I fell for Faller because I didn’t look where I was going…

I decided to check how many bases I could fit inside that Faller house this morning – I was confident of getting one 40mm x 40mm base in, but hoped for two. Picking up a base, it was only slightly too big…but I figured Peter would rule in my favour. I picked up the Hasegawa Kattenkrad to look more at scale…and realised that my 1/72 scale troops would have to stoop to get in the door…and then kneel down to look out of the windows!

I looked at the box, hoping to ascertain what was going on with this size anomly. Nothing. Said ‘HO’ scale. Should be OK.

Then the penny dropped. HO, not ‘HO/OO’, as the small Airfix AFVs and troops of my youth were! ‘All about scales” over at The Miniatures Page confirmed my mistake…this house was actually 1/87 scale. Drat!

 

 

 

Heat, trucks, guns and scenery

Still 4 weeks of Spring left, but today is the second day of over 30 degrees…in fact, looking at the MelbinYewni real time temperature graph, today got to just over 34! This means it’s time to think about doing lots of wargames terrain / wargames scenery, as there will be the heat to cure and dry everything thoroughly and promptly.

I’ve made a start: the three telegraph posts from an old ESCI Diorama Accessories set have been assembled, based and given some lumpy earth around their bases…ready now for painting.

I finished off a platoon of PaK 36 anti-tank guns with crews, plus that ICM Krupp truck, so that they wouldn’t bother me and so that “Operation Barbarossa” next year will be a reality. The PaK 36s are from Fujimi, the crews are the one worthwhile figure from the Fujimi set the gun comes in, a chap from the  Revell  Fallschirmjägers and one of the two ESCI / Italeri Sd. Kfz. 251/1 crew. Photos: .

Some more comments about the ICM Krupp L2H143 Kfz 70 kit…it turns out pretty well and looks great painted. I opted to have the MG 34 on a pintle mount in the rear tray option, to fit in with the Kubelwagen Type 82 which also had pintle-mounted MG34. I don’t like the decals that ICM provided for this kit, though. There is too much excess clear decal surrounding the rear number plate, and even drybrushing with Kommando Khaki as a coat of dust didn’t help…in fact it made it worse and drew attention to the excess. There was also far too much excess on the front number plate – which is meant to wrap around a front bumper bar which is probably only a milimetre wide. Stupid! It wrapped but wouldn’t glue. I know some modellers add a special glue under any decal they apply, but I don’t have that glue and don’t think it should be necessary. The front number plate decal’s glue didn’t hold and so the whole thing popped off during drybrushing. A shame. Sorry ICM, sorry Roden, but I’m not having much luck with your decals.

Now, Fujimi’s product is meant to be 1/76 scale, but it isn’t. Let me clarify…the house probably is, but the figures and PaK gun supplied with it are definitely 1/72 scale or even larger…possibly even 1/70 scale! Anyway, only one figure from that product is worth using with the anti-tank gun because the others are even worsely sculpted and moulded than the figures Hasegawa provide with their WWII AFVs. Hence why each PaK 36 base I’ve done has figures from other manufacturers to make up the two-man crews that Panzerfaust: Armored Fist requires.

Lastly – a couple of Battlefield Accessories wall sections (enough to make two simple houses) have been assembled and are being painted, along with a Faller German, Austrian or Swiss log cabin that I bought at a model railroad shop.

Oh, and there’s a Wespe and that other Kubelwagen still in Tankoberg…but I’m feeling the time is nigh to make a caulk creek / stream following the laws laid down by Nikolas Lloyd.

 

 

On the assembly line at Tankoberg…

…3 of Hasegawa’s 251/9 ‘Stummels’ and a vintage ESCI ‘Wespe’. The ‘Stummels” are continuing the fine detail and mostly easy-to-follow instructions of their other kits I’ve completed (except this time I forgot to drill some fine holes into the floor – I’ll rectify this by cutting off the pins on the relevenat pieces and glueing them flush to the floor, which ishow they would sit, anyway).

The ‘Wespe’ has old vinyl tracks (which it seems Italeri are oddly continuing to re-use in their re-releases, even when link-and-length tracks are better!) which has meant a lot of cyanoacrylate glue (and a bit of a headpin from the fumes), miniature clamps and clothes pegs to held everything in place during assembly. This certainly has dampened my interest in buying two of their Panzer II Ausf. Fs to complete a platoon of 5 with the three vintage ESCI ones I’ve acquired at Swap&Sells and get them all ready for a New Year 2010 ‘Operation Barbarossa’ game…I certainly won’t be hurrying to buy the re-released (by Italeri) Wespe to make up a platoon of 6…why can’t Italeri use the nice vinyl tracks Hasegawa has in their Sd. Kfz. 251 range of kits?

