Book review: Dardanelles patrol

By Peter Shankland and Anthony Hunter, 1964

A book I got from my father, who is interested in military history, just like me, but more towards the navy side. I was rather skeptical about this book, to say the least, but I gave it a try. I was pleasantly surprised.
This is about the British submarine E-11 that breached the Dardanelles during the Gallipoli campaign  in 1915. I had read about this submarine fleetingly, so I knew it existed, but that was about it.
We meet the crew on the journey into the Mediterranean, and travel with them through the Dardanelles and into the Sea of Marmara, where they see a lot of action. Really interesting about a rather unknown part of WWI.
The book reads like a novel, and hard to put down once you start reading. Highly recommended.
With Bookfinder you can find a lot of second-hand copies of this book if you’re interested.

T-26 by Frontline

First a quick view of my workspace. Crammed with paints, models, miniatures, modeling equipment and a computer. I’m working with the T-26:es shown below, a couple of Pz 38(t), some Italian 6 mm, a bunch of familiars for D&D, some odd fantasy figures and the blasted old GW giant (which I never get done), 20mm British 2-pounder that are waiting for me to mix paint for them, the infamous Finnish 37mm Bofors awaiting more cloth and some modern zombies. I’ll try to get everything on the table painted before I start another project. Maybe… probably not…

Well, first off the table are the three Frontline T-26:es we are to use in a participation game on Stockholm Spelkonvent.

They were painted with Vallejo 892 Olive Yellow and given a wash with Citadel Badab Black. Weathering with assorted Vallejo pigments.
The models were a bit of a pain to clean, they are made of resin, and rather crude. Had to fiddle with them quite a lot to get the turrets to fit. But they are relatively cheap, easy to assemble (four parts) and the result is OK.

They will be supported by this monster, a T-28 by SHQ. A lovely model I made last year.

The Spanish Civil War

I went through some old pictures and found a couple that might be of interest. All comes from a business trip to Spain a year ago. I visited Seville and found a military museum. I can't seem to find the maps, but it was in the eastern part of town.

The building where the museum is situated

I'm interested in the Spanish civil war, and found some interesting exhibits

Russian 45mm L44

A German Pak 36 

A Maxim MG

A French Hotchkiss MG

And now for something completely different - a diorama of the conquest of Seville in 1248. Would be nice to use in a wargame.

A nice, if small, museum. Worth a visit if you're in Seville, are interested in Spanish military history and have an hour to spend. But all texts are in Spanish.

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I checked some more (was to late yesterday) and the museum is called Museo Militar and you will find it in Plaza de España.

Lego-wargaming?

I’m back from a trip to southern Sweden and also LEGOLAND in Denmark. It’s an amusement park and of course a gigantic LEGO-build. As I walked around the cities and villages made from LEGO-bricks the wargamer in me woke up. I started to to look for wargaming potential. What if you could 'loan' LEGOLAND for a day of wargaming....

Seize the bridges, maybe a PSW 222 in the front?

Urban warfare, where's that sniper?

Want to fight in the bonsai garden?

Starwars is fun

Cape Kennedy, maybe not wargaming potential, but huge and cool. Hmm, I might be able to use my new 7TV-rules for this setting. Just bought them today...

Well, that's some of the approximately 400 pics of the 'terrain' in LEGOLAND. A very nice trip.

Unchartered Seas - Dwarven fleet

I just finished the dwarven flagship, proudly sailing in the front of the fleet below.

Now I've got the airship on the painting table.
The frigates, destroyers and battleship are actually painted by my son, he was 11 when he made them. He's got talent.
I dirtied them up with 'smoke' yesterday.

Unchartered Seas – Elves

The dwarven fleet gets bigger and bigger, and they need opposition. Elves!

Assault Destroyers

They were painted with Vallejo 843 Cork Brown, and given a wash of Gryphonne Sepia. The sales got a base-coat of 919 Foundation White, then Humbrol 103 Cream and drybrushed white. The Ornamentation was painted 908 Carmine Red with a wash of Baal Red. ‘Gun’ports were Ice Blue with a wash of Asurmen Blue.

Flagship

As above, but ornamentation 967 Olive Green with two washes of Thraka Green.

The energy orbs were painted as the gun ports, but with highlights of Ice Blue, and then a layer of gloss varnish. Fittings were Vallejo Game Color 56 Glorious Gold.

 The whole fleet so far

The Rats of Tobruk

A couple of weeks ago the gaming group met in my basement for a game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum (IABSM), produced by Too Fat Lardies (TFL). An excellent set of rules for company-level WWII-battles. A PDF-bargain at £7.This time we were outside Tobruk, playing the scenario “Rats of Tobruk” from Too Fat Lardies' 2006 Summer Special (The Specials comes out twice a year, and are filled with information and scenarios for TFL:s games, very good PDF-buys at £5 each).
It was to be a game where Italian forces attacks Australian defenders behind minefields and barbed wire, with me as umpire.
As can be seen in previous posts, we have decided to do the desert-war in 6mm.

The playing-area was half a table-tennis-table. We built hills using some odd pieces of expanded polystyrene and old socks (!) and covered with a beige bed-sheet. Where there was supposed to be rough ground we sprinkled coarse aquarium-sand. The houses were free paper-models (Laffe got them, and i don't remeber where from), some odd palm-trees and scratch-built trenches, and off course the barbed wires.

The Aussies used hidden deployment (troops, trenches and minefields) and the Italian troops entered under blinds.
You will find a good after-action report in Thomas’ blog, and below some highlights.

Italian recce ‘finds’ the minefields (they are found if you actively spot them end your move close, or, well, in this way)

Italian hordes attacking under blinds.

Breakthrough on the Italian left flank

Don’t charge dug-in troops on a hill behind barbed wire! It wasn’t pretty.

 

Don’t charge an immobilized armoured car. There just could be a tank following. It wasn’t pretty either.

The cavalry arrives! Two Matildas and other troops appear behind the Italians.

We decided to end the game there, considering it a draw. A really tense match, with a couple of good laughs.

Our first 6mm desert scenario completed, I started to plan for more to come using the scenario-book Operation Compass, from TFL.

I placed two orders for more Italians yesterday. There will be more games!