My last big project for AHPC XIV consisted
of elements of the British 8th Army in North Africa. Again, I was
inspired to delve into that arena by fellow Conscript,
Dallas, who had recently painted up some 8th Army and DAK troops. Like the Italians that I painted earlier in the challenge, I wanted to do
something a little different, so I went with earlier models of tanks,
and infantry units of the 4th Indian Division. The four tanks are by
Blitzkrieg Miniatures, while all the figures on foot are from Warlord Games.
I
have always been interested in the early years of the North African
campaign so I acquired two Vickers Mk VI light tanks, one of which is
the B version, mounting
.303 and .50 Vickers machine guns, while the other is the C model with
co-axial 15 mm (0.59 in) and 7.92 mm (0.312 in) Besa machine guns. Of
course, you have to have an Infantry Tank Mark II, better known as the
Matilda. Finally I painted up a Valentine tank that I got in a trade with
Dave, another member of the Conscripts. The Matilda and
Valentine tanks were resin castings, while the two Vickers light tanks
were 3D prints. Both methods have their pros and cons. The details are
much crisper on the 3D prints, but a lot of cleanup of supports was
needed around the road wheels. Keeping with the early war theme, I
painted all of them using the Caunter Camouflage pattern, although that
introduced a slight historical anachronism. The Caunter scheme was
phased out in October 1941, but the Valentines didn't become operational
in North Africa until December of that year. The method and colours
used closely followed those outlined in a video by Sonic Sledgehammer.
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| British armour in the desert |
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| Valentine and Matilda (front) |
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| Valentine and Matilda (back) |
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| Vickers Light Tanks Mk VIC and Mk VIB (front) |
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| Vickers Light Tanks Mk VIC and Mk VIB (back) |
Next up is the 8th Army Carrier
Patrol from Warlord Games, to which I added a third Universal Carrier
that I had in one of my storage boxes. The Carrier Patrol box comes with
four metal figures wearing shorts to ride in the back, and some heads
with helmets without the later war scrim, and two 8th Army infantry
sprues to make 12 figures on foot. I decided to assemble them as members
of the 4th Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment of the 7th Indian Infantry
Brigade, and swapped out a few heads for the carrier crew to give them
Punjabi turbans. The carriers were painted in the same manner as the
tanks, while I used another Sonic Sledgehammer video
for the infantry, with a few minor modifications. All the figures were
primed with Vallejo Desert Yellow, and I used the Cork Brown option
suggested for the skin colour. I also used Army Painter Strong Tone
Quickshade instead of the special mixture shown in the video.
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| Carrier patrol of the 4th Bn 16th Punjab Regiment |
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| 3 Univeral carriers in Caunter scheme camo (front) |
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| 3 Univeral carriers in Caunter scheme camo (back) |
In a similar fashion to my Italian
force, I bought a Warlord Games 8th Army Support Group boxed set
consisting a Headquarters, a Vickers medium machine gun team, and a 3"
medium mortar team. The Headquarters group has some nice sculpts
depicting a senior officer smoking his pipe and having a cuppa, a medic
with a stretcher, a company havildar-major (sergeant-major) carrying a
Thompson with a drum magazine, and a radioman feeding a monkey some
bisquit.
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| 8th Army Support Group |
Next is the mainstay of my
infantry, a 36-man platoon of the 2nd (Royal) Battalion, 11th Sikh
Regiment of the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade. It consists of a
headquarters with a British officer with Enfield revolver and whistle, a
havildar (sergeant) with a Thompson, a Boyes anti-tank rifle team, and a
2" mortar team, and three 10-man sections each with a Thompson-armed
naik (corporal), a Bren gun team, and seven sepoys armed with SMLE No. 1
Mk III* rifles. The miniatures are from the Warlords Brtish 8th Army
infantry box, to which I added an additional sprue of 6 figures. I have a
love-hate relationship with multi-part figures. I like the ability to
customize the miniatures, but I find assembly is sometimes frustrating
due to the fiddly small parts (not helped by have a finger in a splint),
and not all arms fit well on all torsos. I also found that the arm
options were a bit lacking, and a few figures were assembled after
cutting off whatever the soldier was carrying in that hand to just leave
a closed fist. I opted to make rectangular bases out of plastic card
for all the prone weapons teams, rather than mount the figures
individually. They were painted using the same method as the Punjabis.
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| Platoon of the 2nd Bn 11th Sikh Regiment |
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| Boyes A/T rifle, officer, havildar, 2" mortar |
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No. 1 Section
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| No. 2 Section |
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| No. 3 Section |
I have a few more bits and bobs to add to my Indian troops that I hope to complete during the upcoming painting challenge. Stay tuned for further developments.
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