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…

A panzerfaust in any other colour…will still have the same effect in-game

The bases of teams with panzerfausts for that Infantry company are now up to the basing and flocking stage. I spent a fair bit of time and inconclusive researching trying to determine what was the factory colour for panzerfausts. The photo evidence of panzerfausts delivered by the Wehrmacht but unused showed them to either be a green that I had not previously sighted anywhere in use, or a sort of off-white / beige. I decided to select Citadel’s Cammo Green for my panzerfausts, feeling that it was distinct enough and not wanting to try to make a blend to match a colour photo taken with a weak flash in a dark room. So, my panzerfaust teams will look like this:

That’s good enough.

The first of my StuG III’s by Italeri have come off the assembly line and are complete.

I’m doing some minor kitbashing to modify and enhance them.  Have a look at this photo:

On the back, I used leftover parts from the Roden Opel Maultiers and Opel Blitzes to make an equipment frame for the crew’s gear. This was a common field modification and some were even added in the factory. Panzer Grenadiers also found them useful as handholds when riding on the back. They were simple bits of metal welded into a crude frame.

Using leftover brass wire from the ACE PaK 38’s and my fine hand screwdriver, I added the aerial. I also wanted the vehicle to look battle-hardened, so I used my scalpels and files to remove the first plate of the left-hand-side schurzen. Schurzen plates were often lost from enemy fire or were snagged and ripped off when moving through rough scrub and rough terrain.

Lastly, I didn’t want this vehicle to have an autumn of spring look (mud everywhere), so I went for a high summer look and liberally coated it with dust. The effect is quite good. Careful observers will notice I painted in some sides of the track links being used as extra armour…again, another field modification by some crews.

I like this Italeri kit. Yes, it’s been simplified and doesn’t allow much modification but turns into a fine kit with a little extra work and love.

Overall, a good outcome for ACE PaK 38’s

The above are the completed PaK 38’s by ACE. Crew figures were from Pegasus Miniatures’ Mortar sets, Italeri and one odd bod that I purchased as part of a collection at a Swap&Sell. They have turned out pretty well – definitely painting, basing and adding crew makes them more attractive. Here’s a close-up:

You can see all six photos over at my Flickr account.

Time for a final gripe, though – while flocking, three of the six wire handgrips that I had to supply myself came off the gun struts – one off each gun. I gave up and decided that all three guns will have to be “battle-damaged”, becuase I wasn’t going to try to go through the rigmarole of glueing and painting new ones on.

I’m looking forward to trying the Italeri ‘PaK 40 with Servants’ kits I’ve got.

One, then the others

For much of the time I’ve been working on these Maultiers, I’ve been assembling them simultaneously. Since I’m now putting major parts together and building up the caterpillar track drive system, I’ve decided to only forge ahead on one, so that I can make sure I’m doing the right thing (and can quickly enact changes if not). Then the other two can be (hopefully perfectly) assembled.

A problem: the bogies wouldn’t fit on their axles. Out came the mini-drillbits and the scalpels to drill and resize everything so that I had a snug fit. It was time-consuming because I had to be very careful with whittling down the axles with the scalpel…I didn’t want to have to deal with breakages and heavy re-glueing, as discussed in my previous post.

Painting up the PaK 38 gun crews and 120mm mortar crews is moving swiftly and smoothly.

As an unhistorical aside, I’m debating about going to see Mongol. I have high standards ever since seeing Jing ke ci qin wang / the Emperor and the Assassin. But – I haven’t been to the movies for a while, so perhaps I should…

On parade

Yesterday I took some photos of the completed A Company. Not only was the lighting good, but both the regular uniforms and the winter “mouse-suits” came out perfectly. Judge for yourself:

Here’s a close-up of one platoon:

From another angle:

You can see all of the photos over at my Flickr account.

Last year I purchased a secondhand, unwanted HO scale railway station from one of my favourite hobby suppliers. The maker is AMRI – I think they are long out of business, but they produced a lovely railway station circa 1930-1950’s Melbourne. I decided to assemble it and then add lots of bomb damage, in order to use it in games re-enacting the battles over Mga station.

First though, the kit had been in it’s box a bit long and long parts of it were slightly bent. I decided to fix it’s slight warping by gently heating the curved parts under the grill. This promptly completely melted the roof beyond repair (bad pun), so I put the rest of it aside in anger and frustration. Over the last nine months, I slowly picked it up again, decided to have a second go, glued it together, added bomb damage by using side cutters, then slowly painted it. It was completed on Friday, and has turned out extremely well – see here:

It takes bases/teams for Panzerfaust Iron Fist extremely well:

Again, more views over at Flickr.

Hopefully Peter and I can now play a scenario with it in the next month or so.

I have used Citadel paints for all this plastic work. With a supplier near my workplace and another supplier near my regular place of grocery shopping, it makes sense to. I am also in agreement with a number of others whom have commented that Citadel paints are good quality and applicable for a broad range of uses. In the past I’d used Gunze Sangyo, but when I started painting fantasy figures a few years back, chose to use Citadel as I couldn’t get Gunze Sangyo easily.

Certainly, I’ve applied Citadel paints successfully to sheet styrene, polystyrene, caulk, plastic figures, white metal figures, wire and more and they’ve done very well – however, I have learned that you can’t always undercoat some surfaces with their spraypaint (much to my annoyance).

The paints and inks mix well and I have experimented with them in order to produce the colours and shades you can see in my work. Even drybrushing was done with mixes. Usually I was blending Catachan Green with either Codex Grey or Space Wolves Grey for regular uniforms, and blending Black Ink with Boltgun Metal for various types of metals.

