Building an army for wargames
Building an army, or two, for spesific miniature wargames might be an expencive and daunting experience. As previously posted, I've found this cheap set of 32 toy soldiers of approx 54mm size in the museumstore at the 'Norwegian Armed Forces Museum'. As I plan to use them as gamingpieces for different miniature wargames found online for free, such as FUBAR, 1BC Wargame, OMOG, Burning Plastic, Fighting Plastic and several others, I've bougt 4 sets. -Enough for 2 rifle platoons (accordingly to the norwegian structure), each consisting of 1 HQ-section, 3 rifle-sections, 1 HMG-section and 1 anti-tank-section. And the bounus; You've got figures leftover for other projects as well.
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The box of 32 54mm figures from Tobar, which are nice copies of the 1/32nd scale Matchbox american WWII infantry.
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Since Iv'e been planning to use them for wargaming, I needed oposing forces. It might seems like a challenge to use only one kind of figureset since they're all of the same type. These figures portrays american WWII soldiers though,but the benefit is that american surpulse equipment after WWII was spread and used in different combinations among a lot of different nations world wide for many years. I've also wanted a generic credible
"Green vs. Tan" approach to my fighting forces, and did not have any spesific nation or conflict in mind for my wargaming except for it was going to be
'post war'.
One force, which has a pretty generic approach, and also used a lot of ex-US equipment was forces from different nations joining United Nations in different peacekeeping missions. They're mostly idetified by their blue helmets. I have to admit I had norwegian UN-troops in mind painting these soldiers, but their look is similar for a lot of other nation joining the UN-forces in different missions world wide as well.
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| The soldier to the left (behind the Bazooka soldier) is actually from the Matchbox 1:76th scale range, and was not included in their 1:32nd scale of the same set. |
Now I had to find a credible generic oposing force using both M1-helmets and 'M1 rifles' (not easily recognizable on these figures), to my generic UN-troops looking exactly the same. That seemed like a thougher task, but after som searches on internet and from different Osprey publications I've found some similarities;
Green-ish M1-looking-helmets and webbing over
kaki-ish uniforms and rifles with wooden stock would be appropriate for postwar forces from Congo, Angola, Haitit, Israel, Syria and Egypt.
There were no figures with Light Machine Guns (LMG) in the sets, and I needed some of those to make the rifle-sections complete. So some 'figurebashing' and modifications were needed. I simply cut the tank and hose off some flamethrower-figures, and added a bipod and an ammunitionbelt (yes, I know it's fed from the wrong side). I think the LMG will pass for a M34, MG42/MG3 or some similar small machineguns.
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| The tankf removed from the 2 outer figures is not so obvious here as that their LMGs are feed from the wrong side. I considered to have the belt on the right side, but their left forearm was in the way. |
I also wanted to add a sniper to each side, and simply just added some plastic-rodding to a kneeling rifleman. If I'm doing this again I would use a little thiker rodding next time.
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| Since snipers are suppose to hide, I gave these guys a little more camouflaged uniforms than their fellow Brother in arms. |
Now the leftover-figures became handy; already in the cutting-prosess I got inspired and added som variations to other figures as well. A kneeling bazooka-guy got new legs from a handgrenade-figure (a kind of figure I find kind of useless for wargame purposes anyway. Who goes to war only armed With handgrenades? -Except for North Koreans during the Korean war).
A couple of standing HMG-figures might also be handy for wargaming, operating either stationary or vehicle-mounted HMGs. Agin the legs from the otherwise useless handgrenade-figure became useful.
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| Not looking so good by them selves, but they'll probably look better in a watchtower or on a vehicle. |
Depending on what (free) rulesets to use for the wargaming, I've though that a couple of medics might be neccesary and usefull on either side. Here the again otherwise useless handgrenade-figure became usefull again as he's not armed and by simply cutting his handgrenades away.
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| The pose is maybenot so typical for a medic. At least he's unarmed, and gives a possebilitty to use medics in the play. |
Since I was a Military Police-officer during my own service, both domestic and abroad, I wanted the possebility to add a small group of MPs to the game as well.
By now, it's not many usefull figures left in the box from those 4 sets, but probably some possebilities to play credible skirmish wargames settled somewhere in Africa, the middle east or in the caribbean.
I love what you have done with cheap knock off figures with great conversion ideas and illustrated variations on post WW2 armies. I might do some of the same for UN forces, perhaps in the Congo and others as African (Katangan?).
ReplyDeleteThank you for Your kind Words!
