Friday 29 September 2017

Falklands Air War

A new little project for me - I picked up the Airwar C21 rules over the summer and treated myself to a few 1/300 jets to have a go with them. I've gone for the Falklands as there is a family connection but equally could've chosen theatres such as Iran/Iraq war, Arab/Israeli, India//Pakistan, Korea or any other latter 20th/early 21st century conflict, real or alternative. If we enjoy the rules the benefit is that the planes and models are very cheap and quick to paint.
British air support was limited in number while the Argentinians, although more numerous, were heavily limited in range and pursued a strategy of bombing runs over air superiority missions, which was only embedded following the successful Vulcan bombing run on Port Stanley airfield and resulted in most of the good Argentinian fighters (Mirage IIIs mainly) being held back to protect the mainland. Certainly British command were expecting to lose quite a number of Sea Harriers, although only a few were actually lost and none in air to air combat - in fact the Sea Harriers gained a fearsome reputation and the nickname 'muerte negra' or 'black death' from the Argentinians.
As such, I have 2 Sea Harriers:

4 Mirage III / IAI Daggers. These can be configured for air superiority or ground attack:

And 6 A4 Skyhawks which were solely used in ground attack modes:




Sunken ship markers

I've had a very busy summer with house renovations again, but have managed to complete another naval commission of 3 British ships of the line. I'm currently working on some terrain in a Normandy Church and some more Aztecs. I have managed to produce some sunken ship markers for my BBIB games: