Fall Gabel (Fork)

Fall Gabel (Fork)

As the Rasputitsa drew on from the South in Autumn 1942*, German forces in the area of YELETS, East of KURSK made one last attempt to unseat Soviet 5^th Army guarding the strategic rail junctions West of TAMBOV. Capturing this area would also dislodge or destroy the headquarters of West Front.

Rumours of Soviet Forces deeper in the East were picked up by the Abwehr, but surely the bottom of  the Soviet manpower barrel must have been reached by now? The plan is to fight this over at Shedquarters as soon as Graham, the WHELKs and I have a free Tuesday evening. In the meantime, I’m painting up more Soviet infantry.

German Forces :

HQ 2 Pz Korps :

Comd Car (s3), Signal Bn Radio truck (s3), Tac Air Liaison Truck (s3), Korps Field Hospital Bn Truck (s3), Korps Arty Bn HQ Truck, Korps Arty Bn 155mm (s3) + Limber (s3), Rear HQ Workshop Truck (s3), Korps Rear HQ Fuel Truck (s3), Close AA Flack Bn 20/37mm (s3) + Limber (s3). Rifle Bn Comd (s3), 3 Rifle stands (s3), MG stand (s3), Mortar stand (s3)

Gross Deutschland Grenadier Division, 4 Panzer Division, 2 SS Pz Division

Supporting From XLVI Korps : 295, 296 Infantry Divisions (North Flank), 297Infantry Division (South Flank)

Supporting From XIV Motor Korps : 47 Motor Division (South Flank)

Soviet Forces :

HQ West Front :

1 Comd Car (s3), 1 Signal Bn Radio truck (s3), 1 Tac Air Liaison Truck (s3), 1 Front Field Hospital Bn Truck (s3), 1 Front Arty Bn HQ Car, 1 Workshop Truck (s3), 1 Fuel Truck (s3), 1 Ammo Truck (s3), NKVD Rifle Bn Comd (s3), 3 Rifle stands (s3), MG stand (s3).

Artillery Division : 2 76mm guns (s3), 2 122mm howitzers (s3), 1 152mm gun-howitzer (s3), 2 120mm mortars (s3), 6 tractor limbers (s3).

PVO Anti-aircraft Division : 37mm Anti-aircraft gun (s3), 12.7mm DShK MG (s3), Quad 48 MG (s3). 3 limbers (s3).

7 Motor Rifle , 4 Tank, 20 Guard Rifle Divisions

HQ 5^th Army :

1 Comd Car (s3), 1 Signal Bn Radio truck (s3), 1 Army Arty Bn HQ Car, 1 Workshop Truck (s3), 1 Fuel Truck (s3), 1 Ammo Truck (s3). NKVD Rifle Bn Comd (s3), 3 Rifle stands (s3), MG stand (s3).

RVKG Anti-tank Brigade : 2 Anti-tank rifles (s3), 45mm gun (s3) + limber (s3).

55, 56, 58 Rifle Divisions

* In my fictitious NQM Eastern Front campaign.

Massive Moritz – Rommel’s Captured Dorchester ACV

The Dorchester armoured command vehicle was a unique idea. Other nations converted tanks and armoured cars for this purpose, so when Rommel captured three? of these spacious vehicles he pressed them into immediate service.

Now that Zvezda make the Matador truck, on which it is based, the obvious thing to do would be to build one up from card using the chassis as a starting point. However, I own a hotwheels Dodge Ambulance that has been used only for the odd AK47 game. Never been raced or rallied and it looked ‘close enough’ for me to start glueing bits of card on to see if the concept had any legs.

Whether it did or not you can judge for yourself. The cam net hides most of the bits that don’t look like a Dorchester and I’m hoping that hiding it in DAK will disguise the overscale nature of the beast. The captured Dorchesters went through a number of  overpaints. The original Caunter dazzle camouflage could have been a number of colours, but I went with slate green rather than blue. I’ve seen a number of model schemes and although the blue version is the sexiest, the green does actually look like camouflage and accords with newer research. I still like the blue though!

Kayaking in Slovenia - Off Topic

The last week has been spent AWOL in Slovenia, Kayaking the Soca River in the Julian Alps. I last went two years ago and was impressed that the second visit was just as good. We were lucky with the weather – 30 to 33 degrees Celsius with constant sun. This is important when you are kayaking in glacial melt or alpine rivers. The Slovenes are good-natured and tolerant, and the Kayaking was world-class grade 2-5, so there was something for everyone. Being a bit of relaxed old biffer myself nowadays, I stuck to the grade 3 stuff and had a mostly undemanding  time. If it is too hot on a river, you just roll over to cool down :

 

It still looks as if I know what I'm doing at this point!

But actually ... I don't

Rolling on a pourover is a bad plan - fail 1!

