Planning for the Challenge

I've been feeling a little bit 'unfocused' for a while. Not quite between projects so much as struggling to bring several to a conclusion. I have a number quite usable armies for different periods that I want to expand and I have some vague ideas for future projects that I don't want to rush into. In short this particular wargames butterfly has become stuck in a web of his own making! Don't get me wrong, I'm not in a 'slump', I'm not struggling with time (any more than usual), I've just allowed myself to become distracted by multiple projects to the point where I have ground to a halt unable to make any clear decisions. So this week I have been giving some serious thought on how break the deadlock and I'm using the upcoming Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge to drag myself out of this stalemate. 

In previous years I have gone into the painting challenge with a very clear 'project' as my goal. One time it was painting 6mm armies for the 2nd Punic War; The year before last I focused on a  Pyrrhic army and last year I painted thousands of Zulu's for an Anglo Zulu War campaign. I'm glad I did these projects but it has to be said some were difficult to keep up with. In every case I completed my painting list but said to myself, I want to come back to this and expand at a later date. That date has finally come. Unlike previous years I'm not heading into the Winter Painting Challenge with a huge target list, rather I have a series of small additions to each of the previous projects that I wan't to work on. In short I'm finally getting around to the fun stuff after the hard slog of building the core of several armies. 

2nd Punic War

The biggest additions are a long overdue expansion of my 6mm Polybian Romans. I've ordered enough figures to double my existing Hastati, Principes and Triarii as well as some more Generals and Hero figures. I'm also considering expanding some of the Allied units that go with this army but for now I have left them off my order. The biggest challenge I think I am going to have with these will be getting them to look like the units I already have painted. Thankfully I keep detailed notes when painting new figures so I should be able to keep the painting consistent with those I did three years ago. I'll also need to pay special attention the the basing so they match what I already have. 

For my Carthaginian army I have ordered some more African war elephants. The plan is to re-base my existing pachyderms on bases of three per base rather than the two per base I have now. I'm not doing this for any game purposes, this is purely an aesthetic issue for me. I just think the completed elephant units will look more intimidating than they do now, especially when they are moving towards your troops!

I have also bought more Celts to add to Hannibal's army. These are large deep units with a lot of figures per base and particularly scary when deployed. They will make a very useful (and very colourful) addition to the Carthaginian forces that I already have. 

Pyrrhic Army

I'm not planning on a massive change to this army at the moment. I have some more Generals and Hero models to complete, and I think I have some additional heavy Cavalry to add to the army. To be honest, I love my Pike units, but I almost reached a point (pun intended!) where I wanted to chuck the whole lot in the bin. I wish I had bought the cast pikes rather than open handed figures I went with because the pins I used were not only incredibly difficult to attach but are also very painful when trying to move a unit on the table. The units may look spectacular, but they are a nightmare to store safely and are very difficult to game with. These puppies have drawn more blood than any models I have ever owned or painted before!

Anlgo Zulu War

My Zulu War project last year was by far the biggest I have undertaken so far. I painted a LOT of Zulu's and redcoats last year but they represented only small portion of the troops I wanted to complete. In particular I didn't paint any Natal Native Contingent so I have now bought some and will be working on these soon. I'm hoping to add four or five companies to my existing British forces. A lot will depend on how enthusiastic I get for this but I have also bought some Natal Native Horse and some Boar units to compliment my existing troop options. 

One thing that has been a huge distraction (but but a thoroughly enjoyable one) in recent months, has been a renewed attempt to write my own set of rules for the period. Its been a difficult process but I think I have a working framework in place, although I am still trying to flesh this out in detail. I'm in no hurry to complete this though and when the Challenge kicks off again I probably won't have time for more work on it. I think that putting the project aside for a few months will actually be a good thing because it will give me time to ponder several ideas that haven't been included yet. This is definitely a long term project and one that I will be revisiting again in the new year.

What a Tanker!... in Two Theatres

Earlier this year I started building up a collection of vehicles to play What a Tanker! My main focus has been the war in the Western Desert between the British and Italians during Operation Compass. I have therefore ordered a few  more vehicles and some terrain to continue and expand this project.

