Terrain thoughts

Having got Sunday’s Andreivia game out of the way, I’m back in the saddle as far as thinking about Salerno is concerned.

I took delivery on Sunday of Stuart Adams’s rather splendid Ranger battalion so what with Will’s mortars (see below) we’re now sorted for Yanks. I’ll do some pics of Stuart’s models later.

The next issue requiring our attention is the terrain. My first thought is to make sure we can do the basic cloths over plastic trays terrain approach we used last year. Will has offered to build the villages (though I can do at least one if Will struggles) so the main features we need to present are Chiunzi Pass (windy road going up hill steeply), the beaches (Maiori and Vietri), and the German coastal battery above Vietri.

I noted with interest that the members of The Guild (http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/index.php) in planning their Big Game have standardised base colours for figures. Now this is probably a step too far for us (many of the figures are already done and need to fit in with our own collections) but it might be an idea for our terrain.

Games Workshop may produce some over-priced tat but their paints are generally good and they’re widely available. Even if we didn’t actually use them for painting our bases, they are at least an easy way of specifying colour information. I shall try some combinations of base colour and dry-brushed highlight and see if I can get a reasonable match to photos of the area.

Chemical Weapons (2)

Just completed a pair of  mortars that will form part of one Chemical Weapons company for the game. I still need to add an OP team to make a complete company, and I did wonder whether to add a supply detachment with a hand cart. An excellent set of WW2 figures from Reiver picked up at the Vapanartak show.

Chemical Mortars

I bought 2 Chemical mortars from Reiver/Under the Bed yesterday at Vapnartak, I had hoped that this would be sufficient to represent C & D companies of the 83rd Chemical Mortar Bn that supported the Rangers.

Further checking today shows that upon entry in combat each of the mortar battalions was composed of 1,010 men: 36 officers, 1 warrant officer, and 973 enlisted men, 32 distributed among a headquarters, a headquarters company, a medical detachment, and four weapons companies. Each company had 2 platoons, each platoon had two sections, and each section had 3 squads. On the basis of one mortar per squad, the battalion complement of mortars was 48. Transportation of the battalion consisted of 88 2½-ton trucks and 36 vehicles of varying smaller sizes. Chemical mortar carts were present in case of rough terrain. Side arms for the battalion included 820 .45-caliber automatics.

Based on this a RF company should have two 4.2 mortars and 15 figures. Given quite a number of the men would be involved in ammo supply I'll stick with two mortars, with four crew each, CO and an OP team of two making a total of eleven.

Will