Schwerer Panzerspähwagen – Sd.Kfz. 234/2 “Puma” – by Hasegawa

OK, so I’ve broken my personal rules and ended up having too many kits on the go at the same time in TankoBerg.  I’ll blame Peter for this…we cooked up the idea to have a recon AFV game next time, and I’m sadly lacking in recon units. Earlier this Winter I had washed and undercoated the sprues of two Hasegawa Pumas – they have been sitting on a box lid since then and I decided to build them up, since Peter can loan me two more to make a platoon of 4.

The kit in question is the Hasegawa 1/72 #31152.  Doug Chaltry, writing for On the Way!, has already provided a comprehensive discussion of this kit, so I’m only going to pass some comments as a wargamer-modeller rather than master modeller.

Those comments:

• although appearing to be challenging and complicated due to the high number of sprues and parts on the sprues, the instructions are clear and the stages you assemble things in are relevant. One instruction has been mis-translated – what has been provided in English is “After making it dry enough, it advances to the following distance”. I asked a Japanese colleague to provide a second opinion (second translation) – she said that what it means is  “Once all the glueing you’ve done at this stage is dry, then you can proceed to the next stage”. Sound advice, I found.
• you can assemble some stages simultaneously. I was assembling the turret while glueing on the fiddly details to the vehicle body (spare wheel, wheel jack, tarpaulins etc.).
• a nice-looking commander figure is provided. I’m going to keep them and use them with other kits where I know I’m not going to get a commander figure.
• no problem with parts fitting, except for one mudguard (and only on one kit).
• you’ll be left with some useful spares that could be used with other kits.

I finished all glueing today. Now, I have to be disciplined and finish off everything else that is still sitting around that was started prior to them (like that 250/3) and then I’ll tell you about painting them.

Back to Tigers

As I got closer to finishing the SdKfz 7/1, I commenced work on two command Tigers. They are the same Revell kit as before, except this time I had plenty of experience in assembling them (and knowing where to stop and do steps in a different order, as well as drill out the holes ahead of time) to draw upon.

This time, the track sag is a lot better…it looks a bit more natural then the previous four, where everything felt too angular. Instead of straight lines and sharp angles, the result was closer to a lazy curve, which is what I wanted.

The Doug Chaltry Technique was completed pretty quickly…I had two evening shifts the previous week and we had some warm weather too, so all those ink coats were done two each day rather than singly. I’d like to mention that the Eastern Express tracks that I used on the SdKfz 7/1 took the Doug Chaltry Technique wonderfully – so much so that if I see any more cheap at Swap-n-Sells, I’ll be buying them just to keep the tracks for when I have vinyl tracks to replace! (Yes, I do have kits yet to do with vinyl tracks, so stay tuned).

I don’t have star aerials to put on these two tanks. A colleague and fellow member of NWA has star aerials on his command vehicles and they look fantastic. I don’t have any and can’t think of any way to effectively kitbash them at this scale…I’d welcome advice if you, good readers, do. I’m just going to give them a second shorter aerial mounted through the roof of the turret.

Speaking of Nunawading Wargames Association, we had one of our two annual Sale Nights on Friday. I picked up (after cleaning and assessing them today): 50-odd conifers in 6mm-15mm scale, which will be perfect for my 15mm other wargaming interest; 10 conifers that will be ok for 1:72/1:76 and eight ready-made plastic kit trees. I’m not sure if they are Woodland Scenics Tree Armatures or an imitation. Either way, they are certainly very old and have been exposed to a lot of heat over their lifetimes, as the plastic has become pretty brittle and I snapped off lots of finer twigs and branches just trying to clean them up and get them ready for undercoating. There are enough major boughs and sturdy branches to proceed – I threw away the trees that didn’t survive the cleaning process.

