20mm WWII Canadian Infantry at Ortona (Part III)

Several months ago I started a project to collect and paint the forces which were involved in the 1943 Battle for Ortona. To most, this battle, if known at all, is regarded as nothing but a tiny sideshow within the larger Italian campaign, but for Canada it is our ‘little Stalingrad’, the battle that brought us out from the shadow of Dieppe and re-established our reputation as a battle-winning partner of the Allied 'family'.

The struggle for Ortona was known for its vicious, grinding and intense urban combat. Fighting which the Canadians earned a hard-earned reputation for effective house-clearing during those last weeks of 1943. Their opponents were tough veteran Fallshirmjaegers from the 1st Parachute Division and as such the fighting was ferocious, often with no quarter given or received. In the end the Canadians drove the German paratroopers from the town but at a fearsome cost. Almost 1,400 men from the Canadian 1st Division (the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, Seaforth Highlanders and the Three Rivers Regiment specifically in Ortona) lost their lives during this campaign.

The models you see here are 20mm castings from AB Miniatures. These figures are, in my opinion, the best models available for this period, in this scale (and arguably most 28mm ranges as well). They are quite lanky and have a wonderful sense of animation. Many of the figures do a great job in telling a story by how they're posed. For example, I love the figure of the soldier about to throw a grenade. He is leaning back, probably meant to have his back against a wall, finger-to-pin, waiting for the signal from his section to throw his Mills bomb into an enemy-held room. There is also a figure of a rifleman on his knees firing up to an upper story. You get a sense that he has just come up from a prone position to get a quick shot before dropping back to cover again. Amazing sculpting in any scale.

This is the last section of my Canadian platoon, which also has the command team and some special weapons teams. (The other two sections, and a bit more background, can be seen here and here.)

Okay, in more detail, we have:

The Command Team, made up of the CO accompanied by his radioman, his senior sergeant waving the boys forward and a corporal charging forward with Sten SMG at the ready (the presence of the Stens are a bit anachronistic as the Canadians typically hated them and exchanged them for Thompsons at every  opportunity). The base shapes is what I use for all my skirmish gaming. Hexes for officers, squares for NCOs, rounds for troopers, octagons for special weapons, oblongs for weapon teams.

Next is an artillery Forward Observer with his radioman. Along the Moro River and in Ortona the Fallshirmjaegers specifically targeted Canadian radio operators and the brigade went through an appalling number during the month's fighting.

Here are the dogface infantry. Nothing too sexy, just the trusty SMLE rifle, loads of ammunition and a bunch of grenades. As I mentioned previously there is some brilliant animation here, specifically with the man with the grenade and the kneeling rifleman. 

Finally, here is an assortment of heavy weapon teams. 

First up a set of PIAT teams. One pair legging it and the other deployed prone for firing. The Candadians reportedly loved the PIAT and even used the weapon for 'mouseholing' during their house-to-house fighting (something that sounds suicidally dangerous to me, but I suppose when the situation demands...). 

The next duo is a 2" mortar team. From what I understand they used these to try to mask the movement of men clambering through the rubble-filled streets. 

Concluding the special weapons is this Bren gun team. I like the third man hollering back telling others from the section to bring up some more ammunition.

Another debut in this post are three MDF buildings, the designs of which I had commissioned from Byron at SG2 Creations (who, I must add, is also one of our generous prize sponsors for the Challenge). The need for region-specific buildings came about when I noticed that there were not many retailers who were providing buildings for the Italian campaign in 20mm. Byron and I poured over period photographs of the buildings at Ortona and have come up with a base ‘recipe’ to represent the narrow multi-story structures that were typical to the town. 

MDF buildings are great but one thing that they have a hard time at conveying is the wonderful bodged randomness of older architecture. We all know that any pre-20th century building is a conceit to straight walls and level floors. As such I decided to roughen up the flat, perfect face of these buildings by giving them a rough skim coat of Liquitex gel medium. Once dry, I drybrushed them in khaki and tan to give them that quasi-Mediterranean look.