Still, everything is progressing well, all tracks glued well, with the Hasegawa ones even having some nice track sag (thanks to clever use of clothes pegs to hold them during the glueing).

 

Motorbikes and Caeser’s WWII German Paratroopers (Fallschirmjäger)

I’ve finished my 40mm x 40mm base of motorcycles, which are part of my recon force’s HQ. These are all from the Italeri WWII German Motorcycles kit.

The artwork for the box and the uniforms of the figures show that they are meant to be down in Africa, as part of the DAK. To make them Eastern Front, I’ve painted them as wearing the “reed green” summer uniform, which was also known as HBT or herringbone twill. They’ve come out really well (except I don’t have much evidence of troops in the HBT uniform wearing that type of cap in that colour…that cap was very much a DAK item. Ah well, it’s just a game – and an abstract one at that. So a little artistic licence here and there is OK.

This means the oft-talked-about game on this blog for the last three months or so can finally happen.

***

In other news, the wonderful Paul who runs the brilliant “Plastic Warriors” blog passed along some vital news that I’ll share with you all – he’s found a link where you can go have a look-see at the new Caeser WWII German Paratroopers (why aren’t they called Fallschirmjäger?)?

It comes from Bunkermeister’s Bunker Talk blog, and here’s the link to the post you all want to see! Thanks Paul for the tipoff, and thanks Bunkermeister for making some photos so speedily available!

“Caeser, Caeser…” “Ah, it’s Stommachus Grossus!”

NEWSFLASH!

Caeser have finally released their second set of Panzergrenadiers but have also, completely from out of nowhere, released a set called WWII German Paratroopers!

The Paratroopers release has caught many in the hobby completely unawares! It’s code is  H068.

I’m going to wait this time before ordering – I want to see what Plastic Soldier Review have to say about them.

A Kubelwagen, a 251/22, a 263 and a 234/3 walk into a bar…

Tankograd had four more come off the production line. Here they are:

From left to right: a Hasegawa Sd. Kfz. 251/22, a Hasegawa Sd. Kfz. 234/3, a Hasegawa Kubelwagen and lastly a Roden Sd. Kfz. 263. The Kubelwagen comes from the Hasegawa ‘Kubelwagen & BMW Side-car’ kit (MT-12) – the rest are stand-alone kits.

The 251/22 was a great kit to complete. The only trouble I had was with assembling the mount for the PaK 40 anti-tank gun. I included a loader holding a PaK 40 shell – he comes from the Italeri “PaK 40 AT gun with servants” kit. The PaK 40 shell is tipped in black – designating it as an AP shell.

The 234/3 was straightforward and lots of fun. Nearly all my comments about the Hasegawa 234/2 apply to it. I included a loader for it too, another figure from the Italeri “PaK 40 AT gun with servants” kit. That particular figure is sitting down andjusting the gun elevation, so he is molded with an elevation wheel in his left hand. I cut it out and glued a PaK 38 shell there in its place – the shell being surplus from the Roden PaK 38 kits I did some time ago. That shell was tipped with white, designating it as HE.

The Kubelwagen was problematic. I painted up the driver seperate to the rest of the vehicle – and then couldn’t fit him into place once he was finished. The steering wheel had to be removed; the machine gun mount and machine gun mount supports had to be re-done (and new supports kitbashed from leftover parts from old sprues). I learned my lesson – glue any drivers into place first and then paint, which is what I’m doing with the ICM Krupp truck.

The Roden 263 wasn’t too hard. I think their decals didn’t work so well for this kit. The large aerial overhead frame was fiddly but turned out OK. There was also a bit of flash on the sprues that needed some careful scalpel-work.

The Kubelwagen and the 263 got standard Dark Grey with heavy dust coats, for the start of “Barbarossa”: 

The 251/22 got my first attempt at a ‘ambush’ paint scheme. I gave it the same paint scheme as per the notes in my Jagdpanzer 38 “Hetzer” book by MBI. Sure, it’s a little bit stylised, but I love it! The 234/3 got a simple disruptive pattern in Citadel’s Goblin Green. I went and added some foliage – Woodland Scenics’ lichen.