The tree kits we perhaps the best buy of the night (for me), as now I have an excuse to make some trees in Autumn colours. I’ll probably go with Woodland Scenics for them, although if I can be impressed enough by Heki then I may explore that path just for this project. If my experimenting is successful, then I may decide to do more Autumn trees…

A pleasure to be in Tankoberg

Even though it’s been spread over a week, it’s only taken about two hours to assemble a Jagdpanther. Now, the particular kit I’ve assembled is Revell kit #3152, “Jagdpanther & Deutsche Infantrie”. Although the box says that all the contents are 1:72 scale, the Jagdpanther is actually 1:76 scale. As Henk of Holland and On the Way! both state, many of these “Kombi-packs” of vehicles and soldiers contain 1:72 scale Revell soldiers but 1:76 scale Matchbox vehicles – kit #3152 being one of them.

I bought two of the Jagdpanther kombi-packs earlier this year and decided to buy two more, to make a platoon of four Jagdpanthers and also because I intend to use all the soldiers for a company of Panzergrenadiers. I decided to commence work on the Jagdpanthers now as a sort of flow-on from the most recent game of Panzerfaust: Iron Fist I played, so that rather than always playing early and mid War, Peter and I could play late War, when the Eastern Front reversed and moved back across Eastern Europe to Berlin.  I want to see those mighty tank destroyers up against some IS-2s.

Having undertaken my usual preparations of washing the sprues in hot water with some dishwashing liquid in it; thoroughly air-drying the sprues and finally undercoating them with Chaos Black, I began assembly and soon realised I was nearly done in only an hour. In fact, waiting for the glue to dry on the wheels was the longest part. Why?

Well, this kit has one-piece vinyl tracks. Yes, those old-fashioned, horrible soft vinyl tracks that harden and crack after a few years (less if left in the heat). Yes, they are too short to actually fit around the wheels of this kit (believe me, I tried). But if you can stand to put the vinyl tracks on and live with the gap by not trying to make the tracks into one loop (like I was forced to with Roden’s Opel Maultiers), then you get great track sag and quick assembly.

Anyway, it meant that last sunday I had to put all work on the first one on hold as I’d run out of Desert Yellow to begin working on it’s paint scheme!

It’s been a pleasant week, working on this kit. A lot of the detail is permanently fixed on the hull due to the mould, but it’s good detail and should paint up well. Tonight I was working through the Doug Chaltry track-painting technique. Tomorrow I commence work on more modular scenery (including working with another water product) and an AA vehicle!

Terrain, Tigers and troops

Today was both invigorating and fulfilling, as I was able to get a lot of things done and commence a new project entirely.

• My work on the Tigers continued, with the Doug Chaltry track technique rolling on – doing highlighting of the bare metal using Boltgun Metal.
• The panzerfaust-wielders’ bases came another step closer to completion and use in-game.
• A lot of collected research, kit assembly instructions and helpful photos was arranged, put into clear plastic sleeves, sleeves put into a large folder and the folder stashed in the Hobby Room for immediate consultation.

This is in fact becoming bit of a conundrum…I have some shelves of history books and wargaming books in the Study (as well as information stored on my PC hard drive), but also need reference materials in the Hobby Room. The Hobby Room is already crowded and room for more shelves in there is not going to eventuate, so I’m trying to think of other ways to keep the vital stuff at hand.

• I also prepared and undercoated some 15mm figures for another (non-WW2) wargame. They take Citadel paints very well and will be worked on while I press on through all the shorter stages of painting or assembly of the Panzerfaust: Iron fist miniatures (such as the multi-stage track painting).

The reason for the invigoration mentioned at the start of this post is due to starting something I’ve read about four years ago and have been meaning to do ever since – making wargaming terrain using acrylic sealant caulk. When I started casual reference work, I came across Nikolas Lloyd’s excellent website whilst searching for wargaming information and he made an excellent, persuasive case for using caulk for making your own terrain. At that time, I’d been wanting to make my own rivers and roads because a local supplier of excellent wargaming roads and rivers (made using rubber) had shut up shop. Mr Lloyd’s article was something I kept reading over and over and worked towards commencing, collecting bits and pieces here and there, up to a point in February this year when I made a test run with my collected materials to see if I could replicate his results. I was successful, but being a wargamer, was distracted with other wargaming modelling until now.