I have also been revisiting the idea of playing some Normandy Campaign games using this rule-set. I already have a selection of Tanks from the period and quite a lot of terrain but both need expansion. Some of this featured in my first play-test of the rules but I need to add some terrain if I hope to run a large game for the Rejects. The first additions in terms of armour have been ordered along with some pre-painted terrain to expand my current collection. I'm even considering some ideas for more scratch built terrain (more Boccage!?). A lot will depend on how much progress I make during the Challenge and how motivated I am! Watch this space.

So have I come to any conclusions?
Today I have spent a couple of hours working on my plan for the Challenge and I feel much more focused as a result. At the very least I now have a clear to-do list down on paper rather than vaguely tucked away in a corner of my brain (a scary place with lots of cobwebs). I have a lot of prep to do before the Challenge starts but I feel confident I'll be able to hit the ground running when the starting pistol fires. 

Skirmish at El'Zakir

After the test game I did with the rejects (Skirmish at Siniyat) I have been giving some thought how to run a bigger game for more players later in the year. One idea that I have been considering is giving players several vehicles each from the start; maybe three tanks in a squadron/platoon per player. This would give players a chance to have a more tactical game and, hopefully, encourage more cooperative action rather than a simple 'shoot out'. At the very least it may stop tanks from picking hull down positions and then staying there for the rest of the game. Earlier this week I had a chance to try this out with someone completely new to the rules.

I've had a couple of days off work this week to spend with my daughter. It's her school's half term break - inexplicably out of sync with every other school on the borough (including my wife's) - so I took a few days off work to look after her. This meant I had her at my mercy and she was given a choice of a day out at a Museum of my choosing or a game with me at home. Outmanoeuvred and outgunned she selected my preferred option, the game at home. I took the opportunity to get her playing What a Tanker! with my collection of British and Italian tanks from Operation Compass. She wasn't all that keen to start with but as soon as she brewed up one of my tanks her enthusiasm increased... I should have known better than face my daughter in combat once her blood is up!

The Setup

I set up the table and gave her the choice at what end she started. There was a lot of terrain and intersecting wadi's so this was always going to be a difficult zone to move around. What I hoped was that the difficult terrain would make cooperative tactics between the vehicles in a platoon much more effective. The aim of each side was simply to destroy the opposition and control the battlefield. 

Order of Battle

Given that she had never played the rules before I decided to give the Padawan the advantage of outnumbering my tanks four to my three. She started the game with Two M13/40's medium tanks and two fast L6/40's verses my three Valentine II tanks. My armour was better but the M13's had better guns so this was an interesting challenge. 

The Action

The Young Padawan hasn't played a game with me for a  long time so I was looking forward to introducing her to What a Tanker! ...I should have known better!

The landscape is hilly and bisected by wadi's and large patches of very rough ground and boulders. Not ideal tank country but affording lots of cover. 

The first few turns of the game involved a few traded shots and manoeuvre for an advantageous position. Most of the shots were against frontal armour and predictably little damage was done by either side. My Valentines with their Armour rating of 5 shrugged off every shot. 

Then the Padawan made a mistake with one of her small L6's. She presented its side to one of my tanks. I hit my target then rolled four strike dice for damage, getting one Temporary and two Critical hits. She failed to roll any saves and the tank exploded sending turret high in the air before crashing to the ground. First blood to the British!

Confidence (and cockiness) made me rash and I decided to cross the small bridge to get cleanly across the Wadi. This separated my platoon and gave the Italians a chance to gang up on one vehicle before it could be adequately supported. 

My Valentine try's to outflank one of the Italian M13's. The AP shot screams past the Italian turret, missing by inches. The Italian tanker responds with an amazing turn of speed putting it behind my Valentine. It fires and misses my rear armour. Just as the commander is counting his lucky stars one of the L6's also whizzes around his rear and gets off a shot. This hits, rattling the crew and more importantly damaging the Valentines Optics. 

Another of my Valentines crosses the bridge and has a nice clear shot at the rear of the Italian tanks that just his his mate. Another miss as the AP fails to hit the tempting rear armour of the Italian tanks. 

