70 years ago...

Seventy years ago, as of the time of this post, a battle was just ending in the North Pacific.  Task Group 16.6, USN, under RAdm Charles McMorris, had just successfully disengaged from combat with a superior Japanese force under RAdm Hosagaya Boshiro.  This battle is commonly known as The Battle of the Komandorskis, after the nearby Russian island group.



There are some good on-line articles on the action, with one at Microworks, and another at HistoryNet.  The order of battle is listed in a concise fashion at NavWeaps.



The only book on this specific battle is authored by John Lorelli.







My father served aboard USS Richmond from 1942 through 1945, and was present for this battle.  He never did talk about it much, but one night decades ago, when we were at my sister's house, and my sister and mum were off, my father spoke briefly about his war experiences with my brother-in-law and myself.  He did admit that he was not so scared that day, even though it could have turned out much worse especially when USS Salt Lake City (old Swayback Maru - the ship a visiting German delegation declared in the 1930's as a ship good only for payclerks and cooks) went dead in the water and things were looking grim.  He was much more worried during a patrol a year later, near northern Japan, when, during an unusually clear night, his radar screen picked up an approaching aerial contact out of the west.  This was, presumably, a Japanese recon plane.  Richmond's captain ordered an unorthodox maneuver - he called for 'All Stop' and brought the cruiser dead in the water.  This was to prevent the aircraft from seeing the faintly phosphorescent wake left by the ship.  Minutes seemed like hours as the crew waited for the aircraft to either find or miss them... The recon plane moved closer, closer, then turned away. 







To the sailors of TG 16.6, and especially my father - you are not forgotten.

Almost organized

The painting table is back to a usable point, along with the associated shelving - of course now I can not find the camera!  Just in time as the packages (3 of them) are due to arrive starting tomorrow...


.

Seven squared

Not much to show here - the Great Drive towards re-organization is grinding slowly ahead.  I do have two sets of stuff (books, games, miniatures in each) now - Keep and Sell, and I have found some miniatures that I had briefly (!) forgotten about.  These figures could be a bad thing; more on that in another post.

In other news, Friday last was my birthday... Nothing special, but a order or two was made and the results will arrive sometime soon, with pics following shortly afterwards.


.

More organized???

The Plan continues to slowly roll along...

Pictured above are the remains of my hobby table after the 're-organization'.  Things here are actually improving but it is hard to tell from that angle.  Ironically, after several attempts to fit the pieces together for our space, my table and the shelf just to the right went back to their original positions!

Other pieces of The Plan continue to arrive; the first order of Litko bases is here, and I have purchased some enamel primer for those resin Ahoggyá.  I have not used enamel paints since the previous century...


.

Ahoggyá, part 3

As a small portion of The Plan (see previous post), my lovely wife and I have taken upon ourselves to re-do the little area that my hobby table resided in and expand the capabilities of the room; i.e. we have trashed the place and are re-doing it all including adding her own hobby space!  This of course means that I won't be painting anything for a while...

Fortunately, I snapped a pic of some Ahoggyá progress before they were packed up.

In this pic, one can see the assortment of Ahoggyá arms and armaments:

Quite an assortment.  For my first unit, I am trying to make a rather homogeneous look, rather unlike the Ahoggyá but there you go.
 

Here are some of the steps in the process:

1.  I have clipped the mace from one left arm, and glued a loose shield in its place.  This will be the left (from this view) rear arm.

2.  This time, I have clipped the entire hand from the mace arm, and the entire hand from a halberd arm.  The halberd arm is unarmored, and in trying to make the entire Ahoggyá armored I thought this would be the easiest way.  Eventually, the halberd hand and mace arm will be drilled out for pinning and glue.  Left forward arm.

3.  Right forward arm - this is the standard sword arm, but I have gently twisted the wrist so the sword will not rest so much in front of the Ahoggyá's front eye set ( can't really say face as they have four!).

4.  Right rear arm - this is the standard axe arm, but I have gently bent the arm at the elbow.


It is going to take some doing, but I find the conversion process fun and hopefully will produce some unique miniatures.


.