East Africa 1940 - Finished

As mentioned in the previous post, I hadn't come to the blog for some time, life etc gets in the way sometimes and truth to tell I haven't built much new, just added to existing forces for various games.

But I thought it was worth noting that the South African/Kings African Rifles force I blogged about earlier in ts buildout is now done, and here are some pix to prove it.

Here is the whole force, in Rapid Fire scale - 2 battalions of South African infantry, one of Kings African Rifles (right hand battalion), loads of Ford 3 and (converted) 1 1/2 ton trucks plus a few Morris 1/2 tonners. In the rear also the  2 pdr AT and 18 pdr artillery batteries and (centre rear) a command group with command truck and Ford staff car. Also in support is an Armoured Car detachment  (left foreground) the Motorcycle company and an Armoured Car company with their trusty Harley-Davidsons and Marmon Herringtons respectively.



WW2 nerds may be interested to know that the South African army in the 1930's opted for a force built mainly around a close copy of the German Motor-Rifle brigade structure, as the distances involved and the relatively dry terrain favours a forec based around wheeled vehicles. That is also why SA took a leading role in Armoured Car development in the 1930's, arguably a skill it has kept going intol modern times. What this means is that its a 3 company battalion wiith more heavy weapons (in theory - not everything was available when WW2 broke out) compared to British and other Commonwealth forces'  4 companies and less generous heavy weapon allocations.

Also, what SA army of the era could be without a Hawker Hartebeest ground attack aircraft, a South African modification of the Hawker Fury/Audax family . Obsolete maybe, but it was there when needed and the opposition was of the same era - East Africa was the last great biplane war and the first test of the SAAF.



Of course no force is truly finished, there are new 1/72nd Marmon Herringtons now out, so I will just have to buy a company of those to join my new (came out last year, SHQ) lead ones. And my opponents has bought two Fiat fighters for his Italians, so I can see a Gladiator in the future.