"15mm WWII US Airborne - Med/North Africa" Topic

All,

More US paratroopers??? Yes, more US paratroopers. Hopefully the final batch ;) You've already seen temperate and urban, so here are my US paratroopers for North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and just in the nick of time (I think I feel a game coming on). These guys are a bit interesting, at least to me. First, they came from three different guys on Ebay (some of which were used for my previous temperate and urban forces), and they were all painted, BUT, they didn't really fit with my desert motif and certainly didn't fit together, so despite the fact they were all completely painted, I had to repaint every single one of them. Not completely though; I only had to do about 2% of the flesh, 5% of the web gear, and about 10% of the small arms, but I had to re-do every single uniform and 95% of the helmets, as well as all the basing. You will notice that some of the troopers have US flags on their right shoulders; I did not do those, one of the other guys did, and when I re-did the uniforms I was careful to leave the flags on the guys that had them, though I did not put flags on the rest of the guys. And I had to re-do all the 82nd Airborne divisional patches. After seeing Steve's guys and how cool they looked, I decided to change my divisional patches up; my previous 82nd Airborne guys I did a blue dot on a red square. Steve's guys reminded me that the white was actually more prominent than the blue, so I did a white blob on a red square, which is definitely more realistic, but I actually don't like it as much as I liked my blue on red patches.

The other interesting thing about these guys is that they are different sculpts than I'd seen before. From what I'd seen, Battlefront had three types of US paratroopers: the 'old' metals, a bit cartoonish and on the smaller side, then the newer plastics (like in the 'Open Fire' box), which were a bit bigger, and then the newest plastics (from the Airborne Rifle Company box, UBX64), which are absolute monsters. But it turns out that Battlefront did some metals that came before the 'old' metals that I keep referencing. These guys are a little bigger and are really well sculpted, with great weapons, gear, and proportions, and they really stand apart due to all the helmets are 'clean,' i.e., they don't have any netting or scrim on them. Which seems to fit pretty well with a lot of the pics of the 82nd Airborne in Sicily and Normandy.

A closeup of the CO, Jumpin' Jim Gavin. Here you can see the guy at center, with the M-1 Garand, is one of the original Battlefront metal figures I was talking about, while the guy at left, with the Thompson SMG, is one of the 'old' Battlefront metals.

One of the platoon/company command stands.

A closeup of one of the rifle stands; the trooper at far left is carrying a BAR.

Two Garands and two Tommy Guns, with one rifleman pitching a frag.

A closeup of one of the M-1919A4s.

One of the 81mm mortar teams.

To see a bunch more pics, please check the blog at:
link

So, there they are, ready to rumble. Tin Man posted a very interesting batrep over on his blog, about a gangster shootout. I wasn't at all familiar with "One Hour Skirmish Wargames," but it convinced me to take a look at some batreps and reviews and they gave me some ideas, so I have since bought the book. Stand by Steve, Biazza Ridge here we come!!!

V/R,
Jack

Another great looking unit, Jack.
Don't be so hard on yourself about the bases. I think
they look fine!
Sam

These are lovely looking. Never get tired of looking at WW2 US Paratrooper figures (one of the earliest photos of me is playing with some Airfix US Paras in Harrogate park)!

Bit of a pity. Mustang used to do both the 82nd and 101st as well as American flag decals. They were for use with 15 and 20mm. They were a bit big for 15mm but dont look half bad. There are still some packs floating around.

Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate the kind words.

Sam, I'm actually planning on getting these to the table quick, we'll see if it works. I'm trying to play a Biazza Ridge scenario but I'm missing a German 120mm mortar and appropriate casualty figures for each side…

John, I suppose I don't either ;) I believe that the Airfix US Paratroopers were my very first set of 1/72 scale troops; I still recall the various poses: radioman with legs splayed out and the radio between them, the dude with the Tommy Gun chilling out, weapon pointed skyward, looking quite pleased with himself, the dude hurdling a hedgerow and tossing a frag at the same time, the guy with the knife in his left hand and E-tool in his right, and all those M-1 Carbines! For years I believed paratroopers didn't use M-1 Garands, only carbines. Pure joy!

Marc, no skin off my back, I don't have the patience to put those decals on each guy anyway! ;)

V/R,
Jack

Just Jack. I recently painted a pack of Airfix US Airborne. Nice figures even today. They look good mixed with Esci and Mars US paras. The Sicily Campaign is very interesting to wargame. The Patton and Monty race. American, British, Canadians, French (and French colonials), Germans, and Italians. Allied headquarter on both sides that can't get their act together, amphibious landings, parachute drops, glider landings. Even though the Allies had an edge in the air it was not one sided as later in the war. Lots of interesting scenarios. It's really "an offer that you can't refuse:! Our gaming group has been working on a game that covers the entire Sicily Campaign. It's like a huge board game with 1/72 miniatures. It's playable under three hours with brigade/combat command groupings. Loads of fun!

Legionarius,

Yessir, those Airfix troops will always have a special place in my heart.

Sicily is a fascinating campaign to be sure; you and are we actually discussing it on my ‘Battle of Biazza Ridge' post.

V/R,
Jack