The Armor battle

The true action of the game was the fire fight between the Eland and The T-34/85. on one hand a poor crew with stalwart hearts in the T-34 on the other hand a veteran armored car that couldn't hit the broadside of a barn! in 2 games the eland has run up the impressive total of 17 shots without a kill. And it isn't a problem with the rules. just terrible dice rolling mixed with fantastic morale rolls on the part of the T-34. But the law of averages finally caught up to the T-34 and failing 1 to many morale checks it beats a hasty retreat. Emboldened by its new found skills the Eland goes on to make a quick kill of the BTR -152.



Overall a good play test of the rules.

Finally!

The day has finally arrived. The day I have been waiting for for 8 months. What could be so momentous?


I finally won a canberra on ebay! For some reason I have had the worst luck with this. Generaly ebay has been great for picking up any model you could want for the period. The kit is an out of production one from airfix, so there is always a bidding war when one shows up. The Rhodesians did not use the later models so to be accurate you need a B(1).6 not the later mk 8's. the canopy is all wrong on the later models. I bet I had bid on half a dozen over the last 8 months trying to get one. usually the price is between 20-30 US dollars.

A review of the new canberra will be up shortly.

More Armoured cars

I understand that the armoured cars would operate in groups of 2 Elands with 2 ferrets. on sweeps in conjuction with the Rhodesia Regt or other unit. I have painted the Eland with camoflaged markings and have added the head from a unused infantry figure. The RHACR were known as the black devils and I wanted to have at least 1 figure with the black beret. This is the same eland that I had painted earlier but was not completely statisfied with. It is always pleasing to fix an earlier project and make it what you wanted it to be in the first place.

After seeing pictures in the new book on the RLI I have started to add brigade insignia to my vehicles. in this case I believe it is the 2nd Bgde, which is a rhino. The Ferrets are from the excellent liberation miniatures range. Both ferrets are the same colors but I added more white to the highlight in the first vehicle on the left. I wanted to make one look more sun beaten. Overall I am fairly pleased with the effect.

Rhodesia Regt Trackers

I have been wondering how best to use these figures. They are part of the Liberation mini's Rhodesian Range Beret and bareheaded pack.

As I understand it the Rhodesian Army followed conventional grooming standards for most units. Therefore men with full beards are out.

The one prominent exception to this rule is the Selous Scouts. However, most of the pictures I have seen with scouts in this uniform are in training excersises.

Reading the new history of the RLI I saw a reference to a unit from the 4th bn of the Rhodesia Regt tracker unit and noted that they all had beards! I found my unit. The trackers were the elite of the RR battalions.

New Rhodesians

It has been a while since I have painted new figures. Here is a selection of new Rhodesians.

The last figure is a conversion. I generally don't bother with conversions but I wanted some Rhodesians with long pants and the more common hat. All the figures are Liberation miniatures South Africans. This is a great company and I have been looking at some of their other lines for figures that will work for the period.

Generally, The South Africans, British with similar head gear and some from the multipurpose range will all pass. I am also wondering if the Israeli paratroopers with British para helmets and FN's might not pass as well. I think 1 or 2 of them might look good mixed in. Any more would probably be over kill.

Book review

James and the Duck by Faan Martin\


This is my latest purchase, culled off amazon at the amazingly low price of $ 14.95. Unheard of for a book about Rhodesia. The 257 pages cover the authors time as a National serviceman with 1 indep Company and his time with 4 territorial BN. This book is a series of short vignettes about the author and stories he heard during the war. There is very little of the gritty combat writing aka Fireforce. That said the Author is a witty and compelling writer. I enjoyed the book so much I polished it in an afternoon. Buy it for both the background and the writing and to see a soldiers perspective from a line unit.

2.5 stars for direct relavance to wargaming the period
4 out of 5 stars for background and writing

odds and ends

Just found a new blog covering this periodhttp://jasonswargames.blogspot.com/ Jason has some excellent conversions and can't wait to see what else he does. Thanks for the link Jason.

I have a lot of new projects on the burner right now so a lot should be coming out in the next month or so. Just started a C-47 in 1/72 scale. what a monster it is to just make a single pass over the game board! also started some conversions of figures.


If anyone has a blog or gaming link let me know and I would be happy to link to it.