North Africa, DAK Poser Shots

Well, as usual, nothing goes as planned.  With the revelation that FOW V3 will be released in February, I thought it best to delay our first game in order to use the one rule set to avoid confusion.  As it turns out, that works out well since I haven't finished basing the British yet, anyway.  The good news is I have finished basing all the painted DAK figures with only the new Pioneers to be finished.  Also, I need to add transfers to the tanks which seems a bit intimidating since I have nearly no experience with it.  

I had a few hours spare this morning so I set up the table and a few pieces of terrain, and took some poser shots after I stared all googly eyed at it for a while...

I am very happy with the current Battlefront desert terrain, and I am looking forward to getting the newly released desert buildings I ordered.  I am especially happy with the theterrainguy mat I bought a while back. Originally I had thought the color was a bit too monotone for my liking and I was going to dry brush it this weekend, but after laying it out and putting some terrain on it, it looks great; matches the new terrain quite well.  As you can see in the immediate picture above, I finally settled on Tan-Earth (Vallejo 70874) as the base color.  This color works well with both the mat and the terrain.  Again, very happy with how it is all coming together.

I bought the 8'x4' theterrainguy mat since my table is that size, and then I have the option of using an 8'x4' table for larger battles.  This worked well with Warhammer 40K.   Most of the time a 6'x4' table is used and the extra two feet is used for staging the armies, supplies and casualties.

Next, the British and the much anticipated new rule books.

B-17G Ball Turret Gunner

My grandson and I decided to drive to the Chino Planes of Fame museum today.  We were particularly interested in the B-17G they have parked out in front, the Piccadilly Lilly II, since my grandson's great grandfather flew in B-17's during the war. They are currently working on restoring the plane to flying condition.  According to to the informative attendant, the restoration will take many years to complete.

Climbing into the plane, although seemingly large from the outside, was very cramped inside.   What was nothing short of amazing was the ball turret in the belly of the plane.  It is hard to believe that there would be a person in there for hours at a time during flight, and in combat.

A flyer was provided with a collection of newspaper articles and information provided by B-17G crewman.  The following is a snippet of the mission information provided by a ball turret gunner's combat missions around D-Day:

Date         Target                                          Air Time         Bomb Load        Comments
6-5-44      Pas-de-Calais                                 5:05                 12-500#              Called out at Midnight
6-6-44      Caen Area Coastal Defenses           7:15                 12-500#              Take off 3:30 am
6-6-44      Caen Area RR Marshalling yards     7:40                 12-500#              Flight suit off, very cold
6-7-44      Nantes Area                                    9:55                 10-500#              Late Launch

Three days and almost 30 hours of flight.   Was all that time in the ball turret?  A big thank you to that veteran and all that served; it's hard to fathom what they went through.  The Pas-de-Calais mission must have been part of Operation Fortitude, the Allied plan to deceive the Germans where the invasion would occur.

Our next trip will hopefully be to orange county and the Lyon Air Museum where they have a B-17 on display that is in flying condition.