I move my third tank across the bridge and position myself behind the Italians. They have continued to hit my first Valentine (top left in this picture) and now in addition to the damaged optics its running gear has also been compromised. I manage to turn my frontal armour towards them and fire...scoring a glancing blow against the M13. 

Calm as a cucumber the Padawan moves her tanks and begins to inflict permanent damage on one of my first Valentine. Now it is almost immobile and is trapped with a wadi to its rear and no cover to benefit from. 

Disaster. I fusillade of shots from the Italians hit the frontal armour of my already damaged tank. One hit must have found a weak spot as the tank erupts in flames. I'm in trouble now...

The speed of the small L6 tanks proves its worth. Zipping round behind my 2nd Valentine the Padawan gets a single shot into my rear armour. She rolls three Critical hits and out of five armour dice I fail to save against any. My tank bursts into flames! This fight has gone south for me very very fast!!

I try to extricate my remaining tank back across the wadi. If I can get a good hull down position I may deal some damage back...but then I roll terrible for movement and find myself in the open with my rear armour facing two enemy tanks. Amazingly I survive the first fusillade of shots, although by now I have lost my tracks and am immobilized.  

The second salvo of Italian AP rips into the rear deck of my Valentine and sends the turret spinning into the air. 

Analysis

Note to self: "Stop playing games with the Padawan, she keeps beating me!" 

To be fair the young one did very well, handling her tanks as a cohesive unit and concentrating fire on my most exposed tanks. She got to grips with the rules very quickly and I soon learned to regret giving her superiority of numbers as she was clearly never at a disadvantage. On the plus side she seemed to be enjoying herself (despite turning into a grumpy teenager over the last year) and it was good to spend a few hours rolling dice against each other once again. 

Barbed Wire in the desert

I've been slowly building up my collection of 15mm scale desert terrain for some more What a Tanker! games. I'm not above buying some pre-painted stuff and I have a small but growing collection of the Flames of War desert buildings which have saved me a lot of time and effort. While rummaging through some boxes in what passes for my store cupboard I found another box of Flames of War terrain back from when I was collecting stuff for my Normandy project. A set of barbed wire fences, that hadn't seen the light of day since I bought them! Now I decided to re purpose them for my desert games and that meant a bit of a repaint. 

I removed the wire and repainted the bases using the same colour scheme that I have used on much of my other terrain. I also repainted the cross posts as I didn't like the dark brown colour they came in originally. All the bases were then decorated with a few 'late fall' grass tufts so they match my other desert terrain. Once the wire was returned and fixed in place I gave the four sections a liberal coating of matt varnish and I'm really happy with the outcome. The only additional change I may make is to apply some paint on 'rust' as all the barbed wire I have seen in photo's of the desert doesn't look as shiny as this lot. Each of these sections is 8" long so I only have a total of 32"of wire fence which may not be enough for my needs...I may buy another set and repaint them to match these but I'll wait and see if I need them first.

Wire in the Western Desert 1940

The use of barbed wire in the desert was of limited value as it could easily be circumvented by armoured vehicles. The original frontier wire between Italian controlled Libya and Egypt looked formidable (it was 20-30 foot wide in places  and stretched 271km) but it was primarily built to limit the movement of the Senussi Arabs. When fascist Italy declared war on Britain in 1940 advance patrols from Wavell's command began to dominate the area and regularly crossed the wire, using hooks dragged by tanks to break through the fence.

By the end of the desert war it was the minefield that proved the more effective barrier and even today there are an estimated 17 million active landmines in Northwest Egypt. In a bizarre and worrying twist terrorist groups like IS are taking to the desert to plunder this vast resource of unexploded munitions. A bomb is still a bomb it seems, even if its made from 70 year old explosive! (Source: Newsweek). 

Queen of the Desert - Matilda II

My latest painting project is a pair of Matilda II's, which (when first introduced) were probably one of the best tanks in the British arsenal. Initially designated the A12 the Matilda II was naturally a development of the Matilda I which first saw service in 1938. As seems to be the usual way with tank development the building of a first generation tank inevitably throws up a load of design problems that lead to the second generation on the drawing board almost before the first had even entered service. This was true for the Matilda and by September 1939 the first Mk II's were entering service (only two machines, but with more entering service each month). By the end of its production run over 3000 Matilda II's had been built.

