2023 - A brief sumary - 2024 Quo Vadis?

Well it's soon the end of the year and probably time to look back on the past year, and share some thoughts for following one.

This is not a big blog with a lot of blogposts or having a very large number of followers, but 2023 has been the most active year on this blog so far. Most of the readers are located in United States of America, followed by Singapore (!), followed by United kingdom. I'm not sure if there are so many actual readers from Singapore, or if it's some sort of web crawlers or search spiders located there??
Anyway, I appreciate all of you who are following it, reading it, and contributes with your comments. Especially thanks to all of you that have been promoting this blog and linking to it through your own blogs, Facebook pages or other websites. Even if my settings are set to be searchable by Google and search description added, I actually got few hits from Google (only 115 through whole 2023), and when I do it's usually just right after posting a new post. So, you're all responsible for this years growth of members and blogposts, which motivates me to follow up with more. - Thank you!!

2023 - Status

In 2023 I continued to review free downloadable wargame rules that can be played with ordinary Army Men, which I started to in 2022. It seems like 'Old school gaming' from for instance Donald Featherstone are more popular than other free rules reviewed in 2023. I've been playing a lot of the free rules I found and was personally keen to try out, and there are still some few free wargame rules I want to try out though.

During the year I developed my own 'home brewed wargame rules', Rules of Engagement, based on experience from these other free rules I've played so far. Even if I think they turned out to be playable and pretty good as I achieved a lot of my goals for it, I still thinks they need some further development. I also used a periodic version of these home brewed rules in combination with free paper miniatures for a prehistoric game.

This year I also reviewed a commercial wargame rule, Bolt Action, as I found a way to play it for free. I recognize a lot of game mechanics that can already be found in many of those free wargame rules already mentioned, but I liked the way Warlord Games have combined them in Bolt Action.

2023 was also the year I tried out to use AI for wargaming either to develop rules or using it as an AI-opponent. During the process I experienced that the use of AI in general is controversial, and there was obvious no exception among wargamers.

Some of the Free Wargame Rules I played in 2023

Summers in Norway are usually short with mostly nice weather, so during that time of year it's more tempting doing 'hobby stuff'outside. Since I'm into model railways as well, I finally got around to convert a LGB-starter set I've had for some while into a Narrow Gauge Military German Railway. Since it was a starter set there wasn't so many wagons to form a larger train, so I started up converting even more LGB-wagons I got cheap. Converting them and making credible loads for them took longer time that I've expected, and it kept me busy through the autumn and winter, and it looks like it will still keep me busy for a while. 

During a running-session in a friend's garden early this winter I had a derailment which sent my German military LGB-locomotive into the ground, smashing the front of it. Luckily I wasn't running my Live Steam Locomotive at the time. Anyhow, this made me use more of my precious modelling- and gaming time to re-construct and getting it back in running condition again. Now I probably got a feeling what it's like to be into RC planes...

I added some more details like building plates, a hatch and grille to it while it was in the workshop. 

This left me in a situation where I had less time for wargaming and writing battle reports of my games than I expected, and therefore less activity on my blog from late autumn. Until now recently when I've been doing some quick projects on winter and Christmas related modelling.

2024 - What to expect?

Because my military garden modelling and locomotive mishap seized most of my modelling time at the end of the year, it meant that there were a lot of my planned activity I didn't have time to do during 2023. So this gives a good starting point for 2024 though. I hope I'll manage to cover them all this time:

• I plan to play and review at least one more new free wargame rules which you can find online and play with ordinary Army Men. If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comment section below.
• Finish a G-scale rake of cars for my LGB Heeresfeldbahn.
• Last year I played one of the first conflicts in history, so in 2024  I plan to prepare some figures and play one of the most recents conflicts in history. 
• I plan to prepare some miniatures and play at least one game of 'Fantasy Scenario' or probably also a 'Wild West Scenario' or both.
• I plan to do another 'Print and Play for Free', but with another period and scenario this time.
• If I can find a budget way to do it, I'll play another commercial wargame.
• As summers are short and intense in Norway, I'll do some outdoor military modelling in 2024 as well. Perhaps make an UK-military rake for my Live Steam locomotive, or make my RC-boat look more 'Norwegian'.
• Complete another indoor model railway layout.

-Time will show! 

I hope all of you will keep following for updates through 2024 as well, and comment and share the blog's contents. I'm certainly looking forward to follow your activities in the coming year!

I wish you all the very best for 2024!!

