In the Shadow of Shadow Mountain (A Glenpool Strike AAR)

My son spent over two weeks in the hospital recently and missed quite a few good summer days. So take make up for it I let pick two things that he really wanted to do. The first thing he picked was an "army guy battle" at the "gamer' and so off we went. We played our usual campaign, and as usual he pummeled my forces. For this game I had actually managed to get enough forces painted (except for some bases) to play a game of Bolt Action.

The second thing he wanted to do was go see a submarine so we took a little road trip and did that the next day. Lots of good fun.



Another skirmish in the Glenpool Strike campaign. This one pits the communists (Cherry Street Irregulars) and socialist Green Corn rebels against the Boston Avenue Believers, a few local police, National Guardsmen and MAC militia. 

After recent skirmishes and communist victories around the Tulsa area Rev. A. Roberts decided to take matters into his own, and God's hands. He has co-opted several squads of the MAC (MacArthur Anti-Communist) militia, who are also parishioners of the Boston Avenue Methodist Church. Convincing them that they need to do the will of a higher authority. He has conveniently inserted himself as their new leader and then added to their ranks more parishioners eager to do God's and his work.

Not alone in his outrage over the continuing communist victories other churches on Boston Avenue organized armed squads intent on doing the same. Seeing that they were all in it for a common cause, all of the churches decided to join their forces together as a single organization, while maintaining their religious affiliations at the squad level. Each squad choose it's own leader then those squad leaders chose the overall commander. Given the size of Rev. Roberts flock he was easily elected commander. So came into being the Boston Avenue Believers.

After acquiring what weapons they could, some rudimentary training, a Sunday picnic and a sermon, the Reverend considered his forces ready. After all with the Lord on their side, training was really quite irrelevant.

At the aforementioned Sunday picnic the Rev. learned that the MAC militias had received a tip about a possible communist base of operations. This suspected base was the Hooverville located at the base of Shadow Mountain south of Tulsa along the Arkansas river. Incensed at learning the local MAC commander had no intention of acting on this information he formed up his followers, gave his best fire and brimstone sermon, and then led a procession of riled up parishioners to Shadow Mountain. 

Several parishioners belonging to the MAC militias slipped away and to warn Chief Gunderson of what was going down. The Chief sent two officers and two members of the local National Guard to diffuse the situation and turn back the marchers.

On the communist side, they too were tipped off about the march to the Shadow Mountain. They quickly evacuated as many people and supplies that they could. Their new brothers in arms, the Green Corn rebels* who had just arrived from farms in southern Oklahoma were spoiling for a fight and refused to leave. So comrade Little deployed his forces in support but kept several vehicles nearby to make a quick get away should things go south. In addition, he had another surprise up his sleeve.

 

The commander of the Communist forces setting up his troops. He also insisted on setting up quite a number of barrels as well.

The communists wait for the arrival on the Boston Avenue mob. On the left side of the board a sniper team has set up in the woods and are waiting the arrival of the rest of the parishioners to arrive. They didn't have to wait long as we can see the Boston Avenue women's Bible study group led by Brother Frank Stein marching straight up the road. Meanwhile the rest of the BAB squads have decided to attempt a somewhat less direct approach to the Hooverville. 

The Rev. Roberts climbs the fence and leads his flock into the den of the heathen forces. The attempt at stealth was for naught as the communists were laying in wait. 

The first shot rings out and the Rev. Roberts is hit by a snipers bullet. Then the Green Corn rebels move up and start taking pot shots at the Methodist women's bible study group and they decide to take cover behind a shack, just in case. On the far right of the BAB line a squad tries to quickly maneuver around the communists and come at them from their flank.

The bible study group quickly runs into trouble as they are assaulted by a communist squad led by a battle-hardened feminist wielding a Thompson SMG. Thompson's blaze away on both sides, the communists sustain a few loses. But alas the entire BAB squad is now in the arms of the Lord, as are most of the Method church's favorite pot luck dinner recipes. A very sad day indeed for the Methodists.   

Things do not go quite as planned on the other half of the battlefield as another BAB squad is killed in vicious hand to hand combat. 

