Falklands Argentinian 105mm Guns

Falklands -  15mm Argentinian 105mm Guns

I decided to get to grips with some of the Argentine troops I had and decided to quickly do the 105mm guns I got form MJ Figures.

These guns depict the famed Italian OTO Melara Mod 56/14 Pack Howitzer, an air portable 105mm gun, used throughout several NATO countries during the 1980's.  In deed even the British used the same weapon until the 70's where the 105mm L118 was introduced.

I had two 105mm guns from MJ figures in my collection and decided to do one with the gun shield and one without.  The crew come depicted wearing woolly hats (?), why the sculptor choose that particular head wear I do not know.  They are very simple to assemble and are shown below awaiting their bases to be finished, Not too sure how I am going to finish the bases off yet, hopeful I will make my mind up soon.

Thanks for looking
J

More Falklands Figures test painting

Tried some more figures with slightly different ochre base colour withe the goblin green and chocolate brown.  Not enough of the base colour showing so almost there although they are looking more like 85 pattern DPM, then 68 pattern.

Last nights tinkering.

Red and Green Line saving another poor sod.

 All from the Mj figures range, The Para's are largely incorrect as they have their Bergans on, but I need to use up the figures,  The stretcher party I decided to do as the Red and Green Line in honor of those that saved many a life, both British and Argentine. Now I have to work out what to do with the bases.

2 Para in action

What do people think, do they look ok? or could some one suggest other colour combinations?

Thanks
J

Falklands figures painted

Hi
Back to doing some Falklands figures.  First up are my Argentine test figures. MJ figures along with Peter Pig US WW2 support weapons. I am pretty happy with how these came out and will run with this colour scheme for the Argies.  I have decided to base them in tows with Officers on pennies as this will allow me to use virtually any set of rules. Rules in the running are Rapid Fire, Cold War Commander and Chain of Command.

Next up are my British.  I originally did a section with Milan support but was not entirely happy with the colour scheme although they do look good.  Below are my three test colour schemes. Left is my first one which although good does not really represent the DPM, the green is lost, and the second  colour scheme is too dark, the third colour scheme looks okay but maybe would be better on the ochre base as I used Goblin green as the base for this one.

1st colour scheme

2nd colour scheme

3rd colour scheme

I am torn between the first colour scheme and the third. The first one uses an Ochre base where as teh third one uses a Goblin green base.  I think I will try a test set of figures using the Ochre base with the Goblin green.  Below are more Brits and should be considered as a work in progress.

Marine Section/Company (MJ Figures)

Milan teams (Old Glory)

FO team and Sniper with night scope (MJ Figures)

What I have done so far.

Brit vehicles (MJ figures and QRF (?))

More to come soon I hope.
J

15mm Falklands QRF Purchases

Falklands War Project new additions

Here are my new purchases from QRF models for my 15mm Falklands project have just arrived. I have received from there new Postwar range 2 packs of SLR armed infantry, a pack of each of the GPMG armed, Carl Gustav, 2" Mortar and Blowpipe.

Packs PBI02.01,08,09,03 and 04, all out of order as usual.

Top to Bottom, Packs PBI01, 02, 03, 04, 08, 09

I purchased packs PBI01 x8 SLR armed rifleman, PBI02 x8 SLR armed riflemen, PBI03 x8 GPMG armed infantrymen, PBI04 x8 Carl Gustav's, PBI08 x4 2" mortar teams, and finally PBI09 x4 Blowpipe teams.

Top to Bottom: PBI01, 02 and 03

PBI01 and PBI02 contains 8  infantrymen wearing beret's in 3 poses all armed with the famous L1A1 SLR rifle.   PBI03 has 8 infantrymen wearing beret's in 2 different poses armed with the General Purpose Machine Gun.

The main reason for my purchases was the platoon support weapons. PPBI04 contains 8 infantry men wearing beret's armed withe the infamous Carl Gustav in 3 poses.  PBI08 contains again 8 beret wearing infantry men in 3 poses, 4 of the figures are armed with the 2" mortar whilst the other 4 are split between 2 poses as spotters giving 4 tams.  PBI09 makes up 4 Blowpipe teams, again all wearing beret's, 4 figures are armed with the Blowpipe and 4 figures split between two poses are the spotters.

Top to Bottom: PBI04, 08 and 09

These few purchases gives my British forces the much needed support weapons that Old Glory and MJ Figures have neglected to do. The overall quality of these figures are quite good and inlike the Old Glory figures, very little if any flash and if any, no mold lines.  I think these will fit in with my MJ figures quite well.  I do think MJ figures missed the boat a little by not producing these much needed weapons.

QRF also have within there new postwar infantry range L4 LMG armed infantry. The pack consists of 8 figures armed with the famed L4. Unlike the packs that I purchased the L4 gunners are all wearing the Mk5 turtle helmet, so some head swaps may be needed.

