LRDG-crew

At long last I have finished the crew to my Chevy, and also two improvised LRDG-soldiers on foot.

The driver is original as base and has had his right arm switched to one that could hold the steering wheel. The arm I used had short sleeve, so I had to build a new sleeve and also shoulder with green-stuff.

The Boys ATR is metal and from SHQ. The crew-member manning it is also based on the original, but I switched the right arm and the head to suitable pieces from the box of little toy soldiers and shoulder and scarf from green-stuff.

The standing crew-member comes from Revell Scottish Infantry, 8^th Army, and I removed his Thompson machine gun and pinned him to a suitable thin base, and got a figure that had perfect height to man the Vickers.

The wounded man on foot comes from Caesar WWII Underground Resisters. I removed his Sten gun and remodelled his left arm slightly to remove the armband. Also a helmet from the bits-box.

The last man comes from Caesar WWII Partisan in Europe and is straight from the box.

All figures painted with an assortment of sand-colours and browns. Washed with Citadel Devlan Mud.

50K hits! Yep, reached it in record time, so a give-away is coming. I just have to have a bit more time to prepare. 

LRDG Chevy in 1/76 from Revell - WIP

Been working on this for a while, and it starts to look fit for fight. I still have to finish the crew-members, add a Boys ATR for the man riding shotgun and a magazine for the Vickers. Also some pigments here and there. But you get the feeling for how it will look.

A big welcome to follower Paul Smith. I couldn’t see if you have a blog of your own. If you have, then write a note below and I’ll put in a link to it.

I’ve passed 40K hits on the blog, and when I reach 50K and/or 100 followers there will be a blog give-away. Lots of stuff waiting for new owners.

FT-17 in 1/76 from Revell/Matchbox

I’m not sure I should call this a reinforcement to the French forces, but anyway, here it is: a FT-17 from Revell’s remake of the classic Matchbox set with a Char B1 bis and a FT-17 and a scenic piece.

An easy build giving a decent enough little tank.

When I had started painting it, I remembered that the Finnish army had some in the Winter War. It was disliked, and most of them were emplaced as bunkers… It would have been fun to paint one up as a Finn, but that will be in the future.

I’m not sure about the paints use, as my oldest son came and painted some Space Marines and in the resulting chaos among my paints I forgot what I used for this one.

Welcome Grigork with The Magalomaniac (Mwaha), en excellent blog about wargaming with lots of nice terrain. Recommended.

Also a big welcome to sgt.steiner with the blog Sgt.Steiner's Wargaming Blog about wargames, both board, miniature and PC. With a nom de guerre like that, how could you not like him!

Char B1 bis in 1/76 from Revell/Matchbox

My French forces just got a substantial reinforcement with these two brutes.

They come from Revell’s remake of the classic Matchbox set with a Char B1 bis and a FT-17 with a scenic piece. A good set with two very different tanks, one puny WWI tank, still in service in 1940, and one monster, one of the really feared French tanks.

No problems assembling the tanks, great fit and clear instructions. The tracks are soft plastic, and with hindsight I would have glues them in place and shortened the track length a bit. Now they are a bit too long, and don’t fit tight.

When it comes to painting French armour I had a feeling that everything goes, but also had a feeling that that was not the case. Some research into Char B1 bis camouflage found a very interesting French site, chars-francais.net, with a lot of info on French tanks. The page on Char B1 camouflage gave some very helpful colour plates, and I based my tanks on one of those plates.

Paints used (Vallejo unless otherwise noted)

Dark Green: 979 German Camouflage Dark Green drybrushed with 850 Medium Olive

Brown: 984 Flat Brown drybrushed with 818 Red Leather

Exhaust: Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust

Tracks: Gunmetal washed with black and Citadel Devlan Mud

Grille: washed with black.

Decals from Aleran Miniatures, France -40 set for H39 and H35 tanks.

Everything got a couple of coats of matte varnish, and a light dusting of MIG P234 Rubble Dust pigment.

Ready for action.

Welcome follower tomw with his brand new blog Hapless Plastic, about everything modelling in plastic. Well worth a look and it certainly looks promising.

Willys Jeep - a 20 mm comparison

I’ve built two different Jeeps, one Revell/Matchbox in 1/76 scale and one from Skytrex sold as 20 mm.

The Revell one is specified as a CJ-2A on the box, meaning Civilian Jeep, and that one was produced from 1945 according to Wikipedia.

I assume that is a mistake, and classify it as a Willys MB.

