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Welcome to the site where the story of the battle is as important as the battle itself. Here we will focus on men thrust into extraordinary situations of life and death. They must lead other men with duty and honor to meet their countries objectives. Some will be blessed with great skill, some will carry great shortcomings. No matter what nation, no matter what war, no matter what theater, they are all called to move their Platoon or Squadron forward!

These are their individual stories as played out using my various campaign rules . Hopefully these stories will entertain and inspire you to use your own troops, airmen and sailors to accomplish your own great heroics.

Monday, July 9, 2018

Brown water Navy

Pretty busy here painting ARVN armor and boats for my Brown water Navy; both courtesy of Combat Colours who sold me a bunch of stuff low enough that I couldn't refuse.  I have also playtested my final battle of my Kolweski campaign for Legion Forward so have to finish writing that up.  Did run a quick battle with my Tango boat from Gomi supported by my Battlefront Alpha.  It was fun and gave me a feel for the Riverine rules in Ambush Valley.  There are no rules for mines so will have to modify the rules from Charlie Don't Surf.
My Brown Water Navy now consisted of:
Battlefront
Alpha Boat plus two PBRs ( haven't painted those up yet)
2 Tangos from Gomi. ( one painted.  The other I think I will make French.)
1 Monitor from Gomi.
1 PBR from Peter Pig.  ( This one will probably end up French or Vietnamese.)



The Mekong river along My Tho.  Okay, I know I have to get a bigger river now!

My Alpha boat looking for trouble.

My Tango boat hoping to avoid trouble.   Decals are from the Battlefront Alpha boat!  Flag is scratch.
Gun barrels are toothpicks.  





The Tango unloads 2 squads.


Infantry carries the day against an LMG

This is NOT a Karstadt building under VC control.

US troops swing through a prayer garden...

Gomi Monitor done.  Figures and mortar are from battlefront as are decals.

Kit does come with a 81mm mortar but it looked really small.  A battlefront 4.2 looked bigger!

Board for the final battle in Kowleski.  Clearing the shanty town.

Gas station in town

FFL storming the church to save hostages.   They were too late.



Hope you enjoyed the photos.

Joe











4 comments:

  1. Looking good, Joe, looking forward to some games. But you hit the nail on the head, you now need bigger rivers, with blind bends and narrow offshoots. Looking forward to Kowlezi as well, so hurry up!

    V/R,
    Jack

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  2. Jack, I hear you. Wargamers Terrain sells 5 inch for $29. Rich for my blood so am going to try to make my own.
    Am going to finish up the Kolwezi write up by end of July.
    Thanks
    Joe

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dude, seriously, I would look for something shiny and brown or green, then cut that up to use as wide rivers, and you can go from maybe 4" all the way to 12" or 15", so there's plenty of room for interesting stuff to happen.

      End of July!!!??? You need to work on your time management skills, Sir ;)

      V/R,
      Jack

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  3. 1) PBR were never used by the French, they were used only by US and RVN (after part of the assets of the US Navy were passed to the Vietnamese Navy, but plenty PBRs were shipped back to US, the Navy used them to patrol the Canal area in Panama until the 80s, the USNR used them until 1995. Some were transferred to Thailand and Colombia, the latter one is still using them. Wiki says even Switzerland bought them... but never France. They were purposed designed (albeit over an off the shelf fiberglass hull) by the US after 1965.

    About rivers... you need wide rivers! Once I am a quick calculation of the space a 15mm Monitor needs for a 180 degrees turn... also I have Cutler book on the MRF that provides plenty of pictures, the main rivers and canals in the delta were quite wide. Sometime they were even steaming with destroyer escorts. Brown waters are quite interesting (you can take a WW2 heavy cruiser up to Hankow on the Yangtzee for example... and the HMS London, 10+ k tons heavy treaty cruiser had even a running battle on that river).

    ReplyDelete