Staff 600 point Project: Wayne's British

MMG Carrier Wayne’s British Rifle Company

I’m in charge of the website, making sure we have new content each week. I also help the other guys on various projects when they need a hand and I'm also currently working on half a book. Oh, and I hate peas.

I’ve decided to field a 50th Northumbrian Division British Rifle Company. I’ve got a bunch of the older Late War British Infantry miniatures to start with. I started this project before we did the PDF briefing on the 50th Division. I’ve decided my regiment will be the Green Howards (I have friend who is serving with them at the moment).

A quick bit of research and I find the 50th Division was supported by the 8th Armoured Brigade. I decided to select a Troop from the 24th Lancers armed with Shermans to support them. The Sherman Firefly is a Vc, and a quick look at Peter Brown’s excellent article on the British 21st Army Group’s tanks confirms the other tanks are Sherman IIIs.

50th Division, Green Howards
Rifle Company (Confident Trained from Festung Europa, though now I could choose Confident Veteran from the PDF)

Company Headquarters (25 points)
Add Jeep (+5 points)

MMG Carrier
Armoured Platoon Rifle Platoon
3 Squads (135 points)

Support Platoons

MG Platoon
2 Sections (120 points)
MMG Carriers (+5 points)
PIAT team (+15 points)

Armoured Platoon (24th Lancers)
3 Shermans III (200 points)
1 Firefly VC tank (+80 points)

Total 585 points
Wayne's 600 point force
Armoured Platoon, Rifle Platoon, MG Platoon and HQ
Rifle Platoon
For the basing I looked at colour photographs of Normandy in the summer to see the ground colours. In the end I decided to keep the bases relatively simple because, basically, I couldn’t decide on anything more sophisticated. The putty on the base was textured with a little sand and painted brown (nearest colour Vallejo Flat Earth (983)) then dry-brushed with a lighter shade. I then glued grass green static grass to about 80% of the base. Rifle/MG team
Company Headquarters
Rifle/MG team I painted some markings on the shoulders, a red curve for the regiment name and divisional patch using what Jeremy has coined as “hint of markings”. So the black square has just one red T inside, instead of the two T’s of the actual 50th Northumbrian Division’s patch. I added a few NCO rank markings as well.
Rifle/MG team Platoon Command Rifle/MG team
2" Mortar team Rifle/MG team
Machine-gun Platoon
Command Rifle/MG team Vickers HMG team
Machine-gun Platoon
Once the basing was done on my Rifle Platoon and Machine-gun Platoon I started work on the vehicles. First was the three Sherman IIIs and a Firefly and then the MMG Carriers.

I also painted my 24th Lancer Armoured Platoon of three Sherman III’s and a Firefly VC. These were painted Vallejo Russian Uniform (924) and dry-brushed with a little Dark Sand (847) added to the Russian Uniform.
Firefly VC
Firefly VC Firefly VC
Firefly VC Tracks were left black before being touched up with a little Gunmetal Grey (863), being careful to leave the rubber pads black. I painted the tank numbers, unit and tactical markings last. Finally I dry brushed the lower half of the tanks with Green Brown (879) to represent dust and dirt.
Sherman III Sherman III
Sherman III Sherman III
Sherman III I was not looking forward to painting the carriers, but I must say the new all resin carriers make it a lot easier. No gluing together to start with! I also cheated and stole them off Jeremy who had already cleaned them up and glued the boxes and MG’s to them. I pulled the crew out however as I much prefer to paint those separately.
MMG Carrier MG Commander's Universal Carrier
MG Commander's Universal Carrier MMG Carrier
MMG Carrier

I still haven’t painted my commanders Jeep, but he can walk for now.

This project is on hold at the moment while I'm working on some Late War Soviet tanks and Gebirgsjager in Italy, but I hope to get back to it eventually and complete about 2000-2500 points.

Wayne 

Infantry before basing
Command Rifle/MG team before basing Rifle/MG team before basing
Rifle/MG team before basing Company Command team before basing