1/144 Aircraft Part 3 - Late war aircraft

The British and Commonwealth forces
After Magne insisted on Tigers, King Tigers, Jagdtigers and Panthers, I realised that I was going to have to do as the Allies did, and get myself some serious air power! Naturally, I had to have this personal favourite, what with four 20mm cannon, eight rockets and upwards of ten machine guns, whats not to like!?
Bought from Shapeways, the Bristol Type 156 'Beaufighter' was quite an expensive model, but once I saw those D-day stripes on her I stopped caring about the price tag. Now I just need to use her to full effect. 

Ze Germans
Naturally, Magne didn't care to be on the receiving end of my superior air-power without having some means to fight back and so I bought another Shapeways model, a Stuka. The first one I bought turned out to be an A model and so it was pretty worthless for my purposes. I then bought a second late war model and added a couple of under-wing 30mm cannons to make it into a 'Kanonvogel'.

Magne also decided he wanted more firepower so he bought a Heinkel He-111 from e-bay (which I built and painted for him in a late war camouflage pattern which I found on Pinterest). Over the course of the summer, Magne and I talked back and forth about bombers and fighters and this ended with the idea of creating two 'air forces', meaning two bombers and three fighters for both the Germans and the Allies. This meant a second He-111 and three Bf-109s for Magne and two B-25 Mitchells and three Mustangs for me (I'll post about them later). The B-25s and the second He-111 are currently still works in progress, but the three Bf-109s have been finished, one of which is a lesser ace, named 'Der Rote Teufel', hence the little red imp.

The Reds
Finally, I bought some Soviets too since I have a vague idea of a late war Soviet force at some point. I bought two IL-2 Shturmoviks and a Petlyakov Pe-2. I suppose I should buy some Soviet fighters too, but to be honest, late war Soviet fighters seem a bit boring to me and I doubt I'll bother. I'd much prefer to spend the money on some more Commonwealth planes instead. Some Typhoons or Spitfires perhaps...

For part 1, see here. For part 2, see here.

1/144 Aircraft Part 2: Inter & early war aircraft

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Over the course of the summer, I have purchased a few 1/144 scale model aircraft with an eye for adding air attacks to our tank battles and I have been painting them - more or less all at the same time. Granted, there is limited scope for aerial combat on a table top that covers an area no greater than 80,000m2, but ground attack can still be played and the possibility of dog-fighting off-table is now covered in our Bayonet_10 rule system. There is also the possibility of playing large scale air combat, or naval games with air attack options, outside... Perhaps next summer? Most of these models are finished and ready to play, though one or two details still need to be added.

Neu Prussien.
For the Ordenstaat, I purchased two Heinkel He-51 fighter bombers and two Henschel Hs-123 dive bombers.

All four of these models were bought from Shapeways, and as such, were rather expensive. There are links to the various designers pages in my previous post on 1/144 scale aircraft.

Die Falkenlegion.
Originally, I wasn't going to buy any aircraft for this group since they weren't really a necessary element to our games but I inadvertently bought the wrong Stuka when I was buying for Magne's Germans, and so I was obliged to paint this Ju-87A in a way that might incorporate it into a game or two. Since I have no plans on playing any SCW games any time soon, it was an obvious choice to paint it in as a Kondorlegion aicraft, but with Neu-Prussian roundels. 

This model was also bought from Shapeways

Venezuelan National Army Air Force
Originally I was looking to buy aircraft to support my USMC expeditionary force for the Venezuela '39 campaign, and (probably inspired by the old King Kong movie) I went for a pair Boeing P-16/F4Bs only to then find out that this aircraft had been retired from US service by 1939.

I still have an idea to buy at least two more aircraft for my Venezuela '39 campaign, but I now doubt that I will buy US aircraft since there is a limit to how many models I can justify buying for a few tank battles... 