While the stucco is a bit dour, Ortona was (and still is) a vibrant seaside resort town and so I thought I’d paint the shutters and doors in somewhat brighter, more festive colours. I used thinned-down ink to give them bit of a sun-bleached, care-worn look. (I have to apologize for the roofs as I haven't figured out how I want to replicate the tile. In the meantime I've just painted them a reddish terracotta so they don't look so 'MDF-ish'.)

These three buildings are separate structures so they can be swapped around, but I’m also having Byron make up some 3 and 4-unit row house sections that will have common walls but irregular roofs and facades. We’re also doing a bunch of wrecked structures (as, sadly, most of Ortona was destroyed) that will use these structures as a basic template. It should provide for a tabletop that is thematically closer to the actual location. I have a couple ideas for special one-off buildings that were notable during the campaign but I’ll post on that when things get more clear on how they're coming along.

Of course, if you're looking for an excellent and economical set of Italian Campaign buildings you now know Byron is the man to talk to. :)

Thanks for visiting folks!

The 'Artful Dodger' from 'Oliver!'

I was a bit under the gun to get the 'Victorian' entry done for this week's theme challenge but I knew I had failsafe with one particular figure in my inventory. 

Probably my first exposure to the Victorian period was as a child seeing the movie 'Oliver!' 

As many will agree it's often seen as a magical film for children, yet it has undeniably dark and troubling undertones. 

Victorian England's use of child labour, the extreme urban poverty (with its attendant crime) and the huge gap between the classes were core thematic elements in both Dickens' book and Carol Reed's film. Nonetheless, in amongst these grim surroundings are a set of characters which bring a spark of humanity and optimism to their place in life. We have the well-meaning crime boss Fagin, the irrepressible barmaid Nancy and the kind patrician Mr. Brownlow who all give Oliver hope and a sense that the world may not be all that bleak. 

Another character in this vein, and one of my favourites in the film, is the 'Artful' Dodger played brilliantly by the late Jack Wild. 

I remember as a kid thinking that the 'Dodger' was the absolute cat's pyjamas - craftily resourceful, embarrassingly brash and unfailingly optimistic. So, with this in mind I present to you my vision of the quintessential Victorian rogue : 'The Artful Dodger'

To conclude I leave you with the scene from 'Oliver!' where the Artful Dodger first introduces himself to Oliver.  Many will know it, some will not, but I'm sure for all it will bring a smile. 

28mm Russian Civil War - Czechoslovakian Volunteers from the Kornilov Shock Regiment

(My apologies for the cross-post from the Challenge blog, but this one does have a few more pics for what it's worth.  :) )

In response to Miles’ request to provide pictures of our various hobby spaces here is a shot of my nerve center (or is that 'nerd center'?). 

Yes folks, it’s literally a closet, so no snarky remarks… :) We're pretty draconian about having a fairly minimalist household (I should’ve prefaced this by saying we have no kids). We try to keep things pretty spartan around the place, but our book collection and my hobby stuff frequently pose a challenge. So I created this ‘hobby closet’ in our media room in order for me to keep my hobby rig set-up while still having the ability to close the doors in order to keep the room looking neat and tidy. 

I know, it's a little OCD, but I'm okay with it (rocks back and forth repeatedly...).

Anyway, I’ve got about half a dozen hobby projects all on the go right now, which I must say is making me a little mental. Most of them are waiting for ‘that one essential thing’, a decal, a flag or some other infuriating detail that I’ve convinced myself that I absolutely need to properly wrap them up. Now, if I can get some of this stuff wrangled I should be able to get back on track towards my points target but right now it's pretty much a complete gong show.

Nonetheless, from all this chaos, I’ve actually managed to finish something to the point that I can submit it!  Woohoo!!

Continuing on from my Tachanka, this is another entry which focuses on the Russian Civil War. 

I find this period of history fascinating as there were so many personalities and groups involved in the conflict. Russians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Ukrainians, the list goes on and on. This submission is about a small portion of the Czechoslovakians who fought in Russia during the Civil War.

