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Miniatures Adventure => The Second World War => Topic started by: Onebigriver on November 04, 2020, 05:36:01 PM

Title: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Onebigriver on November 04, 2020, 05:36:01 PM: I've got an Airfix fort from one of their D-Day sets, and I'm curious if anyone has used one in wargaming as an objective? Looking at the instructions only part of the fort could have a removable roof, so I'm wondering if it's worth assembling.

Cheers,
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Ewan on November 04, 2020, 06:29:28 PM: One of my favourite childhood wargame toys, before I even new what wargaming was.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: fred on November 04, 2020, 06:52:31 PM: Is this the twin gun one? It’s the one to me that looks least like any of the actual D-Day defences.

I don’t recall (but this will be from 40ish years ago) that it has that many pieces to put together, so might be worth giving it a whirl, see what you think. But its definitely more toy than model.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Onebigriver on November 04, 2020, 07:06:41 PM: Quote from: fred on November 04, 2020, 06:52:31 PM
Is this the twin gun one? It’s the one to me that looks least like any of the actual D-Day defences.

I don’t recall (but this will be from 40ish years ago) that it has that many pieces to put together, so might be worth giving it a whirl, see what you think. But its definitely more toy than model.

Aye, it's this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Airfix-Scale-Coastal-Defence-Modelkit/dp/B00IJZIC5I

Got to admit I'd assumed it was a scale model of an actual fortification!
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: robh on November 04, 2020, 07:20:53 PM: There was a post a while back on Warseer where someone had extensively reworked that model as a Imperial Guard Hill Fortress for 40k. Superbly done with full interior detailing and supporting trenchworks and obstacles.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: has.been on November 04, 2020, 07:54:53 PM: Aeons ago I used one for a commando raid game, using the (then new) WRG Infantry Action rules.
Great fun, especially when the clouds (diced for) kept covering/uncovering the moon at times
that frustrated one side, or the other.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: fred on November 04, 2020, 08:54:46 PM: Struggling to find out much about what this fort may be based on, found one note that it could be based on an English fortification, but this was just a note. And a couple of mentions that this and the other single gun kit where not based on any specific fortification. I have found out they are old, about 50 years old! And that the guns no longer come with springs so that they fire, rubbish.

I did find one interesting diaroma, with this fort next to an Almera bunker. The almera one looks exactly like the 75mm gun emplacements seen quite often in Normandy, and the size of if it almost the size of the airfix one, which just shows how small the airfix one is, not least as the walls are so thin.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: carlos marighela on November 04, 2020, 09:46:00 PM: I suppose you could always use it as a, er....... coastal fort, albeit one of a generic, non-specific provenance. That assumes you have 1/72, 20mm or at a pinch large 15mm figures to go with it.

A ‘Guns of Navarone’ type scenario might be fun.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Onebigriver on November 04, 2020, 10:20:39 PM: Thanks guys, you've convinced me to keep and build it!
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Plynkes on November 04, 2020, 10:30:47 PM: My Airfix commandos must have stormed that fort dozens of times in the 70s and early 80s, accompanied by my tuneless humming of the Guns of Navarone or Where Eagles Dare themes (when it was being guarded by HO/OO Gerbirgsjäger on top of a mountain*).

*One Christmas my dad built me a play table in the attic, it had a beach for D-Day games, a river for A Bridge too Far, and a mountain made from papier-mâché over chicken wire for Where Eagles Dare. I have a great dad. Wish he still made terrain for me like when I was a nipper. :)
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Etranger on November 04, 2020, 10:53:26 PM: Those airfix forts must have been fought over more times than Berwick on Tweed....
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Baron von Wreckedoften on November 04, 2020, 11:16:39 PM: Quote from: fred on November 04, 2020, 08:54:46 PM
I did find one interesting diaroma.....

