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Tuesday, November 7, 2017

American para and Fallschirmjager references

Having visited France last month I managed to get to a number of museums, I have put together some pictures for future reference for my upcoming American para and fallschirmjager brigades for rapid fire. These photos were taken at the Dead mans corner museum.


















Falklands War aircraft

Decided to paint these and get them off the production line, these guys will be sold off as I cannot find any rules I like for air to air combat that works well with the jet age. 1/600th tumbling dice


Cheers
Matt

Minarions Russian destroyed aircraft

I have the plane bug again so building 1/72 scale and 1/300th aircraft again. Off the last weekend was a great offering from Minarions for their SCW collection, as I do early war Russians I have added it to my collection by adding some spare stars and a number, very happy with it as it was a single day build and paint.




Cheers
Matt


Friday, July 7, 2017

WW2 Dutch Army part 1

Dutch Army 1940


I have added more Dutch to add to the growing collection of 1940 troops, I still have quite a lot to do to complete the army, predominantly infantry, motorcycles and some armour.

1st up are some Dutch Hussars, converted from Minairons Republican cavalry, The Dutch hussars had three regiments in service, but I cannot find if any were mounted, but I suspect some were used for scouting and reconnaissance. 
WW2 Dutch Hussars

Dutch cyclists from EWM, lovely models I am picking up another 20 odd of these to make the whole battalion mounted!

1940 Dutch Cyclists

EWM 20mm Dutch Cyclists

The 7 veld infantry gun, limbered artillery, gun and limber Moonlight models, horses and crew Revell.

Dutch 7 veld artillery piece


Dutch 7 Veld, the moonlight model is no longer available unfortunately 


Hope you enjoy these

Cheers
Matt

Dutch Airforce Fokker D XXIII MPM 1/72

Fokker D XXIII


A very rare plane for my Dutch, although only one was built and flying at the time of the invasion it never flew in anger and it was destroyed at the airfield at schiphol  I decided to build this lovely kit by MPM just because I had to have it!


1/72 Fokker D XXIII


Cheers
Matt



Fairey Fox mkII Pegasus resin kit Part 1

Fairey Fox mkII 


next on the desk for construction a resin Pegasus Fairey Fox mkI which will be converted to a mkII for my Belgians.

The main difference is the wheels, canopy, prop and nose, all  donated from another kit, also adding wartime pilots and an extra mg for the floor mg and windscreen from the spare parts box.


The Mk II, hopefully look something like this, note the prop, canopy, wheel covers, air intake is larger, wheel struts are positioned differently and the wing W struts, unseen is the rear wheel, the Lewis Mg which points downwards from the observers position and bomb racks which I will add.


Cheers
Matt



Alvis-Straussler Hefty WIP Part Two

Belgian Alvis-Straussler Hefty Part Two

The Alvis Hefty was an experimental cross country tow developed to tow small field pieces across rough ground. See the previous article about this strange vehicle.

Belgian Alvis Hefty

I have been working on my Alvis Hefty Belgian artillery tow for my chassuers, here are my WIP photos, basically it purchased the airfix emergency kit of two Austin trucks and have used pieces from that to make up this vehicle. Also the boxes on the rear are from the airfix Morris cd artillery tow.


Hopefully it will look something like this



Cheers
Matt

Polish 1/72 first to fight

last weekend saw a furious few days of putting together some polish kits for my 30 day kit challenge. These kits are all from the first to fight range of kits, I bought them direct from Jadar hobbies in Poland earlier in the year, they worked out with shipping more than 50% cheaper then purchasing locally.

The first to fight is a little fiddle and the instructions are not that clear but they do look good when together, but I feel are a little undersized for my liking. They will however make a great addition to my polish.




My polish have already a number of frontline resin kits that will be sold off when I paint these ones.

Cheers
Matt


Zil 157 20mm trucks

off the desk in last weekend a bunch of kits that have taken me two weeks to do as I done four of them in a production line while on a business trip. Great simple kits to do too.

Three will be standard trucks for my middle eastern nations
And this one will get a S and S command body



Cheers
Matt






Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Alvis- Straussler Hefty trucks

While I was researching my Belgians, I came across a reference to the Alvis designed hefty artillery tow truck, finding info on this beast is quite difficult as it seems a number of models were produced and all called "hefty".

The most common image is the trial  version, but I believe the Chassuer Ardennes actually purchased the fifty vehicles of the C model. I could find little or no record of how many were built of each type, it seems several different were in production at the same time, all seemed to have the pivot in the chassis though. The Belgian vehicle document mentions 50 ordered and 35 Alvis Hefty tractors purchased for Chassuer Ardennes for artillery tows unknown if they were all delivered though, as of yet I have found no pictures of the vehicle in service are available.

