1/76 Pacific WWII UPDATE: Added Japanese!

[Verderer]

Painted these 20mm/1:76 US Marines from SHQ for Pacific games, got a bunch of Japanese as well which I will post soonish. I quite like these ranges, but they do have their curious issues as well. For example, there's no figures aiming BAR rifle (just as there's not equivalent Japanese aiming the LMG), so I had to make one myself for the dug in BAR team. The dug-in troops are conversions, just cut the minis in half, and insert them in terrain bases sculpted from Milliput. They stuck in with blu-tack right now. Need to finish some little details, like paint the mg ammo belts, add radio antennas, some tufts, varnish and so on.

As you probably know, the SHQ minis are somewhat smaller than most current 20mm minis, and as there seems to be creep towards 1:72 these days, they're getting less and less compatible with other ranges. But like I said, I am reasonably happy with them, they're supported with an extensive range of metal AFVs and guns/cannon, and it's not like there's too much Pacific minis available in 20mm, right?

Have some other bits coming for these Marines, Some LCVPs, LVTs & one Amtank, a Stuart and a Sherman for support.

[Golgotha]

Those look great can't wait to see some Japanese.

[BillK]

Great work... and in the true WWII scale! If you're expanding your WWII Pacific and CBI theater stuff, you might want to look at the Force20 OSS Det 101 pack. The Force20 are slightly smaller than most of the 20mm=1/72 offerings... more 1/76. So should be closer to your SHQ figures.

Bill

[Marine0846]

Your figures look great.
Can't go wrong with Marines and Japanese in the Pacific.
of course I would say that.

[archiduque]

Nice work!

[pocoloco]

They are looking mighty fine! 

But what about your Winter War project?

[Verderer]

It's on slow boil, shall we say? I contacted Finnish National Archives about some maps & other information, and they said they would find them and call me back, this was in March... but I will continue once I get these Pacific dudes done.

[pocoloco]

Sounds good.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of maps are you after and what scale?

[Verderer]

It's actually more about technical drawings of some bunkers in Summa/Lähde sector, and some recon aerial photos of the same area. I do have some of these from various books (hence I know they exist), but I want to get my hands on copies of the originals, because in books they're often too small to be useful, even if you magnify them. Maps are secondary, as I already have a couple useful ones.

I will post the Japanese tomorrow, if I can.

[pocoloco]

You have the 1:20000 Summa map from Talvisota by Harald Öhquist? The book does have various similar scale maps of different location and includes also 1:200 plan of "Betonilaite Lä4".

[Verderer]

Sure, I have it and more besides. The trouble with all the maps I have seen is that they give you approximate locations of bunkers/korsu, and the general line of the wire and tank obstacles - but I want more accurate and detailed information all the way down to the trench level.

So aerial photos are really the only way to get any idea, because nobody seems to have deemed it important to map the trenches etc. To be sure, this might be impossible, because the extremely heavy bombardment changed the scenery constantly, but I will at least try. There seem to be some very interesting aerial photos of the area both in Finnish and Russian archives. It's getting your hands on them that's difficult.

[pocoloco]

So I guess the level of detail seen eg. here:

http://www.winterwar.com/M-Line/M-Line3.htm#sk

is not detailed enough?

Lets hope that the narc.fi gives you more information soonish

[Verderer]

I think that website might have added some content since I last visited it, there's some new info there or at least some that I don't recall seeing. It has pretty detailed setup for Summa village, but less so for Lähde/Summa Lake which is where the breaktrough was made by Soviets. Typical, I had to choose the more difficult subject.

[Verderer]

To get back on topic, here's some pics of the Japanese:
















I notice that in the pics and at least on my monitor, the uniforms look a bit too green? I used mostly khaki browns, so in real life they do not look like that. I didn't really fancy the Japanese Uniform colour Vallejo offers or any substitute, hated the mustardy brown, so I used these worn down khakies instead. Works for me, historical accuracy be  damned.

Working on some landing craft as well, got the troops painted for these waterline versions by Sentry models. Sculpted some waves on the base too.

 

[pocoloco]

Great work on the Japanese, the colours used look good to me. I'm especially liking the dug-in MMG and LMG.

Which rules are you going to use?