Now you mention it, those sets did have a curious smell to them.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: gamer Mac on November 04, 2020, 11:30:39 PM: Does bring back fond memories
looking forward to seeing what you do with this
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Rick F on November 04, 2020, 11:33:36 PM: That set, and the other beach fortification one, gave me so much pleasure as a lad over 40 years ago. I blame Airfix for everything that happened to me over the next 40 years lol
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Captain Blood on November 05, 2020, 08:30:37 AM: Quote from: Rick F on November 04, 2020, 11:33:36 PM
That set, and the other beach fortification one, gave me so much pleasure as a lad over 40 years ago. I blame Airfix for everything that happened to me over the next 40 years lol

Yep lol

Seems to me that the world of wargaming is divided between those who blame Airfix and those (younger) who blame GW. The outcome is more or less the same. A life sentence addiction ::)
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: carlos marighela on November 05, 2020, 08:50:58 AM: Oddly enough, as a lad I never had the Coastal Fort. I did have the La Haye Sainte set, in fact I even bought a replacement version many years later. I’m still interested in WW2 but Napoleonics not so much. Still, it is true Airfix have a lot to answer for, as did Britains and to a much lesser extent Timpo.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Ash on November 05, 2020, 10:35:20 AM: Found this on eBay

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Airfix-D-DAY-Coastal-Defence-Fort-1-72/174502841562?hash=item28a12e0cda:g:itMAAOSw8WlfoEqo

I had the 'gun emplacement' with the little 'pill box' & search light, a very long time ago...
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Harry Faversham on November 05, 2020, 12:36:02 PM: Quote from: Rick F on November 04, 2020, 11:33:36 PM
I blame Airfix for everything that happened to me over the next 40 years lol

Yep, it were Airfix wot dunnit!!!

:-*
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Commander Roj on November 05, 2020, 01:07:30 PM: Quote from: Plynkes on November 04, 2020, 10:30:47 PM
My Airfix commandos must have stormed that fort dozens of times in the 70s and early 80s, accompanied by my tuneless humming of the Guns of Navarone or Where Eagles Dare themes (when it was being guarded by HO/OO Gerbirgsjäger on top of a mountain*).

*One Christmas my dad built me a play table in the attic, it had a beach for D-Day games, a river for A Bridge too Far, and a mountain made from papier-mâché over chicken wire for Where Eagles Dare. I have a great dad. Wish he still made terrain for me like when I was a nipper. :)

Wow. Your attic sounds like ‘70’s boys heaven!
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Onebigriver on November 05, 2020, 01:46:36 PM: Didn't realise I was going to kick off such a nostalgia-fest! lol
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Bearwoodman on November 05, 2020, 01:57:37 PM: Quote from: Captain Blood on November 05, 2020, 08:30:37 AM
Yep lol

Seems to me that the world of wargaming is divided between those who blame Airfix and those (younger) who blame GW. The outcome is more or less the same. A life sentence addiction ::)

Exactly! Although I blame both! As a child in the 80s I was amassing a veritable squadron of 1:72 humbrol-daubed western desert Hawker Hurricanes to combat my younger brother's Me 109s, when one day my dad came home with a box of RTB01 Wombles - 10 for each of us. Happy days...
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: has.been on November 05, 2020, 02:36:36 PM: I'm older, I blame Airfix, & Bob O'Brien for his 'Romans Friends & Foes' series of articles in...Airfix magazine.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Plynkes on November 05, 2020, 02:38:27 PM: I managed to combine my WW2 modelling hobby with 40k. When RT came along I was in my mid-teens, and I was introduced to the game by a pal at college. It didn't take me long to convert my lovingly-crafted Tamiya Brummbär (which I had spent hours covering with zimmerit paste made from milliput and had airbrushed too) into a tank for Space Orks.

My old Palitoy Star Wars figures got the same treatment. I made an Ork Dreadnought out of R2D2's body glued to IG88's legs. I was ruthless in my cannibalisation, driven by the power-mad lust to expand my Space Ork Empire! :)
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: BillK on November 05, 2020, 03:43:33 PM: Add me to the list of those who blame Airfix... and Roco, and then Eidai, then Matchbox and Fujimi and Nitto, for the piles of metal and plastic I have today.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Calimero on November 05, 2020, 04:31:55 PM: Quote from: Captain Blood on November 05, 2020, 08:30:37 AM
Yep lol

Seems to me that the world of wargaming is divided between those who blame Airfix and those (younger) who blame GW. The outcome is more or less the same. A life sentence addiction ::)

I blame Airfix too. Especially the Waterloo French Infantry and the Plain Wars US cavalry (*child voice; what do you mean they’re not from the same period?)

