WIP: Sherman MRL.

Since I finished the Airfix Sherman Crab, I figured I should build the other 'new' Airfix Sherman kit, the Airfix Sherman 'Calliope". Essentially, it is the old Airfix Sherman, with a sprue of new parts containing banks of rocket tubes, and attachment widgets.

Behold, the war comic box art. MRL and bow mg are in use.

 The Sherman goes together well, and if you get on of the more recent kits, you should get the new rubber tracks for your Sherman. Mine had plastic tracks, which were still more flexible than the rigid plastic sets contained in the re-releases of the late 1990s. the Sherman assembles the same way it always has, but the MRL assembly is a little fiddly. The instructions say to drill holes in the turret sides to act as an attachment point for the MRL, but are fairly vague as to exactly where, and the casting of the turret is not the best for this. So I superglued it into place instead using the looks about right method.Naturally, this will mean that the whole assembly is either too far forward, or too far back!

Spray painted with Olive Drab after construction.

 I used the FOW US Army Olive drab spray to paint it, and will paint the tracks, add decals, and give a wash of  Devlan Mud, at a later date. Presumably when I am procrastinating from another project. I am currently trying to organise my Sherman holdings between my WW2 and Modern interests, and within WW2 between, US Army, USMC, and British and Commonwealth forces. Repainting has been easy for the US stuff, just spray olive drab!, but the various in theater paint schemes for the British and Commonwealth forces are a little more complicated, and thus require more research.

The Haradi Guns go Boom, Boom, Boom.....

Right, another posting with a completed project. This time it is the Corgi Diecast guns that I posted about here. I have finished them off and and am quite looking forward to using them against Frank's Noddist horde, or his Khandist rebels.

A useful number of Guns. Perfect for a wide range of fire missions.

Showing the size of the gun to the 1/72 scale figue. I guess the gun is a 1/64 scale model of the Otto Melara Mod 56 105mm Howitizer.

Still a nice looking model.

So that's another couple of additions to Harad finished. I just need to paint some more gun crew, and several battalions of infantry.

Harad Heavy Mortar Carrier.

In 1976, due to the Regent's desire to create an indigenous Defense industry, Harad started work on creating a Haradian designed and built mortar carrier.It was hoped that success with this vehicle could lead to a range of locally produced and designed equipment. In addition to this effort, licenses to locally produce foreign designs were sought, as was foreign involvement in developing Harad's heavy industry.

Or, to put it more simply, I have an Airfix Attack Force "Troop Carrier" that is closer to 1/60 scale than 1/76-1/72 scale as it seems to be some member of the British FV430 series of armoured vehicles - or at least a design inspired by them. I had acquired this vehicle from Glenn many years ago, in order to make use of the tracks, but had no idea of how big it was until i received it. It was slated to become an early model of Nod flame vehicle, but when I remembered that it had a set of nice circular hatches at the back, similar to what I have seen on a number of pictures of  mortar carriers, I decided Harad needed a native armoured vehicle.

Commanders hatches and vision block added with plastic card. Hole in front panel covered over with plastic card.

M-30 107mm Mortar from the Esci M-113 mortar carrier - a much smaller vehicle.

The large gun from the commanders hatch. I look at it and think of the Kafer Thud Gun from 2300AD. Probably because it is huge and chunky.

Once the plastic card additions were made, the vehicle was sprayed grey, and then given a coat of sand. The mortar was then painted and based as well. The vehicle is now ready for action, after I paint up a gun crew for it, and give it some CD stats (which will probably be very similar to that of the M-113, in terms of armour, but with worst mobility)

Locals in awe of the imperial Army's newest acquisition.

Front on. Not a small vehicle.

Rear view. I think it needs some stowage and other stuff on it.

So all that remains is to name Harad's contribution to the world of armoured vehicles. Suggestions are welcomed!

Finished Flakpanzer.

 So here a few pictures to show off the finished Wirbelwind. It was given the usual paint job for my Late War Germans, and seems to blend in quite well.