A early model referred to as the mountain model, could not find much information about this model at all.


Not sure if this is the army model that was sold to the Belgians, but it looks like the Hefty B


Production model, this is the one I will scratch build I think the Alvis Hefty C



Hefty type B  Used by the RAF 54 in service (cannot find any more details or more pictures of it though) 


Someone scratch built one (airfix forum)

The type C ( I think) this is the one I think I will scratch build as the tow weight is correct

Although all of the Belgian pictures are of the trial vehicles

I am waiting of a Belgian produced artillery book to arrive to look at the images in it, before I dive into the scratch building of this beast.

Cheers
Matt

Academy 1/72 Sam 6

Sam 6 Missile


Next cab off the rank is Academy models Sam 6, a absolute cracker and easy build IMO, little or no flash, parts went together well and I built it over a weekend, it will join my soviet army, thinking about a second one also. The one piece track assembly is really nice and looks better than the rubber tracks, I lowered the finish height of the missiles so it could be transported easily, yet to add a few bits before painting, waiting on black dog bits to arrive from BNA model world.







Cheers
Matt

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Rafah Six day war Batrep

Rafah 6 day war


Last nights club game was the defence of Rafah Highway during the six day war, Frédérich and I played the Egyptians, we needed to block the road to Rafah, I commanded the remainder of the 26th division from our ongoing campaign, only a single coy of two Js3m and a single SU100, Fred commanded the 6th mechanised with two coys of mixed T54 and T55, and a coy of T34-85 to make up the remainder of the blocking force.

The Israelis were commanded by Chris, he rolled well in the previous campaign roll so received in addition to his two companies of centurions, a extra 1 m48 coy, and a coy of super Sherman's, along with a M5 FO for air support, and a radio truck.

I set up in a flank ambush position, basically to slow the Israelis as they entered the table on the Rafah road. I set up line abreast with two JS3 and one SU 100 in dead ground. In the opening move I managed to get a flank shot and heavy damage one centurion immobilizing it with a ambush interrupt fire move, then in my normal move destroy a second with normal shooting. Both JS3 withdrew towards my secondary position after both coming under fire from the remaining 4 centurions. 

Israeli Centurions in the foreground, M48s on the left flank, in the rear M5 halftrack FO and Radio halftrack.


move two 
Chris used his superior gunnery and fire and move to thwart my remaining long distance shot, causing panic with a glancing shot of light damage on the SU 100 as my other two tanks withdraw to the secondary position. 

Egyptian JS3 and SU 100 on ambush order

Turn Three
Chris continued to move and fire putting pressure on Freds positions now and ignoring my SU 100, as now all I could see was dust, failing my observation roll as they were now outside close range.

Turn Four
Our prepared positions of the first T54-55 company was not effective enough to stop the centurion guns, at medium range,  after a heavy damage and destroyed T55 in one turn, the remaining tank of the company abandoned its vehicles after a deplorable demoralised morale roll. My company of two JS3 and the SU 100 reached the high ground, almost into the rear of the advancing centurions.

Turn five 
Chris continued his advance with ineffective fire coming from Freds vehicles, as they were in hull down position only two fired leaving one in ambush, and the whole company of T34/85 could not spot the oncoming Israelis because of the dust cloud.
My JS3 and Su 100 started withdrew to the alternate position but one JS3 bogged in the sand (rolling a D8 on the shakey ground table crossing a sand bar) and was abandoned the second JS3was hit from an extreme range by a bloody sherman on overwatch (waiting for me to climb the large dune) who needed a D10 +9 to hit Chris rolled a 10 hit and 6 destroyed. The SU100 then fled the table to fight another day failing its Morale role, becoming demoralised but remaining in the vehicle.

Turn six
Chris advanced with all three companies with the M48s doing the main damage on the move.
Fred second company of T54-55 second suffered supression from air cover then succumb to close shooting from the M48s, losing one with a catastrophic kill and  second heavy damaged, the ramning vehicle stood its ground, still in Ambush...

egyptian T54-55s mixed coy

Turn 7 
Chris successfully managed to flank the remaining T55, destroying it,  Freds remaining T34/85 departed also after he failed his command roll (more the 70% destroyed).......so a breakthrough was achieved. We had to hold for 8 turns....we failed on the 7th!

Red match destroyed, yellow heavy damaged, orange demoralised, Able archer rules were used.


Cheers
Matt

Bolton Paul Defiant mk1 RAAF 1/72 WIP build

Built this kit while on holidays last week, a simple build, this one is destined for my Australians to take on the sneaky zeros!









Wednesday, June 14, 2017

30 day kit challenge BTR-60p

Next four BTR60 kits from S models, two are destined for my engineers and two will become command variants, waiting for S models to deliver variant kits