15mm Skirmish Plans

I moved my desk again recently, which gave me the chance to tidy up a bit and photograph  my 15mm skirmish force that I previewed in the last post. 

Shown are a German Panzergrenadier platoon (Battlefront metal figures) and support assets (nearly all Old Glory cast Command Decision).

The three squads of the platoon are based on what I will euphemistically call "19mm copper clad zinc disks", with larger versions of the disks for the machine gun teams.  The best part about this basing is that it cost mere pennies. Then I increased the cost by buying self-adhesive magnetic disks, which you can see to the right of the picture.  PzG platoons are small and thus brittle, but very shooty with all those machine guns. (and I had them on hand)

Additional Company/Battalion/Regimental/Divisional assets:
Under officer, panzerfausts, sniper, MMG squad, LeIg 74, PAK 40, Stug III (with gun variations), Panzer IV H, Panther, SdKfz 222, a standard SdKfz 251 and a 251/10 commander's vehicle (with 37mm gun), and a couple of kubelwagens.

I clearly like all of the additional assets!  Happily, everything here except the MMG squad was drawn from my reserves of miniatures, since 13 years ago or so I had the idea that I would like to play Flames of War and bought a couple of kilograms of metal to that end. The grey painted Panzer IV and the SdKfz 251 have been on my painting desk since then...

What I do not have are on board mortars, forward observers, medic, or any panzerschreck teams.  Or terrain, rules, or an opposing force...

Fury (2014 Movie)

This week I slogged through Fury, the 2014 movie staring Brad Pitt as a WWII American tank commander in the last days of the Third Reich.  Mr. Pitt commands a M4 Easy Eight called Fury, with a hardened veteran crew that needs a replacement assistant driver, naturally supplied by a brand new guy who has been in the army only a couple months, and is a clerk typist, not a tank crew man (much like the character in Saving Private Ryan).  After a few experiences, the new guy becomes part of the crew, learns to kill Nazis, and then is a hero.

First the good stuff: I did like how the tanks and equipment were real (mostly) and watching the tanks operate with infantry was pretty interesting.  Tank rounds seemed to either penetrate or be deflected, rather than be absorbed by armor, which was an interesting change over most movies. Shia the beef was also pretty good in his role as the gunner of the tank, so apparently small doses of him are not bad.

The Hollywood element was a bit much though, for example when dueling with a Tiger I, they both rush towards one another, and the Sherman manages to out turn the Tiger to shoot it in the rear (although Wikipedia says that a Tiger I could traverse the main gun 360 degrees in 19 seconds, so...).  [I was also going to say that the tank should have been a Tiger II or a Panther at this stage of the war, but apparently a few old Tigers really did fight in the last days of the war]  A character also takes two potato masher grenades inside the tank, but remains whole so that another character can weep over them later... which stands out in comparison to the unrelenting (and unneeded) gore of the rest of the film (and no one ever bails out of a knocked out tank).  There is also the obligatory "totally-consensual-and-not-at-all-rape" scene with a contemporarily attractive and dressed girl, which is in contrast to her more period appropriate cousin.

Over all the movie was just ok, and I am glad that I did not pay to see it in the theater.

If you were interested in gaming the battle between the Tiger and the tanks, Plastic Soldier Company sells a 15mm Tiger I, but not an Easy Eight to represent the titular tank, although that can be sourced from Battlefront. The supporting tanks seem to be a mix of M4A3s, which Battlefront has in plastic.  [they also seem to have plastic Pershings, which means you could easily field more on your table top than fought in the whole of the war]

Captain Richard "Dick" Winters

My brother-in-law is a huge fan of the Band of Brothers.  He has read the books, watched the show innumerable times, visited Normandy and Belgium a few times (although you might call it more of a pilgrimage)... he is a huge fan.  I had been trying to think of a way to paint up something for him for a while.  Something related to Easy Company, like a squad or something; but no ideas ever seemed quite right.  So when I saw that the Historicon miniature was going to be a Richard "Dick" Winters figure, and further that you could buy it from Warlords without going to the Con... well, I had to act.

$20 later the figure was on its way to me, and I had to figure out what to do to get it painted before my Brother-in-law's birthday.  I had thought that it might be nice to have a larger base surrounding the figure base, and dispatched my wife to look for some sort of display box at a craft store.  She came up trumps with an over sized mirrored baseball display box which was approximately a four inch cube (do cricket balls get collected in the same manner as baseballs?).

I painted the figure and the display over a week, spending around eight hours altogether, which was slightly rushed. Concurrently I was also reading the book (very good!) and reading about Airborne uniforms for painting purposes.

Here then is the result, shot outside on an unusually cloudy summer day, just before being packed up for gifting.