Trucks for the Chaco

Very useful and very generic looking - the Zvezda 15mm ZIS-5 truck

At long last I took delivery of the six 15mm plastic Russian trucks produced by Zvezda from my old friend Chris Hardman. These are suitably generic 1930's for use in many differing guises but my plan is to assemble and paint them as per the box - namely as Russian trucks. Initially these will be used with the Chaco collection but I am thinking that they will also serve in the Middle Eastern project when I get around to it.

Many thanks to Chris for these - they are next on the paint tray after the WW1 ships have been painted.

The Good News....and the Not So Good News....

The Good News....

I have sourced half a dozen Zis trucks from Zvezda in 15mm. My good friend across many a stricken field, Chris Hardman, has kindly donated the six I needed which is really good news. My order from Stonewall arrived with the additional destroyers and shipping I need to complete the first phase of my WW1 naval set up. The last piece of news was that I managed to get to the club last night and took part in a most excellent Portable Naval Wargame (the pre dreadnought version) by Bob Cordery, organised by the redoubtable Mr Fox - who supplied the toys (more of which later) and using his rather splendid newly hexed blue cloth which will also see service with out games of WW2 aerial combat.

Whilst Mr Fox donned his customary umpires hat it was down to Mr. Fosker and myself to take to the high seas using Austrians and Italians with yours truly driving the latter. It was great action (perhaps with rather more ships than may have been prudent) being fast in execution, challenging and above all - fun. Mr Fox took some pictures of the key points of the affair which I will post in due course. That worryingly fickle mistress, Dame Fortune, seemed to favour the suave and debonair sartorially inspired Italians rather more than the bluff yeoman of the Tyrol and so for the record, the Italians exacted a considerable measure of revenge for Lissa, 1866! Thanks as ever to Mr Fox for laying it on and to Mr Fosker for taking part. The game was gratifying in that it was nice to see that just occasionally somebody could roll dice that were considerably more miserable than mine have been of late!

The Not So Good News....

My Stonewall order was incorrect as a couple of things were missing. A swift email to them followed and the final tranche is now on its way. Frustrating all the same though, but hopefully with a happy ending soon.

Left Handed Vickers 6 ton tanks

The QRF Vickers 6 ton tank, Mark A with the left handed machine guns....

I readily admit to being rather embarrassed by this. During the Chaco War Bolivia had the services of three Vickers 6 ton tanks - one of which was the twin-turreted mark A version. As an aside, Turkey also made use of this mark, fielding sixteen of them. I wanted one in 15mm for use with the Bolivian army and so was pointed in the direction of QRF by Bob Cordery as a potential supplier. Lo and behold, I saw one and ordered it, and it arrived yesterday.

The white metal model comprises but 5 pieces - the hull, the track sections and the two turrets and it was the latter that caused my embarrassment. The turrets are built so that the machine gun is offset to the left when viewed from behind. Both turrets were identical and I got into my head that this was in fact wrong - surely there should be both a left and a right handed turret? After carried out a quick check on Google and could not get a clear idea - at least not from the images I could see. I even fired off an email to QRF querying this - it looked plain wrong in my opinion. Imagine my surprise then, when I discovered, via a more intensive search of the net that....

....Both turrets are, in effect, left handed!

I felt rather foolish about my mistake (I had not really checked in sufficient detail) and so offer a public and shamefaced apology to Geoff at QRF for doubting the accuracy of the model (which I should point out is a lovely casting) but, in my defence, opening the package came at the end of a very long day and so my concentration was perhaps not quite as sharp as it should have been....;-)

The Chaco War 1932 - 1935

A political cartoon of the Chaco War

This may come as a complete surprise to some but is more likely as seen as being yet another example of my taste for the unusual when it comes to wargames. My present to myself for being back in the land of the employed was a pair of 15mm Irregular Miniatures armies for the Chaco War in South America between Paraguay and Bolivia from 1932 to 1935. I have all the figures I need and all that is missing is some trucks (I shall use Zveda Zis 5 trucks for both sides - not entirely accurate but close enough to the American Ford that was in use as to make no difference) and perhaps a coupe of aircraft from Shapeways.

The radical step I shall be taking with this collection is that I intend basing the models for use with Tim Gow's Megablitz rules - which means for infantry a pair of figures on a 40mm square base with a magnetic strip for recording losses. This will also mean that they will be usable for either the Memoir or Portable series of rules by Bob Cordery. It also means the number of figures needed is relatively small.

The collection consists of around 50 infantry, a dozen cavalry with dismounts, an assortment of artillery - field guns, mountain guns and the odd heavy howitzer - and the inevitable HMGs and mortars. Bolivia also has the use of a Vickers 6 ton tank, courtesy of QRF.

As it stands at the moment the only book I own on the subject is the Osprey title (and very good it is as well)  but this lack will be rectified fairly soon - and a post will follow as a result.

This is 100% an 'Oooh Shiny' project and I must confess that up until the end of last year this war had never even featured on my project radar - in fact to my shame and embarrassment I had not even heard of it! 

The conflict is a very self contained one and so what I currently have will suffice entirely for my gaming needs in this theatre.

Of the Irregular Miniatures figures I will say only this - the Paraguayans are very nice indeed in a simple way and so are the Bolivians but the latter are quite 'flashy' and so will need some attention prior to painting. The paint jobs will be simple enough, even for me, and at the moment the only difficulty I can foresee concerns suitable terrain. I am looking long and hard at the 'desert transition' Hexon tiles as being suitable to represent the semi-arid terrain of the Chaco but that will something to finance at a later date.

In closing I should extend my thanks to Bob Cordery - simply because it wasn't for his interst in this war I would probably have still not heard of it....;-)