I made a thing! Chain of Command ammo tracker

Will look better painted but I'm chuffed!

For Chain of Command V2 I needed a squad ammo tracker for my new Volksgrenadiers (update soon). Basically each squad starts with 2 Panzerfausts, three HE grenades, and one smoke grenade. Problem is I wasn't sure how to track them. 

My initial plan was to get a normal base and stick a micro dice "cage" into it, and a few bits of cut up models with a spare Faust etc. Drop a dice into the cage and use that to track usage. Simples!

OK a bit wasteful and faffy but it works. I'd need at least three for the squads and two different but similar ones for the Panzerschreck teams but again it was doable.

Then I got a bit thoughtful - could I print them?

So I've spent a few hours teaching myself basic technical jiggery pokery and have a result! OK none of the result is "original" - basically I am "remixing" free 3d .stl files and slapping them together, so not exactly rocket science, but for a 59 year old with almost no experience I'm pretty chuffed. Before you ask, the big plan is to use different coloured micri dice for the Fausts, smoke and Frags.

Ok more honesty - the Panzerschreck counter worked first time, but the squad ammo counter just turned into spaghetti  

Got the bit between my teeth now. I'm going to make a two die version with no Panzerfaust for the earlier Germans, and then maybe think about the Brits...... 

 

Bloody Rivet Counting - Finnish Tank dilemma

In Bruges last year with some old friends it was explained to me by a guy with initials after his name that one of the reasons our disparate group of Mid Life Crisis men that constitutes the group get on so well is that we all subconsciously recognise we are all a bit "wierd" or "on the spectrum". Other than that we really have very little in common but our friendship has lasted decades. I think he may have, in layman's terms, been referring to the general "shediness" of our group - we all either have sheds or suitable substitutions for them (I have a loft) even though we use them for vastly different reasons.

My particular problem is my mind gets a bit churned by rivet counting and all that. Here is the latest example. 

In earlier posts I mentioned my Finnish WW2 project. This has been a long term thing and they're yet to see the table. I seem to come back to them now and then and add something. Some of the adventures can be read here if you are at all interested:

Here     , Finnish StuGs Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3

So my current dilemma is about tank support for the Winter War. At the time the Finns only really operated the Vickers 6 Ton tank. 

Here is an actual Finnish Vickers at the Parola Museum in Finland

They also used quite a lot of abandoned Soviet equipment - the Russian habit for leaving perfectly serviceable tanks around to be towed away by farmers turns out to date rater further back than the 2020s. 

Soooooooo...... my cunning plan was to print a T26 and use that. The T26 was a Soviet "copy" of the Vickers and used and abandoned in large numbers in Finland during the Winter War. This has the advantage that I already own the file and use one in my Soviet force. I was further cheered when looking back at the file to discover it contained a Finnish turret option. So I happily printed it - here it is 

Yay - job done. I quick paint job, maybe some clever paint to show the old Soviet markings hastily overpainted. Will look cute as well..........

Except for my rivet counting brain. As I was going to sleep last night - I kid you not, I realised there was a problem. That turret, the "Finnish" turret, is taken from the Soviet flamethrower version of the T26 - the OT 134. The Finns captured them and rearmed them with guns rather than flamethrowers. Which means I cant use this in the Winter War because the rearming means they dragged them away back to the depot rather than just turned them around. 

Ah well

The Rotterdam Project Part 6 - Armour

Zombie Blog Post Alert!

Way back in the far lost mists of time - or just over a year ago, I was working on some Dutch Marines for a 1940 Chain of Command force. 

At the time there was an excellent range of figures and some support weapons from May 1940 Miniatures - based unsurprisingly in the Netherlands. The range was missing vehicles and some of the larger support weapons such as field artillery. This was before I acquired a 3d printer, but Paul D kindly printed a Pantserwagen M38 for me. It was a scaled up model from 1:144 so details were a bit fuzzy, and Paul had struggled with the print so it was warped, but beggars cant be choosers etc, so I put it together and painted it.

Covid and Brexit have made our planned Blitzkrieg campaign get delayed, but recently I saw a designer had released 1:56 (ie 28mm) stls for both the M38 and M39 Pantserwagens. They were not cheap by .stl standards, but I thought "why not?"

The M38 is the biggest model I have ever printed, and to be honest there are some issues with my print (not the stl which is superb), however it was declared "good enough for Government Work". Similarly the M39 with hindsight could have been printed at a better angle to avoid some of the obvious stepping, however on the whole I am very happy with the way these turned out. They're both hollow so are reasonably light, and I learned a lot from printing them that I'm sure will hold me in good stead for the future.

A basic paint job and here they are.

That should put Herr Hitler off should he decide to cause trouble!

Into the Zone (2) - err "Why didn't I think of that before?"

 OK I just had a brainwave of sorts. Why not 3d print my Zona Alfa crew? I don't have the skills to design models myself but HeroForge has a design your model function and they have a Black Friday sale on, so I thought, why not?

So I spent a very happy hour or two tinkering with them and then downloaded and printed the results. I was quite impressed. Detail is a bit soft but that is countered by the fact that they can be tailored to a very close approximation of what you imaging the character should be.

So here they are - quickly painted using new "contrast" paints. I'm not overjoyed with the results but I'm happy enough ith them not to want to redo them, so......

Fat Arkady

Little Pawel

Big Pavel

FiFi

Kaz

Each stl. cost £3 in the sale - normally twice that I think, so £15 for the files and maybe £2-3 in resin is not too bad. To be honest if I never use them I have had a great time messing about designing them - HeroForge is loads of fun to play with. 

So the Crew is assembled and ready for our first trip into the Zone. I understand there is an abandoned Gaz Jeep somewhere down a forest path that may have something interesting in it. We're going to take a look.