All the nice girls love - oh hold on.............. Sharp Practice Napoleonic Landing Party

I think I used that as a title before when rambling about the Fleet Air Arm. Oh well.

Hornblower et al for Sharp Practice. As I mentioned a couple of post ago, I was having a rethink about the composition of my Royal Navy Landing Party. I'm still doing that, but it's firming up. Mr Parkes has delivered the Marine detachment. This means all I need to do is base and organise, and provide Deployment Points etc. I'm painting the leaders and gunners myself, as much to give me a feeling that I have contributing rather than just piggybacking on Andy's work.

I have answered one question, which was "Do the Marines skirmish?" and reading one of the Hornblower novels (it counts as research!) it does mention a Marine skirmish line, so I'm going with that as almost primary source material. Actual primary source material I suppose as the list is based on what The Lardies would call a "Literary Detachment".  

So the force will be:

Leader Status II

2 Groups of 8 Marines 

Leader Status I

1 Group of 6 Marines skirmishing 

Leader Status III

Leader Status I

2 Groups of Sailors with mixed weapons

2 Groups of Sailors with muskets skirmishing

1 ships cannon landed and crew

I can see some problems with this lot. Firstly I will probably have to peel some off to give some Support options. Possibly more concerning is the Sailors are probably all not going to be able form together as Formations, which will make them hard to keep them doing coordinated "stuff". I can't see a solution there. Also I am very scared about the idea of having two groups armed only with melee weapons - that is counter to my usual playstyle to say the least. 

Painters Block - smashing through

All wargamers get it sooner or later, and sometimes often - the dreaded "Painters Block".

It's that horrible project that for some reason just refuses to get painted. We all get it, and we get it for different reasons. My most recent revolves around a pair of Fw 200 Condors for Blood Red Skies. 

Disclaimer - I've not been totally blocked. I've managed to paint some other stuff, but nothing for BRS, and this has been going on for months. 

The reasons why the Condors (two of them) have been a problem are many-fold. Firstly I wasn't 100% happy with the models. These were planeprinter stls printed by my good friend Paul. At the time I didn't have a printer that would handle something the size of the Condor, so when Paul printed me a couple I was not going to complain. The original stl has some raised panel lines around the nose which looked strange, I'm sure this was a slip of the mouse, but but did mean a bit of sanding to get the model ready.

My first real problem kicked in when I picked up the paintbrush. I've been using the same scheme and colours for early Luftwaffe planes from the start of my taking up BRS - a grey \ green base with a darker green splinter pattern. I was using a Vallejo Grey Green that was supposed to match the relevant RLM colour, but recently I was starting to think it was too grey and not enough green. I've been searching for something that looked more "green" and this has put me off as I didn't seem to be able to find anything I liked. I put the paintbrush down.  

I picked up the paintbrush. This colour issue was also made worse by my failure to find some good images of the camo. German bomber camo was usually the same patterns stretched as needed to cover the plane, so in theory a He111 would have the same pattern as my Condors. I could find a good plan and side view, but was struggling to see how to merge the two views together. I put the brush down.

The other issue was lack of decals. The only supplier at the time was Misc Minis in The States. Sadly due to world events shipping costs changed and for a while were prohibitive and I wasn't going to leave them painted but without the correct decals. I got the base coats on, and then stalled. They sat like that for months, looking up at me accusingly as I painted Austrians and French Napoleonics.

Happily solutions have happened. Steve Toth of Blue Falcon Hobbies produced a set of FW200 decals for I KG 40 and sent them out as part of their monthly decal subscription. Thanks Steve! I've also looked carefully at the greens on my painting table and Vallejo Russian Uniform looks a bit more where I wanted for the lighter green. I picked up the paintbrush.

The final reason for me stirring into action was the realisation that this would not change unless I changed it, so, block be damned I've launched into them. And it was easier than I expected. I've got both painted and decals on and I'm rather happy with the result. 

And theyre BIG birds, and like their namesakes quite majestic. Here is a shot with a He111 to show the size, and also the changed base green.

and a slightly blurry pic of the KG40 Squadron emblem on the nose. It also shows some layer lines but theyre not really visible at table distances. 

Bit of local history and one of the reasons I wanted to do a FW-200 Condor was there is a local connection. On 19th July 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain Condor F8+EH of 1 \ KG 40 was shot down into the sea just up the coast from where I live.  The plane was based at Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport in France and was on a mine laying mission. While approaching the British coast at night, the four engine aircraft was shot down by the British anti aircraft fire and crashed into the sea off Crimdon. Four crew members were killed and two others were rescued. 

Now technically I suspect my Condor is a slightly later version than F8+EH but there's not much chance of finding the exact model. The markings are however correct as far as I can tell, thanks again to Steve Toth at Blue Falcon Hobbies.

So there you go - painting block smashed, what to paint next??

Mid to late war Winter Germans for Blood Red Skies

Typically I got to take the pics on the brightest day of the year so far - apologies for the glare :-)

Having sorted out the Spanish "Blue" Squadron as a winter camo German unit Link if you are interested I thought I may as well do some bombers. I already have He111s and Ju88s for other periods \ campaigns so didn't want to duplicate. That left me with a few choices from the later order of battle, and I ended up going with Ju188s. As the designation suggests this was an improved version of the outstanding Ju88, in the same highly flexible fast bomber role. Historically it was never destined to be "great", possibly because by the time it reached squadron service in 1943 the tide of war was flowing against Germany and what they really needed were more and more fighters, and possibly because although the performance over the "old" Ju88 was better, it wasn't that much better.

The models are 3d prints from the PlanePrinter Patreon. RoCWorks also has a version available, and very nice it is too, however as I already had the PlanePrinter .stl file I went with that. Annoyingly there was a little wing curl at the tips, but I decided it wasn't enough to warrant printing them again. I couldn't find a reference photo of a Ju188 in the all white camo I wanted, but decided to go with it anyway just to match the 109s. Decals are from MiscMinis. I'm ok with the end result. Not totally happy with the cockpit glazing but I think it will do. 

Final member of the team is a Fw189 Uhu (Owl). This is a German battlefield recce machine that shouldered much of the reconnaissance over the Eastern Front. The Luftwaffe was unique in using specially designed recce planes whereas the Allies tended to use other types converted to the role, most notably the RAF use of Spitfires, Mustangs and Mosquitos and the USAAF using converted P38s. This may have been a by-product of the vast distances the frontline stretched in the East. The Owl is good at what it does, but is slow and relies on manoeuvrability and escorts to survive. I don't fancy its chances if it gets caught. 

Recce birds are not really necessary in Blood Red Skies - there are a couple of scenarios that they can be used in, but they're very specialised. Still, it's available from PlanePrinter so I thought, "why not?" Another semi made up camo scheme and decals from MiscMinis.

And here they are in their custom foam storage and transport tray from Just Lasered (thanks Melvin)

So that's my Mid\Late Eastern Front Germans done. Next project is going to be some Ju88s for mid war Desert \ Med theatre. 

Cheers