Revell vs Skytrex - they do look different…

Let’s look at the dimensions (according to Wikipedia):

The real thing: length 3327mm (I assume that includes the bumper), width 1575 mm

The real thing in 1/76 scale: length 44 mm, width 21 mm

Revell: 41 x 19 (approximately scale 1/82)

Skytrex: 46 x 23 (approximately scale 1/70)

One far to small, and the other one approximately right for 1/72

As to the looks, the Skytrex one does have a strange hood.

Better details on the plastic Revell compared to the metal Skytrex

Finally, a big welcome to two new Followers:

Carl with the blog Hitting on a double 1. This and that on gaming and modelling. Nice!

Mauther with Papermau, a blog on paper models. Good!

LRDG-jeep in 1/76 by Revell

The Revell (old Matchbox) set ”L.R.D.G. 30cwt Chevrolet & Jeep CJ-2A” has been on my painting table the last year. I’ve been fiddling with it now and then, adding some stowage, painting a crew-member etc.

The Jeep has been nearly finished for a long time, and I made a rush the other day. Here it is, with original crew and weapons from the kit. I have added stowage from my bits box, some plastic, some metal.

It is a very nice little kit, fully recommended if you’re into LRDG.

Welcome follower Shaun. Blogger doesn’t show if he has a blog of his own. Make a comment below if you do, Shaun, and I’ll add it in the post.

German motorcycles with sidecars, a 1/72 comparison

A short comparison between the different sidecar combinations I have

- Zvezda BMW R12

- Hät/Armourcast BMW R75

- Revell BMW from the SdKfz 11 set I think

 

Hät vs Zvezda

As you can see the Hät model is crude, huge and the figures are rather…apelike….

Zvezda vs Revell

The Revell model is smaller and less details than Zvezda.

The winner: Zvezda! No real competition here.

There is an Italeri-set that would be interesting as a comparison, but it’s not very high up on my to-buy list at the moment.

German Big Men in 20mm for IABSM

The first batch of new big men for I Aint Been Shot Mom. The idea is to represent a level 1 man with one figure, a level 2 with two, etc up to four men for the highest ranking Big Men.

I have already converted some old figures into level 1 Big Men, simply by placing them on square bases, as opposed to circular ones for ordinary men.

These guys are newly painted.

First of the level 2 Big Men. Figures from Caesar German Army

Another level 2. Airfix German Infantry and Revell German Infantry 

A level 3 Big Man. Figures from Airfix Reconnaissance Set, unknown and Ceasar German Army.

Level 4 Big Man. The officer is a metal one I got from friend Daniel, and he was part of a group build. Great figure. Periscope from Revell German Armoured Infantry. The man with rifle is Caesar German Army, and the one with a SMG is from the Airfix Reconnaissance Set. The man with the back towards us is unknown.

Pak 36 in 1/72 – Comparison Italeri, ICM, Zvezda + 2 more

The final Pak 36 post (for this time at least).

 Italeri, ICM and Zvezda

Here is a comparison of the guns from my previous posts, from Italeri, ICM and Zvezda.

I let the photos speak for themselves.

 Zvezda, ICM and Italeri

As a bonus, the ICM gun next to Revell’s (from the old Matchbox 1/76 Krupp Protze kit, noticeably smaller) and a metal monstrosity from Brittania. I will not even paint the metal one as it is simply too bad. What a horrible thing!

Brittania, ICM and Revell/Matchbox

 

 

There will actually be one more Pak 36 post. I bought two Zvezda kits, and I’m finishing one on the base with crew members. Sooner or later.

Crew for Revell 10,5 cm leFH 18 in 1/72

I built the field howitzer a couple of weeks ago, and the crew has been on the painting table since. Really nice figures.

I started by coating them with glue, to give the paint something to bond to, then white undercoat with black wash to bring out the details.

Paints used (Vallejo unless otherwise noted)

Uniform: 830 German Field Grey

Trousers: 836 London Grey

Helmet: 869 Basalt Grey

Belt and boots: Black

Washed with Citadel black wash

Skin: 955 Flat Flesh

Shirts: 821 German Camouflage Beige (I think)

Skin and shirts washed with Army Painter Quickshade Soft Tone Ink.

Everything coated with matte varnish.

Bye, bye!

Revell 10,5 cm leFH 18 in 1/72

The kit “German Artillery WWII” is a real gem. It consists of two 105 mm leFH 18 (leichte Feldthaubitze), one in a towed position and the other in action, seven crewmembers standing (one of them is less good, I won’t use that one), a six-horse team with three riders, a limber with an additional four crew and one horse with rider. A total of two guns, one limber, seven horses and 15 men in one kit. I bought in on a sale for about €5, a phenomenal price.

So this would seem to be a perfect set, and it would get highest possible grades… if only it had been in hard plastics. Now that is sadly not the case, instead we get a rather soft plastic.

That gave me a lot of problems:

- Glue doesn’t stick, neither ordinary plastics glue, nor my Loctite superglue.

- Some of the tinier pegs broke when I cleaned the flash from them, meaning I had to drill holes and peg the parts with plastic rod. This happened with the peg fastening the gun to the carriage and also on the pegs joining the spades to the carriage.  A nuisance.

- As usual paint doesn’t stick… Partly solved with white glue but I still had problems with these large areas. I believe that I should spray paint over the glue in the future, to avoid smearing glue/paint.

Anyway, the two guns are finished, they look OK and will serve well in future games. The crew is on the painting table, and the horses and limber moved back to the plastics mountain.

Hanomags

The German half-track Sd.Kfz. 251 was often called Hanomag, the name of the largest producer of it. I need quite a lot of these for early war, so I essentially need the models A, B and C and the variant /1, the base-model with machine guns.

Armourfast

Armourfast has this all new 251/1 C in 1/72 scale, fastbuild and two to a box. These kits are very simple, wheels and tracks in one piece per side and overall little detail. It is fastbuild, but that can be OK when you’re about to game with them.

Some irritating details:

-The fenders have no decent pegs to make them jack into the correct position, and this is especially noticeable in the front above the front wheel. Be careful to get them in the correct position.

-The crew compartment is very basic, don’t expect driver’s seat or anything like that. The positive aspect of that is the fact that you don’t need a driver, but it will be noticeably empty in front.

-The vision slits needs to be glued in place, but be aware that they are different in front and on the sides! I didn’t do that until the glue had set on my first vehicle.

-Why on earth do they have just a MG 42 in an early half-track? They might at least have had a MG 34 as an option, but no. For these Hanomags I grab the two MG 34:s from the weapons sprue that came with Caesars 150 mm infantry gun, but every vehicle needs two machine guns, so I have to find more. Many more.

-No decals. I get registration numbers and German crosses from Skytrex decals.

Two Hanomags, Revell in the front and Armourfast behind it.

Revell/Matchbox

I have bought four 251/1 B in 1/76 scale from Revell, and they are the same as the old Matchbox-models from my childhood. I built two of them.

A difference in size between 1/72 and 1/76

These are essentially very fine sets if you want to game with them. Decent detailing and not to many fragile pieces. Included is a machine gunner and one soldier jumping off the side of the Hanomag, and, as usual with these old Matchbox sets, a small diorama. I’ll keep the ruins for future projects.

The tracks are made of soft plastics. To get them to sag and look more natural I drill two holes slightly above the wheels on each side, apply the tracks over the ready painted and varnished wheels, and push the tracks down with a pair of pliers while I push brass rods into the holes I drilled before. A drop of super glue and some gun-metal paint on the pins, and we’re finished.

Some irritating details:

-No driver… why on earth is the driver’s seat empty? Oh well, I make a major amputation on a spare soldier and that is fixed.

Crew compartment filled with stuff, or not.

-Wrong machine-guns again. For this model it is even more annoying as several of the versions they have decals for are earlier than the MG42. Where do I find more than ten MG34? 

Conclusion: Both kits will function in a war-game. They have slightly different sizes, they are after all of different scale, but if used in different platoons I think it will be OK.

I have two more Revell kits waiting for glue and paint, and I just bought two model B from Fujimi. The Fujimi kits can be made as either /1 or /10, the platoon-commander version with a 37mm gun. I’ll be back with more information on them.

I found the Fujimi kits at Hobbybokhandlen on Pipersgatan, Kungsholmen, Stockholm. An excellent shop if you’re interested in militaria. They've got model kits, paints, books etc.

Bromma Hobby is the place where I bought the Armourfast kits, and they have stuff from a lot of other brands, such as Caesar, Pegasus, The Plastic Soldier Company and more.

News June 2011: I read that The Plastics Soldier Company will release a kit with early 251/1:s. It’s a must buy for me.

There are not that many producers of these early models, but far more of the later model D.

My goal is to get eight 251/1 and maybe one 251/10, the command-model armed with a 37mm gun.