Photos - 6mm Italian infantry

Italian infantry swarm out of the woods...

... displaying great courage.

Mussolini had something like 50000 service men involved in the Spanish conflict at some stage. Being a poor country itself, Italy's major contribution was in the form of soldiers - most of whom were conscripts.

This post and those that precede it use Irregular miniatures.

I've satisfied my urge to post pretty pictures for awhile. Will return to more mundane topics sometime soon.

Photos - 6mm Mounted Italians

Here are some Italian 'cavalry', approaching the front ...

Like the world wars before and after it, the Spanish Civil War was dominated by the horse a means of transport. There were functioning cavalry units, and both sides used horses for the rapid transit of troops.

Photos - 6mm CV33s

A company of Irregular CV33s advance from cover in the woods...

Italy sent entire armoured formations to fight in Spain. Their most (in)famous vehicle was the two man tankette, the CV 33. Machine gun armed, the tankettes had thin armour and slow speed compared to the new breed of tank appearing at the time. Never-the-less, their appearance in small raids peppers many accounts of the fighting.

A surprisingly high number of them were armed with a flamethrower instead of machine guns. I will use some ammunition carriages that came with some of my artillery models to fashion fuel tanks to be towed by a company of such flame thrower equipped CVs.

Photos - 6mm Fiat CR 32 biplanes

A prominent feature during the Spanish Civil War was the tactical use of aircraft. Russia and Germany 'donated' planes and pilots to the Republican and Nationalist rebellion early in the war. Franco in fact relied upon Junkers to fly his rebels from North Africa to the mainland prior to the advance on Madrid.

One of the joys of wargaming the conflict are the biplanes (at least, I find it so). Here are a couple of Italian CR 32s waiting for clearance...


Irregular make models of many of the famous planes used in the war. Sadly, not the Hs 123. Does anyone know where I can get models of these in 6mm? If so, please let me know.

Photos - 6mm Italian Support Weapons

Italian mortars open up from the edge of town...

Here's a view through the trees ...

An Italian machine gun company lays down suppression fire under direction from their battalion commander.

Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War came early in the conflict. Perhaps better equipped than many of the Spanish, Italy sent thousands of combat troops and a great deal of support to General Franco. Although less famous than the German Condor Legion, Italian regular infantry played a major role in much of the fighting in Spain. Besides infantry and artillery, Mussolini sent air, armour and naval support in large and regular shipments. Irregular miniatures produce models based directly on the Spanish experience.

Photos - 6mm trucks, tractors, heavy guns

This is another Irregular Truck - I think this one's from their WWII German range (?)

WWI artillery tractor (one of my favorites) and limbered heavy artillery...

... to join up with the battery.

Photos - 6mm trucks and cars

The Spanish Civil War was, by all accounts, a very un-uniform civil war, with lots of surplus WWI and civilian weaponry and transport seeing service. Thus, I have used Irregular miniatures' WWI 6mm figures to keep up the variety. Here is a lorry and the 'Paris taxi' from that range...

The war was also one in which the latest prototypes from the arsenals of the chief communist and fascist dictatorships were supplied in largish numbers. Hence, I have also used Irregular's WWII line to further add variety. Some of these models, however, look too 'modern' for the thirties. Not this truck though, I can't remember which catalogue item it is exactly, but it looks the part...

Believe it or not, there are still more trucks to come in future ...

Photos - 6mm Army of Africa Column

A good campaign within which to set early war scenarios is that of General Mola's drive North towards Madrid with the Army of Africa. This was composed of flying columns of roughly company to battalion strength. Besides the famed Moors and Foreign Legion, there were also regular army units and disgruntled Civil Guardia which joined the rebels. With the exception of the armoured truck shown below, I will feature the Foreign Legion and Moors at another time.

An armoured truck of the Legion, closely followed by a (WWI) Austin armoured car, leads the charge...

... closely followed by a company of mounted regular infantry.

The first of lorry mounted infantry arrive (WWI truck ahead of the Fiat) ...

... while, elsewhere in town, the Guardia Civil seize control of the streets in the name of the Junta ...

... as their headquarters elements look on.

All figures are Irregular 6mm. More to come in future. For now, it's back to East Front II ...

Photos - 6mm trucks

These are pictures of two Irregular Miniatures 6mm models which I painted up years ago. The models are a bit knocked around, but holding up pretty good. This is a reposting of a previous entry which had used photos taken 'hot' from the camera. These photo files are processed and cropped to make them more technically suitable for the web (and better looking).

Fiat with militia (could be workers, could be Falange, judging by the blue).

Fiat truck with Army of Africa nationalists.

Expect more photos soon, this is fun!

Al Front! update, and miniatures photos coming soon.

I've been asked to post a few pictures of my miniatures that show a bit more than the previous two snapshots did. They were to give you an idea of what it is we were doing as we tested out our draft Al Front! ruleset for the Spanish Civil Wargame in 6mm.

I've scored a camera now, so I hope to put up a few more specific pictures before too long.

As to Al Front!, it's got to the point (a year after the first printing) that it has been tweaked so much that it actually needs a rewrite. What should be comforting is that it will actually become simpler, although it will still come in at about 20 pages in Word with arial font and few pictures - I'll use the space to make it hopefully easily navigable on first reading (possibly second) and concentrate the charts together after the text. The design challenge there is to try and group and locate the charts on the page so that they don't cause players to have to continually shuffle pages through there turn (I hate that in a game).

Anyway, I'm waiting for the camera to charge up, and try and get something up here in the next couple of days...

Update EFII - Western Gate

We worked out how to play East Front II by email, yipee!

We are now working our way through The Western Gate scenario. I am the Poles, attacking parts of an SS regiment that blocks the way to help in Warsaw. I have just sent Wayne the second polish turn. When I have more time I will post up a bit of a report on the game.

It is a classic game, and pbem is a great way to play it.