Source: the-blueprints.com

Both Matilda were developed in line with British military thinking at that time which saw the need for three types of tanks; Heavy Tanks; Cruiser Tanks; and Infantry Tanks. The Matilda's were of the latter type which meant they were designed to be heavily armoured but slow moving so they could support the infantry. By the Matilda II a key design specification was that it had to be able to be impervious to the main AT gun at that time, the 37mm. Consequently the armour on the A12 was incredibly thick (up to 78mm on the front) and could wade into battle impervious to almost anything the enemy could throw at it. Indeed early in WWII the 7th RTR attacked the 7th Panzer group near Arras in France and did so much damage - with so little loss to themselves - that panicked shock-waves rippled throughout the German high command. It has been argued that this action contributed towards the German decision to halt the advance towards Dunkirk and bought time for the evacuation. I have also heard it said that Hitlers personal obsessive intervention in tank design (for ever larger tanks with even bigger guns) stemmed, at least in part, from this moment.

The tank may have been slow (top speed was about 15mph) but the Italians found it virtually impossible to disable let alone destroy. Initial Matilda II's were powered by twin diesel AEC 87hp engines although later models retained the double engine configuration but used the more powerful Leyland diesel engines with 95hp each. This double engine sounds complicated but the Matilda II was easy to maintain and run and was generally considered by tank crews to be very reliable.

Matilda II's of 7 RTR during
Operation Compass - Dec 1940

By 1940 more Matilda II's were entering service and in North Africa the 7th Armoured Division put them to good use against the Italians in Operation Compass. They were able to smash their way into the fortified camps the Italian Army had built after invading Egypt and pretty soon proved themselves superior to anything the Italians could throw at them. The reputation of the Matilda II took a bit of a battering in later years as it was slowly superseded by newer, larger and better armed German vehicles but in 1939/40 it could arguable be described as cutting edge tank design.

My Matilda II's are hard plastic Zvezda models and clip together very easily. I added a dab of glue to strengthen the models and then cleaned them before base coating. I have opted to paint them in the Caunter camouflage scheme although its worth saying that there is some debate about the colour I have used. The IWM and Bovington Matilda's are painted in a Grey/Blue colour scheme but it seems they got the colour wrong and the blue should actually be a light grey. The problem is I like the colour scheme, so I have decided to stick with the colour scheme we are familiar seeing.

The Caunter camouflage can just about be seen in this picture of a Matilda II captured by the Italians in January 1941 (Source: Public Domain)

My two Matilda II tanks with the Caunter camouflage pattern.

July and August is always a lean period for gaming and painting because of family holidays and a wealth of other commitments like weddings and birthday parties. But for the most part things are settling back to normal and its high time I made an effort to get my painting, gaming and blogging back on track. 

Skirmish at Siniyat: What a Tanker in the Desert

Earlier today I was finally able to run a Game of What a Tanker! for the Rejects in Posties Shed-o-War. I've been buying and painting early Desert war tanks since April and I now had enough to begin a campaign style series of games using these rules. Each player would start the game with an entry level tank of their choice, but I also have several additional tanks to bring in to keep the game running along. I wanted to give this game a feel like a regular scenario driven game so I set up the terrain with what looked like a strategic objective in the centre. I didn't actually give the players any objectives but they seemed to make them up for themselves, forgetting that the game is purely about killing the enemy tanks. It was fun to watch and for the most part very easy for me to umpire.


The Setup
The game was set in later 1940 and represented a side skirmish of tanks that randomly encountered each other. Vehicles from both sides had been sent to the small village of Siniyat which although abandoned by the locals could be used as a supply depot by either side. Four players started the game each with a single Level one tank each but I brought on three more tanks as the game progressed to keep things moving. As this was a 'learning the rules' test game I also gave all players a couple of special cards to help spice things up. The result was an educational experience!


