For the different 1/600 air projects, I was in need for decals. I hope this enabled the finish of the planes, and take it to a little higher level. For most of the projects decals were readily available. But for the Ethiopian, Eritrean and Somali air forces, no suitable could be found. Luckily Dan from flight deck decals was willing to create these new ones, which are now available on his website.
I have ordered the following list. I hope they arrive soon. I have no experience with them yet. But hope to show the results when ready.
1/600 USAAF & USN Post War White Star Red Bar 1947-1950s
1/600 Soviet Red Stars White Red 1943 – 1992
1/600 Spanish Spain Aviación Nacional Roundels
1/600 Netherlands Modern Roundels
1/600 Netherlands WWII Roundels
1/600 German Balkan Cross Black, Thick White Band with Black Edges
So if you are in need of some 1/600 decals, plese check out his website, as he has many variants available, and when not, he is willing to create new ones.
Last week I played some Missile Threat in the Falklands with my father. As I was painting the house, I did not have time to write this report earlier.
HMS Glasgow (type 42) and HMS Brilliant (type 22), still unpainted from the collection of my father.
The scenario is loosely based the attack of the HMS Glasgow (type 42) and HMS Brilliant (type 22). Forming a Type 42-22 combo. In our scenario the two ships are patrolling, with two harrier on CAP mission in the vicinity. The Argentinean are planning two attack with two flights of two a-4 Skyhwaks and a flight of two mirages. All equipped with bombs. The Skyhawks are coming in low (level 1) over land, to avoid detection, and mirages are entering on just cruising height somewhat behind.
Begin deployment. The ships are patrolling in the south, two Hariers on CAP in the West, and three flights of attackers approaching from the North-East. The Mirages and two of the Skyhawks are still unpainted from the collection of my father. The Hariers and the other two Skyhawks are from my own collection and painted up. The map is from my father, he designed himself with google earth images and let it print on PVC.
Because the Harrier where some distance away they would not intercept before the first attack. Therefore the first pair of Skyhawks came in low and fast and took the ships by surprise. Damaging the HMS Glasgow, keeping her crew occupied with saving the vessel. So already the air defense of one of the ships was taken out. The Harriers had closed in, and on of them fired a sidewinder on the first pair, from a large distance. This missile tried to track them but was in the end out ranged, and missed. The second harrier spotted the other two waves and tried to get a advantageous position.
The Harrier launches a sidewinder from long distance, just before the first bombs hit. Blue dice is aircraft number (Argentinean blue, British red) Black dice is height and yellow dice the speed.The sidewinder will eventually miss, but the attack is successful heavily damaging the ship. Knocking it out of action. Th HMS Brilliant was still unaware.
The second wave of Skyhawks closed in too quickly and the Harriers couldn’t prevent the attack. The HMS Brilliant was alerted by the previous attack, and was shooting with Medium AA, but the AA missles were not ready. One of the Skyhawks did attack the already damaged HMS Glasgow, and was hit again, sinking the ship. The HMS Brilliant was hit and lightly damaged.
Although now on Battle stations, the HMS Brilliant couldn’t do anything to prevent some minor damage.
The Harriers started to get behind the multiple attackers. Performing some advanced maneuvers to align their guns. They got some hits, wounding one of the Mirage pilots. But this was not enough to stop them, and the Mirages sunk the HMS Brilliant on the next attack. One of the Skyhawks was less lucky, and got shot down after it already had released its bombs.
The Hariers try to shoot down the attacking planes. Mostly with gun attacks.
Then the fight was over quite quickly, the Harriers went back to the carrier as there was nothing to defend, and the Argentineans went home bingo on fuel.
The causalities of the game. One Skyhawk shot down by the Harriers, and two ships sunk.
This was a good scenario, we had hoped the ships would have a bigger impact with their air defenses and that is why the British lost so much. Therefore this was a mayor victory for the Argentineans, as they only lost one Skyhawk, but sunk to ships.
The Missle Threat rules are very interesting and fun to play. But sometimes a little challenging to remember all the pilot actions. (When to perform a pilot check, and which attacks are allowed on which moment) Only the missiles feel a little strange. IR guided missiles are much easier to fire. And do not perform that much differently than radar guided ones. So it is very beneficial to have IR missiles over radar guided ones. Probably will play more games in the future. Hope to do also some solo campaign with the Ethiopian air force.
