Tamiya 1/48 M8 Greyhound and Winter GIs

Well, it's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada and last year at this time, we had a foot of snow on the ground... thankfully it's pretty nice here still this year (I cleaned the leaves out of my house gutters today) but we know that winter is just a matter of time. 

When I posted about the Solido M20 Command Car and winter Sherman I threatened to post again with the entire army, and it's only taken seven months :-)  Most of the infantry are from Artizan Designs.

These are supplemented by a command squad from Bolt Action, that I've posted about before.

I also augmented the Artizan troops with a veteran Bolt Action squad. All of the models in the army are metal.

Lots of .50 cal. "Ma Deuces" in the force... along with one tripod-mounted HMG, there's also one on the Sherman, one on the M20 armoured car, and one on the Greyhound.  

A couple of Artizan .30 cal. MMG crews in the force as well.

The latest addition prompting this post is the completion of this Tamiya M8 Greyhound.

Turned out pretty good. I also added resin wheels and tirechains from Black Dog (blackdog.cz), a manufacturer based in the Czech Republic. The fit was absolutely flawless and a really easy conversion to make.  

I left off securing the front and rear fenders to the model until after I'd painted the wheels. The paintwork was done the same as on the M20 and Sherman - Catachan Green basecoat, Rakarth Flesh stipple followed by White Scar. Done! 

The crewman required a bit more thought. The crew model was supplied in the Tamiya kit but the pose was kinda boring - just holding a pair of binoculars in front of his chest. So I pinched a pointing arm from a handy Bolt Action plastic US Infantry set and added that.

Now, how to secure him in the turret? Magnets to the rescue of course... I superglued a 5mm rare earth magnet to the crewman's feet...

...and stuck a corresponding magnet on the top of the seat in the bottom of the turret (see next pic)

You can just see the magnet on top of the seat in this pic. It actually worked really well; the crewman stands up nice and straight and is quite secure.

A couple other models added to the army... first a .50 calibre machinegun team. This one is from Warlord's Bolt Action range and is actually a weird little set. You get these very useful crewmen for the .50, but the pack also contains two other oddballs, one of which is warming himself over a fire (!)

I haven't painted the other two models from the pack yet.

I also got a couple of .30 cal. MMG teams from Artizan. They should come in handy in a game, if these guys ever get to see the tabletop.

Hope you enjoy the post and stay healthy, friends.

Aurora 1/48 US Army M109 SP Howitzer

One of the historical periods I really love to game is the '80s - much as it pains me to consider that a decade in which I was a teenager is now "historical" :-)

In 15mm scale we game the period mainly using Battlefront's excellent "Team Yankee" rules, while in 28mm we've used several sets as bases for our gaming, including but not limited to "Bolt Action", our own set ("Red Storm!"), and even a variation the venerable "Lord of the Rings" skirmish set...

Large-scale gaming is also fun because of the painting involved, and for modern periods like the 1980s, part of the fun is the challenge of sourcing the models. While there are a small number of companies making vehicles for the period, lots of these are skewed towards more modern stuff from the '90s and forward. Finding '80s stuff can be tough.

It was on one of these searches that I discovered the Aurora 1/48 model kit of the M109 SP Howitzer. The basic kit actually dates back to 1965 (!) but the copyright date on my instructions is 1977. I think this date tracks to an updated kit that also included the long-barrel 155mm gun update from the M109A1 variant. These kits do appear on eBay from time to time but oftentimes sellers ask the Earth for them - like $60+! I refused to pay this and bided my time... eventually I found one on sprues, sealed in factory plastic, with instructions and a boxtop-style insert. I think I won it for $10 plus shipping, which certainly suited me :-) 

The kit was apparently a "Young Model Builders Club Selection" and it shows a bit... the rear of the vehicle shows little detail - even the rear spades were left off altogether! Unfortunately, unlike some, I wasn't so fussed with this and I didn't bother with any scratchbuilding to address it.

I did add a bit of stowage to the vehicle just to give it a bit of a lived-in look. I left the front hatch unsecured so it can be opened up - one of the converted crew from my M113s fits nicely there just to give some MOPP-suit flavour.

I rigged up some magnets on the barrels and gun mount to allow the short 155mm to be swapped for its longer-barreled successor. Scale is demonstrated by some Eureka US Army soldiers in MOPP suits.

The newer M185/39 gun is really unfeasibly large. It looks like something out of 40K doesn't it!

Here's a pic with the hatch buttoned down.

Front view of the vehicle. I did lightly weather it with paint and some light earth powder, but I think the powder may have been diluted somewhat by the subsequent Dullcote. Another word of warning: I primed the vehicle with the tracks attached - I should have known better. Never spray prime vinyl tracks!!! The primer reacted with the vinyl to turn the tracks sticky, and although subsequent brush painting improved things it didn't eliminate the stickiness altogether. Can't believe I did that.

Some reference material... there are a couple pics of M109s in the Reforger book as well as some detail of the other markings. Similar to the M1 Abrams and M113s I've painted, I didn't put national insignia on the M109, but instead limited markings to an "exercise" marking as used in the Reforger exercises.

I'm pretty happy with how the build turned out and I think it'll be fun to have on the table in a game. Of course the 155mm main gun is not really suitable for tabletop action in 28mm but we'll figure something out!

