The 1980s Austrian Mechanised Brigade which made an appearance earlier in the week is now complete. The question was asked - "Why Austrians?" The answer is that have yet to see a post-WW1 Austrian force on a wargames table which makes my chaps pretty unusual, and that the model of the Saurer APC (by C in C) makes it feasible.
Interestingly, nobody asked the arguably bigger question - "Why are you spending time painting tiny bits of metal prior to putting them on a table with other tiny bits of metal an pretending to fight a battle?" But let's not go there....
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The Brigade HQ, with Saurer, a 6-wheeled Pinzgauer radio van and the high-tech AA battery - an M-42! Models by C in C, ISM and GHQ. |
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The assembled brigade, with HQ, 2 Mechanised Infantry Battalions, and a battalion each of tanks, AT and artillery. |
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One of the infantry battalions. I used infantry from GHQ's WW2 US range. |
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The other infantry btl. I had a go a painting the Austrian roundels on these Saurers. |
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The Tank Battalion - GHQ M-60A1. |
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Artillery Battalion with GHQ M-109 and C in C MAN lorries standing in for the identical OAF (MAN's Austrian subsidiary company) variants. The Pinzgauer carrying the spotting team is a GHQ model. |
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And finally - the Anti-Tank Battalion. The SK-105 'Kuirassier' is one of the more distinctively Austrian vehicles. Mine were made by mating the turret from a GHQ AMX-13 with the hull of an M-24 Chaffee. Aside from the hull being a bit too wide it looks more or less right. |
14 comments:
Great painting, I have only done WWII figures by GHQ and am amazed by their detail. You did a good job on the bases too, I have yet to find a material that looks right in that scale but yours came out looking very well.
Who do they fight?
Conrad Kinch
Soviets and their Czech mates. Hypothetically of course...
Ben
Thanks - the GHQ toys are quite astonishingly well detailed and respond very well to my wash and dry brush approach. The flock is by Noch and matches the Hexon terrain tiles I use.
Tim
I like your idea - I suspect that your post-WW1 Austrian armies are unique on the table (at least outside of Austria). It may be related to the fact that the Austrians haven't fought a war since 1918.
PD
Peter Douglas
Detail Peter, mere detail.
You're making me regret selling all my Cold War 1/300th farces 10+ years ago. What rules do you use?
2nd 'Vienna' Panzer Division very much kept their Austrian identity in WW2 and did a fair bit of fighting.
Anyhow, I recall the Austrian speedbumps in SPIs 'Next War'.
Martin Rapier
I have 2PD as a 20mm Megablitz Division - my original Panzer Division actually. Another 'Austrian' division was 44ID which has again graced our tabletops several times.
Top class effort on this Tim. Austria was very much on the frontline during the Cold War and its great to see these bad boys on the table.
10 out of 10.
Paddy
We use NATO Brigade Commander for (as the name suggests!) brigade to division level actions and Megablitz for corps leve battles. Both written (with a lot of help and inspiration from other people) by me.
Paul
As someone else who still thinks it's 1986 I rather thought you approve!
Very interesting to see some modern Austrians. Certainly a change from British & Americans!
TWR
Dare to be different! Last year I did a Greek brigade - who knows what'll be next?
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