So, just gotta get them bikers done and the Recon game can happen…

From love to occasional hate

I’ve finished the assembly of ICM’s kit #72451: Krupp L2H143 Kfz.70. I’d picked it up mid-year, you’ll recall, at the IPMS Expo. This kit hasn’t been easy to work with – unlike the Sd. Kfz. 222, which I’ve already reviewed on this blog and you can find the concluding entry about it here.

Since I’ve been doing the final painting of a base of  Italeri BMW R75 motorcycles I need for this upcoming recon game, I wanted something to work on while waiting for the fiddly painting to dry.  I dusted off the Krupp last week and began work on it building it.

I loved doing the Sd. Kfz. 222…but I haven’t loved this kit. The detail of some pieces is extremely fine. In fact, two parts (front axle, bumper bar) were broken already, and the kit hadn’t even come out of it’s plastic sealed bag! The pressures on the sprue are too intense.  Some more pieces broke while cutting them off the sprue. I was careful cutting pieces free, even using ultra-sharp hospital scalpels (thanks to my inside contact).

So, there’s been attempts to fix broken parts with lots of fancy gluework (and me having to work in short spurts to escape the fumes) and some straight-out kitbashing with brass wire and cyanoacrylate superglue. Fancy gluework didn’t work for the crucial parts, leading to frustration and a number of points where I was going to give up and turn the whole lot into spares. The front axle was one of these prickly points – I ended up replacing it with brass wire and had to use lots of cyanoacrylate to get everything to finally stay solid.

Once assembled, though,  it looks pretty good. However, I’m not going to buy any more (unless they are $5 AUD each or less) and I have to recommend that this is a kit for advanced modellers only.

Oh, and by the way – Italeri have launched a new version of their website!

Steps needed for a good smoke

Here’s how I actually made my smoke -

1 ) Gather your utensils. I used a large plastic take-away container to hold my water/paint mix. I laid down old newspapers to catch any wayward splashes or drips. I had a plastic soft-drink bottle filled with water within reach to make the paint/water mix, with plenty of leftover in case I needed to dilute the mix further. I had the paint also within reach. I had disposable rubber gloves for handling and mixing. I had a big cardboard box where the tufts could sit and dry. Lastly, I had a container for any rubbish (like the rubber gloves afterward).

2 ) Mix the paint and water in the container. My mix was about 50%-50%.

3 ) Prepare all the tufts that will become your smoke clouds. Tear them off the wad or pull them out of their container and lay them out for painting…well, submerging.

4 ) Put the gloves on and some suitable music, too.

5 ) Pick up a tuft and completely submerge it in the paint/water mix. While submerged, squeeze it, wring it, tease it apart a little. Take it out. Submerge it again. Take it out. While holding in your hand, squeeze out as much paint/water as you can. Then place it to try.

6 ) Keep going until you’ve done all your tufts.

7 ) Pack up for today. I drained out all remaining mix (only about half was used) and stored it for another time.

8 ) Next day, put the gloves on and lay out some more newspaper.

9 ) Pick up each tuft and really squeeze it hard. If paint comes out, it needs a few more days to completely dry. If no paint comes out, tease it apart until you can get to its core. If the core is still damp, it needs another day or two to completely dry – sun dry it or place it in a very warm room.

10 ) When you think they are all dry, put on gloves and lay out old newspaper and test the cores of any suspect tufts. Those still damp need more drying (perhaps push the core to the outside of the tuft). Those that are  dry can be stored away for gaming or used right now in a game!

“Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast!” – ‘Ace’ Rimmer, Red Dwarf

Since starting to play “Panzerfaust: Armoured fist” a few years back until 6 months ago, I’ve had thoughts niggling away in the back of my consciousness about making my own wargaming smoke. I used to have about four litres’ volume of wargaming smoke, a hand-me-down from Stephen at Nunawading Wargames Association. I can’t remember now if I sold it when I was having financial dificulties, gave it away or chucked it – but whatever I did, it wasn’t worth it. His wargaming smoke clouds were made from cotton wool and the ink from parcel markers/whiteboard markers, somehow extracted using Turpentine or Methylated Spirits. They were a perfect mix of dark greys, fluffy but not peeling apart, could be squashed up or pulled apart a little and could serve to show a brewed-up AFV or a wall of smoke from smoke shells or a smokescreen from  smoke dischargers. I haven’t seen any other smoke as nice as that stuff of his.

