Mad March

  More Mad March modelling madness completed, this time a soviet radio truck from ICM, I had a devil of a time fitting the wheel arches, but it is together! 

Cheers

Matt

Whiskey on the Rocks - Cold War Wargaming

Summer 1981 - “ Admiral Ivan Kapitanets was relieved the briefing was over, finally the commands to launch the offensive against the West. The political animal Major General Vladimir Platov's 11th Guards army is to take the Swedish mainland. The Naval Infantry to the island of Gotland; the key to the eastern Baltic. Then there establish the installation of Surface to Air missile batteries, controlling the skies over the Baltic and Northern Europe.”  The Russians are coming….

 A  weekend gaming scenario - “What if the invasion of Gotland circa October 1981? For those with long memories a Soviet Nuclear Whiskey class Submarine S363 grounded itself off the coast of Sweden in October 1981. The Swedes decided they wanted to keep the grounded submarine and stop it from departing until investigations were completed. 

The game plays out the scenario's: The Russians begin operations to recover the submarine and invade Gotland and Mainland Sweden. The game will concentrate on the Russian invasion of Gotland, with airborne and amphibious landings. The goal to take out the Swedish early warning radar, air assets, and the Naval gun 152mm locations defending the ports and channel. Capture the port, airfield and barracks of Visby, Närs coast guard base, the island of Faro with its anti shipping missile batteries and take out the Bunge airfield, all before the Swedish Marine and army reserve can arrive to tip the balance. 

I have researched available 1981 orders of Battle to create the game. To expand the scenario to a weekend game, some elements will take place on the board game 'Next War, Deadly Northern Lights'. This will track off table Air assets, naval combat and reserves before the game begins etc. The table top will fight the ground actions with or without air support as per earlier map movement.

Gaming across 3 - 4 tables, broken into three phases, the opening moves are VDV spetsnaz assaults on radar installations, electrical supply, communications and the air bases. Followed by missile bombardment of the air bases, the VDV parachute - air landing assault, and Marine Sea landings. Each will carry over casualties and losses so the order of battle will be fluid. Each phase has the possibility to include a reinforcement phase for each side.  

Stay tuned for my next article covering 

 # The breakdown of the Orders of Battle

 # The tables layout using Force on Force 

 # The order of Battle for the small element games

 # Rapid Fire Able Archer for the larger games. 

Cheers 

Matt Williamson 

Russian Motorised troops

 

 Russian Motorised Troops 

I have started to refocus to complete a number of my projects for 2021 and my Russian motorised troops are next on the list for completion. I am using Elhiem miniatures Russians to fill out my recon and motorised battalions in camouflage suits. I will probably pick up a second battalion in the coming months to bring them up to a regimental combat group. I am following my previous recipe for the for camouflage. Vallejo Green with dark sand splotches, washed then highlighted in same with a hint of bleached bone. 

cheers

Matt 

Shop.............ping Moderns

Sometimes I think wargamers are a bit like women when it comes to buying stuff for our hobby we go out with good intentions to just get one or two items and come home with an armful! It all happened on Monday when the Cardinal and I went for a drive too Canberra to spend my Father’s day money and pick up some Vallejo paint and peruse the bookshops of Fyshwick (Academic remainders and Crusader books). We went to Crusader first to pick up some Vallejo paint and have a look at some books, so I picked up a mix of browns and some washes. Next stop was Toyworld and as my painting MOJO has returned and the weather is warming up I decided to peruse the kit shelves and decided to pick up an Apache helicopter (Airfix) as I am starting another modern army in 20mm and I thought justified it that way, then we decided to get some lunch next, however we thought that we really should visit Monaro hobbies. At Monaro I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of plastic kit they had of the shelves and decided to pick up a Trumpeter M1 Abrams, however on the way out they had a sale on ICM cold war Russian kits for $5 each, so I picked up 3 BTR152’s and 5 trucks!
Now I normally get one of my mates to put my kits together because they annoy me and I have two left hands when it come to fiddly bits. However as they last few days have been wet I have sat down and put four of the nine kits together already.
The Apache went together very nicely and I made the rotors removable for transport.





The ICM 152 kits are excellent and I put them together easily also, the ICM plastic is a little different
so setting times are a little longer, but I used a production line so I could do three models at the same time, a few little adjustments, so battle kit and damage then off to the spray booth for all of them (probably after I finish the trucks).




The BTR152s and trucks will see service with my Soviets for Afghanistan and Cold War and may even make it into my African Warlord army, so I think either a generic green or the tan/khaki camouflage.

On the painting desk I have some Volunteers de Clermont (see my 18th century blog 'Fine and Dandy") and some 18th century civilians, next up will be some WSS French and then some more Imperial Romans, and some individual British general characters for the “William Atkinson memorial build” on the Guild forum.

Cheers
matt