colours were used at times and it will fit in better with the rest of the force as well.

So here are the pictures:















So basically I'm pretty happy with how this turned out and will now move onto the Lynx's.

Here's a couple of Gazelle related youtube links:

S&S Soviet Reinforcements

Well, back on track now...

A few weeks ago I got a nice little package from S&S Models - thanks very much Shaun for his prompt and very friendly service.

ASU-85

These little beauties were incredibly hard to get previously. I think one Polish company produced resin kits of them that were expensive and very fiddlily to make. The Guild added these to S&S Models special 15+ club and there was quickly enough people keen on them to convince S&S to make some. Which they did, obviously. So now my VDV can be supported by these assault guns.

Here is the wikipedia link on the ASU-85. Steven Zaloga's book on the VDV basically states that the ASU-85's designed as tank hunters, were actually pretty crap, as the 85mm gun could not penetrate the armour of modern MBTs, and the VDV had the missile armed BMDs anyway, so the ASU-85s became infantry support assault guns rather than tank hunters.

Anyway - here are some photos - lighting no great as one of my lamps died and my new lamp has a yellow bulb only...









Next up is an S&S BMD-1P. This is my last BMD-1 as I now have enough to field 2 complete companies (1 of BMD-1 and other of BMD-2). I particularly like the AT-4 Spigot ATGM it is armed with, and I asked Shaun for a few of these so I can go back and refit the rest of my BMDs to this standard, and a couple of VDV missile teams, and maybe even some of my ACE BMP-1s.





Finally a UAZ-469. I haven't painted any crew for it yet - as the scenario I got it for has it parked to begin with.









Finally some youtube clips - very hard to find one with the ASU-85...


This one shows a couple of ASU-85s around the 35 second mark.


Nice short UAZ-469 clip


Another good UAZ clip - showing its fording abilities

That's all for now - already close to finishing the next project - so more on that soon.

Richard