Both models were bought from Shapeways




Milicia Rojo and Soviet Expeditionary Air Force
There are a lot of cool aircraft to choose between for the Communist forces, but the actual model options were limited. I would have loved to have bought some twin engined Tupolev SB or Ilyushin Il-4s, but I was obliged to keep to the smaller scale of our games and so I bought two Polikarpov R-5 bombers (which could be adapted to carry torpedoes) and two Polikarpov I-16 'Rata' fighters.

All four models came from Shapeways. I was surprised when I saw just how tiny the I-16's were. I knew it was a small fighter, but I was astounded at just how small!

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For part 1, see here. For part 3, see here. 

Undulating terrain & hills

Using the foam mats - described in my previous post - I built up a series of low hills which I then covered with our usual gaming cloth. Both the cloth and the foam are held in place by pins, especially from the trees, hedgerows and stone walls. As shown here, this is our full size tabletop, and unlike the previous half sized table top, it obviously needs more trees and hedgerows to make it looked fully formed. I will try to find the means to build another forty or so trees in the near future.

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Updated 16 Aug;

The finished table with 82 trees, and ready to play. I have measured the table-top and at this scale, it is roughly 400 x 220m. With trees, bushes and hedgerows added, this lends itself very well for company level games. Fighting across the width of the table and taking the terrain into account the infantry elements are at effective rifle ranges. Fighting along the length of the table, they are fighting beyond effective rifle range, but within maximum ranges.

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Bocage

Thanks to the guys at Little Wars TV who put up this very helpful video, I threw out my old wire-&-flock trees and replaced them with pinned twigs topped with loose general-purpose rubberised moss. I then followed that up with some cannibalized towels and hey presto! I have some nice bocage country!

I cut the towels into small strips, then dyed them olive green. After they'd been rinsed out with cold water, I put them through the washing machine for an hour at 40c. This pulled their fabric apart just enough to make the chaotic bush like appearance. After I'd seperated all the strips again (which took a while), I then folded each strip, then glued them together in pairs to make hedgerows segments. Each segment is held in place with a pair of 26mm pins - or a special 'bocage tree' which has a longer pin sticking out the bottom so it can hold the hedgerow to the underlying foam matt. 

Next up, is to make hills and undulating terrain using the foam panels - that should be nice! 

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Ship building in 1/150 scale. Part 2 - Auxiliaries.

 See here for Part 1.

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From Wikipedia's page on auxiliary ships; An auxiliary ship is a naval ship designed to operate in support of combatant ships and other naval operations. Auxiliaries are not primary combatants, although they may have some limited combat capacity, usually of a self-defence nature.

Auxiliaries are extremely important for navies of all sizes, as without them, the primary fleet vessels cannot be effective. Thus, nearly every navy maintains an extensive fleet of auxiliaries. However, the composition and size of these auxiliary fleets varies depending on the nature of each navy and its primary mission. Smaller coastal navies tend to have smaller auxiliary vessels focusing primarily on littoral and training support roles. Larger blue-water navies tend to have large auxiliary fleets comprising longer-range fleet support vessels designed to provide support far beyond territorial waters.

Roles; Replenishment, Transport, Repair, Harbor, Support, Research, Hospital.

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I'm planning a large scale air and sea battle, and to that end, I have decided to make a large transport ship and the big picture at the top of the page, which is from an old Danish film, looks exactly what I have in mind. That ship was originally built by B&W in 1927. She was named SS Aslaug (in the film she is named SS Martha) and she was 75m long and 11.79m wide. Others have modelled her before me, so there are some nice pictures available to show her lay out.

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Currently, I have a few small auxiliary ships, in various stages of construction. In the left picture is the Neo-Prussian, 160 ton screw-steamer, support and replenishment ship Manteuffel and behind her is the San Miranda River Patrol boat San Miranda which was built for the Venezuela '39 campaign, game 4: Operation Madrigal. Manteuffel is being built for the big 'fleet battle' I have been planning for the past year now - a game so large in scale that we will probably have to play it outside.

