Great Scott Marty! It’s the Libyans… to the R-35s!

Today, the next of our new writers, Duncan looks at his early war Australian Divisional Cavalry Squadron for the DAK DAK Go 3 – DAK to the Furher Tournament in January.

Great Scott Marty! It’s the Libyans… A tale of misappropriated quotes and awful research.

Hi I’m Duncan, you might remember me from such south coast based Flames of War tournaments as DAK DAK Go and DAK DAK 2 Go… and today I’m going to be looking at the army I’m putting together for the third iteration of this lovely desert-y tournament run by our very own Lee.

I’m known locally for pretty much playing German’s (I just can’t get enough of that lovely Stormtrooper move) and that is of course what I took to DAK DAK I and II. This has become a bit of a running joke so I decided for DAK DAK III that I would venture out and explore the harder to reach part of our glorious hobby – I decided that I’d take Allies.

So removing my crutch of German Mission Tactics as well as the aforementioned Stormtrooper; I began scanning through the Hellfire and Back book searching for some inspiration. Part of me had forgotten the cool and unusual lists that pop up in a) Early War and b) in the Desert and I toyed with a couple of options trying to weigh up the pros and cons of all of them:

• The British Honey Squadron – full of some of the best EW tanks
• The British – Armoured Car Squadron – full of RAF 1920’s Rolls Royce armoured cars
• British – Divisional Cavalry (Australian) – full of captured tanks and FT troops

I decided to throw another shrimp on the barbie, grab my surf board and say G ’day cobber; I decided to embrace my inner Aussie.

So why the Aussie Div Cav? Well firstly they are cool.  It is widely known that the Aussie were a continual thorn in the side of the Axis forces in North Africa – they just would not shift from Tobruk and fought in the majority of the campaign in North Africa with their own inimitable style.

Secondly they used captured kit. I love captured kit. I have no idea why but the idea of non-standard stuff in lists gives me a lovely rosy glow and the thought of wonderfully quirky EW captured tanks taking the fight to the opposition really appealed.

The final thing was their rules, I think FT is a brilliant rating, being reasonably cheap and reasonably reliable. I also really rate the Swanning Around in the Blue as a special rule. The ability to move an objective 12” both in practical and psychological terms cannot be underestimated.

Having got some momentum I started throwing together a list that I thought was interesting to paint and to play with.

Then hurdle number one came along. I tried to combine captured Italian tanks and 9^th Australian Dice from the awesome Dice of War. That’s an odd little hurdle I can hear you thinking but the problem is that I didn’t realise that only the 6^th Australian used Italian tanks, the 9^th used captured R-35 tanks from the Vichy forces in Syria. Not a big issue for some, but the terrible tyrant that lives inside me, who demands that people used only soup spoons for soup, would not allow me to rest until I had resolved this distressing situation.

Having invested in some cool dice and counters already and with no similar cool dice or counters for the 6^th Australian Division available I did the only sane thing a man in my position could do… I purchased some new tanks.

Captured R-35 Tanks – is there anything sweeter?

A quick rejig of what I had gave me the following list:

I know that there are things that could be changed here – more 2pdrs, 2pdrs with portees instead of the bofors etc.etc. –  but overall I’m happy with the way that list and more importantly I think it will be fun, if unforgiving, to play.

18/25pdrs – the cost effective EW multi-purpose gun.

37mm Bofors Portees… whacky!

25mm Hotchkiss AT guns… more whacky! And 2pdrs… very sensible.

Commonwealth Rifle Platoon – Grr!

Damaged German 10.5cm guns – it’s what we’re all fighting for.

With 90% of the force now painted I think I’m in a good spot for getting everything done for DAK DAK III – however having said that hurdle number 2 has just appeared, apparently in the EW period the Aussie used the Caunter camouflage scheme for their vehicles. I’ll be redoing my MKVI Bs in the very near future then!

I’ve even managed to get a practice game in which further reinforced my theory that captured kit is better than your own nations stuff as the R-35s travelled over 40”, at a slow and steady 8” a turn, destroying everything in their wake to win me the game. They’re so far back at the start of the game – bottom right – in the picture below  you can’t even see them yet!

Here is the, nearly, finished force in its entirety – I hope to be able to do a write up from my games at DAK DAK III so I’ll let you all know how I get on as I’m loving my German break at the moment.

Wait a minute is that a plastic Konigstiger from Zvezda? Oh…