Swedish cavalry attack in 1942!

Just found this on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SzkNZ_ygtQ

It is a short clip with Swedish Hussars from 1942. It is taken from the movie Löjtnantshjärtan (Lieutenant Hearts or Bleeding Hearts in english).

The last figures (for now)

And here is the last figures in this batch. And now I have started to plan for a third wave. :-)

This is a NCO using a submachine gun. The Swedish army was very late at adopting them. It is originally a Finnish model called Suomi KP/31. The biggest difference between the Finnish and Swedish model was the bullet used for it and the magazine. The Finnish had a round drum magazine, while the Swedish had a straight one. The first Swedish model was called kpist m/37, but it was the next model m/37-39 that was widely used by the army.

Another sooldier with a light machine gun. Same gun as in the first figures, just another pose.

And a second guy with binocular.

And a sitting shooting guy.

Mortar team

Sweden got their first mortar in 1918.

11 years later they got their first "proper" mortar. The mortar is called grk m/29 (Grk = Granatkastare = Mortar). It is a 81mm mortar, originaly from Stokes-Brandts.

Well, now there are just 2 or 3 figures left to show.

Observation team

Next figures I have painted from our new Swedish figures are a observation team. They can be used for the machine gun, the mortar or why not as spotters for off-table artillery?

New NCOs

Next is two NCOs for the machinegun or mortar. What the second figure holds in his hand? Maybe a map or a paper with some important information. Could be something important for a scenario!

New figures

Nothing new in a very long time. I have been playing Dust, working and being with my family instead.

But now I have something new to show you!
New freshly pained figures for my Ådalen range!
It is a medium machine gun with crew. The machine gun was called "ksp m/14" (ksp = kulspruta = ball sprayer) and was used until 1943 by the army. At that time it was transfered to the Home Guard (Hemvärnet). It was not originally from Sweden, but Austria, where it was known as the Schwarzlose MG m07/12. It was used by the Austro-Hungerian army during WW1 and by Dutch, Hungerian and Greek armies during WW2.

The crew wears a standard m/10 uniform.

So when will it be available for purchase? Soon I hope.

Edit: As Hammers on Lead-adventure forum points out the machinegun is a Schwarzlose.

What's up for 2014?

It's a long time since I wrote anything here. Why? I haven't done so much playing lately. During the autumn I played 2 games of Dropzone Commander and 1 of Hail Caesar. Not much.

But what is the plans for 2014?
-The greens for the support weapons are with the caster. So they should be ready soon!
-Making a Åland campaign. Swedes against Russians and Germans! WW1 is over, Russian Civil War is in full swing and Sweden want to take back a few Swedish speaking counties that they lost 100 years earlier. I just need a few more Russians and the Swedish support weapons.

But I don't know what rules to use. A few days ago I played two games of Dust Tactics and liked it. Maybe I would make some easy conversions for my Ålands Campaign and use the Dust rules?
If you want to follow my Dust adventures just go to my new blog: northerndust.blogspot.se.

This blog is not dead. It was just sleeping.

Getting the small men painted

A while ago I started to count all my unpainted figures and it struck me that I would never get all my miniatures painted. I'm not talking about a few unpainted figures here or there, I have whole armies that will never be finished. Around 1000 figures! And that excluding a few hundred fantasy figures. Instead of giving up and throw away everything, I started to think about using a painting service. I send a few Russians to Fernando Enterprises in Sri Lanka to see what they can do.
The figures are from Brigade Games' Storm in the East range (World War One/Russian Civil War). The figures themself are very nice so I asked Fernando to use their "Super Showcase" quality. I send them the figures in the middle of August. As painting guide I send them a picture I found on internet.

Random picture from internet, used as painting guide

Today, a month later, I got the first two pictures for approval.
They look nice; it will be interesting to see how they look in reality.

 

What am I going to use them for? Fight the Swedes for the control of Åland of course!

And another review

Just got the news that WSS (Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy) has reviewed the Swedish Interwar range!

Part Four of my merry band from Strängnäs

After I saw PanzerKaput's brilliant boy scouts I have to do some for me. They are a little bit different from english scouts, they have blue shirts! I will just make a small group of seven.
I will tell you more about their background when I have painted the Scoutmaster.

Bought a few new books

Got a few new books this week. Two of them are about the Russian Civil War. They are translations from russian. Seems to be very good.

