Other 6mm projects

Although my main interest has always been land warfare in Western Europe from the Romans up to around 1700 AD I do occasionally go off piste.  Two projects that have taken me a long way from my core area have been World War Two land combat and World War One air combat.

The WW2 thing comes from my first introduction to wargaming,  Charles Grant's 'Battle'.  Not from the book although I do have a copy, but from the articles in The Meccano Magazine which were pulled together to create the rules in Battle, except for the morale rules which oddly didn't make it into the book.  Those articles would have been published in the late 1960's when I was at secondary school!  In those days it was 20mm (well HO/OO scale) Airfix all the way for infantry and tanks.  For the WW1 dog fighting bug I blame Biggles and Airfix kits again.

A couple of years ago I decided to have a go at Early WW2 after reading a book set in East Yorkshire during 1940 it interested me because it was where I was then living.  The book is Seelowe Nord the middle of three connected books about WW2.  It is alternative history which looks at the double 'what ifs' of Operation Sealion both going ahead and having targeted the Yorkshire rather than the South coast.  German beach landings occurring between Scarborough and Filey with airborne landings at Spurn Point and Leconfield airfield .

Improbable I know but it was fun being able to stand on the ground being described and see where various things were meant to have happened.  Plus it wasn't a bad read.  The author's other two WW2 novels are set in France during the period running up to Dunkirk and one set in the days straight after D-Day.  Again both worth a read and all three available as ebooks for Kindle.

Of course I went 6mm for this and to date have a German armoured battalion (Pz 1, 2 3 and 4s) with the various attached support units (STuGs and SIG33s and recce elements) and a Panzergrenadier company as infantry support all from Heroics and Ros.  The Brits are a mix of Home Guard  and regulars supplied by GHQ and Irregular Miniatures.  Irregular miniatures have some of the improvised armoured vehicles used by the Home Guard and a mix of their WW1 and SCW infantry act as stand ins for the Home Guard's PBI.  GHQ have provided Bren Carriers, Matilda's, A9s, A10s and Regular Infantry.  I have their towed 25lbers as well and some towed AT guns.  Enough for a decent scrap.

German Armour pre-painting.

World War 1 in the air was supplied by Heroics and Ross plus a couple of Irregular miniature castings I already had in the bits box.  The H&R aircraft are lovely models but do require some assembly.  I replace the struts with copper wire as they are easier to use.  I even went to the lengths of creating my own lozenge camouflage transfers.  Five lozenge not seven I'm not completely mad!

Adding the lozenge camouflage

I now have a decent selection of aircraft and just need to complete the rules.

The assembled aeroplanes

The Eindeckers is a lovely little casting as are the Albatrii (Albatrosses?).  The Observation balloon is a scratch build and just needs a basket adding.  It's amazing what you can do with a toilet roll centre, two beer can widgets and some paper mache I will try to do some close ups in a follow up article at some point.