This weeks reinforcements

 Carriers

This week sees the completion of a Universal Carrier (complete with recce team), a Loyd Carrier, and M9A1 halftrack. All are in the markings of 1st Rifle Brigade which was the motorised infantry battalion of 7th Armoured Division.  The Loyd Carrier acted as the prime mover for the 6pdr anti-tank gun.

The carrier recce team consists of a Bren gun team and a junior leader. The leader is a cut down Peter Pig figure, while the remaining three figures are made from two part putty with heads from Peter Pig. These guys can nip around the battlefield and jump out as required. 

This weeks reinforcements

 

A bit of this and bit of that.

Still working on getting all the various infantry support units completed for the British and finished off some Sappers this week. I can mix and match these figures to reflect the task(s) for which the team is being used.

And the printer has also been busy this week.

Various Flak wagons. These still need to be worked on and cleaned up a little before I can start painting them.

This weeks reinforcements

 Fourth Section 

Back from a weeks holiday in Sorrento, but I did manage to get these guys painted either side of the holiday.

My fourth British Infantry section - an important and flexible potential Support purchase. I have used figures from the Peter Pig pack 488. British Late War rifles advancing in light kit. This differentiates this section from my core three sections who form the base platoon. Not that it can be seen in the photos but I have painted the shoulder titles for these figures in dark green reflecting that they are members of 1st Rifle Brigade, the Motor Battalion for 7th Armoured Division. My core infantry platoon are painted with red shoulder titles as they belong to 1/5th Queens Royal Regiment and are wearing haversacks. 

The cost for an additional British infantry section is five support points but fielding a fourth section allows for a lot of manoeuvre potential, particularly for an attacker, and adds a further 12 FP dice (excluding the JL) to the equation. Paired with a SL this section can provide a potent base of fire (utilising both "Five Rounds Rapid" and "Concentrated Fire" in the same phase) while still allowing for two manoeuvre sections and a reserve section.   

This weeks reinforcements

 
US Parachute Infantry Platoon - Normandy

I finally finished the last few figures to complete my US Parachute Infantry Platoon. This is the two section version used in Sicily and Normandy. I have sufficient figures to complete a third section  as used in later operations including Market Garden but these are still in the painting queue. 

I am looking forward to giving the platoon a spin on the table as it is quite a unique force. It is the only platoon in the CoC rulebook to field only two sections, but despite this still has a force rating of +1. (This increases to +6 if the third section is fielded !). The platoon also qualifies for a red die purchase.

Its potency is easy to see, with two Senior Leaders, and integral Bazooka and Mortar teams

In addition the five man crew for the 60mm mortar deploys with a Replen Point due to its size giving it six HE rounds at start, although it cannot fire smoke.

Each section comprises of a .30cal LMG with a crew of three and eight riflemen. That is sixteen Firepower dice for a full section with the rifle section benefiting from Storm of Steel. 

In addition the platoon is Aggressive in Close Combat

The nuance of playing with only two sections will be an interesting challenge and likely will emphasis firepower over manoeuvre - not my usual style.

15mm

 

Rather than being a scale 15mm (or 20/28mm for that matter) is a measurement of a figures height. In the past this seems to have been the height between the ground and the top of the head of a standing figure, but now is typical measured to the figures eyes. Regardless of this figures described as 15mm are likely to vary in height by a couple of millimeters. This will have no effect on game play but may affect the aesthetic on the table if noticeable. 

Peter Pig are my 15mm figures of choice. They are metal rather than plastic or resin and so have that nice heft and are also robust. The level of detail sculpted into the figures is impressive and not always noticeable on their website, and their WW2 range is extensive, particularly for British and German troops.

Not perfect measurements but enough to get a good feel for the size of their late war figures. (The earlier sculpts seem to be a little smaller)   

                     

     

15mm is generally considered to be 1:100 scale. Simple maths confirms this. A standing man that is 5'11" (1.8m) tall will be 18mm high - very close to the figure above.

Model vehicles and buildings are typically quoted at their scale, and for 1:100 the maths is very easy if working with metric numbers - just divide actual size by 100 - very handy when printing STL files to ensure they are the correct size.

Chain of Command

The quoted ground scale for CoC is 12" equals 40 yards (1"=10ft). That is a scale of 1:120 and so given the variance of 15mm figure heights is pretty close to matching the 15mm ground scale. Interestingly when scaling a 6'x4' table we get a battle area 220m x 146m (240 x 160 yards) which is a surprisingly small area. This shrinks to 102m x 68m (112 x 75 yards) if 28mm figures are being used which are generally considered to be at 1:56 scale. Therefore there is a degree of abstraction creeping to the game at that scale, whereas  when playing with 15mm what you see is what you get in terms of weapon ranges and the like.

The Game Changes part two...

 

In the previous post I detailed the three game changers that led directly to where I find myself today.  

So where is that ?

At the start of May last year I had no 15mm figures, vehicles nor terrain - Zero, Zilch, Nada !

Today I have 

• Four complete CoC platoons, plus the ability to make a couple more by adding or subtracting figures as required.
• 12 fully painted and table ready British vehicles
• 8 fully painted and table ready German vehicles
• a small village of French styled farm buildings and barns
• a small forest of trees, hedges and table scatter.
• and sufficient road elements to create a realistic road network. 

In addition I have a dozen or so partially or unpainted vehicles, more trees in construction and over 500 STL files covering vehicles, buildings and other terrain features that I can print as required.

All of this has been driven by the move to 15mm, which really hits a sweet spot. The vehicles and figures can be more quickly painted when compared to their larger brethren, and yet retain a good level of detail so they also look good on the table.