28mm 8th Army Valentine and Universal Carrier

So here's another random update of the ongoing War in the Western Desert project... some tuned-up British "armour" (and I use that term quite loosely).

Many years ago I acquired some desert armour in a trade... among the stuff I got were some Shermans (since repainted for NW Europe), a couple of early Pzkpfw IVs, a Fuman/Bandai Valentine, and a Tamiya Universal Carrier. The latter two models are pictured here.

The models were painted in base colours with a wash of some kind, and decals had been applied. I just needed to tune 'em up a bit with some more washes and sponge chipping, plus adding some stowage and a Perry tank commander to the Valentine.

I also added crew to the Carrier - these are standard Tamiya dudes with berets swapped for helmets. To complete the model I stuck a metal Bren gun in the firing port.

Insignia of 6th Armoured Division on rear fender. This will be fine for North Africa.

I kinda wished I could find a crewman for this Carrier other than "pointing guy". But oh well.

I have a Tamiya Matilda to be assembled yet, a Stuart Honey from Blitzkrieg in primer, and a Grant supposedly on the way from them too - already bought and paid for but they missed packing it in my order. That should do for British armour for the time being.

Meanwhile, back to the DAK platoon that is sooooo close to done! 

28mm 8th Army Six-Pounder AT Guns

Escalation in the Western Desert continues... I picked up these 28mm Bolt Action 6-pounders and crews from Tista Minis a couple weeks ago - they're the first Brits I've painted for the 8th Army part of the Western Desert project.

Each gun comes with three crew. The base is wood, from Michaels. It's 3" diameter and just about ideal for mounting AT guns. They come 6 in a pack for $3.49.

The crew and gun were painted in the usual way - starting with AK Interactive Light Earth and an Agrax Earthshade wash, highlighting back up to AKILE, and adding some sponge chipping for weathering.

I quite like the animation of the crew here, they're all quite busy with essential tasks. It's just too bad there's no obvious commander for the gun.

Should cause some trouble for the Panzers, what? I decided to go straight for six-pounders in the 8th Army arsenal as the German armour I've got going is on the heavier side, and two-pounders just wouldn't make much of a game.

Fortunately the desert is still holding my attention (re-reading the excellent "War Without Hate" is helping) and I have some more stuff in the pipeline, including the DAK infantry platoon and Panzer reinforcements. Stay tuned!

More 28mm Afrika Korps - 88mm Flak from Perry Miniatures

Here's a Flak 88 for the Afrika Korps... as everybody knows, this was the ultimate anti-tank weapon when pressed into that role by the Germans, and they developed some very clever tactics with the 88 in the Western Desert. Obviously a must-have for a DAK table-top force.

So clearly I needed to build and paint one... and there are several available. Rubicon makes one in 1/56, and there are various metal kits about in "28mm" scale as well. I chose the one from Perry Miniatures for several reasons: it was described as a "resin kit" of only six pieces (I still have trauma from the 1/48 Bandai 88), Perry make a metal crew for it, and I needed some other models from them anyway. Done!

However, while I'm happy with the result, the model itself didn't thrill me. First, it's 3D printed (in resin), not a cast resin model. This is OK I guess, but when paying top price for a kit (18 pounds sterling!) I don't want to deal with print lines and such. Second, it's freakin' tiny. And third, did I mention it cost 18 pounds and didn't come with crew?? But to be fair, I think the Rubicon one is comparable in price (about 21 pounds) and comes with carriage parts and an early-war European theatre crew, but there are over 200 parts in the kit, and I've BTDT. 

So I went with Perry, and it worked out OK, after straightening out the warped trails. I'm also patting myself on the back for magnetising the crewman seen above aiming the gun. I used 5mm magnets, one attached to the body of the gun and the other to the seat mount on the crew figure.

Speaking of the crew, they're great - typical Perry stuff. Anatomy and faces are first-rate, but it should be noted that they're fairly slightly built to match the plastic DAK models; these aren't "heroic 28mm" figures by any means. You get 8 of 'em in the pack and a couple shell crates for 8 pounds, which is pretty good if you don't have to have them posted to you.