QRF and TSS have joined forces and have merged the websites. The site compared to the old QRF website is unfriendly, but here is a shortcut to the relevant infantry page:
QRF postwar infantry


Considering that the Falklands wars 30th anniversary war in 2012 several figure manufacturers dropped the ball on this, 15mm wise.
If I decided to do this project in 10mm, 20mm and even 28mm I can purchases virtually every thing I need  to fight the Falklands war.

MJ figures released in the 1990's, the Falkland figures, and it seem to have never had the ambition to expand the original range which is a shame; as I think he is now missing out. Old Glory which has always produced good quality figures (A lot of their 15mm WW2 range make up my collections) but really messed up this time with their range of Falklands figures to such a degree that after the conversation I had with their head guy, I am boycotting them. The casting quality is poor and the detail on some of the figures are vague at best, poor research has produced the wrong type of British mortar, Wrong type of .50cal facing the wrong way on its tripod and Milan gunners about to loose their legs to back blasts. Its up to you, but avoid this range, although one of the command packs have been superbly posed and make a good vignette.  QRF have always made cheaper alternatives to some other manufacturers, whilst their scale and detail may be dubious in some cases, they do make models no one else do. These new figures have filled a much needed gap and I look forward to see whats next. They also do an LVTP7 which is needed if you are doing the 2nd April Argentine invasion.

All we need now are some more Argentine support weapons, 105mm British guns, 155mm French Howitzers, AA guns and BV202's, the last is a must have.

J

Sheffield triples purchases - Jugula and 15mm Falklands

Whilst at Sheffield triples I made a few purchases.

Jugula and 15mm Falklands

Jugula rules and figures

 My First purchases was the Jugula game along with the 2 deck f cards you needed and 4 of the 35mm (40mm) figures you need to play. to play the game you actually need one deck of cards per player (up to 4 people can play at once, so you need 4 decks of cards) and 4 figures per side (Wish I knew that at the start I would have bought 4 more).

Jugula figures

The figures are 35mm foot to eye or 40mm if you prefer in old money and at the moment there are 4 types of figures and a equipment set.  Each figure comes in a fixed pose with separate hands holding weapons and separate heads, shields etc. The casts are very clean and there is very little flash if any on these figures and every one says how nice they are.
You can also purchase a gaming mat but you do get a paper gaming mat with the rulebook. You can just about play the game with 1 or 2 figures per side but you will not get the full effect.

So to recap to play this game you need:

• Rulebook
• minimum of 2 decks of cards
• minimum of 8 figures

This will set you back around £80 and if you purchased the gaming mat around £100+


My second purchase was from the Old Glory Falklands 15mm figures range .  Some of you may have seen my previous post about my MJ figures purchase and I wanted some of the old glory figures to fill in some gaps.

First up are the Argentinian figures.
I purchased a command pack, several infantry pack, a support weapon pack and the HMG pack, I thought I had the mortar pack, but that turned out to be the British pack (or not, see later).

Each infantry pack contains 12 figures in 4 poses. SO the infantry pack gets 12 rifle men, the command pack gets 2 types of officer (one with binoculars and one with a walkie talkie) and 2 types of NCO. The support weapon pack comes with 3 rifle grenades, 3 snipers?, 3 FN-FAL Heavy barreled LMG's and 3 No2's for the FN-FAL's. My fourth pack purchased was the Heavy machine guns, and I only noticed when I got home that they had been modeled back to front, with the .50 cal facing backwards on its tripod.

Argentine packs

School boy error by the sculptor. .50 cals facing the wrong way on their tripods!!!?

Next is the British, I purchased several rifleman packs, 2 of one of the two types of command packs available, Milan packs and what I thought was the Argentinean, I got the mortar pack. Again each infantry pack comes with 12 figures in 4 poses.

British infantry

 Again the riflemen pack comes in 4 different poses, the command pack I had had 3 NCO's, 3 NCO's with maps and 3 Radio operators, and 3 snipers. I really like the sculpts on this pack as they will make quite a nice 'O' Group. The Milan pack comes with 3 Milan operators and 3 No.2's. The Mortar pack comes with 3 mortars with 2 crew each.

Milan teams

 The Milan sculpts are nice but considering the Milan has a back-blast the operator is about to loose a leg. Now to the mortars...
I noticed that the mortars in the British pack are not British Mortars. When sifting through the packs I picked up the mortar pack, noticed the square base plate and bi-pods and said out aloud more to myself then any one as I thought I had picked up the Argentine mortars, "oh they are not British mortars", The main guy at Old glory said back "Yes they are!", I replied again that" they are not British mortars as the British Mortar had a Round base plate and a K configuration bi-pod".

The reply was "And I care...Why?! a mortar is a mortar in 15mm", I left it at that as I was unwell and I did not want to get into a heated argument. Good job I didn't spot that the Argentine .50 cals were wrong till much later.

Erm apparently these are British Mortars???!!!

