Siege of Tobruk

 On Monday, if all goes to plan, friend Mark and I will play a wargame to simulate the Axis attempt to capture Tobruk. The battle will be played using adapted Command and Colors (C&C) rules and the battlefield is based on an enlarged version of a C&C map. The playing area is 8 x 4 and uses 3" hexes. The troops are early Airfix supported by Roco 1/87th scale Tanks and vehicles and a number of laser printed tanks and guns. The Italian infantry units are metal conversions made by Jeffers and cast by John Holt of Warrior fame.

The board is shown here laid out for the battle. The view is from the east looking west, with north on the right. The British and Commonwealth defences have a long anti-tank ditch, a minefield belt with a series of strong points, behind which is a barbed wire screen. There is an armoured reserve to the north. 

The Axis forces consist of Panzer Armee Afrika (there are more out of the picture bottom left) and the Italian Forces, which encircle the Tobruk Garrison. Tobruk harbour and town are just off the picture, but can be seen in the second photo, which also shows the allied armoured reserve. That is the objective of the Axis forces.

The third picture shows the western end of the allied defences and the road that runs along a low causeway.

I hope to give a rundown of the action next week:

There are a few pictures of the axis side but they did not go through due to the Microsoft outage.  I will add them when they arrive!

Here they are:

The view of Tobruk town and harbour from the Axis right flank:

The Axis left flank, looking out to the Italians, with their guns on the high ground hill features:

1/72 British Light Infantry - American War of Independence

 I have been after some British light infantry to go with my Airfix and other plastic AWI collection, but getting hold of them has been a challenge. The company 'House of Campaign' does do them but my efforts to buy some have been frustrated as they are out of production and command silly prices second hand. There are some suitable figures in the Hat AWI cavalry set, but they only have six foot figures in two poses.  I have used all six in this project.

The above left only one option and that was to make some myself. Donor figures were found amongst Airfix British Grenadiers and Revell/Accurate Militia sets.  Heads came from Italeri British AWI cavalry as did the buglers body.

As they were supposed to be light troops and, being employed as skirmishers, I decided to go for a nix of poses.  here they are in the field:

Afrika Korps - Reinforcements

After the destruction of a large portion of the Afrika Korps, a hasty request for replacements was made.  The new troops march onto the battlefield ready to take on the Spaniels or any other pet that comes their way.

I am doing some more machine gun teams and a few more pioneers as well as a command group.

Les Higgins - Royal Artillery

 A project started quite a while ago was finally completed today.  As far as I am aware Les Higgins (PMD) did not produce any foot artillery for the British or indeed the French.  Both sides have to make do with horse artillery.

However, rescue came from the northern workshops of Count Goya, who created some very clever conversions of British line infantry. He also produced a similar number of French, but I have still to get around to them.

Here are the results and I think they work well.  The guns are by ESCI:

I must get on and finish the French.

The destruction of the Afrika Korps

 Spaniels and toy soldiers do not mix.  Yesterday, I stupidly left my box of Airfix Afrika Korps on the stairs while I attended to something else. Charlie Brown decided that he needed to go upstairs and Spaniels always take the most direct route as fast as they can.  In this case the Afrika Korps was in between him and his objective.  The result was carnage with the box travelling from top to bottom of the stairs.:

As can be seen, a good number of my type 1 Airfix figures have become casualties. Fortunately all of the tanks and vehicles are Roco Minitanks and they bounce quite well, with just the loss of a gun barrel, some machine guns and the odd windscreen.

What was interesting though was the obvious plastic rot that had reduced the so called unbreakable figures to their current state.

Fortunately I have spares and will be painting replacements.

Charlie Brown, banished to the garden and oblivious to the damage caused:

Airfix Grenadiers

 I have been thinking of ways of using the vast pile of Airfix British Grenadiers that sit in my collection.  I  decided to paint some as the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. I am not sure whether they would have worn the bearskin (racoon skin for ORs) in the field, but my troops, hot off the ship are heading straight into the woods.

Anyway, this lot adds another useful unit to my Airfix AWI collection:

Next will be some more Warrior and Les Higgins figures.

25mm Allied Odds & Ends

 I have spent a few days clearing some projects that have been sitting on the dge of the paint table, constantly put back as the butterfly lands on something more interesting.

To start with, a couple of Warrior Miniatures units. The first is a French unit, converted by painting into a Nassau battalion for my 1815 allied army. I just got a bit tired of painting blue battalions:

I also repainted and remounted some British Life Guards:

And finally, some really old figures that have been lurking in the long term (about 30 years) project box; some Minifigs S Range Prussian Guard. They will join my Ros Prussians as Ros did not model any guard figures.  That said, I suspect that these troops, dressed as they are, would probably never leave Potsdam! The officer figure is odd as he has the wrong style of plume according to my research.  I did consider putting on a Brunswick head with the droopy plume but decided against that: