"Operation: Twilight Revenge (tm) Part I" Topic

mccdevcom.blogspot.com

more to come..

Interesting start.

Joe

Thanks. Part II up

Pretty cool, thanks for posting, and looking forward to the ‘showtime' piece.

Did you and I discuss the concept a couple/three years ago? I recall talking to someone about MEUSOC, R&S element, and MSPF relating to a Cuban campaign, but I didn't see it on your blog, so my apologies if it's a case of mistaken identity.

V/R,
Jack

Can't wait to read more!

Cool Ragandbones, Part III should be up in a day or two..just gotta edit photos..

Thanks Jack, yeah I posted a couple of games with these guys on TMP in the past. Although I hate the term, this is kind of a "reboot".

Thanks for your help earlier on the background.

Yeah I've integrated the Cuba stuff into this timeline. I plan to reboot my Cuba game (still in 20mm) when I finish all the models and scenery (years?). I deleted the old Cuba posts to start fresh when I'm ready. The Cuba stuff might go off on it's own timeline when I do it but in the setting for Twilight Revenge the USA is successful and takes down Cuba without any nukes going off but that leads to a Soviet conventional attack in Europe…

I still think some of my background and setting are probably shaky but it's a what if so I'll settle for "generally plausible"..

Uparmored,

Okay, gotcha, I thought that was you. Well excellent, glad to see you're getting back on track, and that sounds like an awesome plan, I'm looking forward to it.

"Generally plausible" works every day of the week ;) That conversation just came up on a recent topic of mine here on TMP ("Operation Chunky Bandit #20" in the Modern Battle Reports board, if interested).

V/R,
Jack

Had a look, very cool backstory and report as usual Jack.

(A short) Part III of Twilight Revenge is now up.

Cool man, but those Marines need to pick up the pace, the tension is becoming too much to bear!

V/R,
Jack

haha, yep the action finally starts next installment..up soon.

Part IV up

First blood to the Leathernecks!

I'd seen the two Russian sentries and I figured there would be quite a few more Russians coming out of the barracks, but damn, there are a lot of them already out and in the fight! This is going to get real interesting real fast.

I think in real life it would be time to break contact, but I suspect these Marines are just gonna have to push their luck ;)

V/R,
Jack

Awesome work. Are those gi Joe's or action men?

That's it Jack, do or die, they have to take that comms cable out or a lot of other Marines on the beaches of Northern Estonia are going to pay for it when they face a more formiddable, more coordinated and agile enemy. Cables and complexes like this provide robust and un-jammable command and control to the enemy.

Thanks Joe, Mostly Dragon stuff. The Russians are Ultimate Soldier (camo jumpsuits from a small Chinese company.) A lot of miscellaneous gear through Echo Base Toys

Part V up

profanity warning

Oh my ;)

If it were Army, I'd say there's a big problem, but since it's a Marine and there's only two bad guys (one unseen), Reyes should be fine ;)

V/R,
Jack

That's it!

Part VI up!

some profanity

About like I figured ;)

V/R,
Jack

: )

Part VII up

Hmmmm, that sucks about Pendleton, but most ills can be fixed with a well placed -203 round.

V/R,
Jack

Haha,

Part VIII up!

Cool, winning the firefight, now do the deed, police up Pendleton, and get the hell outta there!

V/R,
Jack

Part IX up!

Xlarge final episode.

Pretty cool! My man Jones saved the day with the-203, very lucky Bowers and Reyes weren't meat!

V/R,
Jack

"Have no fear, Stitch Jones is here"..? haha

Yeah lucky, it all came out in the dice rolls. I'll post up a little about the rules and mechanisms I used later on.

The Ayatolloh of Rock'n Rolla!

V/R,
Jack

haha!

Twilight Revenge Debrief up, notes on rules etc

Sounds cool, but one a year!!!??? You're killing me!
If you slept last night, you had time to game, you just unwisely chose to do something else ;)

V/R,
Jack

haha, yeah, moving home again (renters in Australia are dirt) and 1/6 gaming is a winter sport here, the grasshoppers take over in summer. Also way more homeless campers in the area I use. Plus I gotta get more 20mm and 6mm stuff done and finally do a proper game with those so yeah 1/6 will be an annual thing.

Fair enough, as long as we see some 6mm and 20mm gaming!

And since you're in Australia, I'd recommend getting some Flytrap Factory USMC (see pics here: link and continue the fights in 15mm!

V/R,
Jack

I'm uncomfortable with having 3 (4) scales as it is! Since my days of 1/72 ESCI plastics with some random metals mixed in during high school in the early 90s I re-started about 8 years back with 54mm Dragon and Tamiya stuff. I finished that, then moved onto 20mm to get more stuff on the table. Last year I was inspired by 6mm and the tactical possibilities so started that..then a couple of years ago I went big with 1/6 stuff of course. I really need to focus on one thing at a time or it's overwhelming to me.

I don't think I'll ever do 15mm, 20 is a classic scale I think and finding everything in 1/100 is harder than 1/72 imo, plus I'm already invested pretty heavily in 20mm. but those FF 20mm Vietnam figures are really really nice..I don't do Vietnam either, just fictional late '80s tho..my plan for a while has been to have a fully self contained packable playset in each scale to break out where and when I have space. I move so much I can't have a more permanent setup.

I understand, but good luck! Keeping one scale and a manageable number of projects is not in our DNA ;)

But if late 80s fictional with 1/72 is your thing, we gotta see some of these:
link

V/R,
Jack

Oh yeah those are classics. Them and the Warsaw Pact set fought it out on my dad's HO train layout a lot in the early '90s. M16A1s though which I never liked, puts them earlier in the '80s.

I use Elhiem metals for my 20mm troops although when I started I experimented with chopping up plastics, I went with metal but you can't really use both, the metals are too chunky in comparison to the plastics. Vehicles however I use plastic kits.

I do love Elhiem, they're amazing. A few years ago I bought some, painted them, played a few games, but then sold them. I told myself I just had too much stuff in 10mm and 15mm, shouldn't get too far into another scale. But keep finding myself perusing their website, beautiful figures.

V/R,
Jack

Yeah they're nice. The one thing I don't like about the PASGT/M16A2 Americans is that they don't have butt packs usually and not enough gear in general. Why does the M60E3 gunner have M16 mag pouches on his ALICE gear? So I convert all that stuff, sometimes I chop plastic gear up and attach it/blend it with epoxy. I also add rag tops because I love that look the US Airborne and Rangers adopted in Panama. In my world my Marine commanders get the same idea. Time consuming but satisfying to me and Matt at Elhiem is great to deal with with special requests etc. I need to get another order in for a lot of loose weapons and prone MG teams to convert into general prone Marines but I'm moving soon so need to wait to post move.

20mm:

Plastic conversion experiments:

Came out okay actually, probably more proportionally realistic. just metals are "cooler" and more "serious". Just the way I was raised on wargaming I guess…?

Then there's 6 and 54..ffffu*k..I have a serious problem obviously..all this effort the last decade (I'm slow and take long hiatuses to focus on other hobbies) could have gone into 1 scale and I could have a serious setup. But instead I have half ass ones in 4 scales..haha. Oh well maybe in 40 years I'll have full sets in each.?

Holy shit, that's awesome! Those look fantastic, and I mean all of them, 6, 20, and 54mm!

Regarding having helmets cammied up, most of the units I was with did it, either using strips from cut up sandbags, or cut up cammie netting. We even did it in Iraq:

That's me in front, in April 2004, Fallujah.

Pretty cool seeing all the M-60E3s amongst your troops; that's what I started with.

Regarding 6mm, my magic potion to getting them done quick is to base them first, and paint them on the bases, so much faster (for me, at least), to do it that way than painting on sticks then basing. I know, sorry, not much help at this point… I even do my 10mm like that now.

Well damn man, you need to pump out some batreps, you've got plenty of cool stuff to do it!

V/R,
Jack

Hey thanks Jack!

First Marine Division?, First battle of Fallujah? I have huge respect for anyone that went into that. Were you there for part 2?

Can I ask did you like the M60E3? Was it respected by Marines in general?

I have seen that cut up netting a lot and maybe the strips of sandbag material too but never seen Marines with cut up BDU on their helmets Ranger style. I do have an old Yves Debay book that shows some heliborne Marines circa '89 with a few strips but not the full rasta haha.

Thanks for the 6mm tip. I have to get an opfor done because no one else I know plays 6mm.

But today I'm sculpting Elhiem 20mm generic NATO mortar crews into weapons platoon Marines.

Yep, you're right, I gotta utilise what I have instead of constantly living in the future.

Yeah man, I was with Bravo 1/5 for Vigilant Resolve. I actually cross-decked to Kilo 3/1 when 1/5 went home, but I left Iraq a month before Phantom Fury.

I joined up in ‘94, and the -60E3 was the Corps' machine gun (HMGs not withstanding), EXCEPT for vehicles, where the Abrams and LAVs has -240s. I liked the M-60E3, and it's hard to get a good read on troops' opinion of gear, Marines like to complain about everything ;)

In any case, the -60 was a good gun (in my humble opinion), but… I was with Charlie 1/2 at the time, we got the -240Gs in either late ‘96 or early ‘97 (sorry, memory is getting fuzzy), and we were kind of blown away, they were just so much easier to maintain. They were a bit more unwieldy, longer and heavier than the M-60, couldn't really assault fire them, but using a machine gun for what it's supposed to be used for (not just an over-sized rifle), it didn't really matter. I know that early on we had some issues with chambers swelling so that you actually had to stand up and kick the barrel off to change it, but that got fixed. And for whatever reason, the -60s would have a lot more stoppages than the -240s; I suspect the guns were just old and worn out.

Yeah, no Marines were cutting up cammies to put on their helmets, cammies are expensive ;) And the Army calls them BDUs, the Marines called them ‘camouflage utilities.'

I'm with ya on OpFor, I'm a solo gamer so have to do both sides for everything. I'll post some pics of some 6mm modern desert troops this week, you'll see my method in action.

I am jealous of you doing moderns in 20mm; if I didn't have so much 10mm and 15mm troops and terrain…

And yeah, let's see some batreps! ;)

V/R,
Jack

Okay, interesting. "crossdecked" = changed units I suppose?

Thanks for the info on USMC machine guns and your opinion on the M60E3.

Cammies it is, didn't know that.

Looking forward to seeing your desert project. Fictional or historical I wonder.? I will wait and see.

Hey thanks Jack, I appreciate your positivity. I will get to it!

Yup, cross-decked = changed units.

No problem, I give my opinion regardless of whether it was solicited ;)
A funny, but negative, trend surfaced when we got the -240s. The M-60s were heavy, and a real bastard to carry on humps (forced marches, usually 24-39 miles), but some enterprising young Marine figured out that the top of the -240 receiver was broad and nice and flat, so you could flip it over and get it to rest on top of your pack, with the sling around your neck.

Now, a hump is an administrative movement, not a tactical movement, but it still didn't sit right with quite a few in leadership. And it started more than one fist fight when some wiseass came up from behind and pulled it backwards off the pack, choking the young machine gunner with the sling.

Here's a pic, though this Marine has the sling behind his head, which causes its own problems:

Yes, as in "the uniform of the day is camouflage utilities," and then us knuckleheads just called them cammies. But blouse and trousers, not shirt and pants ;)

I'll probably post the 6mm stuff Wednesday or Thursday, need to post a batrep this morning/today. The 6mm stuff is for when Cuba Libre goes to Desert Storm, so a bit of both ;)

I am here to goad you into putting more time and effort into your wargaming! The more you post, the more I'm entertained, and the more good ideas I can steal!

V/R,
Jack

cool man. Really cool. Thanks.