6 months ago, I decided to finally act. I asked Stephen about how to make smoke like his old smoke puffs / clouds, but he couldn’t remember how it was done and wouldn’t recommend trying it again, as he said it stank; was too much effort and could be done more cheaply nowadays. I’d have to come up with a method myself. I began experimenting with various materials to see what might work and, when my day job permitted, searched the Internet for recipes from others.

I didn’t find much! It seems that very few wargamers are interested in documenting how they made their smoke – if they had even progressed beyond just using white bits of cotton wool (which can be purchased as is). I found a YouTube video that offered a possibility, which I did try, but I finally found sensible advice at Gabriel Landowski’s wonderful e-book, “Miniature Gaming, Volume I” which features his own wargames rules, called “Rules of the Damned Human Race”.

His recipe was refreshingly straightforward – use artifical pillow stuffing and darken it. I purchased some siliconised polyester stuffing from a cloth & craft shop and set to work.

I wasted half a bottle of valuable original (and now extinct) Citadel Black Ink dyeing a sample tuft. It took too much time to dry and left small congealed lumps on individual fibres which looked a little odd. This was going to be impractical. I tried the YouTube method, and sprayed Citadel’s Chaos Black spraypaint directly onto a second sample tuft. This worked well until you picked it up and tried to manipulate it, when the white fibres underneath became visible leaving a very unusual and unrealistic effect (and also staining my hands black).

I wondered about the pillow stuffing – perhaps this was the wrong type of material to use? As a fish-keeper, I had plenty of much thicker polyester filter wool sitting around. I wasted the other half of the Citadel Black Ink dyeing some filter wool. It turned out a marvellous  uniform medium grey, but had hardened the wool considerably – it would not be easily teased apart and was no longer “fluffy” at all. No good.

Here are the three sample tufts, after the experiments detailed above, in order from left to right:

I went to an art & craft shop to enquire about suitable paints or dyes for dyeing the pillow stuffing. Although they could’ve sold me expensive clothing dye for about $50 (I was willing to try it), I bought a simple bottle of basic black acrylic paint and experimented with it. I watered it down to a consistency of 50% – 50% and thoroughly impregnated a sample tuft with it.

Next day, once the tuft was dry, I tested it to see what it would be like if I needed to pull it apart a bit to make a smokescreen – and found wet paint in it’s core! I wrung it out and let it dry over a few more days. No problem. I quickly established an assembly line and now I have great-looking wargaming smoke for an extremely cheap price, with little effort or risk. Here’s a good-sized cloud comprised of a few tufts:

and here’s a ‘group photo’ of the major test tufts and components: , the winning result lying between the paint bottle and the spraycan.

PS. you’ll definitely want disposable rubber gloves, old clothing you don’t mind getting splashed with paint and a work area that can be easily cleaned up and doesn’t matter if not all paint can be removed…alternately, lay some plastic groundsheets / dropsheets / thick layers of newspaper around the place. Getting the wet paint into the fibres got a bit splashy and messy!

Kubelwagen type 82 – how to paint?

Working on the Hasegawa Kubelwagen required some research that went beyond my own personal library. Part of it had to do with the old chestnut of tarpaulins / canvases used by the Germans during the Second World War…in particular, what colours they were. I was also interested in some interior decoration – I wanted to see what the dashboard looked like and a few other small details.

I started off with Google, using the ‘image search’ option. The results quickly pointed to a better way of searching – using Flickr.

I’ve mentioned Flickr a few times on this blog. I’d forgotten its usefulness for a search like this. You see, Flickr has photos taken by enthusiasts whom take photos of exhibits at military museums; photos taken by participants at re-enactment events; photos taken by spectators at re-enactment events and so on and so forth. Some exhibit photos or re-enactor vehicle photos would do the job nicely – because they take the kinds of photos modellers want and need! Multiple angles, close-up on details, interiors.

It was as simple as typing ‘kubelwagen type 82′ and I was presented with a page of very useful results. I found what I needed pretty quickly!

The Kubelwagen has been a little less straightforward than the schwimmwagen as I’d chosen to assemble and paint the kubelwagen driver first before glueing  him and his seat into place. This was a good idea that turned out badly. I had not done a test fit prior to painting – his feet were too big and his left shoulder was hitting the door and preventing the seat from locking into place. These were things I had to remedy after the fact, requiring filing done, re-painting and re-glueing and also damaging the MG pintle (which ended up having to be completely redone with some added kitbashing too).  It looks fine now, but wasn’t worth the bother. I’ve undercoated another Kubelwagen and will be doing it with occupants in situ.