Tanks. Books. And books about tanks.

Hi Kids,  I like tanks.  Not sure why. I also like airplanes, locomotives, cars, etc. And books.  I really like books far too much to be healthy.  If I ever move there are going to be double hernias all around!  I've never been in the army and never had to keep a tank operational.  I might not be as appreciative if I had. I have driven some armoured vehicles while on vaca in the UK, including the Chieftain.  For a couple years I was saving up for an armoured car or a Chieftain (IIRC US$17,000!!!) but the government made it illegal to import them. I think that law might have been changed again, but buying a motorcycle has taught me the zen of not owning everything I see.

 A lot of these are coffee table books with huge pictures, but you gotta start somewhere.  I've had the bug bad enough that I've been to the War and Peace Show (Beltring) a couple times. I even helped a guy work on his ex-Yugoslav M36 while there. (I handed him a tool he asked for, my 20 seconds of hands on experience.) I've also been to Aberdeen, Bovington, Duxford, The Littlefield Collection, the Patton Museum, and some other museums out in California.  Still need to make it to Russia!

 This is the first book I ever had about tanks. In fact, my favorite tank has always been the Chieftain, possibly because there's a two page spread of one with the turret rotated sideways and the gun sticking out a country mile. Just looks awesome!  Now that I think about it, a lot of these books have Chieftains on the cover.  Maybe because they were printed in the UK or the commonwealth.

 Got this one as a birthday present. It's amazing what Mom's will do to keep the kids happy!  It goes for about US$250+ on the internet now.  WOW!

 Still don't understand half of this one.

 Picked up this one back in the mid-1990's.  It's the only one I have that describes all the weird one-off and pre-production weirdness (US T-6, T-20, VK3002MAN, etc etc) we now see on World of Tanks the computer game.

 If there's one guy who can make a book about tanks hilarious, its Ian Hogg. I'd recommend everything he's written.

George Forty got a bunch of stuff out too.  Always worth picking up!

Loosing sleep over which gun to mount on your PZ4? K&J Magnetics to the rescue!

Hi Kids,  Here's one of the tanks I've been pretending to work on lately.  I think I primered it about 2 years ago.  Yeah, I must be in a rush!  It's a 1:60 West Wind Panzer 4 which can be made as a F1, F2, or early G variant.  Naturally, the Chuckster can't be bothered to actually make a firm decision.  We play a lot of early war around here, so the stub barrel would be good.  But there's also that June 6th D-Day Gameapalooza coming up, (Disposable Heroes of course!) and those longer guns would no doubt come in handy when you're trying to stem the beachheads.  What to do, what to do.....???

 Here we have a work-in-progress shot of the partially painted tank with the three different guns from which to choose.  All metal all the time!  And if you're an Old Glory Army member this is ~US$20!

Order some magnets!  That's what you do! Partially submerged in a bath of glue is a K&J magnet towards the back of the hollow turret.  I drilled out the backs of the guns and glued in some piano wire, or any other wire that works with magnets.  At first I was afraid that the force would not be strong enough and the barrels would droop, but no fear there.  Even the long barrel has no problem.

 

Meanwhile, the Basement has revealed some more items from a bygone era, some Easter Island head statues (called "Moi" I believe)!  I've been looking for these things for quite awhile, and am thrilled the terrain for KneeCap Island is at least getting closer to the workbench. Armorcast makes some great stuff!  I'm thinking about getting more of their craters, too.

South Dakota Grudge Match! Flames of War CLT vs. RDU!

Hi Kids,  Ok, ok, I know two Flames of War groups based in North Carolina (Charlotte and Raleigh) have absolutely nothing to due with South Dakota, but ever since I first heard that term (South Dakota Grudge Match) I just can't resist using it whenever I get a chance!  Anyway, on with the story:  The CLT lads and the RDU kids decided it would be fun to set up a meet on Neutral Ground to have some fun and meet some new opponents.  High Point NC is roughly halfway between and had a store (Gaming Underground, or Underground Games, I can never remember) with lots of table space, and so it was on!
RDU had 8 guys turn up, CLT had 4 until two of us Winston-Salem gaming pariahs showed up to join the CLT side.  The plan was to have 1:1 games in the morning and after lunch play a big honkin' game of Total War with CLT vs. RDU.  Each player made a late war 1750 pt. army for the single games and modified it to 1000 pt. for the Total War game. Since RDU had a two player advantage each CLT player got extra points to make up the difference; 8000 pt. per side. Here are some shots of the 1:1 games.  A lot of them are from my game and the games near me. I didn't have time to wonder around and take pictures of everything since I was busy getting stomped!

 Here is a shot of my beginning forces, five ISU-122's and two 100mm ATG's (Proxy!).  Everything else was a scattered delayed reserve.  Bummer, I know.  Turn one, here comes the Luftwaffe!  Yeah, that was a bummer too! I don't even remember the last time I played late war, and I made the fatal error of loading up with Tiger killers!  Unfortunately Rate of Fire 1 just doesn't put enough hate mail down range to crush normal armies. I brought a plastic spoon to a gunfight! ISU-122's are Old Glory and the 203mm tracked guns are also available from them, but from a different manufacturer.

 The Finns charge across the table!  If you want to win, employ a Finn! Two T-34's pop their tops with 122mm hits!

 One of the CLT lads brought some Big Guns, too!

 It's Panthers-a-go-go! on the table next door!  Special rules about flank shots and bad luck with the dice lead to the Panthers destroying about 75% of the Russian army they faced.

 Meanwhile on my table my heavies are getting systematically crushed by the Finns.  My CO never did get a single hit, even while stationary!  Bummer!

 Some of my reserves arrive in the corner, three JS-2's!  They manage to blow the infantry to atoms!

 But meanwhile over on the objective its a different story!

 Some madman from RDU brought Cav!  I think they were Hungarians.

 Man, those are some Big Guns!

 I knew there'd be some Tigers around here somewhere!  One RDU army had 4 of the wee beasties.

 Some hardcore ammo carrier brought nothing but arty! Eye-yi-yi...

 Getting ready for the Total War game, a 6x20 foot table!

 My lads are set up!  Once again they would basically do nothing the entire game, blasting massive shells everywhere except towards the enemy!  Then again, the enemy wasn't foolish enough to come out of hiding anywhere near them...

 A tiny bit of the grand battery in the center of the RDU position.  I thought this kind of set up went out of style after the First World War, but by golly it was ugly being on the receiving end of all those muzzles! It's a wonder the table didn't collapse!

 The center of the CLT deployment, nowhere near as intimidating!

 Turn One, Shot One, One Dead ISU-122!  Aw crap!  Arty with AT5 barrages? Gee whiz! And I didn't even get a turn yet!

 The horsemen arrive in our deployment zone, turn two!  Things are heading south in a hurry!

 But one of the CLT (W-S auxillary) guys had a mean infantry list!  Soviet Combat Sappers!  Trashing tanks, ATG's, infantry, cavalry; they spank everybody one at a time or all at once!  None Shall Pass!

And with that it was all over.  In all the excitement some of us didn't get a third turn, but the CLT side was getting crushed so comprehensively I really don't think it would have made any difference if we had.  The objectives were still pretty close, RDU being ahead by one, but the CLT armies were so badly hammered we packed everything up and called it a day!

 

Maybe I should've gone with the T34/85 list...