28mm U.S. Infantry (Late War).

And once again, a few more pictures of the lost and forgotten...

This time 28mm Artizan Designs U.S. Infantry.

The whole platoon:












The Platoon Command:















Rifle Squad:










.30 Cal MMG Team:
















Bazooka Team:















Not pictured are enough extra BARs to make an Armored Infantry Platoon. I realized after finishing the platoon that the helmet straps should be brown leather instead of khaki. Some day I might get to that. Yeah.

28mm Waffen SS platoon (Mid War).

Continuing with my forgotten Photobucket images theme: 28mm Waffen SS, also from Battle Honors. I love these figures, they are some of Battle Honors best. I still think they have one of the most extensive and well rounded WWII lines out there. Who else makes Dragons Portes, Chasseurs Alpins, Italian Alpini, and Early War Soviets in such variety?

Here is the whole platoon kitted out for the Eastern Front from the end of Barbarossa until Stalingrad. I did them in fall pattern smocks and with a dead grass look for the Autumn.











Platoon Command:




















The models are actually a mix of Battle Honors SS and Early War Germans in tunics. Some of them I did head swaps to give the guys in tunics helmet covers.

Rifle Squad:












Pak 36 37mm AT Gun. These guys were converted from Heavy Machine Gun crew and officers:


















The same crew serving a Pak 38 50mm AT Gun:
















The same crew can be used for the 75mm IG I have as well.

And an Sdkfz 10 to tow them (Army Group North Miniatures):

















Transports (Army Group North Miniatures and JTFM)

Opel Blitz (I have 4):














Sdkfz 251 C halftracks:













No SS unit is complete without some tanks to back them up. Panzer III early with 37mm Guns (Army Group North):


















And a Panzer IV D (Army Group North):
















Might as well throw in a Stug III D (Army Group North):

















There is a 75mm IG to go with this platoon, as well as an AT rifle team, 5cm Mortar, 8cm Mortar, and an HMG but I don't have pics of those. Some of the pics have turned the Panzer Gray color on the tanks to a strange hue. I edited these a long time ago on some wonky software that came with the camera.

Hope you enjoy!

28mm French DLM Motorcycle Recon Platoon (France 1940).

From the files of forgotten Photobucket images: pics of my 28mm Battle Honors French Dragons Portes. These guys can be used as Dragons Portes from a Divisions Légères de Cavalerie (DLC) or Divisions Légères Mécaniques (DLM). They can be part of the Dragons Portes Regiment or from one of the motorcycle recon units. I wish someone made French motorcycles and side cars to go with them. I have to finish some extra LMGs for the squads though. Hope you enjoy! I will also be posting pictures of the French armor I have to go with them.

The whole platoon:










The Platoon Command:
















One of the squads:











Hotchkiss Heavy Machine Gun:



















Viv La France!

Battered Bastards of Bastogne.

This is the season for random projects it seems. Last week it was a squad of North Vietnamese and an Ork Warboss, now it is back to WWII with a squad of U.S. Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge.

This squad is painted to depict members of the 101st Airborne during the fighting for Bastogne. I mixed Artizan Designs 28mm U.S. Airborne and their U.S. infantry in great coats together to get a more varied mix of uniforms. The uniforms and equipment are similar enough to work. The great coat models have the late war high boot which when left dark leather brown looks like paratrooper jump boots (close enough for me anyway). Plus, by the time of winter '44, the Airborne units were often wearing a mix of their older jump uniforms and newer Army issue stuff anyway, including the new high boots. To make the models in jump uniforms look like they were fighting in the cold, I gave some of them gloves.

This is the first squad of the platoon. I plan to do the rest of the platoon soon.

Enjoy!

M1919A6 .30 cal MG Team.



















Rifle Team.

Churchill.

Forgot to post this with my Brits. JTFM 1/56 scale Churchill VIII:

Italian Theater '43-'45: The Germans.

Here are my first Crusader German Fallschirmjager for my Italian Theater project. These can be used from Sicily to the end in Italy. By swapping out the MG-34s for MG-42s I can tailor them to specific scenarios and locations. To change them to MG-42s I bought a bunch of Bolt Action Miniatures MG-42s and have swapped out the barrels on some extra MG Gunners to make these. Simple conversion and it gave my Fallschirmjagers some flexibility for this project.

Here they are...

