The Season of Mellow Fruitfulness

Hedgerow on the North Downs.

Bolt Action SA 64 Armoured Car

The Soviet Union seem to have based this design for a light wheeled scout car on the German equivalent. Nearly 10,000 were manufactured from 1942 to 1946. The problem is that wheeled vehicles had very little tactical use in the Soviet Union as they really needed roads on which to operate. The Germans had switched to half tracks and light tanks for recon. by 1942.

The model is 1:48 scale from Tamiya.

Pylons on the North Downs

Streaming electricity to London from the power stations on the North Kent coast. In the background are the substations, high-speed rail line to Paris and the M2 linking London to Dover.

Medway Club Megagame

On the 11th, The Medway Club is putting on a Bolt Action 28mm Falaise Gap Megagame to raise money for Remembrance Sunday. I have volunteered to bring extra armour to fill out the forces.

Two Tigers, Achilles, German guns and various transports.

More British stuff including three Churchills, a Sherman, Firefly and Centaur, an M5 light tank, a 6pdr and various carriers.

More German stuff including three Panthers, a PzIV, Stug, Puma AC, self propelled guns and carriers.

Tank War anyone?

Woop, woop!

Everyone welcome.

Bloody Indians Coming Over Here And Fighting For Us

Photo Source

A photo from France, 1916, of some of the Indian volunteers who volunteered to fight for Britain on the Western Front.

Around 1m Indians served overseas in WWI, around 130,000 on the Western Front - around 9,000 died.

Bolt Action Review - Hitler Youth

This is the Section Leader who has acquired a Schmeisser and some ammunition pouches from somewhere. He's the sort of ghastly little prig who the Headmaster chooses for Head Prefect and who denounces you for smoking behind the bike shed.

His keen enthusiastic younger brother and you just know the annoying little tick is going to get you all killed.

The Head Girl, all jolly hockey sticks and panzerfausts. She's beaten up every boy in the school at some time or other.

The Head Girl's best friend.

Struggling with a Hitler Youth winter uniform and rifle designed for a much bigger boy.

Another set of fabulous figures from The Last Levy box. Full of character and ideal for all sorts of shenanigans. This range goes from strength to strength.

Bolt Action - British 'Rhomboid' Tanks in Berlin '45

This is a colourised photo of the Berlin Cathedral taken from the Lustgarten after the Battle of Berlin in 1945. The cathedral was burnt out in May '44.

Have a good look at the destroyed tanks.

Here's another photo.

The tank seems to have been destroyed while running, judging by the tracks.

So what are we looking at? On the face of it the Germans seem to have got two British WWI heavy tanks, maybe MkIVs or Vs, running as part of the last ditch defence of Berlin.

Which also raises the issue of where they got them from:

The British in WWI? The Germans certain used captured British tanks both in the war and in Berlin afterwards to restore order.

The Red Army captured British tanks from the White Russians after the British pull out and some could have been captured by the German Army or Freikorps in the battles around Riga after the war.


Another possibility is that they were captured by the Germans on the Leningrad front in '41, from a Museum, or even from the Red Army. The Soviets were using all sorts of obsolete gear.

Wherever they came from, these two British heavy tanks are a wonderful invitation for a bit of creative modelling and wargaming. I feel a scenario coming on.