Here's that gun aimer. You can just see the disc magnet at the left.

And here's some beauty shots of the gun itself. In hindsight I maybe could've used a lighter yellow to paint it but it's weathered and done now. Not one step back!!

As I said earlier, the trails were a little warped and wouldn't straighten with hot water, so I had to screw around a bit with mounting it to the base - basically had to put a spacer in the middle and superglue the pads at the ends of the trails to the base, and clamp them down. It worked in the end, but was a royal pain.

So I guess I would say that if I had to do it over, I'd order the gun from Rubicon, pocket the Rubicon crew, and get the DAK crew from Perry. Two hundred parts is a lot for this model, but you do get the carriage parts - the DAK was known to put these guns into action straight from the carriage, and that would look cool on the table. Anyway, it's done now and that's the main thing, I'm on to the rest of the infantry platoon and a Blitzkrieg Pzkpfw. III, watch for those soon.

New Project - WW2 Western Desert, Perry Afrika Korps

I posted these models on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge Blog about two weeks ago, but also wanted to post them here as kind of a record of my new project - the war in the Western Desert. First up is a 10-man section of Perry Miniatures DAK infantry.

The models are from the Perrys' plastic box, of course. I usually shun multi-part plastic models like a social disease, mainly because of the time and fiddliness in assembling the models. However the Perry stuff is only moderately time-consuming and fiddly... they come with head, torso and legs as one piece, and you stick on arms and weapon (usually as one piece), field gear (also one piece), and headgear. That's it, unless you need to assemble a machine gunner or NCO, then you need to also stick on a tool pouch or MP40 ammo pouches. So not a ton of work, and they're way more cost-effective than metal or even the Warlord/Bolt Action DAK box.

You can pick headgear from three variants - the early sun helmet, the steel helmet, or the iconic "Afrika" peaked soft cap. It's a good idea to trim a bit off the top of the model's head (ouch) before sticking on the cap, just to help it sit down a little lower over the eyes.

Once the dudes are assembled, it's time to paint 'em... I stocked up on shades of khaki for these guys. The trousers are all painted GW Zandri Dust with an Agrax Earthshade wash and re-highlight with Zamesi, and the jackets and caps are a variety of shades, including Vallejo Khaki and Yellow-Green, GW Rakarth Flesh, AK Deck Tan, etc... the webbing and helmets are Zandri Dust and breadbags are GW XV-88. Rifle stocks are GW Mournfang Brown highlighted with Skrag Brown, as are the wool covers on the waterbottles. 

Most of the poses are pretty good. In a few cases I had to do some greenstuff work around the joins between the arms and torso, but most were good.

The one-piece field gear is good too, there's a water bottle, breadbag, gas mask canister, entrenching tool and bayonet all attached. The tropical boots are cool too - I painted them with GW Doombull Brown and Vallejo German Uniform as seen here. The bases are made with a new technique - I glop on the Golden Coarse Pumice Gel as usual, but then sprinkle some fine sand on while it's still wet, to give a bit more sandy texture in fitting with the desert theme. After the models are primed and painted, I finish the bases with Steel Legion Drab/Zandri Dust/Rakarth Flesh. 

With this bunch done I've fully succumbed to temptation to start a new WW2 period. The DAK and Eighth Army will join my 28mm NW Europe British/Canadians, British Commandos, BEF/Home Guard, US paratroopers, US winter infantry, winter Finns, Soviets, German Heer, German Waffen-SS, German Fallschirmjagers, and early-war French in the cabinets. 

And since these dudes were painted I've finished another "unit" - a Perry 88mm Flak gun with eight crew. Blog post to come soon on that. Plus some tanks arrived from Blitzkrieg yesterday, as well as a couple of 6-pounder guns from Bolt Action today, so I'm set for painting for awhile yet.

Heia Safari!