After priming the planes yesterday, I have done a quick painting session this morning after church. I have painted the two Skyhawks and two sea Harriers. I am happy with the results. I could have worked longer on the details, and the free hand markings are not completly streight. It does look the job, and on table will probably look fine.
The inspiration for the colors did came from a decal manufacturer which has a lot of decals of unknown conflicts. Allthough these decals are for a different scale, the instructions on his website were a good guidance.
Maybe I will paint some extra details, like the exhaust and wheels on the Harriers on monday. But probably will spend some time on creating a scenario.
For my birthday I received some Tumblingdice aircraft. Two Harriers, two a-4 Skyhawks and two MB-339 planes. The last two will be reserved for the Eritrean air force, the others will be used for a quick paint up for the Falklands war. We will have a gaming evening next Tuesday I hope to finish it in time, so we can do a try out for the conflict. My father is doing a larger project, with extensive naval and air forces but his forces are still taking some time to be completed.
Next to these planes I already created an Avro Vulcan from scratch earlier and I had some mi-24 Hinds left in stock which I also based and primed.
Hope to be finishing the Falkland planes over the weekend. So they will be ready for a game. Still have to think about a scenario. I am thinking about some alternate history, were the British didn’t have the newest Sidewinder missle yet.
After playing Missile Threat a couple of times with modern aircraft, I find the rules very engaging. One drawback I encountered, aircrafts after the 1980s do have a lot of missiles, which results in easy hits. Dogfights are therefore quick encounters, of who passes who first and fires the most rockets. A lot of times the speed is very high, which results bypassing each other too quickly, and then spending multiple turns to get in position agian. So I started to search for earlier aircraft types, were rockets are less efficient and guns still have a major impact. Starting with the Soviets this would be the Mig 15, 17 and 19. I staterd looking for historical conflicts, such as Taiwan strait conflict, Korea war, Suez crisis or Vietnam war. A lot of these conflicts do have nice planes, but not all the planes I like.
A F-86 Sabre in colors of the 32 Tactical Fighter Squadron, without its engine, outside of the Dutch National Militairy Museum
As a child, I have been often to the Dutch Militairy Airforce Museum Soesterberg. There they did have almost all the planes which flew during the cold war, and a lot of the second world war planes. The planes I like have been influenced largely by these visits, as I could walk under those, and touch them. And on special occasions sit in the cockpit.
For the reasons mentioned above, I hope to do a project with the most important planes of the Dutch Cold war period, and have created an aircraft list in preparation.
Dutch Airforce
Gloster Meteor (1948-1958)
Republic F-84 Thunderjet (1952-1956)
Repubplic F-84 Thunderflash (1956-1963)
Hawker Hunter (1955-1968)
North American F-86K Sabre (1956-1964)
Lockheed F-104G Starfighter (1962-1982)
Northrop NF-5A (1970-1991)
General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon (1979-)
Sud Aviation Aérospatiale Alouette III (1963-2015)
American forces under Dutch Command (32 TFS)
North American F-86 Sabre (1955-1956)
North American F-100 Super Sabre (1956-1960)
Convair F-102 Delta Dagger (1960-1969)
McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II (1969-1978)
McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle (1978-1994)
Soviet and Warshaw pact opponents
Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig-15 “Fagot”
Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig-17 “Fresco”
Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig-19 “Farmer”
Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig-21 “Fishbed”
Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig -23 “Flogger”
Soechoj Soe-7 “Fitter”
Ilyushin Il-28 “Beagle”
Tupolev Tu-16 “Badger”
Tupolev Tu-22M “Backfire”
Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear”
For the soviet list it will be a general list and the aircraft marked with a red star. There have been some historical incidents during the cold war. For example a Polish Mig 23, which violated Dutch airspace without a pilot. The closest Warshaw pact force, where the East Germans. But for game purpose I won’t include all the different nations, and use just the generic Soviet style decals and camouflage schemes.
A F-102 Delta Dagger in colors of the 32 Tactical Fighter Squadron, outside of the Dutch National Militairy Museum
Most models will probably be purchaced from TumblingDice, in scale 1:600, with maybe some PicoArmor models. I have already seen that not all planes are available, so might have to be a little creative for some parts.
