ONUC - Opération des Nations Unies au Congo

If you've been reading earlier posts in this blog, you have probably noticed that I've used a wargaming scenario from the UN operation ONUC in Congo for 15 games and reviews now. Between 1960 - 64 some 1173 Norwegians served in this mission. I wanted to show what the Norwegian Armed Forces Museum in Oslo displays from this mission in their INTOPS section, and what initially inspired me to paint my armies the way I did and game from this conflict. There was also in this museum I bought my army in the museum-shop in the first place, and the miniatures that started my wargaming.

ONUC

There was not a very big display from this mission, but a Jeep, some weapons used by the Norwegians and the Congolese. The weapon collection from the Norwegian contribution was not complete as the service rifle the M1 Garand was not included.

IFOR

Already in the INTOPS-section of the museum I was also curios to see the display from the mission I participated in 1996/97 in Bosnia. Again there was only one but even smaller display and with very limited contents.

It belongs in a museum...

You know you're getting old (er) when most of the equipment and uniforms used in your own service belongs in a museum:

Ironically even I belongs in a museum these days. 

- I work in one (!)

I've seen this piece many times before at the museum, but I've noticed that Alan from the Tradgardland made a nice artillery support for his ski-troops. Here is the prototype:

Modelling

After all this is a blog about military modelling, so I think it would be fair to add some pictured from some of the modelling displays there as well. As Norway is a maritime nation, a lot of the models have a maritime theme:

Wanting to get out of the forced union with Sweden, Norway started to modernize all branches of the armed forces, including the navy in the early 20th century

In 1905 the union with Sweden was dissolved peacefully, and Norway had one of the most modern navies at the time. It didn't last as some of these ships were still in service at the outbreak of WWII

In WWII more than 30 000 sailors and 806 modern (civilian) cargo ships were armed and went into allied service to transport supplies in convoys from the US to Europe

German submarines, sometimes operated from bases in the occupied Norway, was a threat to these convoys  

Despite of heavy escorts 3700 Norwegian sailors and 473 ships were lost

The Norwegian Armed Forces museum in Oslo is a nice museum, and if you're in the neighborhood I recommend you to visit it.

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.