Showing posts with label French Indo China War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French Indo China War. Show all posts

Thursday, 13 January 2011

Viet Minh Heavy Weapons

I've finished the heavy weapons company for my Viet Minh battalion, some others of which can be seen here.  It is now around 100 men strong.  I had better write some rules, soon!  All pics clickable.

Here are the four maxim guns, from Liberation Miniatures, and very nice they are, too.

Here's a closeup.  Happily they are very similar in size and style to my Platoon20s.

...and here are their two 81mm mortars (one captured American, and one ex-Russian supplied).  Mostly Platoon20 minis, with some light conversions and one Liberation figure.  I'm rather taken with the signaller.  Who needs radios, anyhow?

Sunday, 12 December 2010

Broken Biscuits Repaired


I've finished a company of Viet Minh (mentioned in this earlier post), assembled from figures that were broken back in the late 1980s.  All the minis were cut off at the waist and dug into "foxholes" of greenstuff with greenstuff sandbags, and broken weapons were replaced. 


I'm really pleased with the way they came out!  At some stage I may buy more minis and do another company or two.  I'm now rather past half way towards being able to field my battalion; mostly just need to do the support weapons.

Sunday, 5 December 2010

Not a Coventry Armoured Car

This is a Matchbox Humber II that I'm using as a proxy for the Coventry armoured cars, that the French  used in Indo China.  I've painted it as a vehicle of the 5eme Cuirassiers "Royal Pologne"; I struggled with the heraldry on the doors, but the number plates (second photo) are bang on!


It's very nice change to be learning how to paint vehicles, again.  I've bought an excellent book by Steven Zaloga, which is proving invaluable.  I don't need to paint to masterclass standards, just tabletop, but it is great to see how an expert does it!  He has a whole chapter on Olive Drab.  Last time I was painting tanks, everyone just used dark green!


In 1952 the Cuirassiers changed over to US M8 armoured cars, and I will certainly be painting some of those, in due course.

Saturday, 4 December 2010

Broken Biscuit Battalion

I mentioned in a previous post how dropped and broke a fair sized army of Viet Minh back in the 1980's.  I've always felt sad about these poor crippled soldiers, and the time has finally come to restore them!  In the below photo, the figures broken off at the ankles have been planted in clumps of greenstuff "grass".   This gives each of them a pretty strong base.  I've mixed in a few new Miniatures brought from the ever efficient Tony at ERM.  When they are all painted, I'll disguise the clumps with Silflor.


Below are the "hard" cases; these broke off at the waist, and some lost their rifles.  I've dug them into slit trenches, and replaced missing weapons with wire.


These will be really convenient when I need to depict dug-in Viet Minh troops, and I'll paint them over the next week.  

Monday, 29 November 2010

Somewhere in Tonkin...

2 companies of French Colonial Infantry cross a dusty field, supported by some medium machine guns and a mortar, somewhere in Tonkin (French Indochina), c. 1953.


These are my recently reconditioned 20mm Platoon20 French Indo-China War infantry.  The paint jobs are a bit basic but they look good from about 30cm away, so who cares!  They are organised in 2 companies of 2 platoons each (apparently the French adopted this organisation because of a lack of men and junior officers).
I've gone with a representative scale of 1:4. 


Next I need to paint a second company of Viet Minh so that they have someone to fight, and a hex-based rule system.  I am hoping that I'll be able to get a relatively simple system working; somehting more complex than Memoir '44, but simpler than Tide of Iron, and with local flavour.

Sunday, 28 November 2010

French Indo China WIP

These are the first of my French forces for Indo China; not quite finished, yet.  They represent around half of an understrength battalion; 2 companies each with 2 4-squad platoons, and some heavy weapons.  I'll take a proper photo when they are finished, later this week.


They are more survivors of the miniatures I dropped from a great height around 20 years ago.  By the time they are finished they'll have been larely repainted and rebased; they should look a lot better than they did originally!  Most of the miniatures are Platoon 20, and the armoured car is a 1/76 Matchbox Humber which will be proxying as a Coventry armoured car (as used in Indo China).

