1/76th ish Inventory - WW2 German - infantry

A bit of a hunt and I found three boxes of German infantry for my 1/76th (give or take) scale army.

 Never finished reconnaissance unit of some sort.

Three different brands of scwhimwagens.

 Almost completed infantry battalion or possibly even regiment.

I'm now wondering where my Command Decision rules and Orbats are.

I do recall trying to be flexible so that the troops could represent 

the variations to the units over the course of the war.  

50mm AT guns were in short supply.  

As it is the 120mm mortar is scratchbuilt.

Volksgrenadier regiment.

Previously blogged in this post.

That post does include the OOB information I was using.

1/76th ish Inventory - WW2 German - sans infantry

After seeing this post by Archduke Piccolo I felt inspired/compelled to get out my WW2 German kit in the same scale.  These models go back to the 1970s (possibly even late 60s) and have been collected in bursts and drivels ever since whenever I have seen something I haven't been able to resist.  I was hoping to use Megablitz to actually make something out of them for wargaming. 

Some of these models might have been used for Command Decision, but I am pretty sure most have never been used on the table top (or in the garden for that matter).

 All sorts of brands in there,

including some scratchbuilt and diecast.

 Two of the Panthers are suffering badly from rot.

They were like that when I go them (cheaply so no complain).

 All sorts of kit and brands here as well.

Some deserve posts of their own.

Some I didn't even know I had.

Supplementary purchases (I think they were bargains).

Now, where have I stored the infantry?

Trial of Strength - Turns 6 to 10

In our last session, Richard and I played through to the end of Summer, 1942.

 End of the last August turn.

 Beginning of September and the Axis are making a race for the oilfields.

 Mid September and the Axis make a large number of attacks, of varying degrees of success.

An assault on Stalingrad is beaten off with heavy losses to the attackers.

Note Soviet reinforcements being railed the long way to the Caucasus front (bottom left hand corner).

 End of September.

The weather holds, but for how long?

Beginning of October and it starts to rain.

All stops while we look up the rules.

Even rail transport is slowed!

Diplomacy in the time of COVID19 - Wikileaks style

Something that I am sure would never happen in the diplomatic circles simulated in Diplomacy, but here is a great cache of diplomatic cables from Italy during the game that are just too good to keep secret.  Russia denies being the source of this leak.

Until the opening of the official archives, particularly of the other combatants, we have only this treasure trove of Italian correspondence and then only up to Spring 1904.  At that stage the European map looked like this:

World in Flames 38

The start of September/October 1942 and while the Axis won the initiative, the weather was bad.  Phew!

 Storms and rain have stopped activity on the European map.

Only thing of note is the creation of a Guards Banner Army 

resulting from an overwhelming counterattack, 

that not even bad weather could stop, 

against a German mech unit 

that had advanced a hex or two too far.

Two Shermans and a White Scout Car

Retail therapy post Covid19 Lockdown easing.  

Wonderful to be able to go to my local hobby shop, Tactics, and browse for things to add to my collection.  I wasn't sure what I was buying with the Shermans (both Battlefront), but they have come up good with simple black undercoat, Tamiya Olive Drab top coat and a dry brush of VJ Buff.  Not sure the stars add anything (spot the hand painted ones).

I've taken to magnet fixing turrets

 as I have some spare rectangular magnets and the turrets need fixing.  

I bore out a recess in the turret and secure the magnet with PVA glue.  

Into the hull using PVA glue again, the head of a clout nail.

If anything the result is a little strong.

Zvedza M3 Scout Car.

A pure delight to make!

All went together with no glue.

I've scanned the instruction sheet to show it comes complete with interior.

Carthaginians versus Classical Indians

Club has reopened and my Carthaginians went to fight Dave's Classical Indians.  This was going to be interesting.

 The Indians had to deploy first and that gave me a slight advantage.

The brown terrain is broken, the blue/green impassable and the other two areas difficult.

 Any deployment advantage evaporated when the Indians won the initiative for the first three turns.

Undeterred the Carthaginians advanced.

 Turn two and the two centres had almost joined.

 The Indians used decisive initiative to charge!

The Carthaginian centre held, while the two wings were able to push forward.

 Turn four and the Carthaginian centre is still holding,

while the wings are starting to close in on the Indians.

 The battle of attritrion continues in the centre,

with both sides being worn down, but without breaking.

Turn six and the Indian morale breaks.

The Gauls did amazingly well holding off the chariots,

it pays to throw ones on the cohesion tests!