On the left flank the police, two National Guardsmen supported by two MAC Lewis guns arrive by car and find they are to late to prevent armed conflict. They immediately come under fire from the Green Corn squad. They return fire with both Lewis guns and a BAR, sending the rebels scurrying for better cover. 

The enemy commander surveys the battlefield planning his next move after the surprise arrival of law enforcement officials and military personnel. 

Not wishing to be captured by the law again comrade Little uses the ace up his sleeve. The P6E Hawk captured earlier in the week swoops out of the sky, machineguns blazing and takes out a MAC LMG team. Then drops a bomb on the police and soldiers killing three. Only Sgt. Hamburg survives through sheer luck. 

Pushing the attack commander Little orders the truck he is in forward and tries to provide supporting fire for the pinned down Green Corn squad and to get them back into the fight before they all flee for the hills. Unfortunately the plan doesn't work, he and his wife get a few bullet wounds for their troubles. The wheelman of the truck gets them out of harms way and back to safety. 

The battle rages on with squads taking shots at one another but by this point most of them have hunkered down behind something to avoid getting shot. Unfortunately for the the BAB squads the P6E returns to break up the brief stalemate. 

Comrade Little gives me an animated demonstration of just how his airplanes machinguns work as they chew up another of my squads. The machinegun sounds were a bit gratuitous, as there is no way that plane could have fired on the target that long. 

The Col.(retired) having lost the rest of squad, soldiers on alone. That is until he is spotted by a communist Lewis gun team. 

The communists route the last BAB squad from the battle. 

Capt. Hamburg is abandoned by the drivers who brought him and his now deceased pals. With no options left he decides to go after the Green Corn squad. His desperate assault pays off and he sends the last of those hillbillies packing. 

He then turns his attention to the Lewis gun team that just mowed down the good Col. 

   Just then the communist air support comes over the top of shack and into sight, it's guns trained on him. Sgt. Hamburg(er) meets his fate BAR blazing. Seven shots out of eight hit our poor would be hero. Who can win against dice rolling like that.


*The Green Corn Rebellion took place during WW1. It started as a protest against the draft by rural Oklahoma farmers who felt that they would have to serve in a war that they had no interest, or business fighting. So to avoid fighting in France they took up arms against their own government. Why travel all the way to France to fight when you can do it right here. Makes perfect sense to me. The plan was to march to Washington D.C. surviving on BBQ beef and Green Corn procured on the way. 

Reality didn't live up to the envisaged plan. A few miles into the march they were intercepted by a group of local townspeople and after a few shots the rebellion was broken up and it's members fled. Several hundred people were later rounded up and sent to prison for their participation in the march.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Corn_Rebellion]Green Corn Rebellion[/url]

Foam Tank

So this weekend I got a little tired of painting and decided to take a break and do something else. I have a lot figures for my VACW campaign but I don't have anything armor wise. So I thought, I would see if I could slap something together using some foam. I didn't have any expectation that anything would come of it, but it turned out not to bad. My only concern is that the thing doesn't look very 1930ish in design and might be a bit to advanced looking to be honest.

I just started cutting out pieces until I had a basic shape blocked out then though I would add some pins to make it looked like riveted construction. I don't much care for the pins, they don't look the part very well. I think they are too large and flat and so I will pull them out before I go any farther and cover those areas with card stock like I have done with other areas. So if anyone knows of something good to use as rivets I would love to know.

The front hatch is just another piece of card with two bits of wire added above to act as hinges. Not sure what else if anything I should add to the front. Also I have now idea how to do the tracks and road wheels yet, will have to think about it for a while. Was thinking to have them mostly covered to make it easier.

I built two inter-changeable turrets for the beast. The first one is reminiscent of a Soviet T-26, but not an exact copy. The lower one reminds more of a Early WWII German turret a little bit.

So there  you go. My first attempt at building a vehicle. My second is underway as I found the perfect bits for it this weekend while I was out at the American Science Surplus store. This place is awesome by the way, I used to shop this store online before we moved up here. Yes! this store is nearby, and I go every chance I get, just to much cool stuff to check out.

