Chain of Command Imperial Japanese Army

One of the things I keep thinking about is doing some an army mostly using 20mm Airfix figures, something I keep starting but never finish! A long time ago I bought a box of the Airfix Japanese, a box of US Marines and another box of plastic Japanese from Waterloo 1815 miniatures.

As I didn't have Japanese for CoC and encouraged by the possibility they could play Tim's 20mm Americans in the Saipan PSC I dug the boxes of figures out and took a look at them. Sorting them out there was indeed enough figures for a basic CoC Japanese army but, mostly why these projects never actually take off, they needed a lot of cleaning off of mould lines and were not actually that good. This resulted in the usual temptation to put them back in the boxes and forget about them for a while.

Instead of abandoning the project I took a look at what was available in metal in 20mm and thought the Eureka line was nice but rather limited in numbers. Another company, Early War Miniatures, had a much more extensive range though even between the two there were still a few gaps.  Finally Britannia Miniatures could contribute a few of the more unusual figure types I'd need. As Tim is keen to play more CoC and I already have a lot of 20mm jungle terrain from my Vietnam efforts I placed a few orders and awaited the arrival of the non-Airfix not-doing-what-I'd-intended figures!

The Lieutenant from Eureka and the Sergeant from EWM, I'm not keen on the sergeant figure and will probably replace him at some point:

Japanese sections are large at 11 men plus a Corporal. This is the 1st Section, again mostly Eureka with an EWM Corporal:

The 2nd Section, again Eureka with an EWM Corporal:

The 3rd Section. Eureka plus an EWM Corporal and, this time (as the Eureka pack only had 11 instead of 12 figures in it!) an extra Britannia rifleman (can you spot him?!):

The Grenadier Section. The grenade teams themselves are Eureka, the Corporal and the guy with binoculars are EWM and the other five men are actually Airfix!:

Two support weapons, a Model 92 70mm Howitzer and a Type 94 (1934) 37mm ATG all EWM plus a couple of spare Eureka officers:

More support, an Anti-tank rifle from Britannia and an HMG from Eureka:

Four spare infantrymen from EWM:

A Tank Hunting Team from Britannia:

A different Tank Hunting Team from Britannia:

Assorted engineers from Britannia apart from the one on the right which is from Waterloo 1815:

Some armoured support with an EWM Type 95 Ha-Go Light Tank:

More armoured support with an EWM Type 97 Chi-Ha Medium Tank:

I put a bit more effort into these than I have with some of the WW2 stuff I've done and am quite pleased with them overall, the tanks especially look a lot nicer. I couldn't quite decide if I should paint the uniforms in the yellowish colour I finally did them in or a more greenish shade. In the end I chose the yellowish version mostly as the Valejo paint colour was 'Japanese Uniform' and I'd painted a lot of 20mm ARVN in green uniforms so fancied a change! Another choice was to base them on brown/green bases or sand coloured ones, again I went for the sand colour to be different.

One thing this army does illustrate is the sometimes annoying nature of figure manufacturers! The Eureka figures only came in section packs of twelve figures (apart from the ones in caps which only has eleven figures, when I queried this I was told basically 'that's meant to be like that') and of the twelve figures one is an officer with a sword and another is a flag bearer so 1/6th of the figures you get are basically unarmed!

The EWM were a bit more flexible and fit in okay with the Eureka ones though I don't think they are as good figures and of course you can't beat the hefty feeling of a metal 20mm tank! The few Britannia ones demonstrate another not uncommon issue in that they are vastly different in size and design even within the same range so some fit in with the others well and some not so well.

The Saipan PSC looks really interesting and a bit different from the other PSC's I've played so I'm looking forward to getting these figures into action!