MG-34 Teams:



MG-34 Team Detail. I really wanted to get the camo right, and after some test models, this is what I came up with:



Rifle Team:



Rifle Detail:

Italian Theater '43-'45: The British.

It's been a long time, but I fonally had a chance to snap some pics and show what I have been up to.

When I took stock of my miniatures this year, I realized I didn't have the miniatures I wanted to really do the Italian theater properly. I had sold my old painted Fallschirmjagers and I was not content to use my Late War Brits which were more appropriate for the Late War Western Front than anything Mediterranean. So, after having shelved a box of Crusader Early/Mid War Brits a few years back and picking up the new Crusader Fallschirmjagers last year, it was time to go back to sunny Italy.

So far, I have completed one squad of Brits. Here they are:

Bren Team:




Rifle Team:

Polish 10th Motorized (The Black Brigade).

I now have a complete platoon and support, plus tanks for my Polish Black Brigade project. The only thing left to do is finish off some more heavy weapons (mortars and HMGs). I have enough minis to do a second platoon, but that will have to wait until later.

The miniatures are all True North, now owned by Old Glory. They are decent figs, but I am hoping to see Battlefront release their own models of this unit once they start their early war range. The True North figs are slightly too big when standing next to the Command Decision 15mm Germans I have, but that's no big deal.

I had to do some conversion work to get some of the poses I wanted. The packs did not come with any advancing LMGs. I had to take one of the prone LMG gunners, snip off the gun, drill out one of the rifles from a rifleman, add the gun, and the sculpt on new hands with green stuff. Not difficult, just time consuming. I did 4 of them in two different poses. I think the conversion came out pretty well, though part of the reason I am not rushing into a second platoon is the fact that I don't look forward to doing that again...

Now completed:

Command section, motorcycle combo, 4 sections, a truck, 1 armored car, 6 Vickers E 6 ton, 4 TKS (one with 20mm cannon), a 7TP tank, HMG, and a 37mm Antitank gun.

Enjoy!



Platoon (minus 1 truck).



One of the sections of the one squad platoon (their TO&E is rather odd).



Support weapons.



The LMG conversion.



Vickers E 6 Ton.



TKS Tankettes. I love these things. Armored go-carts. Yet one of these little suckers, commanded by Roman Orlik, knocked out 3 German tanks (including a Panzer IV B) in one action, followed by a second run of 3 kills, and a final run of 7 kills in one day.



The 7TP, one of the best Polish tanks. These could go head to head with pretty much the best of German armor in 1939. Unfortunately for the Poles, there were too few. A number of them did some damage in a major counterattack around Bzura before being knocked out.



Armored Car. Fast, cheap, and packs an MG and 37mm gun. Just don't get hit.

So that's it! I just wish someone did this unit in 28mm...

Mid War Soviets.

Wow has it been a long time since I updated. The holidays have a tendency to sneak up on you and before you know it a new year is upon you.

I decided to start the year off right by cleaning my painting table from top to bottom and getting myself organized. I also started to work up a list of unfinished projects I wanted to get off the table and out of the way so I can start on the new projects I want to complete this year.

I have had several platoons on the table now for all of last year with just a squad or two unpainted. The first one to get out of the way is my Mid War Battle Honors 28mm Soviet Platoon. I had completed a command section and two squads for some time, but needed to finish off the third squad and the heavy weapons to make a viable platoon for the table top. That is now complete.

Here is the result. I used a new filter on my free editing software that gives it a grainy war time photo look. Not sure if I like the result or not yet...



I am also experimenting with new photography techniques for miniatures. The biggest difference was learning to take better angles. Down low and in close has helped give me better results for taking pics of minis. I might need to go back and start retaking a lot of pics of my other miniature projects. That will have to wait for now though.

Here is one of the three rifle squads:



And the heavy weapons to support them:



I'm not happy with the pics of the Rifle Squad or Heavy Weapons, but I will have to take better photos later.

This makes a complete Mid War Soviet Rifle platoon with the bare bones of support.



I have two painted T-34 early models to go with them and a Zis-3 76mm AT Gun, but I need to get some crew and add snipers and maybe a 4th squad. I also have some SMG models to finish to turn this platoon into a Desant platoon which brings a lot of drunken firepower to bear. These go against my Battle Honors 28mm Waffen SS to allow me to do post Stalingrad through Operation Zitadel and perhaps even up to and beyond Operation Bagration games.

Hope you enjoy!