US WW2 Artillery - part 1, 155mm howitzer

I have been planning a post on American artillery but as some of it is still on the workbench I have decided to do a series of short posts as things are ready rather than wait for everything to be finished.

This is a US 155mm M1 howitzer battery: 4 155mm guns, command stands, staff team, observer plus a Fire Direction Center:

The command stand and Jeep are all Arrowhead Miniatures. The figures are no longer available but hopefully updated ones will come out at some point. I noticed after I took the pictures that I put out the wrong jeep! - this is from a recon platoon where I have added a mortar in the back.

   

The observer stand is also made up of Arrowhead figures:

The Staff team are Arrowhead figures but rather than the map table they produced, I have used a crate from the bits you get with Takara tanks and the map is actually a real WW2 campaign map I found online and reduced, printed and stuck on the 'table'.

Some pictures of the guns. One is behind a log barricade, but this is actually a 15mm Flames of War entrenchment marker - a bit of touching up on the painting and some flock added (the sandbag ones work well too - the touching up needed for the log entrenchments is very minor, slightly more needed on the sandbag version including a wash and dry brush of the sandbags). The shell cases on the bases again come from the bits that are included in Takara tanks. The guns are from Pithead and the crew are from Pendraken.

The Fire Direction Center uses Pendraken tents and Arrowhead figures - this time I have used the map table that came in the Arrowhead command pack and the map therefore had to be painted.

The buildings are TimeCast southern Europe 6mm range: