More Carronade pics

OK, so I'm back from Carronade and listening to Gin Blossoms on the stereo while I let you know how it went.

The battle of the Krefeld Salient resulted in a narrow NATO victory and provided a great opportunity to let the good wargamers of Scotland know about SOTCW. The Falkirk club are to be congratulated on a well-run and enjoyable show.

As usual click on the pics to see larger versions. The first shot (below) shows the battlefield from the west with the British entering the battle area. The Brits (commanded by Richard Crawley) deployed as two battalion sized forces - an infantry battalion less one company and reinforced by a squadron of Challengers advanced between the railway line and the secondary road on the left (foreground of the picture below) while a tank heavy force (the rest of the Challenger regiment plus a company of mechanised infantry) straddled the Autobahn.

Here (below) we see the battlefield from the eastern corner. The Soviets split their force into two commands - the mechanised infantry hid in the woods either side of the Autobahn bridge whilst the T-72 battalion lined up on the large hill on the northeast bank. The CO and his supporting elements took up a position on the right flank.

We managed to get a number of players to join in. This is Callum - he was a wicked dice roller!
The Soviet airsupport table seemed to have a glitch. Whatever interesting units I included Stuart only ever rulled a 3 or a 4 so kept getting the MiG 27. Here we see it contributing to the destruction of the British infantry company that tried to dash across the secondary bridge.

Jim McCoy joined us for an hour or two and was a most welcome addition to the British personnel. Jim himself would have been involved in the war had it happened!

The Brits were luckier on the air support table - here we see three Harriers going in for the kill.

Stuart and Jim enjoy a break.

Stuart desperately tries to find some intact Warpact forces to move!

But it's not enough - as turn ten draws to a close, a cluster of 4s, 5s and 6s inflicts decimates the reinforcing T-80 company and the Soviet rearguard starts to break contact.

Carronade game - first pictures

I popped into Carronade for a short while in transit to points North. I'm please to reveal that the Game was underway and casualties were already being inflicted on both sides.

Krefeld Salient Terrain Test

My terrain cloth looked a bit monotone in some previous pics so I decided to try adding some texture by sponging on some paint. Let me know what you think. A bit too bright?

The new railway bridge (above) is by Irregular Miniatures. I've also added a Sukhoi Su-24 (Scotia) and an East German MiG-21 (Navwar? - had it for years partially-painted but only finished it this week).

And finally one of three electricity pylons from Lasermodellbau.de

Spanish orbat

Spanish Foreign Legion Bandera
Command - Mounted colonel, 2IC, RSM, National standard, Bandera Std, bugler
Support - 3 x Hotchkiss MMG (2 crew each), 80mm mortar (3 crew), 2 pack mules + handlers, 4 ammo bearers, officer
Rifle company with -
HQ - 2 officers, bugler, standard
3 x 11 figure platoons each off - 7 rifles, grenadier, 2-man LMG team, officer/NCO

Army of Africa column
2 x 8 figure mounted cavalry troops
Infantry company with -
HQ - 2 officers, bugler, standard
Support - MMG (2 crew), 65mm mountain gun (3 crew), mules + handlers
2 x 10 man rifle platoons

Regulares Column
HQ - mounted Spanish officer, 2 native officers, standard
Support - 3 x 2-man LMG teams
5 x 9 man rifle platoons

Naval landing force
Support - "La Tiburon" (6pdr + 2 MMG)
3 x 9 man naval infantry platoons

Support services
`75 battery
Signals unit
Ambulance unit
Air support

Tifaruin Spanish forces

Infanteria de Marina (naval infantry)

Figures from Kelly`s Heroes and FAA

Spanish Foreign Legion

Figures from Bandera, Irregular and BUM

Spanish Army of Africa infantry

Bandera and Irregular figures

Army of Africa cavalry

Converted BUM plastics and Warrior minis SCW cavalry

Regulares (Moroccans spanish service)

figures from Bandera and Barcino (of Spain)

Tifaruin, a trial layout

With just over two months to go till Gauntlet I though I's better try a quick test of the terrain so I could see what was needed. The hills will go under the cloth, but I will need to construct some larger versions to correspond better with Richard B's map. This is all laid out on my 9' x 5' table tennis table

View from the west, Afrau on the coast and Tifaruin inland to the south

View from the east with Sidi Messaud

view from the north

Overall it's a bit tight on the north/south axis, so I'll either reduce the area covered by sea or expand the width to 6'.

So my immediate plan is to create the large hills needed, more palm groves to replace my deciduous trees (I've still got a pile in a box somewhere in the attic), then work on upgrading the villages, including addin a dock to Afrau.

More Krefeld Salient terrain

My larger river sections are going to see action in the Krefeld Salient game. They've given years of good service in larger scales but I believe this may be the first time I've used them in 6mm.

We need some at least another river crossing for the game so I decided to see if I could do something usable with an Irregular Miniatures railway bridge I've had for a while. The result (so far is this...

The base is an off cut of the same hardboard I've used for my other river sections. River bank is built up from tile grout and the railway embankments are expanded polystyrene.

The bridge and rail sections are white metal castings from Irregular. The rail sections I'm going to glue to thin plastic card to get them to line up correctly. Having go this far I'm now at the "I wouldn't start from here" point. I think if I ever did anything like this again I'd build the ramps from plastic card frameworks - the expanded polystyrene is just too hard to get level (at least without a hot wire cutter.

More pics later.