"Black Bulls" Division Transports

Over the years I have been building up my collection of British minis for Flames of War. The main focus was supposed to be around the Independent 4th Armoured Brigade, but it seems to flip and flop between that and the main Division they supported being the 11th Armoured Division. I guess the benefit of interchanging between the two gives me some good flexibility with Army building when I game with Greg, and swapping minis around as they both operated together throughout the Normandy Campaign, using similar equipment and having similar structures within their forces. The Black Bulls were a fresh Division upon arrival in Normandy and were one of the main fighting forces thrown into the thick of action in many of the Armoured pushes for each Operation surrounding the battle for Caen. By the time the Normandy Campaign came to an end, they had been badly mauled and if memory serves me well, were pulled off the line to Rest and Refit before the next Operations in Holland.

For this post, I will be focusing on some minis I finally completed after years of neglect. I had bought a box of PSC Universal Carriers some years back and found it to be an absolute cracking box. It comes with 9 sprues total, and offers a wonderful array of Carrier models. Each sprue includes options to build 2 inch mortar, 3 inch mortar, Vickers. 50 cal, AOP and 2 Wasp flamethrower options. Now I initially bought this for my 4th Armoured Brigade Motorised Infantry, but some further research revealed they didn't really use them, rather, they used the American M3/5 Halftracks..

I decided to hand them over to my 11th Armoured who did use them. I have used them in the odd game here and there and after the recent battle Greg and I had, I was keen to finish them once and for all. Now I can tick off another completed project from the ever growing list of things to do.

First up is the standard Bren Carrier model. These are the generic Troop carrying type. The 54 markings that will be seen on all the models denote the 8th Rifle Brigade (Motor Battalion). The Divisional insignia is a Black Bull with Yellow background. I used the wrong colour Green for all models involved and the lacquer has given them a darker, wet glimmer. I don't mind it too much actually, makes them look wet. But the thing I like here is, they will be a different Green to the main Army I do wish to build, so it will help with distinguishing the two. My understanding is that each Brigade or Regiment wasn't co-signed a specific colour or even a standardised colour. It may have been as simple as - whatever colour they could get their hands on. So I go with that....

Second up are the Vickers MMG and AOP Carriers. These can either run around and shoot their MG's or move and deploy the Vickers team on the table before buggering off, or use the OP to call in Barrages across the table.

Finally for the Universal Carriers comes the Wasp (Flamethrower) type. These things were used in the last battle to little effect, as I still need to figure out how to properly run them. Either way, they promise to be deadly against soft targets.

Because of how great the PSC Carrier kit is, I have given consideration to purchasing another box to max out my wautism. I could get another 9 Carriers and make more Bren Carrier models to run Platoons and Companies of Infantry around, or I could just proxy the ones I have now to do the job. Either way is fine, but I really do like how well these models go together. Very easy to build. Crisp, clean lines and great details. Now onto the next part. The M3 Halftracks...

Back to building my original list. I bought a box of American Halftracks which contained the American Crews. Since I wasn't happy to have just empty Halftracks, I needed to fit them out somehow. Luckily with the PSC Carrier kit, I had plenty of spare Crew left over. So I decided to mix and match.

Again, these belong to the 8th Rifle Brigade and I can run them alongside the Universal Carriers in the same Army. I had to do some messing around to get the Crews inside. The OP guy is the No.1 guy. The guy on the .50cal didn't fit properly, but is the No.2, and if you look carefully, there's a guy beneath him crouching, feeding him a box of .50cal rounds, which I thought looked nice. The 54 markings on the fronts didn't fit for some reason. Dunno why as both the decal and the model are both from Battlefront - stupid fucking Kiwis. But I was forced to make a choice, either omit them all together since the decals didn't fit anywhere, or cut them up a bit. So I went with the latter as my wautism needed them on there. On the bonnets, the Air Recognition Star is upside down and despite looking up the bloody Army Census numbers, I still put the wrong numbers on the side of the trucks (They should start with a Z not a T). Good job there!.

And finally, a snap of them all together. This has prompted me to begin working on my next project immediately, so hopefully that should be complete soon enough.

The end.