Cold War Hot 1958

[irishserb]

My Cold War set in 1958 has finally heated up, and I posted several back-story posts on my blog last week.  The first battle is in progress on my table as elements BAOR's 6AD receives 10 Guards Tank Division.  At this point, I can't tell if this will be a series of smaller battles, or a continuous battle on a rolling table top. 

The campaign uses homebrew rules and 6mm miniatures, though may occasionally feature 15mm figs in some smaller battles.

I've created a page on my blog with links to the back-story and eventual AARs of the battles.  I'll be adding AARs or brief updates about the battle(s) soon.  For those who might be interested, my WWIII page is located at:

http://irishserb.blogspot.com/p/cold-war-hot-wwiii-1958.html

Thanks for looking.
irishserb

[Splod]

Looking forward to this! Your 6mm Bush Wars is inspirational! 

[irishserb]

The game was interrupted by a minor illness, but I finally got the first battle posted on my blog.  It ended up being a small skirmish between recce units.
 Located at:

https://irishserb.blogspot.com/2022/01/world-war-iii-begins.html




Thanks for looking.

[commissarmoody]

Looking good! 

[CapnJim]

Very interesting fight and report.  With the PRC coming on unobserved by the British Recce and the MRR Advance Guard behind the CRP, it'll be interesting to see how the next battle goes.  The MRD may have to lead with the MRR's recce assets, since the MRD recce unit took significant losses in this fight.  Perhaps that Centurion Regiment can get into position to interdict them...

[Splod]

Lovely work! It feels really odd seeing Cold War units represented at 1:1. I'm so used to the 1:5 ratio of Fistful of TOWs and Modern Spearhead.

[irishserb]

I finally posted part 1 of the AAR for my first big battle.  the game took 15 hours over five days with homebrew rules in 6mm.

Here's a pic of the battlefield:


The AAR is located at:

https://irishserb.blogspot.com/2022/03/aar-2a-wwiii-1958-first-big-clash-part.html

Sorry it took so long, and thanks for looking.

[AKULA]

Nice looking game - good tank country!

[irishserb]

Thank you.  I ot part two posted last night at:

https://irishserb.blogspot.com/2022/03/aar-2b-wwiii-1958-first-big-clash-part.html

The Conquerors were impressive, but couldn't overcome Soviet artillery in the end.  A brutal day for both sides.



Thanks for looking.

irishserb

[carlos marighela]

Great stuff!

Saw your query on another forum I was browsing about who makes 28mm US Army with M14 in OG-107 uniforms. Only one manufacturer that I can think of and that’s Killer B games, they do a small range of US Army and it includes an M60, a radio operator and an officer as well as various GIs with M14.

I can’t say the sculpting appeals to me and the M14s look way too short but that’s all that’s out there that I know of and YMMV.

https://killerbgames.co.uk/shop/ols/categories/invasion-x

Actually for 1958 you are better off going with M1 Garands and BARs.  Roll out of the M14 was incredibly slow and a lot of units had only just received them by the time they made the switch over to the M16. If you look at photos and footage of the Berlin Wall crisis in 1961 you’ll see that at the time the wall went up in August the troops on the front line were all armed as per 1945. This caused something of a scandal and M14s were rushed to Berlin, so that by October the Berlin Brigade and the reinforcements sent were mostly M14 armed.

Brigade Games do a range wearing OG-107 and M1 and of course for cooler weather you can always use WW2 troops in M43 coats. Artizan do suitable figures. The only required change might be to file back the buckles on the boots and paint’ em black. Empress’ WW2 range is another alternative.

I will eventually be doing parallel forces for 1961 with my Berlin project and the Artizan/ Empress route is how I plan to tackle the Yanks. If you are creative with plastic card for magazines and brass wire for a barrel it should be possible to convert most model Garands into M14 proxies. You would have to sculpt new webbing though.

Hope you don’t mind answering your query in another thread on a different forum.

[carlos marighela]

For reference sake:





https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/05/27/berlin-crisis-1961-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-m14/

[commissarmoody]

Those are some good ideas and great videos.

[irishserb]

Carlos,
Thanks for the info and the links.  Those Big Picture videos are an absolute blast to watch, and I'll have to check the link on the figs as soon as I finish this post. 

The 28mm M14 armed troops are actually for a "Mars Attacks" kind of game, rather than a hard historical thing.  I just want the M14 armed Cold War troops to kind of add a Hollywood flavor.

By chance, one of the videos showing the British infantry in the M59s, offered some info about a couple questions that I had relating to the 15mm 1958 British infantry that I'm getting ready to work on, so thank you for that as well.

[Frostie]

Great looking table.

I like the idea of the 'Red Gambit' book series of the war in Europe restarting in 1947...Patton did predict it!.

Lots of late war WW2 stuff plus a few new bits and even reactivated German units and equipment....remember the French took thousands of for German Fallschirmjager and sent them to Indo-China to fight their failed colonial wars.

[v_lazy_dragon]

If it's just Hollywood GIs with M14's your after (rather than strictly 1958 GIs with M14s), The Assault Group do a couple of packs of Vietnam figures with M14s