ReplyDeleteI think miniatures of WWII american Infantry are very versatile for many postwar armies, as a lot of american surpulses was spread world wide….
These are not only usable for UN-forces but also very usefull for both Congolese and some other African forces as well, so yshold b well off creating Your armies With the same miniatures. I hope you'll share some photos when you get there.
You can find both inspiration, and from a wargaming view; plausible scenarioes, from the Netflix-movie "The Siege og Jadotville"
Yes, I saw that film. It was obviously from the Irish UN forces point of view and they showed determined courage despite lacking support from higher up the UN command.
ReplyDeleteI read the book, The Dark Side of the Sun, a novel by Wilbur Smith and saw the film based on it, Rod Taylor (Australian actor who also played the time traveller in the original Time Machine movie) was the good guy and a mercenary for Katanga. The bad guy was another mercenary who was a Nazi. The mercenaries did some good work in the Congo, suppressing the brutal SImbas who previously had scared off Congo government forces because of the witchdoctors claiming to make the Simbas invulnerable to bullets. Of course this only works with those who are also superstitious and they got mowed down by Belgian paratroopers and European mercenaries.
From a wargame perspective the two main phases would be mercs and Belgians allied to the government fighting the Simbas and trying to rescue the European civilians that were held hostage. The second stage would be the mercs siding with the breakaway Katanga government and fighting UN forces. (My political sympathises are with the mercs).
Anyhow, I have ordered the Osprey book on the conflict and will probably do some conversions. I want to find out the predominant weapons so that will determine if I use figures with assault rifles or WW2 figures for the mercs. Many of them seemed to have sub machineguns.The Simbas would be poorly equipped with some having rifles and others armed with primitive weapons. (The witchdoctors even told them to throw away modern weapons!) From what pictures I've seen so far the Simbas wear uniforms of sorts, or at least European clothes but with headdresses of lion hair. I could show artistic license and just use my Zulus mixed with some more modern looking types. I'm still thinking on it.
Another option would be to use Lone Star and Timpo Australians for mercenaries (although Timpo is getting brittle these days) as the mercs had floppy broad brimmed bush hats. The Belgians could be Lone Star or Britains Super Detail. Government troops and UN troops could both be made from WW2 Americans. The mercs also had red shoulder boards although might have only been when in Katangan service. There were also local Belgian civilians involved in the fighting.
I'll be looking for a source of those utility cars you used for armed crews. (I love the ones with mounted machine guns).
In a wargame like that I'd have rules for parachute drop and scatter (like in Warhammer 40K Deep strike) the mercs ability to use sneaky tactics and out flank and they and the paratroopers being elite forces. The Simba probably would not need to check morale to rush to the attack but might become less enthusiastic if their witchdoctors die. Government troops are going to have low morale when faced with Simba. There would be a good chance they would flee unless foreign troops were there to stiffen resolve.
Obviously there would be plenty of jungle. Huts could be made of that crinkle craft paper to resemble galvanised iron. Others could be grass huts and with some more substantial European made buildings.
Great ideas you have here!!
DeleteThe corrugated cardboard for huts, gave me some ideas (!)
As a modelrailroader I also know there are som sites on the internet with free downloadable texture papers, showing all kind of corrgatesd iron, concrete walls etc. in different states.
For mercinaries you could also consider Airfix' Australians; Brimmed hats, and some poses With submachineguns (Thompsons) and LMGs (Brens). I've been thinking about perhaps using them in a similar way. Right noe thy're hard to get in Norwegian hobby stores.
Regarding utility cars; I know that an american firm New Ray makes a jeep in 1/32 scale. For Land Rovers in 1/32 you can fin som from Britains. Even their farmrange can be used.
There seems to be some variation on UN helmets. Some photos show the letters on the front of helmets and some on the side.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's correct!
ReplyDeleteThe use of blue helmets on UN-forces is the only thing they have in common despite their different orignin naionalities. That's why they're somtimes menioned as only 'blue helmets'. Eventhough I wanted a generic approach to my UN-troops, I found a lot of insoiration from Norwegian forces as they have participated in som missions abroad. I found almost all kind of Versions og the blue helmet; with big white UN on the sides, some times With the UN-symbol alone in the front and just blue helmets alone. I've also found some versions from the Congo-mission With "ONU" on the sides, but that Wold make my figures not so generic anymore….
I made the writing with a white acryllic pen found in a Craft store.
Love it ...reminds me of the old days...old school gaming
ReplyDelete