From a LGB Starter Set to a 16mm-scale Heeresfeldbahn

It's been summer in Norway and not much time for wargaming or other indoor activities. The summers usually are quite short here so the time is mostly spent outside. Fortunately some aspects of military modelling are made for outdoor purposes. Some years ago I was in a model railway shop in the city where parents live, and I was at that time not into big-scale modelling or G-scale trains. -But in that shop I saw a very nice Starter Set from LGB in IIm/1:22,5/ G scale which depict a island train from the Frisian island of Wangerooge. It was a price worthy and high quality starter set and not the 'toy like' and 'sub quality' often found in such sets. The benefits of buying a Starter Set is that you get everything you need to be up and running for a reasonable price. What really caught my attention about it was the locomotive which was of the very same type which was originally built for the German Army during WWII to improve their logistics on the Eastern Front. The locomotive was a Heeresfeldbahn HF130C, which about 350 was built. After WWII many of these locomotives was decommissioned and saw mixed service on different civilian narrow gauge railways in several countries. Obviously also on the railway at Wangerooge. -And suddenly I was the happy owner of a new Starter Set and into large scale garden railway modelling.

LGB has never built a model of the HF130C-locomotive in it's original military livery, and an idea was born to revert it into it's original livery and use. In the Starter Set there were also 3 goods-wagons; a tanker-, a flatbed- and a boxcar. All of them would be very credible as German military wagons in a 'Heeresfeldbahn'-train with a new paintjob. I was also inspired to do a model of a German military narrow gauge as there was a such nearby where I live during WWII. -It served a small airfield with gravel, and probably also munitions and fuel. An old idea was about to come into fruition. The good thing with writing a blog, is that it helps pushing old modelling projects.

It's surprisingly few photos of this locomotive during it's military service due to some 350 was built

I discovered that the locomotive is made to 1:19th scale despite of LGB's general 1:22,5-scale. This really makes the locomotive to 16mm scale and not the ordinary LGB IIm scale. This makes it run well togheter with my 16mm Roundhouse Billy in WD-livery. The wagons in the starter set are closer to 1:22,5 scale though. 

Besides a new paintjobs, I decided to further detail the rollingstock by adding some load and details to them. First I wanted to add typical military loads like tanks and big cannons, but keeping in mind this is a narrow gauge railway I don't think they could carry so big or heavy loads. I could 'downgrade' the loads to armored vehicles and such, but think they might still be too heavy for such light rails. Besides I have not seen any photos of such carloads on any Heeresfeldbahn either in books or in WWII footage. What I've seen inæ photos it seems like such narrow gauge railways mostly carry general cargo and supplies and sometimes troops. I also wanted my military loads to have a slightly more 'general' appearance so the wagons would't look too completely out of place if I wanted to run them behind my British 16mm scale W^D livesteam locomotive every now and then. I discovered that there weren't many WWII German objects in 1:19th scale to be found, except for some very expensive ones in 1:18 scale. I searched Thingiverse for propper items and resized them to 1:19 scale and 3D-printed them on my aged FlashForge Finder (I think it's time to upgrade my 3D-printer soon). I've found the online Scale Converter by Scale Modelers World very useful in this matter. Even though converting different STL-files to exact 1:19 scale, they don't seems to be in same 'scale' sometimes (even if they are by measures). 

I haven't seen very many photos of these locomotives in military service, and certainly not in colors. I've seen some few color-photos of preserved ones in different military gray liveries, but as they are slightly different regarding colors and which part was colored which. I imagine that all these locomotives were not painted exactly to the same color codes. I've also read somewhere that German steamlocomotives operating near the front were painted in a very dark grey color during WWII. I went for a standard German color; Panzer Grey. I also replaced the under-scaled LGB-engine-driver with a 3D-printed one to the same scale as the locomotive; 1:19. While working on the loco I decided to go fancy here and add radio-control by Piko to it as well (as a lot of the other members in my MRC does). I think this must be the easiest and perhaps most inexpensive way to add RC to a garden train. 

This was the easiest wagon 'militarize', as it only got a new coat of paint, and new plates simply made by self-adhesive label stickers which can be printed from an ordinary inkjet:

Not much to repainting was needed on this wagon. My oldest son recently served 2 years in our naval forces in the Coast Guard, where he also operated fast patrol crafts. I wanted to make a homage to him and his service. As I suppose there were not many 'naval loads' on a Heeresfeldbahn (deep inland on the Easternfront), I had to look for some maritime items which were army related. I found the answer in the Sturmboot 39, and added some suitable loads to the 3 Sturm-boats as well; I guess the outboards are in the large crates and their machineguns are located in the smaller crates. I read somewhere that they carried 20L of fuel each , and added some Jerry cans as well:

Besides repainting and adding self adhesive label stickers, I replaced the disc-wheels with spoked ones to this wagon to make an appearance of an 'older' origin. I also improved the roof by adding 'tar paper' made with 'sport tape'. I'm not sure what kind of cargo the car is currently carry as it could be anything, so to add some interest to it I added some few military riders and their 'mascot' to it. The latter being a Jack Russell Terrier and a second homage in this train; This time to our beloved Linus.