What are they good for? Part 5 Russian Civil War

The Estonian War of Independence was a small part of the much larger Russian Civil War. When the Russian Empire collapsed into civil war the Estonians and many others made a bid for independence in 1918. First they were invaded by the Germans, but when they surrendered to the allies they evacuated Estonia. Shortly afterward it was instead the Red that invading the country. They quickly took Narva and advanced quickly toward Tallinn. At Christmas Eve they are just 34 km from the capitol.

At this point the first of two Finns regiment arrived in Estonia to help their neighbors. Many, if not all, of the Finns were veterans from the Finnish Civil War. Estonians and Finns are closely related and their language is very similar. With help from armoured trains the Estonians counter-attack and push back the Reds to Narva.

A force of 1000 Estonian marines and  Finnish volunteers made a surprise attack on Narva and pushed out the Reds. At the end of January Estonia was liberated and instead they attacked into Russia and Latvia. But the Germans hadn't disappeared from the Baltics; there was a large army in Latvia fighting the Reds. Now they invaded again Estonia to create a Baltic state under German influence. To make a long story short a year later the Estonians had defeated both the Russians and the Germans and now they were independent!

The Estonian army had during spring 1919 volunteers from Finland, Sweden and Denmark. There were as many as 300 Swedes in the Estonian army. Most were in Finnish or Estonian units, but they did also have a unit of their own, Svenska Kåren i Estland (The Swedish Corps in Estonia). There were around 100 men in it. Many had fought in the Finnish Civil War, but instead of being an elite unit it was a disaster.

While the soldiers and officers were in Narva, the staff was in Tallinn, drinking. It looks like they used all the corps money for booze. A few months later the unit had a new commander and it took part in battles in southern Estonia or northern Latvia. Very soon half of the men were wounded. Instead of recruiting more Swedes to replace the losses the unit was disbanded. It is possible that low moral made it unusable for battle. It is even possible that there was a mutiny just before the end.

After the disbandment a few joined Finnish, Danish or Estonian units, while others formed "Svenska Vita Legionen" (The Swedish White Legion) and fought for the Russian North-western army.

But did they use Swedish uniforms? In the Osprey book Man-at-arms 305 there is a picture with Swedish volunteers. They don't have Swedish uniforms, but they have helmets that look like the early Swedish. The caption says that it is from 1918 and the helmets are Swedish. The problem is that all my sources say that the helmet was being used from 1921 by the Swedish army, so the text must be incorrect, either it is later or it is some other helmets.



Swedish soldiers at Narva

Expanding the range

Without saying to much, I can say that Aaron of Black Crab Sculpting (who did the first batch Swedes) are right now making a second batch for the Swedish Interwar range!
Just remember that this is Work-In-Progress pictures.

Houses

I'm really bad at making terrain. So when I saw 4ground's new houses I took a closer look. Nice ready painted houses sounded too good to be true. But after ordering a few from Warlords Games I can say that I love them.
So what is good? Good looking, cheap, light.
Bad? Takes an hour to build, smells bad at first.
Verdict? I love them!

The one in the middle and maybe the one on the left could be used for Swedish games. The one on the right is not correct for Sweden. Traditional Swedish houses in the middle of the country (where our campaign take place) are painted red. The paint is actually a by-product from the copper mines in Falun. You can se what they look like here.

And when I shoot the pictures my "assistant" (you can see paint in his face from when we earlier painted the walls in the living room) wanted to be in it too. The shirt is part of a traditional Swedish x-mas character called Pepparkaksgubbe. Why he got it now in the middle of the summer? Beats me, but he was happy.

The third part of Strängnäs Defenders

I10, Royal Södermanland's Regiment. Strängnäs is home to I10, an infantry regiment under the command of Bygg Per Bjällermalm. Even through the regiment have had problems with desertion since the outbreak of the civil war most of the soldiers are left with the regiment. Mostly they are 18 to 22 year olds from Strängnäs and they do actually believe that they defend the towns from enemies, like Dalmasar, that want to loot it and take their girlfriends. They have only had four months of basic training.

At this point in time bicycle troops belonged to the cavalry. This one is the first of a full bicycle squad. I converted a Warlord games British by cutting of his head and gave him a Swedish instead.

Part of the militia comes from the Fria Automobilsällskapet (Free Automobil Society). They are a volunteer group for helping the military with cars and motorcycles in war. Kind of Landstormen (Home Guard) but bikers!

What are they good for? Part 3 Fighting SA and SS

This is the third article about what you can do with your WW1 and Interwar Swedes. In part 1 we talked about fighting Russians, Germans and Finns 1918, part 2 was about VBCW and getting an excuse for fighting the English and now in part 3 we are going to fight the SA and SS in Germany 1935! If that doesn't sound fun then you don't know what fun is!