Overall some o the sculpts are nice, but there is a lot of flash for a new range of figures and the Sculptor could do with doing that little bit more research. He obviously does not care for accuracy which is funny for a figure manufacturer of historical figures, could you imagine him producing a Napoleonic cannon the same as an Austrian cannon and claiming it to be French, Russian or British.

I did mention in passing that all I needed now was some Carl Gustav's and 2" mortars for the command squads to which I got the reply "They are next on my list to make, if I decide to get round to it"

Besides some sculpting errors and the flash, these figures are going to make a welcomed addition to my forces, especially the Milan's and the 'O' Group and I look forward to further additions to the range, but I will not be buying any more of the British mortars or Argentine .50 cals.

Just so every one knows what the British mortar used in the Falklands looks like,  below is a photo.

British Mortar owned by the author, showing the round base and K configuration bi-pod.

 Thanks for reading
Jon

MJ Figures - 15mm Falklands Range

A Very nice box full of MJ figures arrived quite promptly on my Door step, well they would have if I was in, So off down the Main sorting office I went and collected my goody box of figures.

My initial thoughts were "WOW! what nice figures" and my thoughts are still "WOW! what nice figures".


Initial Order. The Helicopter is from Corgi.

I ordered almost every thing; Even the penguins. The only packs I did not order was the Gurkha's and the Panhard armoured car. Within my box contained a free pack of Gurkha's, so that was a very nice surprise, and I suspect it was a cunning plan to get me to purchase more...Well...Damn and Blast it will work and I plan to buy more of the figures next month.

So my Initial order contained the following:

2x FALK01 British Parachute.
2x FALK02 British Parachute.
2x FALK03 British Parachute.
3x FALK04 British Marines.
1x FALK05 British Gurkha. (freebie..Yay)
1x FALK07 Foxholes.
1x FALK08 Argentine Infantry for Foxholes.
1x FALK10 Rapier.
2x FALK11 105mm Gun. (Argentine)
2x FALK12 Scorpion, Scimitar Tank.
6x FALK14 Argentine Infantry.
1x FALK15 Penguins.
2x FALK16 British Casualties.

Some of the packs, with quite nice header cards.

I first saw these figures in the late 1990's and was interested in them back then, but they dropped off my radar for quite a while. I do like these figures a lot, although they do seem to be chunkier them most 15mm.

As I say I do like these figures (I seem to repeat my self here a lot) but some of the figures are in strange poses. Several appear to have a back pack on with no detail that I am yet able to to identify and several are in funny poses.
FALK04 British Marines has been dropped from the product lists at the time of writing this, So I will have to wait to see if they re-appear before I can expand the Marines further. I do hope that they are just out of stock.
The figures in the main are very good casts with little if any flash. The down side is that a lot of the barrel ends are missing.

The Argentine figures are all very good, except for the guy who has a weird machine gun and I am not too sure why there is a second bazooka being carried in an nonchalant way which does not look like a Bazooka, This figure is going to be modified by mug-gins here.

I do like the range of figures but I do feel that the range needs revamping and expanding. Each pack comes with a variety of poses and with some different weapon choices.

The infantry packs are not consistent enough and you will have to buy extra to make up sections and platoons, leaving odd figures left over.


FALK01

FALK02

FALK03 and FALK04

Each pack contains a mix of infantry and command figures.  I feel that a revamp of the contents is needed. Putting the Radio operators, Officers and Snipers into one pack as a command pack would work nicely, along with making sure that the Infantry packs each have a machine gunner (I went back and relooked at the packs and in the main every pack does have a GPMG gunner). That way you know exactly what to order.
The Argentines have two Bazookas and what looks like a top magazine fed Machine gun ????. This needs rectifying and again maybe a FN Mag figure would be better suited or the heavy barrel Fal.
The Gurkha's are nice and I may order some more, but they do have an oddly posed figure with something strange in his hands.

This range seriously needs to be expanded with LMG (aka Bren gun), sustained fire modes of the GPMG and FN Mag, .50 cals for both sides, 2" mortar teams, Carl Gustav Teams, Blow pipe teams for both sides, recoilless guns Milan's and 81mm and 105 mm Mortars along with a BV202. and some of the light AA guns for the Argentines. I have had an email form MJ and he has plans to do a BV202 at some point, which I will be buying a few off for sentimental reasons...

Authors own BV 202 MK2E on the day it went to a museum.

All this said it will not prevent me purchasing more of the range, I love these figures despite some shortcomings.

And finally back to that dodgy posed figure... If you can tell me what he has in his hands, It really help.


And the WTF pose is that award goes to.

Oh, the other downside was that my CVR(T)'s only had the scimitar barrel and the Scorpion 90 barrel, to which I will be unable to make up scorpions, but it is no real biggie, and I suspect an email will sort that out.
Hopefully I will have these painted up in a few weeks time, so look out for some Battle reports in the future.

Jon