15mm WWII US Forces for North Africa, Sicily, and Italy

 All,

Alright, enough of Northwest Europe already, right?  Yeah, me too, so I painted up a bunch of stuff for North Africa.  Yeah, I know, I still haven't finished up my Western Desert Commonwealth, Italian, and German forces, but I'm working on it, and still, it's no reason to ignore the Yanks! ;)  So that's what we're looking at here; I'd previously run an abortive attempt to do Americans in Tunisia, but it was a skirmish project and didn't capture the grand sweep of what I really wanted to do, so I halted, backtracked, and worked up a new course of action, and here you see the fruits of my labors.  As with the British and German forces I posted, quite a bit of this stuff was bought, rather than painted, but I'm posting because I still put quite a bit of work into it and I'm looking forward to getting them on the table.

Here's the whole mess, a Regiment of infantry with organic support, plus a boatload of arty, transport, recce, and armor.  Oh, and even some air support!

The infantry regiment, set up as leg infantry under the Rapid Fire order of battle concept.

Each rifle battalion has eight rifle stands, a command stand, three bazooka stands, a 60mm mortar stand, an 81mm mortar stand, two machine gun stands (I'll only use one of them for leg infantry, both for armored infantry, but drop some rifle stands), and an M-1 37mm anti-tank gun.

They've also got a battalion command stand (right), even though Rapid Fire doesn't use them, and a Forward Observer stand, each.

A look at some rifle stands.  Almost all the infantry were painted by buddies at Gajo Minis, who always do a great job for me, I just have to do the basing up myself.

More doughboys/GIs/dogfaces.

And again.  Yeah, you see some bazooka figures on regular rifle stands because I didn't have enough riflemen and the damned Flames of War company box gives you something like 18 two-man bazooka teams, which is about fifteen more than I actually need...

The bazooka stands.

The mortar stands, with 81mm tube on the left and 60mm on the right.

The machine gun stands.  I wish they were water-cooled M-1917s, but oh well...

The M-1 37mm ATGs were actually painted and based by my buddy AJ.  I bought a lot of infantry from him based for a temperate climate, then decided to steal these for North Africa, and just sort of painted over the basing.  Doesn't look wonderful, but good enough for me.

Another look.  Nice figures, they are old Battlefront metals.

A look at some support elements.

To include three beautiful M-7 Priests painted up by AJ.

A couple 105mm howitzers painted up by yours truley.

A quad-.50 cal painted by AJ and a 37mm AA gun painted by me.

A closer look at the quad-.50, which was also grassy based for more temperate climes.

Some M-3 Scout Cars, two of which I bought painted (the two with stars, though I had to repaint the figures to match my stuff) and two of which I painted myself.  

A closer look at one of the Scout Cars I painted up; I'm pretty happy with my dry-brushing job using the lady's makeup brushes ;)

Painted myself up a bevy of jeeps, heavily dry-brushed.

A closer look.

More supports.

I actually bought these painted, then didn't like the dark green color so repainted them, then dry-brushed the hell out of them (and re-did the bases).  I hate having my 15mm vehicles based, but so many of the old Battlefront vehicles have them molded on.

A pair of M-20 Utility Vehicles, painted up by AJ.

And a pair of 75mm armed M-3 Gun Motor Carriages/Tank Destroyers, also painted up by AJ.  I probably need another one or two of these, actually...

I know they were near useless in real life, but I just love them!

American metal for North Africa.

Much like the near useless M-3 GMC, I love the M-3 Stuart.  These are absolutely gorgeous, painted by AJ.  Hmmm, not sure why I didn't show all five of them...

And some beautiful M-3 Grants, also by AJ.

So cool!

And look at that stowage!

Four M-10 Wolverines, some of my favorite WWII vehicles, just cool looking.  These were bought already painted off of someone a couple years ago, from TMP if I recall correctly (and sorry I don't rememember who it was).

A closeup.

A gaggle of halftracks, painted by yours truly.  I showed these off previously, for my Battle of the Bulge fights.

A closeup.

And another.  I'm pretty happy with my handiwork.

Then I've got a boatload of Shermans, both 75mm and 76mm-armed versions.  These should be able to take me into Sicily, Italy, and the rest of Europe, maybe even support my Marines on Peleliu or Okinawa, in a pinch.

A closer look.  They are a mix of metals, resins, and plastics, from at least Battlefront and Plastic Soldier Company (possibly others).  I don't mind that they're different shades of green, that probably makes them look more authentic.  These were gotten from the same gentleman as the M-10 Wolverines.

A look at one of the fully-metal Shermans, with hand-painted star.

And how 'bout some early war air support?  In the form of some P-40 Warhawks, of course.  I bought a pack thinking it had two aircraft in it, but it only had one, so then I had to go get another one off Ebay, but I got it secondhand, so I only had the one set of decals and had to stretch it to cover both planes.  I'm such a cheap, impatient bastid...

Coming and going.

And one more look.

Overall, I'm quite pleased that these are finished and ready to hit the table.  Who shall they fight, you ask?  Well stand by, I shall show you tomorrow evening!

V/R,
Jack