I was quite close to my grandparents on my mom’s side. Granma's family was Austrian and Grampa was from the outskirts Prague. Gramps, while being a fervent new Canadian was also very proud of 'The Old Country' and took great delight in telling me stories of Jan Hus and his Hussites, and of the ‘Czech Legion’ which fought the Reds and helped to secure Czechoslovakian independence. When he told me about the Czech armoured trains and the fact that the Legion itself controlled thousands of miles of Russian railways I was a little dubious, thinking he was pulling my leg. Later on, when I was in university, I read more about the Czech Legion and discovered that truth is indeed sometimes stranger than fiction.

This squad represents some of the Czechoslovaks who volunteered to serve with General Lavr Kornilov’s forces. They became part of the famous (or infamous) Kornilov Shock Regiment which was considered very dependable amongst the White forces and was composed of some pretty hard, hard men. Suffice it to say that not many of these guys survived the Civil War but apparently a few made it back to the new state of Czechoslovakia and probably had some harrowing tales to tell I’m sure.

These models are almost all from Footsore Miniatures (previously Musketeer Miniatures) while at least one is from Copplestone Castings. All of them are excellent figures, easy to prepare and a real joy to paint. 

Even though the traditional uniform of the Kornilov Shock Regiment had the men in red caps I decided to keep these lads in a mix of headgear to show them as separate volunteers. I also painted in white-over-red cockades for their caps and right breast as that was the chosen colours of the Czechloslovakians fighting in Russia.

One thing some may notice is that there are a lot of white flowers on these bases. I thought that since the basic uniforms in the Russian Civil War were often very similar to one another I’d have the white flowers signifying White troops and, you guessed it, red flowers for the Red forces. Dorky I admit, but I think it will make things easy to decipher when they’re all mixing it up on the tabletop. (In fact I think I’m going to use the same idea for my upcoming Wars of the Roses stuff…)

I’m not sure what I’m going to actually do with this these guys. To be honest I'm collecting this period in both 15mm and 28mm. Yep, nuts I know, but I really like painting the detail of the bigger castings from Footsore and Copplestone, while also loving the little 15mm cavalry and armoured trains from Peter Pig. I’ll probably do up enough to use for ‘Chain of Command’ and perhaps some Pulp gaming as well, other than that I have no clue. But I guess that’s the fun of it all!

'Papa' - Bernez Carro - Brother, Soldier, Father & Smuggler

(Please excuse this cross-post from the Challenge blog)

This is a continuation of my background story of the Carro family which began a few weeks ago with a description of the older son, Donon. 

It was April 1916 and Bernez and Briec Carro were almost 20 years old when they marched down the Voie Sacree (the ‘Sacred Way’), to the inferno of Verdun. When they arrived at the front lines the twin brothers were assigned to different companies in order to reduce the chance of hard news for their mother. Nonetheless, the young men were inseparable and so they worked a few favours to get themselves assigned to the same squad. For the next few months they endured ferocious fighting in conditions that are best described as bestial. During this time they found that their own officers treated them and their comrades like cattle and so the brave Poilu died by the thousand.

On July 12th at Fort Souville the Carro bothers were part of a forward listening post that became overrun by a German assault unit armed with flamethrowers. Knowing what was about to happen, Briec pushed Bernez into a sodden shellhole and took the full brunt of the liquid fire. Made into a human torch, Briec died horribly. The water in the shellhole saved Bernez's life but was not deep enough to cover all of him so half of his body was lit aflame. After the German attack faltered and was beaten back Bernez was found and sent to an aid station in the rear. He had suffered severe burns to the left side of his body and so for him the war was over. 

Bernez was invalided out of the army and he returned home to Brittany to convalesce. His childhood sweetheart, Manon, looked past his burns and insisted that they immediately marry. Donon, their first son, was born nine months later and Briec, their second boy, a year after that. In 1918 Bernez and Manon took over the family fishing business. Soon after his cousin, Lois from Marsailles, convinced him to expand into smuggling and so the Carros began to flourish. When their sons became old enough they were brought into the business as partners.

