Modern Army Uniforms

It's inevitable that somewhere out there in wargaming land there is someone, right now, trying to work out the best possible colour match for their ultra-modern infantry cammo patterns.

Well, fear not as Madaxeman.com has the solution - a series of photos, all taken in quick succession, in identical conditions with even lighting and the same camera, comparing many of the worlds sets of current battledress. 

Covering armies across both Europe and Asia these photos will be invaluable if you actually care about this sort of thing, otherwise they will be at best a bemusing sideshow to your main area of gaming. 

Visit the Uniforms of the World gallery to find out more.  

The War Memorial of Korea Museum

I was recently fortunate enough to go to the very impressive Korean War Memorial Museum in Seoul, which has an unsurprisingly large amount of Korean War and post-war Korean stuff in it, as well as some pretty solid ancient history, with uniforms, artifacts, armour and some impressive paintings of the Goguryeo and Joseon eras.

These are the nearly 100 pictures I managed to take before my phone ran out of juice, starting in the grounds with Korean War and post war aircraft and AFVs, then moving inside to the uniforms and kit from the Goguryeo Korean and Joseon Korean Dynasties era.

Some of the Ancient photos can be clicked to give you a marginally bigger but higher resolution original image.

Here's just a taste of whats in store...

RIAT 2016 - the RAF Fairford Airshow

In July I just happened to be on holiday and staying in Cheltenham when the RAF Fairford Royal International Air Tattoo took place... and so a visit to it somehow snuck onto the week's agenda...

Here are some of the photos and videos from Europe's (or possibly the worlds) best military Airshow.

F16 lineup with some Mirages too

The A400M is big...

 USMC V22 Osprey

Tigermeet F16

 A400M's ridiculous display

A line of multinational Typhoons

More Typhoons (well, the same lot from a different angle)

Subtle squadron mottos #134

Greece - still flying the F4

View from the top of the aircraft steps

Same, but seconds later...

Erm... probably a Typhoon?

Typhoon, F35 and the Red Arrows in formation

And slightly nearer...

And hen going away..

F35B in hover mode.  

 Hopefully a video /..

F35B

F35A

Both flavours together

The Red Arrows

Both F35's, B in the foreground

The Red Arrows.  All 10 of them....

F22 Raptors

F22's again.

Saumur Tank Museum

The Musée des Blindés tank museum in the Loire Valley town of Saumur is one of the world's largest tank museums - and I managed to take a load of photos there a couple of weeks ago!

According to Wikipedia the museum has the world's largest collection of armoured fighting vehicles with over 880 vehicles, although less than a quarter are exhibited. Over 200 of the vehicles are fully functional, including the only surviving German Tiger II tank still in full working order!

Black Ops

Just back from a couple of games of Osprey's new-ish Black Ops modern skirmish rules... and I'm pleased to report that they appear to work !

They are set in the same era as Force on Force, but are a lot more beer & pretzels, whilst still maintaining a bit of tactical depth and that real pace that is needed to make a modern skirmish game feel "real"

Here are photos from our games using mostly Elheim modern US figures.

The squad ready themselves to move out

A cautious advance past a stalled technical

Taking cover behind the HUMMVEE whilst the news crew interview a pedestrian

Peering over a concrete barrier

Possibly not the safest place to hide....

Move first, form, a firing line and open up...

Taking cover behind a storage tank

USMC advance cautiously along the street

Matchbox-scale Toyota acts as cover

 The LAW hit the LPG cannister, so we made up a quick rule to allow me to use this flame thing!

Black Ops is available on Amazon.co.uk and also Amazon.com for not that much really.

6mm Neo-NATO and Neo -Soviet SF forces

Having done some wargamer-scale "dabbling" in 1/300th Moderns for a while now (erm... 3 whole large armies and a lot of eBay fishing...) I'd been strangely drawn to the idea of supplementing the increasingly futuristic looking tanks and rather indistinct infantry with some SF Mechs and Walkers.

This new habit started with an unusually restrained initial outing at Warfare 2014 where I picked up a handful of Mechs and Walkers from Ground Zero Games. But then... I caved in and did some online shopping...

Now, 2 years later, it's all gone SF mad!

There are now two full pages and loads of photos of this stuff being painted and fully finished for you to browse on this website.

Of course, I have no rules yet but with Salute! coming up I think I will be investing in Horizon Wars (the new Osprey set), and possibly probably FWC as well.

Mainforce 6mm British infantry in 1980's DPM

Out of the many painting projects I have been avoiding, these Mainforce prone infantry for CWC have somehow made it to the top of the pile along with a handful of T90's.

See how I managed to generate fairly convincing DPM cammo in 6mm on prone figures here!