3 Peace keeping in Saar 1935 - Facing Evil!

Background: After World War One France took over Saar (in south-western Germany) and all their coal mines. In January 1935 the people in Saar voted if they wanted to belong to Germany, France or continue being ruled by the League of Nations (LN). Many anti-nazists had fled to Saar, because it was the only part of Germany not rule by Hitler, and they were for continued rule by LN. Hitler on the other hand saw it as a great propaganda opportunity and wanted the people to vote for merging with Germany. The situation before the voting was therefore tense. LN sent peace-keeping soldiers from United Kingdoms, Italy, Nederland and Sweden to help the local police.
At this point Sweden had no troops that were any good, so instead of sending a battalion they were forced to make a new battalion by recruited a lot of NCO, cadets and officers from all the other regiments. The battalion, known as the Saar- or sometimes Zarbattalion, had only 261 men organized in two companies and a battalion staff. 50 of the men were officers.
The battalion arrived in Saar the 22 of December and because of their inexperience they were placed in Merzig and Becking in northern Saar, which was considered to be quite. It was a correct assumption, the Swedish troops didn't need to deal with any unrest; instead they enjoyed their stay by playing a lot of table tennis with the locals. On the day of the voting some of the Swedes were out on patrol, while the others were ready if anything would happen. Nothing happened. They went home on 18 of February.

What-if: There is at least one possible scenario

There were irregular SA and SS troops in Saar, making trouble. What if they wanted to test the inexperienced Swedes? Then there could have been some skirmishing in the towns and hamlets between the soldiers from the NL-force and SA/SS militia. And what about the German police forces, would they just look on or take part in the skirmishing? Would anti-nazist take part in the fighting?
Then there could have been three-way fighting between LN (Sweden, UK, Italy or Nederland), anti-nazist militia and SA/SS militia.

Forces: 1500 from UK, 1300 Italians, 250 Dutch, 261 Swedes and unknown number from SA/SS.

 

Herman Berglund in front of the building where the Swedish soldiers were stationed

 

More of Strängnäs' defenders

Now when we have met the leaders of the military and militia forces in Strängnäs we will meet the troops. First the militia:




Strängnäs Militia (miniatures by Musketeer Miniatures)

Chief Designer Mjältbring (miniature by Musketeer Miniatures)

Strängnäs Militia. They were mostly recruited through the masonic lodge. Most of the members in the lodge did send their sons or servants instead of joining themself. The leader of the militia is Gunnar Bladmyr and his second in command is Olof Mjältbring, the chief designer at "Bladmyr Textilier". Mjältbring is very loyal to Gunnar Bladmyr, but not long ago they fought over the colour of the militia's uniform. Mjältbring thinks that black is threating and instead wanted a light blue uniform. Since Bladmyr is the boss he got it as he wanted it, but Mjältbring got the permission to make his uniform as he wanted it.

I'm back!

Now I'm back from holiday!
I have been in Turkey, on the south coast, with the family. Just sun, bath and no internet. Since my biggest interest is the Hellenistic time (from Alexander the Great and his dad to the late Seleukids and Baktro-Greeks) you would think that I have been looking at old ruin cities. No. I have not. Only bathing, eating and reading books about Alexander stuff. The book Alexander's Veterans is really really good. It's about the soldiers' perspective and  not the generals.

Anything new on the Swedish front? Well, when I got home I got 4 packages from different parts of the world! Among them are a lot of ww1 russians for gaming the Åland conflict and some interesting stuff from Warlord that will be converted into Swedes and BUFs (more about it later).

The stout defenders of Strängnäs

As I have told you about earlier our club is running a small campaign called A Moderate Swedish Conflict. It is about a civil war in Sweden during the early 30s.

Today I want to show you my gang: AfSS (Alliansen för Strängnäs Skydd), the proud defenders of Strängnäs, a middle sized town (middle size in a Swedish context, mind you) near the frontline.

M ayor Fjätterbom (miniature by Dan Binsack Memorial Fund)

The town's defense is led by Mayor Peter "Patte" Fjätterbom, who is also the Worshipful Master of the local masonic lodge. He has united three different factions in the town and believes that without him AfSS will fall apart and the communists will loot and destroy the city.

Since the outbreak of the civil war he has started to feel paranoid and have recruited a small bodyguard to protect him from would-be assassins. As most sees him as a dork that is more dangerous to himself than anyone else, he is in no danger of being assassinated.