After fitting the locomotive with RC reciver and battery, there wasn't much space left in it for other things in it. To add a little further interests to the train I placed a battery operated sound capsule with diesel sound from Train-Tech to the boxcar. The sound is not so loud, and not so annoying that sound equipped locos often are (to all others but the one driving them).

This is how  the starterset from LGB turned out after a 'revision', and how it could have looked like from the beginning. They have the models for making it, so I hope they will use them for making some sort of a military train in the future. There are several military modellers and wargamers who also are into model railways, and this would be a good entry.

It looks like it's approved by Linus too

I've converted the Starter Set into a very basic German 'military train', and to further expand my Heeresfeldbahn I have collected some more goodswagons from LGB, and due to they are very colorfull and toylike they will need some repainting and perhaps detailing.

3 other members in my Model Railway Club also has LGB models which has a military origin from WWII German Heeresfeldbahns, namely the steamlocomotive HF110C. They're not to LGB's general 1:22,5 scale either, as they actually are closer to 1:20 scale and 16mm than IIm. 2 of them are in civilian liveries, but one is in a freelanced German military livery. I'm looking forward to my MRC's coming running sessions, which we arranges at each other's garden railways through the whole year. It seems like they will have some military presence now...

My LGB starterset used to fit in my 30L panniers, which was practical when visiting friends. With somewhat more fragile models I think I need a bigger pannier (even if I have a Honda NC750X with a frunk).

Dedicated to Jørgen and Linus

Military modelling in the garden

To me military modelling is more than just wargaming. I'm also very interested in model railways in different scales and gauges, and the benefit is that model railroading can easily be combined with military modelling.

After a long winter which is slowly turning to spring, it's more tempting to do outdoor activities again. This weekend a good friend of mine invited to 'open house' and encouraged people to bring along their own (Garden-) trains to run them on his awesome Garden railway.

I hastily put together an improvised short military supply train to bring along.

It looks like Thomas the Little Tank Engine is lurking in the background

The Engine is a 'militarized' 'Billy' from Roundhouse, made to run on 45mm track.

The little Jeep is a 1:18 scale model I found on a Model railway exhibition 

The cars or wagons are by LGB. Probably going to repaint them.

Several members in my MRC have garden railway equipment, and some of them also have large garden railways at home. We meet in each others gardens every now and then, socializing, eating snacks and run trains together. This is a very nice and social way to execute this hobby. A hobby which is not only trains, but can have a military content too.

Exploring new Horizons in military modelling

I've been fascinated by Radio Controlled boats ever since I was a kid, both the fast ones and especially the true scale models. - And in particular military ones. Back then there were no RTR-models (like today), only kits of varying skill levels. I never got around to build a scale boat of my own because it just seemed way to complicated.

Recently I went with my son to hobby store i Oslo called Sami RC, when he was going to buy a petrol powered RC car. I was actually not so interested in those cars, so I went looking in the shelves with boats while he was shopping. And among all those not-'fine scale' racing boats, I saw one RTR scale model boat of a Combat Boat 90 by Pro boat. It needed not more than a battery to be ready for action. So while my son got his car, I finally got my RC boat. A boat which was both a military scale model and a fast one (just like the prototype).

It's planing easily as the prototype

The boat has a high level of details and looks great just out of  the box. Machine guns and flag was included and can be attached. No scale is specified on the box, but by it's size I've calculated it to be about 1:26,6 scale. With about only 55,88 cm it fits nicely into at toolbox with it's controller and is easy to carry along.

Every thing you need for a running session, fits in a toolbox

You also need a battery-charger, but I already had one from my RC Tank and RC Car which I could use. After charging the batteries it was time to try it out. Luckily I live by a lake, and I won't recommend to use models like this in the sea, as the salt will make metal parts corrode. 

At full throttle it looks like its going to fast, but I've calculated it to be close to the prototype though. I've found out that you can set the controller to 75% power, which actually looks better and closer to expected 'scale speed'. A benefit of this is that your batteries will last for a longer running session as well; about 30+ minutes contrary to the 14 minutes if you have 100% and full throttle almost all the time.

It is a fun boat to operate, and I think the only con is that it has no reverse. I also added powerfull magnets inside the hull on both sides, so I can dock to my friends magnetic quay which is built to about the same scale.

It's a nice Scenic quay my friend have made

With magnets in both boat hull, and in the tires along the quayside, it docks easily with a steady hand. 

Another benefit for me is that this model is of the same type of Combat Boat (Stridsbåt 90) that was used by the Norwegian Coastal Artillery, and are now in service with the Norwegian Coastal Rangers. This will serve as inspiration for me if I would like to personalize it through the winter, so my Combat Boat doesn't look like all the other similar Pro Boats. If so updates will follow.

A Norwegian Stridsbåt 90 (Photo: Forsvaret)

This is a summer hobby, and the season seems to be over here in Norway this year. It's very therapeutic just to sit back with a cup of coffee or a cold beer, and just navigate your own boat around.