Challenge Submission #11 - A Mixed Bag of WW2 Vehicles

I had a hard time focusing during the last week of January, ricocheting around from project to project without seeming to get closer to completion. Eventually things started falling into place, and I ended up with 9 completed vehicles. Some of these have been sitting in my 'IN' box for over a decade, so it felt good to finally get them ready for the gaming table.

First up is a DUKW with a British RASC driver. This was a toy dating from the 1960s that originally belonged to my younger brother. It suffered some 'battle damage' at some point, and my brother was no longer interested in it. I thought I might be able to fix it, and it seemed like the right scale for 28mm gaming. In fact, measuring its length and comparing it to the length of an actual DUKW, it works out to be 1/56. The only 'flaw' is that it only has a single axle in the rear instead of two. I have no idea who manufactured it, but it reads 'NOVELTY' and 'Made in Hong Kong' on the bottom. 

 

The broken pieces near the back and the front right wheel well were filled in using epoxy putty, while the front windshield was fashioned from pieces of clear plastic cut from a CD case. The crates and fuel drums came from a Bandai Maultier kit, and the driver is an old Bolt Action jeep driver that I had in my 'bits box' along with the rolled up tarp. It is now ready to ferry supplies or a squad of commandos across a river or from ship to shore.

 

Next up is a Kübelwagen Type 82/3. This was a mock-up scout car/armoured vehicle with a machine gun-turret atop the cabin. It was apparently built for decoy and training purposes. I bought this from Wargames Foundry decades ago. It came with the Feldgendarm, but I only painted up the 'Kettenhund' as I couldn't decide the colour scheme that would be most appropriate. Eventually I thought Panzer Dunkelgrau would do just as well as any other colour, and now it's finally done.

 

 Third on our list is a Bandai 1/48 SdKfz 3 Maultier that I picked up off Ebay. This was another project where I couldn't decide what colour to paint it, but I finally decided to go with Panzer Dunkelgrau with an Olive Green striped camouflage suitable for the Russian Front. The tarp was painted Tan Earth and given a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade. I then liberally applied Vallejo European Dust wash everywhere. The kit came with a cargo of four petrol drums and two large crates, but since nobody would see them with the tarp in place, I used them for the DUKW.

 

 Next is a 3D printed French Panhard 178 armoured car that was from the same run as the two painted by Fellow Conscript DallasE. I used a different paint scheme that is based on a surviving example in the Musée des Blindés in Saumur, France. I used Vallejo Gunship Green and Chocolate Brown with a sharp black line in between. I left off the fifth wheel, but added a muffler on the right side made from a piece of plastic sucker stick. Sometimes it helps a recce unit to not be heard, as well as not be seen. The decals were all ones that were kicking around in my files, so I didn't have to free hand any roundels. 

 

The fifth item is a group of four M5 Half-tracks to provide some additional armoured lift capability to my 2nd Canadian Division. I am not sure if these were used in any of the infantry divisions, so I may have to mark them up for the 4th Canadian Armoured Division. The models are either Corgi or Solido 1/50 vehicles that all came in different colours and configurations. One was an ambulance version that had a tarp on it, and the back door was cut out. The tarp was tossed in the 'bits box' while the missing door was replaced using thin plastic card. Everything was painted a uniform colour and then 'muddied up'. The verdict is still out on what stars should be added and where, but the vehicles are now ready to take to the field and move a platoon of infantry in relative safety on the battle field.

 

 The last vehicle of this post is a Warlord Games 1/56 resin and metal M10 Achilles mounting a 17 pounder. While this is a newer acquisition compared to some of the other vehicles, it sat on the shelf for a while before being assembled. When it arrived, the tracks were warped and didn't form a clean fit with the chassis. A bath in some boiling water and some careful pressure in the right places straightened things out to an acceptable degree and things proceeded readily from there. Two of the crew in the turret are part of the resin casting while the third crewman is in metal. All came with separate heads which can provide some variety if you want to field more than one. The tarps were added from my 'bits box'. 

The only two Canadian units that used 17pdr M-10s were the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment RCA of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division; and the 7th Anti-Tank Regiment RCA of the 1st Canadian Corps Artillery. Both Regiments would have had two batteries of towed 17pdrs and two SP batteries with 17pdr M-10s

 

 As I said in the title, it is definitely a mixed bag of vehicles, but they are now all done.Thanks for reading.