Order of Battle
Italians
   M11/39 Medium Tanks x3
   L6/40 Light Tank x1 

British
   A9 (Cruiser Mk I) x2   
   A10 (Cruiser Mk II) x1


The Action

The setup - A ring of hills overlooks an abandoned village in the desert. The area is crossed by dry Wadis, dotted with Palms and studded with rocky outcroppings and low ridges. 

The first few turns are taken up with cautious movement as the players come to grips with the rules and the intricacies of the WaT! dashboard and command dice.  

An early set of perfect dice allows Postie to move his A9 into a strong position and get an Italian tank in open sights. He them rolled the perfect hand with three hits (two Critical) to which Richard failed to save any....Kaboom! Richards M11/39 goes up in flames! 

More tanks come on the table and after an hour of static exchanges of gunfire suddenly there is movement and tanks rushing about trying to jockey for position (or just keep out of enemy acquisition!). 

James takes a long range pot shot at the Italian tank threatening Postie on the far hill. Despite landing several shots Richard is able to save time and again, somehow keeping alive. 

James brings his firing even closer but still fails to land a killing blow. 

Despite the apparent disparity in sizes the A10 and the M11/39
are closely matched. 

Ray gets a small L6 Light tank and zips around the fringes of the battlefield looking for a likely target to take a  pot shot at. 

Meanwhile James finally destroys Richards M11 but only because he is able to hit the rear armour. 

Multiple tanks are burning and they are all Italian...the last remaining M11/39 is trying desperately to get away so that the crew can fix some temporary damage but before that can the British tank hits them in the rear as well. With three burning Italian tanks on the field, Ray decides enough is enough and withdraws his outclassed L6 from the game. 

Analysis
By the end if the game nearly everyone had had two tanks and we managed to keep the battle rumbling along for over four hours before things came a head. This of course kept the football obsessed members of the group happy because it meant they could get home to watch the World Cup final, even if it was sans England.

I learned a lot about what to do (and what not to do) for future games. Firstly running a new set of rules with four players that have never used the rules before can be very hard to manage. It was hot as hell in the Shed-o-war and my brain felt utterly fried by the end of the game. I think that future games will go much smoother as now I have a group of players that seemed to be quite comfortable with the rules and didn't really need the help of an umpire towards the end. Based in the success of this game I'll definitely be running another (hopefully for more players and involving more tanks) later in the year. 

Italian M11/39 Medium Tanks

I seem to have been painting Italian Tanks in reverse order (mainly due to delayed orders) so today its the turn of the earliest of my vehicles so far, the M11/39 Medium Tank. These particular models are from Old Glory and are cast in white metal. The quality of the casting was excellent with minimum defects and flash. The only exception was some slight misalignment of the moulds for the turrets but I was able to mostly file this out.

Three Fiat M11/39 Medium Tanks

As its name suggests the M11/39 is an eleven ton tank that first entered service in 1939. It was a development of a specification originally laid down in 1936. and was heavily influence by the British Vickers 6-Ton tank, several of which the Italian army bought for evaluation purposes. The final evaluation tank was ready for inspection by Mussolini in 1938 and 100 units were commissioned. Lack of raw materials and other issues limited expansion of this to the 400 vehicles first envisaged and the development of the M13/40 made the earlier model obsolete.

The finished vehicle had a 3 man crew (commander, driver, gunner) but conditions were still cramped inside this tank. It had bolted and riveted armour plates ranging in thickness from 6mm in the floor to 30mm on the front. Main gun was the 37mm semi-automatic Vickers-Terni L/40 gun mounted in the hull. This was a common feature in several countries tanks of this period but the configuration was short lived. The main disadvantage was the limited traverse available to the gunner of just 16° to left or right.

An M11/39 in Egypt in 1940

The M11/39 was powered by a 12-litre 105hp SPA eight cylinder engine which wasn't really suitable for an 11 ton tank. Reliability for the overworked engine became an issue, especially in the desert where the conditions strained even the most mechanically sound vehicles. Despite its shortcomings this was an important step forward for Italian tank designers and the lessons learned would find their way into the larger M13/40 and M14/41. 

