Friday, January 23, 2009

Middle East project


I have decided to start in earnest on my Middle East FOW1918 project. The intels are still a work in progress but are looking good so far (posted on the FOW1918 Yahoo group). I plan on creating an Ottoman Turk Army, Australian Light Horse Squadron and an Arab Irregular Army. I had dabbled in some of the figures like the Rolls Royce A/Cs and some Turkish stands and have all the minis for the ALH but kept putting it off in favor of my 1918 Western Front projects. Since most of those are finished or to a point that I am happy with it is on to the ME.

First will be the Turks. The nice thing about them is that they did not change uniforms or equipment pretty much through the whole war. Next I plan on creating an Arab Irregular Army, this should be a nice project with all the color and Allies available to them.

There are even some nice WoW air support projects for this theater.




Tuesday, January 13, 2009

WoW future releases news!

From: http://merlindex.free.fr/spip/index.php

Wings of War Miniatures série 4 :
Se5a
Pfalz D.III
Breguet 14
Rumpler C.IV-C.VII
Wings of War Miniatures série 5 :
Morane Saulnier N
Fokker E.III
Airco DH.2
Halberstadt D.III
Wings of War Miniatures séries 6 :
Hanriot HD.1 ( ?)
Sopwith Triplane ( ?)


These are some great releases and I am especially looking forward to the early planes in Series 5. No idea on the actual in-store date but probably not till mid/late 2009. Worth the wait!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Jasta 12, Albatros D.V, late 1917

It has come to my attention that my Tutschek is more than likely wrong. A print showing his DV as having green/purple wings, black fuselage and regular white edged Maltese crosses was posted on the WoW Yahoo group. I will repaint and decal the model and post a picture soon. 01/21/09

Jasta 12 was one of the highest scoring Staffeln during "Bloody April" 1917. The unit markings while under Adolf von Tutschek were a black rear fuselage and tail.



These are to represent mid to late 1917. I used the WoW Albatros D.Va (Jentsch) WW07I model.

Ltn Viktor Schobinger

Unknown

Obltn Adolf Ritter von Tutschek

(I am still looking for proof that he flew an all black D.V. He did fly a D.III so it is possible.)

The crosses are I-94 decals and the pilots are Reviresco.

They will make some nice 1917 air support for my FOW1918 Germans.

Sources:

http://members.cox.net/tbittners/schobinger_d5.html

http://mwmiller.theaerodrome.com/alb/schemes/j12/j12.htm

http://www.theaerodrome.com/services/germany/jasta/jasta12.php

Lieutenant Werner Steinhauser joins Jasta 11

It has come to my attention that my re-paint is incorrect. Steinhauser's plane with the red band and yellow Xs did not have the yellow with red lines tail. His later plane that had a yellow band with red Xs had the tail depicted here and with Baltic corsses. I have painted over the horizontal tail section in camo green so that it is correct. 01/17/2009



Continuing my repaints of Jasta 11 in the Spring of 1918; I have added Lieutenant Werner Steinhauser. Steinhauser joined Jasta 11 at the end of 1917. He scored ten victories before he was killed in action in his DR.I over Neuilly in June of 1918.





I used the WoW Fokker Dr I (Rahn) WW07L model. The pilot is a Reviresco. I really enjoyed the painting and think it turned out okay even with my shaky hand.
There is question about the paint job on his plane. Some have it as a red strip with yellow Xs and others the reverse, yellow strip with red Xs. I used the Osprey JG1 book print as a reference.



Sources:
"Richtofen's Circus' Jagdeschwader Nr 1, Aviation Elite Series, Osprey Publishing, Greg VanWyngarden 2004

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/steinhauser.php

AA MG teams all around!


With most of my main WF 1918 forces mostly finished (still need to build the US) I have started looking at them in more detail. I stumbled across a reference to Lewis gun teams in a British Artillery Battery in the book that I am reading, The Imperial War Museum Book of 1918: Year of Victory (Pan Grand Strategy Series). I started to look at the deployment of AA MG teams closer and discovered that the threat of air attacks was forcing pretty much all nations to have them scattered about. We have added the option of one AA MG team to each Artillery battery of the WF 1918 forces but we reduced the number of teams available as Divisional support to the infantry to two.

I had already created two AA MG (Lewis Gun) teams for my British force but none for the others. I used a Battlefront SAS Lewis gunner. So, I decided to do one for each.


The US version is the Eureka WWII Early War, Wake Island Marines Lewis Gun on a tripod figure with a Minifigs officer as a spotter. No fancy mods, I just cut off the WWII model canteen. This is not exactly correct since most US forces used French weapons. All of the photos I found were of the Hotchkiss machine-guns. Maybe when I get to my US force I will create a correct Hotchkiss version.


The French version is a Minifigs Hotchkiss HMG and artillery crew figures cut in half and grafted together. The tripod is just wire. The spotter is a Minifigs EW officer.


The German version was a little different. One field improvised way of making an AA stand was to use a wagon wheel. The wheel gives the gun a steady, 360 degree platform. So I cut a Minifigs EW HMG in half. Did a head swap to a steel helmet and used a spare Minifigs German lower half. I keep my headless figures from head swaps for just such a requirement. I am not 100% satisfied with the gunner but he will do. The spotter is a LW German Infantry officer with the grenade in the boot removed.

Sources:

Early Anit-Aircraft Weapons, The Small Arms Review, Vol. 9 No. 11, James L Ballou, August 2006

http://www.earlyaviator.com