 

Challenge Submission #3 - WW2 German Panzertruppen

My third submission for this year's painting challenge is a selection of early to mid war units appropriate for a German Panzer Division. They include a squad of Kradschützen (motorcycle troops), a Sd.Kfz. 222 light armoured reconnaissance vehicle, and a platoon of Panzerkampfwagen I Ausf B light tanks. The last vehicle is an iconic Panzerkampfwage VI Ausf H or Tiger I.

The Kradschützen are a mix of Black Tree Design and Bolt Action miniatures for a total of nine figures on five motorcycles, with two where the passenger is riding in a sidecar, and two where the passenger is riding pillion. I picked up the two Black Tree Design motorcycles a number of years ago at an estate sale, and the assembly looked rather daunting with the bike, the handle bars, and the riders all being separate pieces. I wanted to flesh them out a bit, and ordered two motorcycles from Warlord Games where the passenger was riding in a side car. One more motorcycle was ordered a few years later, again from Warlord Games, but this time with the passenger riding pillion. If I thought Black Tree Design bikes were daunting, the ones from Warlord Games consisted of 10 separate pieces, and didn't come with assembly instructions. I was able to find those online, but to get everything to fit correctly was really tricky, especially since the handle bar and the driver's arms came as a single piece.

With much patience, I was successful in getting everything together so that it all looked right, although the drivers still don't seem to be sitting properly on the seat. The instruction for the bikes with side cars showed stowage satchels attached to the sidecar, but none came with the kits. I did get enough for a single bike in the kit with the passenger riding pillion. These got moved over to the sidecars, one to each, and the second stowage bin coming from my bits box along with a gas mask canister. Three of the bikes were mounted on long bases that came from Warlord Games, while the bikes with sidecars were mounted on bases cut from old plastic gift cards. Everything was primed in black and then painted with Vallejo or AK Interactive acrylics. They are now ready to take the field as part of the 8th Panzer Division.

 

The  Sd.Kfz. 222 light armoured car was another acquisition from the above mentioned estate sale. It was a multi-part metal casting which I think is an old Battle Honors kit. The scale looks closer to 1/48 than 1/56, and although the body is hollow, it still weighs in at 266g (almost 9.5oz). In fact, it is so heavy that the axles that came with the model were unable to support the weight without bending. I had to pull the wheels off again and replace the axles with lengths of florist wire that were much stiffer.

The fit of the pieces was pretty wonky, and I had to fill a number of gaps with epoxy putty. The rear fenders were a single piece that were difficult enough to fit to the chassis, but the front fenders were even worse. They came as two separate pieces, and the fit to the chassis just didn't work as all the angles were slightly off. Eventually I gave up and fashioned the front fenders out of a single piece of thin plastic card. Once all the fenders were in place, I made some headlights out of the heads of pushpins that I have filed flat on one side. Finally I added the shovel and the rolled tarp from my  bits box. The commander that came with the model was wearing an Einheitsmütze, which is more mid to late war, so I replaced him with a figure from a Bandai tank kit. The vehicle was painted in a similar fashion to the Kradschützen, and then some AK Splattereffects Dry Mud was applied. It will make a useful addition to my early war Germans.

 

Next I have a platoon of three 1/56 resin Panzerkampfwagen I Ausf B light tanks from Warlord Games that I purchased as part of a bulk order along with DallasE. I liked how he mounted his on bases to make them a bit more compatible with 1/48 and 1/50 scale vehicles, so I did likewise. Assembly was pretty straight forward with the tracks, etc, fitting well to the chassis. I used magnets to attach the turrets, countersinking them into the chassis and the turret itself. The only flaw was that two of the exhaust pipes were not well cast, so I carved the partly formed bits away, and rebuilt the exhaust with some copper wire and the insulating sleeve. These were then painted using the same technique as for the armoured car. They were then mounted on the bases that had already been prepared with most of the sand, paint, and flocking before gluing the vehicles in place. The red vehicle numbers and German crosses on the tanks are appropriate for the France 1940 campaign.

 

Lastly I have  a Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausführung H, also called the Tiger I, of the 502nd Heavy Panzer Battalion. The battalion was the first unit to receive and field the Tiger I in August 1942, and it was one of the most successful German heavy tank battalions, claiming the destruction of 1,400 tanks and 2,000 guns.

