82nd D-day - Carronade Show 2026

 So as we approach the final month before the Carronade Wargame Show we are doing our last minute preparations for our Omaha Beach Game.  The show is going to be unique this year (for us) as it happens on 6th June ! 

So we are really looking forward to it. We even got our logo on some badges to hand out to link in with D - day. As a keep sake!

So amongst the final details we needed - was another 6ft length of barbed wire. 

Making barbed wire strips.

Please don't try to make the wire from fuse wire etc. it never looks as good. Just buy some at the correct scale from a supplier - ours came from Warpaint Figures in 5m lengths. we got 2 pks (but I recommend 3 pkts  if doing this again) .

So we took a 3 mm A4 sized piece of  mdf board and sliced it up into strips. Then drill it out for posts (sewers). Tip: paint the posts first then cut them up to a size - it will save some time. Next epoxy the posts into place. They need to be really strong. Then leave it to dry.

The next step is the hard fiddly bit...create a loop on the end of the wire  (using a spare post for size) and measure the front and one side (or if you get good at it - the entire outer circumference) of the posts on the strip ("L shape" or rectangular if you are brave). Looping the wire at the ends. If you try to loop around every post you may pull them out so just dab the post with epoxy /super glue on the centre post. Glue the looped posts as well.

Once you have this completed you can use the two internal centre posts too create a "v" shape with more wire (see the second picture above - to see the final shape) 

You also might want to create some section that have been "blown". Perhaps add some signage of your choice. Flock or sand it. Ours will now be covered with  sand to match our beach. The final step is a wash of brown paint over the wire.

But...whilst in my local gaming shop - I could not help but notice ...another set of figures (they we shouting "buy me"!) 

So this will add to the US force of 300+ plastics and keep me occupied until the show date..You can never have enough for D-day...

So that's the entire board ready! We just need a convoy of cars to put it all in. LOL.

D-Day here we go...!

Back to Omaha 2

 As a follow up to the last post, in addition to the trenches - I also got some more M4A1 Sherman's and I then printed out the snorkel exhausts from my own pla printer.

These came from 3D print valley (without the exhaust snorkels).

The tanks come surprisingly in 4 parts see below. 

I was impressed. I bought these to see what they were like (not a freebie) . These are really clean, flat prints with very little or no cleaning up. You really would need to look close to see print lines - if any. My own  pla printer could not get near this  quality. 

Meanwhile the Les Moulins side of the Omaha board has had a coat of base colour. Now the trenches are cut to size.

We still need to match it on the right side to the other board.

We also tried out the bunker (made from foam) by sinking it into the board. We are still to do the roof.

More flock and static grass needed!

Starting to get there... we want more beach/sand in front of the cliff so we are going to sand the orange/sand boards to blend in...and that will be for the other side as well

New half of our board...

It will also have a 4ft x 6ft sea mat in front of the beach . 

Back to Omaha 1

 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