Probably I will make also some ground forces, air defences and targets. Hope to create a Nike Hercules Battery, although they are not in the rules yet.
Nike Hercules in Sunset, , outside of the Dutch National Militairy Museum
National Militairy Museum.
The Militairy Airforce Museum Soesterberg is the predecessor of the current museum. They have moved and combined it with the army museum, and is now called National Militairy Museum, located on the old Soesterberg Airbase. The cover photo, is a Mig-21 at the outside of the Museum
Last Tuesday evening, the first 2mm Napoleonic battle took place. This is a short battle report. My father was the opponent, playing the British (red) force and I was playing the France (blue) force. When I explained the rules and used a real life example of Quatre Bras, my wife, passing by, noted that on this battle field it are 5 roads. Therefore the battle took place at the fictional place of Cinq Bras. For the rules we used the 2-by-2 Napoleonic rules of Rodvik. Only the the area was actually 60cm by 60cm (sorry I do like metrics better)
Map of the Cinq Bras area where battle took place
As this is the first play of the rules, we just opted for the example forces as described in the rules.
British XXX Corps
1 Corps HQ
10 Line Infantry Regiments
2 light Cavalry Regiments
1 Heavy Cavalry Regiments
2 Foot Artillery Batteries
French VII Armeé
1 Corps HQ
10 Line Infantry Regiments
2 light Cavalry Regiments
1 Heavy Cavalry Regiments
2 Foot Artillery Batteries
The rules put a large incentive on “flow of battle”, which means that over time the different units will arrive onto the battlefield. As result at the beginning of the battle you do not have control of your full force, and you hope the reinforcements arrive on time. Which was also seen in a lot of historical battles.
The first reinforcements arrives, the French have formed a defensive line and British are advancing.The situation just before the action. A and B are the reinforcement points. In the North the skirmish between the two regiments. In the middle, north of Cinq Bras, the French line. And British advancing from the South and the West.
As result the first few turns did not have a lot of actions, but a lot of movement and shuffling into position, to gain some advantage. The action finally started with a short skirmish of some reinforcement regiments which met each other. The Bristish troops were disrupted and routed to the Riquevalle farm, and stayed there the rest of the game. And the French regiment kept shooting from a distance, and was pinned for the rest of the game.
The first encounter, two infantry regiments meet, both on its way as reinforcementsWith some help of some light cavalry, the British are routed, and seek shelter at the farm. The French Regiment was pinned and kept firing from long range. The cavalry followed the river in a try to get some flank attack on the British.
Then the tension rose at the center of the field, as the lines closed near Cinq Bras. Who would be the first to break. The British tried to use the village as vantage point and the French kept a line up to the nearby forest. The French saw the British walking in the village, and before they could a solid position, a bayonet attack was called. Also the two other regiments stormed forward attacking the British at the farm and in the grain fields.
The French have reached the British regiments. In defense the British fired some volleys of musket fire, disrupting one of the regiments. In the rear you can see new British reinforcements arriving.
The French should have hold on longer, and two regiments were quickly defeated, but Cinq Bras village was secured and a position was taken at town center. The gap in the line was put tight with the artillery positioned at the North-East road.
The French lost two regiments in the west, with the melee combat. But secured the town. The artillery had now a free line of sight (bottom of the picture) and was bombing the British line. holding the cavalry which was arriving to sweep the field.
At the other side of the forest (West), some back and forth fighting took place between a couple of infantry and cavalry regiments. And especially the British reinforcements started to dripping in. The cavalry tried to desperately force its way through the lines, to lighten the threat on Cinq Bras village. But did not succeed.
Two French infantry regiments attack, supported by two light Cavalry units. But in the end it was a lost cause.
And with five regiments lost for the French and only two for the British, the British did have a mayor victory, capturing the town, and securing a Bridge head French side of the river.
The French did still have planned to get some reinforcements, but already lost too many troops. They had to surrender. Battle lost.
Conclusion
The game was a good starter game. And both did have a good lot of frustration as troops were not possible to do exactly as you wanted. Especially if they start firing or get disrupted, and how to reorganize them.
For this first time a lot of luck was involved, as we still need to get some feeling, on when to use the different units and if it is better to wait or attack. hopefully a next game in a couple of weeks.