In the years following the Great War Bernez has nurtured an understandable dislike for Germans, but most of all he hates officers – all officers. It does not matter what nationality: German, French, Spanish, he despises all of them. So when in the summer of 1936 Spain’s right-wing generals, with the help of Nazi Germany, staged a coup to overthrow the Republican government, Bernez sees an opportunity to not only make a lot of money but also, in a small way, to poke his finger in the eye of those he reviles.

Bernez is a figure from Lead Adventure’s post-apoc range. I shaved off his left ear, scored his face and painted his burn scars a livid purple/pinkish tone. I really like the pose of this model. He’s a commanding figure, straight-backed and taciturn but leans forward somewhat, stiff-jointed, like many middle-aged men do. He holds a Luger behind his back just in case matters go awry. I painted his coverall trousers yellow in order to tie him in with the figure of his first son, Donon.

28mm Russian Civil War 'Tachanka' Machine-gun Wagon

Season's Greetings Everyone!

First, just a short note to let you all know that the gallery for the second theme round of the Painting Challenge is now up in all it's glory and awaiting your viewing pleasure.

This week's theme is 'Rider(s) & Mount(s)' and as such I decided to debut a little side project of mine which will concentrate on the various colourful units and personalities of the Russian Civil War.

So, what you see here is a 'Tachanka' machine-gun wagon which were heavily used in the open expanses of the Southern Russian and Ukrainian fronts. With motor vehicles being almost non-existent at the time, and in this part of the world, it seemed only sensible to make good use of the abundance of peasant wagons and horseflesh.

It is believed by some that the name 'Tachanka' derives from the Ukrainian diminutive nickname for 'wheelbarrow'.)

These small wagons would typically be drawn by two to four horses, have a crew or three or four and be armed with a heavy machine-gun positioned to fire from the rear of the vehicle. From my understanding their tactics would be to set up in ambush and then scoot to a new firing position once things got too hot or scamper out of harm's way using the machine-gun for covering fire. (I've read of Tachanka 'charges' but these seem rather harrowing considering they would have to approach the enemy positions at the gallop and then turn around to bring their guns to bear, all the while being under enemy fire.)

This is a 28mm kit from Eureka Miniatures. It provides a wonderful build, virtually flash free with no discernible imperfections to the castings. My only caveat is that the figures are quite small to really be listed as 28mm, rather I found them closer to 25mm or perhaps 22mm. Nonetheless, the completed model still looks great and fits well enough with the rest of my collection. I've painted the crew up as Cossacks but the kit comes with another variant to have them as Red crewmen with the distinctive (if somewhat dorky) pointy 'shlem' hat.

In terms of using a Tachanka in 'Chain of Command' I'm considering using these modified rules:

- a Tachanka is classed as a fast, softskin fighting vehicle;

- for game terms it may not reverse;

- unlike normal fighting vehicles a Tachanka can be deployed from a Jump Off point to reflect their tactical doctrine of being used for ambushes;

- they can be deployed in light woods;

- as a Tachanka is open topped it has the sighting capability of an infantry unit, so they have no spotting limitations; 

- when stationary, a Tachanka fires as a top-mounted HMG at full rate of fire (10 dice) but when moving it is halved (5 dice) due to the bouncing and jostling of the highly sprung carriage;

- it is completely unarmoured so is targeted as a softskin;

- as a target it is not rated as a small target or low profile BUT when moving it always receives a -1 target modifier to reflect its evasive maneuvering (if moving in a non-urban setting);

- when hit, the horses are counted as valid targets along with the crew;

- each horse killed reduces the top speed by one dice to a minimum of 1 dice;

- a dead horse dragging in the traces slows the wagon by -2 pips on the movement dice. The carcass will need to be cut away from the traces in order for the wagon to move at its proper rate. Cutting a dead horse away takes an action to perform.