German supply dump....

 Near the German HQ ammo and fuel dumps have been setup in a wood....

[ New items: Camouflage netting pieces from AnyScale Models 1/56 range]

The Guns of Nouvion Part 2.

The next morning Robert Odd-Fellowes found something else on his desk.

The previous day, a photo recce had been sent across the channel.

Objective; a site South East of Nouvion.

What was found confirmed the information sent by the British agent in the area. The gun that had been harassing shipping along the coast between the harbours that were his responsibility had been located.

Again he wondered on the fate of the agent .

Along with the photos was confirmation that an attack was to be launched by the RAF to silence the guns, details no doubt would follow.

Blow that line ....

 While Monique had gone to meet the SOE agent,  a group of resistance fighters had gone out to sabotage the branch line the German's were using to move ammunition up to their big railway guns.

---0X0---

They reached the road near the railway line ....

no German's in sight ...so they crossed the road...

waiting in cover for the German patrol to move down the line ...

The German patrol passed by down the line; another moved down the road behind them without incident..

Patrols having passed by, they started to lay the charge on the track ... 

The moved back and set off the charge - there was a harumph and a flash of the explosion ...

As the dust settled they moved away - a hole in track would stop shipments for a while ...

The explosion brought the German patrols in their direction; as they ran across the heathland the Germans closed in ...

The Germans caught a glimpse of movement as the resistance ran to safety...

One of the Germans ran forward, blundering into one of the resistance - the german fired and wounded the other (not badly), the resistance fighter fired killing the german....

The resistance fighter moved quickly to catch up with his comrades, as the Germans fired at them (not hitting them ..)

The resistance make for the safety of the woods...

Nouvion bound ....

 Monique and Jean, hurried through the vineyard to the rendezvous... in the distance they could here the sound of a plane ....

The lysander came in low over the wood... 

and landed in the open area of heathland ... Out hopped the pilot and Harry Rampstead (aka Jacque Poulet SOE Agent)...

Monique and Jean escorted Jacque to the safety of the woodland, after that they would go to the safe house in Nouvion...

Making a vineyard ....

Can't be somewhere in France without a vineyard, so decided to make one. The plan was to use only stuff I had to hand (and buy nothing new !) I'd looked at some examples online of others who made vineyard bases for inspiration.

I decided on 12 bases, each about 8.5 inches long.

First up was the base, thin card with a top part made from coffee stirrers. The holes for the posts and vines were marked out and drilled. Then first job was to put in the posts.

After that I added two training wires using some thin scale ship rigging rope (cotton thread would have done)

Next step add the woody parts of the vines. For this I cut up some old plastic trees into suitable pieces ...

I had just enough to do all 12 bases... 

All the pieces got a wash of brown on the posts and the vine wood painted brown too..

Adding the foliage, I decided on using the pieces off old plastic trees ...

Having added all the plastic tree pieces, one problem a gap along the top ...

the gaps were filled in with loads of little bits of left over foliage clump

to blend together the plastic pieces and foliage clumps, painted over with leaf green

Finally an earth mix for the central part of the bases of the vineyard sections and some static grass round the outside... all done...

Citreon car ...

 A citreon for the use of the germans...

a 1/56 item from Anyscale Models, replacing an overs cale die-cast one I had.

Commandos for special op's...

Added a couple of commandos to work with the French resistance, some second hand figures given a paint refresh...

French Buildings ....

The 1/72 Valiant and Amourfast buildings finished ....

The church (3d Print), painted up ....

a row of four 3d printed buildings....

A barracks or single storey wooden industrial building .... (made from card and printed sides/roof from a free file downloaded in 2016 from the Ebob website, took me a while to get round to using it ! )

Chateau HQ for the germans, trying out a small setup ...

Some French Buildings (4) .. Shop ..

 I used the left over shop front bits from the Valiant 1/72 house and combined them with an ArmourFast 1/72 Farm House to make up a shop...

Some French Buildings (3) .. Church

Had to have a suitable church, rather than faff about and scratch build one to suit I found a nice 3d printed one. I went for the iconic one from St Mere Eglise - printed for 15mm.

Why 15mm ? Any bigger for 1/72 or 28mm and it would dominate the table too much. It is about a foot long and nice inches tall (no bigger in footprint than the church I use for Somewhere in England).

I had to tweak the main door to make it larger, by filling in with cardboard - works ok for 20mm figs - a bit small for 28mm figs, but will work well in game as a backdrop item ...

Some French Style buildings (2) ....

 

This time, a couple of Valiant 1/72 French House/Shop kits, good solid buildings with the option for 'instant ruin' where the top half comes off.  For me I wanted them solid so filled in the slight gap between the two halves with some wood filler.  

I made up the two - one as a shop and the other as a house.....

they'll get painted up at some stage.

Policeman on patrol ...

 The converted figure has now been painted and is out on patrol in Nouvion...

Some French Style buildings ....

 Needed to add a bit of French style housing stock, I've had a  look at the Amourfast farmhouse

I bought two, easy to assemble (reasonably priced). The plastic is a bit thin, but when built it holds together well - extra internal bracing for robustness could be added, but otherwise fine.  They also have possibilities for kit-bashing.

Although 1/72, it is a good size and looks OK with a 25/28mm figure; since they be used with 1/72 (20mm) figs as well then they'll do. 

I have a couple of Valiant 1/72 houses on order to see how they'll size up. I have been ogling some 3D printed items too.

Frenc Policeman conversion...

 Looking at figures already completed for games, I was missing a French Policeman. I had spare 28mm foreign legion officer, so after some fettling and the use of green stuff - Voila ! un gendarme portant une cape..

a few fluffs in the sculpt to fix and then I'll get him painted...

Airfield - hard standing area...

 Things are going slowly on the french resistance game plans, however I've been looking at improving the concrete hard standing areas for airfields.  I found a nice image online with some texture, one of the images from the following https://spaces.hightail.com/space/7UNLYEEs21.  I printed out a few pages and stuck them onto my existing my existing hard-standing board (small MDF sheet)

and also made some smaller sections than can double as a taxi way

if I need more for a game scenario, I can easily make some up