Gettting ready for another test of Never Mind the Matchlocks

 

 

the table, viewed from the Blue side

        Having rather enjoyed the last test of Never Mind the Matchlocks I decided to expand the group of guinea pigs, erm, playtesters, and run another game. The armies are essentially the same, the Red side is smaller but (mostly) better trained while the Blue side has the advantage of numbers. The battlefield layout is similar but slightly different and the Generals in Charge will have freedom of deployment this time. The only significant change to the rules is the lifting of ammunition restrictions as by the 1680s most troops had some sort of cartridge-box. 

        Each of the Brigadiers have been issued two Orders Tokens but we will roll before the game to see if there are any Amateurs or Experts in the ranks. In the case that such brigadiers are created the General in Charge will be allowed to re-assign the commands. They will also be allowed to reorganize the brigades if they see fit. I made cards with each units pertinent data on it to flatten the learning-curve for the new players. Please excuse the unsightly mess they create, please also forgive the unfinished General figures, they are a source of deep embarrassment to me.

A First Try Of Never Mind The Matchlocks

 

     I was intrigued by the free issue of Never Mind the Matchlocks that came with the latest issue of Wargames Illustrated . I had enjoyed the prior editions of the rules and thought that there were some interesting mechanics. I lack armies in the period of the War of the Roses so I never had a chance to give them a try. I do have armies in the period 1660-1690, just after the ECW, so I decided to give the rules a try with some tiny modifications. Pikes were pretty much a done deal by the end of the ECW/TYW so I left them out and increased the resistance of infantry to reflect the increasing availability of bayonets. I also dropped the ammunition rules as troops carried cartridge boxes of up to forty rounds instead of the "Twelve Apostles".

        I set up two generic armies; Red on the right and Blue on the left

 

the initial phase wherein players move units alternately and artillery is allowed to fire was an interesting difference to most rules, we found that the cavalry swept around the flanks while the infantry endured the attentions of the enemies guns, a cavalry clash (at the bottom of the screen) brought an end to this phase, Red's cavalry that charged were crushed and sent fleeing to the rear, musketry and cannon fire broke out across the board   

A Great Big Thank-You to all our veterans!

 

there is no greater honor than to hazard life and limb for the safety and freedom of others

        I would like to extend a great big thank-you to all our veterans. They all deserve recognition for placing themselves at risk so that we may enjoy the liberties enshrined in our Constitution.  Most do not get the recognition and honors they deserve so I would like to personally thank the ones that have impacted my life:

         George, my grandfather, the Great War. A first-generation German, he enlisted the day that we declared war on the German Empire in 1917.

         Wesley, my father, he was scheduled to be drafted for the invasion of Japan. The atomic bombs saved him that ordeal. As an Army National Guardsman he was activated to fight in the frozen hell of the Korean War. 

       Viktor, my father in law, he fled the fall of Germany as a child and found a home in the USA. He served six years in the Army and then twenty-four more in the Army Reserve, retiring as a CSM, the Cold War

       Tom from Texas, US Army, Cold War

        Brad the Unlucky, US Army, Cold War

       Trunkmonkey, US Army, Cold War

       Mike Reese, US Army, Cold War

       OldSarge, He fought in Vietnam  as an infantryman and then enlisted in the Navy and served as an airman on P-2 Neptunes during the Cold War 

       Bob Webb, US Army, Vietnam, Cold War

       Brendan Moore, US Air Force, Cold War

       Honest Dan, currently serving, US Army, GWOT

       The Hutch, US Army, Cold War

       Joe, currently serving, US Army, GWOT

       Paul daMarine, US Marine Corps, GWOT

       Rick Jones (not THAT one!) US Navy, Cold War

       Zhodani Commando,  Company F 425 LRRP., Cold War

       You are Good Men, one and all. I ,and the Nation, owe you all a debt of honor and gratitude!

Pilots for my planes

 

 

ah, the Good Old Days, when models came with crew figures,

 Monogram, Airfix and Revell usually did a good job with the sculpts

 pilot figures from the recent HS-123 build

       I have to admit that I preferred the days gone by when model aircraft came with crew figures. Now I am expected to spend several dollars each on 3D printed minis. Granted modern kits are worlds away from the primitive models that we were being served back in the 1960s-70s. However I am a wargamer, nobody that I'm gaming with is terribly concerned about our models having the right sort of throttle or the correct seat-belt latch. Empty cockpits, on the other hand, are a bit of a distraction. The lack of crew figures has driven me to desperate measures, even going so far as to steal seated infantrymen from my half-track models and carve away their rifles and helmets. 

 

infantry that have volunteered to become pilots

 

 

with some judicious knife and file work they make passable crewmen...

 

 

... especially when compared to some of the pilot minis provided

 

frankly, some are simply terrible

 

       There are some sets of pilot figures available in soft plastic but they are almost always dismounted and I find that the soft plastic kits often have significant amounts of flash and prominent mold-lines that are very difficult to clean up. Additionally, once you divide the price by the number of usable pilots figures they cost nearly as much as resin figures online. What I really need is a basic pilot figure that I can print using my Bambu Mini. Just shoulders and a head.....is that too much to ask?