The rebuild Wibelwind next to a Mobelwagen, and a T-34/76.

Looks ok here, even better at three plus feet....

Just the thing to deal to Jabos! Oh wait... shouldn't that be Fat Herman's job?

Esci T-34/76 kit repainted as a German vehicle. Still have to put on the large national markings to show new ownership.

 And as I go through another box, I discover another Eidai Mk IV hull needing work....

The paint seems thicker on this one, and more of the tools have been hacked off.

Yay! the muffler/exhaust thingy is there - but it's upside down...

I'm hoping to find a suitable subject to rebuild this kit into, as I suspect that it was also a bad conversion of a Brumbar. I'm tempted to make another Mobelwagen if I can find a suitable 37mm gun, but the sides will be interesting to make well. In the mean time a soak in Simple Green will do it some good, or I could use it as a testbed for other methods.

Late War German Motorcycles.

Some of you may, much like myself, have first hand experience with the ability of earthquakes to damage wargaming armies. While on the grand scale of things, a damaged toy army is not the most pressing of problems, it does limit the amount of gaming that you can use it for. One of the most heavily hit units of my wargaming horde was my WW2 German Motorcycle units. Pre-earthquake they were a mix of paint schemes, largely unbased, and not the best. But what they lacked in quality, they had in quantity. For these toys, the earthquake presented an opportunity to rebuild, and possibly expand the size of the units.

Late War German Motorcycle Stands based for CD3.

The expansion came about as, due to a number of factors, I had lost a number of riders for the motorcycles. The solution, and more motorcycles, came in the form of the Italeri German Motorcycles set. ( PSR review here) The set contained some spare riders and gunners, so the extra bits could be used to fill the missing bits on my existing motorcycles. I purchased two packets, and started the rebuild. Broken fiddly bits like handlebars were not replaced, as these are gaming pieces and any replacement would most likely not last through the handling received in a normal game.

Where there are Recon stands, Patrol stands may appear.

 One of the first things I wanted to make were Patrol stands. in Command Decision stands designated as Recon have the ability to split into two smaller Patrol stands. In addition these stands could also serve as markers, akin to horse holder stands, should someone wish to dismount their troops from their motorcycles.

Unknown Metal figure and M/C. Possibly SHQ?

Unknown Metal figure. Micro Machines BMW. Totally legit....

 It also gave me a way of using some single bikes, and some of the metal standing bike riders that I had acquired in the distant past. The inclusion of the Micro Machines BMW is a joke to see if anyone notices a modern German bike in the mix. Previously I had used this model with a different paint job, and a British Para rider, without comment in a British armoured force during the late 1990s.

Unknown Plastic. They came with horrible sidecars. Bikes look great, Riders are naft.

 I have no idea of the maker of  these two plastic figures. They are cast as one piece with the motorcycle, and were a dark grey plastic. I acquired them second hand years ago when at least one of them had a crude combination car attached. I liked the bike so painted them up as patrol stands.

Front on they look worse. But the actual motorcycle is great.

The painting and rebuilding of this unit was halted for quite some time, as I was reluctant to paint any camouflage on the motorcycles as I didn't want to ruin my efforts with a bad job.  So for about a year the whole unit sat with nice dark yellow ( actually Vallejo German Camouflage Orange Ochre 70824) motorcycles. Then I saw the recent postings from Paul at Plastic Warriors, showing how good his guys looked with camouflaged motorcycles, and I took inspiration from his efforts. A chat with the Archduke also helped to make up my mind about posting my efforts, so I added on my standard camo colurs, and then gave them all a wash of GW Devlan Mud to help hide my sins....

Hasegawa M/C and rider with metal figure. I use this as a joint Command stand in CD.

Motorcycle MMG or Weapon stands. All bikes are Hasegawa. Riders LtR are: Italeri, Hasegawa, Hasegawa, Italeri. Passengers LtR: Standing unknown metal, converted Hasegawa, Italeri, converted Hasegawa.

