Fleet Air Arm Corsairs

 I had a great time painting up these corsairs for my British Blood Red Skies Fleet Air Arm Squadrons!  I clipped the wing tips to reflect the British aircraft. Apparently, the British Aircraft Carriers had less room between the flight deck and the hanger deck so the wing tips had to be removed so the folded wings fit into the hold. 

The decals are for 1836 Naval Air Squadron, HMS Victorious, during Operation TUNGSTEN and are from my good friend, Kevin, at Miscellaneous Miniatures.  Operation Tungsten was an air strike plan to attack the German battleship Tirpitz in her Norwegian base at Kaafjord.  During the attack on 4 April, 1944, Fairey Barracuda dive bombers, escorted by Corsairs and Seafires from Victorious and HMS Furious conducted level and dive bombing attacks  

I have not had the opportunity to gloss coat and flat coat the aircraft yet. I will post another photo when I get them totally complete.

Hope you like the photos. I am looking forward to trying them out on the gaming table!

Cruel Seas and Airbrush Tutorial

 My Friend AJ of AJ’s Wargaming Blog came to visit yesterday to give me some pointers on airbrush techniques and maintenance. After the airbrush tutorial we had a game of Warlord’s Cruel Seas. It was a nail biting, good old fashioned Donnybrook between my Kriegsmarine force and AJ’s Royal Navy flotilla including an American Elco pressed into British service. 

AJ gives you a blow-by-blow account and shows some game pics HERE. As AJ points out, the real winner was the English Channel as 7 out of the 10 boats/ships engaged were sunk during the battle!

I had forgotten how fun Cruel Seas can be.  It is fast paced and there are many tactical decisions to make during a game.  Each skipper has to think a turn or two ahead to make sure that he doesn’t run into his own boat or random shoal (a lesson I needed to re-learn a couple of times during this game!).  Now that I have been reminded of how much fun this can be, I am looking forward to getting some additional boats painted up - AJ’s airbrush lessons  will come in right handy - and look at the scenario list which is available on the Dock Office FB HomePage.  If you are interested in torpedo boat actions of WWII, I would recommend that you join this FB page and checkout all of the resources available to help you run challenging scenarios or use a new type of boat.  There are a lot of really great ideas out there for you to take advantage of.  

It was a great bit of fun in an otherwise barren gaming season this spring and summer. Thanks to AJ for the great airbrush tips and for a really fun game. I look forward to the next game on the high seas!