And I blame GW too... for almost putting me out of the hobby... ;D
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: fred on November 05, 2020, 05:28:17 PM: I’m definitely in the blame Airfix camp. I recall having big battles with Airfix figures all across my bedroom floor, long before rules and dice where involved. Britains soldiers come into it too.

But looking back at Airfix stuff it does look poor - but they are still churning them out!
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Onebigriver on November 05, 2020, 05:53:18 PM: I blame Airfix, Matchbox, Humbrol, Revell, GW and the c1/35 "made in Hong Kong" toy soldiers you bought in bags at newsagents with out of scale vehicles.

The older Airfix figures are a mixed bag I've painted and based the 4 packs of soldiers that came in the D-Day set (that I'd picked up in the charity shop for £6) and am happy with results. I've also bought the British Infantry set released in 2011 to use on the tabletop.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: gamer Mac on November 05, 2020, 06:28:11 PM: I too blam Airfix
We used to have battles in the garden 40 years ago and my Dad is still finding the odd figure when he does the garden
As for the set under discussion I always found the guns far too big and some of the trenches too small
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: carlos marighela on November 05, 2020, 06:49:08 PM: Back in the day Airfix and Matchbox had the edge. The smaller kits could be purchased at the newsagent. Exotic kit, like Nitto, Fujimi and the like involved a trip to a proper model shop or at the very least a well stocked toy shop.

Airfix was just the gateway drug. The newsagent sold copies of Military Modelling and Battle, which alerted you to much harder drugs.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: bluewillow on November 06, 2020, 09:07:37 AM: I have used it a few times for commando raids and a FJR raid. It is a ok piece

Cheers
Matt
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Onebigriver on November 07, 2020, 11:29:28 PM: Quote from: bluewillow on November 06, 2020, 09:07:37 AM
I have used it a few times for commando raids and a FJR raid. It is a ok piece

Cheers
Matt

Did you do anything with the interior? Was it accessible?
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: bluewillow on November 08, 2020, 07:04:04 PM: Quote from: Onebigriver on November 07, 2020, 11:29:28 PM
Did you do anything with the interior? Was it accessible?

No, but we did move on a successive floor map for the commando game. For the fjr game it was part of a Belgian fortress

Cheers
Matt
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: Cubs on November 08, 2020, 08:49:52 PM: My brother and I used to have so many 'wargames' with the Airfix, Esci and Atlantic sets - all different periods. usually it was 'Soldiers' vs 'Warriors', ie. 'Guns & uniform' vs 'Swords and bows'. I was almost always 'Warriors', because I liked the chariots and big cats from the Gladiator set!
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: fastolfrus on November 09, 2020, 10:52:30 PM: Have mine stashed in the loft, had both the coastal fortifications, but when gaming mainly used the single gun emplacement. Last time I used it was with 20mm and Rapid Fire rules.
Somehow lost the aerial to the radio shack (many years ago - it wasn't glued in place), but found that the hole in the roof was just the same diameter as the plastic stem from a poppy, which looks almost like a loudspeaker....
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: has.been on November 10, 2020, 01:26:06 PM: Many ages ago my youngest brother (Inspired by the film Kelly's Heroes)
put two Poppy stalks on the side of the turret of his Airfix Sherman.
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: 6mmfan on November 13, 2020, 08:27:23 PM: I didn't have it when i was a kid but I picked one up recently which I plan to use for a Chain of Command game. With a bit of work it can come out nice and here's mine. The only other change I planed was to replace the AA gun with a Flak 20mm but i ran out of time.

(https://i.imgur.com/44wejXA.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/f98Qwy3.jpg)

I used this as inspiration and it shows what can be achieved.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/airfixtributeforum/airfix-1-72-coastal-defence-fort-06706-t10271.html
Title: Re: Airfix 1/72 Coastal Defence Fort - wargaming applications?
Post by: fred on November 14, 2020, 09:11:03 AM: That has come out well 6mmfan. Adding the walls to the open back really makes it look a much more solid structure. And the French tanks turret is a nice touch!