So is rolling upstream on a boil line - fail 2

Persisting with roll 3

Still in the froth, but coming up ...

Nul points for style , but hey!

For the record, this is a wargamer wearing a hat! The Soca valley was the site of a major border battle with Italy in WW1.

Men Against Fruit - Ladies Night

Genevieve Griffiths came to Knuston Hall recently for a calligraphy course, so in her honour  "Men Against Fruit"  was played as an after-dinner game. The menu comprised :

Proscuttio Ham, Olives and Chorizo

-oOo-

Poule Genevieve with Winter Vegetables

-oOo-

Stinky French Cheeses

-oOo-

Fruit Flambee

 Here are the men ...

 

... and here is the fruit. Casualties are already mounting!

 Ladies Night.

Three cornered MAF  is a fast brutal game, and so it proved this time, with the game only lasting 9 rounds - the minimum possible with 3 players each owning 3 figures. This game was set in the mahogany forest and wild orange groves of the Congo, with Beastly Belgians, Awful Askaris and Surly Sikhs shooting it out. No-one survived for long enough to reach the fabled lost Japanese temple of Te-Cup in the centre of the forest! 

 Shot in the back by my adorable spouse. Even Genevieve is wincing!

Your humble correspondent was startled by the bloodthirstiness displayed by the two ladies once the rules of the game were explained, and his Sikhs were the first to succumb to bullets whispering through the trees. Faulty memory and a couple of bottles of wine contributed to reports of the winner being lost in transit from the interior, leaving only bleached bones and rumours of fabulous treasure. Gentle reader, rest assured that any lingering aroma of decay was solely due to the Stinky French Cheese course and not rotting corpses in the jungle.

Rules:

1. Place or move a single figure, then shoot if a line of sight can be traced from the firer's eyes to any part of the target's body (not sticky-out rifle or bayonet).

2. Players place or move, and shoot, as a single action. When they have finished, the next player takes their turn.

3. All the other detail that may come up can be covered by house rules. The host's responsibility is to ensure that guests do not run dry during play, and that strategic fruit cover is not consumed at critical junctures of the game.

Camo Campervan -More Hotwheel Horror!

Not content with turning a perfectly good hotwheel truck into a Signal Van, I thought that it ought to be possible to make an office body truck that was closer to a Dovunque Carro Segnali.

 More Campervan than Signals Van at this stage.

The main drawback to the hotwheel front is that it looks more like a Fiat 626 or Alfa Romeo 800, so I overcame the problem by ignoring it! Liberal use of wood, plasticard and miliput gave an approximation of the body. A couple of leftover Pz III idler wheels suggested the two spare wheels behind the cab and paint did the rest. All I can claim for this conversion is that it looks "vaguely Italian". Buried in amongst the rest of Ariete armoured division, it should pass muster.

I'm sure Tim Gow would be happy to call this a "Dodgy Dovunque"!

More shading and weathering to follow (Who am I kidding? It will sit like this for the next 5 years!)

Italian Divisional HQ Company or Segnali Sospetti

These hotwheels trucks have been sitting around in the "to do" pile until the muse strikes. The original truck is at the top right, with a cut down 4 wheel below it. The cab looks pretty modern at the moment.

The only decent references for Italian HQ signals vehicles that I could find were for General Bergonzoli's big Lancia caravan, as ably executed by Tradgardemastre, or the 6-wheel Dovunque office-bodied signals van seen below. 

http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/thread/1362879261/LF+Fiat+SPA+Dovunque+35+pictures

I thought that perhaps a captured British signals body might be quick, easy and suitably generic. It was, but the model still looks modern. Adding a grille to the front helped, but surprisingly, getting rid of the blue finish made more of a difference, as did removing the little dropped front to the froward side windows. Painted detail will do the rest. the final result is a  vaguely convincing hybrid remeniscent of an Alfa Romeo 800 cum Fiat 626.

I did however, find a very convincing Dovunque spa 35 conversion from, of all things, an American RoCo GMC 2.5 ton truck. Full marks to "Grumble"  for seeing the possibilities inherent there.

Ground Crew Markers Work in Progress

Prior to the GAZALA game all my ground crew markers were on irregular sizes of bases, and not very many of them at that. Recycling some existing 30mm bases, and adding a few "Brits Drinking Tea" from Peter Pig with spare Old Glory Italians, gave me 24 ground crew markers. This should be enough to get a dozen squadrons into the air on each side of the battle.

Markers like these give plenty of scope for using up odd figures that can't find a home anywhere else. they also give plenty of scope for vignettes. Tim Gow has some nice examples of the art in his ground crew.

Guarding stuff to stop it walking off. Brits above, Italians below.
 

Tapping stuff to see if it really is disarmed!

Fire crew on standby. The chaps on the left are from Peter Pig's old Sci-Fi range.