I had previously cut a shape from my supply of sheet styrene for a pond. I decided today to try making it, using Mr Lloyd’s methods and techniques. This was to be a pond suitable for a village pond or a duckpond. In the future, I want to try a lake and a set of swamps.

With the styrene shape, Fuller’s Caulk in Colours, a caulking gun, some wooden ice-cream sticks to shape the caulk and a boxtop to rest the shape on , I began.

Step One was to lay down the first layer of caulk, to get an idea of how much I would need in order to form a good bank / pond edge:

It was pretty obvious that to make a clearly distinguishable pond bank, I would need another layer, so Step Two was to apply a second layer inside the first:

The second layer seemed to be enough, so I put down the caulk gun and picked up an ice-cream stick and began to shape and smooth the outside of the caulk:

Mr Lloyd said that once out of the tube and beginning to be worked, that this acrylic caulk would be very soft and wet…he was correct, I found. Next time, I’ll let it set a little – maybe leave it alone for 15 minutes or so before shaping it. You can see that I haven’t shaped the inside yet: . This is because it needs a steep bank, so it had to be shaped using a new ice-cream stick, using different shaping motions and on different angles.

The end result is this: and now I need to leave it for a whole week before fixing it up or correcting errors, then undercoating, applying water and final paint. I dare not even touch it to see if it’s drying/hardening, as when I did that during my test run earlier in the year, I left quite big finger marks in the caulk that couldn’t be undone.

“…and there was much rejoicing.” – Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The extremely useful On the Way! website is back, hopefully for good. Supported by it’s creator Doug Chaltry (he of the Doug Chaltry technique, if you’ve read my earlier posts) as well as plenty of wonderful helpers.

If you’re doing wargaming in 1/72 or 1/76 and you’re buying model kits to do it,  On the Way! should be immediately added to your Bookmarks or Favourites.

Kit management

I finally finished applying the Doug Chaltry technique to the tracks of the Opel Maultiers as well as a SdKfz 11 halftrack that I got when I bought ESCI’s “Don: the long retreat” 1/72 scale diorama set. I bought that diorama set new from a little shop I know. I bought it in order to get the KV-1 and Russian Infantry out of it, as back then I was going to be playing Russians. Instead, I’ve ended up playing Germans, so I’ve ended up using everything out of that diorama set, as it also held German Infantry, the SDKfz 11 and an Opel Blitz (which you’ve already seen and read about earlier).

I’ve also being painting up a Hasegawa Schwimmwagen I picked up last month at that swap-n-sell I went to. It’s a fun little vehicle and I even successfully kitbashed an extra rest/brace for the LMG, after ruining the first brace, successfully improvising a replacement, then making a second brace. It’s been well coated with Desert Yellow – today I was beginning the detail, being the seat covers, tyres, LMG and canvas canopy. I was originally going to do the interior with Kommando Khaki – many German AFVs had light buff tan interiors, according to Panzer Colours 1 by Culver & Murphy (Squadron/Signal pubs.), but this is not really an AFV, so I just made it Desert Yellow as per the exterior.

I’m beginning to digress – with those Maultier tracks finished, I was able to begin working on the rest of the vehicles, touching up the exterior Desert Yellow including fine detail spots, then fix the Bestial Brown job on the tray. The tarpaulins on the back got Catachan Green, but will have a patchy Desert Yellow coat applied, to represent the spraypainting of tarpaulins.

All this piecework means that I have lots of kits on the go, as I can only do a little work on each, then leave them for periods to dry properly. With it being winter here, drying periods are longer. So, I’ve decided to have lots of things on the go, rather than just working in five minute spurts two or three times a day, which I feel wastes the rest of my leisure time. Thus, today I opened up four of those Revell Tiger I Ausf. E’s and washed the sprues, to prepare them for undercoating and assembly. I’ve also being working on some more scenery. I was given a couple of Fujimi 1/76 kits for my recent birthday by the mighty President of Nunawading Wargames Association. I can use some more houses – I’d love to do a skirmish between infantry companies in a sizeable village, with lots of house-to-house combat…so I’ve been having to mix up some brick colours to match the ruins from the tragic town of Oradour, which I’m using as my reference point.