I have painted these in a camouflage pattern adopted by the Ariete division, 4th Tank Regiment, in Egypt, September 1940. It appears to share some similarity with Caunter but covers less of the vehicle and is a single colour. The aim however was the same, to break up the outline of the tank. However from what I have read it would seem that most camouflage patterns were a little pointless in this theatre of war. Dust, heat haze and the dazzling glare of the sun would have done as much to obscure targets as any colour scheme painted on them. 

Front, side and rear showing the National colours on the rear of the MG turret and the company identification colours on the side. 

Italian L6/40 Light Tanks

I have been working on some more tanks for What a Tanker, this time some tiny Italian Fiat-Ansaldo L6 light tanks. These tiny 2 man tanks were originally built as an export product but were adopted by the Italian army and saw service in North Africa, the Eastern Front and domestically in Sicily and mainland Italy. According to the Surviving Panzers website (well worth checking out btw) there are only three examples remaining; one in Italy; one in the Citadel Military Museum in Albania; and the last one in the Kubinka Tank Museum in Russia. Only about 280 were built so its not surprising that so few still exist.

This was a very cramped tank with the commander also serving as the loader and gunner sitting on the left side of the turret. The driver meanwhile had to squeeze into a small area on the right of the hull. Overall the armour was pretty thin with the thickest of 40mm on the mantlet. Frontal armour on the hull was 20mm but elsewhere it was as thin as 6mm. The main defence of this tank was its small profile and its maximum speed of about 26mph. Not much for a crew to rely on when all they had to fire back at the enemy was a 20mm Breda cannon.

Its worth pointing out that the L6 was a development of the much smaller CV33 Tankette and the original specification was for a turreted vehicle with a 37mm gun. By the time this vehicle started to be introduced the gun had been downgraded to a 20mm but they had upgraded the engine to 70hp SDA 4 Cylinder which meant that despite being larger and therefore heavier than the CV series vehicles it was just as fast. The problem was Italian tank development always seemed to be running behind everyone else and by the time this vehicle was in service in significant numbers it was already outclassed by allied tanks. The Chassis of the L6 was later used as the basis for the Semovente L40 Anti-Tank Gun.

Another interesting point is that the Italians were still using Bolted and Riveted armour on an internal frame. The idea was that damaged sections could be easily removed and replaced. However in practice this rarely happened and riveted armour was much weaker than other tanks with a welded construction. In addition the internal frame would also have added unnecessary weight thereby limiting the amount of armour that could be used and still keep the vehicle within its specification. Unfortunately Italian tank designers had to take into consideration not just the tactical requirements specified to them but also political requirements. This held back innovation, used resources inefficiently and slowed down the speed of development. The L6 for instance was the product of a specification laid down in 1936.

Next on the painting table will be some M11/39's. Larger Medium Tanks but in many ways inferior to the L6's containing many of the same deficiencies that meant Italian tanks were always several years behind the designs of their opponents. Despite the inferior quality of their steeds, Italian tank crews were an Elite arm of the Italian Army and certainly didn't lack bravery when facing the British. 

Desert Cruiser Tanks - A9's and A10's.

Its been many years (read 'decades') since I have built plastic kits in any number. In the intervening years my fingers have got fatter, my eyesight poorer and the kits seems to have become more complicated! So it was with some trepidation that I approached my first Plastic Soldier Company tank kit for the British A9/A10. As it was I was worrying too much and the kits were easier to put together than I had feared although their construction was not without its problems. I also had to tackle the Caunter camouflage scheme pretty much freehand and while I have done this on 6mm vehicles I have never attempted it at 15mm.

So as we have already established I am not an accomplished kit builder and I would rate my current skill level as 'intermediate' at best. The PSC kits are excellent quality and the level of detail is mind blowing so I knew that if I could assemble my tanks properly they would look pretty good. Each sprue comes with enough parts to assemble one tank from five variants so there are a lot of 'spare' parts when the model is completed. While its great to be able to pick one of several options when building it does feel a bit wasteful when upwards of 50% of the sprue is destined to be waste. Once I had wrapped my head around the assembly instructions it was a relatively simple process to build these vehicles.

