world war two Archives - Page 31 of 36

Flames of War – Battle of the Bulge

One other line in the news from Flames of War caught my eye and that was a reference to the Battle for the Bulge.

Following on from Italy we will be heading into the Bulge at the end of the year as well as creating another set of compilations for the Christmas season as we did last year with D-Day.

It would appear that as they did with the D-Day compilations, late in 2011 we will see a similar compilation for the late war. I don’t know what new releases we will see, but we did get a few new releases for D-Day so we may see some new ones for the late war.

I would like to see two tanks in particular, the M24 Chaffee and the British Comet. These tanks are currently not in the FoW range.

The Light Tank M24 was an American light tank used during World War II and in postwar conflicts including the Korean War and with the French in the First Indochina War and war in Algeria. In British service it was given the service name Chaffee, after the United States Army General Adna R. Chaffee, Jr., who helped develop the use of tanks in the United States armed forces.

The Tank, Cruiser, Comet I (A34) was a British cruiser tank that first saw use near the end of World War II. It was designed to provide greater anti-tank capability to Cromwell tank squadrons.

It was armed with a 77mm HV, a derivative of the 17 pounder, with the result it was one of the few British tanks with the firepower to challenge late war German designs.

I would also like to see some Late War Monsters in a similar vein to the Mid War Monsters that we have seen before. As well as the German Maus, King Tiger II and E series, we could on the allied side see the Centurion and M26 Pershing. There are also the T29 and T30 US Heavy Tanks that could also be fielded.

Talking of Monsters, some Early War Monsters wouldn’t go amiss either, the French Char 2C would be one example.

So a fair bit to look forward to for Flames of War in 2011.

We will have railway tracks…

The latest issue of Wargames Illustrated #281 has a battle report involving the Polish Armoured Train. Well it is worth seeing how big that train is… the more I think about it the more I realise that £52 isn’t that bad for the model.

Anyway, as well as seeing the Renault Ft-17 light tanks in the battle report too, the interesting thing that was mentioned at the end of the article was that an A4 box of pre-painted railway track will be released on March 20th.

There are three good articles on the armoured train in the magazine, one describing the use of armoured trains by the Polish army, a battle report using the armoured train and a modelling and painting article for the armoured train.

Update: Photo of the new Renault FT-17 tank.

15mm British Vickers Dutchman

I have had this tank for sometime. Don’t remember the manufacturer. It actually took me a while to work out which tank this was exactly… I used this site as a reference.

Mechanically similar to the Mark IV, though armament and other features were like the Mark II, the “Dutchmen” were a 1936 commercial version. 40 vehicles were sold to the Netherlands. All 40 were taken over by the War Office in 1939 before export. All vehicles were used for training only by the British Army. The term “Dutchmen” or “Dutchman” was an unofficial moniker.

Though never used in service, in the event of a German invastion (Operation Sealion) they probably would have been used to help defend the country.
After a bit of internet research I believe it is an old SDD miniature. Not convinced totally, but other miniatures in the box it was in carry SDD codes.

Thinking about it…

Initially when I found out that the Flames of War Polish Armoured Train was going to be £52 I was quite surprised and a little disappointed that it was going to cost that much.

However upon reflection and discussing it with Simon, I have come to the realisation that £52 is what I should have expected and prepared myself for.

The German Panther A boxed set with five Panthers has a list price of £41. Whilst the German Tigers Marsch which as well as some dice and tokens, contains five TIger 1E tanks has a list price of £48.

So to get four large resin models complete with extra turrets, £52 isn’t actually as bad as I made out it to be. I suppose I forget how much Flames of War stuff actually is these days.

15mm French Renault R35

The Renault R35, an abbreviation of Char léger Modèle 1935 R or R 35, was a French light infantry tank of the Second World War. Designed from 1933 and produced from 1936, the type was intended as a light infantry support tank, equipping autonomous tank battalions, that would be allocated to individual infantry divisions to assist them in executing offensive operations. To this end it was relatively well-armoured but slow and lacking a good antitank-capacity, fitted with a short 37 mm gun. At the outbreak of the war, the antitank-rôle was more emphasized leading to the development and eventual production from April 1940 of a subtype with a more powerful longer gun, the Renault R40. It was planned to shift new production capacity to the manufacture of other, faster, types, but due to the defeat of France the R35/40 remained the most numerous French tank of the war, about 1685 vehicles having been produced in June 1940.

Like some of my other models I am unsure of the manufacturer of this one. After a bit of internet research I believe it is an old SDD miniature. Not convinced totally, but other miniatures in the box it was in carry SDD codes.

I am going to use this one as the test vehicle for my Flames of War French tanks to try out different paint schemes.

Tempted though to paint as a captured German version.

Photo source.

£52 for the Polish Armoured Train

Well we now have a price for the Flames of War Polish Armoured Train.

£52

It’s a little more, well a lot more, than I thought it was going to be. To be honest I didn’t know or guess what it was going to be. I suppose I was looking more at £30-35 rather than the £52 price point.

My original idea was to buy it and convert it for use by the Germans or make a British version for Operation Sealion. I don’t have or intend to get a Polish army at this stage. I think at this time I might just leave it alone.

15mm Home Guard Bedford OXA

The Bedford OXA was a gun truck or improvised British heavy armoured car built during World War II by mounting an armoured body onto a Bedford OXD 1.5 ton truck chassis. 948 units were built in 1940-1941. The vehicle was used by British Home Guard units until 1942.

The vehicle was used by British Home Guard units until 1942.

As with many of my 15mm metal vehicles I don’t recall who the manufacturer was. After a bit of internet research I believe it is an old SDD miniature. Not convinced totally, but other miniatures in the box it was in carry SDD codes.

This is a solid whitemetal casting.

The next stage was to give the model a white undercoat.

Landing on the beaches

Sherman tanks disembark from landing craft on a defended beach.

This was taken at a demonstration games and is 20mm scale.

At the time this was taken in the 1990s 20mm and 6mm were the dominant scales for this period of wargaming. Since then 15mm has become almost the defacto standard with Flames of War dominating the era and displacing both 20mm and I would also say 6mm gaming in this period. One area that has seen growth has been in 28mm WWII with many plastic and metal miniatures available.

So what scale do you play and why?