Monday, 8 November 2010

First Viet Minh


These (clickable) minis are the first pic of the old 20mm Platoon 20 Viet Minh figures from a previous post that I've been reconditioning.  See if you can spot some of the ones that broke off at the ankles.  They represent, roughly, a company of Viet Minh regulars at  roughly1:4 scale.   I will need at least a couple more companies, and hopefully, eventually, a second battalion.  Hell, probably a whole regiment.  ;-)


Above is a closeup of a couple of very heavy machine guns, DSHKs I believe, and a 60mm mortar.


Above, Comrade Battalion Commander.  A crude but serviceable paint job.  I can't decide whether to give each company a red flag of its own, or not; I shall probably err on the side of generosity.

French Indo China War Storage

This is the storage system I've designed for my planned Indo China war infantry.  They are mounted, in 2's and 3's on 1.5mm thick 40mm diameter plywood disks, with magnetic sheet added.  In the Really Useful Box I've put a double-decker layer of 99p metal baking trays (separated by wooden spacers).  These should take up to 240 figures, with pace for dice or vehicles in the plastic drawers.

So far I've only finished one company of Viet Minh, but I should be able to base up a company or two of French, soon (figures mustering in the foreground). 

Wednesday, 3 November 2010

Missed the bus

I missed this from yesterday's post; in days of yore I painted this bus up as an informal troop-transport.  It may see duty evacuating planters and French-sympathisers from under the nose of the advancing Viet Minh menace.


And below, the destination!

Tuesday, 2 November 2010

Looks like we got us a convoy...

I've excavated my 1980's collection of French Indochina stuff, and here are around half of the vehicles, displayed as a supply convoy.  They aren't too bad...  not brilliant, like Troop of Shrew's, but playable until I get better stuff.  


Above, an M8 armoured car patrols cautiously ahead of the convoy.  It is in the wrong shade of green (not olive drab), but with broadly correct markings. 
    

Above is the front section of the convoy.  The tanks are a slightly unfortunate hybrid of M3 and M5 (I converted from the former to the latter; perhaps it was hard to find M5's in the '80s).  But they are nicely weathered, and the Airfix M3 half track has the correct tent-like canopy.


Above is the body of the convoy; a US tanker and GMC trucks, and a rather lost-looking Matador that I bought around 1975, presumablly left behind by the Brits in WW2.  A third "M5" is in overwatch.


And to conclude (above) a closeup of one of the M5s.

I have around another half-a-dozen vehicles that need painting.  My plan is to supplement these with some of the new 1/72 Italeri and Pegasus fast-assembly kits, especially their GMC trucks, M3 half tracks and jeeps, and make up a GM100-like mobile column.

Tuesday, 26 October 2010

Street Without Joy

...is an excellent book written by Bernard Fall about the war in French Indo China in the late 1940's/early 1950's.

I read this in the mid 1980s and got very interested in this very interesting but little-gamed war, which culminated in a huge defeat for the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.    I collected and painted a few hundred Platoon 20 minis, which in those days were made from a rather brittle metal.  Unfortunately, I carefully  stored all the minis at the top of a high cupboard, and one day accidently dropped all the boxes from a height of 8'.  Almost to a man, they snapped off at the ankles (and many of the rifles broke).  See Exhibit A, below, for one of the four boxes. 


More feet without joy than Street without Joy!

It has taken me around 20 years to overcome the pain and return to the period, but this week I've started to repaint the surviving minis, and I'm going to order a few dozen more (well perhaps a hundred or so...).  I'll either use an adapted Memoir '44 ruleset, or write a simple set myself.  The battlefield of Zama, with some added hills and vegetation, is going to become Route Coloniale 19. 

Several things are a lot better in 2010 than 1990; firstly I'm a somewhat better painter now, and have a lot more nice terrain.  Secondly, the 1/72 diecast vehicles that one can buy these days look outstanding; the French transport pool is consequently going to be a whole lot bigger than it was 20 years ago!  Finally there is a lot of great material on the war that wasn't around in 1990, especially this excellent site on the war which has OOB's, which was information I could only dream of, twenty years ago.  En avant!