The model is a 1/48 scale Bandai kit that I picked up on eBay. It was obviously a second hand kit as it had already been started, but what the original owner had done was glue both the inner and outer road wheels on all the odd numbered axles before realizing their mistake. I contacted the seller about the problem, who refunded my money without wanting me to send the kit back. It languished for many years in my pile of unfinished projects until I thought that a repair was possible. I used a fine saw blade to cut off all the outer wheels from the odd numbered axles. Now all the inner wheels could glued onto the even numbered axles. I drilled holes into the axles and the back of the wheels I had removed with a pin vice to take a short piece of florist wire to provide strength to the joint when I glued them back in place with a little bit of epoxy putty to fill the slight gap. Once all that was done, the rest of the kit was assembled as per the instructions.

Prior to this, I had already acquired a Solido 1/50 diecast Tiger I in grey. It is visible in the background of the pics below, but not part of the submission. Other than a bit of tweaking, new decals, and adding a muzzle break, the Solido model is as I bought it. Since it was already painted in Panzer grey, I wanted to use the same paint scheme with the Bandai model to make them part of the same unit. After priming it with black, I used AK Interactive acrylic 704 Dunkelgrau, and then drybrushed the raised areas and corners with a lighter grey. Special parts like the tools and tow cables were painted appropriate colours, and a few parts got either a black or a dark brown wash. Once the tracks were on, I hit the lower areas with AK Splattereffects Dry Mud. 

 

Thanks for reading.

Second World War Soviets

 The Analogue Painting Challenge is about to kick off next week, and this year I am looking at expanding my Bolt Action Second World War collection starting with my Soviet horde. Here is the current array on parade. The infantry are primarily from Black Tree Design, with a few riflemen and the majority of the heavy weapons from Battle Honors. The platoon of T34/76 tanks consists of a 1/50 Corgi, two 1/50 Solido, and 1/48 Bandai. The Bandai T34 and the 'captured' Kubelwagen are recent additions, but most of the figures and tanks were painted over a decade ago and saw much action on the table top with the after school wargames club I organized.

 

A group photo of my Soviets: four rifle squads of nine men each, one SMG squad of eight men, two medium mortars, one heavy machine gun, one medium machine gun, one 76mm divisional gun, a headquarters, a captured Kubelwagen, and four T34-76 tanks, ready to repel the Fascist invaders.

A close up of one of the rifle squads, the 76mm divisional gun M1942 (ZiS-3), and two 82mm 82-BM-37 battalion mortars. The Battle Honors mortar teams came with figures to either be 'on the go' or 'deployed'.

Another two rifle squads each consisting of a section leader with a submachine gun, six riflemen, and a DP-28 light machine gun. Behind them are a DShK 1938 heavy machine gun team, and a PM M1910 medium machine gun team. The machine teams again came with enough figures to be either 'on the go' or 'deployed'.

A fourth rifle squad in front, a squad armed with PPSh-41 submachine guns behind them, and a platoon of T34-76s at the back.

A stern commander with his captured Kubelwagen staff car, and a small escort of riflemen.

A group of 'character figures' from Black Tree Design. You can just smell the bacon frying. 

A close up of the two medium mortar teams from Battle Honors.

A close up of the two machine gun teams, heavy machine gun on the left, medium machine gun on the right.

A close up of two 1/50 diecast T34s from Solido (closest to the camera) and Corgi. The Corgi is a later model with two hatches in the turret.

The last two T34s, a plastic 1/48 Bandai kit, and a 1/50 Solido diecast model. Both are the early version with the single turret hatch.

 

So what's on the workbench for the next few months? Soviet infantry in summer uniforms, Soviet infantry in winter uniforms, Siberian veterans, a variety of support weapons, more tanks, and an armoured car or two. Below are just a few of the projects I hope to have rolling off the assembly line soon.

Soviet Infantry (Winter) and Siberian Veterans from Warlord Games, and another T34/76, this time from Tamiya. I plan to do this one in Winter camouflage.

 

Russian Infantry in Summer Uniforms, Russian Infantry Heavy Weapons, and a pair of Russian 45mm Anti-Tank Guns, all from Plastic Soldier Company, and a KV-1 from Hobby Boss.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane. As projects are completed I will post them on the blog to keep you up to date on my painting challenge progress.