"Most obscure army/campaign/period collected..." Topic

<<You again huh? ;-)>>

Nice.

Portuguese:

Colonial Campaigns
WW1 (Western Front, Southern Angola and East Africa)
1960-70's Africa

Other Countries
WW1 DSWA and DOA

Would like to try Chaco War and Brazilian civil struggles.

<<You again huh? ;-)>>

Nice.

My sociability and charm are amongst my best points… sometimes life deals you a sh** hand all round.

Does anybody game the War of the Triple Alliance (I know its 19th cent) the bloodiest war in terms of % male population killed in history??

I'd love to do WWII Danes, if someone would provide some decent figures. I've mentioned it to Baxter and to Bob at RLBPS, but nothing's come of it. There are some interesting skirmish battles to do in that 12 hour conflict. Who's with me?

- George

WWII Dutch KNIL I have converted about a company or so with heavy weapons in 1/72nd scale and I even have an airforce for them in the form of Matchbox Buffaloes with KNIL markings.

- Taylor

George,

Danes wore interesting helmets; I didn't know they actually fought though.

Do you have any more details?

Did they have any tanks?

'Does anybody game the War of the Triple Alliance (I know its 19th cent) the bloodiest war in terms of % male population killed in history??'

Bloody for the Paraguyans and even there I suspect some of the reported losses are in someway conflated with the subsequent loss of territory and population. In raw casualty figures, The Taiping rebellion leaves this roughly contemperaneous struggle for dead.

The Perry's forthcoming release of ACW plastics has given me a renewed interest in gaming the Triple Alliance. Too many periods to game grrrrrrrrr!

Danes wore interesting helmets; I didn't know they actually fought though.

Do you have any more details?

I'm guessing "12 hour conflict" gives us all we need to know on that.

Did they have any tanks?

link

Miliciano,

Thanks for the link on the Danish armour. They only seem to have had one or two tanks.

George said some of the skirmishes were interesting, and I was wondering why, especially given the 12 hour time period.

I plaid many times two absolutly obscure, from non Italian players, mid 19c. conflicts..at small tactical/skirmish level with converted Foundry, Mirliton ecc 28 minis..The Garibaldian red shirts bandit..invasion of Pontifical State in 1967…not only with the best kown battle of Mentana in which French chassepot guns ended the career of ridicoulosu bandit leader garibaldi..but also the eroic and contneous skirmishes in the Lazio country were i live and perfectly know..between band of so called garibaldists bandits/irregulars..backed and armed by Royal Italian Army and roman Catholic volunteers from Italy, France, Belgium, canada, Ireland melted in an élite corps of Pontifical Zouave and Lègion d'Antibes…plenty of scope for fun and nice historical colonial type wargames with lot of info and good maps…other conflict i play is the 4/5 years real war between Italian troops sent to pacify the South of Italy against band and real armies of so called Brigands in reality rural masses disgusted by the Italian annexation/colonial politics..also in this case nice and fwe minis required..nice uniformes…guerillas pitted agianst low motivated but ferocious regularrs (bersaglieri, cavalry ecc..)..i can give info on those periods to TMP menbers interest in it

Coconuts,

You're welcome…. The Dutch and Belgians had very few armoured vehicles too, apparently.

I know nothing about Denmark other than it was over very quickly.

My most obscure army is IRAQI 1941 in Rapid Fire
3 x Infantry (one motorised) Batallions
3 x horse drawn 18pdr artillery batteries
1 x company of CV33 tankettes with an HQ company of 2
1 x Armoured car company with Vickers Crossley Mk1 6 wheeled armoured cars with Indian pattern turrets (Frontline Wargaming)
1 x battery of 3.7in mountain guns and Dragon tows (Raventhorpe)
1 x Breda 20mm AA gun (Grubby Tanks/Kellys Heroes)
Softskins used were Italian Fiat 621s from Frontline

Air support consists of 1 x Gloster Gladiator, 1 Breda BA 65 with added dorsal turret ground attack aircraft, 1 x Northrop D8A ground attack aircraft (i think that's what it is), 1 x De Havilland Rapide (light bomber), 1 x Bf 110 twin engined fighter.

All the figures were converted from 8th army by lopping their heads off and replacing with British Army 1879 foreign service helmets. The webbing's all wrong but in 20mm who cares?

If I was to do it now, I would use HaT WW1 Turkish Infantry as their helmets are more similar to the Iraqi Khuda in use at the time.

Oh yeh, almost forgot, also have Greek WW2 in 20mm, Norwegian WW2 20mm – not really obscure but not really mainstream either.

Miliciano,

The Dutch forces in WWII had hardly any armoured vehicles aside from a few armoured cars, but the Belgians had at least 200 + tanks. Mostly light tank destroyers of the various T13 type but also MG armed T15s and AMC35 (ACG1) tanks.
Add to that some 75+ obsolete FT17/18s.

It may come as a surprise but the (small) Belgian army was almost completely motorised by 1940.

The T13s were equiped with an excellent 47mm AT gun as German tankers found out to their dismay.

Sorry to be a bit slow in responding! Here's a link concerning the Danish struggle in 1940:

link

Cheers,

George

I missed the "tanks" question. No, I don't think the Danes had any armor to speak of – just the few armored cars mentioned in Miliciano's link. However, the ATR's on Nimbus motorcycles, was pretty unique.

- George

WillieB,

Do you have any idea what sorts of trucks the Belgians had in 1940 and if any are represented in 1/72 / 20mm scale?

Thanks,

George

George,

Thanks for the link, it is an interesting article, and the illustrations are good, the only information I had about the Danish Army was the pages in Andrew Mollo's book on WW2 uniforms, and it only has a couple of illustrations.

I didn't realise the whole Belgian army was motorised either, nor that they had so many tanks.

Willie B,

It comes as no surprise the Belgians were fully motorised, as armies go they were quite modern in many ways. However tankwise they were punching out of their weight. There were 200 armoured vehicles (not all tanks though) in total I am lead to believe, including the 75 FT17 & FT18 you mentioned.

The only tank mounting a specific anti-tank gun were the 12 ACG-1 the Belgians had.

Nevertheless, the Belgian army fought well and hard with what it had, no question about that.

The British army is often quoted as being fully motorised too… though in its case it meant it just had no horses anymore, many of the infantry still walked.

George,

The tracked carriers are the easiest The VCL and Carden Loyd carriers are available in 20mm.

The most numerous truck in the Belgian Army in 1940 was without a doubt the Chevrolet RD4x2. A few dozen of them were converted into AA trucks, but they were mainly for troop transport. I believe this model is available in 20mm.
Slightly older but still in widespread use in 1940 was the Chevrolet GS 4x2

Next must certainly be the GMC model 1937. That one too is available I think.

One of the nicest IMHO is the armoured Ford V8/ Marmon Herrington. Simple conversion I think.

The FN63, Minerva, Miesse and Brossel TAL are almost certainly not available but again possible with 'some' conversion work.

The FN Kegresse tractor and Chenard & Walker are definitely not available but the former could be made out of a 'regular' Kegresse- Citroen. If such a thing exist in 20mm.

When I said almost fully motorized I should have mentioned the motorcycles. Nearly all the cavalry regts (three to a division- two divisions in a Corps) were almost all on motorcycles and trycycles. It seems we Belgians have a thing with two- and three wheeled thingies…

I've got a link for you here that illustrates most of the vehicles used by the Belgian army in 1940.

Almost forgot to mention that that hundreds of civilian trucks were requisitioned during the mobilisation, including a lot of Opel Blitz and Studebakers.
My father served with the 17th artillery attached to the Chasseurs Ardennais and they had quite a few Studebaker trucks.

Hope this helps a bit
link

Also click on the 'Belgian sofskin vehicles' link at the bottom of the page. Some really nice pictures here and the
text is mostly in English.
But if you need some things translated, just let me know.

Thanks for the link Willie, it's nice to see that there is plenty available online about the vehicles used by the Belgian Army in 1940.

I have a question about the motorisation of the Belgian Army:

A book I have (Les Forces Armees Belges 1940-1945 by Jean Leon Charles), indicates that the Cavalry Corps was motorised, also the two Cavalry divisions (though some units on bicycles), the Gendarmerie units, the 1st Chasseurs Ardennais division, and a part of the 2nd.

It also says that, apart from Army level artillery, and the Corps Artillery attached to the above units, the rest of the artillery was horse drawn, including that of the 18 infantry divisions. It also notes that the transport corps was mostly horsedrawn.

I am wondering, what was the level of motorisation within the infantry divisions, and is the above information from this book simply wrong about the motorisation?

BTW, it gives 200 as the number of T13 in the Belgian Army, and about 45 T15.

@Miliciano
@Coconuts

The ACG-1 was a true -light- tank but certainly not the only one equiped with a specific anti tank gun. The different marks of T13 tank destroyers, to use a grand word, all had the excellent (for that period) 47mm AT gun and in fact did way better than the ACG-1's. probably because of their lower profile and the fact that the troops were trained on it.

The number of tanks , including those tank destroyers, but excluding the FT17s was well over 200. In fact the T13s alone accounted for that number.

I suppose with regard to the level of motorization we were in the same situation as the British. The majority of the infantry divisions were static troops or pure leg infantry but as I said literally hundreds of civilian trucks were commandeered by the military, giving at least some of the divisions a better mobility.

No exact numbers are known but it must have been sufficient tomake some of the divisions, especially those based around Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen and Liege to become partially or even fully motorized.

The main problem was finding artillery tractors and indeed most of the divisional artillery was still horse drawn although some individual regiments did have motor vehicles for their light artillery and AT guns.

The book by JL Charles is pretty accurate but only deals with the officially allotted vehicles and certainly does not take into account the 'looted' ones.

Not sure about the 2nd Chasseurs Division though. I always thought they were fully motorized but I'm far from an expert on that matter.

The 17th artillery was fully motorized but they were in fact part of the first Cavalry division so that doesn't mean much.

Again not sure about the transport corps. According to other sources, including veterans of the '40 campaign, at least part of the Transport corps – Logistiek- was motorized.

Willie,

I found a reference in another book about the Belgian army 'L'Armee belge entre les deux guerres' by Lt. General A. Crahay, which provides some extra detail on the motor transport units. This source says that the 'Groupement automobile d'armee' had two battalions, each battalion had 4 companies, and each company had 180 vehicles. There were around 1500 vehicles available in this formation in total, and each transport company could apparently lift the equivalent of 6 infantry battalions.

The same author also mentions that the army had the use of 360 buses and coaches from the public transport companies in time of war. I don't know if they are included in the above totals or were in addition. He notes that these units were very active in the 1940 campaign, the 1st battalion of the GAuA moved the 2nd infantry division from the Liege fortified area to the KW line after the 11th of May, for example.

The Belgian Army was obviously quite a powerful and well equipped army in 1940, an interesting subject.

I only have a few books about this, if you can recommend any (in French, because unfortunately I can't read Dutch) I would be interested.

You mean you can't read Flemish…. ;-)

Willie, thanks for the info.

I think it's more or less the same thing Miliciano; French speaking Belgians seem to call the language of their compatriots 'neerlandais'.

To you or me it is the same thing…. but there are a lot of Flemings who won't admit to speaking Dutch lol.

I have North African Gendarms, Nazi Officers, a black Pianist and an American in a white DJ. Can't think of any scenarios though.

Miliciano: Don't flemmings throw themselves off cliffs when they get overpopulated??

@Helstrom:
"I've been doing some research into the Dutch police actions in Indonesia. Seems the Dutch troops were mostly issued WWII British kit for army, and US kit for Marines."

Interesting for me, since my father was in this campaign (7 December Division). His old photos show British-looking uniforms, old-style British helmets, Lee-Enfields, Stens, Bren carriers, Stuart tanks, Bedford trucks, also native troops in American helmets.

"Miliciano: Don't flemmings throw themselves off cliffs when they get overpopulated??"

Only IIRC when their *pike* formations are broken…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Miliciano: Don't flemmings throw themselves off cliffs when they get overpopulated??

@ archstanton: that's a popular myth. Thruth is we throw other people, disguised as Flemings, off the cliffs. Trouble is the only cliffs worth mentioning in Belgium are in the Walloon area.

Do you know why the Walloons have a red rooster as a symbol?
The only animal that is regularly found on a dungheap.

Sorry, sorry, couldn't resist. The devil made me do it!

Thruth?????

WillieB do the Belgians have a central government yet or are the Walloons and Phlegms governing themselves quite happily without a PM?? ;)

My favourite bit of obscurity is the Angolan Civil War of the 1970s, 80s & 90s and particularly the Cuban and South African interventions therein. Finding the models is something of a challenge, but I've got a friend who is an ace modeller. Here's one of our games:

link

If anyone's interested, we're doing a monster game at Bovington in July.

R MArk, see you there, I'll be down with the escape Committee from Burnham…Although in Wargaming terms the Angolan Wars are quite obscure they did go on a while and involve quite large forces…

This site has a good listing of Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798 – 1993.

link

Cool – I'll see you there.

Yes, the campaigns of 1987-88 in particularly were major-league and were alsmost certainly the largest battles to be fought in Africa after 1943. Our game covers the latter stages of Operation 'Modular' in October 1987 and features a South African mechanised brigade and a brigade-sized force of UNITA light infantry attacking an Angolan mechanised brigade.

Russo-Turkish War 1877 and Magyar War 1848; both in the rather obscure scale of 42mm.

I don't have a campaign, short of WW-3 circa 1960's, but I have a complete Bundeswehr PanzerGrenadier Kompanie with supporting units including Leopard 1 tanks, artillery, and etc.

Wyatt

The army of the Far Eastern Republic (Dalnevostochnaya Respublika, or DVR) from 1920-22.

In the struggle against counter-revolutionary elements under Admiral Kolchak (backed by Japanese and other Interventionist and Imperialist Forces of Darkness and Repression).

I'm working on 6mm Chinese for the Sino-American war of 2012 where the US actually invades mainland China with ground forces for, um… some reason.