In the picture on the right is a generic river barge - also built for the same game as the San Miranda - and behind that is a half built, Orinoco tramp-steamer which started out as a ferry, also for the Operation Madrigal game. As with all my ship models, these are built using 1.6 and 2.2mm book binders card and due to my lack of storage space, they aren't meant to last for more than a few games before they can be 'mulched'.

1/144 aircraft

Aircraft don't play a significant factor in our game, but we do include them, often as a 'joker' element which might potentially be utilised at a critical moment to change the tide of a game. So far I have bought fourteen sixteen models from Shapeways. These are fairly sturdy, provided you don't mistreat them of course, but lack the finer details. They are also quite expensive, which is why I have bought so few. Shapeways do however offer some models which you probably won't find any where else.

The best aspect of these models is we just don't need that many of them for our various campaigns. Currently we have three campaigns running; Venezuela '39, Persia '40 and Magne's Normandy '44 (which is not a Rocketman alt-history campaign and therefore not included in these pages). I'm also planning an Eastern Front / Otto Carius inspired campaign for Magne too since he likes to play with his big German cats.

All stats below are for (O) Ordinary Aircraft.



Boeing P-12 Fighter.

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Stealth: -2. Perception: 0. Shot at: +2 / +4 / +1. Agility: +3. ABC: 0. Flak: +1. Max speed: 200. Attack speed: 72. Off table speed: 8.
2 x .30 Browning MG. (Nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7+1. No ammunition restrictions
2 x 50kg Bomb. Indirect. Area effect. +8. (HE 4+1) One attack only
Available from Kampffleiger Models at Shapeways. (VIDEO)

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Polikarpov I-16 Fighter.

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Stealth: -2. Perception: 0. Shot at: +2 / +4 / +1. Agility: +4. ABC: 0. Flak: +2. Max speed: 300. Attack speed: 96. Off table speed: 12.  
2 x 7.62mm ShKAS MG. (Nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7+1. No ammunition restrictions.
2 x 20mm ShVAK Cannon (Wings) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7+1. (AP -2). No Ammunition restrictions.
6 x RS-82 rockets. (Wing mounts) Direct. Area effect. +8 (AP -5 HE 3+5). One attack only
Available from Decapod Models at Shapeways. (VIDEO) (VIDEO)

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Ilyushin Il-2 'Schturmovik'

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Stealth: -2. Perception: 0. Shot at: +3 / +5 / +2. Agility: +2. ABC: 0. Flak: +1. Max speed: 250. Attack speed: 84. Off table speed: 10
2 x 7.62 mm ShKAS MG (Nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7. No ammunition restrictions
2 x 23mm Vya-23 cannon (wings) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7+1. (AP -2). No Ammunition restrictions.
7.62mm DA. (Rear cockpit). 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7. No ammunition restrictions
8 x RS-82 rockets. (Wing mounts) Direct. Area effect. +8+3 (AP -5 HE 3+5). 1 Attack for (I) pilots. 2 for (O). 3 for (S)
6 x 100kg bombs (Wing and belly mounts) Area effect. +7 (HE 4). One attack only
Available from wwwitalik at Shapeways. (VIDEO)

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Polikarpov R-5 Light bomber

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Stealth: -2. Perception: 0. Shot at: +2 / +4 / +1. Agility: +2. ABC: 0. Flak: +1. Max speed: 96. Attack speed: 48. Off table speed: 4
7.62mm PV-1 MG. (Nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7. No ammunition restrictions
7.62mm DA. (Rear hull). 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7. No ammunition restrictions
5 x 50kg Bombs. (Wing and belly mounts) Area effect. +7 (HE 4). One attack only
Available from Kampffleiger Models at Shapeways. (VIDEO)