The bases were done with Kayak Brown house acrylic, which I also use on my hills.

So, I hope you enjoy the parade. I’ve moved on to painting up the 6 MMG teams and assembling the 3 Opel Maultiers. I’ve nearly completed painting the PaK 38’s (just drybrushing and then mud on the wheels to go) and hopefully next weekend I can begin work on the PaK 38 gun crews.

“Company all present and correct, sah!”

Tonight, the remainder of Company A was taken off their blackened film cannisters and packed away with all my other German forces. Photos will, of course, be shown here soon. But for now, I’m relaxing, comfortable in the knowledge that the next time I play Panzerfaust Iron Fist, a whole company of infantry (with all options) can take the field. That means 3 platoons of 11 bases each (each platoon is 9 bases plus 2 bases for platoon HQ), plus a company HQ base with 2 rifle bases and 2 LMG bases. Flocking, Dullcoting and annotating was trouble-free. I like the basing effect I get using the fine flock, coarse flock and then bushes…this time, I alternated bushes with small clumps of lichen that were carefully selected and cut.

The PaK 38’s are being feldgrau’d. I dropped the completed one by accident. It suffered minor damage, so I will have to craft, glue and then paint another wire hand grip on one of the struts. Since I’m discussing the PaKs, I’d like to also point out that I again fell foul of the instruction sheet, which I’ve griped about before. I stuck the gun mounting on too high! I’d been wondering why it looked so odd and didn’t quite match all the photos I’d found online of actual guns…I cut it off with a scalpel. Then, using a good file, filed it and the two others so that the whole mounting would fit on properly, liberally applied glue and stuck everything together. Saved, but once again, that instruction sheet could do with improvement – maybe a second diagram of the same stage, but from a different perspective and with arrows demonstrating how it’s meant to be joined to the rest of the trailer…anyway, others who wish to buy the same ACE kit – be warned.

The MMG teams are about to be commenced, along with some gun crews for the PaK38’s. Since I’m about to slave over painting another batch of troops, I decided to glue up, paint and base all the rest of my Pegasus mortar crews too.

I haven’t forgotten the Opel Maultiers…all things in time…I’m fighting the urge off to do the Tigers, and have sworn only to do them once those Maultiers are done.

Progress report: PaK 38 & the rest of A Coy

Today it got it’s camouflage scheme, and tonight all final detals will be completed, then it’s ready. The other two are nearly assembled and then they can be painted. Haven’t done anything about the crews, because it makes sense to use the spare crew figures out of the Italeri PaK 40 kits.

Having finally got more flock, so flocked the rest of Company A, being 3rd Platoon and the full HQ bases.

The bombed railway station will be up for final details tomorrow; scorch marks and application of piles of ash. Yay!

Plastic or metal?

With a few heavy coats of my homemade Panzer Grey on it, the ACE PaK 38 is starting to look OK. In fact, it reminds me a little at the moment of diecast metal cannons from my childhood! The finished product will be the decider…last night I applied some watered black ink around moving parts for that “greasy” look. A camouflage pattern of Desert Yellow will be applied to it, then it’ll be drybrushed with Kommando Khaki for dust. Should have a “introduction of the thee colour scheme but we used the good paint on the vehicles” effect.

Peter and I had a game of Panzerfaust on friday night, where my Marder III h’s debutted. What a debut it was! I had them well placed from the beginning and they were able to tear across the battlefield and rip up four T-34’s, almost winning me the game. My infantry did pretty well too, slaughtering a good part of his “tank desant” motorised infantry.

The railway station is coming along well, too. Much of the heavy work is done – now it’s details.

PaK postscript

After I posted last night, I came up with an idea for the awkward struts…I tore the offending one off it’s hinge, retooled the remains with a scalpel, and then stuck it back on at the correct angles with loads of glue. It looks a whole lot better for the effort.

Today, the order went in for two Revell products, the PzKpfw IV “Tiger” I Ausf.E and the PzKpfw VI Tiger & German Infantry, which is the same vehicle but combined with their 1/72 later war German infantry figures. As threatened in previous posts, I also requested the PaK 40 anti-tank gun “with servants” from Italeri. Whee!

Not an ACE effort

Been a while between drinks – and right now, a Cascade Pale Ale is travelling downwards.

The ACE Models PaK-38 anti-tank gun is completed. Finally. Thank goodness. Becuase I did not enjoy any step of it’s construction. Parts where there was no pin to connect one part to another; an uneven finish (the struts don’t lie flat, so I’ll have to file down one wheel so the darn thing sits flat) and the requirement for thin wire, not included in the box, all made me glad to be finished this one, and only have two more to do.

Come Hell or high water, I’ll sell those ACE PaK-40’s and buy the Italeri ones. Oh, they may not be as detailed as the ACE one, but give a stuff! The detail DID NOT really add much to this kit – in fact, I think at 1/72, some detail should be sacrificed in order to have a kit that assembles well. I certainly don’t feel that this one really did.

Now I’ll have to paint up some crew while assembling the other two. No worries – I’ve got a whole load of MG-42 medium machinegun crews to do. The PaK gunners can join their queue.

Next AFV project? I’m due for one, after these PaKs. I’ll jump in the deep end – Tigers. Oh yeah.

…

By the by, I finished painting the ESCI Opel Blitz. Very quick and straightforward to assemble, took paint well, and now it sits next to the Roden one. Sadly, I now prefer the Roden! The extra detail there (wing mirrors etc.) give it a little extra life…make it look real whereas the ESCI looks like a Hot Wheels imitation.

While I wait for Tigers, I’m going to do the Roden Opel Blitz Maultiers. 3 of ‘em. Winter camo pattern, here we come!