US 105mm Artillery and AOP (Plus Fun with Magnets)

Hello All

The sixth platoon for Colours 2013 painting challenge a battery of 105mm artillery. For me this is a staple unit for the US in FOW as the US and their artillery is an iconic WW2 sight for me.

I don't know how visible it is in the photos but the crew our made up of a mix of the normal crew and the winter crew from the Winter AT guns. I wanted to do this to keep the winter theme I have for the army.


This 105mm battery combined with the155mm artillery and the AOP should make for a very potent artillery barrage. With six guns, Anti Tank 5, Firepower 3+ and either re-roll failed hits or a double width template it's quite scary!

For the AOP I decided against invasion strips for now to speed up the painting process, if I have time I will go back and add them later. Otherwise this was a pretty simple model to build and paint (well part from the wing slats, they are a nightmare to get stuck on). For me the AOP is possible the best 40pts you can spend in FOW. The observing ability is pretty good but if you have to attack the column security rule is really good.

My biggest weakness with US Artillery is wanting to get Time On Target every time I fire a bombardment. I have to keep reminding myself that sometimes it's better just to take the all guns repeat option and go for pinning the enemy.

Easy Army Says

Arsenal

Gun Teams

Weapon	Mobility	Range	ROF	Anti-tank	Firepower	Notes
M2A1 105mm howitzer	Immobile	24"/60cm	1	9	2+	Breakthrough gun, Gun shield, Smoke.
Firing bombardments		72"/180cm	-	4	4+	Smoke Bombardment.

While making the 105mm and the Towed Tank Destroyers I noticed they had the same chase, this got me thinking about what I could do with this info as I want to be able to do Mid War and Late War out of the same set of models. Having a look through North Africa I noticed that there are no Towed Tank Destroyers options in the book. So I decided to magnetize the guns on both the 105mm artillery and the Towed TD's so I swapped the guns over to give me more options over the different periods.

I will be honest I got the idea from Mike Haught's guide on this blog Scary Biscuits Studios. I used the same magnets you get with the Battlefront Tank sets. I used four for each gun to extra strenght to the magnet (as you can see from the picture below they work very well).

With these guys done I feel like I'm on the home straight with 21 bases left to paint. I'll probably do the Anti Tank guns next.

As always thanks for reading and until next time.

Ben