Back to Omaha

 So as we get our infantry and vehicles ready we also need the geography of the board ready. We planned out the board length to 12 ft x 12 ft  (with an access gap in the middle of 2 ft wide). So this is huge and will require more "bluff/hill" ...we thought it would be nice to show the second bluff (Les Moulins)  and feature  WN66 (maybe a little of WN68 and WN67). So we know that this is squeezed to the actual beach scale but we felt it would be worth it. 

So after reading up some more and also googling it so much ... our brains were eventually saturated with information and videos! We thought we also needed the iconic "Les Sables d'Or" three storey house that made up such a prominent feature of this draw.

So it was now time to get the foam board out.  We needed to match the left side (see below) of our existing WN 72 board... So to start us off I just made a simple template of the side face on paper. This meant we did not need to carry the 77 cm x 101 cm piece with us to the cutting area! 

The right side is 56 cm wide by 105 cm deep. So it is already using a full 6ft a wide board (shown below).

(WN72 - the Vierville-sur-Mer side - half of our planned board). See previous Omaha blog posts.

So then after looking at pictures we settled on a rough design . This is what we came up with...

(it will be added to the left side above to make it to the 12 foot)

Its 3 high density insulation boards high (about 13 cm tall) on the right but drops at a slightly more gentle incline than the previous board.  Our challenge was space... we needed to get as much in but also make the surface playable for a wargame. So we left "figure landing spots" on the cliff / sloping sides. 

The left side is lower and slightly further back (from pics). This allows us to put the MG tobruk and 50mm open casement  (and the three storey house) at the front of the left (blue coloured above) side.

We used grab glue and wooden skewers to assemble it then smothered the gaps with filler. We also did a quick water/pva spray to "settle and harden" the foam. 

The next stage is: 

-trenches (form pictures it looks like they were not all board and timber lined ....

so that will make it easier than the other side.

- bunkers - these will need to be cut with the hot wire tools into the foam and walls built from foam.

- then flock and static grass

So its a little bit further on... but a fair bit to go.

But on Friday I had ordered some (30 off) more casualty markers - which arrived.  These were to add to the other markers I had printed on my own printer (PLA). but these were resin. The print quality is so much better with lots more detail. I quickly painted them up to see how they would look...

These are really detailed but perhaps a little too much gore!

But it just showed me (once again) that the 3d pla cannot match resin on detail.  

But unfortunately I have no where to operate a resin printer! These are as good as any metal figures.

So now its back to digging those trenches! LOL

 
  

  

WW2 Omaha 28mm

In preparing for our Omaha 28mm beach game we needed some 6th Naval Beach Battalion (NNB) guys to help clear a path through the beach obstacles (apparently there were approx. 400 men and 15 vehicles in the battalion at Omaha -we tend to use Wayland Games for our supplies (-we might need to get more guys).

The USN was painted originally on beach party engineers helmets (along with a blue or grey band, the red arc denotes beach personnel)  to stop them getting involved in anything inland. These guys are navy but placed under the Armys control for the beach landing. So anything up to the high water /tide line is their job - to clear. A hard task under fire!

So these models were made using just green stuff putty moulded to a half body - with all extra bits (heads, arms and kit) from the good old bits box. I based them on a clear bases as these will be placed onto our sea mat.

P..S. If anyone knows of  any 28mm "USN" helmet decals let me know. 

The teller mines are just wooden sticks cut and more green stuff for the mine.

I ended up doing about 15 off these guys. So these not only add a "make a path" element to the beach game but also help use up some of the "bits box."

Also got the Wargames Illustrated free sprue of Russian 28 Infantry to make (cheers to Warlord) with so I did a conversion to an US Beach Master. I just thought the megaphone would look different on the beach (look out...he's armed with a megaphone!).

I had to chop the boots and replace with the US leggings, heads and packs

So that's another guy for the beach.

And...just for something different on the German side...I liked the Russian female head and dog on the free sprue.  But I didn't want to go down the "TNT dog" route so...This is what I came up with as an alternative. 

Female German medic with dog transport...

He 'ant nothing but a hound DOC!

LOL