So, I’ve got a Schwimmwagen, Schwimmwagen driver, 3-ton SdKfz 11 halftrack, three Opel Maultiers, two houses all on the go, with four washed Tiger sprues drying out. Time management? Sort of. I prefer “kit management”.

A supplementary ration

A friend of mine from Nunawading Wargames Association asked around on e-mail for some websites that discuss painting vehicle camouflage. Now, he wanted it for very small scale, as he’s painting up AFV’s and air units for Epic 40K.

I’m working on a larger scale, 1:72, whereas he is working in 1:285. I’ve been having to ready extensively through primary and secondary documents (as well as related hobby information) whereas his game, set in the future, is not so bound to accuracy. Still, here is what I recommended:

• Sections 3 – 6 of Military Miniatures Magazine;
• Wisdom from Doug Chaltry and others over at On The Way!
• The Links page from Henk of Holland’s web-site for the military small scale.

Perhaps you’ll also find them useful?

Two steps forward, one step back

For some reason, I had painted all grenade & entrenching tool handles in Desert Yellow rather than Bubonic Brown. A part of last night was spent correcting this as well as painting hands. This error must be due to all the Desert Yellow getting splashed around on the Marder, which already is looking great. Through careful brushwork, I’m keeping the gaps between the sheet metal blackened/in shadow yet also showing a slight “respraying” effect, which is super. Now I can do all the tracks, add on the mudguards and finally build the firing cab, then do all the last painting.

…what have I done with the steps for painting and weathering tracks that I used successfully on those two 251’s?!! I was using Doug Chaltry’s guide (linked to in a previous post), but had modified it slighty…I don’t think I wrote down the modifications! Well, there’s my homework for tonight.

***

My opponent Peter and I are aware of a new release from Italeri, the Zis-3 AT gun (with crew). Looks great! Annoys Peter, who has bought the same thing from a rival company but had to buy crews from yet another company. Will I have to do the same thing with my Roden PaK38’s and PaK40’s?

Gather ye sources while ye may 3

One of the most popular current sources of material for wargamers are books from Osprey Publishers. Interesting to see that a fair portion of them can be sampled online through Google Book Search, such as Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941-45. Dunno if this is a good thing – in this hobby, spending hours browsing through shops is one of its many pleasures. Coldly looking online – I guess it works for some, especially those enthusiasts in remote location. If a title happens to have the colour spread you want (a major reason to buy these books), then that’s the jackpot right there – but so many others will miss out on some revenue. Hmm.

On a related topic, Google Book Search points to a free copy of The Art of War by Sun Tzu.Why not just go to Project Gutenberg and get it in various formats (including audio book) from there?

…

Basing is progressing well. Tonight, many of the bases will be glued, flocked and some basic scenic effects applied. Half of a modular hill will go to the spare room for final flocking and glue-sealing.

Over in Tankoberg, the two 251 Cs’ tracks came up beautifully from the Doug Chaltry technique. I wasn’t so wrapped with my inking – may see about fixing that tonight.

One battle is won; Tankoberg gearing up

…done.

A whole platoon and the platoon HQ are now based. All that remains is to paint the bases a nice earth colour, glue on some flock to represent grass; glue on some model bushes, and they can be played with.

I’m very happy with the colouring, the uniforms and the amount of detail. They look far better than my Russians.

Both sets of mortars are done, too – 1 section of 81mm mortars and 2 bases of 120mm mortars. The realistic poses of the crews mean I’ll be buying more, if just to use unused crew figures to man the PaK 38’s and PaK 40’s I got in my HobbyTerra order last month.

Over in Tankoberg, I decided on the outcome of the Doug Chaltry technique on tracks painted Codex Grey compared to the outcomes on the painted Chaos Black or my Panzer Grey blend. I had bought two secondhand ESCI SdKfz 251’s, so I’ve begun applying the technique to the tracks on those, to see a working sample. I can always (and probably will) buy more 251’s…especially since Caeser Miniatures have indicated they are working on a range of 1/72 PanzerGrenadiers.