My Depression Era Hooverville

What exactly is a Hooverville? They were shanty towns constructed in the 1930's after the stock market crash in 1929. They popped up all over the country as people lost their jobs and a steady income. These new shanty towns soon came to be named after President Hoover, who refused to use the Federal govt. or create govt. ran programs to help those in need or to stimulate the economy, believing that eventually the market and economy would fix itself.


Many people lost everything due to the stock market crash, the house, the car, all of their money. Eventually many of them ended up cobbling together "housing" from what scraps they could manage to nail together. Many lived in tents, or under tarps really. Some Hooverville inhabitants didn't even bother to build shacks, but simply burrowed into the sides of hills and
lived in small burrows. As time went on these houses became a little more elaborate. Some people, especially masons managed to build some rather nice brick houses instead of the usual wood framed shacks that were rather ubiquitous. Most of these shacks were built using very simple techniques using milled lumber, plywood, tar paper and occasionally corrugated tin. Hooverville's varied in size, like the one on the right which is pretty small compared to the one above, which was located in Seattle and quite extensive. Whatever the size, these shanty towns shared many features. There was no trash service so trash and junk ended up just being dumped wherever, and after a while many started to look a like junkyards or the city dump. No running water, open latrines, and no utilities obviously. Some had hand dug wells, but given the poor sanitation this water wasn't really fit to drink. In fact there were many disease outbreaks, typhoid, yphus etc, that hadn't seen large outbreaks in the US for a while. The Hooverville in Oklahoma City was a great  exception to the poor sanitation general rule. After a couple of outbreaks, the city installed clean drinking water and bathroom facilities. Then turned around a few months later and had them removed, based on the theory that providing such amenities would encourage more people to live in the Hooverville and keep those who currently lived there from looking for work.

Most of these shacks were reported to only have outside walls, and if the inhabitants were lucky they might have been able to acquire some tar paper to keep the roof from leaking and the wind from blowing in through the cracks between the boards. As you can see in the picture on the left, most seemed to at least have a potbelly stove to provide warmth and a means to cook. Still, people died from exposure, starvation and I am sure from despair.

For any game taking place in the US during the 1930's a Hooverville is a must have. So toward this end I started working on a project to build my own. Originally I wanted to do at least a dozen shacks, but I lost steam after the seventh building and just decided to throw in some tents and junk piles to fill things in a bit. First I spent a week or so staring at these pictures and trying to figure out some basic building styles and materials. Then I went to town, and started putting some buildings together. I wanted to try out some different building techniques, that I hoped would be a little faster than some of the other buildings I have done in the past. I settled on using mainly cardboard. I made a simple rectangular shape, then put in a slightly slanted roof in most cases. To try and capture the variability I built a few that used the wall boards as slats and a few to look like clapboard construction. This was done by using 1/4 inch strips of paper and gluing the vertical or horizontally and the construction method dictated. Then I ended up covering a few random areas with card stock, that I later painted black, for tar paper. On a few the vertical boards were covered with another set of boards covering the cracks. The roofs are the same way for the most part. Boards, covered with tar paper, corrugated tin and in one case wood shingles. 

On the outside there are brick piles, broken bricks (shattered bed heaters), and ash dumping piles scattered around randomly outside the shacks.

Shack number one has partial but rather rusty tin roof. One small window provides light, but who really needs extra windows when the cracks between the boards provides plenty of light.

House 2

House number two is one the fancier shacks, verging on almost being a house. This is because I intend to use it as a railroad building as well.

House 2

It has a crude stone foundation, a porch, glass windows and a tin roofs. I really want to find a 1/48 scale rocking chair for the porch.

House 2

House 3

House number three has quite a bit of corrugated tin, covering mostly the roof but also some of the back.

House 3

Quite a few brick and ash piles outside. The outside edge is bare of ballast flocking as I had intended to flock them with grass but I thought it might now look a little odd, as all I have for a gaming mat is a brown blanket.

House 3

The front door is haphazardly nailed together and the window were knocked out. It used to have windows, but apparently I forgot to glue them in place and they were just sitting there. So when I went to paint them I pushed them into the building, of which the interior in not accessible as they are rather small. Probably to small to put more than a few miniatures inside. I had intended to put a miniatures next to them for scale, but forgot to do that to. Forgetting, the theme of my life.

House 4

House four is a really small shack with a single window in the back. The general construction method is clapboard, while the roof is some hot board on board (originally I typed broad on broad, but that is something else entirely), with the peak covered with some tin scraps.

House 4

House 5

House five has some more board on board action, with a wood shingle roof.

House 5

House 6

House six is clapboard with a few bits of tin holding the corners together. The roof is covered with tar paper and the occasional board to hold it down.

House 7

House seven, tar paper roof with some tin around the stove pipe, a little tar paper covering the back walls.

Are you staring at my junk?

Last, but not least, some junk piles, you gotta have some trash laying about. I also have some bits that I picked up from the local train store that sells O scale scenic elements, but more on them later.

Hopefully in the future I will get the bug and build at least a few more shacks and junk piles. For now though, these will work and can't wait to have a skirmish or two at the local Hooverville.

Sand Pebbles 28mm Naval Shore Patrol

To add some forces to the White faction (Federal forces loyal to FDR) in my VACW game. I recently ordered some Sand Pebbles miniatures from Recreational Conflict. If I'm not mistaken the miniatures are made by Tiger miniatures, a U.K. company. The Sand Pebble miniatures are US sailors from the 1920's and are based on the movie Sand Pebbles. I had planned to use them as a later addition to the campaign as second platoon to back up some US Marines. Now the Jar Heads are on hold, but I hope to have them soon, if not they may get worked in faster than excepted.

Fortunately for me I have a color picture of US interwar sailors from the book A World Aflame, to work off of when painting. Not to mention the 1966 movie on which the Sand Pebbles miniatures are based. On the downside it is still cold as $h!t here and is about to start snowing again. So spray priming probably won't be on the agenda any time soon.

A few quick pics. I have them sorted into two sections and the command team. This is roughly how I will use them. Maybe dropping the third guy from the command section if playing Bolt Action to take advantage of the Small Unit rule. Each section has an NCO, the guy with the pistol and a BAR.

The miniatures are very well cast with little flash or mold lines. Size wise, they are a bit bulkier than my Wargames Factory miniatures but not any bigger than my Bolt Action plastic Americans.

Also just wanted to say that Recreational Conflict has some excellent miniatures, many that I haven't seen anywhere else. The American Siberian Expedition miniatures I think are especially cool and I have my beady little eye on. They also have (last I looked) very cheap Lledo vehicles which scale pretty well with 28mm miniatures. Not to mention, excellent service!

Partisan Painting Party

So two Saturday's ago I was apparently in the mood to paint. All together I managed to paint 36 miniatures in a single day, now THAT is amazing! Then on Tuesday I painted another dozen miniatures, which put me at around 4 dozen in less than a week. My usual output is more like 3-4 a week.

Now these are my usual level of painting not speed painting. Still, I won’t be winning any Major Awards (like the one below), but they won’t stand out like a sore thumb among the usual rabble.

 Here you go. The best that I can manage. Now if I could just learn how to take some decent photos, that would be something else amazing. Really, it took me multiple attempts to get decent photos over the course of the week. I painted mostly partisans, 29 total and then 7 Black Legion soldiers for my VACW game. I would like to use the partisans for both games, but it turns out that I wasn't really thinking about this when I put them together. So I ended up putting a lot of German and Soviet equipment in their hands, and quite a few of the weapons and equipment came out after 1938, or otherwise would not have been widely available. Still, I have more figs I can put together and will try and do some VACW American Legion members and some people for various factions, depending on what I have left.

Yep, my partisan commander has a sword. Why not?

So I know someone probably have something to say about the colorful and character filled, if somewhat ahistorical hats. I just want to say, I like them, and don’t care if my partisan’s look as if they raided the Golf Pro shop.  :P

Okay so I missed a couple of partisan guys so I put them in with the Black Legion goons.