My main obstacle in building these was actually the glue, not the plastic kits. I have several contact cements in my toolbox but all had their limitations. The Armypainter glue was really thick and hard to get out of the tube; my pot of Revel Plastic Cement was so thin it kept smearing over everything; and the remaining tube I had was so 'stringy' it got everywhere! I soon lost patience with them all and reverted to using Superglue and an acceleration spray. Experienced kit builders are probably screaming "nooooo!" but it seems to have worked well and the finished models was relatively cleanly assembled. 

A sharp pencil, a ruler and a steady hand are essential.

The next problem was the painting of the Caunter camouflage scheme. I spent a while researching how to do this and in the end I picked the easiest option for someone that didn't have modellers masking tape or a spray gun. Using a small ruler and a very sharp pencil (cut to a fine point with a knife, just like my grandpa did when I was a child) I carefully drew the outline of the bands of colour across the base-coated tank. I then applied the two colour pattern by hand using a long bristled brush (which makes painting straight lines in a single stroke much easier). When dried I lightly dry brushed some highlights/weathering across the whole model and then applied a watered down ink wash (40% water). The highlights and ink wash toned down the coloured bands making the finished Caunter pattern look much more realistic. It 's still a little dark for my taste but I'm pretty happy with it considering this was my first attempt.

There seems to be a bit of controversy amongst wargamers and modellers about the colours of the Caunter Scheme, which have often been described as being Light Stone, Silver Grey and Slate in a horizontal splinter pattern. According to Mike Starmer* "Period G.Os specify Light Stone No.61 or Portland Stone No.64 at various times and a local variation may have substituted a mixed light blue-grey for Silver Grey No. 28." and many sources suggest the blue colour often seen results from fading silver-grey or as indicated the substitution of a blue grey for the silver grey. Whatever the truth of the matter all colours would have faded quickly in the desert sun and I doubt if there was much conformity between units. I opted for more muted colours and what 'looked right' to me. 
(*British Vehicle Camouflage, 1939-45. by Mike Starmer and Mike Cooper 2008)


Tank, Cruiser, Mk I (A9)

The A9 was designed during the interwar years and first saw service in 1938. It was designed to the doctrine of the British army which divided tank designs into two classes; Infantry tanks which were slower and more heavily armoured and, as their name implies, were designed to support the infantry; Cruiser tanks which were fast 'breakthrough' tanks designed to operate behind enemy lines attacking lines of communication. Viewed from a modern perspective this is very much a cavalryman's way of looking at the use of tanks in war and indeed many cavalry units were moved to metal steads in the years prior to WWII. 

Design was very much influenced by the need to keep costs down and as a result the A9 contained many commercial parts (such as the AEC bus engine) and parts designed for earlier models like the Light Mk III. The hull was made up of large flat plate armour because it was easier to make and the whole vehicle was riveted rather than welded. The A9 was armed with the 2-pounder QF (40 mm/1.57 in) gun which was deemed adequate against tanks but the gun was not able to fire HE. Another feature of the A9 were the two independent machine gun turrets at the front, an idea borrowed from the A1E1 Independent, requiring a crew of six in total to fight the tank. All of these were to become recognised as problems once the A9 saw action and it wasn't long before an upgrade was on the drawing board. 

Tank, Cruiser, Mk II (A10)

The A10 was already being designed to replace the A9 by the start of the war but the first examples did not enter service until the latter half of 1939. Gone were the twin turrets mounting Vickers .303 machine guns, instead being replaced by an enlarged superstructure and thicker armour overall. The engine remained the same as in the A9 but with the added weight of armour this made the A10 slightly slower. 

Both the A9 and A10 suffered from peacetime financial design constraints. despite this they performed well against the Italians in Cyrenaica during operation Compass where they outclassed the much weaker Italian tanks. Arguably their main contribution to ongoing British tank design was that the chassis went on to be used as the basis for the next generation cruiser tank, the Valentine.

I enjoyed painting these (even the Caunter!) and all I need to do now is paint my remaining early Italian tanks...when they turn up! I have ordered some M11/39's from Warlord games but they are currently out of stock so I'm playing a waiting game. I'm heading to the South Coast for a short holiday next week so hopefully by the time I get home there will be small parcel waiting for me.