Meanwhile, back in Germany; HS-123s join the Luftwaffe

        Having completed the hard paint jobs (Spanish and Chinese) I got cracking on the Luftwaffe units. These are in the standard green/black-green over light blue color scheme. I was careful about making sure that I used decals to indicate different units (although I'm not at all certain that the markings are correct chronologically or geographically).  Things went smoothly and most of the decals were good (aside from the lack of tail swastikas). My penchant for mixing my own colors slowed things but not too badly.

 

having learned the hard way  that yellow paint covers nothing except white 

I got the cowlings sorted out first then moved on to mixing up a batch of Helleblau

mass build, HS-123 by Airfix, Let the Painting Begin!!

        Having assembled five Airfix HS-123s in record time I got to the task of painting them. The group is being split up; one is headed for the sunny skies of Spain, another to the distant shores of China while three will serve with the Luftwaffe. As the two foreign-service aircraft will have distinctly different schemes I decided to do them first. The China-bound aircraft would get the dreaded "squiggle pattern" while the Spanish plane would sport the almost as difficult "Picasso pattern". In comparison the Luftwaffe birds will be pretty plain-Jane.

 

last we saw this project it was "in the white"

Enough of the monkeying around! Mass-building all of my remaining HS-123s

 

        It occurred to me that most of the time I spend modelling is wasted waiting of glue or paint to dry. As a remedy to this I have been swapping off between building models and painting minis. This is less than effective because I have to have both all of my modelling tools and all of my painting supplies out at the same time. Inspired by my BF-109 build it occurred to me that I should do the "Henry Ford" thing, in other words go all-in on mass producing models instead of building them one at a time. 

        A quick review of the Pile of Embarrassment showed that my most prolific model airplane was the Airfix Henschel Hs-123. Frankly I was a bit surprised by that fact but, in my defense, I had purchased them before I started tracking my inventory. As it is an excellent kit and was used by three different air forces it was a perfect model to test my theory. So I cleared my decks and dove into the five of them. In an effort to see just how effective (or inefficient) this approach was I kept track of time spent on this project. Normally it takes three to four days to complete a model, so we shall see how this pans out.

A Taste of Italy; Airfix 1/72 Fiat G-50

 

 

       One if Italy's first entries in the "fully modern fighter" category the Fiat G-50 (like it's contemporary, the Bf-109) served throughout the Second World War, albeit less successfully. Like many of those fighters it was constrained by under-powered engines and old-fashioned ideas about armament. The Fiat served in the Italian Air Forces as well as those of Finland, Spain and Croatia, some even soldiered on in the Yugoslav Air Force after the war ended. In Finnish service it attained the stunning kill ratio of 33/1. Of course there is a Wikipedia article on this aircraft

       This is one of Airfix's older kits first issued in 1967. Despite its antiquity it is a rather good kit, assembly is straightforward and quality is good with only minor areas of flash and mold-lines that are easily cleaned up. Mine was in one of many re-boxes of this model (originally it was issued in the plastic bag and header format). According to Scalemates it was still in production in 2022.

Closing in on the end, The Last of the Hinchliffe Cavalry

        All that remains are four of the four-horse heavy chariots. There is a light at the end of the tunnel (let's hope it isn't an oncoming train!). These eight are the last of the Indian horse, I've searched high and low to see if there were any others hiding in cob-webbed corners of The Vault and I am confident that there are no lurkers in the shadows.

 

a smallish unit, but Medium Cavalry are about the worst troop-type under WRG 6th Ed rules

 

pretty much their only purpose is to pursue routers to stop them rallying...

 

...or riding down weak skirmish units 

I just noticed the fellow on the right  seems a bit drunk

I will have to pop him off his horse and glue him on in an upright position

 

 

 

There are now so many Indian Horse that they warrant their own box

       The only remaining unit is going to be work intensive as each of the four-horse chariots has four horses (oddly enough), a chariot, two out-riders and four other crewmen making each model the equivalent of painting an entire unit of horse. I think that it will be a while before I work up the energy for that task.

1/72 PZL-50 Jasztrzab by KPL

 

        I got this kit from Ebay for a few bucks, it came in a ziplock bag (the box being lost to the ages) mostly to fill out the list of Polish aircraft. It is a kit of extreme simplicity. My copy was molded in a weird semi-translucent plastic that made assembly interesting. The kit has a host of questionable details (or lack of them) and the fit was dodgy at best. The kit does date back to 1979 so I am willing to cut it some slack.

       The PZL 50 was to be the replacement for the PZL 11 but was delayed by changing government requirements and problems with engine development. Only one prototype ever flew and it wasn't armed or equipped with a radio. If it had been possible to equip the PZL 50 with a more powerful engine the performance would have been a near-match for the early versions Bf-109. As it stands the aircraft is just an interesting side-note in the history of pre-war fighters.  Of course there is a Wikipedia page