Solido 1:50 US Army M20 Armoured Car

So this project has had a bit of a long timeline... I got this Solido M20 diecast model years ago, probably in a package deal with some other stuff. But once I started on the winter US Army project in earnest I dragged it out of mothballs to paint.

But I needed a crewman for it! After casting around the Internet a bit, I found that Company B produces some very handy vehicle crew models, including this .50 Browning gunner. The model is nice - it actually comes with a .50 cast on in one piece. However, I ended up cutting off the barrel and using a spare plastic one from a Tamiya kit in its place.

I ordered the gunner and some appropriate decals at the end of February but had some problems with the postal system. It got from Washington state to Canada OK and fast, but once it got to Winnipeg it sat for a week without moving, then suddenly scanned as "delivered"... when it never actually got to my house.

Fortunately Bruce at Company B was great about sending a replacement model. The decals haven't arrived yet though so I used some spares I had left over from the Tamiya M4A1 build.

The Solido M20 isn't super-detailed by any means but will suffice for our gaming needs. As noted, it's 1:50 scale so is just a skosh smaller than the M8 Greyhound I'm building (the vehicles shared a chassis) but not enough to notice, really. The M8 is suffering from postal delays too as it's fully built and basecoated but is waiting for its winter tires to arrive from Australia.

I painted the M20 in my standard US livery - Catachan Green base, then camo'd up with Rakarth Flesh and White Scar stippled on.

Gunner is good enough to justify a full-length shot. I had to stand him on an ammo box to make him tall enough to fit the M20 interior dimensions.
 

A couple of shots with the M4A1 Sherman to finish off the post. The winter camo is looking OK and I can't wait to get the Greyhound done - it's such a cool looking (and heavily armed) vehicle. I gotta give props to Company B for making the crew model. It's a really niche kind of thing to make, but adds so much to the LCF for our games.

Stay safe everybody!

Bolt Action Winter GIs

As noted in my recent Sherman post, I've been working on some winter GIs to face off against Conscript Greg's newly painted winter Germans. In this post I'll show off the Bolt Action winter US Army HQ pack and rifle squad boxed set.

The Bolt Action HQ figures are a mix of models wearing the drab wool double-breasted overcoat, and the light-green mackinaw coat. The officer pictured above wears an M43 field jacket under his overcoat. the overcoats were painted Rhinox Hide / Mournfang Brown and the mackinaws and M43s are Catachan Green with a heavy Camo Green overpaint.

The medic with stretcher is about my favourite model from the pack, pictured here with a greatcoat-clad officer with M1 carbine.

Here's an NCO with mackinaw and light green trousers holding an SCR-536 "handie talkie" radio along with a private, also armed with an M1 carbine. I gave the all the figures gloves painted grey, basically following the webstore illustration.

Warlord also offers a boxed set with an entire metal rifle squad. The figures are armed with a mix of M1 Garands, M1 carbines, and BARs - two of 'em for an extra firepower boost.

Here we have the NCO squad leader and three privates - two with Garands and one with BAR.

Another group including a rifle grenadier, a soldier preparing a grenade for use, and two soldiers with Garand and carbine.

Here's the last two figures in the squad, armed with BAR and Garand. All of the models were painted following the box illustration.

The models in the squad are all very well kitted out with packs and suchlike, really some veteran campaigners here. The Bolt Action models also come (mostly) with separate heads, which is handy if you're building multiple squads from the same boxes. It just allows a tiny bit of variety. The only awkward fit was the head on the rifleman aiming his Garand. No matter how I tried to position the head, it just looked awkward - you can easily pick him out in the pics above.

The Bolt Action stuff is generally good though, and I recommend both of these packs wholeheartedly. Most of the rest of my winter GIs are from Artizan though, and as such they're slightly beefier in build than the BA boys. You'll see soon... I'll be posting some pics of the rest of the platoon (and some support in the form of a .50 cal) shortly!

Winter Whitewash: Tamiya 1/48 Sherman M4A1

Readers will have seen Conscript Greg's copious updates on progress made with his winter WW2 Germans. He's amassed quite a few models in his project. And as these things go, his progress inspired me to assemble some opponents to face those Germans, if the coronavirus pandemic ever allows us to get together in person again, of course...

Fortunately I didn't have to go far for this Tamiya M4A1 kit... it was in the "Model Kits - Unbuilt" box in the basement, and went together very quickly. I built it as the later version.

I also used some resin stowage bits on this kit - the pile of stuff on the rear deck as well as the spare track links etc. on the front of the model are both from "Value Gear", an ebay seller offering tons of 1/48 stowage bits.

I painted the model Catachan Green and applied decals, then started in with the whitewash treatment. This consisted of stippled Rakarth Flesh to create a nice light base, followed by more stippled White Scar. I left a margin around the insignia markings as you see on most period photos. The vehicle was then mudded up with Rhinox Brown and Mournfang Brown.

I used a synthetic broom bristle for the antenna - these seem to work well and are pretty hardy.

Here's a better view of the Value Gear stowage.

Ready for some winter battles against Greg's Germans! Of course, it will likely be summer by the time we're able to get together...! But in the meantime, stay tuned for some more winter US Army content...