 The Hasegawa motorcycle comes as part of a kit with a Kubelwagen, and is quite a pleasant kit to put together. It does suffer from the omission of  a passenger for the sidecar, although one can be converted from those provided for the Kubelwagen. It has also been one of the more numerous plastic German WW2 motorcycle kits I have seen on gaming tables over the last ten years, most likely due to the fact that it was readily available when the Fujimi and Matchbox ones were not.

F

German Motorcycle SMG stands. Bikes LtR: Hasegawa, Hasegawa Fujimi, Hasegawa. Riders LtR: Hasegawa, Italeri, Italeri, Hasegawa. Passengers including standing figure are all Italeri.

German Motorcycle SMG stands. Figures and motorcycles are all from Italeri.

Motorcycle stand painted by my friend Andy. Motorcycle and rider are Hasegawa, but passenger is from the Revell German Artillery set.

Readers will note that I have not presented these stands as being part of any particular  unit organisation. This is because that I will use these stands to represent motorcycle elements of various German
 formations from 1943 onwards and as such tried to keep them as generic as possible. The early war, and Afrika Korps motorcycle stands I am also working on are going to be more closely tied to an appropriate  table of organisation.

Flakpanzer Rebuild

A heavily painted Eidai Mk IV.

Much like the Mobelwagen, Wirbelwinds were also constructed from damaged Panzer Mk IVs that were returned from the front for repairs. given that, I felt it was only fitting to turn this model into a Wirbelwind, especially since I had a spare Eidai Wirbelwind turret in my bits box.

Panzer parts awaiting cleaning and reuse.

Since the model was a snap together kit, and glue hadn't been used on the kit (other than on the Brumbar superstructure that I had earlier removed), it came apart easily for its bath in Simple Green.Enamel paint generally just peels off  after a soak in Simple Green, but acrylic paints don't always come off that easily. giving the parts a scrub often helps. I am tempted to see how Dettol works after seeing it being used successfully here over at Jim Duncan's blog.

The parts are left to soak in Simple Green overnight and are then scrubbed with an old toothbrush to aid the paint removal process.

After a scrub and a rinse in cold water, the parts are ready for reassembly.

Once the parts were clean(er) and dry, they could be reassembled back into a partial MK IV, and then have plastic card used to make up the superstructure, visors and hatches needed to make up the hull before the turret could be mounted.

Now much clear looking! WIP Haradi horse in the back.

Having donated its muffler thingy it needs a new one.

A plastic runner is the source of the replacement muffer. The one shown belongs to a Eidai StuG IV awaiting restoration.

 The upper deck is assembled using plastic card cut and measured to the 'looks about right' method. since this a quick and dirty rebuild, I figured that I could use quick and dirty methods.

Upper hull sides glued in place. The turret awaits placement.

Drivers visor is added to front of upper hull.

Top is glued in place. A hole is cut for the turret pin.

Hatches are added.

Testing the turret location and movement.

The muffler/exhaust is replaced.

A comparison of the two Flakpanzers.

From here it only remains to spray paint the vehicle, and then paint it up in the same fashion as the other Flakpanzer. This has been a rebuilding project that I have been meaning to do for quite some time, so I am quite pleased that I have managed to do it so quickly.

Alternate paint scheme for Kubelwagen.

The Kubelwagen is a familiar sight to many WW2 gamers, either as a valuable and useful piece of transport, or as opportunity to demonstrate Allied firepower. Many manufacturers have made Kubelwagens over the years, and I have acquired a number both brand new and secondhand, in various conditions over the years.

Hello Kitty Kubelwagen - two icons meet at last.

I am unsure of the manufacturer of this Kubel, possibly Nitto or Eidai.

I still haven't decided if I am going to give it white wall tyres or not.

Inspiration for this paint job came from reading the comments on this post over at Plastic Warrior. Iwasn't going to paint up a halftrack or tank this way, but I did have a very small Kubelwagen that I was prepared to use to test this paint scheme out. Regular service will shortly resume.