Colonel Bjällermalm (miniature by Ådalen Miniatures)

The leaders of the AfSS factions:

Colonel Bygg Per Bjällermalm is the commander of I10, the local infantry regiment. When the civil war broke out he sided with the Whites and smashed a small uprising Eskilstuna, a town very close to Strängnäs. After this he was contacted by a family member (the family is from Dalarna, which is controlled by the Reds) and he started to doubt the righteousness of the Whites. This has led to the point that he has started to sympathize with the Reds and has started to share secret information with them. He tries his best not be put in a position where he openly must choose side.

Schoolmaster Fjätterbom (miniature by Ådalen Miniatures)

Schoolmaster Anders "Ankan" Fjätterbom is the commander of the Landstormen units (Home Guard) in Strängnäs. He is a younger brother of Mayor Peter Fjätterbom, which he idolizes. Before the war he was a teacher at Thomasgymnasiet, the local upper secondary school. He believes he is popular with both pupils and his privates, but because he threats his privates as if they were his pupils they despise him. Most of them are after all older than him and can’t stand his inept leadership. Anders popularity doesn’t improve by the fact that he has his ruler with him on the battlefield, so he can punish disobedient privates.

Senior Warden Bladmyr (miniature by Musketeer Miniatures)

Chairman Gunnar Bladmyr is the leader of the local militia, number two in the town's masonic lodge and the chairman of a local cloth factory. But that is not enough because he sees himself as the rightful leader of both the masonic lodge and the town itself. He has recently started to demand that people address him as "The Great Leader". He has, for his own expenses, let his factory make uniforms for his militia. The reason is that he believes it is very important that you look sharp when you defend your Country against the Communist Hordes. Since Colonel Bjällermalm has denied him military equipment and arms for his militia, he has instead bought it from his business partner in Manchester.

What are they then good for? Part 1: The Åland crisis

What are these Swedes good for? What conflicts did they fight?

Well, almost none actually.

So what good are they then?

You can game a lot of different what-if scenarios! Here are the first of many ideas:

1 The Åland Crisis 1918 - part of the Finnish Civil War and part of World War One.

Background: Åland is a archipelago in the middle of the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. The population is Swedish speaking, but belongs to Finland since the war in 1808-09. During the Finnish civil war the islands had a Russian garrison of 2000 men. White Guards (Sydvästra Finlands Skyddskår/Nystadskåren) from Turku/Åbo decided to go over the frozen Baltic Sea to confront the Russians. Soon after they arrived, Red Guards, also from Turku/Åbo, arrived too. The two groups started shooting at each other. At this point the Swedish government sent a few warships to help mediate between the Finnish forces and protect the civilians. They all agreed on a peace agreement. A little later the Swedes sent over a battalion (from Göta Livgarde) to help the Finnish and Russian troops to evacuate the islands. At this point the Germans arrived with a reinforced battalion! They were here to help the Finnish government (white) in the civil war. Everyone went home (except for the Germans who went first to Finland and then to the west front). Crisis over.

What-if: There are at least two different scenarios

1 What had happened if the Finnish forces had continued to fight each other? Then there could have been fighting between an alliance of Sweden, White Finland and Germany against Red Finland and Russia.

2 There was at this point a strong opinion in Sweden in favour of making Åland a part of Sweden. The population on Åland was not considered, by Sweden, to be Swedish speaking Finns (like those on mainland Finland) but "real" Swedes. Finland, including Swedish speaking Finns, saw the islands as a part of Finland, and was very suspicious about the Swedish forces on Åland and why they were there. They suspected that they were there to “take back” the islands. So the second scenario is a Swedish invasion of Åland against White Finland supported by Germany and Red Finland supported by Russia. We could here have a nice threesome!

Forces: 1000 Germans, 2000 Russians, 200 Red Guards, 600 White Guards (Nystadskåren), a few hundreds civilians from Åland and 600 Swedes. Both the White and Red Guards were from Turku/Åbo, which by the way has many Swedish speaking Finns.

Nystadskåren was badly equipped; they had only 115 rifles and a machine gun when they left Nystad for Åland. The whole reason why they went to Åland was to try to take guns from the Russians.

The 200 Red Guards were only a vanguard; 400 more arrived after the peace agreement.

The Russian garrison had plenty of good and modern weapons, but their motivation is low, the war is over they just want to go home.

The German battalion is the Prussian Jägerbattalion no 14.

The Swedish forces are three infantry companies from Göta Livgarde and a company of coast gunners.

Swedish artillerymen and Russian cannons in Haraldsbyn, Åland

Prussian Jägerbattalion no 14, the German battalions at Åland