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Heinkel HE-51

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Stealth: -2. Perception: 0. Shot at:. Agility: +2 / +4 / +1. ABC: 0. Flak: +2. Max speed: 200 Attack speed: 72. Off table speed: +8. 
2 x 7.92mm MG17 (nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7+1. No ammunition restrictions
6 x 10kg Bomb. Indirect. Area effect. +5. (HE 4+5) One attack only
Available from Kampfflieger Models at Shapeways. (VIDEO)

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Henschel HS-123

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Stealth: Perception: Shot at: Agility: ABC: Flak: Max speed: Attack speed: Off table speed:
2× 7.92 mm MG 17 MG (Nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7+1. No ammunition restrictions
2× 20 mm MG FF cannon (underwing pods) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +6. (AP -2) No Ammunition restrictions.
450kg bombs (belly mount & wing mounts) Area effect. +7. (HE 5) One attack only.
Available from Decapod at Shapeways. (VIDEO)

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Junkers JU-87a

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Stealth: -2. Perception: 0. Shot at: +3 / +4 / +1. Agility: +2. ABC: +2. Flak: +3. Max speed: 200. Attack speed: 72. Off table speed: 8.
2 x 7.92mm MG17. (Nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7+1. No ammunition restrictions

A Junkers JU-87 is available from wwwitalik at Shapeways. 

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Bristol Beaufighter ground attack aircraft

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Stealth: -2. Perception: 0. Shot at: +2 / +4 / +1. Agility: +3. ABC: 0. Flak: +2. Max speed: 300. Attack speed: 96. Off table speed: 12. 
4 x 20mm Hispano cannon. (Nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +6+3. (AP -2). No Ammunition restrictions.
8 x RP-3 rockets. (Wing mounts) Direct. Area effect. +8 (AP -5 HE 3+7). One attack only
.303 Browning MG. (Dorsal) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7. No Ammunition restrictions. 
Available from wwwitalik at Shapeways. (VIDEO)

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Petlyakov PE-2

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Stealth: -2. Perception: 0. Shot at: Agility: ABC: 0. Flak: +2. Max speed: 300. Attack speed: 96. Off table speed: 12.

2 x 7.62 mm ShKAS MG (Nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7+1. No ammunition restrictions
7.62 mm ShKAS MG (Dorsal, rear) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7. No ammunition restrictions
7.62 mm ShKAS MG (Ventral, rear) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7. No ammunition restrictions
1,600kg bombs. Area effect. +8. (HE 7+4) One attack only
Available from Decapod Models at Shapeways. (VIDEO) 

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Junkers JU-87g 'Kanonvogel'

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Stealth: -2. Perception: 0. Shot at: +3 / +4 / +1. Agility: +2. ABC: +2. Flak: +3. Max speed: 200. Attack speed: 72. Off table speed: 8.
2 x 7.92mm MG17. (Nose) 72 LOS. Multiple targets. +7+1. No ammunition restrictions
2 x 3.7cm Bordkanone (Underwing pods) 72 LOS. Single target. +7+1. (AP -3) 1 Attack for (O) pilots. 2 for (S). 3 for (E)
A Junkers JU-87 is available from wwwitalik at Shapeways. (VIDEO)

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Other interesting aircraft and possible future purchases from Shapeways: 

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Hawker Hart  from New Aragon Mechanical Works. 

Grumman F4F Wildcat, from wwwitalik.

Vought Vindicator from Kampfflieger Models.

Fairey Swordfish from Columbia Aerodrome.

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Bristol Model 152 Beaufort, from wwwitalik at Shapeways.  

Heinkel He-111 H-6, from wwwitalik at Shapeways.

Douglas B-18 Bolo, from New Aragon Mechanical Works. 

Ilyushin IL-4 from, Decapod Models at Shapeways.

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Lockheed Model 10 Electra, from wwwitalik at Shapeways. 

Aero A.304 from wwwitalik. 

Dornier Do-18D, from New Aragon Mechanical Works at Shapeways. 

Junkers Ju-89 V1 from New Aragon Mechanical Works.

For part 2, see here. For part 3, see here.